Blumenkrantz Family: September 2006

10th letter
Tues. 9/12/06
So I suppose I should write another letter seeing as I think the last one was Aug. 22nd! Well I can’t believe tomorrow I’ll be 36 weeks pregnant! They tell you the baby can come anytime now, which is just crazy. I can’t believe we’re gonna have a baby in the house soon – so many things will definitely be different! I have an OB appt on Friday so they’ll double check that the baby is in the right position – I hope they have to do an ultrasound to be sure, cuz then we could check how big the baby is and how much he weighs. Bryan is pretty confident that he will come a few days after my mom gets here on Oct. 13th. Although, yesterday we put the crib together (finally got the missing pieces that we left in Texas!), and Bryan said it looked pretty empty and told me, ok, now the baby could come – and he was telling me it was time to have the baby. My friend was a massage therapist and she is going to show us a few techniques to help things along – she helped put one of her friends in labor, but the other into just a lot of false labor! I don’t think we’ll really try to do that until he’s actually due –Oct. 12th. Because I have too much homework I’ve got to get done before then!!! And aaahhh!-I’m not ready! I’m tellin’ ya, if they tell me I have to have a c-section for some reason, I will NOT be devastated. You all can make fun of me as much as you want for that but I still feel that way! Bryan and I went to a Child Birthing class on Saturday for about 4 hrs and that was interesting. The videos were definitely NOT my favorite things to watch – yuck. And last Friday I went to a 2-hr Breastfeeding class, this Thursday there’s a 3-hr Baby Care Basics class, and next Monday a 4-hr Bundles for Babies class where I guess you get a lot of free stuff. So far I’ve already gotten another 2 diaper bags from these classes though!
Bryan is in training right now – a class with 2 other guys. It goes from Sept. 6th – 29th. His schedule is awesome. He doesn’t have to be there until 7:30am- sometimes 8- he has lunch from 10-12- sometimes it starts at 9:30- and then he gets home at 2-sometimes 1!! So yes, it’s like an average of only 3 ½ hrs a day and he’s done. Pretty awesome eh?! We sure have been blessed with cool schedules like that, that really enables him to get a lot of other things done, without even feeling like he’s actually busy! The “Exercise” that I was telling you about in the last letter, where the whole base acts like they’re deployed or at war or whatever and they have to sit around in their chem. suits all day, Bryan pretty much hated that. He worked 5am-5pm Thurs, Fri, Sat (24-26), had Sun. off, and then worked 5-5 again on Mon and Tues (28-29). On Wed. the 30th he had to go in at 5am but got off at 3, then on Thurs went in at the normal time of 6am and got off at 11am, then had Friday off (and then of course Monday off too for Labor Day). So, long days yes, but only a few. He said they sat around a lot and watched a lot of movies. So yeah, his work is pretty tough. I thought it was pretty funny in his mom’s letter – when people are asking how he is doing and she told them he sits around all day and the government pays him. When I read that to him he said, “Hey that’s not true!” HA.
Bryan had to do Sharing Time in Primary the last Sunday in August, and didn’t realize until the last minute that he’s actually supposed to involve his class too. Funny. He has one kid in his class who really bugs him – just doesn’t listen at all. He can barely teach a lesson cuz he’s messing with him the whole time, and in closing exercises he’s really disrupting the whole group. AND, his mom is in there! She does nothing. It frustrates me to death and I’m not even in there with him. You just want to smack him. But it’s obvious the parents don’t do anything about it which just makes you mad at them.
We’ve taken our turn cleaning the church – every week 2 families are assigned to go in there and vacuum and clean off the boards and dust and get all the chairs organized for Sunday. We also went to another festival the first Saturday of this month at Lake Towada (the same place that you guys saw the pictures of the fireworks at). We were pretty proud of ourselves because we made the 2-hr drive on our own and didn’t get lost and actually made it there on time. They had big floats and dancers and the coolest of all – these huge lantern-pyramid things on a big ‘ol stick like 2 stories high, that guys would balance by themselves on their foreheads and stuff. I’ll send some pictures of this, but it will be hard to see what’s going on. So now you’ll know what we were trying to take pictures of. The Sunday over Labor Day weekend we went to Liz and Justin’s (they host a lot!) and they fed us all a bunch of scones – so good! On Labor Day we went over to the couple’s house that we met on the plane on the way over here, and they had quite the barbeque. She (Kasie) cooked a bunch of really good food. I was so stuffed I could barely breath (that seems to be what happens when you have a huge pregnant belly!)! The base put on some decent fireworks that they shot off from the middle of the lake. The base also had an afternoon thing at the beach where we got free food, so it was a good day. Kasie is the one who will be putting on my baby shower for me. She wanted to do it this Saturday the 16th even though I wanted to give people more notice and do it the 23rd, cuz she thought I’d have my baby before then! (Although she is the one who said, “Barely anyone really ever goes the full 40 weeks") – umm.. yeah. But we’re doing it the 23rd. She wanted to do it co-ed too, but Bryan said NO. Which is good, I doubt the other husbands would want to come either. We went to a luncheon one of our friend’s put on last Saturday, for a couple that’s flying out of here tomorrow – they’re going to New Mexico – hope we never go there!!! This is the same couple that gave us their stroller/carrier/car base combo. It’s in really good shape and is like a navy blue plaid with tan. Way nice of them.
But most exciting of all was the Air Show they had this last weekend. It was pretty cool and there were TONS of Japanese on base cuz they open the gates to all for it. But we forgot our camera, sorry. It was the first air show we’ve ever been to. Bryan was disappointed with the F-15s performance, cuz the F-16s and F-18s (Navy) put on a better show. The show ended with a performance from the Japanese “Blue Impulse” and that was fun to watch. It was hot that day and we were out there for 7 hours – Bryan was really excited that he got his tan wife back.
The weather has actually improved quite a bit though. Things aren’t melting at our room temperature anymore and I don’t feel like crying every day anymore cuz there’s no escape. We still have all our fans on of course, but you can move around and do stuff, you don’t have to stay motionless in front of the fan all day.
We can’t wait for Lost Season 3 to start up in October. They aren’t up-to-date here on the programming, but as soon as it plays in the states I can download it for us to watch. We watched the1st season the first weekend we were here (borrowed it from his supervisor), and then over the last week watched the 2nd season cuz I was able to download it. We’ve also watched the 1st season of Prison Break cuz I was able to download that too. So yeah, we haven’t been that busy, when we have time to do that!! I have quite a bit of homework that I need to get way ahead on if I’m going to pass these 2 classes this semester though! My books cost $330!!! Sheesh.
Bryan talked to the lady who schedules and administers the officer test, and asked her about taking it end of September/beginning of October. She says that she thinks the next one will be scheduled end of October/beginning of November. Which is dumb – she’s the one who schedules it – she can decide whenever. It’s not like there’s a lot of people taking this test!! Retarded.
So, Kasie (girl we met on plane who is doing the baby shower for me), already invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner – yes that’s right, you heard me. So apparently we’re already reserved. A little weird, but, we do know it will be an awesome dinner from what we saw at the barbeque of hers we went to!! No, but she is really nice and will always put aside her own time to do whatever for you.
So I’m sending a few pictures as well again. They’re a little boring and I didn’t take any of my belly cuz I really don’t think it’s all that different size-wise, but I’ll send a picture of it with the next letter. Like I said you’ll see the ones from the Lake Towada festival, and then there’s a few of the church off base and a picture from off base right around the church, a few of the streets off base, and then of one of the smallest cars I’ve ever seen. I call it the “blue bubble.” I think it’s the smallest car here and it’s hilarious. And Bryan said I didn’t send pictures of our storage unit last time when I sent all the apartment pictures, and so I know you’re all just SO interested in seeing what it looks like, so that’s in there too.
Anyway, I’m done writing. Bryan is dying for this baby to come and I’m pretty nervous myself. But hope you all are doing as good as we are!!
THE BLUMENKRANTZ’S

I posted most of the pictures. There are a few more if you click on this link and then click on the picture to start the slideshow: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2t7pqtrs.a90y2siw&x=0&y=4minud&localeid=en_US