$xxx.xx and 3 hours later...

This is the story of a very late and very expensive dinner. I'm a little ashamed to tell it, but what can I say? Being nearly ready to pop makes me a bit impulsive in my behaviors.

This afternoon was like any regular afternoon. I got home from work around 4:30 after a short visit to the OB (on a completely unrelated note, I'm dilated to 2 already, doesn't really mean anything, but nice to know I'm getting a little closer to being done). I had been thinking about cheeseburgers for dinner pretty much all day, and I had some ground beef in the fridge along with tomatoes, lettuce, buns and even avocados! YUM!

There is a problem with this craving, I have been wanting burgers for several days now, but since we have a deck Tyler feels that we shouldn't have burgers until we can grill them on our very own grill... another problem, the grill that we "have to have" is rather expensive. This is not an example of greediness, I promise. It's just that we have a natural gas line that is almost sticking right out of the back of our house, and with that option it just doesn't make sense to spend money on a grill if we won't be able to hook it up to that and in the long run have significant savings on fuel for the grill.

Back to the story... I got home wanting a home grilled cheeseburger and impulsivity took over. I got out of the car, walked up to Tyler and said, honey lets go get your grill, I want burgers TONIGHT! Tyler wasn't going to argue with that, so off we went to Home Depot where we quickly found the correct grill (happily on a bit of a sale right now) found an attendant and had them bring one out for us. This is where we made the big mistake of the night. The salesman offered to have one built for us to take home. A fully constructed one won't fit in the back of the 4-runner so we figured, it can't be that hard, lets just get it in the box and take it home. WRONG! We should have quickly driven over to my dad's shop, borrowed the truck and come back to pick up the fully assembled grill. I should mention that by now it is about 5:30, still not a very late dinner.

We arrive home with the grill and Tyler gets to work on putting it together. Not a difficult task... but far more time consuming than we had anticipated. There was another minor detail that needed to be worked out: until we get the hook up run from our gas line we still need a propane tank, and don't have one. Thanks to Candice and Ryan for helping us out on that one! Finally at about 7:15 the grill is assembled, and we set off to get some propane in the tank (or exchange the tank as it turned out). This took a little longer than expected, but we were still excited to grill our first burgers on the grill that night. We got home around 7:45 with the full tank and Tyler quickly set to work cooking the burgers while I prepped all of the toppings. Finally at just a few minutes after 8:00 we sat down for our delicious burgers. Jack had gotten pretty cranky by this point but was adorable as he took great big bites of his "cheese booger."

Remembering Christina

Christina Lynn (Treasure) Hamilton, my oldest sister, passed away on Friday. She was 36 years old.

I don't really want to talk about that so much right now, instead I want to talk about how incredibly powerful and touching President Monson's talk at the end of the Sunday morning session of conference was. I know that many others in the church have recently experienced the loss of a loved one, but I felt that the talk was directed to me and my family. I have never wondered if I would see my family after death, I always knew the answer to Job's question: if a man dies will he live again? However, I have never had a close family member die and had my personal testimony of this principle tested. His message was truly a tender mercy of the Lord for me at a time that I have been unsure how to feel.

I was not very close to my sister Christina, especially in recent years. She made choices as a teenager that lead her down a road of destruction in her early adulthood. I was angry at her for many years because of some of the outcomes of her choices, but more recently I have just felt sad for her. When I was a young child I spent most of my time with my Christina. She was like a second mother to me. She loved to take me places and take care of me. My siblings all say she spoiled me, but I just remember that I always loved spending time with her. I remember her buying me treats, taking me shopping, teaching me how to make my bed and do the dishes. But the memory of my sister that sadly sticks in my head is the time I caught her smoking outside my dad's work with several of his coworkers. From then on I have few really positive memories of my sister. I love my sister. I miss her, I have missed her since long before she died. At this point I am less sad for my own loss than I am for how her life ended up. I'm sad that she spent most of her life unhappy. I'm sad that she never had the joy of the gospel in her life as a young mother as I do now. I ache knowing that her choices lead her to loneliness.

President Monson's talk helped me feel less of this. Christina is now in the Spirit world, her standing there I don't know, but I know she will be resurrected. I know that in her youth she was taught correct principles that my parents have been promised she will return to. While I am still sad, I feel comforted. Christina is ok; I will see her again.

All of the messages from conference were timely and uplifting. I feel renewed in my efforts to strengthen my family and live a Christ centered life.

The Name Game

The date is quickly approaching and it shows, big time. As any woman who has ever been pregnant knows there is a standard set of questions that you get asked whenever someone notices the abnormally protruding belly (thankfully very difficult to confuse with just being fat).
Question 1: When are you due?
Question 2: Do you know what it is?
Question 3: Have you picked a name for him (or her depending on response to question 2)?

I have absolutely NO problem with any of these questions. I am of course thrilled to be expecting the baby, thrilled that it's coming in only 7 weeks, and thrilled that it's a boy... but not so thrilled about needing to choose a name. When I was young I had a long list of names picked out, I believe written on the inside cover of some journal somewhere, but I have changed A LOT since my teenage years. The names I liked then are not the names I like now. Another issue with the names from being a teen is that for some reason I picked out mostly girl names, I can't remember a single boy name that I remember liking. This is silly since even in high school I felt pretty strongly that I was very likely to be raising a little army of boys.

Naming Jack was really a piece of cake. I adore my father. He was my hero growing up and still is. He makes people happy when he's around. He makes people laugh and not take life to seriously, but at the same time puts high priority on those things that really matter most. It was a no brainer that my first son would be named after him. I also love the name Jack. It is so simple and pure. It sounds very strong to me, and so I love it. Edwin was also easy. As Tyler's middle name and as a great honor to several men that have served their families, their country and their Heavenly Father faithfully it fit nicely with Jack and so it was: Jack Edwin Bolton. I love how it looks and how it sounds. I believe it suits my very strong willed but soft hearted little boy very nicely.

Now we have baby boy 2... If you ask we probably tell you an option we have discussed, however we agreed early in this pregnancy not to discuss names with others because I am very susceptible to the influence of other's opinions. We have a specific criteria when coming up with names. There are 3 things we are looking for:
It should sound pleasant and have a nice ring to it.
It should be easy to say and spell.
It should have meaning to us.

I hear lots of names that I like the sound of, but I have always loved that my name had meaning for my parents. It is a family name of a pioneer ancestor, it is the name of a righteous woman in the Bible, and for my dad I was named after Abigail Adams, a woman with great strength, courage and wisdom. It may seem trivial to have a name with meaning, but I have often felt the pressure of living up to my namesakes and desired to be a better woman. It's been a huge part of making me who I am now.

That said we have thought of several names, some of which totally fit our criteria... others that are just missing something. We have very much broken our rule about not discussing the name and I regret that a lot. So here it is, (finally my point) an explanation of the name you have heard for our new little boy. It is of course not for sure yet, but I will no longer apologize for the name, I like it very much, and it has great meaning to me!

Gunner: This is a name I have heard a few times but not frequently. I like that it is unique without being... weird (well I don't think it's weird). You should hear how cute Jack sounds when he says it, that is what sold Tyler on it :) The name's meaning is Warrior. My mother's first reaction to the name was that it sounded so militant... yep, that was actually sort of the idea. I like this for a few reasons, first it honors my sweet husbands faithful service to his country, second, have you noticed the number of boys that are being born lately?? I can't help but wonder if I am helping to raise an army. I am helping to raise an army of righteous young men to serve their Heavenly Father. Gunner will be a warrior of truth and righteousness.

Max: The middle name has been a bit tricky. We have thought about many and this is quite possibly not the one we will end up settling on, however it is a name I love. It is simple and short and who doesn't love a name with an X!? Tyler actually always wished he was named Max as a child, but that is definitely not our meaning for this one. I actually don't know the meaning or origin of Max, for me the meaning comes from the idea of having something that represents me in a name. How does Max represent me in any way? You may ask (that is if you are still reading this ridiculously long post). Well here comes the physics nerd in me... Max Planck is a famous physicist--a Nobel prize winning physicist. He is the founder of quantum theory and because of that may be an even more important physicist than, dare I say it, Einstein. I wrote a report about him once in college and was amazed at the beauty of is physics and theories (ok have I nerded everyone out of reading now?) and I like the name Max. Even more impressive to me was that he saw the simplicity and pureness of the natural laws of physics as evidence of an all powerful and all knowing God, which for some reason was uncommon among scientists of his time. At that point I thought, hey I should name a child Max... and now 5 years later I'm quite seriously considering it.

So there you have it, the possible name for baby boy 2: Gunner Max Bolton. Again, I like how it looks, the flow is a little off and that bugs me, it's easy to spell, and it has meaning to Tyler and me.

Thank you for reading the post if you survived the whole thing, even the especially physicsy nerdy parts. Now we will all just have to wait and see if this little one seems like a Gunner Max when he arrives.