Thanksgiving in Kentucky (it's that friendly!)

Monday of last week we were supposed to find out the gender of the baby. But due to some scheduling difficulties the imaging center would not see Nicole until this Friday. Apparently they thought Nicole had canceled the appointment. This new appointment is actually more convenient for Clayton. He will be able to come to the ultrasound and finally see the baby in action. Last night marked the first time Clayton felt the baby kick. It was very exciting.

Tuesday Nicole and Clayton traveled from the Baltimore airport to the Indianapolis Airport. It took, what should have been a one hour drive to Baltimore, 2 hours to reach the airport because of holiday travel. Thankfully Catherine, Nicole's cousin, had the foresight to leave an hour earlier than Nicole thought necessary. We made our flight just in time and arrived in Indianapolis to drive 2 more hours to Louisville. Thanks to David for going to such lengths to get us there for Thanksgiving. When we arrived we greeted Brittany, Reagan, Roxanne and Nicole's Grandparents, Fred and Kay. Fred is on a strict organic diet of sorts that allows him to eat mostly raw foods. We stayed up late chatting and got out salted nuts and chocolate to snack on. It was so sad to see Fred watch everyone else eating with out him. We felt like we were smoking in front of a drug addict (because we all know how it feels to smoke in front of drug addicts.)

Wednesday was a pretty casual day of hanging out with Nicole's family. We went to the park with Brittany and Reagan and Clayton taught them how to do some Tai Chi he picked up on YouTube. Clayton is trying to find more creative ways to make himself exercise. We just recieved a book about how to do all the Tai Chi moves. He likes it because it too involves meditation. We'll see if he goes back to yoga, but for now he's all about Tai Chi.

That night Roxanne was sick so Nicole volunteered to make dinner. She made Beef Dorito Casserole, one of her favorite dishes since childhood. Unfortunately this meal caused her to vomit and feel nauseated all night. It was a rough job to wake up on Thursday morning.

David had of course assigned everyone a thanksgiving task so that all would go smoothly for dinner. Nicole and Clayton's task was to make 2 peacan pies, but Grandma Kay thought that 3 would be better for the volume of people we had coming. Because of Fred's strict diet, we had one regular butter ball turkey and one organic coconut oil turkey. Clayton is a fan of organic turkey's so he was glad to help Fred eat his turkey. Fred was so happy to eat food that wasn't raw spinach and there was finally a big smile on his face.

Friday Nicole, Amanda, Roxanne and Brittany went to go see the first part of Breaking Dawn. It was Brittany's birthday wish. Afterwords Clayton and Reagan started a bonfire in the backyard. (The pile of wood scraps has been there for over two years.) Brittany and the girls made a rendition of Harry Potter butter beer to serve to everyone around the fire. By the time the fire had died down, Clayton had only singed his hand a bit. David decided to make a dutch oven peach cobbler to cook over the coals. While we were waiting for the cobbler to cool we played games and opened presents for Brittany's party. Finally it was time to eat the cobbler and David was so excited. Apparently, so was Reagan because he was the first to open the lid...and dump all the lid ashes into the cobbler. The result was a bit charcoal-ly, but no one was harmed.

Saturday David put all the boys to work putting up Christmas decorations. David was tasked to get all their old baby stuff for us out of the attic so why not get all the Christmas decorations out too? This is Clayton's most favorite thing about Christmas. He loves decorations almost as much as he loves exercising (NOT). Nicole will be hard pressed to get him to put lights on their own home one day. (He secretly had fun.)

The baby stuff included a crib and a "wonda-chair." This wonderful chair includes an assortment of attachments that will turn your chair into a fancy stroller, a car seat, a high chair, a baby bassanet, and an infant stroller. It was pretty amazing that it all fit inside the van, David was excited to get rid of it.

Sunday Roxanne made us delicious chocolate croissants to send us on our way. David and Roxanne gave us a mini-van. We've only been marred 2 years and we're already in a mini-van, but we are delighted to have a car that will be able to fit the baby too. The van drove smoothly and without a hitch. Thank you for all the preparations that went in to getting the car ready for us. We got in only an hour later than it usually takes due to holiday traffic and today we are adjusting to civilian life. Thank you for having us for Thanksgiving and Thanks for the car. Hope you all had a happy Holiday!

Peace and Blessings!

the baby kicks

On Monday, we had a surprise visitor. Nicole's cousin, Jubal, came into town and stayed with us on his way to audition for an opera. Before picking him up at Union Station, we decided to get dinner in Chinatown! We found a neat little restaurant. The place was really busy and the waitresses were constantly shouting in Chinese. Nicole was delighted by the General Tso's Chicken. She said it was the best she had ever eaten. The restaurant also served fantastic noodles. The best part of the whole experience was that the chinese food didn't make us feel sick afterwards. Clayton was delighted with the atmosphere of hanging ducks in the window and the street view of the chef preparing fresh dumplings. For those who visit DC, the place is a real treat.

The next morning Nicole took Jubal to the opera audition and then off to the airport. On the way they got stuck in DC rush hour traffic. While Jubal was practicing his beautiful audition music with the car window open, another car with loud rap music playing pulled up right next to them. It was quite a contrast. We hope he did well on his auditions and wish him luck.

Later on Tuesday Clayton was feeling sick, so he came home early and Nicole nursed him back to health. He was able to stay at school the whole day on Wednsday, but found that he didn't need to stay late on Thursday and Friday. Nicole was enthralled. She came home from babysitting on Thursday to find that Clayton had made her dinner and brought her sunflowers.

Friday Nicole barely made it to her appointment with the doctor for her glucose testing. The test involves drinking something close to a flat orange soda exactly one hour before drawing blood for the test. The test is for diabetes, which she hopefully doesn't develop as this week's pregnacy craving was for toaster strudels. YUM! Then she rushed back home for another babysitting appointment. Clayton took a final on Friday and did pretty well and then went right back into preparing for the next finals. After Thanksgiving, he will be pretty busy studying for finals.

This week Nicole has started to really feel the baby kicking. So Saturday Clayton spent some time trying to see or feel the kicking for himself. He may need to wait a little longer before he can feel it. On Monday we will find out the gender of the baby (for real this time) and we will keep you all posted Saturday night we went to a couple's house to play a board game. It was called 7 wonders and Nicole liked it because she won. Clayton only likes games when you can cheat. This must be why he likes hockey so much.

Today we went to church and afterwards we got set apart for our callings. Our congratulations to Mike Burrow on shaving his mustache. What has it been? 25-30 years since he has been mustache free?
We are both looking forward to the nice break next week and we are so excited to see Nicole's family for Thanksgiving.

Hope you all have a wonderful week.
Peace and Blessings!

Bengal Spice + Hot Chocolate = The Cutest bunny EVER

This week Nicole's pregnant bump is starting to get more defined. Clayton has decided that in order to keep himself from looking pregnant too, he needs to start working out. Clayton hates exercising for exercising's sake, but he thinks this is a worthy cause. So Monday night for family home evening, Nicole and Clayton did yoga from a DVD that Nicole found. Every night when Clayton gets home, he is doing yoga. So far all of Clayton's back problems have disappeared and he feels much better. We'll see if he continues the routine after Christmas.

Nicole and Clayton await anxiously to know the gender of the baby, but will have to wait until Nov. 21st.  Nicole spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday trying to find the best place to have the ultrasound done that also takes her insurance. We are so excited to visit Nicole's family in Kentucky for Thanksgiving, and thankfully we will find out the gender of the baby the day before we depart to Kentucky.

Thursday Clayton surprised Nicole by coming home early. He has been feeling a bit worn out from writing the same paper for the past six weeks. Writing law papers has proved to be much different from writing like a normal person. Apparently the students are supposed to take everything they have ever learned about writing and throw it out the window. Perhaps this is why lawyers are notorious for being terrible writers. When Clayton is feeling a bit depleted from law school he sometimes looks at this "cutest bunny ever" photo that he found.

Friday Nicole spent some time with her cousin, Catherine, helping her family take family pictures for Christmas. She was reminded of Natalie and how much she loves family photos. Later, Clayton and Nicole went on a last minute date so Clayton could get a brake from writing his paper. We attempted to see a movie but nothing looked very tempting so we went to Noodles and Company where Nicole could eat normal food and Clayton could have something Asian. (Oddly enough it was Nicole's Italian dish that made us both sick.) Then we took a stroll to one of our favorite stores, The World Market. Its kind of like a museum of international artifacts that you can actually touch. Clayton bought a Russian treat to share with Nicole. It was vanilla flavored ground up sesame seed powder that she thought tasted like vanilla flavored baby formula. Apparently the "actual" Russian treat is much better because it is ground up sunflower seeds. Nicole bought some shortbread cookies that she used to love in England. When they returned home Clayton made the most amazing hot chocolate (he uses the bengal herbal tea to season it) and they watched a movie.

Saturday we went to Costco, which for some reason Clayton finds very therapeutic. Perhaps it's all the FREE samples. Then for the rest of the day/evening, Nicole worked on preparing for a talk on tithing and Clayton worked on his paper.

Sunday Nicole gave her talk while Clayton made funny faces at her from the second row. Then immediately after church Clayton's home teaching companion took Clayton off to go home teaching and Nicole gave his wife a ride home. Clayton also had his first meeting with the scout committee shortly after home teaching and then had to turn in his paper, so it was a busy day for him.

Hope you all have a wonderful week.
Love,
the DC Preece's

D.C. Temple

On Halloween, we took cookies to our home/visiting teaching families. Then we came home and made some wassel and started reading Dracula by Bram Stoker. It is a great book. We highly recommend it to anyone looking for a spooky thriller.

Tuesday Nicole and Clayton both had lots of work to do.

On Wednesday, Clayton had a meeting with the JRCLS. The national conference will be in D.C. in 2013 and he will be working on the planning committee.

On Thursday, Clayton came home early and we decided to go for a walk down by the river. The leaves were super beautiful. unfortunately we forgot our camera so not pictures. While we were walking. Clayton spotted a huge bird in one of the trees. We watched it for a while trying to figure out what kind of bird it was. Suddenly the bird flew to a closer branch. It was a huge owl! It sat on the branch staring at us. It was super cool. It had gigantic eyes. We were so disappointed that we did not have our camera.

On Saturday, we went to the temple! The D.C. temple is HUGE! It is also really beautiful. The grounds are neat because it is surrounded by a forest.

After the temple, Nicole was craving Olive Garden. We found one on our GPS, but when we got there it was no longer in business. Nicole was so sad. We decided just to drive home. On our way home we spotted a little Italian restaurant and decided to go there. We walked in and there were only four tables and a bar. The room smelled really smokey. We were about to leave when a guy sitting at one of the tables said, "The restaurant is through those doors. We were really relieved. We sat down and the server was super friendly. The food was delicious. We had this really yummy calamari in a tangy lemon sauce.  They also served yummy bread with an olive oil, basil, garlic and sun-roasted tomato dipping sauce. The sauces on the pasta were really good. The food was also pretty reasonably priced. When the waiter brought us the check, he also brought us some tiramisu, on the house. It was really yummy. We really liked the restaurant and will probably go back... someday.



This week we received a sweet letter from Brianne and Cailie. Thanks for your kind words.