Brian and Laura in Barcelona.

So I decided to start a blog because I like reading other people's. Plus I think it will be fun to have a place to record our progress toward some goals... like Brian applying for business school, Laura finishing her master's, and most importantly having a baby!

Some of the applications are up for his top-choice schools (Stanford, Northwestern, Michigan, Yale, and Harvard), so we've started that. Brian has now emptied the "How to Go to College for Free" and "How to Write a Fabulous College Essay" sections of the St. George library, but since they're geared toward high schoolers, we're trying to see if we can still make the advice work for our situation. Harvard for free? We'll see. Maybe a baby will help. I'll keep working on that.

Brian doesn't have any backups, so we're putting all of our effort into these top-tier schools. If nothing materializes, we'll work another year and try again. I have to hand it to him, Brian knows what he wants.

On another note, I just scheduled our twenty-week ultrasound, for August 24th. I can't believe I'm that far along, but I'm excited because the pics of the fetuses in all of the books for 20 weeks look a LOT less alienish. I'm really, really excited to see the baby, even though I know I won't really recognize the image as a human. But it will be fun anyhow.

We've had two appointments so far -- one at 12 weeks, and the other at 18 weeks. We got to hear the heartbeat at both, loud and strong, even though Dr. Kvarfordt (yeah, pronounce that. Brian and I call him Dr. Kevorkian) said it wasn't very usual to hear it at 12 weeks. Hearing the heartbeat that first time was one of the coolest experiences ever! Brian and I just beamed at eachother. It was a milestone in our relationship, kind of like when we first shared an apple walking to school. Some things just change you forever.

OK, so my new dilemma, now that the ultrasound is getting close is thinking maybe I'd rather not know if it's a boy or girl. As much as I want to go out and buy my first onesie to look at for the next four months (and not a white or yellow one), I'm now thinking it would be fun to have a surprise! Wouldn't it? Then we'd really have something to tell people when we call them in January, instead of just a height and weight the'll soon forget.

On the other hand, maybe there are enough surprises in the delivery room (like what pain really is). So maybe we'd better clear this mystery up while we can. Anyhow, I really think it's a girl, so maybe we could just go on woman's intuition.

Decisions, decisions.