The Lord works in mysterious ways...

Life is a funny thing, you know? One day you're headed in one direction, and then the next you're looking at completely different options and facing some big decisions that you didn't think you'd be facing for several years yet. What's going on, you ask? Well, to put it short: our little car has died, and we are looking for a replacement. The story is what's the best, though, so here you go:

On Saturday, we decided it was about time to get an oil change for our car. It had been four months and almost 5,000 miles since the last one, so it was definitely time. We decided we'd head out to the local Jiffy Lube, get the oil changed, and then swing by Walmart on the way home to pick up diapers (we only had one left in the house) and a few other things. The "oil change" (reason for quotation marks to be explained shortly) took about half an hour, so by 1:30pm we were heading down 800 North in Orem. We had only traveled about two and a half blocks from the Jiffy Lube when Cody noticed the car wasn't accelerating anymore, and then, all of a sudden, it died. We coasted to a stop on the side of the road, and immediately the thought came: Oh, no. Any attempts to start it back up again were futile. Cody popped the hood and started checking things, but couldn't really tell what happened.

So, we called Jiffy Lube and told them we had just left their facility and our car wouldn't start. They said they'd send someone to check it out. This started about two hours worth of us waiting for personnel from Jiffy Lube and trying to figure out what happened and what we should do with our car. One of the workers that came to inspect it said he couldn't be sure, but that it looked like the engine had seized up. Ouch. But how could that happen, we wondered? They just put oil in the car! And that's when we thought...wouldn't it be funny if they had flushed the oil tank but failed to put more in? The JL manager eventually came and started taking pictures to "document the situation." It was then that we realized that this was probably not going to end up being our expense. Unfortunately, no car repair shops were open on a Saturday, so we had the car towed to a shop that promised to look at it first thing Monday morning. Luckily, we had Joshua's stroller in the trunk, so we walked home (stopping by Macey's to get diapers) and got there just in time to watch the horrible BYU-Utah game. Cody's grandparents were kind enough to bring their spare car to us, so we were not left without means of transportation.

Monday morning came, and the mechanic gave us the official report: the engine had seized, and it was next to impossible that it would have happened if there had been sufficient oil in the car. A manager from JL was talking to the mechanic, and while they didn't come right out and say it, we knew that it was their fault for failing to replace the oil. It took all day for them to finally propose a solution: they'd either pay for the expense of fixing the car, or give us $2000 and we could do what we wanted with the car. We took the second option, since we didn't feel like anyone should pour even more money into that piece of junk. So, we will soon have $2000 and will be in the market for a new car, and our little Kia will sit out in front of our house for the time being. Like I said initially, the Lord works in mysterious ways! This car has caused us so much grief in the past couple of years, and we had already decided it probably wouldn't make another trip from Utah to California. We just put almost $1000 into it when it broke down in Vegas in August, and we had bought four new tires in the past three months. It's time for it to rest. And now we get to car shop! I've never done this before...the Kia is the only car I've ever owned, and I bought it from my brother just after I got home from my mission. This will definitely be an interesting experience.

Oh, and some pictures for your viewing pleasure. The first is Cody and Joshua in front of our broken-down car, around 570 West and 800 North in Orem, Utah. We sat out here for about 2 and a half hours. What a fun afternoon!This next picture is of Joshua sitting in the driver's seat. He was actually pretty happy until right before I took this picture, when it became evident that he had had enough of "driving." I doubt he'll be so upset to be behind the wheel in about 15 years...Anyway, that's what's been going on with the Allemans. We are so grateful to Cody's grandparents for having an extra car that we can borrow while we shop for a car! We're hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year, so it would have been really hard to get all the necessary dinner items if we didn't have a car. And hopefully some sales are going on right now. Rumor has it that with the economy the way it is, cars aren't selling so well, so maybe they'll be more than willing to let us qualify for a loan on a nice car =) We'll post pictures of our new car as soon as we can find one!

Tagged yet again!

Well, I've been tagged again...my good friend Amy in Riverside, CA tagged me in this game of photo tag. It works like this:
1. Go to your pictures file on your computer
2. Go to the 4th file
3. Go to the 4th picture
4. Post the picture and tell the story behind it
5. Tag 4 more people

Okay, here's my picture (I cheated, though--I'm on my work computer, and the fourth file on my computer is from the engineering career fair in 2006. Not very interesting. I do have a file that has all of my pictures in it, though, so I first went to that one, then to the fourth file in that file, and then the fourth picture...you get the idea):

This, obviously, is me and Cody. It was taken at Wendy and Paul Weitzel's wedding reception in...American Fork, I think...on May 6, 2006. At this point, we had known each other for just over six months and had been officially dating again for about a month (for those who don't know, we had a period of non-dating for about two months early in 2006). There's not much background to this picture, to be honest. Wendy and Paul are our good friends, and it was awesome to have been a part of their special day. This day is special to us, though, too...it was after we went home from this reception that we started seriously thinking about our own relationship and if marriage was in our future. That night, we decided to fast and pray about it (how convenient that the next day was Fast Sunday!) and the answer came: Go for it! We didn't officially get engaged until over a month later (it took the ring awhile to get ready, Cody wanted to ask my dad, etc.), but I guess you could say we technically got engaged the day after this picture was taken--or at least that we knew we wanted to marry each other within 24 hours of this picture. And that's that story =)

I now tag: Shara, Mickelle, Tiffany, and Melanie! And anybody else that is interested (hey, I already cheated once, so I might as well do it again =P)!

Only one month left of official babyhood...

I can't believe we're only one month away from Joshua's birthday. That's right, he's already 11 months old! Just to think, a year ago I was worrying about hosting Thanksgiving at our house while being almost 8 months pregnant...and this year we're hosting it again, although now we have an active, babbling, beautiful baby boy. Our lives have changed so much since Joshua was born (understandably), and it's weird to think that, just 11 months ago, we had no idea how much we would grow to love this little person. He zips around the house quite speedily--he crawls like a pro. He waves, too, and then he'll reach out to give you a high five. No real words yet, though like I said before, he babbles constantly, making some of the most adorable little sounds we've ever heard. He hasn't taken off with the walking yet, but almost every day he takes a few steps unassisted. I wonder if he's cautious about it because he's tall, and the ground is farther away for him if he falls =P. And he's finally got enough hair that we can do silly things with it! This is what his daddy did to him after his bath on Sunday night. Yeah, our son is going to be so trendy...(hopefully you all can see the irony of that statement, as Cody and I are probably some of the least trendy people on the planet). Anyway, I just wanted to give this brief little tribute to my now 11-month-old son, and now I've gotta go to bed so I can wake up in the morning and go to the gym. Have a good night!

Finally, a video! (not a very good one, but still a video!)

So, my new phone is being silly and won't connect to our home computer, so I haven't been able to download (upload?) any of the videos I've taken with it since we got them in June. There's also a size limit on video clips that my phone can send as a text message--they have to be under 14 seconds long, and most of my videos are longer than that. Plus, our regular video camera is on the fritz and is waiting for us to take it in to be fixed, which we really need to do before the holidays. Anyway, so Cody was playing peekaboo with Joshua from behind the couch yesterday, and I managed to take a very quick video of them both...very cute. Enjoy!

Two steps...

So, I've been thinking all week about posting about the results of the election and my reaction to it, about Prop 8 and all the mess that's happened in California since Tuesday...but I don't feel like I have the energy anymore. I'm tired of defending myself, tired of being called names, tired of feeling like I need some justification for being true to my beliefs. So I'm just going to ignore all of that and focus on something much more exciting:

Joshua took two steps last night!

I was sitting on the couch and Cody was kneeling on the floor a few steps away, and I steadied Joshua (he can stand on his own for a little bit), and he took two steps forward and fell into Cody's arms. They were very unsteady steps, of course, but they were still steps. We tried to get him to do it again back and forth between us, but he seemed to get tired of it. I know he's not going to take off running quite yet, but it's still so amazing to see him finally walk on his own! We're going to keep working with him to help him develop this new talent (it really is a talent to balance on two feet--ever thought about it that way?), and maybe he'll be walking around the house by his birthday next month.

Thanks for letting me share! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Happy Halloween!

So, I've never really been one of those people that goes all out for Halloween...but I was extra-excited this year. Why? Because of Joshua, of course! Holidays seem so much more fun and special when children are involved. We originally weren't going to dress Joshua up, but we saw costumes on sale at Walmart and decided it was worth it for the pictures. I know many are anxious to see them, so I won't leave you hanging. But first of all, check out our jack-o-lanters (ten points to whoever can guess Cody's):
And here is our little lion! Isn't he adorable?
And this last one--instead of putting the candy, Joshua put the wrapper in his mouth. This is me trying to fish it out:
Oh, and funny story: Joshua and I sat outside on the front porch to wait for trick-or-treaters, and I let Joshua crawl around a little. As a woman and her costumed son were approaching our driveway, I heard the woman say, "That's not real! Oh, wait...that's a baby!" Apparently she saw Joshua crawling around and thought he was a toy! I guess his crawling just looked too methodical or something? But I assured her he is quite real and she said he looked very cute. We got a lot of comments on his costume. Don't you think he makes quite the darling little lion cub? =)

Too hot to handle...

First and foremost, thank you everyone for your prayers for Cody's financial aid appeal! It has been accepted pending a meeting with a financial aid counselor. But before he does that, he needs to officially change his major over to the business school (he's decided to become a paralegal, for those who didn't know) and figure out if they'll still let him go for an associate degree or if he needs to do the bachelor program. His first meeting is this afternoon, so we'll keep you posted! Yay, he's going back to school!

Joshua got sick over the weekend =( He had seemed fine for the majority of it, but soon after church on Sunday, I noticed he started feeling quite warm to the touch. Cody had to work that day (he only has to work one Sunday a month, which is nice--and he got to go to church with us, which was even nicer), so Kirsti and Rich came over to have dinner with me and play games. Joshua had seemed pretty lethargic and a lot more cuddly than usual all afternoon, laying his head on my shoulder and being very clingy to his mommy. I had stripped him down to his diaper, but he was still super warm. I finally took his temperature around 6:30, and it was 102.6. No wonder he was so hot! I called the pediatrician's office and they made an appointment for 7:30 that night. It's a good thing Kirsti and Rich were there, because they were able to drive to Target and bring back the car so I could take Joshua in (thanks so much, guys!). Our game night was cut short, but they did manage to make us some awesome stir-fry =).

Luckily, Joshua didn't have an ear infection or strep throat or anything. The pediatrician on call said it looked like it was just a virus, and that all we could do was keep him on Tylenol and Motrin and give him lots and lots of fluids. He slept a lot all evening and the next day (I stayed home from work all day Monday and Tuesday morning, since I am the source of his fluids, after all), and his fever finally seemed to break yesterday morning. His temperature is still a little elevated, but he'll be fine. He's a lot more fussy than usual now, though--I think it's because he finally has the energy to cry. He was such a good little trooper during the worst of it, smiling at the doctor and just laying there quietly as I rocked him and kept a cool washcloth on his back. Now that the fever has gone down, I think he still doesn't feel well so he fusses and cries a lot. But I'm so glad he's on the mend!

Yesterday and today are pretty special days for us...yesterday marked three years since Cody and I met and had our first date, and five years ago today I entered the CTM (Centro de Treinamento Missionário) in São Paulo, Brazil. Both of these days bring back so many memories...

On October 29, 2003, I remember arriving in the São Paulo-Guarulhos Interntaional Airport after an overnight flight from Atlanta, Georgia, going through customs, taking a bus through the crazy traffic-filled streets on our way to Casa Verde, entering the CTM, getting a companion (if she reads this, Hi, Sister McMurdie!), moving in, meeting our district (44-A--five of us going to Brasília and four going to Belo Horizonte), eating our first Brazilian meal (kind of), and finally crashing for the night. My mission changed my life. I'm so grateful for that time and for the things I learned, and I'm eager to pass on those memories to my children.

On October 28, 2005, just about six months after returning home from that mission, I went on a blind date with a man named Cody Alleman. We had texted back and forth a few times since he had asked me out via email earlier that week (for those that don't know, we met through an online social network called ldslinkup), and we found out we only lived about five minutes from each other. I had gone to a BYU soccer game that night, and he came to pick me up afterwards. We ended up getting tickets to an after-midnight showing of The Brothers Grimm at Movies 8, had shakes from the Malt Shoppe, played Yahtzee in his apartment, and went to the movie, where Cody boldly held my hand and definitely showed me he was interested in me. The months after that are unlike any I've ever known, and I'm so grateful to know that, now, I am married to this man who treats me like a queen and is a wonderful daddy to our son.

Anyway, I'm just rambling now, so...here's a cute picture to end this post. I believe I took it on my way to go get groceries one night, or maybe before leaving for work one day...sorry for the poor quality (once again, gotta love cell phone pictures). For those that haven't been to our house, the stairs lead down to our front door, because we live on the top floor of a duplex:I just love that little guy. And the big guy. The two most important men in my life =)