good food + fun travel + baby Ira = happiness (Sharon)

-Sharon Update-
Hello Family!

It feels like it's been ages since I've written.

* Ira makes us smile constantly. We took him to the pediatrician today for his check up, and he's now 22 inches long, and 11 lbs! That's up from the 20.5 inches, and 7 lbs 8 oz he was born at. Yep, he's chunking up nicely. The doc called him "alert" and "very sturdy." He's moving his head around really well, and sometimes isn't content unless he's standing on our laps with some help. AND he's starting to sleep longer stretches at night which is a pattern we're hoping continues.

* Food: Anthony and I have had fun cooking lately. I've made pesto, and palak paneer, and stuffed shells for the first time. And today I attempted and failed at my first sponge cake. It was a little mix up between the word egg 'yoke' and egg 'white.' Details details. Maybe next time. Anthony made some rocking gnocci from scratch the other day. Mmm.

* Movies: We still haven't cancelled our netflix "trial," and have seen some good flix lately. We're watching "A Room With a View" as I type. I think the whole Ellsworth side has seen and loves it, but we keep talking about how much the Quinns would love it, especialy you Valine.

* Williamsburg! We had a great week with the Quinns (Valine, Paul, and Mckay) in Virginia. I guess it was a couple of weeks ago now. We were able to spend time in Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown and Jamestown. We "touristed" like crazy by day, and feasted upon the Olympics by night. For those of you ever planning a trip there, I'd suggest a trip to Monticello, Jefferson's house. It gave Anthony and I lots of architectural ideas for our future estates. :) The snow gave Mom and Dad a break long enough to come down and meet us for Ira's baby blessing on Sunday. I felt incredibly blessed to have such a strong support of priesthood holders on both sides of the family. It was sweet to see Ira surrounded by such kind, loving, righteous men.

Alright, gotta go feed the little bambino. Blame any typos on my being distracted by the movie. Love you all!

Sharon

P.S. O.k., so Ant and I just got to the part in A Room With A View with nudity. It's really innocent and funny. But, it's definitely nudity. So....just wanted to throw in that warning and disclaimer. Actually now that I think about it, it reminds me of Quinn male bonding skinny dipping rituals I've heard tales of. :)

Beginning Dec. Update - Sharon

Hey Family,
The beginning of December has treated us well. Here are the highlights.
* Anthony's graduation!!!! Not walking with a cap and gown till spring (maybe), but he is finished, done, completely free and moving forward from school! Yay! Friday was his last day with any school obligations, a major presentation. I came home from work that night to 4 loads of laundry already done. What a hunk. :)
* Wedding: My friend from work has been engaged for over a year and has shared every joy and misery of wedding planning with her coworkers. This was both Ant and my first Catholic wedding. It was fun to go with kind of anthropological eyes. Lots and lots of ritual. At the reception there was loads of fancy food and lots of drinking. I think I'm still naive enough to not recognize when people are drunk as opposed to just being silly. But I found it interesting to still feel the spirit on this happy occasion. Marriage is of God.
* Church: Sang in the ward Christmas presentation today. Had a really fun pajama brunch Christmas celebration. And hit a sweet Christmas concert organized by the stake, I think most of the performers were CMU and Pitt students, most of which are probably not members.
* Pregnancy: I must be noticeably huge now, because funny things are starting to happen. When we met some of Ant's Indian friends for lunch, the waiter brought me a mango lassi that as far as I know no-one ordered, and it didn't show up on our bill. People have been asking to touch my stomach, or just doing it without asking. One of the toddler mom's at work saw me in the hallway, looked at my abdomen, and just started laughing...kind of a sympathetic laugh I guess. :) Etc, etc. Anyway, I've been feeling pretty good. My cold (which I now attribute to just plain being allergic to Pittsburgh) acted up a lot this last week, so I drove to work instead of walked. I'm feeling well enough to walk there and back now, as long as the sidewalks aren't icy.
So that's some of life in a jiffy. We're excited for Christmas! Woohoo!
Love you guys. You are all in our prayers,
Sharon

Sharon Update - request for flu prayers

This is a Sharon update, but I thought I would just add that I wrote a longer review of the Ballet if you want to read it, it is after this update.

Hi family,

It's been another eventful week....including...

* An awesome visit from the fire dept, to my preschool. This weeks theme was Heroes and Helpers, because most of my little boys seem to think that all heroes do are use their martial arts skills and run around and yell. So, we had a day on firefighters, medical emergencies, police, helping our friends...and of course superheroes. I got the local firefighters to come for a visit, and they ended up staying for a whole hour, gave a really thorough tour of the truck, and let the kids climb around it, including sitting in the drivers seat. They brought big stickers and little plastic hats for everyone. So cool.

* Anthony's Birthday! Thanks for all the calls and singing. It was also our first day of Lamaze classes. It was weird being around so many pregnant women. It seems like it'll be a pretty good class, especially when combined with what I've learned about the Bradley Method and a some of the relaxation imagery from Hypnobirthing. Don't worry, it's not as weird as it sounds.

* Ant's interview in Connecticut went well and they love him. Who couldn't? So, he'd be doing a 2 year leadership training program with GE starting January 10th. That's right, 6 days before the baby is born. Crazy!!! Anyway, it seems like an awesome program, and we're hoping they'll let us push back the start date till say...March 1st.

* Midwife appointment. Everything's on track. For my last appointment I couldn't believe that I was gaining a pound a week, but now it looks more like 2 lbs a week! Woah!!! The baby is head down which is a huge relief. Just stay that way please baby.

* Yesterday started off the way every Saturday should. Sleeping in, whole wheat waffles, grocery shopping, and then my body sort of started to shut down. We bought a thermometer for the first time in my life, and my temp was 100.5, at least. Ant's was coming up around 96 and 97, so I wouldn't be surprised if mine was actually closer to 101, 102. I called my midwife and he called in a perscription for Tamiflu. I feel much better today. My head, throat, nose and energy level are still not where they should be. But I'm feeling much less achy and a little less pukey. And my temperature is down. If you guys could keep us in your prayers that would be great. Now that my temp is down, I'm more worried about what the medication could do the baby. Tamiflu isn't suggested for pregnant women since there hasn't been any research on the effects on the baby. In rabbits and rats, it looks like it could cause minor bone deformities in offspring. Eek.

Love you guys!!!! Hope all is well with you!

Sharon

P.S. I forgot to mention that we went to the ballet Friday night to celebrate Ant's b-day. It was amazing! The performance was called "Light/the Holocaust and Humanity Project." It made me cry...and also want to dance again. But at this point the dance would probably include other dancers rolling me around. :)

Sharon Update - Back in Pittsburgh

Hi Family!
It feels really good to be back in Pittsburgh. As cool as Alexandria and D.C. are, it doesn't feel nearly as home-ish.
Reasons we've loved our first week back.
* The ward. We've missed the people. I don't know what it is about our Summer ward (maybe it was us!), but I don't think many people will notice that we're gone.
* Our cute little apartment. What a miracle. No mice, no bugs in our huge bags of grains we left, just a few slow and easy to catch spiders that guarded our windows and doors. And they did a good job, there were quite a few dead bugs around each spider...village.
* The Romeros visit. Joan and Ruben brought the kids down to go to the "Dinosaur museum." It was sooo much fun! I couldn't stop smiling as I watched Zion hop around on dinosaur tracks. Cute kids and good visiting time!
* Gabe Proulx, our good friend just moved out here too, and has hung out with us almost every other day since we've been back.
* Work! I thought it would be kind of hard coming back after being able to nap and eat whenever I wanted, but not so. I was getting pretty bored during the day. My kids were really cute on my return and often come up to remind me that there's a baby in my belly.
* School. It sounds like Anthony has some fun classes and projects lined up for a busy last semester. I can't believe he'll be done in a few months!
We are happy and healthy, and enjoying life.
Love you lots!!
Sharon

p.s. Ellsworth fam: I enjoyed the health care debate. i contributed next to nothing, but I really liked hearing differing opinions delivered so thoughtfully and intelligently.

Sharon’s Updates

This week was busy and I have created a couple of posts below to capture the major events. I have put Sharon’s family update first, which is a good quick overview. I should note that Sharon is good about writing family updates and it was suggested that I post her updates for a second point of view and since this is the Quinntessentials it only makes sense to have updates from both of us. I will start posting them from here on out, so without further ado, Sharon’s update….

Hi Family,
   It's been a fun, kind of party-ish week and a half.  I think I'll try to write it in bullet form so you can skim through all my lengthy commentary. :)
*  Balloons: Anthony and I won over $50 in gift certificates at a little town event adult balloon toss.  It was really fun.  Live music and free food.  The fact that I made it out without getting soaked was nice too.  If only Anthony could say the same.  :) 
*  Family!:  My cousin Mary and her husband Barney arrived late Saturday night from Orem.  She's due about 3 days after me, so it was fun to have another prego around. :)  I enjoyed showing them how to use the Metro system, and around D.C. a little.  We went to the temple on Tuesday to do a session and go out to lunch with my parents who have officially started serving their mission in D.C!
*  NYC:  Anthony took a couple of days off work (which has been suuuper slow), so we could go up to New York with Mary and Barney.  We slept at my parents place in PA, met up with our friend Gabe Proulx and made our way to the Big Apple.  It's fun because Gabe, Ant, and Barney all lived in the Bountiful Court apts. and were all friends before I moved in.  I grew up with Gabe, who talked me into moving into the BC, where I met Anthony.  Yay!  And then in a round about way, Mary and Barney met because I had lived there.  Anyway, so it was good to be with so many close friends/relatives.  In New York, we saw Phantom of the Opera, ate some New York Pizza, saw Ground Zero, the Apple store, took a Ferry to and from Staten Island where we could get a good view of the Brooklyn bridge and Statue of Liberty. 
*  Amish country:  The next day we felt like being lazy, so we checked out Hershey Chocolate World, and went out for some seriously authentic Pennsylvania dutch food.  Mmm.  Hamloaf and woopie pie.  Then back to D.C.
*  Mary and Barney headed back last night after we had a fun visit/lunch with my parents and Quoc, and old family friend.  And then we headed North to Maryland where we could watch Phish...Anthony's one and only favorite band. They broke up a few years ago, but have reunited for a tour this summer.  It was pretty sweet, but it was past my bedtime most of the time.  And I couldn't help but wish for tiny earplugs for the baby, who is now 4 moths along!  Woohoo! 
   It was definitely a fun week.  I guess it was kind of the last Hurrah before heading back to Pittsburgh (which we're looking forward to) and going back to teaching preschool (which I'm trying to get pumped up for).  I guess I'm a little nervous since I've been so spoiled with so much free time to play and sleep. 
  Love you guys!  We constantly feel blessed to have you as family!
  Sharon  

She also had a lot of pictures attached all of which, plus more can be found in our online photo album for the summer here.

DC