At least having babies closer together would have meant buying less STUFF

I'm not a shopper. Whether it's clothes, food, cars, furniture or whatever, I'd rather do without than have to decide what to buy. Obviously we eat, though, so I do buy food. But I tend to put off buying just about everything else until I absolutely have to.
I guess 34 weeks pregnant will constitute "absolutely have to" for a variety of baby items. We still have Laura's crib in storage and will get it out when we're back from home leave in mid-August. But I'll still need to buy a bassinet/co-sleeper, car seat and stroller, and various other things soon after I arrive in D.C. on April 15 because I won't have a car the entire time before the baby's born -- not that we know when said birth will occur.
So, the agonizing decisions have begun. I've been window shopping on Amazon and Walmart.com and Craigslist and various manufacturers' Web sites. I've been asking for recommendations from friends. Soon I'll be making lists of the specific things I need/want. Then I'll visit Costco and Wal-Mart and Babies R Us when I get to the States.
And then I'll eventually have to decide on something. And fork over the cash for it. And that's the part I consider to be painful.
This baby had better be appreciative of the pain -- not just physical -- he/she is putting me through.

Thanks to Monty, I now know this is a yellow-crowned night heron

It's sad I have to e-mail him in Houston to get help IDing birds in my back yard in Trinidad, but that's what friends are for. Right?

My refrigerator no longer smells like glue

Not that it did to start with. Some background:
Friday night I was honored at a "surprise" baby shower at church. It was a surprise only because of the scope of it -- it was pretty much a ward activity. It wasn't a real surprise because a couple of people had accidently mentioned it at church the previous Sunday.
We got the leftover cake to bring home. The cake was from PriceSmart (pretty much like Costco) and had a photo of Laura and me airbrushed on the top. It was good -- and very large. To fit it into the refrigerator, I had to rearrange some things, including a large jar of marinated artichoke hearts. Which promptly leaked, although I didn't realize it at the time.
Apparently oil in which artichoke hearts have marinated smells like glue, at least to Laura. She's been complaining about the smell pretty much constantly. Today I discovered another puddle of the oil I hadn't noticed before, which seems to have been the source of the smell, so I'm hoping Her Highness will be able to return to her regularly discouraged activity of raiding the refrigerator.
The lamest thing about all of this? I can't open the refrigerator door all the way without also opening the door that leads into the carport. It's an angle thing, and it's driven me crazy the year and a half we've lived here. At least the embassy mobile patrol guys didn't drive by while I had the door open.

Asa Wright Nature Center

We made a quick trip Saturday afternoon to the Asa Wright Nature Center. If we had time, I'd like to go there and spend the night in the guest house. (The drive there is an adventure in itself, and it would have been nice to rest from that.) But we've run out of time for such luxuries, so we had to settle for a couple of hours of birdwatching. We see a lot of birds around our house -- especially water birds, as we live on a river and are only a few hundred yards from the gulf -- but it was fun to see some of the real tropical varieties.

So, without further ado, the crested oropendola:
Yes, it's a strange-looking bird. The blue eyes, which you can't see well in this photo, don't help. Its nests also are quite unusual (long and stringy-looking; Google it and you'll see what I mean).

Honeycreepers probably are my favorites. This is a male purple honeycreeper:

And then there are the green honeycreepers. The male is turquoise, and the female is kind of a medium green. (The black and yellow birds in this photo are bananaquits, which I never can seem to get good photos of at home -- probably because I'm usually shooting through reinforced windows.)

We also saw a golden-headed manakin, although this was the best photo I got:

I've seen blue-gray tanagers in our yard, but I've never had a camera handy. This one must have known:

And of course there were hummingbirds. I'm not sure which variety this is, but it might be a white-necked jacobin.

There are other animals that hang out around the bird-feeding areas, including agouti. These are odd (although not particularly small) rodents that are commonly eaten here.

Of course, there are all kind of colorful plants to attract the birds. This is heliconia, also known as lobster claw:

And hibiscus, which we also have in our yard, just not this color:

These trees are called powder puffs for obvious reasons. Hummingbirds and butterflies love them.

And lastly I'm including a photo of a flower so common I don't even know what it's called. But I've been trying to get a shot of a flower with a bee on it for quite a while.

These are all low-resolution photos, but I can send anyone who's interested a link to the full Kodak Gallery album.

What I look like 30 weeks pregnant

I don't have a single photo of myself from when I was pregnant with Laura (at least not where you can tell I'm pregnant). I didn't necessarily plan on it being different this time, but between Laura's baptism and other recent events, I've ended up with some photographic evidence of my ever-increasing size.
This was taken after church March 15 and was airbrushed onto the cake at my ward baby shower Friday:

This was taken Saturday at the Asa Wright Nature Center, which I will post about soon. Somehow Laura still can wear the T-shirts we have from every school she's ever attended; Coronado Elementary is where she went to kindergarten in Colorado.

Yes, Laura did have a birthday party

And a lovely party it was. A slumber party, in fact. It was last Friday, and there were four guests. I kept it that small on purpose, but I know Laura would have liked to invite another three or four girls (at least).
There was pizza and cupcakes, and for breakfast I made pancakes. The cupcakes were of the rainbow variety, and the tops looked something like this:

The inside of a cupcake:

The guests. (You can see in the background the evidence I've already started preparing for packout.)

As if I needed a reason to visit Argentina

My online friend Megan is a Foreign Service specialist in Buenos Aires, and she gets to buy ice cream (and other delicious-looking stuff) from this store. AND they deliver!
I think I'll start looking for a similar store in Milan. It's never too early to start planning, you know.

More action in our zoo. I mean pool.

A few weeks ago I posted some photos of the wildlife in our yard and mentioned that we have crabs but I hadn't gotten any photos of them. That all changed yesterday when Laura and I found this little one swimming in our pool. I fished it out with a large plastic spoon I've appropriated for gardening purposes.

Of unexplained injuries among the elementary school set

Last Friday we had a slumber party for Laura. (You'll hear more about that later.) But before the slumber party, she complained that her nose hurt. Later it looked a little red. Eventually a scrape became evident. She still insists it happened on Kevin's shirt, but I just don't see how that's possible. (This photo was taken a few days after the initial injury, so you're missing the full effect. You're welcome.)

Because entertainment during church isn't always bad -- if you're a preschooler

I recently decided to make a church folder -- complete with a variety of quiet activities -- for the daughter of one of the women on my visiting teaching list. She's already quiet during church (at least so far as I've noticed), but who doesn't appreciate having something new to look at during high counselors' talks? (That last comment is a test of whether Kevin reads my blog anymore.)
So, this is how it ended up. I really like the stick puppets and was glad I had some laminating sheets lying around to make them sturdier.
One of my other visiting teachees has five kids, and I'm in the process of creating something similar for her. Some of her kids are a little older, though, which I think will make things more interesting.

Foreign Service photo blog

A couple of Foreign Service friends have created a blog on which they'll post photos from around the world each week. Last week's theme was Water, and this week it's Transportation. (I submitted a water photo but might not have anything to go with transportation; we'll see.)
Check it out at http://at-post.blogspot.com/.

The New York Times speaks to me (more than usual)

First there was a Frugal Traveler blog entry on Milan.
Then a story on the Italian city of Lucca banning new ethnic and fast-food restaurants in its historic center.
Oh, and don't forget the feature on the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Ireland. (Preview: It's nothing like the ambassador's residence in Port of Spain.)
And how about the review of Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice at the Musuem of Fine Arts Boston?

I like geometry as much as the next person, but ...

I should preface this by explaining Laura's class has been studying geometry, including two- and three-dimensional shapes.
Yesterday I had some markers out working on a project (photos to come), and before I put the markers away I wanted Laura to decorate the gift bags her friends will get at her slumber party Friday. (Actually only three friends, as my few remaining functioning brain cells required her to limit the guest list to only three girls.)
So, she set upon decorating the bags. The girls' names are on them. She drew some hearts, some dogs, maybe even some flowers.
But the biggest illustration on each bag is either a cube or a rectangular prism.
We're nothing if not an educational household.

Laura's baptism

Laura turned 8 on Wednesday. As our friend Bret pointed out the day she was born, her birthday is the only day that's a command (March 4). I'm not sure why I still find that so funny.
Laura celebrated her big day by doing some homework online -- her favorite kind of homework -- and getting to eat dinner in her room while watching a video. (I was teaching institute, so I can't actually take responsibility for the dinner decision.)
The bigger day, of course, was Saturday. In our church -- the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- children are baptized when they turn 8. I took a photo of her in her white clothes, but somehow it's disappeared. So here's one of her in front of the church.

Rocky Mountain News tragedy, Part 2

James B. Meadow, a reporter at the Rocky Mountain News, apparently had a heart attack Friday while on a bike ride. His injuries required him to be airlifted from Chatfield State Park (near our old house) to Swedish Medical Center (where I had my appendix out in 2005).
James died yesterday, and there are some tributes at IWantMyRocky.com.
James and I rarely worked together -- he was a metro reporter, although most of his work was on news features -- but a few of the people who sat around me on the business desk were biking buddies of his. It was fun to read his stories in the paper, although I was glad I wasn't usually the person who had to trim them to fit. And he always could make people laugh.

Port of Spain Stake in Church News

A story on the creation of our stake is in this week's Church News. You can see it here.

So you can all start planning your trips to Venice

The New York Times had a story last week about visiting Venice with an infant. I won't have to do that since the new baby will be a year old by the time we move to Italy, but it's good to know there are all kinds of fun and exciting things to do there even with a small child. And some of them are (relatively) affordable. (I've been to Venice once, for a day on Study Abroad in 1993, but obviously there were no babies involved.)

A cool flower, or how I know it's time to mow the lawn

A few weeks ago I discovered these cool little flowers in the lawn along the side of our house. Once they've grown enough to bloom, I know it's time for the grass to be cut.
However, this doesn't necessarily mean Barefoot Richard, my descriptive name for the guy we pay to mow our lawn, and his crew arrive in a timely manner. And I suspect his view of me as a crazy American wouldn't really be helped much by a phone call in which I declare, "Hey, the little purple flowers are back!"
Of course, there's a woman on his crew who has been known to wear stilettos while raking grass clippings and leaves, so it's hard to say who's really crazy.

Three big things

In chronological order:
1. As mentioned previously, it was announced Thursday that the Rocky Mountain News would cease to exist as of Friday. I really can't overstate how big a deal this is, to me, to Denver, to the newspaper industry in general.
2. At my doctor's appointment Friday, my ob/gyn once again decided she thinks the new baby is a boy.
3. Today was a big day for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Trinidad. We now have the church's first stake in the English-speaking Caribbean. Kevin was "promoted" to high priest and got called to the high council. One of my institute students is in the new stake presidency, one is stake executive secretary, and another is on the high council. And one of the fun things about stake conference was looking over the choir and seeing almost my entire institute class. I'll certainly miss them when I leave in April.