Perhaps some of you heard the rumor that Jeni and I had run out of money and were forced to scrounge what meager sustenance we could from the deep, dark recesses of our cupboard, and were concerned for our culinary well being. Well, put your fears to rest, Saturday begins the new week when it comes to the grocery budget, so tonight we're eating like kings.

Tonight's meal was Salmon a la Mary, made with fish bought this morning at the Edinburgh Farmers' Market.



Sometime soon I'll write about the trials and tribulations of finding food in an urban center in a foreign country. In the meantime, here's Jeni feasting:



And here's a juicy bite:

Here's a little song I wrote for Nessie: Nessies's Lullaby. If you click on the link it might play in your browser, if that doesn't work right click to download. Here are the lyrics:

Even 'fore you opened your eyes
You were seen, you were known and loved.
By those right here by your side
By your Father above.
Find your rest in his mighty arms.
Find your hope in Christ his son.

Enjoy!

We bought our plane tickets for this summer. I was hoping we could fly AA, since they hold the keys to my heart (and frequent flyer plan) but alas, they were about $150 more per person.

We arrive in L.A. on June 11th, go to the Prins/Gebelin wedding on the 16th, and leave on July 11th. Hopefully, 2 volunteerships will occur while we are there (for me) and I'm pretty sure a baby shower is in the works too. Other than that, no real plans.

I mean, other than the post-wedding road trip to L.A. of all our Spokane friends to chillax with us on the beach?

You know, just because I know you wanted to see me in all my 11 week glory. Those cool pants came from the maternity store this weekend (thanks, Dad!) and the sweater was from Dick and Marcia this summer. Pretty snazzy, huh?

Well, it seems as though Matt has caught everyone up on the deep and profound reasons why a baby was strongly desired in our household (passive voice intentional). The last part of our (pre)Nessie story is the one at which all current parents will certainly scoff, so I figured I would be the one to stand for the mocking. Here is where I confidently describe why it makes logical sense, monetarily and logistically, for us to have a baby while we are in Edinburgh.

Go on, I'll wait while you finish laughing. Tissue?


I know how preposterously ridiculous is the idea that we could ascertain the time in our life a baby would be most convenient; any parent will clutch his/her sides and gasp, "Those fools! Having a child is never convenient, and plans are always laid to waste! How disappointed they will be when it all comes crumbling down 'round their ears!" I don't mean that we have every aspect of our Nessie's life planned, that the college savings fund is set up, that baby supplies are already boxed neatly in the nursery (wait, we don't even have a nursery), or even that we know where to get the best deal on diapers.

Wait, scratch that. I'm pretty sure Rob and Emma did the diapers search and found that Costco has the best deals around here for nappies. And Lidl has the cheapest formula. But I digress.

Here, in no particular order, and the reasons why having a child here is less crazy than waiting until I finish vet school:
1. Life here is hectic and busy, but not as hectic and busy as starting work as a vet will be. Here, I have weekends and evenings off of class, and I get several vacations a year. I'm relatively certain that the new associate in a practice is the one who is always on night/weekend call, covers 60 or more hours a week, and has to plan even emergency heart surgery at least 6 months in advance.
2. We are in the fortunate position of Matt being able to stay home and take care of the baby, at least for awhile. Since when is a woman so blessed that she gets to pursue a career and build a family with a husband who not only supports her emotionally, but also physically and spiritually and financially? Seriously, people.
3. We have a pretty seriously awesome support group here. Besides the awesomeness of Rob and Emma, our across the way neighbours are also fabulous and supportive AND she's 14 weeks pregnant with their second baby! It's baby city here on he Cowgate.
4. Socialised health care may not be everything it's cracked up to be, but it does mean something to me that my baby and I will have free health care, prescriptions, basic dental, etc. That saves a pretty good deal of money right there, y'know?


There are more reasons right now, but I am way too tired to think of them. It was, in any event, enough reasons for us to try for a baby and succeed in an extremely efficient way (hello, famous Potter fertility!). Here we are, 10 and a half weeks along into the journey. I hope you guys still like us and don't think we have jumped too far off the deep end.

In the meantime, Happy Valentine's Day!

Now we come to the part of the story which is the hardest for me to tell, because it’s about me. So many things went into the decision I made that when I first tried to recount the decision making process, what I wrote was too overgrown and unwieldy, touching on everything related to my decision to have a baby, in short, pretty much every part of my life. Right now I’ll do my best to set forth a truncated version of the story, highlighting only the most pertinent elements. The summary of that story is this: I prayed a lot. The rest is pretty much just details.

Since I graduated from college, I’ve become more aware of my identity, both who I would like to be and who I really am. This identity crisis confronted me during the hard times Jeni and I had after moving to Edinburgh. I felt like I had lost track of myself and thought that, just maybe, I’d be better off back in the States on my own, being “just Matt.” At first I was worried that I’d lost part of my individual identity getting married to Jeni and moving to Scotland. But then as Jeni and I fought and talked and made up, I came to find that I no longer have a purely individual identity, but that Jeni and I are defined in terms of each other in community, as a family. Of course this knowledge was nothing new, I knew when we got married that we were entering into a new relationship with each other and with God that would leave neither of us unchanged, but I had held onto selfish desires, putting my own perceived self interest above that of our family.

Jeni approached me with the desire to have a child. This would be another change of identity, from husband to father. This got me thinking about my own father and who he was to me. Most important of all, my dad showed Christ to me. In his imperfect way my father submitted himself in service to the Lord and to his family. In that aspect my father was everything that a father should be, and I prayed about living like that for my children. I prayed a lot in the weeks when I made this decision, mostly that God’s will would be done in the decision I made.

While we’re on the subject, here’s a quick note on God’s will. I don’t believe that the will of God is a secret set of right decisions that you need to make in order to please him. I believe that God’s will for us is a way of life, a life of humility and submission in whatever decisions we make. Hence, when I prayed about having a baby I wasn’t asking God to show me which decision was the right one. Instead I prayed that he would conform me and the decision I would make to his will.

Ultimately, I felt that it was the right time for a child. Part of the reason was that the logistics seemed to work out right (I’ll go over that in the next part of the story), but mainly I wanted to add “father” to my identity. I hope that I can live out God’s will through submission to my wife and coming child. My own father was one of the most important people in my life, and I want to be that for our child. I figure it’s better to be the most important person in one child’s life than to be a world renowned musician or influential pastor or anything else.

I'm sorry about my lack of posts lately. I am really excited about Nessie and school and friends and summer plans and everything, but I am so mind-numbingly indescribably epically tired that even putting words into sentences seems an insurmountable task. Instead, here are some random bullets of life here at Casa de Price.

*Man, the first trimester is about as much fun as jumping out of a speedboat into a pool of hazardous waste. I'm hurling about a half-dozen times a day, and wishing I could the rest of the time. By "morning sickness", I think they mean "you feel suicidally miserable every time of day except for a brief 3 hour window in the evening". And if one more person suggests ginger, I will personally snap their well-meaning little neck. What would really help? Drugs. Unfortunately, doctors here in the UK will not prescribe anything for morning sickness, period. Jerks.

*School (despite aforementioned sickness) has been really fun lately. We are studying reproductive physiology, which is endlessly complicated and fascinating to me. We are also studying large animal topographical anatomy, which is really cool, and some significantly less interesting stuff.

*Matt should probably be nominated for sainthood, considering how well he is putting up with me. My sick feelings and pregnancy hormones have combined to turn me into a raging psychotic. Seriously, I have no filter on my mouth, and the most startlingly witchy things have flown out of it lately. It's funny in the retelling, but mortifying at the moment of occurrence.

*In addition to gently ignoring my psychosis, Matt has also been feeding me, keeping the house clean, and doing pretty much all of the shopping. I don't think it's even physically possible for him to be more understanding or more helpful.

*I am officially addicted to House, M.D., the first 2.5 seasons of which were lent to us for our viewing pleasure. I am really sad that one cannot download the other episodes of season 3 legally, since we really don't want to download them illegally. I guess we'll just have to wait for it to finish. Sigh.

*I got to talk with Mary for a long time night before last. That made me really happy.

*There's about a 40% chance that we'll be able to make it to the Bianca/Andrew wedding. Oh, I hope we can! It just involves about 127 things falling miraculously into place. Hey, stranger things have happened.

I think that's all. I need a nap now.

Sorry about the lack of recent updates. I know you're all dying to hear the next chapter of The Nessie Story, but this next installment is taking a little longer to write, probably because it's primarily about me. So, hold tight for another day or two, it's comin'!