Las Vegas!!

For our third anniversary, Ryan and I decided to take a quick little trip down to Vegas. We figured it was probably the last time we'd be able to get away like this. Last weekend, we packed up and drove the whole 2 hours to Vegas. We went down Friday night and spent time with my brother and his family. It was a blast seeing them, as always. We stayed the night with them and had a leisurely morning just chilling at their house.
In the afternoon, Ryan and I headed for the strip. We got a room at the Monte Carlo and tickets to see Lance Burton, Master Magician. We walked around the strip for a little bit, got something to eat and then relaxed in our room. I just can't walk as much as I used to. Lance Burton was great. Well, it was a little cheesy, but we didn't mind attending a family oriented show in Vegas. To give him credit, we couldn't figure out how he did any of his tricks. The whole time, I kept thinking I was paying attention really hard and knew what was coming, but still, the guy fooled me. So, good job Lance for an entertaining show.

The next day we stayed in the hotel until we had to check out, stopped at the buffet and then headed home. It was a nice, relaxing trip that we both needed and wanted. Ryan kept saying that it felt like we had been gone longer than a day. That's when you know it was a good trip!!

37 weeks

I'm finally full term. So, if the baby wants to come, he is welcome

anytime. But I'm pretty sure it won't be for at least 2 or even 3 more weeks. Whenever he does decide it's time, hopefully we'll feel somewhat ready. As it gets closer and closer, I don't think that we'll ever feel truly ready. (The first pic is 36 weeks and the second pic is 37 weeks... I think black is definitely more slimming).

Things have been going well. Only a little over 2 weeks left and I'm still feeling pretty good. I'm definitely feeling more uncomfortable as each day passes. Sleeping is probably the worst time of the day for me. I dread going to bed. My hips just constantly hurt and throb from sleeping on my side, so that wakes me up multiple times a night. The baby keeps on wiggling and it's starting to hurt. I thought as he got bigger, the movements were supposed to die down, but I haven't noticed that. He has a favorite rib of mine that is constantly being stretched into or bumped into. Sometimes he hits it just right and it makes me jump out of nowhere. It's fun to get weird looks when that happens. He also has his occasional knee or elbow that loves to poke out of my stomach. That hurts too sometimes with his bony body poking out. Even though it hurts, I'm still really grateful for this opportunity and for this baby growing inside of me. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I really don't have much to complain about. This has been a relatively easy pregnancy and it hasn't made me never want to be pregnant again. I will definitely miss having this little person inside of me. It will feel good to get my body back though.

At my last Dr. appointment, I was one centimeter dilated and 50% effaced. Which is a little sad because at the appointment before that, I was told I was 70% effaced. So, my faith in these measurements is very minimal. I did have some pretty mild, steady contractions just last night, but nothing to get all excited about. Ryan kept telling me the baby was coming, but it was just false labor. No big deal. Just my body preparing for the big day. I'm pretty convinced I'll be at least a week late. This way, as my due date comes and goes, I'll just know that I was right the whole time.

I only have 3 to 5 work days left. In fact, if I choose 3 or if the baby comes early, Tuesday will be my last day. It's crazy and weird to think about, but I'm excited at the same time. I decided to take a vacation the week before I'm due. So, I'll have 10 days off and if I feel up to it, I can go back for 2 days. I just don't know if I'll feel up for it. It's all up in the air at this point. I'm undecided if I should work those bonus 2 days. It will extend my leave of absence out one more week if I do, but on the other hand, those 2 days back would be Easter weekend. Oh, too hard of decisions. I'll just take it one day at a time. Either way, work is almost dunzo!!

The nursery is all set up and ready to go. We decided on the Blue and Brown set from the last post. It looks really nice and I'm pleased with it. Now, all we need is a baby to put it to good use!!

Baby Bedding

As Ryan and I prepare for our little one, we've been doing lots of shopping and making decisions on what we need. The one thing that we're having a hard time deciding on is the baby bedding. I realize that the bedding is mostly just for us. It doesn't really matter to the baby. I just want a cute nursery and one that doesn't look feminine. With boy bedding, a majority of it is sport and animal themed. Both of which, I've never been too crazy about. I've also toyed with the idea of my mom making us a bedding set, but I cannot find any fabric that I like. We've decided to just buy something that's cute. So, I need help. We've narrowed it down to 2 different bedding sets. They are completely opposite.


The first one is a classic boy bedding set. It looks classy and nice and I think it screams boy. Plus, it would look great in the espresso colored crib we have. It also wouldn't be too hard too coordinate with because it's pretty simple.

This picture is courtesy of Babybeddingtown.com

The next one is an animal, sports theme. Here's the deal. I thought I hated the animal or sport theme idea until I saw this bedding in Babies R Us. It's animals playing sports. Ryan loves it because it's two of his favorite things. And after seeing this set in person, the picture does not do it justice. We both really like this set too. And it would be really easy to coordinate with because animal and sports are everywhere!

So, we can't decide. We need input. There is only a $10 difference in price, so that's not a big deal. We just don't know what kind of bedding we want. What do you think?

As for the pregnancy, it's still going well. I'm now 29 weeks (seven months) and in the third (and last) trimester. I feel the baby move constantly and I love seeing my stomach do weird unnatural movements from him. It's such a fun time to have this little life inside of me. I'm starting to feel more pain in my lower back and sitting in a chair for long periods of time gets more and more uncomfortable. I almost died by the end of church yesterday. Good thing I have a job that requires me to be on my feet a lot. That may also have something to do with the fact that sitting isn't as comfortable for me. Besides that, everything is going well.


I'm amazed at how fast it has gone by. It's going to come up so fast. I feel like we have so much left to do before the baby comes. Hopefully we'll get everything ready in time.

It's a Boy!!

Now that the word is out, I guess it's time to tell the blog world our big news. Ryan and I are having a baby!! We're having a baby boy in April. I'm at 23 weeks (almost 6 months). We're so excited and can't wait to meet our new little bundle of joy. Well, we can wait a little bit longer...

We found out that I was pregnant on Aug. 3- my birthday! That was a fun present. We wanted to wait to tell people until at least the first trimester was over. My mom always told me that if you want your pregnancy to go by fast, don't tell anyone right away. The longer you wait to tell people, the faster it will go by. So, taking my mother's advice, we decided to hold off. The first trimester wasn't super fun. I felt sick almost all the time. But luckily, I never threw up. I just felt nauseous constantly. The severity of how I felt differed from day to day. I always felt better at work, but I think that was because I didn't have time to sit and think about how bad I felt. I haven't experienced many cravings and in the first trimester, I could only eat whatever sounded semi-good. Cooking wasn't super fun because the thought of food made me feel sick. There were days when only one thing sounded good to eat, but the next day that meal would sound awful. I'm glad we're past those days. Luckily there's only a few foods that were ruined for me because of this... Spinach Artichoke dip (good thing I never really eat it anyway), a restaurant here called "Haven" (just driving by it makes my stomach churn) and hamburgers never sound good, but I'll eat them if I have to.

My first doctor appointment was when I was ten weeks along. At that appointment they could not hear a heartbeat at all, so they took out a mini-ultrasound thing and showed us the heartbeat. That was very anti-climatic because I could not see the dot they were telling me was my baby. They also measured me and said I was actually 2 weeks behind what we thought I was. At this point, I was done being excited about this pregnancy. We felt like it was going backwards. And with how I was feeling, I was not happy about feeling this way for one more month.

Luckily, time went by quickly and we still didn't tell anyone. With each appointment I set up, I thought, we can just wait to tell people after the next appointment. I wasn't really showing at all and we don't live that close to family that we see all the time. This kept going on until we made our appointment for the ultrasound. That's when we knew we could wait just one more month to let people know our good news. Right about this time, we were done with keeping the secret. But we did it! We found out that we were having a boy on November 18. That's when we could finally spill the beans. Ryan was so excited to call and tell everyone. For some reason, I wasn't as excited. I wanted him to just let everyone know. When I told my family, it made it more exciting to me. It's been fun to talk with my mom about it. I still feel weird telling people I'm pregnant. In fact, I only told a handful of people from work and have just let the news spread. It just feels awkward for some reason.

Everyone's been asking how I feel. I feel great now. I just feel normal, except I feel extremely fat. This is the heaviest I've been in my whole life, and I don't love that feeling. And I know it's only gonna get worse from here. It took me a couple months to flip that switch in my brain that says weight gain is ok. I'm still in normal clothes and am dreading the day when the maternity clothes are a must. I just don't want to spend money on clothes I'll only wear for 4 more months. Some of my pants are getting a little tighter and not as comfortable, but they still fit fine.

We haven't picked out a name yet and the more I think about it, the more I hate thinking of names. It's a lot harder than I imagined and boys names are impossible. We had girls names picked out and both of us were already sold on a girls name. We'll come up with one eventually. I think what will happen is we'll pick out a couple we like and when we see the baby, we'll decide then. I'm not too worried about having a name picked out today.

We're excited about this new adventure we're about to take in our lives. We can't wait to see what lies ahead.

We're Alive

The guilt of not updating this blog has finally overtaken me. We've been really busy settling into new jobs and our new life in St. George. We're having a blast living here. We like it more and more each day.
Our summer's been pretty fun. We've made a few trips up north for some family and friend fun. We were able to go up for the Fourth of July weekend and spend time with all of Ryan's immediate family. I amazingly got that weekend off, so it was even more special. We also got to see some of Ryan's high school friends.
We also went up for my friend Karen's wedding. One of my closest friends from Iowa got married in the Draper Temple and we were lucky enough to spend that day with her. It was so neat seeing that experience and meeting her new husband. We're so happy for her and for their new life together.

Ryan's been more than busy with his new job. He's been traveling a lot to different satellite offices all over Southern Utah and he's now adding Vegas to his itinerary for a few months. He's doing great and his boss only has positive things to say about him (like I'm surprised). He's learned so much and has grown so much in his clinical skills in just a few short months. We've been happy with the experience he's getting, even though he's been putting in some long, long days.

As for Wal-Mart, they have finally taken pity on us poor Assistant Managers. They've been testing out a new schedule for management in other markets and they've discovered that Assistant Managers actually like having a life outside of Wal-Mart. So, at the beginning of this month we started a new rotation of schedules. I now work 3, 12 hour days, followed by 3 days off. It's been really nice during the days off. I actually have time to do other things and have now taken up new craft projects. The 3 days on are a little more stressful than I would prefer, but we're still all getting used to our routines. The cool thing about this schedule is that I can plan out the whole next year or so. I actually get Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve off. (Even though I'm still a little skeptical that something is going to change so I don't.) Either way, I feel like it's about time they revamped our scheduling. They were using us for too many things and taking advantage of being salaried. I'm enjoying my store just fine. I feel like I got a lot more respect right off the bat here than I did at my previous store. And I also feel a lot more appreciated. That's been a really nice transition.

My newest craft project was an idea I got off TV and thought I'd try it. I think it turned out pretty good. Let me know what you think. It's just a simple picture frame where you place ribbon where the glass goes. Then you can just slide pictures throughout the ribbon. It's a fun new way to display photos. The picture don't quite do it justice.

Our home in St. George

We made it. We are here in beautiful St. George, Utah and ready to enjoy our next year here. We drove up last Saturday from Tucson. Our brother-in-law Troy flew down just to help us drive up. Lucky him, he was the one in the big Budget truck. The drive went very smooth and we made it up here in pretty good time. We were all a bit nervous for Troy during the whole drive, but he did well and the truck did well (except for the air conditioning going out). This week Ryan and I have been unpacking, hanging up decorations, spending way too much money and touring the city. It has been so nice to be able to spend this week together and get settled into our new home.

We really like our new home. It is very spacious compared to our last place. As we were unpacking, we realized we had plenty of stuff to fit into a 3 bedroom. I have no clue how I got it all into a one bedroom. I must be more organized than I think. There are definitely some quirks about the place. The last renter did something crazy to our walls, so there are big miscolored spots all over our walls. They're in weird places too- it's not like they hung up a picture and filled in the hole. We're not sure what happened. We're trying not to worry about it and it's less noticeable with our pictures up. Overall, we are excited about our new place and have plenty of room for visitors. So, please, feel free to drop by if you need a place to stay.

We really enjoy St. George already. Each day as we drove around, we both grew to love the city more. It's extremely smaller than Tucson and it feels so much more like home. We're excited about living here, nervous about work, but it should be good. Due to requests, we have posted a slideshow of pictures of our home. It's hard to capture everything in a picture, but I tried my best. We still have some decorating to do, but this is it for now!

Update

I know, I know, it's been way too long since we actually paid attention to this thing. It's not like we don't have anything to report on, it's just that we've been busy. Ryan has been busy trying to finalize everything with his last semester of actual school work. He has different comprehensive exams he has to take, a national exam and he has to finish up his thesis project. He's been super busy with that and trying to balance it with his calling at church. I have been busy with work as usual, but when I do get a day off, the last thing I think about is this blog. But here we are. Ready to give an update of what we've been up to...

As most people know, we're moving to St. George, Utah next month. In March, we took a week off during Ryan's spring break to visit family and find a place to live. We took our trip up slowly and stopped to see two of my brothers and their families on our way up to St. George. That was a lot of fun and we're so happy we were able to spend time with them. Our time in St. George was super stressful, but we found a place to rent for a year. We're really excited about it. It's a 3 bedroom/2 bath town home with a 2 car garage. We can't wait to actually have some space to live. We figured after living in a one-bedroom apartment since we've been married, we can spoil ourselves and upgrade. And we're hoping to have space so we can have lots of visitors. Consider this a standing invitation! After our time in St. George we decided to rush up to Utah County to see some more family. Plus, we hadn't been to Utah since Oct. 2007, so we were excited to go back. We got to spend time with one of Ryan's sisters and her family and Ryan's mom. We also saw the rest of my brothers and their families (except one brother was missing, but his family wasn't). All in all, it was a successful, fun trip.

My bro Jeff and his wife Shar

We're planning on moving away from Tucson next month. We're aiming to leave around May 15th. It all depends on my work situation. Yes, I am getting a transfer. It has been such a hassle to get a transfer. I had no idea it would be this difficult. The Human Resource manager I've been "working" with up in Utah is brand new and has no clue what she is doing. I tried to contact her numerous times and didn't hear anything back. When we were up in Utah, I decided to just drop by the Wal-Mart market office to see if I could catch her. Luckily, it worked, but she gave me the run around and said it would be hard and that I needed to get some higher up's approval. So, I did. No big deal right? That was easy. I call her back- she tells me there are no openings in St. George and asks if I would be willing to step down and take a lower position (ie- cashier, not really a cashier but probably something similar). I told her I couldn't do that. She told me to call the store managers to see if they needed an assistant manager, yep, her job. So, I did. No big deal. The store manager I talked to was great and he put the wheels in motion up there. So, 2 weeks later, a few phone calls and unanswered emails, I finally found out that I got the transfer. I have a place to work in St. George. I'm so glad. We don't have any other specific details. I'm just glad I don't have to stress about not having a job.

So, slowly our move is finally in motion. We can't wait to get up there. I have a feeling this year isn't going to be super fun. Ryan is starting a new job and that's never fun. I'm starting at a new store, that's not easy. I'm just excited for a new start. It feels like we're getting out of the playing house stage and actually becoming established. It will also be nice to feel more settled and we'll hopefully be staying in the area for a while.

In other news, my store that I work for won Neighborhood Market of the Year for our Region (a few states in the west) and our Division (all the western states) and there was a nasty, humongous cockroach in our shower this week.