Halfway There

We are officially halfway to being new parents! Yesterday, David and I were able to see our baby in our big ultrasound. It was AMAZING! We had a really great tech who explained everything we were seeing. And luckily we had a very cooperative baby and they were able to see everything they wanted to see. After the tech finished what she was doing, a doctor came in and pretty much repeated the whole ultrasound. The results: a perfectly healthy little girl! We are very excited. I think it will be fun to have a little girl, but more importantly, we are very thankful that she is developing just as she should be. It was a big sigh of relief for me, because I have been a paranoid mess pretty much this whole pregnancy. I guess that's what I get for getting pregnant during my Mom-Baby class. A few weeks after I found out I was pregnant, I had a huge project that I had to present to the class about birth defects incompatible with life......not a good subject matter to put in my brain right at the beginning of this pregnancy.

Anyway!! Her heart rate was perfect at 150 and she is measuring just 2 days ahead of my due date (December 6). I am still trying to talk her into waiting until December 15 to be born, though. That way, I'll be done with school...we'll see how that goes.

We got a really cool DVD of the whole ultrasound which is AWESOME! You can see her heart beating and she was moving around the whole time. At one point she jumped like something scared her. It was so cool. I don't know if anyone is actually interested in watching something like that besides me, but it was so neat.

Today I saw my nurse midwife who went over the ultrasound results with me. They were able to visualize all the stuff they wanted to see and next to everything it said "normal". I got to hear her heart beat again. It makes me so excited thinking about this new little life.....and scared out of my mind, too!!!

In other news, David and I will be going on vacation---our last real vacation without having a kid. We're going to be heading to Beaufort the first week of August and mostly can't wait to go to the beach! And see everyone there, of course! Holla at me if you wanna hang out! We're excited to go! We're enjoying our last bit of summer and then school will be back in. I applied for graduation a couple of weeks ago. It's pretty crazy to think that in December, I'll qualify to take my nursing boards. After that, I'll probably go back to school. The question is where I will go to finish.....we shall see.

PS....Isn't she cute?? I think she looks like David!

Home, Sweet Home!

We're back! After a week-and-a-half-long vacation, David and I are back in Utah. I'm not going to lie, this is probably going to be a super-long blog with lots and lots of pictures. So you may want to turn back now. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Our vacation started out in Texas. We arrived there on Tuesday night, July 13th. Most of Tuesday-Friday was spent hanging out, helping David's mom set up her new computer, yard work, and getting ready for youth conference. So basically, no cool pictures. Except...at one point, David took me to a cool burrito restaurant called Freebird's. They have really big burritos that they serve wrapped in tin foil. Upon finishing the burrito, it is traditional to make cool oragami/statues out of the foil and to display it in the window of the restaurant. David and I decided to make each other--he made me out of tin foil, and I made him. Let me just tell you, tin foil is not an easy medium to work with so you probably won't be able to tell which is which. Anyway, we put our lovely artwork in the window looking out. You will love the pictures.





Saturday was youth conference day. In the morning, we taught 5 classes (yes, FIVE) on the importance of education. Later in the day, we did a fireside on the 2010 Youth theme (Strong and Immovable). I like to think it went well...we didn't stick around to find out what everyone thought about it. Right after we finished, we hit the road and headed to Beaufort. We spent the next few days in the car and arrived in South Carolina on Monday afternoon. That night we went to Barbara Jean's which is one of my favorite Beaufort restaurants. Here's a picture of David eating coconut shrimp. Be jealous.

Tuesday morning, David and I made boiled peanuts. They were so yummy. We sat out on the balcony of our beach house and ate them. David had never had real live boiled peanuts before. I think he favored them. Here's us on the balcony. Those of you who have never had boiled peanuts are definitely missing out.




After munching on boiled peanuts, we hit down town. We had to stop by the chocolate tree, of course, as well as hollyhocks. While we were out, we went to the Beaufort Bookstore. We found some awesome stuff there. One of the interesting things we saw was a translation of The New Testament into Gullah. We also saw a book about how to build really awesome sand castles which we of course had to buy. After our shopping expedition, we spent the rest of the day out on the beach. Here's the rest of the pictures from Tuesday.



Wednesday, we pulled out the sand castle book and decided to put our mad skills to the test. We thought it would be fun to build a light house. We spent HOURS building this thing and I'm pretty sure I love it. I unfortunately took away from this experience a rather unsightly sun burn. Here's pictures of the sand castle.





Also on Wednesday, we got stuck on the bridge that goes out to Harbor Island two times. YES! I said two times. In less than 3 hours, actually. Some say that it is good luck to get stuck on the bridge. (Probably so people will quit whining about getting stuck for 20 minutes...)If this is the case, David and I are REALLY lucky.





So I'm starting to forget what days everything else happened, so I'll just post the rest of the picture. At one point, we went out to all the old ruins on Land's End road. I'll post pictures of that next. I think this was Thursday. Pictured are the old burned down church (I can't remember its name--not Old Sheldon, the other one). David is swatting away gnats in one of the pictures. I caught him at a really funny moment. Also, I got a picture of the witch's grave. We did not, however, dance on it. The legend says if you do, she'll throw you off. I guess we'll never know if that's true.




Friday night, my amazing husband took me out on a date. We ate dinner at La Napolera (one of my favorite mexican restaurants) and then we walked around at The Sands. It was awesome! David took some pictures of fiddler crabs. And yes, David is wearing a Piggly Wiggly shirt. While we were out, we also stopped by my grampa's grave site. I took a couple of pictures of the new grave stone out there. It's the first time I've seen it. I miss my grampa.





Saturday, we spent the morning cleaning up the condo and moving into a hotel. We also went out to dinner at Dockside with my sister, Krista and her husband Kenny. My cousin Cami came along, as did David's parents. It was great seeing my big sister. She and I are allies in nursing school. We're in the same semester and I love talking to her about classes and stuff. It was fun having Cami along. She cracks me up! And Kenny's ok to...:)



So! This completes our trip. Sunday morning, we went to church at the Beaufort ward and I got to see all the wonderful people I grew up with. David and I sang Abide With Me 'tis Eventide for my granny (who I LOVE) and right after sacrament, we took off. We got to our apartment this morning at 3 am. It was a fun vacation, but I must admit, I'm glad to be home. Now back to the real world.