Stuck Like Glue

I can't begin to explain how much I love my husband. Unlike myself, he is very good at this romance thing. I just don't know how to do it... and I don't think I fully appreciate it either. Which is sad, because Cory is SO sweet.

For example, yesterday was Valentine's day. I knew he had something planned for the evening, and we didn't get to see each other at all until that night since we were working and in classes ALL DAY. So I took it upon myself to make a nice lunch on Sunday (Monday wasn't a great night either). I also made and wrote him a little card. I know... so sweet. Then, when we both get home and get all ready for the night (seriously at 9pm), we take off. We drive around and he has me close my eyes. He drives in circles which makes me nervous and nauseated. I don't like being in a car without being able to see what's going on around me. Too many car accidents I guess. It only takes one, really. Anyway, we arrive, and where are we? The Chef's Table. It's a beautiful restaurant... probably one of the classiest in the Provo area. And we eat this fantastic 5 course meal. The risotto was to die for, and the salmon was amazing (especially considering I don't like fish... but I gave it a try), and the creme brulee was heaven. The salad they served was SO good I wish I knew how to throw it together myself. A server brings me a red rose to take home. And Cory pulls out a little red box from his coat. Yep, my husband even bought me jewelry on Valentine's day. I wasn't expecting it because I never really want or request it. But there he goes exceeding my expectations and wildest dreams. He's so good. And yes, I will brag about him. Any decent girl deserves a man like him, but there aren't enough out there to go around. (There aren't really enough decent girls to deserve them either... so maybe it works out.)

Can I tell you how much our little June Bug was bouncing around during that meal? I think she really enjoyed it. :) I sure did.

The only down side to such a wonderful and delicious meal is that my appetite seems to have disappeared. I don't know where it went. I still can and do eat, but I never seem to want to anymore. Blah. At least food still tastes delicious! Yum!

Again, my husband is wonderful. It's not necessarily the things he actually does, but it's the fact that he thinks about and wants to do these things. He's awesome.

New Love

I was reading an article about how a lot of pregnant women fall in love with their babies well before they even see their cute little faces in person. I've come to accept this idea as fact. I love our little June Bug so much already. And I feel so blessed to have found two great loves in my life... so far.

So happy Valentine's day everyone. If you have a current love, or are looking forward to future love, there is love to be found all around us. Especially in the arms of our Savior.

Baby Face

I was reading another friend's blog this morning and she mentioned how she likes to morph her face with hot celebrity men to see what their babies would look like. That gave me an idea. What would June Bug look like?

I just so happen to have some baby pictures of Cory from our wedding. And I just so happen to have baby pictures of myself on my computer too. So I took about 15 minutes of my day and did THIS:



This may or may not be what our little June Bug ends up looking like. I guess we'll see...

Won't it be fun to find out in a few more months?

Dear June Bug,

I think that's what we'll call you for now.

Your daddy and I are so excited to see you.

I've always wanted a family and it took a lot of prayer and hope to finally have faith that you would someday be in my life. I couldn't be happier about this wonderful gift our Heavenly Father has given us. You, your daddy, and I are inseparably connected from now until eternity. You are our baby girl and always will be. And no matter what you have to endure in this life, or coming into this world, we are always here and will ALWAYS love you. No matter what!

Heavenly Father sent you to us for a reason. Not just because you needed a home, but because we need you in our home and you need us. I can't promise it will be easy. And I can't promise that you will always think I'm the best mom in the world. But I will always give you what you need, and together, with the help of Father in Heaven, we will get through anything and everything that comes at us.

I look forward to sharing tender little moments with you. I can hardly wait to hold you in my arms and kiss your little cheeks. I can hardly wait to see the pride in your daddy's eyes when he sees you and holds you for the first time. I can hardly wait to play dolls with you, and bake cookies with you, and teach you how to tie your shoes. I can hardly wait to kiss boo-boos away, and hold you close when you're scared, and laugh with you when you're happy. I can hardly wait to see you sitting by your daddy's side on the piano bench as you try to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". I can hardly wait to see you look up at him with such pure love and happiness. I want to cherish each and every one of these little moments. But right now, I can wait until you're ready for us. I can wait until you grow big and strong enough. And you will be strong because you are a little piece of your mommy and daddy and everyone that came before us. (We have some very strong people in our family.)

Little June Bug, we love you more than we have words to express. I've worried a lot about you lately, but Heavenly Father has assured me that everything will be okay. He's the best at doing that. Even though the next few years will be tough, and I'm not sure how we're going to do it all (your daddy and I still have to finish school...), or where we are going to go, He has told me in my heart that everything will work out.

Someday you will have lots of little brothers and sisters. They will look up to you. And it won't be easy for them either. But you are given the responsibility of Big Sister for a reason. They need you too. And you need them. I hope you are kind and loving. Your daddy and I are going to try really hard to teach you how. I hope you can show them all of the neat things you can do and maybe even teach them how to do some of those things. They will love you SO much, just like we do. You might not always get along the best, but remember, with Heavenly Father's help, everything is going to be okay.

Pretty soon we'll get to see each other. That day will be wonderful. Your aunts are VERY excited for you to come into this world. They have helped me out a lot. And I hope that we will get to visit with them and all your many, many cousins frequently. They're part of our family too and we love them a lot. We are all so excited for your birthday. I hope you are too.

With more love in my heart than I knew existed,

Mom

Motivation & Disease

I have none right now. It's probably going to hurt me this semester. My problem: I'm just lazy. I say that because I have no excuses for my lack of motivation. But really, I'm just tired... all... the... time. Tired to the point that, if I didn't think I'd stay up all night, I could sleep all day. I could stay home all day, stare at the dishes and laundry, and not touch them at all. (What a good wife I am...)

In other news: I can actually feel Baby Girl moving around. I think it's been a couple weeks since I started being able to feel her sloshing around in there, but since I am very inexperienced with this pregnancy thing, I didn't realize that's what it was until I realized that's what it had to be. It was too low to be belly grumblings, and it definitely didn't feel like gas. Too much information... I know. Anyway, I couldn't be more thrilled. I was waiting for it excitedly.

I also have a bunch of friends that are pregnant too and due about the same time I am. Most of them are about to find out the gender of their babies. I guess I'm pretty lucky I got to find out so soon. I'm counting my blessings.

On ANOTHER note: my sister called me almost frantically yesterday. I got a call, then a text telling me to call her ASAP. She doesn't do that unless it really is urgent. I called when she was in the car on her way back from taking her almost 5 year old to the doctor. Apparently she had just been diagnosed with Fifths disease. It's about as bad as Chickenpox for a kid from what I had read. Sometimes they'll get a fever, but mostly it involves some mild symptoms followed by a rash that looks like they've been slapped. Not so bad for a kid, but it can be really bad news for a pregnant woman in the first half of her pregnancy. If you've had parvovirus before, you're probably immune. But most people can't remember if they've had it before. Thus the precaution of getting blood work done. So that's where I am. If I did catch it and I'm not immune, it can cause anemia in Baby Girl. And as most of you know, blood is pretty essential to a developing baby. My doctor didn't seem too worried when I was talking to him. I guess they have things they can do if I am infected so Baby Girl doesn't die. That gives me comfort. I'm not too worried anyway. Mostly because I'm just not. (That's the benefit of having the Spirit with you I guess. Even when things could normally cause you to worry yourself sick, the Comforter is there to calm you down.) I've been getting mild headaches today, which is unusual for me. Supposedly it's a symptom. But then again, knowing myself, it could easily be psychosomatic. I told Cory I had headaches today and he rolled his eyes. That was annoying. I told him he wasn't allowed to roll his eyes, even if it was all in my head. A headache is a headache. Obviously HE'S not worried either. Still, a little compassion, just in case, would be nice. Besides, this is HIS kid too.

I went and had blood drawn this morning. Missed work. Didn't go to classes I didn't feel were essential. I have one teacher with an autoimmune issue and gets sick pretty easily. She told us not to come to class if we were ever sick. I didn't want to risk it. Maybe that's me justifying not going to class. Really, I feel like my true intent was keeping her safe. Either way, I have to make up the work. That wasn't supposed to be the point of this paragraph... the point was that they couldn't find the lab request when I went in. They drew blood anyway and said they'd find it. Ha! I called a few hours later. They had the request, were running the labs, and they'd know something in a day or two. I'm hoping sooner rather than later. Again, I'm not super worried, but I would feel better knowing. And I can stop giving my hypochondriac self headaches.

I've just been taking things one day at a time these days. It's all I can do to keep from sleeping my days away. I can't seem to think ahead more than another day or two... if that. Hopefully my motivation will spring back into me. I think I just need to get an awesome grade on an exam or something to show me I'm decent at anything. Maybe that will motivate me. Maybe I just need to pray a lot more to help me get through this little slump I seem to be going through. I think I'll try that first. Add some walking into my routine again. Go out and see people again. I need something more immediate to look toward. Something I actually have time for. (I work every single day this entire week... including Sunday. Suck.)

P.S. I did wash dishes (both at home and at work) yesterday, and washed a load of laundry today. It is yet to be folded... but I did it.

Hey Baby!

I have been so anxious all day today.

Yesterday I had an appointment with my doctor. We got to hear baby's heart beat again, which he didn't tell me what it was. But everything sounded good.

Today I had an appointment at the hospital where I am participating in a new mom (pregnant lady) study. They're trying to find indicators for birth defects, low birth weight, and pre-term labor. Things of that nature. Anyway, today at my appointment, since they do ultrasounds at each appointment and I'm 17 weeks, we could find out gender. I know a lot of people like the surprise, but Cory and I wanted to know. Badly. Once we have one of each, we might let it be a surprise.

I also found out that Cory has been really excited about finding out what the baby is. It took hearing how excited his co-workers were (directly from them) and having them tell me that they've been hearing about it for a LONG time. He's pretty good at keeping cool. I think part of it is that if we're both too excited at home, we'd never get anything done. I really did love hearing from his co-workers that they were excited for us. It made some of those long days seem less stressful. (My husband works with some pretty neat people.)

Well, without delaying any longer, here are the results of our ultrasound:



Hello June Bug! We look forward to meeting you this summer!

Goin' Down The Bayou

We have had just a wonderful trip so far!
So here's the play-by-play:

SUNDAY:
(we got in about 9pm on Saturday and only got a little bit of grocery shopping done while trying to find our condo...)

Since it was Sunday, we wanted to keep things as simple as possible. Plus, we had a huge day coming up and wanted to keep up our energy.
We found a local ward and went to Sacrament meeting. It was interesting, full of all the quirks that an LDS ward has. The chorister kind of flung his hand around. And the men sang a number and there was 1 tenor out of the 30 men out there. On the way to and from church we saw this house with the MOST Christmas decorations that I think I have ever seen... and not necessarily in a good way. Yes, there are more pictures than this. It was impossible to get it all in one shot. This house was CRAZY. Since it is on the corner of two streets, both sides are just covered, but here's the corner and hopefully you get the gist.

Later that day, we decided to walk up and down the beach and hit up the north side of the gulf (well... the part where we are). We walked up and down Clearwater beach since we heard it was a huge attraction and the water was clear and beautiful. It was really lovely and one of the piers had a bunch of really neat vendors on it. We also saw some soccer (I don't know how people play soccer on the sand... I can hardly walk in it!), and some interesting street performers. One guy in particular had some Asian girl with him and he was doing some acrobatics/break dancing, and the entire 4 or 5 minutes that we watched him yell out puffing himself up, he did NOTHING! I feel like Clearwater was a little hyped up. The water was murky and the whole place was crowded. You could tell it was the place people usually vacationed. Well, that's fine, because we really enjoy staying in a place that's a little toned down, relaxed, and quiet.


MONDAY:

We got up nice and early and headed out to Orlando. We had a reservation at Discovery Cove that also gave us admission into Sea World for 14 days. Wow! Everyone at Discovery Cove was SO nice and accommodating. We also got free food ALL DAY! On top of that, only 1000 people are allowed in the park, so it wasn't crowded at all, which is amazing for any theme park.

Since our dolphin encounter wasn't until 11:10, we had a couple hours to kill. Luckily, they had a lot of other things to do aside from dolphins. To our surprise, they had an aviary there. So we went to check that out expecting something really small with a few birds. After all, this is an aquatic park. On no. They had hundreds of birds that you could feed! Since we got there pretty early, not many of them were sick of food yet (all-day buffet for the birds, ya know?) and they would come up to us, land on our hands and shoulders, and eat from our hands. It was SO NEAT! That was one of the most amazing aviaries I have ever been to!!!

After that, we wandered around for a bit and then had our dolphin encounter. We were in a group with about 6 other people and each took turns petting, kissing, and swimming with the dolphins. It's amazing how smart and beautiful these animals are! And each one is just as unique as people are! I have a much deeper love and appreciation for these beautiful mammals!

Did you know:
Dolphins, though they swim in it, cannot drink salt water? It dehydrates them.
Dolphins fins and tails have unique patterns on the end, just like a fingerprint?
Their babies nurse by curling their tongues into a straw?
They don't use their teeth for eating? They use them to communicate in various ways... like flirting.
Most places only let you swim with dolphins for 10 or 15 minutes? We got 30.

After we were soaked in salt water, we took the opportunity to go to their grand reef. Oh yes, we snorkled. They had all sorts of tropical fish and rays. We got to touch them and swim with them. It was beautiful. They had rays that were gigantic!!! They were bigger than me and Cory combined. And we got to watch them eat, which was so interesting.

Later on, we went and lazed around their lazy river, which actually went through the aviary. It was great to see the birds we got so intimate with earlier. It was nice and relaxing. AND, Discovery Cove had showers. Not your standard showers, but they provided clean towels, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotion, hair dryers, and bags for your wet clothes. I highly recommend saving up and taking the adventure out to Florida and going to Discovery Cove.

We spent the second half of our day at Sea World. It was pretty much what you would expect at Sea World. What was really amazing was that we happened to be at the right place each time a show started. AND we got some pretty great seats each time. And the shows were pretty cool. The exhibits were great too. We got to see dolphins and rays again and pet them. It was such an adventurous day! I LOVED IT!


TUESDAY:

We decided to take it easy again today. We started off our day going to lunch at a local place right on the beach. Literally, you ate your food on picnic tables in the sand a few yards from the water. I ordered a philly cheesesteak... because it sounded really good. They had some awesome fries. Cory got the fish of the day. I'm not a huge fan of fish... maybe because I haven't really had it cooked well. I'm not sure. But this fish was delicious! And they served him a ton of it! We could barely finish our meal. That seemed to be the pattern when we went out to eat. They really load you up out there.

After lunch, we drove down to the south side of the beaches. We went all the way down to Ft. DeSoto and went to East and West Beach. We started with East Beach... which I was not pleased with. They have the most interesting pine trees... skinny on the bottom and bushy on the top with teeny tiny pine cones. That's not why I wasn't pleased though. Walking the several yards down to the actual beach, they had all those little prickly pokey things in the grass. You know, the ones that are really small and stick you at the slightest touch. So I had prickly pears all over my poor little toes. One stabbed me so hard that it made my toe bleed... a LOT. I was pretty grumpy after that. I was pretty cautious at West Beach, but it was much nicer. No prickly pears AND a sting ray warning. I thought that was pretty cool. After that, we went to the fort, which was pretty neat, then went to a frozen custard place and watch the sunset at John's Pass. We were told there was good dolphin watching there. There were no dolphins... only people fishing off the pier. And, the frozen custard was not that great. Probably the worst frozen custard I've ever tasted... and the most expensive. I wasn't super happy about that either. After all our fun adventures, we went back to our room, planned our next day, and watched Christmas movies.

WEDNESDAY:

Are you kidding me? Disney World ALL THE WAY! We started off at Magic Kingdom, made our way to Epcot, and ended up at Magic Kingdom again to watch the electrical parade, the castle show, and the firework show. Yes, I rode the fun rides. Even though they say expectant mothers should not ride. Seriously. I did it. But, most of them we watched first before I hopped on. Once we realized that these crazy rides were not so bad... I just went on. And so far, I'm fine. Judge me all you want, but my sister said I would be fine and I trust her with my life. And my baby. Good thing I have another ultrasound coming up... but I'm sure everything will be just fine.

Disney World... amazing. I completely recommend it!

THURSDAY:

We had every intention of finishing up Disney World today since we had two-day park hopper passes. But when the alarm clock went off, there's no way that was going to happen... not at all. Seriously, I'm pregnant and was literally walking around ALL DAY the day before, went to bed really late, and tried waking up early. Yeah. No way.

So we slept in really late and finally woke up to go eat some lunch. We ate at Original Pizza. Cory got a calzone and I had something similar, but not a calzone. Both of them were just delicious. Probably some of the best pizza place I've ever been to. And it was so huge we ate it for dinner too.

We kept it a really low key day and did some laundry. The place we stayed at had free laundry facilities... and they were just outside our door too. That was nice and convenient. We went to bed early so we would have plenty of sleep before taking off super early the next morning.

FRIDAY:

This was another Disney World day. :) We saw some super cute Mickey ornaments that we got personalized for our family as a small thank you gift since pretty much our entire family contributed to our vacation. So we had to go SUPER early to get them done. Right after we got our order in, we ran over to Animal Kingdom for the morning. We started off on the safari. We saw so many amazing animals. They made it so realistic too! You could hardly see the ditches they dug to keep the carnivorous animals from eating you. We did drive right next to the giraffes and ostriches.

After Animal Kingdom, we finished off the day at Hollywood Studios. It was okay. There was more to see than there was to do. But the things to see were pretty neat. Cory and I rode the Tower of Terror. That is definitely not my favorite ride. I really hate feeling like I'm falling. I honestly had my eyes closed half the ride. Cory went on another roller coaster, and it's the only one I didn't go on because it went upside down and did loops. I figured that probably wasn't the best idea for Baby. It was still fun and I called my mom while I waited for Cory. It's what I do.

We called it an early night and were out of the parks by 9. That was kind of nice because we got to our cars and got home pretty.

SATURDAY:

Check-out was at 10am. Our flight was at 8pm. That meant we had a LOT of time to kill before we flew back to Vegas. SO, we packed our bags, and headed up the coast to see what there is left to see. We happened upon this little mini golf course with a 2nd round special. Okay okay, mini golf. Less that glamorous for a vacation. Especially since you can to that almost anywhere. EXCEPT, how many mini golf places let you golf around baby alligators!?!?! It was an awesome course too! It was multiple levels and the holes were all different and pretty tricky. It was so much fun!

Then we went up to Clearwater and bummed on the beach for a bit. Well, 4 hours. It was the only time I got even a little sunburned. Not very bad, but I didn't put sunscreen on. Not too smart, but it wasn't bad.

After the beach, we just headed back to the airport and ate dinner there. We saw a Chipotle nearby, but they closed less than 30 minutes before we got there. UGH! And I've been craving it ever since... sigh. Oh well. We ended up eating Chili's, which is pretty good too. And fortunately our layovers went quickly, everything left on time, and our flight to Vegas even landed 40 minutes ahead of schedule. That was wonderful. We got home, got to sleep, and got to enjoy a wonderful, and busy, Christmas with my family.

Merry Christmas All. I hope yours was as good as mine. :)