The Scheer Family

8 Months/9 Months/10 Months/Happy New Year?

2012-01-06T08:05:00.000-05:00

I didn't realize it had been SO long since I did an update! I will refer back to my journal and post updates for his official months and record stats from his 9 month visit but for now here's the 10 month update:

Elliot is so smart! He understands the following words: wave, no, come here, give that to me (if I hold my hand out), dance, bounce, jump, walk, milk, peek-a-boo, and stand. He can point at things and will wag his finger as well, and he can wave both with just his hand and recently added waving side to side with his whole arm to his routine. El will throw or roll a ball back and forth to you and has really started to copy our movements. When he and Derek roll the ball Derek will celebrate when he gets it (pick the ball up into the air, wave his arms, and yell in celebration) and then roll it back to Elliot - when Elliot gets it he will pick his arms up and yell. It is SO CUTE. When we were home for Christmas he was the center of attention, of course, and loved being around everyone. He can "say" ball (bah), Jesus (sus sus), Luke (gook), Jake (dake), Mama, and Dada. In case anyone's keeping track, he said Mama first! He loves playing peek-a-boo and he will initiate it sometimes. The day before we came home from Illinois Jake taught Elliot how to high five! He LOVES to play with empty bottles and will go for hours doing that if you'll let him. Elliot got his first haircut on December 23rd, right before his 10 month birthday. I wanted to wait for the year mark but his hair was so long it would get in his eyes constantly. He looks much more like a little boy now instead of a baby and no one has called him a girl since the cut!

The last several days Elliot has really amped up his enthusiasm for walking with the stroller-walker. He will do it all by himself and just push it all the way down the hall! He will let go and balance for a few seconds before he either grabs on again or falls. We don't think it will be long before he's trying to walk on his own! Such an exciting time for him.

Elliot stopped nursing at 8 and a half months and I was dried up by 9 and a half, so he's been on mostly formula since 9 months. It was very sad for me because it was very sudden that he stopped and I wasn't ready for it, but my sadness has mostly passed on that subject now. He is a VERY good eater and eats everything we eat. He is still a Cheerio-aholic and starts most of his meals with them, but he loves vegetables and fruits and even spicy food! He has had peanut butter twice now (mixed with yogurt or oatmeal to thin it out) and he can't get enough of it. Elliot will let you know that he wants another bite by smacking his lips very loudly and giving you a super intense look. He is such a funny boy.

Over Christmas Derek and I went with Brian and Ashley to Chicago for an overnight trip (we surprised Derek and Ashley) and Elliot stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. I'm happy to say that we all survived that trip and we (Elliot and myself) both did a great job!

Elliot and I are still going to the gym a lot and he is doing great at the day care. I think that he got a lot better once he started crawling and can now hang with the big kids. I'm feeling good and healthy and enjoy getting an hour to myself on the days we go.

Elliot sleeps great again! Most nights he goes for 11 hours and he still usually takes three naps a day, depending on what time he wakes up. Sometimes it seems like he's trying to get rid of the third nap but I don't think he's quite ready for it. El has 6 teeth and is working on 4 more, though I'm not sure if they're moving at all anymore. Once in a while they will flare up and bother him and you can tell that they're working their way down but it's been a VERY slow process with these four.

We love having Elliot in our family and he is such a joy to be around. He is so full of personality and makes us laugh constantly. I can't believe next month he will be 1 already!!!

7 Months

2011-09-29T15:21:00.000-04:00

A quick note to remember all about Elliot as he turned 7 months yesterday!

Elliot is an expert at:

sitting and rocking
rolling - he is the rolling KING
rotating around in circles all day
teething - still working on 4 but 1 of those is finally almost through! The two that he already has are huge!
laughing - he LOVES to laugh; definitely my child
jumping - this is fairly new but he mastered it quickly. His specialty is jumping in the exersaucer.
mama, dada, baba, gaga, geegee and numerous indiscernible cute baby noises
shots - he got a flu booster shot yesterday and totally knew it was coming but took it like a pro
nursing - about 5 or 6 times a day, 3-4 hours in between and 8-10 hours overnight. Usually takes less than 15 minutes now, hallelujah!
bath time - this kid LOVES water. He has recently started plunging after toys that get away from him, so bath time is covered always by two hawk-like adults. So fun to watch.
Skyping - he knows the ring tone and what it means when I set the computer up in front of him. It is awesome, he is so smart!
Eating his toes - I thought we were over this stage, but he is back to eating his toes constantly.

Elliot is good at:

sleeping - vacation was hard on us and it has taken a long time to recover from it. He is now back to sleeping 8-9 hours most nights but it took about 6 weeks of waking up once or twice a night to get back (teething hasn't helped!).
napping - again, vacation hurt! Then when painting his room we moved him to the pack and play for a week, so it took a while but he is now starting to fall asleep by himself for naps again
smacking himself in the face with toys - he is getting violent with those toys!
solid food - Elliot likes "big people" food more than baby food, it seems. He LOVES oatmeal and some of the foods we've introduced, and has a special new interest in drinking water from a straw (the only way I can get him to take water currently).
Rocking out to the music - we have regular jam sessions and will sit Elliot on the floor and just watch him rock out to the music. It is hilarious. Every time a new song comes on he starts to rock again!

Elliot is beginning:

the army crawl - he is starting to learn he can pull himself around if he isn't up on his knees.
to crawl! He is now regularly getting up on his knees by himself and rocking and has started moving backwards here and there.
to pull himself up on things - he has done it a few times in the crib and the couch and coffee table, but hasn't made it all the way up to his knees or feet. Most often I catch him still holding on to whatever he's grabbing with a death grip!

Life is very exciting with a 7 month old and we couldn't be happier. We love having Elliot in our family!

Six Months=Half A Year

2011-09-09T11:01:00.000-04:00

It is hard to believe that Elliot is already six months old. Time has flown so fast and doesn't look to be slowing down anytime soon. We have had a great month and he is just growing and learning so much all the time!

Here are the things that Elliot is very into right now:

Scooting - backwards for a while and forwards started yesterday!

Sitting - he is solid as a rock and loves to bounce while he's sitting. He is starting to try to get to a sitting position by himself but still has a ways to go with that.

Reaching, grabbing for everything.

His feet.

Screaming - Elliot is very into his voice right now. He will do a happy scream/shriek every few minutes.

Babbling - 10 days ago Elliot started using syllables more and his "vocabulary" has exploded. High on his list of favorites are ga, ba, da, ma, goo, ka, ya, and his most favorite - mmmm (SO CUTE).

First Word - HI! A few days ago Derek and I were talking and he shrieked for our attention and I said hi and he said it back! We were completely taken aback so Derek said hi again and he did it again! Yesterday he said it to us again (when prompted), so I think we can count this as his first word! Did I mention how cute his voice is??

Sippy Cup - the thing that has saved my life. Did I mention I'm GOING ON A DATE TONIGHT?!?! Here's to you, Nuk Learners Sippy Cup - Elliot (and I) love you dearly.

Solid Food - we have introduced several things to Elliot so far. Of the baby food variety: split peas (liked), sweet peas (no way), green beans (eh), sweet potatoes (liked), carrots (love love loved). Waiting to try still are bananas, peaches, apples, prunes - maybe pears too. Of the real food variety: white rice, plain potato, avocado, bananas, grapes (no peel), peas (out of pod). He loves ALL of it. He is very into our food and has really not been digging this whole baby food thing. Last night we fed him carrots and he hardly ate them! He wanted my potato more! So we'll see how that goes. We also have started giving him water in a sippy cup once a day. The doctor said a little every day is a good idea to help his teeth.

Teeth - the bottom front two are both out almost all the way. The teeth surrounding the bottom front on both sides are coming up. One of them I noticed a whole month ago and it still isn't out! The other one has been trying to come up for about 3 weeks. They are very slow movers. Earlier this week I noticed Elliot has been playing with the roof of his mouth more and so I looked up there and he has two other teeth (I'm pretty sure) coming in up there too. Instead of being the front two like I expected, they are the teeth that surround the front two! He's going to look like a vampire! We will have to see how fast they come up. In the meantime, he has been coping very well with all of these weird things popping out of his mouth!

Sleep - he is averaging about 10.5 hours a night. Sometimes he wakes up after 8 or 9 hours to eat and sometimes he doesn't. We moved his bedtime up so now he goes to sleep between 830 and 900. He has dropped his evening nap, so his three naps during the day get him about 4-5 more hours of sleep (1.5-2/1.5-2/1).

Health - at his 6 month check up Elliot weighed 16lbs 2.5 oz (with a new diaper on), was 27" long, and had a 44cm head (25/70/70%). I was a little concerned that he had only gained 1.5 pounds in 2 months but his doctor wasn't worried about it since he is much more mobile now. While we were on vacation Elliot got an ear infection and we took him to the E.R. in Tennessee since we were traveling. He also got a cold, which thankfully went away without turning into something bad like last time. He had antibiotics for the ear infection and we dealt with bad diaper rash because of the drugs, and we are grateful that that is over! One thing he liked about that week is he got to hang out naked on a blanket a lot to help with his rash. Nothing cuter than a naked baby!

Water - Elliot LOVES water. We took him swimming a few times while on vacation and he loved to just splash and splash, even when the water was pretty cold. He has started sitting up in the bathtub and loves to get us wet while he splashes.

Elliot is a very happy baby and we feel very blessed that he is part of our family. We love you, buddy!

Give Thanks

2011-08-12T15:28:00.002-04:00

I have been dwelling on some negative things lately and I feel like I'm in a rut. I'm not skinny enough, people don't like me, I don't have any friends, I can never sleep, I feel isolated much of the time, I can't go on dates with my husband because my baby won't take a bottle, I can't leave the house because it's too hot......the list goes on. I am a wimp sometimes and here is my signal to myself that I need to suck it up and move on.

I have a wonderful, amazing, respectful, kind, hot, funny, supportive husband who is my world. He means everything to me. He is an incredible companion and is a great father. He worries about me and always has my best interest in mind. He goes out of his way to do special things for me and to make me feel good about myself. He encourages me to do things by myself or with friends and makes sure to tell me that he loves me. He is the best and only friend I ever will need.

I have a handsome little son who is so fun to be around. Yes, things can be hard, but I knew that going in. I am very blessed to be able to stay at home with him to watch him grow and help him as much as I can.

I can now go on dates with my husband because my son miraculously started taking a sippy cup this past week. This is a huge blessing because we had been really stressing about leaving Elliot with my brothers for about 4-5 hours on vacation when Brian gets married, and now we won't worry nearly as much. He's almost 6 months old and we would be more okay with leaving him with a babysitter now that he's older.

I have a relationship with my Savior and I know that He lives. Not many people can say that they have had the true gospel in their lives always, and I am blessed to be in that number. Even when I feel alone and isolated, I know that Heavenly Father is just a prayer away and that He is waiting to help me.

It has been cooler the past several days! We are going on walks and getting outside more often and I don't feel so cooped up in the house all the time.

I am skinny! And it is okay that I still have a couple of pounds left. They're supposed to be there until I'm done nursing. Being a little more curvy isn't a bad thing. The stretch marks are fading and I'm feeling healthier all the time. I can workout now without feeling like I have died afterwards, so this is promising.

I do have friends. Many of them are far away, but I have friends in my new area as well. I just need to continue trying to meet people and I will eventually feel more like I have a place here.

I am going on vacation next week and it is much needed. It will still be a lot of work since it will be Mr. Elliot's first big trip, but we are going to celebrate the start of the marriage of my little brother Brian. I'm so excited to gain a sister and for Brian to experience the joys of marriage. Our family has been so blessed to add two members to it this year.

I am incredibly blessed. These are the things that I wish to dwell on.

5 Months

2011-07-28T15:18:00.000-04:00

Elliot is 5 months today. It is really hard to believe. He is such a joy to be around. He has made a lot of progress this month. He has mastered grabbing at things and is finally starting to bring a pacifier and teething rings to his mouth. We gave him a bottle the other day and he did okay with it, too, so here's to hoping this new found skill of bringing things to his mouth will encourage him to take a bottle.

We give him rice cereal or oatmeal every few days but don't have a set routine for it yet. It is still just a fun time to experiment, though he seems to really like it. Last night at dinner he started reaching for our plates for the first time, which was cute. He eats every 3-4 hours during the day and the past two weeks he has been going for 7-8 hours at night, waking up to eat, then going right back down for another 2-3 hours. Twice in the past two weeks we have gotten 10 hour stretches, which was awesome! Elliot's general routine during the day now is to wake up, eat, then play for a while, then will get tired 1.5-2 hours after he woke up. Once I see the tired signs start (rubbing eyes or whining), I grab him, change his diaper, and down he goes. The mobile in his crib has been a life saver, and a few weeks ago I put in a mirror - he loves the mirror. Every time he starts to get upset, he turns his head to the right towards the door and sees himself, so he just stares at his reflection and it usually calms him down. He will sleep anywhere from 1-2 hours (usually 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 hours) and then will wake up and start the routine over. Elliot has gotten very good at putting himself to sleep for the first two naps of the day. We are still working on the third nap, and then he usually takes a cat nap in the evening for about 30 minutes.

Elliot has been rolling over from his back to tummy for about two weeks now and it is so fun to watch! He likes rolling this direction much better than from tummy to back for some reason. The past two days he had started scooting backwards and getting sort of up on his knees. He is definitely ready to start moving all over the place - I keep reminding him that once he starts there's no going back, so enjoy his non-mobile time now! Maybe that's more so a reminder for me than for him.

He's doing better at sitting, though we're not pushing him much to do it yet. He likes to sit up every once in a while and just needs more balance and then he'll be there. Elliot popped his first tooth out last week and I think he's working on the other bottom one. I'm not positive, though, because the cute guy won't let me see in his mouth long enough to be able to tell! He has done okay with the teething and has been a trooper. Sometimes I can really tell that his mouth bothers him, but most of the time he's just fine. Luckily it hasn't had any effect on his nighttime sleep, but he has been harder to put down for naps this week.

Elliot is quite the social little guy and loves to have conversations with people. He will still "talk" himself to sleep sometimes, which is the cutest thing ever, and he now knows our routine for naps well enough that he knows once I pull the blinds shut and turn on the humidifier and mobile it is time for a nap. He will rub his eyes more and then burrow his head in my neck while he grabs each side of my neck, like he's giving me a big hug. It is the sweetest thing (until he twists the neck on my skin)! We sure love our little man!

Tooth!

2011-07-22T15:03:00.000-04:00

Today I worked out at a friends home gym and in the middle Elliot started fussing. He had a dirty diaper - which happens EVERY time I go to work out there, I swear - so I changed it. I put him back down where he had been staring googly eyes at this beautiful 4 year old girl and he continued to fuss. I got up in his face to stare at him and asked him what was wrong. This morning he had been holding his mouth a bit different and so I checked his bottom gums to see if they were swollen. Not only are they swollen, my big boy has a little tooth coming up!! It is his front bottom right tooth where you can actually see a little slit where the tooth will come up. The left one looks like it could be getting close too, but you can't see the slit yet on that one.

So far he's done pretty okay in the fussiness department, so I'm hoping we somehow get off with not having a lot of tooth issues, but I'm not holding my breath. My baby is getting so big! Elliot will be 5 months next week! Last week he started rolling from his back to his tummy and is now the rolling champion of the world. He LOVES to roll! Such a fun guy.

Elliot's Blessing Day

2011-07-11T16:14:00.001-04:00

Sunday, June 12th, 2011, Mr. Elliot was blessed by his dad in the Washington D.C. 3rd Ward. We decided to do it in the 3rd Ward because we had so many friends there that we had known for almost 5 years and really had a lot of roots there. I spent most of my pregnancy there as well, so everyone was really excited to meet the little guy! Elliot was over 3 months old by this point, but we had decided to wait until my brothers were out of school so they could come to meet Elliot for the blessing. We were blessed to have so much of our family come to support Elliot on his big day! Mom, Dad, Brian, his fiance Ashley, Luke, and Austin all made it out, and Derek's mom, stepdad, sister, brother, and our niece and two nephews came as well. We had some friends that had moved out of the ward come back to participate in the blessing as well. He is such a loved little boy! I know that a lot more people wished that they could have been there too!

We had a BBQ at our house on Saturday where everyone who was going to the blessing came and we had quite the feast. It was delicious, and it was nice to get everyone together! We hadn't all been together since we had our luncheon the day before our wedding! On Sunday we got everyone ready - thank goodness for 1pm church! - and set out for D.C. We arrived fairly early and I set my plan in motion. We had dressed El in a white onsie with white socks but didn't put his outfit on until we got there. Once we got everyone settled in the chapel Mom and I took off for the mother's lounge. We put Elliot into his tux and then I fed him so he would go to sleep. It worked like a charm! Whew, I didn't want to have a baby screaming through his blessing. HAHA. Babies sure do have minds of their own! We went back to the chapel and I handed Elliot off to Derek. I didn't want to pass him off right before the blessing and have El wake up and freak out, so we did it at the very beginning of the meeting. He stayed asleep! We started singing and BAM - Elliot wakes up. Are you kidding me?! He had slept for like 10 minutes! At first he looked really upset because it was hot - the A/C was broken, of course, the one day we go there! - but then he calmed down and cooed through the song. He was chill most of the time and then it was time! During the baptism confirmation that happened the microphone was working fine, but when Derek got up there to do the blessing it wasn't working! That was sad. There was a nice big circle - Derek, Dad, Brian, Termain, Scott Lunt, Russ Knighton, Matt Hawks, Bishop Nelson, and Kerry Harding - and then the blessing was given. It was such a beautiful blessing. I need to transcribe it still so I can reread it, but it was really lovely. I got choked up, anyway. I guess that's not a big surprise, hmm? :) Elliot was a trooper during it! He was actually cooing a little here and there - such a cute guy! Luckily he didn't cry so we were able to hear the blessing.

Since the A/C was broken it was super hot in the building, so as soon as we got Elliot back to the pews we stripped him back to his onsie. After sacrament meeting we had a friend take pictures of everyone and we got some great ones! Later in the week before my parents left we dressed El up in his outfit again to get some pictures in it. It was such a great day - Elliot is such a sweetheart! And his dad did an awesome job!

The happy family of three.

The whole gang.

The Ensign side.

The Scheer side.

With Derek's mom, Deborah.

With the boys!

Proud Grandma and Grandpa Ensign.

Such a tired boy after all the excitement!

Later in the week when we dressed him all up.

Love him!

4 Months

2011-07-10T20:24:00.000-04:00

Mr. Elliot is four months old! He is getting big so fast and is such a joy to be around. I'm so glad that we waited to have him until we were stable enough financially so I can be at home with him. My days are long and exhausting much of the time, but oh so worth it!

We visited the doctor and El weighed 14 pounds 10.5 ounces (25-50%) and was 25.75 inches long (75-90%). I can't remember his head measurement, but it was in the 50-75% range. So, in summary, we have a skinny tall boy with a big head. Wouldn't have it any other way!

At four months, Elliot is becoming so much more interactive and smiley. This is such a fun stage so far. He has mastered grabbing at things and is using his left hand more. He rolls easily from belly to back and is very, very close to going from back to tummy. Every time he plays on his back I watch him like a hawk because I swear at any minute he is going to roll over! He loves playing in his exersaucer and is doing really good at sitting in his bumbo. He loves to read books with his dad and is quite the water baby. It really seems like he loves his bath time and has liked swimming most of the time when we've gone. Derek usually gives him a bath and likes to pour water from way up high and El will play with the water as it pours. Elliot has found his tongue and likes to stick it out and recently started chewing on it. He is very quick to smile at you and is laughing more and more every day. Yesterday Derek was juggling bags of ground beef that we were going to freeze and Elliot just laughed and laughed - so cute. He laughed at the sparklers during fireworks too. He tried rice cereal for the first time right after he turned four months and really seemed to like it a lot. He's had it twice now and has done well. We have a mesh pacifier that you can put pieces of fruit into so that the baby can suck the juice out of it - Elliot LOVES this and has tried plum, cantaloupe, and watermelon. He was awesome to watch with the plum, as it was a little sour here and there, but he plowed right through! Elliot sleeps a nine hour stretch every night and is almost like clock-work. He is getting a lot better at taking naps during the day and has started putting himself to sleep. He loves to be outside so he can look at the green trees and loves going for a walk/jog in the jogging stroller. El LOVES music, loves loves it, but his favorite songs are I Am A Child of God, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Elliot's Big Day

2011-06-01T08:21:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a HUGE day for Elliot! We have been working for a while at getting him to grab onto things and he's been doing great, but yesterday was the first time he started reaching for things to grab them. Now when he grabs on to a rattle he will have it in one hand, then will hold it with both hands, and sometimes even switches hands! It was a huge difference in just a few days, so that is exciting.

We took out Elliot's newborn insert on the car seat because he doesn't need it anymore! We also moved the shoulder straps up to the second notch on the car seat and now it is so much easier to strap him in and he seems more comfortable.

Last but certainly not least, Elliot rolled over for the first time yesterday!!! I was so excited for him, I admit that I screamed just a little bit. It was completely unexpected! We haven't been as great at tummy time as we probably should be, but yesterday I decided we should try a little. He immediately held his head up as high as I had ever seen him do, then wiggled around for a bit before he rolled over! It was awesome! I clapped and cheered him on and he laid there on his back like "what on earth just happened?!" Haha. I tried twice more to get him to roll over again so I could get it on video in case he didn't want to perform for Derek when he got home, but he wasn't interested. After Derek got home, I told him the big news and we did more tummy time. He rolled over three more times! It was fabulous. So glad Derek got to see it! Elliot was in the mood to show off apparently! It was the first time we've ever put him on his tummy and he didn't fuss. What a big boy!

We went to the mall last night with one sole purpose: find a blessing outfit or go home and order one online. First stop, Burlington Coat Factory. Not only did we find THE cutest blessing outfit ever, but we also found another church outfit that he'll be able to wear! I'm so glad we found them - I had been jealous of all the pretty dresses little girls were wearing to church and I couldn't find cute baby boy church outfits! Now we're set.

12 Weeks!

2011-05-25T11:12:00.000-04:00

I can't believe how big my little boy is getting! We have had a good couple of weeks since I last updated about Elliot's progress. We had a rough couple of weeks while Elliot was still sick, going to the doctor every day for several days, and then still a lot of worrying about him in the night time when he would cough so hard. He was still sleeping a pretty good stretch for a 2 month old, but he was waking up much more often than normal for him. In an average 8 hour night, he would wake up twice to eat and twice because of coughing. Poor sweetie. He slept with a propped up mattress for several weeks, and has now been on a flat mattress again for about a week. Elliot is feeling all the way better now, and the way we know that is because he is sleeping through the night again! The past about 4 or 5 days he has slept 9 hours straight - it has been blissful! The first couple of nights I would still get up to check on him, but I'm getting better at sleeping in longer stretches myself again. We're so happy he's a good sleeper at night - if only he would do the same during the day!

Elliot has basically mastered control of his neck by now. He hardly ever bobbles, and when he does nowadays it's usually because he is leaning so far forward to look at something he gets off balance. He still hates tummy time, but will tolerate it in longer stretches. He is great at sitting in his bumbo and loves hanging out there when he's not too tired. He has recently become interested in watching the TV and the computer screens. A few days ago we started having him watch some early learning DVDs. He loves watching the screen and seeing all the colors and shapes and listening to the music. It will be fun to see if he will be able to recognize the words in the coming months.

El is a big babbler now and loves to talk to us. He has definitely become more vocal in the most recent weeks. He is also showing more of his personality, and has made his stubbornness clear since he is refusing any kind of bottle at the moment. He is very interactive with the toys that hang from his play mat, and in the past several days he has even started kicking the toys with his feet! He has great control over his right hand and hasn't quite caught on to the idea yet that he has a left hand, but he's getting better with it. He will grip a rattle toy when we offer it to him but isn't that interested in it yet. Elliot spends most of the day with his right arm raised in the air like he's holding the olympic torch. It is quite adorable. We like to give him fist bumps because of that. Elliot has also started really smacking his lips when he is getting hungry - and he is LOUD. It is pretty hilarious. The past three days he has really started to find his feet and loves to hold his feet and butt up in the air - it makes diaper changing harder because this boy is so strong! One of my favorite developments of the past week is he LOVES mirrors. It took him a while to figure out what he was looking at, but when we stand in front of a mirror now he almost immediately starts smiling when he looks at Derek or I in the mirror. Today when we stood in front of the mirror he looked directly at himself and was all smiles!

Elliot LOVES LOVES LOVES music. It was destined to be like that anyway, but I have been amazed at how much he really gets into it! He really enjoys it when we sing to him during diaper changing time and randomly throughout the day, but this past week at church was really something. During the opening song of sacrament meeting he was just singing along and having a ball! You could tell he was really enjoying himself. He did that for the other songs he was awake for, and he also did it during the songs in relief society. One of my friends was holding him for the first song in relief society and afterwards she looked at me and couldn't believe how much fun he had had! We were singing patriotic songs and he really loved it. It is so fun for me to watch him and see his love for music. The past little while he has really started paying attention to his musical mobile, too. He loves it!

It is so fun to be with him every day while he's learning so many new things! I love that boy!

My First Mother's Day

2011-05-24T11:59:00.000-04:00

My first Mother's Day was quite adventurous. Derek was fishing in North Carolina with his family and was planning on getting home in the late afternoon, so it had been just me and Elliot since mid morning on Friday. We had had a pretty good weekend together, but El's cough had been getting worse and was now "wet" instead of dry. Late Saturday he had started wheezing every once in a while, but was still acting fairly normal. Sunday Elliot slept all through sacrament meeting - it was awesome! He woke up as the closing prayer was ending, very good timing, and immediately started coughing his head off! Poor guy. I took him home, where he kept getting worse and worse. Derek got home at about 4pm. I had just taken Elliot's temperature as he was getting home and it was 102! It was way too high. I gave him some tylenol and we took his temperature an hour later. It hadn't gotten worse, and had actually gone up a couple tenths of a degree. We gave him another hour to see if the fever would lower, but during that hour his wheezing and cough got worse, so we decided to take him to the hospital. We were worried by that point that it was pneumonia because of the wheezing. Derek gave him a blessing and we left for the hospital at about 6:30pm.

We arrived at the hospital and had no idea where to go. Luckily we ran into a nurse who was coming on her shift and she walked us straight over to the pediatric unit, where we were immediately seen. The nurse took our explanation of what was going on, took El's temperature (which was much better by that time, thank goodness), his O2 levels, weight, and all that jazz. We were seen by the doctor, who said it sounded like bronchiolitis, but she wanted to make sure it wasn't pneumonia or RSV. My poor Elliot had two chest x-rays, a breathing treatment, and a nasal swab done while we were there. The breathing treatment didn't help, and we were quite relieved to hear that it was not pneumonia or RSV. Unfortunately for us, though, bronchiolitis is viral (similar to bronchitis), so there wasn't much we could do for him that we weren't already doing. It just has to run its course, but the doctor was happy we had brought him in since he is still so little and these things can get serious pretty fast.

We were at the hospital for about 3 hours and Elliot finally fell asleep right as we were checking out at about 10pm. The little guy slept about 5 hours straight, which was his longest stretch in about a week. He was really wiped out from all the tests and especially from the coughing!

So that was my first Mother's Day. Derek was great and got me a nice card and a cool plant before he left. My family sent me an edible arrangement that was delicious! Overall it wasn't what I expected, but I'm so glad that I'm a mom to my little cutie!

Choir

2011-05-24T11:44:00.000-04:00

I was called to be the choir director at church about 10 days before I had Elliot. They realized I wouldn't be able to start for a bit and everyone was super patient with me. The old director was nice enough to continue practicing with the choir until I was ready to take over, which I did after Easter. They had had practice on Wednesday nights for several years and I quickly realized that was not going to work well for us at all. Derek has classes on Wednesday nights, so I had to take Elliot with me to the first couple of practices, which was not the best thing ever. I spoke to the choir about switching to Sundays after church and most of them were agreeable to that. The attendance numbers had been low for quite some time apparently as well, with only about 6-7 people attending on a regular basis, and I was hoping by moving to Sundays more people would attend. It is only 45 minutes long, but sometimes it is hard to remember to make it over to the ward building in the middle of the week. I got quite a bit of resistance from the old choir director, who said that many people would probably stop coming because of the move to Sundays, and I felt like there were several people "against" me. I knew this would work better for my family, though, and in order to be able to fulfill my calling I needed it to be moved to another day.

We received approval to have the practices moved to Sundays a few weeks ago and have now had 2 Sunday practices. I'm happy to say that there have been about 10-11 people at each practice! Once the word spreads a bit more, I'm hoping those numbers will continue to move upward. We are already really improving and working well together, and it is so exciting to be making beautiful music! We have our first performance in sacrament meeting this Sunday. We are singing More Holiness Give Me - wish us luck!

My favorite moment of choir so far - this past Sunday, one of the people that regularly attend and that I felt just wasn't really pleased with me being put in as director (for who knows what reason) came up to me after practice, shook my hand (with both hands) and told me that it was really beautiful. That so made my day! Probably even made my week. He is very musically talented and I thought originally we would kind of have a bond because we have some music talents in common, so I had been disappointed that he didn't really seem to like me. I feel like now we've had a break through! :) Making music is so important to me, and I'm so glad to have this calling right now, even with all the drama that we've had so far.

The Last 24 Hours

2011-05-19T12:37:00.000-04:00

My day yesterday was rough. Mostly just the morning and evening - there were a few good hours in there! Elliot woke up for his second feed of the night at 5:30 yesterday and wouldn't go back to sleep, so I had Derek play with him at 6:15 so I could lay down until he had to get ready for work at 7:15. He was all smiles for Daddy and then as soon as Mom got in the shower it was as if the world had ended. I took a 5 minute shower and fed him for 14 minutes - he hardly eats - and promptly passes out. Phew, I thought, time for myself! Wrong! 20 minute nap. He played well for a while, then got a little fussy, then finally decided he was ready to eat. He ate on and off from 9:15 - 10:30 (yep, you read that right) with one 15 minute break, then it was as if two battleships collided and Elliot was screaming for all of those affected by the collision. The wailing went on for 30 minutes. This was the first time he has been inconsolable to this degree. It was so unlike my happy baby!

Elliot finally passed out in my arms at 11:10. And he slept. And slept. I didn't dare move him, this dude needed to sleep!! He finally woke up at 1:30 and ate. At 2:00 I was able to put El down without him screaming - the first time in 5 hours! I ate lunch! It was lovely to have free moving arms!! Elliot stayed fairly happy until about 7pm. We went to the store and when we came home he was a bit fussy, so we decided to give him a bath before bed. I could tell he was really hungry and tired, so we got him in pj's and Derek tried to feed him a bottle. HOLY COW. Elliot did not like that at all. He got pretty hysterical quickly and so I calmed him down, we took a break, then tried again. Immediately hysterical again. He would cry, cry, cry, gulp, freak out, and repeat. So bizarre! He's alway taken to bottles like a champ! So we just decided to put him to bed and he could wake up when he was ready to eat more (he had taken 1.5oz).

He went down at 8:30pm and WOKE UP AT 5AM! I checked on him a million times to make sure he was okay and have basically been up since 3am. I couldn't believe he slept so long! He ate then wouldn't go back to bed so we played for a bit then went in to snuggle with Daddy. That lasted about 20 minutes until El decided he was tired and wanted to go back to bed. He was back sleeping at 7am and slept till 8:30! Then ate for an hour and went back to sleep until 10:45! He played with his toys (the dangling guys on his playmat) for 45 minutes while I got ready for the day and then ate for 30 minutes...and is sleeping again and has been sleeping for 40 minutes. What is up with this cute kid???

The Sickies

2011-05-05T09:22:00.000-04:00

My sweet baby is sick. Last Tuesday he woke up with a stuffy nose and a slight dry cough. He acted completely normal and we didn't think much of it because it didn't seem bothersome to him. On Thursday that week I woke up with a hardcore sinus headache, stuffy all of a sudden - out of nowhere! I get sinus infections often, unfortunately, so I know when I have one, but a cold usually precedes it. This time BAM, really bad sinus infection with no warning. Weird! Elliot still seemed to be doing fine, so life continued as normal.

My sinus infection got worse each day and my voice started going on Saturday. Sunday I woke up and was in SO much pain. I looked online at articles about sinus headaches (which was my biggest complaint), and there are four areas where you can get sinus headaches. Well, I had it in every single area! The worst was in my jaw. The pain in my mouth was super bad! I asked for a blessing that morning and we were lucky to find someone in the ward to come help Derek. Later in the day I got a fever. It started off at 98.8 and went up to 101! I have a naturally low body temperature, so anything above 98 degrees to me feels like a fever with the body aches and chills and everything. 101 was really high for me, and I usually don't get fevers with my sinus infections. Monday morning I woke up and felt almost like a new person! There was still some residual effects, but each day since then I have gotten better.

Monday Elliot got his 2 month shots and his stuffy nose/dry cough was still the same as it had been all week. Monday night Elliot woke up after 4 hours of sleeping (he hasn't done that in 3 weeks) coughing his head off, and he's now done that 3 nights in a row. Poor guy! He is usually okay during the day, but the nights are rough on him because he is coughing so much. I'm hoping this is just the end of the cold where the congestion is finally coming up and out. We try to suction his nose and it doesn't do anything, even with the saline drops! It's very frustrating and I'm so sad when I have to watch him cough so hard and I can't do anything to help him. Since his shots he has had an on/off fever and just doesn't seem like his happy self! Hopefully he can kick this cold out and get back to normal soon.

And You Wonder Why I Never Get Anything Done

2011-04-28T17:59:00.000-04:00

Two Months

2011-04-28T17:55:00.000-04:00

Elliot is getting so big! We go in for his two month appointment on Monday. I'm excited to see how much he's grown - not so excited for the shots.

He is doing a great job with his neck control. Most of the time we don't need to support it anymore, but we're still being cautious since he's so little. His eyes track great and he really locks in on you when he wants to. Whenever Derek is nearby, Elliot always seems to find him and will just stare him down. It's so cute.

He is getting better at tummy time, though is still not a huge fan. When he kicks hard enough he is really close to rolling over and it's adorable! Elliot is a strong little guy and is doing great in his new bumbo seat that we got last week. He is quite the smiler and lately has been smiling at you even before you try to get the smile out of him. He is starting to "talk" a lot more and almost sounds like he's having a conversation with you sometimes.

Have I mentioned how great of a sleeper Elliot is? I totally didn't expect him to be so great this early! For the last two weeks he has slept on average 7 hours a night. It is incredible. Last night he slept for 8 hours 40 minutes. Amazing! What a rock star.

We love this little boy so much. We're so glad he joined our family! He was so worth the wait!

8 Weeks!

2011-04-26T12:54:00.000-04:00

I can't believe how fast time is going! It really does get faster and faster as I get older. We are loving life and are having a great time watching Elliot grow. He is really changing practically every day and is getting so big already! He can't fit in any newborn clothes anymore and some 0-3 month clothes that are on the smaller side don't fit either! We compared him this weekend to two baby girls that were born the day after him and he is like a giant compared to them! Elliot is really long and pretty heavy already, so I'll be interested to see what his stats are at his appointment next week.

This past week was an exciting time. On his 7 week birthday Elliot went to the zoo for the first time! There was a group of people from my ward going, so it was a fun time getting out of the house. Elliot did great for such a long time out of the house! He took a few naps and was hardly fussy.

We had a couple more outings and then on Friday I was wanting to get some work done, so we were staying close to the house. One of my friends needed a babysitter for an hour, so I volunteered to watch her 4.5 year old. Elliot's tummy had been bothering him a lot of the day but he was still acting normal, so I didn't think much of it. I gave him a bottle right before she got there because he had just woken up from a 3 hour nap. He downed 5 ounces in about 15 minutes, then I stood up to burp him. He burped a little and I looked over to see the spit up damage and at the same time I turned my head I heard it hit the floor and the wall. It was still coming out, too! He had completely thrown up basically his entire feeding. It was so scary to me. Poor Elliot looked freaked out because it was the first time he had had a lot of stuff coming back up. I quickly set him down, cleaned him up, and immediately called Derek. I was borderline hysterical crying, but I held it in fairly well because I didn't want to scare the little girl who was so sweet through all of this - she even offered to help me clean it up! So cute! Derek is my rock when I fly off the handle, so even though I knew what he was going to tell me to do, he has a calming effect on me, which I was in need of. I took his temperature and it was fine, so we monitored him for the rest of the night and fed him in smaller quantities and he's been fine. Now that I've experienced it it (hopefully) won't be so scary, but it certainly was the first time! Let's cross our fingers that there isn't a next time.

Saturday I went to my cousin's sealing, so it was the first time I was away from El for more than two hours - weird! He was really good for Derek and slept almost the whole four hours I was gone. We went to DC for the first time too, and Elliot got to meet a lot of our DC friends. It was a great time!

Sunday Elliot was great during church and we had an enjoyable Easter dinner with friends. Monday Elliot got to meet his Great Grandma and Grandpa Cox, who were in town for the wedding. He had a rough day - I think his tummy had been hurting - but he did give them some smiles before they had to leave! It was a nice visit with them.

This morning my sweet boy woke up with the sniffles and a cough! Poor guy. Luckily there is no fever and he is acting totally normal. Hopefully it will pass quickly.

So there you have a snapshot into what our life is like right now! We are happy!

Cute boy was napping on the floor wrapped up in the blue blanket and 10 minutes later looked like this. How he wiggled into that position and how he did it so quickly, I have no idea! He is quite the little mover for being so little!

I love these boys.

About two minutes earlier they were both sleeping and Elliot had his hand on Derek's chin.....heart melting.

Elliot - One Month

2011-04-13T15:38:00.000-04:00

We made it to one month! I am a little bit behind, but we're still getting used to our new life. I wrote in my "baby journal" what Elliot can do at one month. The list is small, but he is growing so fast and we love him so much!

At 4 weeks Elliot can:

Lift his head
Smile when he's in the mood
Coo (only at Derek!)
Take a bottle
Take the pacifier
Grip anything he can get his hands on with his iron grip
Sleeps about 4-5 hours at night in his crib
Tracks things with his eyes

At his check up he weighed in at 9 pounds 11.5 ounces and is 21.75 inches long. His head is 37.5 cm. He is a growing boy! He isn't a big fan of tummy time but will tolerate it once or twice a day for short spurts. He is a fantastic eater and a great sleeper at night time. During the day he sometimes has a hard time going to sleep. Elliot just seems to want to make sure he won't miss anything, so he'll fight, fight, fight sleep! He is usually the happiest in the morning and when Derek is around. He is a definite Daddy's boy. He saves his best smiles for his dad and will only coo for Derek.

We transitioned him to his crib just before his one month birthday. We had had him in a laundry basket with padding (same thing my mom did with all of us) next to my bed, but once he started sleeping a little longer we just weren't getting any sleep because he is such a noisy little guy! We moved the laundry basket right outside our door for a couple of nights and then eventually to the crib.

Elliot is such a happy little boy. We have been very lucky to have such a chill son. He has tummy issues from time to time but seems to be handling it better now. The only time he cries is if he is extremely hungry, really tired, or if his stomach hurts. We love our little Elliot!

My Genes Rock

2011-03-16T21:07:00.000-04:00

I love my genes. I look like the perfect 50/50 split of my parents, and apparently my body acts just like my mom's does. One thing that I'm grateful to have NOT inherited, however, was my mom's irritable uterus. She had trouble keeping her babies in there until they were fully cooked - all of us came out at about 36 weeks. Mike was about 32 weeks. I'm glad that I was able to keep Elliot in there the whole time. That last month really does make a big difference - he weighed 2 pounds more than my mom's average baby!

Anyway, mostly this post is about how happy I am to have also inherited my mom's "shed that baby weight" gene. All I ever remember from pictures and stories about my mom's pregnancies was the fact that she never gained more than 20 pounds - I certainly didn't follow that route, but I also was pregnant a month longer than she always was - and what little weight she did gain was gone within a month.

Obviously I've never been through this before, so I had no idea what to expect. I fully expected to gain the recommended amount of weight during the pregnancy and then would lose some after delivery and then work off the rest. I didn't weigh myself immediately before I gave birth, but I'm fairly certain I gained 31 or 32 pounds. I was happy to have stayed within the weight recommendations but a little yucked out every time I stepped on the scale, especially once I passed Derek up. Of course I wanted to do what was best for baby but it hurts to see that number go up farther than it ever had! Everyone told me not to weigh myself until a couple days after to wait for the swelling to go down. I'm glad I did, because the first time I weighed myself I had lost 17 pounds!! It was awesome, and I was finally back down below Derek (where I should be!). That left 15 pounds to go, which sounded pretty okay and doable to me.

Fast forward a few days - my weight stayed pretty steady for a few days. Then the night sweats started. Holy cow! My mom warned me about those but when they didn't start immediately I didn't think they would happen. I woke up one morning and had dropped 5 pounds from the previous morning! It was awesome! So that was 22 pounds gone, and since then I've lost half a pound here and three quarters there - I'm sitting today 7.5 pounds heavier than the weight I was the day I found out I was pregnant! I'm a happy camper. It's really weird to see me being skinny again. My body looks pretty normal minus a few stretch marks and a little pooch. I'm so happy to be able to feel good about myself again - the end of pregnancy is hard on your self esteem! - and to look good for my man.

Elliot's Birth Story Part 2

2011-03-14T19:14:00.000-04:00

*This post has a lot of very specific details, so if you're squeamish or don't like to read birth stories, skip this post!

So I pushed and pushed and pushed. I started pushing I think around 9 o'clock and he was born at 9:55. I think it was pretty good for a first timer and I had a lot of compliments afterwards that I was a good pusher. Funny thing to be complimented on, isn't it? It felt like an eternity to me. I had sworn I would not push on my back in the hospital bed position because it just seemed so counter-productive, but it actually wasn't bad at all in the water. Derek supported me (literally) the whole time I pushed - I think he was probably almost as sore as I was after the whole process! I made good progress and then I heard the midwife say he had a full head of hair! I was a bit out of it still and had a hard time focusing, but eventually they put a mirror in such a position that if Derek or I wanted to see what was going on we could. It was helpful to me once I could really see what they were talking about because it gave me something to focus on. My baby had hair and lots of it! He was almost here!

And the pushing kept on. I had a hard time remembering to stop pushing in between contractions. I think the main reason I didn't stop or want to stop was because as soon as I stopped pushing the back pain would start back up again, and it was brutal. Derek couldn't give me counter-pressure in those in between lulls because of the positions we were in, and it killed! It got to the point where I was not breathing well which made baby's heart rate drop, so eventually the midwife kept his hand on my tummy to feel when the contraction stopped and would tell me to stop pushing and then everyone would basically chant that I needed to breathe. That was the hardest part for me, but I tried really hard to do everything they were saying to make sure that little guy was doing okay. They measured his heart rate with every contraction once I started pushing, so I knew that we were being well taken care of and I needed to listen to what they were telling me.

Pushing was the only point in the whole process where I felt in the least control. I still had control over my body and was working hard, but sometimes I was working so hard that I felt a little bit out of control - does that make sense? And isn't it weird that pushing a baby out feels like you're having the biggest bowel movement of your life? Sure, I know those parts are really close together but, man, you use the same muscles and everything and it just...feels like insane amounts of pressure.

Eventually I got to the point where he was crowning. Holy burning sensation. That whole ring of fire thing everyone talks about? Yep. It's real. I struggled to breathe well during that part too because in between contractions not only would the back pain come back, but I had this intense burning pain the whole rest of the time until he was completely out. I have no idea how long that was, but it felt like a long time. I'm sure it was less than 10 minutes in reality, but in my mind it felt like a lot longer than that! I finally got his head out and it felt amazing to be almost done! The next contraction they allowed me to stay in the same position to see if I could get the rest of his body out. It didn't happen, so I had to flip over on to my hands and knees and try it from that position. It didn't happen then either, so they made me quickly get to my feet to get his head completely out of the water. It sounds like a long process, but in reality it probably took about 30 seconds from the time I got his head out until I was standing and leaning on the side of the pool with Derek supporting me so I didn't fall over. When the next contraction came, I pushed with all my might - and I think there might have been a little bit of pulling assistance from the midwife - and out he came!

The midwife called out the time of birth - 9:55am - and we waited to hear that first cry. After researching water birth for so long I knew that a lot of babies born in water don't cry immediately because of the smooth transition from the womb to the warm water, so I wasn't worried about it, but it was still a tense moment waiting for that first cry. I was just trying to stay upright. The midwife was working on the baby behind me, so I couldn't see what was going on. All I had to do was watch Derek's face to get all the information I needed - he was here, he was fine, and we had done it! Derek said that it took about 20 seconds for him to squawk for the first time, and that's all we got at first - one squawk. Then the midwife jostled him a bit more to get him to cry more and he made more noise, but nobody was concerned because he came out with his eyes wide open and was just looking around everywhere. He was incredibly alert. They wanted to get his APGAR score, of course, so they patted his butt and back and rubbed him down to keep him crying. Music to my ears! They suctioned him a little bit and then passed him back to me underneath my legs (remember, I'm still standing in the same position). Then I was told I had to get out of the water and to the bed, all the while I'm holding my baby. I'm pretty sure I laughed out loud and said there was no way I could lift my legs the 3 feet up in the air to clear the side of the pool with my wobbly legs and a baby that was still literally attached to me. Derek and a nurse somehow managed to help me get safely to the bed.

And then we laid there, little Elliot on my tummy, with Derek sitting on the bed behind us, for the next 1.75 hours while Derek cut the umbilical cord, I delivered the placenta, and then I got stitched up. That was a long time to be laying there. After a while I asked what was going on and the midwife just casually mentioned that I had a minor tear that they were going to take care of. (It was fairly minor but was in such a place that it needed a lot of handy work to be fixed up. At least it was a clean tear - it could have been a lot worse for how big he was!) There was a student midwife and a student nurse at my birth, so I had three people down there staring at me for almost 2 hours while the midwife showed them how to fix me up. It was basically a class about my woman parts being put back together. Kind of weird, but I didn't really care as long as they did a good job, because I was just staring at my baby and my husband and kept repeating "I can't believe I did that" over and over. State of shock, maybe? I bled a lot after delivery (not a big surprise to me, as my mom had the same thing happen), so I received a shot of pitocin to slow the bleeding. I had a ton of clotting - some of the nurse's comments led me to believe that it was a lot more than normal - and in a twisted humorous sort of way, my body decided to make sure that nurse really knew that point to be true, because the first time they did the uterine massage there were flying clots. It was like something from a movie. There were two - I didn't see them, but I heard them hit the nurse and then smack on the floor. Gross.

The whole time we laid there Elliot was just staring with his big eyes all around the room, looking at everything there was to look at, including Mom and Dad. He was really red and his eyes were very swollen, but other than that, he looked great! No conehead, no bruising, a full head of long brown hair, the most perfect lips, and the biggest steel blue eyes you've ever seen. He didn't cry at all until we had been laying there for about two hours, and then he showed us how strong his lungs really were - he was hungry! Elliot immediately took to breastfeeding. His latch is incredibly strong - the nurse said it was one of the strongest she's seen in newborns! He was awake and alert for the first 4 hours, even while he was nursing, before he passed out in Dad's arms.

The average stay after the baby is born in the birth center is 4-6 hours. We were there for 8. Elliot was perfect. He had his first physical and was weighed at 3 hours old - I just knew he would be over 8 pounds!! He had already spit up quite a bit before they weighed him, so he could have been even bigger! Every half hour they would come to take our temperatures, heart rates, and my blood pressure. I had a slight fever for several hours after, which was one of the reasons they kept us so long. My blood pressure was great the whole time, but my heart rate was all over the place crazy. One time they checked it would be 70, then the next would be 105, then the next 137! One time they checked and my heart rate was higher than Elliot's. How's that for bizarre? Most of the time I was laying down and not being very active, so there really wasn't an explanation for it. The midwife wanted to keep me until things calmed down, and they suspected I was dehydrated from having been in warm water for so long, working so hard, and just not drinking enough fluids, so they gave me an IV. They thought the blood loss could have contributed as well, since it was more than normal. They continued monitoring me and discharged me when I was feeling normal even though my heart rate was still a bit out of control. I felt completely fine other than having a fast heart rate, so I felt comfortable going home. (By the way, my heart rate settled down soon after I got home. I think the excitement and adrenaline from the experience and lack of sleep and dehydration and everything just threw things out of whack for a while.)

Before we left the nurse went over the "what to expect" paperwork and answered any questions we had. I asked her if the back pain I had experienced was typical of all births or if that was true back labor and had to do with the positioning of the baby. She said that I definitely had back labor and that it was because his head came out sideways, at a 90 degree angle, instead of facing straight back. She told me that since I had handled back labor so well with no pain medication that if my other babies are positioned correctly those labors will be a piece of cake! (Wouldn't that be nice.)

We left the birth center at 6pm and grabbed some food from Burger King (we were famished!), then headed home with our little man. He met his Grandma and Grandpa Ensign for the first time via Skype shortly after we made it home. We ate, showered while Elliot slept, and then went to bed. That first night Elliot slept 5 hours straight! He was as tired as we were!

REFLECTIONS:

I cannot express how perfectly the whole birthing experience was. We really struggled with the decision of whether or not to deliver at the birth center instead of a hospital. We prayed about it, did our research, and went with it and it was perfect. We were so blessed that everything went as perfectly as they did. My labor was only 10.5 hours as a first timer! That was a blessing. Somehow I managed to get through the pain - that was a blessing. Elliot is perfect. What a huge blessing he is to our family. We express our thanks every night for him and are looking forward to getting to know him better as his personality grows and develops. He is such a sweet baby. The whole point of doing this without medication and in water was to alleviate the pain for me (with the use of the water) but also to make the experience as easy as possible for Elliot. It's not easy being born! It's probably just as traumatic for the baby as it is for Mom and Dad! I do believe that the transition was easier for him and so I'm glad that we were able to make it through how we planned. We are tired and life is different, but life is SO grand.

If you made it through to the end, you really wanted to know all the gory details! Please excuse how detailed it is. My memory of it is quickly fading (I even had to confirm some things with Derek so I didn't get them wrong!) and I wanted to make sure I got everything down before I forgot it. One thing I won't forget is the feeling of intense satisfaction after everything was over. I'm not someone that has an amazingly high pain tolerance level, so I was worried about whether or not I would be able to handle the pain. I fully believe I made it through because of the child birth class we took for preparation and we had practiced, and then also because of Derek. I really, really couldn't have done it without him. I know that it was really hard for him to see me in pain - and I didn't help matters much when I would sometimes say his name in the middle of a contraction. (Said more in a way of Derek help me as opposed to Derek I hate you - I had told myself I was not going to be one of "those women" who scream they hate their husbands. I did good on that part. I didn't even scream. There was just a lot of very loud moaning towards the end.) He did such a great job of supporting me and did everything I asked him to.

The whole process was so overwhelming and intense and I will never forget the surge of love I felt the moment I laid eyes on the little guy. I'm pretty sure my heart tripled that day - it doubled when I met Elliot and then expanded even more when I watch Derek with him. He is such a great dad to his boy.

So that's it! That is the tale of Elliot's birth. A mostly pleasant experience for all involved. A couple of things of note for myself in two years:

Do it in water again

You can do it without pain meds with back labor!

Don't call out Derek's name while in the middle of a contraction because it makes him feel more helpless than he already is

It's okay to get loud while in labor

You really do lose all sense of modesty when pushing a baby out

Think positive thoughts!

It would be cool if the baby came early again

32 pounds is not the end of the world, even when you weigh more than Derek

Especially when you have lost 24 of them within 2 weeks

Breastfeeding is hard but staring at the baby is fun

You really should sleep when the baby sleeps

You might tear in a weird way in a completely different spot than where you thought you would, but it will heal

You should start walking like a normal person about a week after

Your heart really will expand again and again

***I know that not everyone agrees with the decision to deliver outside of a hospital. I would never question your decision to deliver in a hospital or have an epidural because that is what works for you, and that's completely perfect for you - please don't question my decision to deliver my son this way. If you have genuine questions about the birth center process or water birth or anything, feel free to ask - I'm more than happy to talk about it. Please don't harp on me for a decision that I made that I felt was in the best interest of my family and I won't harp on you for decisions you have made.***

Elliot's Birth Story Part 1

2011-03-14T18:32:00.000-04:00

I am pretty sure that after my last check up my little guy decided he wanted to show those doctors that they don't know what they're talking about! On Thursday this is what I looked like and had been given a "diagnosis" for the day of "almost no chance of going into labor this week."

Well, I'll have you know I sure did go into labor that week, and only 3 days later! This might be long and could get a little personal, so if you're not interested in hearing details of my labor experience, this would be a good post to skip.

On Saturday, February 26, I started having practice contractions that were stronger than other ones I had felt but still weren't painful. They were tight and uncomfortable and annoying, but I knew they weren't the real thing. We went to an event that my nephew was participating in and I started timing the contractions. They were 4-5 minutes apart all day! It was a bit exhausting. There were a couple that were closer than that and some as far apart as 8 minutes, but were mostly consistent at 5 minutes apart. That night I went to DC to have a girls night with my old ward in celebration of my friend Corie's baby girl (who arrived just 19 hours after my little one!). We walked about 1.5 miles, which probably helped move things along for me. I didn't sleep at all on Saturday night and the contractions were probably about 15-20 minutes apart during the night.

Sunday morning I got up and almost immediately the contractions started back at 5 minutes apart, but they were still the same as the day before - consistent, annoying, tight, but not painful and not getting closer together. We went to church like normal and then went to Derek's sister's house for a birthday celebration. We had pork chops, salad, corn pudding, and yummies all around. We went home and skyped with my mom and dad, who were quite impressed at the largeness of my belly. I was 39 weeks 3 days pregnant.

Derek and I hopped into bed at about 11:25pm and I laid down, fully expecting a great night's sleep since I didn't sleep at all on Saturday night, so the exhaustion I was feeling was bound to help me out on the sleep end. Right? Wrong. About 5 minutes after I laid down I felt a big POP. I shot up out of bed and said "oh, my goodness," and ran to the bathroom as fast as I could. Derek hadn't seen me move that fast in a long time and was understandably wondering what on earth was going on and followed me to the bathroom, what's wrong, what's wrong? I had made it to the toilet somehow without leaking all over the floor and I looked at Derek and said I think that was my water! The look on his face was priceless. My expression was probably like his - the time was finally here! I sat there for a while and Derek hung out in the doorway and I kept telling him it wasn't pee, haha. I got myself put together a little bit and Derek suggested we go back to bed, since we were fully expecting to be in it for the long haul.

I laid down for a few minutes but just had too much adrenaline pumping to lie still. About 15 minutes after my water broke the contractions started. I immediately could tell a huge difference between practice contractions and real contractions. It was fairly intense and I could feel the pain and pressure start in my back and wrap around the front. Surprisingly, I didn't feel much tightening at all at first. After the first contraction I looked at Derek and said okay, I can do this. He had started going around putting things together for our bag. We already had a list put together but hadn't put together the bag yet since we figured we would have enough time once it really happened. A few minutes after the first contraction I had another one, and it continued. My water broke and the contractions started 15 minutes later and they were immediately already 5 minutes apart! We figured they would start at about 15-20 minutes apart and would take a while to get closer together, but my body had a different idea!

The contractions were consistently 5-6 minutes apart for about 1.5 hours and then moved up to 3-4 minutes apart for a few hours. I even had a couple that were 2 minutes apart, and that really freaked Derek out - they were getting a little too close together for him to be okay about staying home. We called the number for the birth center after hours and got a call back from the midwife on call in about 10 minutes. I was right in the middle of a contraction, so once I could talk again I got on the phone. She asked me how I was feeling and how close together they were, what the water looked like when it broke, and if I thought it was time. I told her I had no idea but they were 3-4 minutes apart and hard to walk/talk through. We decided to meet at the birth center at about 3:30am.

We ran around putting everything together and did a pretty good job of staying calm about everything, Derek did most of the running - putting the bag together and every contraction running over to me to put pressure on my back. Did I mention that I had back labor? I'm sure I'll talk more about that later. We hadn't told anyone yet that things were happening for real, so I called my mom and gave her the news. Derek eventually called his mom and sister to let them know the news as well. On the way there I sent a text message to my brothers to fill them in as well - I'm sure they loved getting a text at 2:30 in the morning!

If anyone ever asks how I got stretch marks, I'll just show them the two pictures in this post - three days apart - and let them see how far he came tumbling down and how much he grew in just a few days! I made it through my entire pregnancy with only 1 stretch mark. When Elliot was 2 days old the other ones started popping up around my belly button. The last one I've noticed showed up when he was 9 days old!

Anyway, we made it to the birth center at about 3:50am. Those contractions in the car were brutal! We got checked in with Nicky and settled into our room. I loved the rooms at the birth center - they were so comfortable and homey. Nicky checked me and I was almost a 5 and 90% effaced. She said that was quite good for only being in active labor for 4 hours. Apparently only my outer bag of waters had broken, so I still had one part that was intact, and she left it that way for the time being. I was GBS positive so she got me hooked up to an IV for the antibiotics I needed during labor. It was cold, foggy, and rainy on the drive in and I was freezing, so my veins did not cooperate at all. The only place she could get a vein was in my hand - the IV ended up going right over my wrist bone. Ouch! It took 2 weeks for that bruise to go away. So I got the IV but was still up and walking around during the contractions. Derek was such a huge help. He really was my rock the whole time.

After the antibiotics got through they unhooked the IV and I was able to get in the shower. The water felt awesome!! Nicky started setting up the pool while I was in the shower. I couldn't get in the water until I was a solid 5 or 6 because they didn't want the water to relax me too much and slow things down. I stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out and got out. I was very wobbly on my feet so Derek helped me walk around from that point. Almost as soon as I got out of the shower I felt sick and started throwing up. Luckily it didn't go on very long so at that point they weren't worried about dehydration. I realized very quickly that if I wanted to be able to bend my left wrist at all the IV heplock would have to be moved, so I asked Nicky to put it in a different spot. Thankfully the shower had "warmed up" my veins and she had plenty to choose from. Soon after that I got into the birthing pool. The water felt heavenly!! They keep the temperature right around 98, which was absolutely perfect - almost too hot at the end! There was a seat in the pool that I could sit on if I wanted and handles on the sides so I could hold on if I needed (which I did). I got in the tub at around 6am, two hours after we had arrived at the birth center.

Things kept progressing nicely from that point. The midwives switched at about 7 am, so David is the midwife that actually delivered Elliot. A little after 7 am David came in and said he could tell things were getting more intense (did I mention I was not a quiet laborer?) and closer together, so he wanted to check how things were going. He checked at 7:13 (thanks to Derek for writing things down!) and I was at an 8+! Here's where the fun part begins. My bag of waters still hadn't broken but I really wanted to push, so on my next contraction the midwife told me they were going to break my water to see if that would help things move along. I'm not sure I can really explain how bad that part hurt. I was trying to figure out how to push and was getting pulling pressure from trying to break my waters...yikes, I don't like to remember that part. As soon as that contraction was over I immediately said that I couldn't do that again. Luckily it was successful on the first contraction and my waters broke. I couldn't tell obviously since I was still in the water, but that was a relief.

I was super happy that things had progressed so well. I was now "in transition," the hardest part of labor besides pushing - hopefully we would be ready to push in just a few minutes! Um, no. Didn't quite happen like that. Shortly after he checked me I started throwing up again. That was lovely. Have you ever thrown up in the middle of a 3 minute contraction (I kid you not) with back labor over the edge of a pool that you're laying on? That was an interesting experience. I obviously didn't want it to get in the water but I knew it was coming, so I kind of launched myself up out of the pool so it would hit on the floor behind the edge - that was quite hard considering how exhausted I was at that point. My quick thinking husband got a container fast so I didn't get more on the floor. I'm lucky that that stage passed fast - the throwing up part, that is.

By the way, I had read during my pregnancy that people routinely commented that they would sleep between contractions. I had no idea how that would even be possible. I'm a light sleeper and it takes a while for me to get to sleep. I now fully understand what they were talking about. I was so completely exhausted that I totally felt myself dozing in between contractions. It was amazing to me how exhausted I was.

The midwives changed and you could tell it was now normal working hours because there were more people coming in and out of the room to check on us. It was pretty nice because we didn't have a lot of people going in and out of the room for most of the labor. Once I got to about a 9 there was a nurse and student midwife in there the whole time to check my heart rate and the baby's heart rate to make sure things were going okay. Once I started pushing everyone was in there until the end.

I started feeling more pressure and could actually feel the little guy making his way down farther during the process. That was pretty wild. When I hit transition my contractions changed their pattern slightly. Instead of being one contraction, short one minute-ish break, contraction, short break, etc., they started coming in waves of two or three contractions stacked on top of each other with 5 second lulls in between. That was pretty brutal. That was the point when I started telling myself that I couldn't do it anymore, it was way too painful, how on earth did I think I could really get this done without medication?? Luckily I had a great support system there and had a constant stream of positive comments coming towards me that helped me immensely. As soon as I heard Derek say you can do it babe or your baby's almost here, it's like something in my mind clicked over from "this is impossible" to "I can do this, just breathe!" It really was amazing to me how mental the whole process was for me.

I had been in the water for almost 3 hours at this point and the midwife suggested I get out to use the restroom. That was brutal! I was only out for a few minutes but had several contractions and let me tell you, I could not have done that without the water! It dulled the pain of the contractions immensely. The midwife knew that I had been dealing with bad back labor and offered some medication for the back pain. I suggested that since I had started to have the urge to push more by this point they check to see how close I was to see if it was even worth it. Turns out I was at a 9.5 - so close! They thought that I had been stalled there for a while because I had an anterior lip. Because I had a strong urge to push they wanted to try to push the lip up and over - yeah. So they did that. And that was brutal. I'm not sure which part was worse, the breaking of the waters or the anterior lip part. I'll call them both equally brutal. But it worked! I was finally a full 10 and given the go ahead to start pushing.

Elliot Cannon Scheer

2011-03-14T18:27:00.000-04:00

First time in the car seat

Snuggling with Daddy

Leaving the birth center - outfit says "My Dad's Outta this World!'

We're home!

Elliot Cannon

Born February 28, 2011

9:55am

8 pounds 6.5 ounces

20 inches long

My Pity Party

2011-02-24T11:15:00.000-05:00

Begin rant.

Well, I am back from my 39 week appointment. Remember when I was checked three weeks ago and I was ecstatic that I was 2 cm and 75% effaced? That's what I still am. THREE WEEKS LATER. Sad day. Apparently the midwife that checked me 3 weeks ago is "more generous" than the one that checked me, so she even said I was only 1-2 cm today. Seriously?! And then the kicker: My stupid cervix is so high up still (as in they had a hard time reaching it, sorry for TMI) that the midwife said it was fairly unlikely I would go into labor this week. SAD DAY! I know I'm only 39 weeks and it is the first baby, yeah, yeah, but come on, little man! Don't you want to come out and play? We're really cool people, I swear!!

Everyone keep their fingers crossed for me. I'm not as uncomfortable as a lot of 39 week pregnant women, but I'm uncomfortable enough for me and it is time.

End rant.

Music

2011-02-21T17:19:00.000-05:00

Music has always had a huge influence in my life. I think most everyone that knows me realizes how different I would be if I didn't have music. I'm blessed that I was raised in a family that made music a priority. I spent the last 2 years without my piano in my house. Our apartment steps were too steep to get the piano down there, and so I was without for 2 years. It was a long time! I have REALLY enjoyed having it back with me. It desperately needs a tune, but that is on the list of to-dos.

One of the best things about having the piano back is how Baby Scheer interacts with me while I'm playing the piano and singing. For a long time he has gotten more active when there is music going on at church or in the car or at home, but when I'm playing the piano he sometimes gets really, really still and pushes himself out as far as possible. It almost seems like he is hunkering down to listen and is trying to get as close to the piano as possible and be quiet so he can hear better. That's how I like to think of it, anyway. I love how he reacts to music.

I came home from my job today and decided to jam on the piano for a little bit. I started off with a couple of classical songs and little man quieted down immediately and poked out as far as he could. After I tired my fingers out a bit I switched over to my collection of church sheet music. Every time I accompany someone for a special musical number in church I keep a copy of the music, so my collection is quite large by now. I sang and played Abide with Me and then took out the Michael R. Hicks arrangement of I Know that My Redeemer Lives. It has been a long time since I've played that arrangement, but I remembered it immediately - it is absolutely gorgeous. Sometimes I've heard that people don't really love the song because it is so long, but it has always been one of my favorites. The lyrics are awesome and the music is great, even with strictly the hymn arrangement. I'm singing and playing along and by the second verse I'm a little misty eyed. I tend to get emotional sometimes when I'm really concentrating on the lyrics of this song. Little guy was still pretty quiet at this point. I'm trucking along, got my emotions back in check a bit, then I reach the second part of the second verse:

He lives to silence all my fears.

He lives to wipe away my tears.

He lives to calm my troubled heart.

He lives all blessings to impart.

It gets me teary eyed again. With the upcoming life change I have definitely had a lot of fears and tears, but I am so incredibly blessed - the perfect verse for me.

Whew, deep breath, on to the third verse. I'm good with the first part of the verse, emotions are somewhat in check. I make it to the second half:

He lives and grants me daily breath.

He lives, and I shall conquer death.

He lives my mansion to prepare.

He lives to bring me safely there.

As soon as I hit the words "conquer death," Baby Scheer started going crazy, completely uncharacteristic of his "usual" during jam sessions. Those first two lines have a lot of meaning for me right now, first off because of the growing life inside of me and this miracle I get to participate in, and then secondly Friday was the 10 year anniversary of my Grandpa Ensign's passing. I usually have a period of about a week right around the date where I think an extra lot about him and miss him even more than I normally do. This year was a little extra hard because I so wish that he was here to meet my little man when he gets here. He would be so happy with my little family. So I've been thinking a lot about those two things this week, and having little guy go crazy right at that point of the song was special for me. I know that Grandpa is doing good things and is keeping all of his great grandchildren that are waiting to come down and play (there are 5 of us right now) company.

Tears streaming at this point, I continue on. Last verse, I can make it. Remember, I'm still trying to sing at this point, too. It was tough!

He lives! All glory to his name!

He lives, my Savior, still the same.

Oh, sweet the joy this sentence gives:

“I know that my Redeemer lives!”

I didn't make it. I had to just play for a few lines at the very end of the song, but I made it back for that last all important sentence: I know that my Redeemer lives. What a special experience that was for me.

38 Weeks 3 Days

2011-02-20T17:12:00.000-05:00

And here I sit, patiently waiting for little man to make his grand arrival. I was absolutely convinced 2 weeks ago at my 36 week appointment that he would be coming early, was having a lot of contractions, was making progress - now nothing. I still get an occasional contraction here and there but nothing consistent. They have, however, gotten stronger. We've been talking to baby and letting him know that whenever he's ready we're ready too, but I think he'll just come when he's good and ready. My mom had a hard time keeping her babies in until they were full term and usually had hers before 36 weeks, so I've decided I'd rather have this "problem" (i.e. having to learn patience) as opposed to possibly dealing with premature baby issues. I'm glad that my body is capable of housing a developing baby for as long as it is supposed to. That is what I am going to keep telling myself until he's here. Though I am SO looking forward to laying on my stomach and not feeling gross when I look at the scale or in the mirror and not having pain when I walk...the list goes on and on. I have had a fairly pleasant pregnancy, so I can't complain much, but when a lady is 1.5 weeks from D Day, it has to be expected, right? I am swollen, can't walk normally because he is so low (but still can't breathe because he somehow can be almost fully engaged and still hanging out in my ribs), get tired from doing the smallest of tasks, feel like I am constantly being head butted in the woman parts, and I have to use the bathroom every half hour. Did I mention that I weigh probably 15 pounds more than my husband at this point? Yeah, that one hurts me. Repeat after me: It will come off, it will come off, it will come off...

Even though there are a lot of unpleasant things at the end of pregnancy, I will certainly miss feeling my baby move inside of me. I try so hard to describe to Derek what it feels like and there are no words that really give it justice. Sometimes I just sit there and watch my belly as he rolls around, does his body glides, or just when he has the hiccups. I like trying to figure out what body part he is poking out, too (I have trouble telling the bum from the back, but I'm really good at feet). I feel a very close connection to him because he's been housed inside me for so long and am so glad that I have been able to participate in this miracle of developing life. While I'm incredibly eager to get my body back and to go back to being me, I know that things have changed and they are for the better. We are so excited to meet this little guy that has turned our world upside down, but I am going to try to enjoy the time I have left of being pregnant.

So here I sit, still 2 cm dilated, 75% effaced, with a baby at -1 station. This week I'll get checked to see if any more progress has been made. Until then, patience, friends, patience!

I leave you with my last 2 pictures - 37 weeks 1 day and 38 weeks 1 day. It is hard for me to believe that even this far in pregnancy there can be a big difference in belly size!!

Nesting

2011-02-10T19:05:00.000-05:00

Today I had my 37 week check up which went well. My blood pressure is good, baby's heart rate is great, and fundal height is just about right on target. I didn't get checked but last week I was 2cm dilated and 75% effaced. Hopefully there has been some progress on that front! Unfortunately I tested positive for the GBS Strep so when I go into labor I'll have to be on antibiotics to make sure the bacteria doesn't pass to baby during the birth. It's not that big of a deal I guess, but still kind of a bummer. Luckily the birth center can do a heplock so I only have to have the IV in for 20 minutes out of every hour and it won't affect my ability to walk around or get in the tub or anything. My appointment was very quick - I was in and out in 20 minutes. We got a dusting of snow last night and things were a bit slick in the parking lot on the way in, so on the way out I was walking very, very slowly to make sure I didn't fall. Well, so much for that! One of my feet slipped right out from under me and I went down hard on my right knee. Luckily that was the only part that hit. I didn't have to catch myself on my hands or anything and thankfully didn't topple over on my front or back sides. It could have been a lot worse than it was! My knee is pretty banged up but that is the only injury, thankfully. Anyone else find it ironic that the first time I fall my whole pregnancy was in the parking lot of the birth center on the magical "full term day"?? I thought it was hilarious! Good place to fall, though...if I had fallen in a different way I would have just gone right back in to get things checked out.

Since I had my appointment I was off the schedule and went home and vegged for a while. Afterwards I decided I wanted to stop being lazy and do fun stuff. I cleaned the kitchen, loaded/unloaded the dishwasher, swept, cut up a pineapple, cleaned out the fridge, and made soft pretzels! They were SO good. I think I've already eaten 3 of them (they're not massive like the ones at the mall though). I made a nice dinner too and was just up on my feet all day and having a good time. Now I'm exhausted! Every time I would stand up from the sitting/laying position I would get a BH contraction. When I was walking around the kitchen I would get them quite frequently. I even started timing them at one point - when I was walking around I was having them 3 minutes apart! They are still in the tightening stage though, they don't hurt. I had a couple towards the end of the evening where they were more uncomfortable, but they haven't hurt yet.

We're ready for you anytime, little man! We're so excited to meet you!

36 Weeks 6 Days

2011-02-09T20:00:00.000-05:00

We are officially 4.5 hours away from being full term! I am feeling pretty good for being almost 37 weeks pregnant. Monday I felt awesome - lots of energy, hardly any contractions, not too much pelvic pain...it was great. Tuesday I woke up and felt good too and then had a crash in the middle of the day. I was wiped out! Shortly after my crash I started sneezing my head off. That continued the rest of the evening and I went to bed early because I was so tired. Well, so much for that - I got absolutely no sleep. My nose was stuffed up, my throat was so sore I could hard swallow, I had a pounding headache, my back hurt no matter the position I was in, and my pore pelvic area hurt SO bad the whole night! Sounds lovely, doesn't it? I've tried hard not to complain my whole pregnancy, but last night was bad! I kept waiting and waiting for the alarm to go off so I could finally get up and out of bed and when I finally looked it was 4:30!! I laid there a while longer and then finally got up, took my pillow, and went to lay on the couch. I hate not laying next to Derek but I have been concerned that he hasn't been getting a lot of sleep lately because of my constant tossing and turning, so I figured that since I now have other options for laying during the night I might as well take advantage. The sweetie came out after the alarm went off and told me I couldn't do that again and to not worry about him. I felt like a zombie all morning and then luckily my headache subsided some before my job at 1pm. Now that it is evening again my sore throat is starting to come back and I've had a super stuffed nose all day and just felt kind of "blah." I'm hoping I can get some sleep tonight. I've been drinking tons of fluids today in the hopes that I can kick this cold right out before it even really gets started. I have had plenty of people tell me that they got a cold a few days to a week before they went into labor, so maybe it is a sign!! :)

Derek told me this morning that every time I got up to use the bathroom last night I would kind of moan as I hobbled out of the room. The whole night was kind of a blur so I was trying to remember why I would have done that since I try to be really quiet since I get up so many times. Then I remembered I was having somewhat painful contractions every time I had to get out of bed and then when I had to walk my pelvic area felt like it was broken! So I guess I moaned a little. Hopefully I didn't freak him out too much. He said it wasn't a big deal that he heard it, he just kept thinking keep him in there at least a day longer!! (We can't deliver at the birth center before 37 weeks, so we've been counting down the days to that "magic" day!) Luckily we're in the clear now. Now the countdown is on and the clock is ticking...when will he arrive??? We can't wait to meet him!

Hormonal Attack

2011-02-01T00:19:00.000-05:00

A few nights ago I had my first big hormonal freak out attack. I think I have done pretty well, considering it didn't happen until I was 35 weeks. I have always been of the opinion that you shouldn't use hormones during your period and/or pregnancy as an excuse to be a meanie, so I try to keep it in check as much as I can - though I DO know that it can be hard sometimes, and the hormonal shifts are real. Anyway, the last two weeks or so since little man dropped I have been up several times at night and haven't been getting the best sleep. Friday night this last weekend I was going on almost a week of getting about 3 hours of sleep a night. I would sleep for about 3 hours, wake up to use the bathroom the first time, and then never got back to sleep. My back also started having major issues at night, too. It didn't matter which side I slept on or was laying on, within 15 minutes it was super sore and I would have to flip over.

Friday night kind of took the cake. We went to bed about 1am and by 4 I had been up for a bit just laying in bed, trying to get comfy enough to go back to sleep. My back hurt something fierce! At about 5 I got out of bed and went to the front room to stretch on the floor. I did that for about 20 minutes and then got back in bed. After laying there for 10 minutes, the back pain came back so bad I was on the verge of tears. I didn't know what to do! I had no couch to go lay on, it would hurt just as bad to lay on the carpet in the living room. I couldn't sit in a kitchen chair to make it feel better. A shower would be a temporary fix, and who knows where my heating pad is! Derek turned over and I knew he was coherent when he turned over so I asked if he knew where the back massager was. He told me and said what's wrong and I immediately started bawling. That's all it took! Weeks of bad sleep, hormones, and intense pain=a complete meltdown. On top of that, I felt horrible for waking Derek up. He was so sweet about it though, and just held me until I calmed down. We got the massager and then he used it on me for about a half an hour. Talk about diligent! What other man would do that at 5:30 in the morning on a Saturday when you should be sleeping in? We went back to bed, and while I didn't sleep, I was able to rest and the back pain wasn't excruciating anymore.

I have tried to figure out different positions for sleeping and some seem better than others, so the pain has been a bit better the past couple of nights. I am still averaging about 3 hours a night - one night recently was 4! - but I am managing. Luckily I have never had to have a ton of sleep in order to function, though I can't imagine my little guy is too happy about how tired I am all the time! It is 12:15am now on Monday night and I'm awake because I was having a restless arm and restless leg and couldn't get comfortable. Anyone else ever get that? I only get it when I'm extremely, extremely tired. Isn't that sad? I get so tired I get restless leg and it keeps me up!! Hopefully it will go away soon so I can try to sleep some tonight. The good news is we got our furniture delivered today so I'm actually sitting on a couch right now! It is awesome!

35 Weeks 3 Days

2011-01-31T09:04:00.000-05:00

I have been waiting and waiting for these Braxton Hicks contractions to start so I could get an idea of what I have gotten myself into. As soon as I hit my third trimester, everything I read said I would be getting them soon...tick tock tick tock. Most of my friends I spoke with said they started getting them around 30 weeks...tick tock tick tock. I don't know why I was so anxious! Yesterday morning I was waddling around the kitchen getting breakfast and felt this sudden tightening on my tummy. Baby has been balling up for several weeks and I figured it was that, but it felt a bit tighter and different somehow. I looked at my tummy and it was so tight everywhere! I felt on all the different sides and it was rock solid everywhere! I walked over to Derek and he looks at me with this look of "Why are you staring at me with your bare belly hanging out" and I told him I was finally having a practice contraction! It actually stayed tight for a lot longer than I expected, probably about a minute and a half. We continued our day as normal and I had about one every hour and a half to two hours.

We made dinner together and then put little man's dresser together and I was having what I thought were BH very often, about every 15 minutes. I am still having a hard time distinguishing between baby balling up and a contraction, so maybe I wasn't having them as often. Who knows? They weren't painful and weren't getting any closer together or anything so I wasn't worried about it. In my mind, though, it is so ironic that I have been waiting and waiting to see what these things feel like and then WHAM, one day they decide to "turn on."

New Year's Resolutions

2011-01-12T10:10:00.000-05:00

I've never been very good at resolutions but there hasn't ever been anything that I've really, really needed to work on when you think of typical resolutions. 2011 will sure change that! So here is my first attempt at New Year's resolutions. Since it's my first year, I'll try not to be too ambitious.

These aren't in any particular order.

1. Read the scriptures daily for 10 minutes.

2. Attend the temple at least every other month.

3. Lose 30 lbs and get back in shape after baby boy is here.

4. Stick closely to the budget and save money where possible.

5. Find a way every day to show Derek how much I appreciate him.

I think five is a good number to start with. I'm hoping that number three will be easy to do - hoping for my mom's genes that will result in me shedding the weight without even thinking about it like she did - but we'll see how that all works out. Number four will be interesting to see how we do sticking closely to a budget. We've always had one and done good about sticking close, but when we've always had two incomes, so this will be the first time where we HAVE to stick to the budget. For number five I was going to say something like "be nicer to Derek" but that would imply I'm not nice to him. :) We are pretty nice to each other (he made me breakfast in bed this morning, the sweetie!) most of the time, but I think especially after little man gets here it will be important to show him just a little bit more appreciation. Wish me luck!

Happy 32 Weeks!

2011-01-06T08:51:00.000-05:00

Wow, where is the time going? It is just flying now! A lot has happened in the last 5-6 weeks which I hope to update you with soon, but for now just a quick update on baby stuff. I have really popped out now and little man is getting huge. He is totally an acrobat and is a constant mover. Sometimes I like to just lay there and look at my tummy wiggle around. Before it would just be one side moving depending on where he kicked from, but now my whole stomach will change shape as he moves around. It is pretty wild. Everything is progressing normally and he's measuring right on target and sometimes a little big.

I had the 16 week thyroid blood work ran at my OB practice and one of the hormone levels came back low. When reviewing my history at my last appointment at 29 weeks, the midwife re-ran the thyroid test to see if it would still be low or if it was a fluke thing. She had the blood drawn at the same time as my glucose test (which I passed with flying colors!) and the same level came back lower than it was at 16 weeks. They called with my results and told me I needed to get it checked out by my primary care doctor or an endocrinologist, so I made an appointment with my PCP.

When I met with the PCP he didn't seem very concerned about the level (it is my T3 uptake that is low), but because I am pregnant he wanted to be extra cautious and told me to get all of the thyroid levels ran again except for the T3 uptake, since we know that that will be low. I went on Monday and had the blood drawn (where I'm pretty sure the nurse blew my vein!) and will be calling for the results today. I expect that the rest of the levels will be in the normal range since they were on all the other tests, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

I have my 32 week appointment today at the midwives. I was kind of freaking out about my weight gain since my last appointment 3 weeks ago when it jumped all of a sudden last week, but thankfully it has gone back down to a normal range and is right on target. I apparently was retaining water when we moved last week - maybe stress? Who knows, I'm just glad it went away! More updates to come soon.

31 weeks 2 days

27 Weeks!

2010-12-02T20:52:00.000-05:00

Not much of an update as to the pregnancy, but I can't believe that I am 27 weeks! Just 13 more weeks until this little cutie is fully cooked and ready to come out and play with us! Did I mention that the third trimester starts NEXT WEEK? Wow! I have the regular aches and pains that I imagine happen with every pregnancy. Everything has been pretty smooth sailing, which I'm grateful for. My only complaints would be the pelvic pain that started 5ish weeks ago that is still here and probably will be the rest of the pregnancy and the back pain that has gotten worse as of late. My little body isn't used to this much weight, especially since it is almost all belly! Our little guy has vamped up his movement lately and I can feel him pretty much constantly throughout the day and when I wake up at night. He recently found my ribs and spends some time up there but tends to hang around my belly button, which has always been his favorite spot. We are still working on a name and haven't made a lot of progress, but I hope we'll have a name for him when he comes out!

D.C.

2010-12-02T20:45:00.000-05:00

We have lived in D.C. for 4.5 years now. When we first moved here the "plan" was to live here for 2 years and then move on. Of course, we all know how plans change, and it kept morphing and molding and here we are. We have been very happy here, have had some incredible opportunities, have formed long lasting friendships, and have grown a lot since moving here. It is hard to believe that when we moved here we hadn't even celebrated our 1 year anniversary yet and I was 20 years old! Time sure does fly. Our ward family here has been a blessing and we have truly felt like we have grown so much in the gospel and in our testimonies. It has also been great to be close to a temple. We're lucky that even when we move out of the city we will still be about the same distance away from the temple, so we will still have that blessing.

While we have loved D.C. and our time here, it feels like it is the right time to leave the city. Most of our friends have moved out of the city in the past year, so we don't have a lot of people left around to hang out with (though those that are here we love and will miss dearly!). Since Derek started his new job the commute has been pretty hard on him and I feel like I hardly ever see him with all that he has going on plus the hour drive each way. We have wanted for a while to buy a place of our own, as apartment living has its disadvantages, especially basement apartment living. It is important for us to finally get to a place where we will know we'll be for a fairly long period of time and that we can officially call home.

Another reason why I think it is a good time to leave D.C. is I feel like the violence has stepped up lately, or at least it is being reported more frequently. When we first moved to the city I remember friends and family being nervous because D.C. has such a high crime rate. I blew it off and said that we would be living in Northwest, the safest quadrant of the city. Most of the crime happened in the two south quadrants, so we wouldn't have any problems. Even in Northwest, though, I can think of several things right off the bat that have happened in Northwest - our car getting broken into twice within six weeks of each other, our bikes getting stolen, Derek's temporary tags on his car getting stolen, a friend getting beat up on his walk home from work (broad daylight), the robbery-turned-bad that happened a few blocks down from us several years ago where a murder took place during the robbery, the random stabbing in Chinatown of a tourist a few months ago, the creepy guy that followed me for a few blocks way too closely yesterday, and the kicker: On Tuesday a 16 year old boy from our ward was shot in broad daylight and died.*

Now, I understand that there will always be crime and bad things will always happen, but it just seems like it has gotten a little much lately. Maybe it is those hormones kicking in telling me to flee to the safest place possible before little man gets here. I don't know what it is, but I feel really good about leaving D.C. now. I think if we would have left a year ago maybe I wouldn't have been as ready, but it is time. I'm glad we'll always have happy memories from our time here that won't be overshadowed by the "crap" that has gone on. We have been extremely blessed here and will always remember D.C. fondly because of that.

*As a caveat, it should be added that it appears that the boy from our ward had made some decisions that put him in the situation that he ultimately found himself in on Tuesday, which led to his death. We all have our struggles and he was in the middle of a hard time in his life trying to figure out which path to take. This unfortunately is a situation where we most likely won't ever find out what really happened or why, but it appears that the shooting was related to two gangs feuding and he ended up by himself in the wrong "territory."

We're Moving!

2010-12-02T20:43:00.000-05:00

We have been looking for a house for several months. Our master plan has always included our kids having a stay-at-home mom, so once we found out we were expecting our little guy and made it into that magical second trimester we started looking hard. With Derek's job we knew that we would always have a lot of job opportunities in the area and there are so many things that we love about it here - job security, being close to a temple, family is close by, my work set up is great...the list goes on. Those were definitely the big things for us. One of the biggest drawbacks is...ding ding ding! The money. Houses are not cheap around here, even after the huge market collapse. However, after looking for 3.5 months and not really finding a lot, we finally found "the one"!

We went and walked through the house with our realtor (who is fantastic), loved it, and immediately went back to her office to put together an offer. We submitted an offer to the seller's realtor about 9pm Wednesday night and found out on Friday morning that our offer had been accepted! We believe that there were several factors that contributed to us getting the house, but one of the big pulls was the fact that we are of the same faith. Yes, I know, what are the odds! When we went to see the house I noticed a car out front that had a very distinctive license plate (KOLOB). I thought that was unusual. Then when we were putting the paperwork together our realtor mentioned that they wanted to close quickly because they had already bought a house in Utah and wanted to be out there in time for the holidays. I looked at Derek and said there was no way they weren't LDS, and our realtor questioned us about it. I explained the license plate and then them moving to Utah, so that's how we knew. She said she was glad that we told her because sometimes those things give the seller a little extra push to accept the offer. She mentioned it to the seller's realtor, who relayed the information to the seller. It is incredible to me that the benefits from being a member of the church can pop up at the most random moments in your life.

We had the housing inspection the day after the offer was accepted, which went pretty well. There was only two things that needed to be taken care of before we could move in, which the sellers have already taken care of. Everything else is very small and not immediately necessary for move in. We picked a lender this week and they are starting the title search and appraisal processes. We hope to close on Derek's birthday, the 29th. Wish us luck! We will be moving to our new home in Gambrills, Maryland, the end of the month/beginning of January.

Body Parts Flying

2010-11-16T14:51:00.000-05:00

Everything is going really well in our little corner of the world. Time is flying and we are enjoying it as much as we can! I am 24 weeks 5 days already. Hard to believe how fast everything has gone and there is just 3.5 months until our little guy is here!

There hasn't been much going on, but recently I have had some experiences I wanted to write down. Two weeks ago I had a job in Rockville, Maryland at 10am. Most of the time I get jobs in downtown DC but occasionally will be assigned somewhere in Rockville. In order to get to Rockville, I have to walk 20 minutes to the metro, metro for about 35 minutes, then walk another 5 minutes to the job location. I estimated I had to catch the train at 9am in order to make it to my destination by 9:40 (court reporters generally arrive 15-20 minutes early to set up). I got up, got ready, then left my house a bit later than I should have for the walk to the metro, probably about 8:45 instead of 8:35-8:40. I walk a bit slower than normal now and need to take that into account too, so I was really running late. I was feeling good, so I really booked it and made it in about 13 minutes...faster than even my pre-pregnancy time. I then sat on the metro for 45 minutes (thanks to a stop and go train), was almost late, and literally ran to my job and made it about 10 minutes early. The job lasted 2 hours, went very smoothly, and as soon as I stood up after everything ended it was like my body stopped working. My pelvic area hurt so badly I wasn't sure I would be able to walk! I made it to the metro and sat on the train for 35 minutes. When I got off, I seriously considered catching a taxi the 9 blocks home it hurt so bad! I decided instead to take it really easy and try to stretch it out. I made it home and then tried to rest as much as I could. When Derek got home I got up to greet him and then proceeded to hobble around like a 90 year old woman. For about 4 days I was in pretty extreme pain when I would walk, bend...basically do anything except lay - and then when I was laying and I needed to get up, that hurt too. Thankfully, the pain has subsided a lot and two weeks later here we are and I have lost most of my waddle and pain. I am probably at about 85-90 percent most days and I expect that it will probably remain there for the rest of the pregnancy. The pain is still there around my hips, tailbone...basically the whole pelvic region, but it is much more manageable than before.

The past two to three weeks little man has really ramped up his movement. I feel him a lot more often and it is much stronger than before. Yesterday was a fun day. I switched my prenatal care to the midwives and my first appointment with them was yesterday. I felt really good about it, they were very thorough and seemed like they were really interested in me, and I think it will be a good fit. They got the doppler out to try to get his heart beat and it took forever to find it, and then when they finally did, he would kick the wand! He was kicking it so hard I could see my belly moving. That's my boy! It was awesome.

The rest of the day he was really active, almost like he got riled up from kicking the doppler wand. I was relaxing last night watching TV and pulled my shirt up to watch my belly and put my hands on my stomach. The left side felt like normal, pretty soft, but the right side was rock solid and a bit more swollen than the left side. I'm fairly positive that I was feeling our little man's head or bum. I know that it was definitely him and it was smooth and round. It was pretty wild. I yelled for Derek to come over to feel it too and he was able to for a bit until the little guy moved. It was so crazy! I could feel it like that a couple more times throughout the evening, and one time there was a very distinct slant on my belly from where he was hanging out. I have started seeing body slides on my belly recently too, as opposed to just little pokes. I'm pretty sure soon I'll be able to tell what body parts he's poking me with and maybe what position he's lying in. It is such a wild experience to feel this little person moving around in me and seeing the outward results of me getting bigger!

The name hunt is on, and any suggestions are more than welcome. We have a list and keep going back to the same names, but we probably won't officially decide and announce the name before he's here. We'll hopefully have his name picked out before he gets here, but want to make sure the name suits him before announcing it. Life is grand!

Pregnancy Tales

2010-10-28T12:49:00.000-04:00

I apparently have reached the point in pregnancy where people know for real that I'm pregnant. For a good ten weeks it has been obvious to me and Derek, but I understand that it takes a while for people to feel confident when making comments to a woman about being pregnant. Heck, most of the time I don't say a word unless it has been confirmed personally or unless it is so obvious there's no getting past it. That is certainly dangerous territory. Anyway, the last two days I have gotten comment after comment, so I guess it is official - I have popped!

Yesterday I had a deposition that was supposed to start at 2 pm and go for two hours. I ate lunch at 12:30, left the house, and figured I would be back home by 4:30ish and would have no need to pack a lunch for myself. Boy, was I wrong! First off, the witness was an entire hour late, so instead of starting at 2 we started at 3. Then as soon as they started I realized there was no way it would only go two hours with how the witness was evading the questions and going on tangents instead of answering the questions straight up. We took a break every hour and then at 5:45 when we had a break I asked the attorney how much longer he thought it would be. He said he wasn't sure, but probably about an hour. I said that an hour would be fine, but if it was going to be longer than that we would have to break so I could eat something. Luckily I had some snacks with me so I was able to get some sort of nourishment, but, man, that was tough. The attorneys were very nice after I told them I would need to eat something, making jokes about how I'm supposed to be a machine and why would I need food (typical comments to a court reporter!), then the female attorney in the room asked if I was going to have a baby. I said yes, we talked about how far along I am (oh, you're so tiny!), etc., etc. After that the male attorneys would break every 30 minutes to ask how I was doing. It was nice. We ended up finishing at 7ish and I got something to eat at 7:20 - seriously could have ate a horse! I was incredibly sore and so hungry and just exhausted...haven't had a day like that in a long time and it really took a lot out of me!

Today I went to an office that I go to regularly where I have to sign in at the front desk, go through an x-ray machine, have my stuff screened, and have someone come and escort me to the appropriate room. It's pretty hard core. Anyway, this requires me to lift my 35+ pound bag to about belly button level to get it on the belt to go through the machine. Whew, that is tough. I was able to do it but I'm not sure if I'll be able to much longer. Luckily they're pretty nice there and I'm sure someone would help me. I think halfway through me lifting the bag the guy behind the machine realized that I was pregnant and came over to make sure I got it, then he instructed me to go through the right x-ray machine (that was off) instead of the active one. I went through, the lady behind had a cow since I didn't have a badge until he pointed out that I was pregnant. I actually hadn't realized why he sent me through the other way until the lady said, oh, I see why you did that, how far along are you? Duh, Jackie! He sent you through the off machine because of the x-rays! Wasn't that nice? I told the lady I was 22 weeks and the three ladies standing around all looked at me, shocked, and said they were impressed. Literally, isn't that funny? The lady in charge said you look good, girl, you look good. That was a nice way to start the day!

I got up to the deposition and set up my stuff, then the attorneys came in and they realized the witness had accidentally gone to the wrong office. We had to wait until he got to where we all were, which was about 45 minutes. I had a very pleasant conversation with the attorney, whom I had never met before, and didn't really mind that we were starting late. I mentioned that I had walked there since I live close to the office, we talked about cars and also about missionaries (he's a good friend with an LDS attorney and they've had missionaries over a lot), and lots of other things. We did the deposition and then I started packing up. As the attorney was leaving he said you mentioned you had walked here, would you like a ride since I'm going straight up Connecticut Ave? How nice is that! I declined and said I really appreciated it, but it wasn't far and I wanted to enjoy the last warm day we'll have for the next couple of months - it is gorgeous outside! Anyway, it was really nice and sort of made my day that people were so nice to me today!

Europe Trip: Paris Day 4/Going Home

2010-10-26T18:22:00.000-04:00

Here it is, folks!! The END!! We had a lovely last day in Paris. We had enough time in the city that we were able to kind of relax and take it easy at the end. My picture taking kind of died off in the end, but our last day was fun!

We went to a science museum (for my studly husband's benefit), got introduced to crepes with nutella and bananas (YUM!), stopped at a music museum and heard a choir finishing up their practice - wow, good acoustics in there, got to the Louvre 30 minutes early so we could run in and see the Mona Lisa and they wouldn't let us in! I was super bummed. We went back to Notre Dame and got to hear an organ concert, though - that made up for it somewhat. The concert was the coolest! Our final dinner in Paris was, ironically, an awesome sushi dinner. The accents of the waitresses were so cool, a Japanese/French mix. We called it early so we could pack and hit the sack early. We loved Paris!!

Our trip home was fairly uneventful. I think this was the flight where we had to run to our connecting flight and they had to hold the plane for us, but I can't remember exactly. We made it home okay and went back to work the next day. That was a bit rough. We loved Europe and can't wait to go back!

Europe Trip: Paris Day 3

2010-10-26T17:48:00.000-04:00

I started this post about five months ago and then completely forgot about it! So enjoy the pictures...I have little to add to them. It was an awesome day!!

Notre Dame was SOOO cool. I loved it.

We visited Saint Chapelle, Louvre, Pompadou Center and "people watched." It was a great day!

We ended up at this market which is claimed to be the largest in the world - 17 acres. We just plowed right through everywhere and it still took us 2ish hours to walk around!

We had fresh bread in the morning again - yum!!

We walked through a court yard close to a church and saw this sign. Does that really mean that parents can't hold their kids' hands? We didn't get it.

LOVE this picture!

This is the cute little street we stayed on. I love the street and the little court yard at the end.

This is the metro tunnel.

Anatomy Scan

2010-10-20T11:26:00.001-04:00

Some of the images are a little grainy - sorry. We have decided that baby has the cutest profile ever. Super cute nose and lips that look adorable!

The appointment was early in the morning and we're pretty sure that the technician woke the baby up. We could see lots of stretching and arching of the back going on - it was so cute!

This picture is a bit freaky - that is the eye lens poking out up there. Very alienish!

Look at that darling nose! Brain looks good (she even said it was big!), four chambers to the heart, kidneys are good, bones look good. I am 20 weeks 6 days but baby is measuring about a week ahead, had a heart rate of 157, and weighs 15 ounces!

DRUMROLL, please!!!

It's a BOY!!!

He is not a shy little guy, as you can see from this picture. You can see his cute little bum and his legs are spread wide so, yeah, they weren't kidding when they said he's a boy!

We're so excited for this little man to join our family!!

Big Week

2010-10-20T10:41:00.000-04:00

The last week has been a big week for our baby. Last Tuesday I went to the temple in the middle of the day and it was SO cool to feel little kicks and wiggles throughout the session. Baby seemed to like two parts in particular, which was fun. I must also mention that I have now regained the world of wearing underclothing that fits...holy moly, what a difference that makes in my comfort level!

Tuesday night Derek got home from his class around 10:30 pm and I was getting ready for bed. I have a strict two day regimen of applying lotiony goodness, so I put that on and baby started jumping all over the place and kicking like crazy. I had been able to feel the kicks on the outside for a couple of days already and Derek just kept missing it, so I yelled for him to come feel his baby and he ran in, jumped on the bed, plopped his hand on my tummy and waited. Finally after about a minute of waiting baby issued the biggest kick I had ever felt right where Derek's hand was! Derek immediately said, Wow, I felt that! And then that was it. That was the only kick baby gave for the rest of the night. It was sort of like the little one said, Okay, Dad, I'll give it to you, BAM, I'm going to bed. Haha! It was so cool. Derek was so excited and I had a hard time getting to sleep because I was so happy he finally felt it!

Over the next several days baby started getting much more active, and on Thursday night I was lying in bed getting ready for the lotion and I saw my tummy move a few times. It was so crazy to see! Derek had a hard time telling the difference between my heart beat and the kicking, but caught one or two. The next night he saw it a few more times. Saturday we were sitting at the table shortly after lunch and baby started kicking a lot right by my belly button, so I pressed on my stomach in that area and I swear I could feel the baby under my hand!! Baby reacted to the pressure from my hand and just started kick boxing the area, so I put Derek's hand there so he could feel more kicking. He kept it there maybe a minute and the kicks just got harder and harder and it was a constant, Wow, that was big! comment stream from Derek. Very, very cool that he was able to catch a glimpse of what is going on in there!

Today we had our anatomy scan...that will get another post by itself, very exciting time! This week has been a big one for our little family and we're so happy everything is going well!

Baby Daddy

2010-10-10T22:18:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Derek helped some guys at church paint a wheelchair ramp at someone's house in the morning. When he was getting ready to leave I asked him if he had said good morning to his baby yet. He said not yet, then immediately went to his knees, put his ear up against my belly and said, "Good morning! How are ya?" He paused for a good 10 seconds, looked at me, then resumed his same position and said, louder, "I said how are ya!" It was hilarious. I love seeing him interact with the baby, even though it might seem weird to him at the moment. He rubs my belly more (more natural to do now that there is something to rub!) and will come running if I said I felt the baby kick. We're still waiting for that first kick that he can feel, but I think it's getting closer...those kicks are getting harder, so it has to be soon!!

Birthing Center v Hospital

2010-10-07T19:07:00.000-04:00

So I've been having a huge debate in my head the past several weeks. When I moved to DC I just picked a GYN doc and have stuck with her. She is nice but doesn't deliver babies anymore. I continued going to the same practice once I got pregnant because it just seemed normal. They are a very large practice and have the policy where you rotate through each doctor on staff and that's how they roll. It has been okay, nothing really bad has happened, but it hasn't been exactly what I had hoped. The doctors just seem to be super busy and non-interested and the appointments last 2 minutes flat. They don't ask me questions, I know they are rushed so I am rushed so I forget all my questions, and at the end of the appointment when they're gone I just think - This is my first time! Give me a little bit more to go on! Tell me what to do!!

There is a midwife on staff that I really like, but because of their policy to rotate through I can't request her for every appointment. I have been researching different birthing options and am considering the idea of a water birth - *don't hate on me, as I'm still unsure and doing research about pros/cons - and the only facilities that offer that around here are birthing centers. There are two birthing centers I have considered switching to. Both have the option of water birth and are close to the hospital - one is right next door and the other is 10 minutes. If I were to pick one now, it would be purely based on location - the closer to the hospital the better, right? I have a friend who has experience with both facilities and much preferred the one that is 10 minutes away. The practice has a policy that you're not accepted as a candidate to give birth at the birthing center until you're 36 weeks, and things can obviously change after that - premature baby, high blood pressure, anything that would be classified as high risk disqualifies you from the birthing center. In that case (and even if I didn't feel comfortable delivering at the birthing center and opted for the hospital), the midwives would assist me at the hospital. I wouldn't get the water birth, but I could still have the midwives around instead of a random doctor I didn't know.

So there's my dilemma. I am slightly nervous, seeing as how I've never done this before, about the idea of giving birth not at a hospital. However, I think that I could potentially have more of the experience that I hope to have at a midwifery practice than I am getting at my current practice. I would probably feel more and less comfortable at a hospital, if that makes sense. The hospitals in the area are the best for newborn care, and if our baby needs special care, there's no place I'd rather be than around here. However, if I'm among the 95% that have perfectly "normal" deliveries, I think I would like it more at a birthing center. More freedom to walk around, get in a tub if I wanted, not having to be strapped down or constantly monitored. So I'm slightly conflicted on what I should do. I think what the happy middle of the road decision would be would probably be to switch to the midwifery practice and deliver at the hospital. We'll see. Any experiences, good or bad, that anyone would like to share? I guess what it boils down to is there's always a chance that something could go wrong, and that chance makes me nervous to not be in a hospital if that happens.

*The only reason I'm really interested in water birth is because (TMI ahead) my entire 13+ years of having periods I have had seriously bad cramps and getting in the tub is the only thing most times that will soothe them at all. I understand it won't feel exactly the same and all that jazz, but it just makes sense to me that if water soothes pain for that, it would probably help during labor too. There's also other benefits too, like it softens everything up to help prevent tearing and there have been studies that show the babies are calmer when they're delivered in water because they go from water to water. Makes sense, right? There are cons of course, with everything - it could slow down labor or stall it (though for some it speeds things up), and for some people it is just weird. I do like the idea of laboring in water - still undecided on the actual birth part in the water. Good thing I still have time to think this all through!!

The Best Things

2010-10-05T21:35:00.000-04:00

So here we are. I am 18 weeks 5 days today...9 days away from the halfway mark! It is so exciting to think that in five months we will be brand new parents or at least very, very close to being parents. Five months! Life can change so quickly, but we are so excited and ready for this change! At least as ready as we'll ever be, that is.

There are a lot of uncomfortable things about pregnancy that I have discovered that I could go on and on about. I really don't want to do that, so we're gonna talk about my favorite things that I have experienced so far. In no particular order - might be a little personal, but I love not having a period. Don't really have to elaborate on that, do I? I have gotten a little curvier, which I like for the most part, certainly on the *ahem* top end. That was a pleasant surprise. Seeing our baby on that ultrasound machine the two times that we have were moments I won't forget. It was absolutely an incredible experience that you can't really put into words. I had no idea I could fall in love immediately with something that didn't move (sleeping) and looked like a peanut! Hearing the heart beat like a little horse galloping away is a wonderful experience every time. I will admit that I kind of like that I am beginning to show. I will totally be one of those chicks that loves her bump and will wear it proud. I've waited a long time for this, I better be happy about it!! I have been feeling baby kick now for about three weeks and it is such a wild experience! At first I would feel it every once in a while, mostly at night when I was laying in bed. Now I feel it at the most random times! This morning I got into the shower and then felt tons of kicking. Here's to hoping that means baby will like bath time! It has really helped me feel closer to the baby and more "involved" in the pregnancy, if you will. Makes it more real. I have adopted a strict lotion twice a day routine and I actually kind of like it. My skin is softer, which is nice.

18 weeks

I must admit, however, that my all time favorite thing that has happened thus far in pregnancy is seeing changes in Derek. He is getting more and more excited about our baby as the time gets closer and is even reading books about it and likes it! The past couple of weeks as I've started to show more I think it has started to register even more with Derek that this is real and time is moving fast! I have been encouraging him to talk to the baby too, since they say they can hear by now, and we definitely want his voice to be a familiar sound! The past several nights he has (without prompting from me) leaned over, rubbed my belly, and said good night to the baby. It is probably the sweetest thing I have ever seen (let the pregnancy hormones rage - tearing up on this side of the computer over here!). This morning he woke up, and the first thing he did was roll over and rub my belly. I am so happy that he is the father to this baby and will be the daddy for the rest of my kids that are waiting their turn. I couldn't have picked a better man for the job!

I'm sure there are things I'm missing, but those are the big ones that stand out to me right now. Life is good and I'm loving it! One day I'll probably write a rant about the things I don't like, but this is a better way to start out. Good day!

The First Kick

2010-09-22T11:01:00.000-04:00

Thursday, September 16th, I lounged for most of the day. I didn't have a job and didn't feel too good so I was just lazy all day. It is nice to have those days every once in a while (though mine are becoming more frequent). We got rid of our couch a few weeks ago and it hurts me to sit on the floor or on a chair too long, so I was laying in bed in the early evening and all of a sudden felt this semi-sharp flutter. It caught me completely off guard and I just kind of thought, "Was that what I think it was?" I had been feeling little twitches here and there but wasn't completely convinced that it was baby since it is still pretty early to be feeling that. I continued to feel the sharp little jabs on and off the rest of the evening in the lower right side. I pulled out the doppler to see if the baby was hanging out in that area a little later when I stopped feeling the kicks and it was so hard to find baby! S/he was apparently swimming all over the place, so I was pretty sure it was the real deal but not absolutely convinced.

The next few days I felt it on and off, mostly in the evening when I wind down, but it has always been on the right side. I was laying in bed talking to Derek a few nights ago and felt one solid kick where I felt like the baby was saying, "Talk to me, too!"

Today I had my 16 week appointment and they drew some blood to check my thyroid and do the AFP test which screens for more neural defects in the baby. The nurse was surprisingly fast at drawing my blood (I have incredibly small veins apparently and they have collapsed when attempting to give blood before!) but there was a lot of blood afterwards that kind of freaked me out! The doctor came in and asked if I had any questions, didn't ask how I was doing or anything, and then we listened to the baby's heartbeat with the doppler. The coolest part of the appointment was easily the fact that I had finally been feeling some kicks on my left side and that's where she found baby at! The heartbeat was right around 150, so it has been getting slower lately, but still perfectly normal.

Our anatomy ultrasound is scheduled for 8am on Wednesday, October 20th - we are so excited to find out if we are having a boy or a girl! Cross your fingers that the baby will cooperate. We have tried really hard to not get used to using him or her too much, but I hate calling our baby "it." It is surprising how much I love to use pronouns!

16 Weeks 4 Days

2010-09-20T12:42:00.000-04:00

Time is flying so fast, I can't believe I am almost 17 weeks already! Life is really great and though it is flying by, we are having fun. I had a really easy first trimester as far as sickness goes. I would get nausea usually about 5ish times a week that wouldn't last all day, usually around breakfast and/or dinner. My big complaint in the first trimester was just pure exhaustion. Holy cow, I felt like I was running marathons when I would walk a mile slowly! I could sleep (and still can, usually) 9-11 hours a night and still feel like I needed more in the morning, which is pretty unusual for me. I have never been a big sleeper. Luckily around 12ish weeks the exhaustion lifted some so I can function close to normal now. I still get tired easily but those first couple of months I felt like a zombie. I now fully understand what my friends were talking about with exhaustion in early pregnancy.

I started "showing" to me (and Derek) almost immediately. You could see some changes in my body (though mostly bloating then) but you could see the tiniest of bumps around 9 weeks. It popped further when I was about 13 weeks, though most people still couldn't tell anything. Around 13-14 weeks I started wearing those belly bands to stretch your regular pant life further (couldn't button some anymore!), which I still wear a lot of the time. Yesterday at church I wore a maternity church for the first time because it was new and who doesn't like to wear new clothes and I had two people ask if I was pregnant. So there you go - my first people asking if there is a baby in there...proof! Other people can see it too! In the morning there is a bump but it just looks like that awkward in between "are you fat or pregnant" stage, but by the evening time usually it is a fairly pronounced, yep, there's an avocado-sized baby in there.

The second trimester has been great to me so far. I have had an easy time, with a lot of aches and pains thrown in there. My back gets sore A LOT faster than it did before, and I have to stand every 30ish minutes otherwise it's all over for my poor tail bone. That makes it hard when you have a job like mine when I sit all the time. Apparently I work out in my sleep because every morning I wake up and I am sore pretty much everywhere - neck, shoulders, arms, back, butt - yeah. That is honestly something I didn't think would start so early, but it's nothing unbearable. I have adopted a slight waddle in my walk to compensate for my tail bone that hurts all the time, something Derek thinks is quite amusing.

Probably the coolest new development this past week is that I can tell the baby is mobile now. I was resting last Thursday and all of a sudden felt this semi sharp little fluttery movement. It's hard to explain. Everyone had said to expect tiny little flutters that feels like baby is swimming around (I have felt that this week too), but those first few were much more firm than I thought they would be. I described it to my mom and she said I'm just getting kicked around in there! I can't feel it all the time, mostly just at night when I'm resting quietly, but it was the coolest to feel it and look over at Derek and say, "I can feel your baby kicking me in there!"

I have my next check up on Wednesday and then at that appointment I will schedule our anatomy scan where hopefully we will find out gender as long as baby will cooperate with us. That should be in about a month...seems like so long to wait! We are as happy as can be, looking for a house, enjoying our work, and life is great!

August 24th, 2010

2010-09-20T12:19:00.000-04:00

Today we went in for our first trimester screening and I had my second appointment with my midwife. This is the appointment where we had a special ultrasound that measures the fluid behind the baby's neck to check to see if there are indicators for chromosomal defects. They take a bit of blood, take into consideration your age, and then issue a ratio of your "risk" of having a baby with a chromosomal defect. I knew that our chances were good since I am so young, but it is still a thing that makes you nervous. Since we were having an ultrasound I convinced Derek to go in late to work and be at the ultrasound with me. What a difference 4 weeks makes!!! We went in and the ultrasound tech prepped everything and plopped the thing on my tummy and immediately you see this little guy/gal waving at you! The first thing I saw was the arm. It really looked like we were getting waved at. It was so cool. Four weeks before when we had our first glimpse at the baby it didn't move at all and looked like a peanut. Now here we are and it really looks like a little human and is kicking and moving all over the place! It was truly one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It is still a little hard for me to believe that there is a little person growing inside of me, but we are finally starting to see some proof!

The ultrasound lasted about 15 minutes. The tech was really nice and she explained what she was taking pictures of. She said this ultrasound they specifically measure to make sure the growth is on track, check the fluid (they want it to be 3mm or less and ours was 1.6, which was great), and then check for a nasal bone because typically babies with Downs Syndrome don't have a nasal bone or it's not very obvious. She took a bunch of pictures and then kind of zoomed in and said, "Another thing we look for in this ultrasound..." and I totally cut her off and I said, "Look, a nasal bone!" LOL. Hopefully our baby won't have a huge schnauzer, but I was so happy to see that cute little nose! We got a few pictures to take home with us. The tech left and said the doctor would be in to go over the results in a few minutes.

The doctor came in about two minutes later and basically did the same thing the technician did, but explained more in detail what exactly they were looking for, why, and why everything looked good for us. Needless to say we were very relieved that everything looked like it was progressing normally. The doctor took a little pointer and showed us little details on the screen, the heart beating, the spine, the brain, different things like that, but the thing that sticks out in my mind as the most interesting thing he said was the spot where you could see the lens of the eye growing. It just blows my mind that when the baby is that tiny, not even 13 weeks gestation yet, you can see so many things in detail.

We were so happy to see our baby kicking and waving and being so active. The technician mentioned several times that s/he was very active and looked great, and the doctor even had to wiggle the wand around to get baby to change places a couple of times. We are so excited to welcome this little one into our home soon!

In Case You Missed It

2010-08-31T16:30:00.000-04:00

August 24, 2010. 12 weeks 5 days.

July 27, 2010. 8 weeks 5 days.

In case you somehow missed the news, we're expecting a baby! He/she is due March 3rd, 2011. We couldn't be happier and are so excited to welcome a bambino into our clan.

July 27th, 2010

2010-08-31T16:20:00.000-04:00

Today I had my first doctor's appointment. I am officially 8 weeks 5 days. I hardly got any sleep last night. I had been getting more and more anxious and really wanted to take pregnancy tests all the time to make sure it wasn't just in my head. I was nervous about the baby's health, nervous that I had had a miscarriage that just hadn't gone through the course of things yet, and nervous about the appointment in general. Not the best night of sleep but tonight I will sleep great!

We were scheduled for the first appointment of the day. Since I didn't sleep at all last night I felt pretty gross this morning and breakfast did not help. In general I have been very lucky with morning sickness and have only had nausea on and off with nothing too serious, but today was one of the worst. To make matters worse my stomach was upset and nothing looked appetizing - but if I don't eat I will feel sick! It's like a big circle that you go through.

Anyway, we drove up to the appointment together and didn't really talk on the whole way up. I don't think Derek was nervous but he could tell I was so he just sort of let me be. We filled out the typical paperwork and waited and then finally was called back. The nurse weighed me, I had to do the urine sample thing, and then we went back to talk to the doctor. She asked us a billion questions, complimented my skills of being a court reporter, and left the room so I could get undressed. She came back in and did the physical exam - yuck, yuck, yuck. It was so uncomfortable and was made worse since my stomach was upset. She said everything looked good and then we went back out to the waiting room to wait for the sonographer to call us back.

We waited for a bit and then we were called back. We were in there for probably 15 minutes, it was super short! The technician herself was probably 7 months pregnant and could tell I was nervous. She told me to take it easy and then there it was - our little peanut. It came up immediately and was surprisingly clear. It is so tiny! He/she is only about an inch long right now and weighs less than a penny. We could see it for quite a while but didn't get to hear the heartbeat the whole time. The technician turned it on for 10-15 seconds so we could hear it and it was so strong and fast! They were measuring at a perfect 174 beats per minute. As soon as I saw the little guy/gal I couldn't really talk. I tried hard to hold my tears back and did a pretty good job. I just couldn't talk, otherwise I would have completely lost it! It was one of the coolest moments of my life to see and hear our baby. I'm so glad Derek was able to be there with me for our first appointment. He/she didn't move the whole time the ultrasound was going on and that concerned me a little bit. I asked if it was sleeping or something and she said at this point they don't do a lot of moving, so there was nothing to be concerned about. I'm so excited for our next appointment, which is on August 24th. I will be 12 weeks 5 days then and if I have another ultrasound will hopefully see some movement from our little one!

I am so grateful to Heavenly Father that he has blessed us with this opportunity. I have wanted to be a mom for so long and can't believe the time is finally here. We've been so blessed to have a wonderful life together and can't wait until our little guy or gal is here to enjoy it with us!

June 23rd, 2010

2010-08-31T16:16:00.002-04:00

Today I found out I was pregnant. It was pretty incredible. I knew that there was a good chance I was since when I woke up the dreaded FeeFee wasn't there, so I was hopeful. Derek is in his last week of working at his job before the new one starts on Monday, and he routinely leaves at about 7:30. I woke up with him at 6:45ish and kind of tried to calmly walk around the house until he left. I waited to go to the bathroom until after he left. That was probably the hardest part! I kissed Derek and shoved him (gently) out the door and ran to the bathroom. I used a cheapo Target test that says you should get results within 3 minutes. I took the test, then refused to look at it for a minute, but then I couldn't help it. To my surprise the test was already done and there was a pretty looking positive line staring up at me! I couldn't believe it! My immediate reaction, of course, was to just bawl my eyes out. Though we had not been trying for a really long time, it is something that we have wanted and prepared for for so long that the relief that we could get pregnant was immediate and I was just beside myself. How was I going to make it through the day like normal??

I was scheduled for two jobs today and went to them like normal. They were both actually pretty bad but fortunately I didn't care...nothing was going to get me down today!! After my second job ended in the early afternoon I drove over to Target to look at some baby clothes. I still hadn't decided if I would tell Derek the same night or if I would wait until tomorrow since it is our anniversary. I bought a couple of cute outfits, mostly onesies that say some cute phrase like "I Love My Dad" or "Daddy's Favorite" or something cute. I bought a pair of newborn shoes that can't be more than two inches long - it is incredible to think that in less than a year we will have a little one that tiny with us! I bought an anniversary card and another cute Dad card and wrote my due date inside with a little note and included the two tests that I had taken. I took a "better" test that actually will say pregnant or not pregnant about 10 minutes before Derek got home. He's the type that needs a back up for everything and something in words would be a lot better than just a plus sign!

Derek finally got home and I had worked hard on cleaning up the house. I told him to stay out of the bedroom for a bit so I could clean and I laid everything I had bought out on the bed. I decided I couldn't wait to tell him until the next day and wanted to keep the day separate from our anniversary so we could have another day to celebrate. Derek figured that I was doing something for our anniversary, so he waited patiently in the living room while I finished stuff in the bedroom. I told him he could go in to the room then and he walked in and just kind of stared at the bed. I waited in the doorway and when he finally turned around to look at me I was crying a little and his first response was, "Are you serious?" We hugged and then I finally got to say out loud that I'm pregnant!!

We had ordered food from Pizza Hut and had a 15 minute walk to go pick it up. It was a long walk full of "seriously" "really" "are you kidding me" and things like that. Derek was so surprised! I asked him why he was so surprised when we had been trying and he said it's one thing to try and talk about it, another thing when it's actually really happening! That is very true. We are so happy that we will get to have a special soul sent to us from Heavenly Father. We are probably as ready as we ever could be and can't wait to add to our family. We hope that we will be even more happy with another member in our family as we have been with just the two of us. We are due March 3, 2011.

Promises, Promises

2010-07-29T08:40:00.002-04:00

I have so many ideas for this blog that I hope to get to one day. One day that's hopefully not so far in the future. I have severely neglected everything since I stopped working a desk job 10.5 months ago (time flies!!) and have had a really hard time getting into a schedule where I have time set aside to work on it. I have other struggles with time management that I'm trying to work on, too. Mostly the last 10.5 months have been "work as hard as you can and fit everything else in at some point" with some cool vacations thrown in here and there. Hopefully you'll hear about them when I get around to posting about them, even if it is a year late! By the way, I'm almost done posting about Europe. I swear. I will finish those posts if it's the last thing I do!!

Until I have time to write a more substantial update, just know that we are alive, we are quite happy, and life is flying by and we're having fun. Derek loves his new job and I'm still liking mine, trucking along like normal and getting more comfortable all the time. We have had a great summer so far, especially July, which has been filled with fun vacations, and I can't wait to tell you about it all!

5 Years!!

2010-06-24T13:04:00.002-04:00

I have been married for five years today. Me. FIVE YEARS. What a wonderful half decade it has been - I can't wait until we make it a full decade together! We have accomplished so much together in the time we've been married.

1 Bachelors Degree

1 Associates Degree

1 Court Reporting Program

1/2 Masters Degree

3 homes

1 move across the country

3 cars, 2 sold

45k miles driven on the car

2 motorcycles bought, one sold

4 bicycles

2 car break-ins within 6 weeks

1 cruise

1 trip to Europe

1 trip to Costa Rica

$$ saved (sorry, you can't know the number!)

1 family reunion

2 career changes (1 for both of us)

6 jobs between us (as of Monday)

What else? There's so much! We have accomplished so much in the five years we've been married and it is so exciting to think of what the next five will bring us. Derek is the best husband I could have asked for. I really think he was designed specifically for me. I never thought I could love him more than I did on the day we were married (ha ha, naive little me), but my love for him has grown every day. Cheers, babe, and here's to another happy and healthy five years for us!!

Europe Trip: Paris Day 2

2010-05-24T15:13:00.005-04:00

June 5, 2009, Paris, France

We had a big day on our second day in Paris. We hadn't done much the day before and had plenty of energy, which we expended 99% of! We stayed in a lovely family owned hotel and woke up to the awesome smell of fresh bread. It was scrumptious! Breakfast there was homemade croissants, bread, and orange juice. It was fantastic and one of our highlights there. I am very much a bread-y (picky about my bread) now for the past year since our Europe trip. It was so cheap over there and just delicious. Now I have to pay $5 a loaf for something that is still not as good! Anyway, we had a great morning with the breakfast and then got ready for the day using a handheld shower sprayer (that was hard), and went off on our way.

Our first stop was just kind of wandering around. It was great and the sights were beautiful.

On our walk we saw an outdoor art exhibit. We didn't go down to check it out, but what a cool idea to have an outdoor show in a place like that!

Our ultimate goal for the day was to make it over to the Eiffel Tower, and here are some of the sights from our walk there.

We decided to rest up a little bit before walking up all those steps, so we relaxed in the park across from the entrance to the tower. It had pretty incredible views (see that view in the blue jacket? Yep, that's one of them!).

We paid for our tickets and hiked up to the first level of the tower. We were impressed with the views from there - just you wait!

These are views from the second level of the Eiffel Tower. Breathtaking, isn't it?

And then we were here with these people. For an hour and a half. Waiting and waiting and waiting. The stairs in the tower only go up two levels and then you have to take the elevator up to the very top level. Looks like we weren't the only one with the same idea!

My cutie while waiting in line. It was COLD up there and super windy!

The very, very top of the Eiffel Tower. My favorite picture is at the top in the middle. Derek kept sticking his hand out to try and take pictures shotting straight down. I was very nervous he was going to drop the camera, but luckily he didn't and got some great pictures!

After being at the Eiffel Tower we were famished and went back to the hotel to eat lunch around 3pm.

We rested up a little bit and then took a stroll down Champs Elyss Street to catch the feel of the nightlife, and it was a lot of fun to people watch and window shop.

We went to a nice restaurant for dinner and we'll just say don't order steak tartar unless you like raw meat. I was trying to impress my husband and be adventurous and order something new - whew, that was a bad idea! Their English translation of steak tartar was "steak cooked to your liking." What does that mean to anyone else that doesn't know what tartar means? Yeah, if I want my steak well done, I can have it well done! Imagine my surprise when my meal turns out to be a roll of raw ground beef with a raw egg in the middle of it. Barf. We sent it back twice (poor waiter now really thinks Americans are stupid) and it finally went to Derek so he could eat the half cooked ground beef. I ate parts of his medium steak - a BIG accomplishment for this girl that likes no pink in anything. After dinner we went past a lot of other restaurants and every menu described steak tartar as raw meat. We can sure pick them!

We wanted to go back to the Eiffel Tower to check out the lights that come on at night and went back after dinner and this is what we saw after leaving the metro. Bam! There were SO many people and 5'2" me could not see a single thing. I held on to Derek's hand quite tightly so we would not get separated in the million people. We kept asking people around us what was going on, what the big deal was, and finally someone looked at me and raised his hands and said "Obama?"

Turns out that President and Mrs. Obama were coming from a dinner date at the restaurant on the second level of the Eiffel Tower and everyone was waiting to just catch a glimpse of him. We have a little snippet of a video where we think it shows him, but it is pretty blurry. It was quite exhilarating to be surrounded by so many people that were so excited to just see him. Did I mention we were in Paris? Yeah. We weren't even in the same country that he presides over and the excitement was incredible. It was a very big statement to me of the influence President Obama has everywhere, not just in the U.S.

Anyone else think it's funny that we "saw" the Obamas in Paris but have yet to see him in our hometown of Washington, D.C.? Yeah, pretty ironic.

The lights finally came on when it got dark enough and it was so beautiful. On the hour for a couple of hours at night the lights would blink on all the edges. It was awesome. We went to the same park and laid around waiting for it to get dark enough. That night was so fun.

What a day!

Europe Trip: Paris Day 1

2010-05-21T11:09:00.003-04:00

On Thursday, June 4, 2009, Derek and I woke up in Rome, Italy at 5:45 am. We took off for the airport in a nice big shuttle bus and were very surprised at how crazy the airport was that early. We stood in line for quite a while and there was an older lady behind us that just would not stop trying to cut us. It was quite annoying. We found that in general the people we ran into at that airport were rude, loud, and trying to cut everywhere. The plane ride we were surrounded by some of the loudest people! Those Italians, I tell ya. :)

(The views from the plane were amazing. Us with our packs before leaving Rome. That's Derek's finger - he smashed it getting our luggage out of the shuttle bus.)

We made it to Paris and had quite the time trying to figure out the transit system. We finally did and then made it to our hotel. It was a very cute little place run by a family and four blocks from the Moulin Rouge. So innocent little Jackie had inadvertently booked a hotel for a couple days in the Red Light District of Paris. Go team! We had a good time walking through the area around our hotel and it was quite surprising the number of sex shops/theatres/anything having to do with sex. Lots of food markets and people everywhere. We settled in in the late afternoon and didn't want to pay for transportation for a couple of hours so we went around for the afternoon and evening by foot. The Sacre Coeur was fairly close and we hung out there for a while. It was absolutely breath taking and had awesome views of the city. There were incredible mosaics inside the building but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures. There were a lot of people hanging out on the steps and there was a guy performing who was super awesome. He was very entertaining.

(The hike up to Sacre Coeur was exhausting!)

(Click on the picture to make it bigger.)

We went out and explored more of the area and happened upon an artist's market. We did take some pictures in front of the Moulin Rouge at the famous area right in front of it where the wind blows up your skirt. We had a pretty relaxing evening and just had a great day in general. I have in my notes "Jackie splashed by beer/3 guys" and I have no recollection of what that means. This is what I get for taking a year to do this (last year at this time I was 2 days away from leaving to London!). I will have to ask Derek if he remembers what that was about.

Only three more days to get through until our Europe trip is completely covered!

Tangled Web

2010-05-06T16:55:00.004-04:00

I've always been a fairly even tempered person, but I feel like I have been pretty up and down a lot lately with everything: my emotions, my wants and wishes, my fears...all of it. 2010 has flown by so fast and I think it will just continue to get faster as summer approaches. I have really enjoyed work lately, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I can work really hard for a little while and keep busy, make pretty good money, and then take a week off. I did that last week when Brian was here and it was awesome to be able to do. Today I didn't have a job because the schedule was light, and so I cleaned my house. It's a pretty great career to have, if I do say so myself. Already this year I have taken about 5 weeks of vacation (half willing, the other half because things were slow) with other days here and there off, and I have already billed almost my full salary from 2008 when I was working at my non profit job. Pretty incredible, huh? I'm very blessed.

The future has always been something that I have looked forward to, always excited and interested in what the next thing to come will be, but right now I'm at a stage where it almost seems a little scary because I don't know what comes next. I'll just have to hold on for the ride and hope that my wants and desires match what Heavenly Father wants, and if they don't, hope that I will be able to realign myself to His plan. Until things become more clear, I'll be grateful that I have a good job to keep me busy, good friends, faith, a great family that supports me, and an incredible husband that I somehow have convinced to stay with me for almost 5 years who makes me happier than I can express.

Neglectful

2010-04-11T20:49:00.002-04:00

Dear Blog,

I'm sorry that I have been such a bad friend to you. Can you believe it's been almost two months since we spoke?! I had no idea it had been so long! Since our time apart, life has been pretty busy for me. Work is going really well and I'm getting better and better all the time. I even have an attorney that requests me as her reporter for all of her depositions! It is exciting. Derek passed his Security+ exam (did I tell you that already?) and his schooling is going well. His work is going okay, too, and gets better all the time. We're very blessed that we both have stable employment. Did I mention that we went to Costa Rica? Yeah, that was a pretty big deal. We had a lot of fun and I will make sure to tell you all about it. Last week was General Conference and Easter, and it was so great. I've been trying really hard lately to be better with my prayers and temple attendance and I really feel closer to Heavenly Father because of it. Today at church my emotions were completely brimming (and overflowing) and I was an emotional wreck, but I know it's because I was feeling the Spirit. How cool is that? It was an awesome day.

Hope to talk to you again soon! I'll try to be a better friend, I promise.

Truly,

Jackie

Angus Cannon Ensign, Jr.

2010-02-18T20:38:00.002-05:00

Nine years ago today the world lost a wonderful man. My grandpa was just 72 years old when he died - rather young in this day and age. I was able to spend the whole day with him the day before he passed, and I'm so grateful for those memories. I was blessed to grow up close to him and to be one of the older of my parents' kids - I was 15 when he passed. I know that my memories of him, though not as strong as I would like them to be, are much stronger than Luke and Austin, who were just 8 and 6 when he passed. Every once in a while I get reminders that he is up there watching me, and they are a great comfort to me. I miss you, Grandpa!

Europe Trip: Rome Day 3

2010-02-17T12:06:00.019-05:00

On Wednesday, June 3rd, we decided to head back to Vatican City to go inside of St. Peter's Basilica. We got there around 9:30 or 10am, and when we got off the subway, the streets were PACKED. The day before when we were there there wasn't even close to that amount of people, so we were trying to figure out what was going on. We walked on to the grounds and discovered what the "big deal" was:

Okay, sorry, the picture is bad. That's the pope sitting up there in the middle. Apparently every Wednesday in the summer he gives a talk and Catholics from all over come to hear him. We had no idea what he was saying since he was speaking Italian, but I can honestly say that there was something powerful about his presence. He is such a revered figure in religion, and it was awesome to be in his presence even if we don't share the same faith.

We ended up staying at the Vatican for several hours waiting for them to open up the line for the Basilica. After a while we asked one of the guards when they would reopen the Basilica - it wouldn't open for another 2.5 hours! Sadly, we had other things we wanted to see and we weren't able to go inside. The next time we go back to Rome, this is on top of our list.

After leaving Vatican we set off for Villa Borghese, which is a huge park. On our way there we saw this market in the streets.

Villa Borghese was absolutely beautiful. We even saw a banana tree! In this collage Derek is standing underneath the banana tree - it was huge! There was a nice pond running through the park where people were able to rent boats. I took pictures of so many trees in Rome - I fell in love with the really tall flat trees. They were just so different than I had seen before - love it!

After Villa Borghese we had our last slices of heaven in Rome. I don't remember what I had - most likely it was ham - but this last time Derek went rather adventurous. As you can see, one slice was tomato, basil, and mozzarella. The stuff on the right? Salmon. That's my man!

More of the random sights we saw in Rome.

This last day was sort of like the day of churches. We hit up a ton of them, and it was pretty cool to see all of the similarities and differences among them. The first one below is San Giovanni. Check out how big the door was - that's me standing down there!

By this time it was mid afternoon and we were pooped. We went back to the hostel for our daily nap/rest (Derek is a napper - I'm not). Our room was pretty cool.

We hit up the Baths of Caracalla. We didn't have time to go inside, but even from the outside it was just incredible how large everything was. These baths were built between 212 and 216 AD. They are 2000 years old - incredible. Very cool area.

I loved this building, even though I know that ivy is bad for the building.

Our next stop was San Pietro in Vincoli. This was one of my favorite spots in Rome because we were able to see Michelangelo's sculptures of Moses, Rachel, and Leah. Moses is in the middle of the collage and the three are at the bottom right. Brilliant!

Walking downtown we saw this car - old school!

We saw where he was headed - someone was getting married! Beautiful church.

Next up was Santa Prassede, which was built in the 8th century. These churches were just incredible with the amount of detail. I love the stain glass windows.

Finally, we went to the Maggiore Basilica. I'm glad we didn't miss this one. I love the ceiling.

We had another authentic Italian dinner - delicious - and capped the night off with gelato. Please excuse my hair. It was a long day.

Rome was probably my favorite spot overall on our Europe trip. It was a ton of fun!

Europe Trip: Rome Day 2

2010-02-16T11:50:00.008-05:00

Tuesday, June 2nd, dawned a beautiful day in Rome, Italy. For our second full day there we had a lot on our plate that we wanted to accomplish. As happened so many times on our trip, we happened upon another celebration. This time it just so happened that that day was Military Day, and they had a great parade in celebration of it! There were a ton of people out celebrating and it was quite a sight. I think the good U.S.A. should institute a similar holiday, don't you?

Rome was so cool just because every couple of minutes we would see ruins randomly everywhere. They were so big and magnificent and it was just awesome.

We made it to the Pantheon, which was just an absolutely amazing structure. It was so big, and was truly beautiful on the inside.

We ate pizza again at the piazza outside the Pantheon and had a great time.

After lunch we took off to other parts of the city and happened upon Trevi Fountain. I completely fell in love with the fountains in Rome. They were in the most random places in town and they were beautiful. This is one of the largest, if not the largest, in the city, and it was awesome to be able to get up close to it.

We continued on our way and walked by the Spanish Steps again. This time we decided to actually hike up the steps and it gave a great view of the city!

We hopped on the subway and went over to Vatican City. Talk about an incredible structure! Unfortunately we were wearing shorts/capris so we couldn't go in that day...stay tuned for our other adventures at the Vatican!

We continued walking and happened upon a castle. Only in Rome, right?

I think we visited the Colosseum at least once a day. It was such an amazing structure, we couldn't get enough of it! It was really cool to be a few miles away and you look around and can still see it!

When we were by the Colosseum, we had a special friend that came out to play.

Completely random, I know. It was a great looking costume!

We were walking up to another outlook of the city and found this car. We waited around for a while so Derek could get a picture all by himself, but more and more people just kept coming to check it out! It was a smoking hot car.

We made it up to the lookout - yet another beautiful view - and my sweet honey was tired and sat down while I took pictures. I turned back and this was my view.

I laughed a little and snapped the shot - he snapped out of it a little and I asked him what he was thinking about. He was just zoning out a little bit, but I love how the picture turned out.

While we were up at the lookout exploring, we heard music. We went back to the steps to climb back down and heard this band warming up for a concert that night. We listened for probably about 15 minutes, and the band was fantastic. We tried finding them on the internet later that day but couldn't find them. We were too pooped to go back for the concert that night, but we're glad we heard the warm up!

We visited the Victor Immanuel Monument, which was another structure that was astounding. It was so large, and was a beautiful marble construction.

That evening we hung out at Piazza Navano, one of the hot spots in town, and it was a lot of fun. They had several fountains and numerous performers spread out along the piazza. There was an art gallery area where artists had their work displayed. It was a great time.

That night we had a delicious authentic Italian meal. It was the perfect end to a great day.

The Big 3-0!

2010-02-16T11:06:00.005-05:00

My Derek turned 30 on December 29th. Sometimes I like to rub in the fact that he is 6 years older than me (okay, maybe I do a lot), but I tried to not do it so much this year as he turned the big 3-0. I know it is a big of a sensitive topic, but I had to make a nice cake for it that highlighted the fact that he turned 30, at least. I have all these cool cake decorating things that I don't use enough (part of the reason probably has to do with the fact that my husband doesn't eat sweets), but I took advantage of a day off and Derek's big day to bake.

For his birthday dinner we went with Veronika, Termain, and Averi and went to eat Korean BBQ at WooLaeOak in Tyson's Corner, Virginia. Wow, it was some good food, and we really enjoyed the company! The presentation of the food was outstanding, and Derek left a full and happy 30 year old.

The rest of the week was fairly typical, and then we had another semi-celebration that weekend by cooking fondue! It was awesome!

Happy birthday, Derek. You are such a great man and I'm very lucky to have you as my partner in life. Here's to another great year!

Christmas 2009

2010-02-16T10:55:00.003-05:00

For Christmas we decided to stay in town and enjoy the weekend with Derek's sister and her family. Christmas Eve we enjoyed the annual Ward Christmas Party and had a jolly time filled with food, singing Christmas carols, and the traditional Nativity program. It was a wonderful evening.

Christmas morning we slept in a little bit, opened a couple presents of our own, and then went up to the family's house. They have a tradition of opening up presents one per hour, which was a lot of fun to spread the presents out throughout the day. They got a Wii, so we gladly enjoyed their present with them for the weekend. Derek and I were both very blessed with gifts this year and it was a wonderful weekend. We missed our families in IL and SC, but were glad to have family close to home, too.

Trip to the National Mall

2010-02-15T14:05:00.003-05:00

Christmas Eve Derek and I both had off of work, so we took advantage of the time we had together and went down to the Mall to see it covered in snow. As you'll see from the pictures, while we still had a good amount of snow on the ground, it had already started to melt big time. We had 17 inches of snow and it was gone within two weeks! Anyway, there was a lot to see, and we had a great time walking around together.

We were able to see the cool Christmas tree that they set up. They had one big huge tree in the middle surrounded by trucks and presents and everything, and then each state was represented by a smaller Christmas tree. It was beautiful. They had a cute little house built for kids to go and explore and a huge fire pit to gather around that was kicking out some impressive heat. Not too far away there was also a huge Menorah set up. I thought it was nice that there was something there for everyone.

We were able to take some nice pictures by the White House, and then we headed over to see the Lincoln Memorial. Let me tell you, this was easily the most icy place we went all day. Those steps were treacherous! It was beautiful, though. There was a pond that was fairly solid and frozen, until we saw the middle of the pond. There was a fountain on! It was kind of bizarre to see a frozen pond with some water shooting out of a fountain in the middle. Please excuse the hat hair in the bottom left picture. I had gotten a little hot and needed to take it off!

It was a lovely day to spend with my husband!

Temple Lights

2010-02-15T13:39:00.003-05:00

A couple of days before Christmas we remembered that we hadn't been up to see the temple lights yet. It is a tradition to go and see them every year, and this year I was especially excited since we just had a huge snow storm and we had never seen the temple surrounded by that much snow. We made plans with Derek's sister and her family and met at the visitor's center to see a hand bell choir. We saw the same choir perform once in the last couple of years and they were awesome! We had really good seats this year, too, and it was a great show. After that we stood in the forever long line to go through the room with all of the nativity scenes. As always, it was wonderful and I really had a great time. The lights were especially impressive this year, and a great time was had by all. Enjoy the pictures!

Europe Trip: Rome Day 1

2010-02-15T11:29:00.004-05:00

We left Budapest a bit early and went to the airport. Our flight, thankfully, was absolutely perfect on our way to Rome. We quickly discovered, however, that there was some people on our plane that had made the decision not to shower before the flight and it was smelly! Luckily it wasn't that long of a flight. We took a bus from the airport to the transit system which would get us to our hostel only to discover that the transit system didn't accept credit cards! We didn't have enough cash or small enough bills (one or the other) to get on the transit system, so all of a sudden it was pretty dark out, we were exhausted, and faced with the idea of walking 3ish miles to our hostel. We were not too happy about the idea. Thankfully, we were able to walk down to a little corner store and get some smaller bills and were able to get back on the metro and to our hostel. We got to the hostel pretty late at night and kind of just collapsed and actually slept in a little bit.

June 1st dawned more pouring rain for us in Rome. We got ready and received our breakfast from the hostel - a pastry and juice - and went out on the town. Our first stop was the Colosseum. Man, it rocked the house. It was raining so hard that we actually bought two umbrellas on our way out. The Colosseum was awesome, but we were bummed it was raining so hard that we couldn't really enjoy it. There were tons of ruins in the area immediately surrounding the Colosseum, so we walked quite a distance around everywhere enjoying the beautiful views. We even found a pyramid! We also passed by the Spanish Steps, where a lot of people were hanging out. Another of the places that we saw was called Largo di Torre Argentina, which has become a haven for homeless cats. We couldn't go inside at the time, but we saw a bunch of cats running around in there, which was cool.

We went to St. Paul's Basilica, where we saw the first hints of sunshine for the day! Inside it was truly beautiful. The ceilings were just captivating. We happened upon a market, which was fun to go around and see what people were selling. We walked throughout the town and went into a couple of shops to see what they had for sale - let's just say they were seriously expensive. Definitely didn't buy anything on that street!

Since the weather had gotten a lot better, we headed back over to the Colosseum to enjoy it more without the rain. I could have stayed there and taken pictures all day long! This was also the place where we had our first experience with pizza and gelato. Well, let's just say it was the first of several times we had pizza and gelato while in Rome! It was excellent. We ate lunch while sitting on the wall of the Colosseum. You can't get much cooler than that.

After lunch, we had already done so much walking, we were exhausted. We went back to the hostel to get a little bit of rest. The hostel wasn't too bad, and the room was fairly spacious, but we both had little twin beds on the opposite sides of the room. We would move the beds every night so we could be closer together, but would have to move them back every morning in case people came in to clean the room (we weren't supposed to move the beds). The hostel had an elevator in it - nice for us since we were several floors up, but the elevator only worked from the ground floor of the building. So we typically only got to use the elevator one direction. One thing I loved about our housing quarters everywhere in Europe was the huge windows. It was great to have nice lighting from the big windows!

After our rest we walked across a bridge and enjoyed the beautiful views. Of all the places we went, I think Rome was my favorite in the city. It was such a cool place.

We went to Piazza del Popolo that evening and I got flowers from a guy who said they were free. I said thanks but no thanks, but he continued to follow us! I finally took the flower and said thanks, walked away. He followed and demanded to take pictures of us. We said thanks and tried to get away again, when he then demanded a donation. I tried giving him the flower back, but he wouldn't take it. I don't know how people can seriously expect to get business that way. Don't start off by telling us that the flower is free if you expect a "donation." His pictures were blurry, too!

Our first day in Rome was jam packed, and we finally went back to the hostel and crashed. It was a great day.

Dear Mother Nature

2010-02-10T15:36:00.003-05:00

Dear Mother Nature,

Why do you hate me so? You have been so good to me the past couple of years. The weather in Illinois the last couple of years I lived there really wasn't too bad. When I moved to Utah, I expected it to be really bad weather in the winter! The two years that I lived there, though, you were SO good to me. I was able to ride my bike and walk around in the winter so I could go to work and attend classes like a good girl. Thanks so much for that!

And then I moved to Washington, D.C., the capital of our wonderful country. The weather here is weird sometimes - do you ever have sudden mood swings? I think that D.C. probably gets hit with that the most, but most of the time it is pretty good weather here. With all the other stuff we have to deal with in this city non-weather related, the somewhat stable weather is something that brightens my day.

However, M.N., we really need to have a chat about the last two months here. I am used to winters now that hover around 40-50 degrees that rarely drop below 30 degrees and where the "big storm" of the season is 5". This is my fourth winter season in D.C. and I really have started to like it. Don't get me wrong - I really do love snow...after all, I am from Illinois. But these Washingtonians that I am surrounded by here, they can't even drive in rain, let alone snow! It really is better this way...the way it used to be. The one big storm in December was really nice - I actually liked it a lot because the city bounced back pretty fast and it was right before Christmas! The snow melted really fast (all 18" in D.C. melted in a week - I think that must have been during one of your mood swings), and life was back to normal. The little snow falls I liked, because it doesn't get too messy.

I really thinking you're getting a little over zealous here, though. These Washingtonians don't know what to do with themselves now. You gave us another two feet over the weekend and now we're in the middle of another one - it looks like maybe 8 or 10 inches, right? The Federal Government has been closed for 3 days straight, schools are closed, most businesses are closed, and the Metro - man, let me tell you what you're doing to the Metro system. They closed the above ground stations on Friday and didn't reopen them until Tuesday! And then they were only running trains every 30 minutes, which is not nearly enough. And then less than a day after they reopened, they shut them down again! Who knows when they'll reopen again? This is really having a big impact on people trying to get around.

I won't even complain about the effect it's having on my work. Did you know I haven't had a single job since last Thursday? That is a long time, isn't it? I am going a little stir crazy here. I would go outside and play, but those winds you're sending us are just crazy. And then to top it all off, Derek had to stay overnight at work last night and we don't know if he will get home tonight! Please, cut the storm off soon so he might be able to come home, okay?

I appreciate the great work you've done over the last couple of years. I'm now ready to get back to normal. If you want, I'll even settle for 5 degrees less than normal! Just stop the white stuff!

Thanks very much for hearing me out,

Jackie Ann

P.S. Mother Nature, really...an earthquake in Illinois? What were you thinking?

Europe Trip - Budapest Day 6

2010-01-12T13:08:00.007-05:00

Sunday May 31st dawned with a lot of rain for us. We decided that we didn't want to just stay in the hotel because of the rain, so we set out for the city.

You'll have to click on the collage to make the pictures bigger - sorry they're so small! We went down to Parliament to see it up close, and we ran into a festival on the grounds. It was pretty cool! We also saw some kids that were getting rides on this cool 4 wheeler course. It was pretty random, but nice to happen upon out of the blue.
After visiting Parliament we started making the trek to the Buda Palace. On the way there, we stopped to see the Opera House and made our way across the Chain Bridge.
On our way up to the Buda Palace, we had the option of going up a cool tram or walking. We decided to make the hike up - it was a long way, but we got to see great views of the city! The picture on the bottom right Derek is posing in front of the tracks of the tram that takes you up.
We were able to see the Buda Caves, which are the ruins you see in the picture. It was pretty cool and was in a pretty random spot. You can see a picture at the bottom of some grafitti - it really was pretty, but it was just everywhere. I was fairly impressed with that one, though. The rain started picking up more and we decided to hit up Margaret Island just to look at it quick and then take off to the airport early. You can see the beautiful fountain of Margaret Island - me with my hoodie on since it was pouring. Unfortunately we took off pretty quick after that since it was such bad weather. We took a bus to the airport and were pleasantly surprised with how quick we got there. We were about three hours early, which wasn't the greatest thing ever, but it was nice to be warm and dry and we rested and planned for our next destination: Rome.

Stay tuned for more!

Sunday

2010-01-11T08:33:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was such a wonderful day at church. We were originally scheduled to have our Christmas program the week before Christmas, but if you'll remember from my last post, we had a blizzard and got about 2 feet of snow and so church was canceled. A lot of people had worked really hard preparing for the program, and so we rescheduled it for yesterday. It was a little unusual to have a Christmas program in January, but I'm so glad we did. There was such a great spirit in the meeting and it again helped remind me to try to remember Christ in all things that I do, even if it isn't in December. The music was wonderful, the message was great - we had people who were baptized in 2009 read the scriptures. It was a nice way to put their faces with their names. Amazingly, our ward had 38 baptisms last year. Can you believe that number? It is incredible! We weren't able to have everyone read, but I was just astounded when I heard that number. Our area has truly been blessed by missionary work. I especially enjoyed the closing message by our friend Scott who put a new spin on the Christmas message for me.

For the third hour we had a lesson on God. Since it is the beginning of the year, it is back to basics while we get ready to vamp into the message for the year. We had a lovely discussion in our Relief Society led by a woman who joined the church within the last 2 years who started off by asking the question how do you know that God exists and loves you. Quite a question, right? We read a paragraph in the manual that spoke about the beautiful things in nature and all around us and symbols of God's existence and love, and a few ladies shared some personal experiences of their own. Most of the discussion focused around the beauty of the earth. Since becoming a court reporter I have been able to drive to Virginia numerous times and the drive coming back into the city is absolutely gorgeous. I have seen double rainbows, awesome clouds - several things that have really struck me about the beauty of the city around me, which I don't take time to appreciate as much as I should.

However, during the discussion, the only thing that kept going through my head was the biggest reason I know God exists and loves me is because he gave me Derek. Sappy, I know, but so very true. I have of course thought of that before, but it really struck me yesterday in class, so I wanted to make sure I told Derek. He deserves to know something like that, right? So on the way home I told him, and boy am I glad I didn't share it in Relief Society. Woo, I started crying as soon as I got the words (sort of) out.

It really is incredible to me, though, that the person that I ended marrying is so perfect for me. Almost 5 years ago when we married I had no idea of the dozens and dozens of ways that we would be so perfect together. I knew that I loved him and that we had a great relationship and I wanted to be with him. I didn't know that he was as close to an opposite of me as I could get (something we have discovered over the years), but that that was exactly what I needed. Heavenly Father certainly knows what is best for us, and my life is so blessed because of Derek.

Happy New Year! I hope to be blogging more - I still have to finish up our Europe trip! Hopefully I can get that done before we go to Costa Rica in March!

Let It Snow!

2009-12-22T18:42:00.005-05:00

I thought it was time for another update since I have a little bit of time. Life is good. Derek has finished his semester, successfully passed his Network+ certification exam (congrats babe!), and is gearing up to study for the Security+ certification in a couple of months. His new semester starts at the end of January, so it is nice to for him to have a break even though he never relaxes! He worked really hard on his certification and I am so proud of him for passing!

Work for me has definitely slowed down because of the holidays, but I have still had a fairly steady income and I keep busy for the most part. I am back to working a normal 7-8 hours each day instead of 12-14, so that is good. Court reporting certainly is lucrative, but I completely understand now why people told me at the beginning to manage my schedule well so I didn't get too overwhelmed. I have been very lucky to get with an agency that gives me plenty of work. I had heard that starting out it could be very hard to find an agency that gives newbies a chance, and so I've been very lucky to be with them from the get-go.

We had a lot of fun this past weekend staying with Derek's sister and her family during the big blizzard in DC and the surrounding areas. We ended up with about 17" in the city (a record for December) and about 25 miles north where we were for the weekend it was probably about 24". It was incredible! Reminded me of home with the huge amount of snow that dumped so fast.

Life is awesome and we're incredibly blessed. Happy Holidays!
This was Saturday morning - by the time the storm was done, our wipers (which we had extended so they wouldn't freeze) were completely covered.Sunday morning - a beautiful crisp morning filled with lots and lots of shoveling and igloo building. That is our car and a pick up truck. Our car was so tall it looked like a van!
This is Mika, the family poodle. She had such a good time in the snow!We built this in the backyard - a mountain to slide down off of the deck. It was scary to go the first time because it was fairly steep, but lots of fun! I went a few times after I got over the fear of hurting my arms. Yes, I'm a wimp.
Their trampoline was holding so much snow - it was seriously weighted down.My honey when we got back into DC.
Our alley.This is right in front of our house - immediately to the right of the picture is the townhouse where we live.
The street across from us.After we settled in at home and had some dinner, our task was to dig Derek's car out of the snow.
As you can see, the snow literally went up to Derek's thighs. It was probably close to 3 feet in some places where it had been piled up.After most of our hard work was done.
Good thing I like that car! It took a while to dig it out!Proof that I was working, too.

Merry Christmas!

Blessings

2009-12-04T13:42:00.002-05:00

Last week was slow because of Thanksgiving, so I was hoping for a good week this week to make up for it. I'm happy to say that I was able to make up for the slow week last week and then a little bit more on top of that. I had a couple of good jobs at the beginning of the week and then got a call in that ended up being a GREAT job (an O+3, which means I sold the original transcript and 3 copies - the more copies ordered, the better for me!), even though I had to focus like I've never focused before to understand the very pleasant gentleman from Ethiopia (no sarcasm there - he was really nice, but VERY thick accent). And then on Wednesday I got a call from my office that needed someone to do some transcription jobs and I was able to pick those up, too. Last night I was working on those jobs when Derek came home, and he got a phone call shortly after that from his boss, how told him he would be receiving a bonus for the first time this year. Since he is the manager now he is eligible, but we didn't expect to get anything since it has been a tough year. We feel so blessed financially right now and really couldn't ask for anything else.

I'm now 24. Feel a little old, though I'm not. Just old for me. :) Brian is 22, old guy! Derek is edging closer and closer to the big 3-0 and I know he'd dreading it, but it will be okay. We all get older, right? Life is good, we're staying busy, and we're happy. I have been a court reporter now for almost 3 months and time is FLYING!

Is There Life Within?

2009-11-16T07:50:00.002-05:00

Well, it has been about another month since my last post. My apologies. This month was even crazier than the last. Life is really good, but it is really, really busy. Last night I updated our monthly budget, which at one time I would update every day - for the first time in 6 weeks! Yeah, I know. I don't have time to clean my poor tiny house let alone blog! However, I am all caught up (finally) with my work and don't have anything due until Thursday, so maybe we'll get a couple of blogs up the beginning of this week. It would be nice. There has been a lot of fun things we have done recently that I'd like to blog about, so hopefully I will get the time to post things up.

A quick recap of the past couple of weeks:
Field of Screams with our friend Aubrie - this was SO much fun going through a haunted house!
Trunk or Treat with the ward
Trick or Treating with our nephews
Jackie working 14 hour days for two weeks straight (that was a lot of fun - NOT!)
Finally reaping some rewards of hard work through a couple of paychecks!
Jake went into the MTC for our church - he is serving a mission in the Melbourne, Australia Mandarin-speaking mission and will be back in November-ish 2011. We are so proud of him and miss him so much already!
Staring at a computer screen for so long that my eye decided to look like it was bleeding and gross. I have been contact free for a day and it looks better, but not by much. It isn't pink eye and I don't think I blew a vessel, but it is really not looking good. I just need to stop stressing it!

I am two months in to my court reporting career and they have gone fast. I'm excited for what the next months will bring. I am off the schedule today unless they get a call-in, so I have a lot to catch up on today with non-work stuff. I miss updating this more often! Hope you are all doing well!

Yes.

2009-10-21T21:46:00.003-04:00

I'm alive. I swear I am.

Life is good, great, grand, excellent! It has been a really REALLY good month. I have gone out on 22 jobs and have made GOOD money and stayed QUITE busy. I can't remember the last time I worked so hard.

The first two weeks I had some scheduling conflicts and couldn't work as often as I wanted to. When I was back from vacation, I only got one job in a whole week! I was pretty discouraged. However, the next week things seemed to pick up. I've had at least one job every day for 2.5 straight weeks and I'm up to my ears in pages. I've had two rushes in the past week and took my first medical expert witness tonight. I don't feel like I'm ready to do medicals a lot - I'm glad it was only 50 minutes today and that the expert was "just" an OBGYN - and I'm SO grateful for the sweet lawyer who gave me a list of terms that would come up - but for the most part, today's job went well and it gave me a boost of confidence. The agency I am working with has been great, and I've gotten plenty of work. I told them that I was ready to work as hard as I could and they just keep throwing things at me! It has been a really good (and FAST) month.

Can I just say how much I love living and working in DC, too? Of my 22 jobs, I have walked to 14 of them, taken the metro to 3, and driven to 5. I get good exercise and am able to see the city. I have to wonder how many people think I'm a flight attendant, though, with my constantly rolling my case around!

I'm so glad I went through school and finally finished some sort of schooling. My husband had watched me switch from major to major before I finally heard about court reporting and decided, "I want to do that." I really wanted him to see me finish something, and I finally did! I love being a court reporter!

Europe Trip - Budapest Day 5

2009-09-09T11:56:00.006-04:00

May 30th, 2009, dawned early for us in Budapest, Hungary. Grandpa Lazslo had bought me an awesome yellow skirt that I really wanted to wear, so I tried it on that morning and we prepared to go out. Luckily, we checked out the window before we left and realized it would probably rain throughout the day, so I laid the yellow skirt to rest for another day.Don't ask me what I did with my hair that day. This was one of the only days I had with a big mirror and my hair ends up looking all crooked!We were lucky that our hotel was really close to a big hub metro, and this was the scene that we saw every time we were going back to the hotel/leaving to go somewhere. It was rather extravagant. Almost like a mall.We started off the day going up to find the Vajdahunyad Castle and happened upon a very cool horse race track area where they were preparing for a race later that day, a festival, and a huge market where they had the best looking candies ever. There was also a pretty park that we walked through where we found this house that was completely covered in moss.We went to Széchenyi Baths in Budapest, and this place was awesome. The building was vast in size and the architecture was so intricate and detailed, it was really beautiful. That made for a very relaxing morning!After the baths, we walked around a bit and happened upon a festival that was going on close to Vajdahunyad Castle.
It was a lot of fun, and we ended up buying a green necklace/earrings set (handmade), a scarf, and a magnet at the market area. It was great to just walk around and be surrounded by people that were bartering and just having a grand time.There was another little market area going on in this beautiful building.We took a walk down Vaci Street, which is famous for its shops and touristy atmosphere.We took some side streets every once in a while just to explore a bit more and happened upon a wedding outside a beautiful church.Later that day we went to a different part of town to see the Great Synagogue. Then we made our way to St. Stephen's Basilica. You can see that it had started raining by this point, though it was still fun to walk around the city.Our dinner that night was at a cute little restaurant that was tucked away on a side street. These babies are paprika scones and were DELICIOUS. I had 2.5 of them.The awesome dinner - this food was SO good and SO cheap. I want to go back just for this food.Dinner was even better because of my fantastic company. Who can refuse that smile?!We tried really hard to make it to the bridge by our hotel to watch the sun set but were just a little too late. The sky still looked pretty awesome, anyway. We walked over by Parliament that night as well, which was beautiful in the dark.

Europe Trip - Budapest Day 4

2009-09-02T09:50:00.006-04:00

Friday morning we woke up early to make the 1.5 hour drive in to Budapest. It was a great day spent sight-seeing, learning about Lazslo's childhood, meeting some of his friends, and enjoying our last day with him on our trip.
Budapest was simply beautiful and I couldn't get enough of it. It was so green, had mountains, and felt quaint all in the same breath. We parked the car on the sidewalk (as everyone else had done!) and took the street car everywhere. We walked around for a bit in the Castle District/Gellert Hill areas and ran into some really beautiful sights.One of the coolest things about touring the city with Lazslo was getting to know him better through his stories. We were able to go inside his childhood school to take a peek - it is a gorgeous building!When we were walking we saw a lot of beautiful views. Parliament is pretty breathtaking, and it was cool to see Lady Liberty from most places in the city. Sadly, we didn't hike up to her because we went on another hike up to see Fisherman's Bastion, which was incredible. It was quite the hike up, though!It was worth it for the view! Wow! I loved Budapest's steep hills and old feel.
Can you tell who had possession of the camera most of the time?!This was pretty much the cutest thing I had ever seen, so I had to take a picture of it. They had awesome little shops in Budapest that we enjoyed browsing through.

After hiking/walking around forever, we decided to grab lunch and ended up at this cool place that Lazslo used to frequent with some of his childhood friends. We were able to meet a few of his friends, which was great fun! I ordered chicken and Derek ordered duck and somehow our orders were switched without us realizing it. I like duck!

Eventually we found a hotel just a few blocks down from the Danube River that we stayed in for Friday - Saturday nights and we were able to rest after walking around for most of the day. It was sad to say goodbye to Lazslo - we had such a great time with him!
The view from our hotel at ground level.
When we were exploring later in the day, Derek found this awesomoe convertible Smartcar. Isn't that the coolest little car?

The bridge over the Danube at night.
It was a beautiful night and we had a fantastic day!
Graffiti was a big problem in most of the cities we visited, but especially in Budapest. The street car dropped us off and when we were going up a staircase to get to the bridge, we saw this. I don't like graffiti, but what are the odds of us finding Derek's name with the correct spelling?!

I'm DONE!

2009-09-02T09:45:00.003-04:00

Most of you have already seen the news elsewhere, but...I'm done with school! I have finally finished my speeds and can start working in less than two weeks!! I passed my first 225 on August 23, the second on August 27, and the final one on August 30. I submitted my two weeks notice to my current job and my last day is September 11. We are going to South Carolina that weekend to pick up Derek's new car (for another post), and will be back the evening of the 14th. I can start going out on jobs September 15!! I am getting started on paperwork with the agency I will be an Independent Contractor for, ordered my professional software (ouch - $$$), and have a billion questions for my teacher tomorrow at my graduation ceremony. I have to order some supplies, but mostly now I'm just playing the waiting game to be able to start. I have plenty to do at my job to help make the transition smooth and this weekend we're going to Virginia Beach...the next two weeks will fly by, and then I'll get to tell you all about my first job as a court reporter!!

Total Tests Passed: 81
Time Spent Speedbuilding: 1 year, 3 months, and about a week
Time Spent in School, Part-time: 2 years, 5 days

School Update

2009-08-27T12:54:00.003-04:00

It has been a while since I gave an update on school, and I have a good one!

"You passed your first 225 Q&A with an awesome score of 96.08. Any day now and we have to graduate you."

Two tests left! Ahhhh!

Europe Trip - Budapest Day 3

2009-08-13T11:40:00.005-04:00

Thursday in Budapest was our relaxing day. We slept in late and just generally hung around the house all day. We needed clean clothes, so we hand-washed our clothes and hung them out to dry on Lazslo's line outside. Lazslo has a keyboard and so we broke it out and I was able to play a bunch of songs on it after Derek fixed it. Since he had fixed Lazslo's computer earlier in our visit, we got to listen to some of Lazslo's favorite jazz tunes off his computer - that was very relaxing and a fun time. We also got to enjoy some of Lazslo's own music - he plays the saxophone very well, and it was awesome to sit and watch him play with such expression and soul. His place was in the country, really close to some breathtaking views, so Derek and I took a hike for about an hour just to explore the area. Later in the evening we also went on a hike with Lazslo and had some great conversation while enjoying the beautiful scenery. We had pig for dinner and part of it was just straight up fat that we ate. It was actually pretty good. We hit the sack early so we could get up and make it to Budapest the next morning at a decent time.

This is a collage of the land - upper left is an outhouse, upper right is the "garage door," if you will, made out of bamboo! Lower left is the house, middle is where we slept, and lower right is the outdoor shower (which no one used while we were there - too cold - heated by the sun!).These beauties were on the bush across the street from Lazslo's place - every morning we would wake up and look out the window and these would be the first things we saw!This cute green/blue lizard scurried across the yard while we were out chatting. He was a quicker booger, and made me miss Lance.
Another piece of proof of the beauty of Hungary - this bush is growing in Lazslo's yard - the flower was so heavy that as soon as Derek put it back down it hung flower down and looked like it was bowing its head in prayer. They were so big!

The Past Week

2009-08-13T10:55:00.002-04:00

It has been an interesting week. Gratefully, it started off good last Thursday, with a Washington Nationals baseball game provided by work that Derek was able to come to (in the middle of the day!), where we actually WON! By the second inning, we were down 0-6. Yeah, I didn't have high hopes. However, as soon as Derek arrived at the bottom of the second, things turned around and the home runs started churning. We saw a ton of them, and we ended up winning 12-8, I think, was the final score.

We made it home and I left to go to class. It only took me about 55 minutes to get there, and that was with stopping for gas and stopping at Wendy's for food. It was incredible! Traffic was a beautiful thing that night, and the stars were out for me that evening. I finally passed my last 200 Jury Charge, which puts me at 3 tests left!! Cross your fingers for me, I'm going to try my hardest to get out within 6 weeks. Maybe I just won't sleep anymore...then maybe I will practice my fingers enough so that they'll move as fast as I need them to. The past month I've been practicing at 240-250 wpm, a painful thing for Little Ms. Perfectionist, but on my internship this week the court reporter told me that was too slow. I needed to go EVEN FASTER - closer to 300 wpm. I explained that I would bawl my eyes out every night if I was forced to practice those high speeds, and she told me it was necessary. I don't have practice dictation that goes up that fast, but I do have Literary at 220, Jury Charge at 230, and Q&A at 280, which I have practiced for the past 2 nights. The first night I cried at the 220 Literary (these things are so hard, they might as well be 300 wpm!), but then I stopped wimping out. I'm proud to report there were no tears last night, but already my ears are adjusting to those high speeds. I can't get close to that speed, but I'm working my hardest at it and know that the effort will pay off, eventually. And if it doesn't, I have the email address of the court reporter who recommended it and I will let her know that she cost me great heartache. Or, I could get out as fast as possible and then I will email her my heartfelt thanks. Here's to hoping for the latter.

Friday was the beginning of the end of the goodness of the week (with a few bright moments poking through the downpour of badness). Derek saw some commercial about a great deal on a brand new car, so we called the dealership and decided to head out there to check it out. As soon as we got there, we explained to the guy helping us that we didn't NEED a new car, but if the deal was as good as it said on TV, we would buy on the spot. We should have left as soon as we found out that that good deal was only possible if you qualified for cash for clunkers. He somehow convinced us that there were other things we qualified for, so we proceeded to go through 2 hours of looking at cars, test-driving a car, and negotiations. He kept us waiting for 20 minutes while he was "talking his boss down" so he could "get us a good deal." He comes back in, and you know what he does? Points at a piece of paper and says, "These are your monthly payment options. Which payment would best suit your monthly budget?" Derek and I looked at each, there was a long pregnant pause, and we both looked at the guy and blurted, "Are you kidding? What is the price of the car?!" He didn't even tell us the price! Turns out it was definitely wasted time (always a bummer in the life of busy bees), and he didn't talk his boss down at all, didn't "work his magic" with getting us a good deal for our Toyota on trade-in, and we didn't qualify for the other things he was talking up. My take on it? BOO! We were completely up front with you the whole time and you completely tried to scam us. He apparently didn't understand that our desire to get a car that was $8,000 was the TOTAL PRICE. He tried to justify it by saying that we would only have to finance about $8,000 after the trade-in and downpayment. The downpayment was going to be $4,000! Hello! Funny how we spent the evening trying to explain this to the man, who apparently never got it, and I explained it once to my mom over the phone (not face to face with hand gestures and fingers to visually describe how much money we wanted to spend) and she laughed out loud at the man's gall. I guess he did his job well. The monthly payments really didn't look that bad - but when you account for the fact that you will be making that same payment every month for three, four, or even five years, you pay thousands more for a car than the original price. If we weren't such sticklers (read: cheap-os), we might have been convinced. But, we really don't need a new car. So, our trusty Toyota will continue to reign as chief vehicle in the Scheer family until we leave DC and need another car, or until it dies (crosses fingers that this will be after living in DC).

So we left the dealership at 8:45pm, starving, and we were heading towards Kohl's so we could take advantage of their sale that coincided with Virginia's tax free holiday. Not five minutes after leaving the dealership, we got pulled over. Yep. Derek was very respectful to the officer, who seemingly was in a good mood because he ended up giving us just a warning. Thanks, Officer! That was the start of the good part of the night. We ate some food and then went shopping. I got 3 shirts and Derek got 5, and we got an electric bread knife. We spent more money than I care to admit to, but I justify it by the fact that Derek really needed button-down short sleeve shirts he could wear to work, and I have slowly been transitioning my wardrobe to court reporting-appropiate attire.

Saturday we went berry picking in Virginia, and ended up with 4 pints of blackberries and about 6 pounds of peaches. It was a lot of fun. Homework/practicing ensued, and then our brother in law came over for dinner. His family is out of town for a few weeks and he had just rode 67 miles in a bike race, so we wanted to treat him, the poor guy! Jake, my almost 19 year old brother, has been preparing for several months to get his papers in to serve a mission for our church, and he received his call letter on Saturday. We set up a time for everyone to meet around the kitchen table at home, including Grandma, and Brian and I were both called. Jake opened the letter and read, word for word without jumping to the good parts, exactly what the letter said. He enters the MTC on November 11, 2009, and will be serving in the Australia Melbourne East Mission for 24 months. He will be speaking Mandarin Chinese. This will be quite a feat for him, but I know that he will be blessed for going on a mission (as will all of his family - thanks, Jake!) and he will bless the lives of many people in Australia. I had trouble keeping my emotions intact on the phone call, my heart was bursting with pride (still is, as I write this all teary-eyed), and was sad I wasn't there with him to give him a big hug. Luckily, I will be blessed to be able to go see him before he leaves.

Is this the longest post ever yet? It has been a week, I tell you.

Saturday night after our BIL left we resumed homework/practicing (our new normal routine) and my head, which had started hurting while I was preparing dinner, proceeded to continuously throb until I couldn't do anything anymore. I went to bed, thinking I could sleep it off. I woke up once and discovered the migraine had progressed to my entire head instead of being concentrated on the right side, but I just tried to go back to sleep. I woke up again a few hours later and it hurt to open my eyes. I walked around my apartment blindly trying to find my purse to get some medicine to take, which I finally did, and it hurt to open my jaw to swallow some water with my pills. Now, it as 4 am, my migraine had fully encompassed my entire head, eyes, jaw, and my neck. I got back in bed and Derek asked the magic words: "Are you okay, babe?" I just broke down crying. I can't remember the last time I had such a horrible migraine. It was the kind that not only does it just hurt everywhere, but you want to puke, too. What a night. Luckily, when I woke up for real in the morning, it was gone. It was a rough night.

Sunday I found out I passed my last jury charge test. That was good news. Church was good, as was class. I was pretty bummed the whole day, though, because our bikes were stolen Saturday night/Sunday morning. That's right, as I was suffering with my migraine, some losers were hopping our 8 foot fence to steal our bikes. We're still pretty upset about it, understandbly so, I think. We're planning on going to a thrift store this weekend to see if we can pick up some cheap bike so we can at least have one around, maybe two if there is a good deal.

Monday was just a hard day for me emotionally for some reason. I've been stressing myself out to the max, and some days just make me sad. The rest of the week has been okay. I'm hoping to do really well at class tonight. I've been working on 225 for 6 weeks now - not quite ready to start passing tests, but I can see that I've made a lot of progress in 6 weeks. Derek is working on his finals this week and then is off for 4ish weeks. We're looking forward to that. Sorry this sort of turned into a huge journal entry. It has been a trying week, but things are looking up, and the weekend is almost here. Let's hope it is better than last weekend (though you can't top having a brother open his mission call!!). Hope everyone is doing well.

Europe Trip - Budapest Day 2

2009-08-04T09:24:00.003-04:00

Our second day in Budapest was Wednesday, May 27, 2009. We started off the morning with another great breakfast and decided to take a trip to the "big lake." This lake, compared with the small lake we had gone to the previous day, was exponentially bigger but also took much longer to get to. We hopped in the car mid-morning and Derek drove again. It was a pleasant enough car ride, and we stopped every once in a while to get out to stretch and check out the beautiful scenery. Our plan was to stop in Heviz to go to the thermal baths there, stay the night somewhere, and then head back up to Lazslo's place on Thursday. What really ended up happening was we drove around the entire lake, stopping in Heviz at the baths, and went to Lazslo's friend's place to watch the Barcelona v. Manchester soccer game. We stopped for lunch at a pizza place about 30 minutes from Heviz, and the pizza was delicious! It was huge, too.

The thermal baths were fascinating. It was beautifully decorated with lily pads all over the place, and there were a lot of people there for a Wednesday afternoon. Derek and I decided it was pretty cool that we were able to have our own private conversations in the middle of a large group of people because most people in the country didn't speak English. It was very relaxing and surprisingly warm in the baths. It was incredibly deep, so I had to stay close to an underwater bench that they had that you could sit on if you got tired. My little feet could only kick so much to stay afloat! We had some dessert at the baths, some Hungarian treats, and one was chocolate - and Derek ate it! I got a picture just to prove it.

We hopped back in the car and decided that since it was going to be bad weather the next day there wasn't much point in staying overnight somewhere to enjoy the lake the next day, and headed back towards Lazslo's place. He called his friend of 55 years, Erno, and we went over to his beautiful home to watch the soccer game. Erno is a science teacher at a local unversity and he and his wife, Agnes, both spoke flawless English. We took a tour of their backyard, which spans 2 lots instead of the usual one, and had a gorgeous garden, cherry tree, and a lovely gazebo-type thing in the middle for sitting. The soccer game was eventful, and we enjoyed a dessert of fresh strawberries (from their garden) and cream (homemade), cherries (freshly picked from their tree), and sandwiches on homemade bread. To say the least, Agnes is quite the homemaker and was a lovely lady. They were both so kind and we were glad to be able to meet some of Lazslo's friends. We got home late and went to bed quickly - it was a long day!!

Europe Trip - Budapest Day 1 PM

2009-07-20T12:44:00.006-04:00

We decided to head to the "small lake" our first afternoon in Budapest. It took about an hour or so to get there, and Derek drove! He actually did the majority of driving while we were in Hungary, which was a cool experience for him. Luckily, they drive on the same side of the street as we do here and he didn't have to worry about opposite sides of the street or anything like he would have had to in London. In Hungary, however, they have A LOT of roundabouts - if you think it is bad in DC, you haven't seen anything! Fortunately they were much easier to navigate than the roundabouts in DC - there were just a ton of them.

A bit of scenery from the beautiful drive.

Speed Limit SignIt was perfect weather to go and layout and just have nice conversation. We didn't get in the water right at first because we were worried the water was cold, and we needed to be super hot before getting in. Laszlo just jumped right in! And we were right, by the way - SUPER cold water, even though it was beautiful outside! It took Derek and I a while to get all the way into the water and comfortable. The highlight of being in the water was seeing a snake swimming! That was pretty cool, but I was glad it was a good distance from me! There wasn't a wide variety of swimsuits there for us to see - everyone had on very skimpy bikinis and most men wore speedos. I saw a bit too much skin while there from everyone around, especially from one lady in particular who only sported a bikini bottom. (No pictures of that, not to worry!)
We took a walk around a bit of the lake after getting out of the water and saw some people using a zip line to go water skiing about halfway around the lake. It looked like a lot of fun! Our feet got pretty hot from walking around barefoot on the pathway, so we stopped off a couple of times to cool our feet down! After we got back to our spot, I relaxed and enjoying some sunning while Derek and Laszlo had a very pleasant conversation about religion. It was wonderful to hear them exchanging ideas about what "makes them tick" and what their beliefs are and why. I hadn't had too many opportunities to get to know Laszlo up to this point, so it was great to sit and listen to their conversation.
We started back in the direction of home and stopped off for dinner at a traditional Hungarian restaurant, where the food was absolutely delicious! It was a beautiful area as well, and the great weather continued into the night. We were very grateful to have Laszlo with us in the country, because we would have had a terrible time trying to communicate with people! Hungarian is a fascinating language, and it was fun to be surrounded by it for a week. It was a wonderful day!
A bathroom sign. Good luck reading it!Gas pump.Yep, that'd be McDonald's. We saw these all over the place everywhere.

This is where the small lake was.

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Europe Trip - Budapest Day 1 AM

2009-07-20T11:28:00.004-04:00

On Monday, May 25, we spent most of the day in London and then went to Gatwick Airport. We spent some time in lines and then wandered around the airport, which looked a lot like a mall. We ate dinner at the airport (a last minute decision, which we were grateful for later in the day!), and then finally found a cheap fake ring that could pass as my wedding ring for our trip. I had gone a week without wearing a ring on that finger and it felt so bare!

Our flight was delayed for about a half hour and then they finally started boarding. Our flight was originally scheduled to leave at 4:45pm - we boarded at 5:45, which seemed pretty reasonable. We didn't travel with cell phones, so we couldn't call Derek's grandpa to let him know we'd be just a little late. We got on the plane and were ready to go. After sitting and waiting for a while, the pilot gets on and tells us that they are in negotiations with the big guys that make decisions about when you can fly because they were concerned about some weather in the direction we were headed. He said they expected a decision "soon." We sat and sat and sat and sat! The pilot came back on and said that we were now in a "pool" and hoped to leave by 7:30 - it was only 6:30! We sat on the plane forever. By the time we realized it, it was already 8pm - we were already supposed to be in Budapest!! Luckily, we were sitting next to a nice Hungarian man who spoke beautiful English who let us use his cell phone so we could call Derek's grandpa to let him know. We called around 6:30 - he was already at the airport, almost 2 hours early! He was worried he would be late, so got there super early. While he waited for our arrival he went a visited with a friend in Budapest. We ended up sitting on the plane for almost 3 hours before we finally took off just after 8pm. The short 2 hour flight was event-free, and we finally landed at 11pm in Budapest.

We made it out of the passport area to figure out how we were going to get in touch with Laszlo, and, incredibly, he was out in the waiting area with the others that were waiting for their loved ones. He had just arrived at the airport after visiting with his friend to pass the time. It was a wonderful reunion between Derek and his grandpa, and a lovely meeting for the two of us. We headed off to the car and drove the 90 minutes to his place out in the country, making it there by about 1am. Laszlo was so energized that we were there that he didn't look tired at all! We were tired, but more importantly - famished. We ate bread and meat and chatted for a bit until we finally hit the sack at 2am.

We slept in a bedroom that looked sort of like an attic on two twin beds that we pushed together. There was one window in the room that was behind us. We were so exhausted that we didn't think of where the sun would rise. Unfortunately, morning came much too quickly and the sun was shining in on us by 5am, when we awoke. Neither of us could get back to sleep, but we snuggled and laid there chatting on and off until 9:30 am. We finally dragged ourselves out of bed and went down to the living room area. We chatted for a bit and then Laszlo took us out to his yard and showed us his garden, and we got our first glimpse at the breathtaking views of his home in the country.
We enjoyed the outdoors, picked strawberries from his garden, and then headed back to the kitchen, where we then all helped in the preparation of breakfast: fresh everything. Eggs, bacon, homemade bread, grapefruit, the freshly picked strawberries from Laszlo's garden - makes me wish I was back there right now for some more! We got ready for the day and then spent the rest of the morning chatting with Laszlo about anything and everything under the sun. His computer had been giving him some problems and Derek fiddled with it for a while and was able to fix it! It was a great morning for the start of our stay in Budapest.

Five Tests Left!

2009-07-15T14:51:00.002-04:00

I was right about that jury charge from the other night...98.2%! Not too shabby! My teacher thinks I can get out in a month; I am not so positive that that is possible, but I sure hope so! I'm going to try my hardest because I am eager to get out there and start reporting! I am almost finished up with my internship - just 3 hours left that I need! Life is good and busy!

225!

2009-07-10T10:53:00.003-04:00

The latest text exchange from my teacher, from Friday, July 3rd, 2009:

"Jackie -- I am sorry to tell you that you just passed your last 200 Q&A. Now I must force you to take your Q&As at 225. You scored a 95.9. Great job."

I replied something like "I am screaming right now! Thank you so much!"

"Keep screaming all the way to your diploma."

We were at the Mall waiting for friends to go explore at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and had just gotten off our bikes from our ride. I think I had a smile plastered on my face the rest of the weekend until class on Sunday, when I tested at 225. Ouch. In the past week, however, I have already seen a lot of progress and last night's class went much better! Practice works!

Six tests left, friends! I turned in a 200 Jury Charge from last night that I feel pretty good about - let's hope that we're down to five tests!

Europe Trip - London, Day 3

2009-07-09T11:54:00.008-04:00

We started our final day in London by visiting Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. It was a great morning. The first thing that we happened upon was a marathon.

I loved the quaint streets of London. This one reminded me a lot of New York.After the area around Parliament, we visited St. Paul's Cathedral.
We rounded out the morning by visiting the British Museum. We didn't have a lot of time to spend in there, but we took a quick tour of the inside (it had the coolest ceiling!), got back to the hostel to pack, and we were finally on our way to Budapest!
As you will learn in a later post, we left London after becoming extensively acquainted with London Gatwick Airport and the inside of our plane. We said goodbye to London with the hopes of going back for a longer visit in the future. We took the train to the airport, and the pictures above that look like a mall - that was the airport! It was incredible! London was fantastic and we had an awesome time there!