23-28 weeks

I have learned it is true when people say you forget about the bad symptoms of being pregnant and that is why so many women get pregnant again. The nausea in the first trimester seems like a distant memory and doesn't seem as bad when I think about it as I'm sure it was at the time. Around 24 weeks I started having sharp pains deep in my left butt cheek every time I walked. I wasn't sure what it was, but hoped I would be able to get through it and keep working. Each time I get a bad symptom of pregnancy I wonder how long I will be able to handle it. The pain when I walk has subsided though and I just feel a twinge of pain if I stretch my leg out a certain way. Now at 28 weeks I can't tell if I have ankles anymore and I hope it doesn't last the next 12 weeks.

I haven't had any crazy cravings that I have to have everyday, just a craving for something at the moment and then it is gone once I fulfill it. I did really want cheeto puffs for awhile, but they are a very bad choice because I can eat a whole bag in 2 days. Honeycrisp apples taste so good to me, but they are so expensive! I am trying to eat more fruit, make dinner instead of going out, and incorporate more vegetables into our dinners. I still feel pretty picky when it comes to my food choices though, which makes it hard to eat really healthy. We go on walks every so often and I walk a lot at work, but after work I am so tired I never want to go to the gym. I know my body needs it so my labor is not as bad, but it is really hard to get this pregnant belly off the couch after work.

I had another ultrasound at 23 weeks because my previous ultrasound didn't see the sacral spine very well. It was fun to have the ultrasound tech take more pictures and really explain what she was looking at since she knows I am an ultrasound tech too. Before I got pregnant Weston and I said we didn't want 3D pictures because they are creepy looking, but since I was further along with this second ultrasound baby boy didn't look scary at all.

 

Baby boy didn't want his picture taken

Me and Weston after we were born. Who is baby boy going to look like?

Weston's spring break was the third week in March this year so I took off a couple of days from work so we could go on a small vacation. We stayed at the Mt. Charleston Lodge Tuesday night. We ate steak and salmon for dinner and a really yummy breakfast the next day. It was beautiful up there and very quiet since we went in the middle of the week. That afternoon we left Mt. Charleston and drove to Irvine, CA. When we got to Irvine we checked in at our hotel and then went to Pick up Stix for dinner. Whenever we go out of town I always think about where we are going to eat because Vegas doesn't have all the places to eat that California does. I love Pick up Stix and it tasted so good! Thursday we were going to go to Catalina Island and just explore, but it was really expensive to take the ferry over there so Weston wanted to find something else to do. We found a french bistro that was supposed to have really good french toast for breakfast, but we got there too late and they had stopped serving breakfast. I told Weston we should find a Dominican restaurant to eat lunch at since they probably had one in So. California. We found one in Bellflower and decided to head there to eat lunch. Weston had a hard time deciding what to eat because there were so many things he wanted to eat. We were stuffed after lunch and decided to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Weston said it was the best aquarium he has ever been to. We got to touch jelly fish and sharks and watch a show with sea lions and seals. After the Aquarium we took the ferry over to Balboa island. We played in the arcade and ate shaved ice. We went back to the hotel before dinner then headed to The Counter. It is a gourmet burger place we went to last summer with Weston's family and Weston wanted to eat there again. It was delicious! We wanted to see a movie after, but there was nothing playing at the cheap theater that we both wanted to see so we went back to the hotel pool again. Friday morning we ate a Ihop for breakfast, then headed to Newport Beach. We rented beach cruisers and rode up to the pier and back. We headed home afterwards and stopped in Hespia at a philly steak place for lunch. I was so tired when we got home, but it was so nice to get away and spend time just the two of us. Weston is definitely my favorite person to spend time with :)

April 4th my friend and coworker Katie had her wedding out at the Pauite golf course. It was a beautiful wedding and I actually felt pretty and pregnant. I couldn't wear the new wedges I bought though because my feet began to swell up that morning.

50/50 chance

Before we started trying to have kids Weston would say he wanted a girl first because he had a girl first in his family and I wanted a boy first because we had a boy first in mine. I felt like I was going to have a girl though, but that could have just been because I wanted to dress up a little girl. Once we found out Rachel was having another girl, Weston really wanted to have a boy since it would be the first on his side of the family. I heard about people being told what they were having at 12 weeks, but it was usually an 80 percent chance. I read about it and there was a way of maybe telling, but you had to get the perfect image so I figured 14 weeks would be the soonest I wouldn't be able to tell myself. Weston wasn't really expecting to be there when I found out because I was checking myself once a week anyway. I kept telling him I was pretty sure it was going to be a girl and he would tell me I needed to "will it to be a boy." Haha it's his little guys that determine what we have not my willingness to produce a boy or a girl. He makes me laugh. Anyway, at 12 weeks 6 days I set the transducer down and couldn't believe I was seeing what we were having. I text Weston and asked if I could have my co worker look without him there and he said that was fine. When she scanned me, and 2 other techs verified, I was pretty sure about what we were having. Weston wanted to wait until we were really sure to tell our families, but I couldn't hold in the excitement. We are having a.... BOY!!!!

The little triangle in the middle is a boy part!

When people would ask me what I was having I would tell them I was pretty sure it was a boy, but I wanted to wait until I had my official ultrasound to say for sure. At 21 weeks, on Valentine's day, we officially found out we were having a baby boy. He was out and ready to show us all that he was boy too :) I already started buying things here and there for the baby and a friend of mine gave me a ton of baby boy clothes. We are so excited to meet this little guy. I started really feeling him kick between 21 and 22 weeks. Weston placed his hand on my belly a couple days ago and right as he did baby boy kicked. It was so amazing to have Weston feel what I was felling.

 15 weeks

Big lips like Daddy

 20 weeks

 Ready to show us he's a boy!

 21 weeks

22 weeks

Baby Time

     When Weston and I got married he still had 3 years of school left. We talked about when we wanted to have kids and decided right before started dental school would be a good time to have our first. The longer we were married, the more baby hungry I got. I would see other girls getting pregnant with their first and then second babies. It felt like everyone was getting pregnant! I would tell Weston my uterus was getting dusty and try to convince him we should start trying sooner, but he wasn't having it. It wasn't that he didn't want to have kids, he just knew that sticking to the plan was the right thing for us. Plus, since Weston is 3 years younger than me, I think he didn't feel completely ready. The closer it got to us trying, the more I wanted to push the time up a little. I would say "trying one month sooner than we planned wouldn't hurt." Weston would tell me all the reasons why we needed to wait until we planned and I would reluctantly agree with him.

     Before I met Weston my OB told me I had mild PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). I knew this could lessen the chances of us getting pregnant or at least getting pregnant quickly. I kept telling myself that the longest it took my sisters or my mom was 4 months so I would be fine, but you never know. I stopped taking my birth control in July and we started really trying in August. Trying to have a baby is so unromantic. It really is a miracle that people get pregnant at all with such a limited window for everything to happen in your body. While on birth control I was very regular, but before I was on it I was not. So, once I stopped taking it I expected to go back to being somewhat irregular. It was really stressful, though, when I was 'late' because it could just be my body getting back to normal. I took a pregnancy test in August, even though we weren't really trying in July, because I was 7 days late. It was negative which wasn't a huge surprise, but still a little disappointing. In September, I was 2 days late, so I decided to take another pregnancy test. Negative. This one was a lot more disappointing because we really had been trying. Weston kept telling me that it would happen and I knew I couldn't be too upset since it only had been a month. In October, I was a week late so I took a pregnancy test and it was negative. Another few days went by with no period and another pregnancy test that was negative. I was so confused why my body was messing with me, but knew it could be that I was stressing out too much. A couple days later I took a test when I woke up for work and saw a very faint positive! I whispered to Weston that he was going to be a Daddy and he just smiled.

   Having the job that I do I was checking myself multiple times a week. I would look to see if my endometrium was getting thicker or if there was a gestational sac, but I wasn't seeing anything when I should have been 6 weeks. Finally, my friend scanned me and saw a little 5 week gestational sac! A week later we saw a little heartbeat. It was really exciting, but everything that could be wrong started running through my head. I always said I wouldn't be one of those crazy people that stressed about every little thing that could happen, but seeing so many of those things with my job just heightened the stress. I went to the OB  for my first trimester check when I should have been about 9 weeks. When the tech did my ultrasound I was only 7 weeks 1 day. It finally made sense why the pregnancy test took so long to show a positive and for us to see anything in my uterus. I must have ovulated really late because they pushed my due date back 10 days from what it should have been.

First trimester was rough, but not as bad as I'm sure it could have been. I threw up about 6 times total and I was nauseous quite a bit. I felt bad for Weston because I didn't want to cook at all! Everything sounded disgusting to me and eating just made me feel more sick. Seeing the Thanksgiving commercials on TV even made me sick. I finally got some anti nausea pills from my OB, which helped a lot. I also had a weird after taste in my mouth all the time.The nauseousness eventually subsided and I was able to start eating normally after the first trimester.

 7 weeks

 11 weeks

14 weeks

Dental School

I just realized I never posted about one of the biggest things going on in our lives. Weston's going to Dental school!

Last May he took the DAT and got a 22, which is really good from what we here. He was expecting an 18 maybe 19, so a 22 was a very nice surprise for him. In June, he applied to 12 different dental schools and waited to hear if they wanted him to fill out supplemental applications. Most of the schools requested a supplemental and then we waited to hear about interviews. He got an interview at UNLV first, then MidWestern in Arizona and then VCU in Virginia. He flew out to Arizona and Virginia, without me because I had to work, and he really liked both schools. He said he liked them a lot more than he was expecting. He knew the beginning of December was the soonest he would find out about UNLV's decision. He got another interview to Loma Linda, in California, for the middle of December, but decided if he got into UNLV he would cancel that interview. He received a call from UNLV December 3 that he had been accepted and also received a scholarship! I almost started crying when he came to my work to tell me. We prayed about it and thought about the practicality of leaving Las Vegas a lot. It didn't make sense to go anywhere else, especially with the scholarship. Weston is going to UNLV Dental School!

 
I am so proud of Weston. He worked so hard to get good grades and do well on the DAT. We are thankful daily for the blessings Heavenly Father is bestowing upon us. We know we wouldn't be able to do any of this without Him and love Him so much. A lot of exciting things are happening this next year and we are ready for them :)

San Francisco!!!

Weston and I talked about going to San Francisco since we got married. Last August we were going to go, but it ended up not working out so we did a staycation. This year I told Weston that we were going whether we had the money or not because it would be our last big vacation before we try to have a baby. We decided to drive my Mazda3 since it is older and we didn't want to put the miles on our newer car.

We left Friday around 4pm to head up to Bishop, CA. Two hours into the trip, around Beatty, our air conditioning went out. It happens every so often, but turns back on usually. Well, it wouldn't turn back on this time. It was so hot! We had to drive through 3 windy roads to get to Bishop and it was pretty scary driving that at night. We got to our hotel safely, and sweaty, and went to bed a couple hours later.

The next morning we got up early to get some Freon to see if maybe that was the problem. After putting in Freon our AC was still just as hot. We went to a mechanic after that and they found a leak in our high pressure AC hose, but couldn't fix it since they didn't have the part. We decided to just drive on since the weather wasn't too hot and we would be in the mountains most of the day. We ate lunch at a cute pizza place in Mammoth Lakes while I called around to find out if any of the Mazda dealers in San Francisco had the part we needed. We drove up to Yosemite and then down to the valley floor. It was beautiful in Yosemite, but such a long drive and I think we were just ready to get to our next stop. We watched a video about Yosemite and stopped to take some pictures then headed out to San Mateo. We got to San Mateo, which is South of San Francisco, and were ready to sleep after another day of no AC in our car.

Sunday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. We parked our car and walked about half way down the bridge. It was was really foggy so we didn't get that postcard picture of the bridge we would have liked, but it was still amazing being there. We were told Muir Woods was worth going to because we would see huge trees. I think we were both hoping for Sequoia size trees and were disappointed. We just drove the windy roads and headed back to a park by the Japanese Tea Gardens. We took a nap on the grass and walked around. It was expensive to go into the Tea Garden, or any museum for that matter, so we just walked around some more. I didn't buy Weston anything for his birthday so we decided to go look for shoes since Weston needed new volleyball shoes. He ended up getting two pairs of shoes because anyone that knows Weston knows he loves shoes. We ate dinner at BJ's and headed to bed early because we had an early morning the next day.

Monday we got up at 5am to go down to Fisherman's Wharf and wait in line for tickets to Alcatraz. It was Weston's birthday and he wanted to go to Alcatraz that day. We waited too long to buy tickets online so we waited for an hour and a half in line for the limited tickets they sell for same day trips. We got our tickets though and almost froze to death waiting! Weston wanted French toast for breakfast so we ordered IHOP to go and went back to the hotel to shower. We drove back into the city and took a ferry out to Alcatraz. They provide an audio tour and I'm not usually a big history person, but this was probably my favorite part of our trip. It was amazing to hear the stories of the prisoners and the history of the prison. When we got back to Fisherman's Wharf we went to get Weston some clam chowder for lunch and I had fish and chips. After lunch we walked around Fisherman's Wharf, went to the Maritime museum, the Ghirardelli Factory, and looked at the Trolleys. We took a street car to Union Square and walked around then headed back to the car near Fisherman's Wharf. Since this day was all about Weston he decided he wanted sushi for dinner. Mmm my favorite (sense the sarcasm). We walked around downtown San Mateo till we found a good sushi place with not too long of a wait. We ended up sitting by the nicest couple who eventually asked if we were LDS. I was so confused and asked if my garments were showing, but the husband just thought we were and they were too! Such a small world.  It was a busy day, but so much fun!

Tuesday we drove an hour outside San Mateo to a Mazda dealer that had the part we thought we needed. They told us our entire AC system was out and it would cost us $1700 to fix. Well that didn't sound so good, so we decided to finish up our trip and get it fixed when we got home. We went to the Exploritorium for a couple hours and then decided it was time to head out. There was a lot more we would have liked to see and do, but we were so tired and ready to go home.  We drove to Bakersfield and slept there that night so we could drive home early the next day before it got too hot.

Our trip was stressful at times, but definitely worth the memories. We would love to go back someday when we have more time to explore the city, but for now it is one city checked off our life to do list!

2013 So far...

January - I had to work New Year's Day this year so we didn't even stay up past midnight. We went to Disneyland at the beginning of January before Weston went back to school and it was so cold, but we had a lot of fun!

February - For Valentine's Day Weston bought me a glow light that I kept seeing sold on the side of the road down the street from our house. We went to Firefly for dinner since we have been wanting to try it for a long time. The bacon wrapped stuffed dates were so yummy!

March - We went to Brianhead to go skiing with Weston's family. Weston got a couple of free lift tickets on campus at UNLV so we wanted to go while there was still snow. I had never been skiing before, but we went up to some high lifts anyway. I hurt so bad after, but it was really fun skiing with Weston and his parents.

April - We celebrated Tylee's 1st birthday at a park with some family and friends. Christen and Mike celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary this year and wanted someone to take care of their kids while they went to Maui. Weston and I were able to go for the first few days they were gone to take care of Skye, Larkin and Blake. It was so exhausting, but worth it to spend time getting to know those 3 cute kids :)

May - We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary by going to PF Changs for dinner. I had our brother-in-law Devan build Weston a new computer because Jace would be taking back his computer when he got back from his mission. I took a couple of days off before Weston went back to school for the summer. It wasn't much of a vacation because Weston was studying for the DAT and so I just cleaned the house and got to sleep in. Weston took the DAT and got a 22! I am so proud of him for studying so hard and getting an amazing score.

June - Weston and all his gaming friends, Devan, Bruce, Sean, and Jace got tickets to MLG (Major League Gaming) to see the professional League of Legends players in Anaheim. All the wives tagged along so we could go to the beach and get pedicures. They had a lot of fun at the tournament and I am sure it won't be the last one we attend.

July - We did our annual Durham-Milne 4th of July pool party/BBQ at the Milne's house. It was fun as usual and we had a lot of red, white and blue themed food. The annual Milne Newport trip didn't turn out how we would have liked. I started getting sick on Thursday and by Friday I was worse. We headed to California anyway because I wanted Weston to be able to see his family. Saturday my fever kept rising so we came back with Weston's family that night and I went to the urgent care. My temperature got up to 103.7 and I was told I had mild bronchitis and bilateral ear infections. After antibiotics and a week of rest I felt much better. Two weeks later we went to Los Angeles with the Durhams  to go to a couple of Dodgers games. We went to Tito's Tacos, Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, and ate a lot of food at the games.

Grateful

       I guess I should be writing this after Thanksgiving, but I have had to reflect on what I am truly grateful for this week. Tuesday night, when the president was re-elected, I was angry. I don't like that I tend to react before I think about what I am feeling or doing or saying. I have come to accept, though, that that is something I really need to work on. Weston knows me well enough now that he lets me have my moments then waits for my apology for being crazy. I freaked out after the president won and I wish I hadn't. I said many things I shouldn't have and I was also angry that my husband wasn't reacting like I was. I kept asking him why he wasn't upset and he said he was, but didn't want to let it out or else he would get even more angry. I wish I was more like Weston. He is my inspiration to be a better person. I know that our country is not going to fall apart even if it isn't being run the way I would like it to be. I know that I still have my family, my home, and the Gospel. After a night of rest I said our usual family prayer in the morning while Weston slept. I realized that it was not Heavenly Father's will for Mitt Romney to win the presidency. We prayed multiple times that Mitt Romney would win if it be His will. Well, he didn't win. I know that this world needs to get a lot worse before it will get any better. So, these are just a few things I am truly grateful for:

1. A loving husband who accepts all my flaws and inspires me to be better.
2. A loving family that cares so much about us.
3. Wonderful in laws. I really have the best in laws anyone could ask for and I love them.
4. The Gospel and the temple which gives me a refuge from the world
5. A country that allows me the freedom to worship how I wish
6. A roof over our heads and food in our cupboards.
7. A job that allows us to be comfortable and provides a way for Weston to go to school debt free.
8. A healthy body that allows me to wake up each day and live my life to the fullest.

There are so many other things to be grateful for. I keep thinking about the twelth Article of Faith and how no matter who is President we need to respect that office. We live in a democracy and the majority of people voted for him and I need to accept that and move on. I need to work on not being crazy too :)