Christmas.

We decided to build a gingerbread house. Because I am very pregnant, and we don't have my mom's gingerbread mold, we went with a kit. I think we'll stick with making our own. They are cuter and smell much better.

We decided to spend Christmas here in Mesa, and this was about the extent of our decorations. I wanted the rest of them, but we have no where to store anything. It is a good thing the top of the tree is cut off because we left the star in Utah. So nothing to put on the top. We made due with a snowflake ornament!
Christmas eve...38 Weeks pregnant. Hard to believe this picture is taken the same night as the next.
Don't really know why I am putting this one on here, but I look HUGE. We had Christmas Eve dinner with the missionaries and some friends. It was a great meal.
Our Christmas stockings. Santa actually showed up before we went to bed. Thanks to Mindy, who reminded us that Santa now our responsibility. Otherwise Santa would not have come at all.

Vegas Bowl

On Sunday the 20, two days before the Vegas Bowl, we got a phone call offering us two tickets to BYU's bowl game. Vegas is only a 5 hour drive and we are coming from the south so no weather/traffic problems to consider. Jeff is out of school so this should be a no brainer. But because I would be 37 1/2 weeks pregnant we decided to go to my doctors appointment on Monday morning before taking the tickets. Turns out everything was still fine with no imminent signs of labor. So we packed up on Tuesday and drove to the bowl game. We decided to make the trip a little easier and got a hotel room which was a great decision. Especially cause it was cheap. Here was the game from our seats.

It was FREEZING! With winds of up to 55 mph right into our faces. Add in a little sand and trash to that wind and it was kind of miserable.
Most of the game was played on our side of the stadium because of the wind blowing the ball that direction every play. Oregon St. had two six yard punts which was great so that everyone could tell it was as windy as it was.
After BYU won 44-20, we rushed the field. And here is the picture to prove it to everyone who didn't believe us. Although if there hadn't been stairs down to the field I don't think I would have. Most people left the game early to watch the game in the comfort of their hotel rooms, but we stuck it out. Luckily I could still fit into my winter coat with a sweater on. And just in case you can't tell, Jeff really does have quite a few layers on.
The final score and every single fan left at the end of the game.
It was fun but it unfortunately did not send me into labor. I was kind of hoping. Oh yeah, we drove through snow about an hour outside of Phoenix on our way up there. And alot of extra traffic. Good thing we left early so that we didn't miss one minute of the game.

36 Weeks

Here I am just past 36 weeks. Jeff was making me laugh while taking the picture...hence the funny face.

Thanksgiving

We drove up to Utah for Thanksgiving. A lot family was going to be their, including my Grandpa, Uncle Dave and Aunt Vicky. Jeff also wanted to watch a couple of BYU football games, which was really the deciding factor. We split the drive up by staying in Vegas, where we took the only pictures of the vacation/holiday. Here they are. Can you believe we got the camera out for this Lamborghini and not the family, Thanksgiving, two byu football games, a hockey game and a baby shower?

Hopefully I can get some pictures from someone who has them to add to this.

32 Weeks Pregnant

Week 32. This is what I look like most of the time. And what I wear to the gym. Thanks to a pair of XL shorts, they still fit.

Does somthing look different?

There is no construction!! They have been working on this road since before we moved in. 1 1/2 years ago. They would move the cones all the time to so that you never knew where to drive. It is so nice not to have cones all over the place. If you look closely you can see the lovely pine trees they added to the center medians.

Halloween

After a last minute change of plans for our halloween costumes, we decided to go with Erin's idea (mine apparently was not appropriate). Here we are a cook and an egg. And making that cooks hat was a lot more difficult than it should have been. At least it turned out fairly decent.

Don't mind our antenna. It works better when turned sideways.

Watermelon?!

Today I received my first 'weird' pregnancy comment from someone. I was walking out of the market holding a watermelon under one arm and a bag of groceries under the other. As I left a lady said "Looks like you have two melons there." Well thanks. I'm glad that I am now as big as a watermelon and still have 10-11 weeks left. On the bright side I am glad I bought a smaller watermelon.

Here I am at 30 Weeks. Taken today right before I left for the store. Maybe it's the green shirt?

Yes, I am getting quite large. I know, I know, I'll only get bigger.

Here is 28 Weeks. See I took pictures to put up here...and then never did.

This was taken at 27 weeks. By Jeff this time so it's not in the bathroom. Same outfit so you can really tell the difference.
And this was sucking in at 27 weeks. Yeah. Didn't quite hide it.
And the cute baby robe I made. Too bad I gave it away. It's supposed to be size 12 months, but it seemed kinda big.

Toilet Problems

Do you see what is missing?

If you look hard enough you might notice that our toilet is gone. Hmmm. That is not a good situation for a pregnant girl. No toilet in the apartment. Oh did I mention this was about 8 pm.
Yep our toilet started having issues, so we called maintenance. They asked how big of an emergency it was. Well with no working toilet and only one bathroom in our apartment it was a big emergency. Luckily they came within about 30 minutes to fix it. It took another hour and a half and now we have a different toilet. They gave up on ours and just replaced it with another. And then we just had to clean up. Yep. All those towels were dirty...

Week 24 and 25

For those who said you couldn't see a belly before, look closely. This is at week 24 or as some say...6 months. Although I still have 4 months to go.

And if you couldn't see it in the above picture. Look here. This is exactly 1 week later. Week 25. It is there. This picture was taken approximately 30 minutes ago...very up to date. And a lot of growing in just one week. (Sorry it is blurry)

For Bethany.

And only because you asked so nicely.

Here I am at 22 weeks. Yes I had to take my own picture. Jeff has been gone most of the last couple of days.

So there you go. You're welcome.

First day of School!

Here is Jeff's first day of his second year picture. We got in really early from disneyland so we were tired when it was time for Jeff to leave. Too start off a great day, Jeff left to ride his bike to school...Only to find out it had been stolen when we were gone. So he was going to take mine. But the tires needed to be pumped up. So he took the car. By that time it was too late to snap a picture so I had to get it when he returned the car at lunch. I really needed to go grocery shopping and he had school and work all day. I'm sure we got a better picture at this time (in the car on the way back to school) than we would have gotten during our hectic morning.

Birthdays.

On your birthday you can go into Disneyland for free. So we went one day for my birthday, and then again the next day for Jeff's. It was a lot of fun. We once again didn't take too many pictures. In fact this is all we got. It was two very long days of fun. Until we had to leave afterwards (with no rest) to drive home so Jeff could get back to his first day of class. It was one long drive ending very early in the morning.

At the end of the first day...don't I look tired. Well I was. Here is Cameron and Harrison in jail. Harrison literally ran from ride to ride loving. it.
And us with the classic Disneyland Picture.
All in all it was a great birthday celebration!

California

We decided to go to California for our birthdays. My sister, Cameron, and her family (Tim and Harrison) decided to go at the same time. So it was fun to be able to see them. One of the days there we went to Laguna Beach and to the Pacific Mammal Rehabilitation Center. Here is Jeff, me and Harrison at the beach. It was great. Except for some sunburns everyone got. Harrison was safe (fully covered in sand at almost all times) and I had gotten a little burned the day before while swimming so I wore a shirt. So I was fine. Everyone else had some red shoulders and backs.

It was perfect weather. Not too hot, not too cold. And the water was actually very nice. Chilly, but not freezing. Tim and Jeff never got out of the water, and even Harrison enjoyed the waves.
And here were some sea lions that were getting rehabilitated.
All in all a very fun day.

Utah

We were able to drive up to Utah and visit our familys. We took our camera but apparently neither one of us took a single picture. We stayed up there for 1 1/2 weeks and had a blast. We loved the cooler weather...just not the freezing weather we got. The first day we were there Provo had a record low of 70 degrees. That is a huge difference from the 115 we were used to.

We had a blast hiking, swimming, hanging out with family, driving the Jewel, spending time with family and shopping.

We were able to go see the Martin Harris Pageant in Logan. It was fun except once again we froze! Caleb, Jeff and I had to huddle under one blanket and try to last an hour and fifteen minutes in the wind.

If we could have stayed longer we just might have. But we had to a doctor's appointment to get back to. (and only a couple of days before we left on the next vacation.) And here it is. Our baby. If you look closely you might notice that the baby on the picture. That's right. We are not finding out the gender until the birth.And here is a little video of it they gave us.

It's Official

Jeff has finished his first year of classes and his first clinical. What does this mean? He is now a second year and 1/3 the way done. And we now get to get out of the heat. 3 weeks with no school means vacation so we are out of here!

100 in 1 Year

Yeah. We made it to 100 posts in just about a year. (Except for the fact that I am backdating this post!)

4 Years!

Jeff surprised me on our fourth anniversery by bringing me home some flowers. I was wondering why it took him so long to ride his bike home. I was starting to get worried but he arrived with flowers. It really surprised me because we are taking 2 vacations in August, so we had decided not to get each other anything. Too bad we keep our apartment so warm that they don't last as long as they normally would.

We celebrated with Jeff's choice of activity this year. Me picking him up from his clinical (so no bike ride), and then dinner at In-n-out Burgers and a Diamondbacks game. We would have chosen something cheaper but Jeff lucked out and was given the tickets to the game.
Here are just a few pictures of the game, and Jeff at the game. And some famous players.

At the game we were so fortunate to recieve an Arizona Diamondbacks sunshield. We now proudly display it everyday.

Wicked

We were finally able to use our tickets to Wicked. It really was a fun show. We both reccomend it. The only problem was it was the night before Jeff's last final so he was needing to study and a little more sleep the he got. I didn't really like the set up of the theater. The top level was above the top of the stage. So you are really looking down the whole time. We knew we had the cheap seats so we brought our little binoculars (the ones I got when I was little so we wouldn't borrow dad's nice pair) with us and it was a lot of fun to see their facial expressions. Made us feel a little bit closer to the stage.

Jeff didn't get the best pictures of me, but they are pictures and you can kind of see how steep the chairs were all put. We felt like we were on top of people. But it was soo much fun.
By the end I was glad that we keep our apartment so warm. Everyone else was hot and fanning themselves, and we didn't even notice!

Fourth of July

The 4th of July isn't quite as exciting in the Phoenix area as in other places. There is nothing to do until the evening when they have a couple of events and fireworks. We decided that we did not want to roast during the fireworks, and wanted to get out of the heat for a little while, so we went up to Fossil Springs. It was awesome. It took a little over 2 hours to get there, and then about a mile hike in to a really good swimming area. But it was worth every minute we spent there. We went with Devin and Marianne and enjoyed being able to swim in water that was cool. Here was one of the closer swimming holes. And a picture of all 4 of us.
Furthur up there was a large swimming area with some waterfalls and areas to jump from. Jeff and I under the waterfall. It felt great to sit there with the cool mist from the falls.
And a picture of the waterfalls. You might also notice that there was a little more vegetation than just cactus! We were there until the sun dropped below the mountain, and it actually got a little cold. But I enjoyed every moment of feeling cold. I litterally have not been cold since I was last in Utah.
The Springs were in the mountains just past the town Payson. After swimming we went and got some food and waited for the fireworks to start. The fireworks lasted a full 43 minutes. There were only a couple of false endings but the were fantastic. This was the only picture taken there and yes, we did have food in our mouths.

It was a great 4th of July, until we got back to our apartment about midnight and it was still sweltering hot.

Papago Park

We went to Papago Park, "hiked" hole in the rock, and had a picnic. It was fun. I say "hike" because it is literally a quarter mile. So not much, but really cool.
You can see the lake we picniced at. We found some shade under one of the palm trees and tried to cool down. It was great.

Here is the hole. You walk through there and then see the views like in the two pictures above.