It's a...

*GIRL!!!!! We are SO excited to be expecting a baby girl due on July 8th!!!


On November 19th, I had been feeling sick for about a week. Not just any sickness, but a different kind of sick, one I had never felt before. I was SO tired I could not stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time before I had to take a nap. I also could not stand the thought of food. I knew something was up when I came home to Tony making pot roast in the crock pot and I could barely stand to be inside my house because the smell made me so nauseous, and I normally LOVE pot roast in the crock pot! Tony thought I was crazy. So after about a week of this, I decided to buy a dollar store pregnancy test, mainly just to rule it out. When it came up positive, I didn't believe it. I immediately went to Walmart to buy a better one, but since I had just taken the other one, I couldn't "do what I needed to do" to take the next one. I bought a huge thing of water and walked all around the store. When that didn't work, I bought some more water and went to babies r us to look around and walk around some more. By the time I was done there, I was finally able to take the test again. It was positive again! I just couldn't believe it! I was so excited and quickly put this together to come home and give Tony





I'll never forget all the mixed emotions he went through in that first couple of minutes! At first he looked like he was going to pass out - he was scared! But then we were both just so excited and happy! It's amazing how our priorities have just instantly changed. She is on our minds constantly and we are trying to prepare the best we can. The timing is a good as it can be, because she is due 2 months after I graduate, and 2 months before I will start grad school if I get in, so we couldn't be more lucky!







Next came the fun of telling my family. My mom new before I even told her. I guess all the saltine crackers and seeing my not be able to eat anything gave it away! She is so excited, but doesn't like that I call her "grandma" now! We went to my aunt and uncle's in Vegas for Thanksgiving and told my whole family there. My mom said at dinner that she was excited to welcome a new member of the family and everyone went silent because everyone's first thoughts were that she was pregnant, then I think their next thought was that my little sister was, then after a long, akward silence and both of us blushing, everyone realized it was us! My aunts and my Grandma all screamed and my uncles came right up and gave us hugs, followed by everyone else! It was so special, and right away everyone was so excited for us! Well...I can't say that my Grandma is too excited to be a great-grandma... jk :) Tony and I both love my family so much!


As for Tony's family, I can't say they acted as excited...at least nothing compared to my family... I think they already knew and it isn't the first grandchild from our generation in the family... but they are definitely excited for us too and it IS the first girl grandchild, so that is very exciting!


Being pregnant has definitely had it's ups and downs. I can't complain too much though because compared to what I've heard some people describe it as, I can't really say mine is that bad. I haven't been that sick - I've never had to miss a day of school or work, just a lot of nauseousness and tiredness, but it has all been manageable and I know will be so worth it! We have the MOST AMAZING doctor, and here is a pic of our 20 week ultrasound! (she looks like she is sucking her thumb!)





The ultrasound was one of the most exciting and one of the scariest parts so far. We loved seeing her in there, but they are also checking to make sure everything is normal and healthy. With each pause the ultrasonographer would make, I was freaking out on the inside, wondering if she had found something wrong. But, everything looks healthy so far, and we are so relieved, because as Tony keeps saying, we don't really care if it's a boy or a girl, as long as she is healthy! As of today I am 22 and a half weeks along, so I am over halfway there! This is the really fun part for us - I just barely started feeling her kick, and Tony was able to feel her for the first time this past weekend! He just but his hand on my stomach and she kicked the exact spot 3 times - the first 2 were too soft for him to feel, but the 3rd one was stronger and it really took him by surprise! He yanked his hand right off and got "freaked out" for a second. He asks about her and how I am feeling all the time. And every night we can't go to bed without talking about our predictions about what she is going to be like. He is going to be an AMAZING dad! In fact, one of the first things people say when they find out we are having a baby is "how good of a dad Tony will be." I love it!


Well, sorry for the novel but it is definitely an exciting experience that I can go on and on about. I can feel her kicking right now and we both can't wait to hold her in our arms. We will keep you posted!!! :)

I am going to get better at this...

...especially because I have a whole new reason to blog! :) But we'll get to that in little bit.


First of all, I think there is a much needed update! Since September, much has been going on! Tony got a new job!!! He is a supervisor at an assisted living facility and really likes it. He took a quick course to get certified as a CNA, got hired, and just a few weeks later he got promoted! We also just found out today at his 3 month evaluation that he got a pretty big raise :) I am so proud of him! The residents love him and he is so good at working with them!


School has been keeping me super busy, I mean SUPER busy! I have never had to devote this much time to school in my life! Last week I spent over 40 hours on school stuff alone! But with 22 credits and it being my last semester of my undergrad, what can I expect? But it will all be worth it on May 7th when I graduate with not one, but TWO bachelors degrees: one in Speech and Hearing Science and the other in Psychology. The last couple of months I was bust apply to Grad School to get my Masters Degree in Speech-Language Pathology. Hopefully I will hear back on that soon! I cannot believe that in just a little more than 2 years I may have a masters degree, it seems like just yesterday I graduated high school!


Oh, and speaking of school, I have to say that with how busy I am with that and working full-time, I am SO lucky to have a supportive husband like Tony. Since he gets to be home more than I do, I always come home to a spotless, clean house, laundry is usually done, he usually makes me breakfast and has snacks for me to take on the way, and we usually cook dinner together and he helps me clean up. I love him SO much and don't know where I would be without him taking care of me.


Georgie is great, we love her more and more each day. I never understood how people could be so infatuated with their dogs until I had one of my own, and now Tony and I don't know what we would do with out her. She LOVES Tony, and has recently become pretty attached to me too. We have really enjoyed getting our exercise by taking her on long walks at least once or twice a week, and she has just been really funny lately! Here are some pics of her - as you can tell her and Tony are pretty attached to each other, it's kinda rediculous!


Halloween










And since this one is long enough, I will put the exciting news seperately in my next post...

"When do you get to take the gauze out of your cheeks?!?"

So about 3 Weeks ago I had to go through the lovely experience of getting my wisdom teeth removed. I did it through a research company so I actually got paid to do it, instead of having to pay for it. Although it was worth it to get paid to do it, I didn't get to get put to sleep for the surgery. Instead, I got laughing gas and TONS of shots in my cheeks to keep my mouth numb - about 5 times more shots than you would normally get to have your cavities filled, including shots in the roof of my mouth!!! Because of this, my cheeks were EXTRA swollen - the insides of my mouth are actually still a little swollen 3 weeks later! When my mom came to pick me up from the center a day later, this is what they looked like!!!





My mom looked at me, laughed, and said, "When do you get to take the gauze out of your cheeks?!?" Yeah... those are my cheeks, WITHOUT gauze in them!


I also passed out for the first time in my life a couple hours after the surgery! I got up to go to the bathroom and by the time I was done I couldn't even walk back to my room from the bathroom. I was so dizzy, nausious, and my ears were ringing. I leaned my head on the bathroom door to try and work up some strength to walk the whole 10 feet back to my room, and the next thing I remember was I started seeing black spots and I woke up to my head hitting the floor. Luckily instead of falling straight back on my head I landed in a sitting position on the floor first, then my head, so I was ok :)


The best part of it all was coming home to this:












I found these on my counter when my mom brought me home. Tony was originally supposed to pick me up from the center, but he ended up having to work. I walked in and saw these along with my prescriptions already filled and waiting for me. It made my day! I am glad to say I am almost back to normal, and I definitely am glad it's over!

I'm BACK!!!

Ok so, I am finally back to being able to blog! My laptop power supply has been broken since January and I FINALLY got a new one, which means we have the internet again and I can catch up! Many, many things have happened since my last post in January, so over the next few weeks I will be doing a lot of posts of things we have done in the past 8 months! First of all we'll just start with an update of where we are today:

*I am going to school full time at the U (20 credit hours this semester!!!) and will graduate this spring with majors in Speech and Hearing Science and Psychology. I absolutely love school!

*I will also be applying to Graduate School this semester to go on to get my Master's Degree in Speech and Language Pathology and hopefully become a licensed Speech and Language Pathologist! I can't believe I am already applying for Grad School and am so close to being done! Just a couple more years of school!

*I also just got a promotion at my Primary Children's Residential Treatment Center Job. I work full time now, but got to set my own schedule to where I only have to work 3 days a week! And the best part about this is we now have full benefits and I am now eligible for tuition reimbursement, and when I'm in Graduate School they will pay for even more of my school and I will commit to work for IHC for at least a year after I graduate! So this was a very big deal for me to get and has been a great blessing for us that came just when we needed it!

*We go to a new ward (obviously) and we absolutely love it! We have made some friends there and everyone makes us feel so welcome! We are anxiously awaiting our callings :)

*We are also looking into Tony going back into school in the near future! Between our opposite work schedule and school we don't get to see much of each other right now but I love being busy with work and school, it makes me feel so much more productive, and it makes the time we do get to share with each other even better :)

This is what happens when Tony falls asleep around my cousins...

 

 

 

 

HAHA! They all love Tony and want him to babysit them all the time, but this is what happens when he falls asleep around them!

One of the Many Reasons Why I LOVE My Job...

 

 

 

 

We get to go SKIING! (The kids ski, and I snowboard.) This is Sam (8) and Danielle (6), the two adorable kids I nanny for in Park City. Last Friday we went skiing at Park City Mountain Resort and had a blast! They are both so good. We also have FAST TRACKS season passes, which means no waiting in lines for us! Anyone who knows me knows that among my list of favorite things, kids and snowboarding are at the top, and with this "job" I get to enjoy both of them!


Tony and I also went last Tuesday to the Canyons with our free Warren Miller day passes. It was a blizzard that day and even though it took us an hour and a half to get up there, it was so worth it!

The Beginning...First Date Adventures!

Here are some pictures from when we very first started dating! The middle one is the first picture I have of us - I think it was our 3rd or 4th date.

Tony and I met at the Polo Ralph Lauren outlet store in Park City. He started working there in Aug. 2005 and I started working there in Sep. 2005. It was my very first day at work and before each shift they do what is called a shift meeting, where all the employees get together and the manager assigns where everyone will be working and tells what the goals for that day are. Like I said, it was my very first day and I didn't really know what was going on. All the employees got in a circle and standing right across from me was Tony. I remember looking at him and thinking he was the "hottest" guy I ever saw. I was only 16 years old and I was dating someone else at the time but I couldn't stop staring at him. I had to keep telling myself, "you're dating someone, he's way out of your league, he probably doesn't even notice you...etc." But to my surprise, everytime I looked up at him he was looking at me, noticiably looking at me! It was almost uncomfortable haha! Because everytime I looked at him he was smiling at me. After the meeting I had butterflies in my stomach but I tried not to think about it. I went to work in the women's side and he was working on the men's. We didn't talk much until the end of the shift when we were waiting for the manager to close the store but it was just small talk.

For the next month, I secretly had a crush on him and every shift I worked I hoped he worked too. I had stopped dating the person I was dating when I first met him but I found out Tony was dating another girl that worked there. I still just thought he was really cute and when my friends came in the store, if he was working, I would always show them who Tony was and tell them how cute he was. One day I came in to work after church and He told me I looked really cute that day.

Then came Oct. 29th, the day I had been waiting for. It was a saturday and I had to work. The day started off good because another guy from work asked me to hang out after work. I told him I could because I didn't have any plans. During that morning I also heard the girl that Tony was dating talking to her friend and she said that she was supposed to go to a movie with Tony that night but she couldn't because she had to help her parents move and she was really upset because she already told him she would go. The next thing I know, Tony came up to me and asked me if I wanted to go to a movie with him! Part of me wanted to say, "NO, I know you're just asking me because the other girl can't go with you!" And I also already had plans with the other guy, but I had a huge crush on him and I was excited that he asked me. But like I said, I knew he was already supposed to go with another girl, so I said yes, but I played it cool like it wasn't a big deal. He wrote down his number on a piece of paper and gave it to me. I was ringing at the cash registers and just left it on the counter and I guess it fell on the floor. The next time Tony came over to me he saw his piece of paper on the floor and was like, "Oh, I guess you don't really care about my number," and gave me a really hard time about it. Haha the playing hard to-get was working. Then it was time to get off work and the other guy that had asked me to hang out asked me if we were still planning on hanging out that night. I froze because I had totally forgot I had already told him I'd hang out with him before Tony asked me. I couldn't think of an excuse and Tony was standing right there, so all I could say was, "Sorry, I'm going to a movie with Tony." I felt so bad as he had this really disappointed look on his face, made the "pssshhh" sound as he rolled his eyes, and just walked out the door. Oh well...Later that night after work Tony and I decided to meet at Gateway to go to dinner and see a movie. There are some really funny things that happened that night.

The first was I got there first and was waiting for him on top of the escalator by the movie theater. I'll never forget what he was wearing because I noticed him before anyone else coming up the escalator. He was wearing jeans complete with LOAFERS, a DRESS SHIRT, a HOODIE, and a Yankees BALLCAP covered with PATCHES! Hahaha there was so many looks in one but I decided he was trying to go dressy (loafers and dress shirt) and casual (hoodie, jeans, and ball cap) and I had to force myself from laughing... but if anyone could pull it off it would have to be him.

The next funny thing is we ate at California Pizza Kitchen and before our pizza we ordered a spinach and artichoke dip and it came with black and white tortilla chips. The whole time neither of us touched the black chips and just ate the white ones. When it came down to only black ones left, we both stopped eating and all of a sudden Tony said, "What, do you have something against the black chips? Are you racist???" and I was thinking the exact same thing about him haha!

Then we went to a movie. Tony thought the movie about Johnny Cash was out and wanted to see it but it wasn't out yet so we had to pick another one. We decided to watch "Prime" which neither of us knew what it was about, but we decided to see it because it was supposed to be funny. Well, ironically the movie turned out to be about a woman who is dating a man 16 years younger than her. In the middle of the movie Tony asks, "So how old are you?" Now I had told him how old I was the very first night I met him when we were talking at work. I also knew how old he was because he told me that night as well, so I thought he knew but didn't care, but I guess he forgot. I told him that I was 16 and that I knew I had told him that already. He kind of freaked out and refused to believe me, so much that he made me show him my driver's license to prove it. After he got over the shock that we were 6 years apart I guess it didn't matter to him, just like it didn't matter to me because we clicked instantly.

The last funny thing is after the movie, for some reason, he wanted to get ice cream and eat it by the capitol! (Random, I know!) By now it was midnight and the only place open for ice cream was a sonic drive in. After I called my mom and made up a story about where I would be so I could be out later, (Sorry, Mom!) we went to the Sonic and sat for a long time there eating our ice cream and talking. It was really cold and he crawled into the front seat with me so we could share a blanket, then we had our first kiss. He is the only boy I have ever kissed on a first date! After, he still wanted to go drive by the capitol and I don't know why but for some reason we couldn't find it! We ended up going way up City Creek Canyon (we were close!) and having to pull off the side of the road because I think we got lost!

It was definitely the most random, adventurous, first date I have ever been on and we definitely got to know a lot about each other through out it all! It is also the only first date I have ever been on that wasn't awkward at all, no awkward silences or feeling like I had to always be talking. Even so, after it I wasn't sure if he would ever ask me out again because I knew he was dating other girls and after all, we had already kissed. But to my surprise, the next time I saw him he did, and from there we went...*