Summer Happenings

I just love summer!  We were so lucky, because we had a month where I finished teaching and Bryant hadn't started his job yet, so June was so much fun!  We went to California for Jodi and Kawai's wedding and had a ton of fun out there.  We went to Seaworld, the zoo and the safari park.  It was really cool to see all the animals and stuff.  We, of course, would have loved to go to Disneyland, but since I can't ride any of the rides those places were a much better option. :) Jodi and Kawai had a beautiful wedding and we were so happy to be there for them.  They were stunning.  Then we came back to Utah and headed to Idaho for my cousin's wedding reception.  It was nice to see the family up that way.  When we were finally back home to stay we tried to fill our time doing outdoor things like fishing, swimming, going to soccer and baseball games and such.  It was wonderful.  Bryant started his job a couple of weeks ago and he is really enjoying it. It's been a little sad not to have him around all day anymore, but we knew it wouldn't last.  I have been filling my time with tutoring and getting ready for our little bundle of joy!  I've started working on the nursery and I'm really excited about it.  I think it is going to turn out so cute.  I also had my baby shower which was a lot of fun!  I am so grateful for all the generous gifts people gave me.  It is amazing how much even little things help when you are just starting out and in need of everything.  The baby is moving ALL the time.  I'm seriously worried she doesn't sleep enough, because what does that mean when she is here? She is getting pretty big and her sweet kicks are turning into hard pokes that keep me from sleeping on occasion.  It seems like as soon as I lay down she starts doing summer somersaults. Haha. I do have to say I would much rather know she is doing okay in there though, so I can't complain too much.  We are so excited to meet her. 2 more months!  Enjoy the pictures.

We moved!

We were going to need to move to get into a two bedroom place when the baby came, so we decided to look at all of our options.  We first  looked into apartment complexes in the area.  They were all pretty small and kind of expensive.  The other issue we were having was we didn't like how many people smoked and how loud it could be.  We were getting a little frustrated with the whole thing when we thought of looking into basement apartments.  It was a great idea!  It took a lot more looking around, but after looking at about 20 places we found the perfect apartment.  It is really big, in a beautiful area, with great landlords.  Everything ended up working out perfectly, because we decided to go ahead and take the apartment without being sure we could sell our apartment contract, we had another month on that,  but the next day someone took our old apartment.  We moved that weekend.  I am really excited that we get to start setting up the baby's room too.  No pictures of that yet.  I want to wait until it is all done. :)

It's a girl!

We are having a baby girl!!!!  We are so excited.  It took us longer than we thought to find out for sure, because my wonderful doctor said she would do a quick ultrasound at my 17 week appointment to see if the baby was a boy or girl.  However, at that appointment our little stinker wasn't cooperating and had her legs crossed the whole time, so we couldn't get a good look.  The doctor had told us she thought it was probably a girl, because she was moving around so much that it seems like we would have seen some boy parts, but she couldn't be sure.  So, we had to wait another 3 weeks until my 20 week ultrasound.  Thank goodness our baby was finally cooperating and the doctor confirmed we are having a little girl!  We are so thrilled!  I can't wait to dress her up and do her hair. Haha!  Bry is really excited too.  I'm already betting this little girl is going to be a daddy's girl!

I'm getting a decent belly these days.  The best thing is I can feel her moving all the time!  She is already super strong and Bry has even felt her kick a few times.  She moves a TON!  I love the reassurance that she is alive in there when she moves.  I'm sure as she gets stronger it might not be so pleasant, but right now I'm loving it!  The doctor said everything is looking great and so we feel very blessed that she is growing healthy and strong.


I'm way excited to decorate the nursery when we get a bigger apartment.  I've decided to do have the colors dark purple and lime green.  I saw the two colors on a wrapping paper thing and thought they were so cute together!  Still girlie, but not the usual pink.  I'm also thinking polka dots. :)  We'll she how it all turns out, but I love being able to finally think about those things!


We are also thinking of the name Kennedy.  I've liked that name for a while and Bry likes it too.  It's not super common, so that is good!  My favorite thing about it is giving her the nickname of Dee or Dee Dee when she is little. :)

We bought this little outfit the day we found out. :)

Anyway, life is really good!  Bryant and I celebrated our first anniversery in April!  One whole year!  We can't believe it.  I've never been so happy and I love him with all of my heart.  Bryant also graduated from the U getting his master's degree.  I am so proud of him.  What an accomplishment.  He will start work at the beginning of July.

Out to dinner for Bryant's graduation and then off to a RSL game!

We're Having a Baby!

That’s right! It’s hard to believe, but we are adding to our little family in September. We are thrilled and can’t wait to find out if it is a boy or a girl. Here is how we found out the good news:

Let me start by saying I cannot keep a secret, especially this big. I had thought out how I wanted to tell Bryant a week or so before. It was the first month we had actually been timing and trying to get pregnant and I had been feeling a little different and thought I might be pregnant. So, Bryant loves baby shoes and had teased me a lot about wanting to pick out our future kid's baby shoes. So, I went online and found some Jordans (basketball shoes) that could be for a boy or girl. I figured I could tell him I bought a new pair of shoes and wanted to see what he thought. Then I could show him the shoes and tell him we were going to have a baby! It seemed perfect. Well, it didn't go as planned. The biggest problem was just that the shoes hadn't come yet when I found out, but also I had counted my cycle wrong and didn't realize it. I had gone to Target that day to buy a couple of things for school. I figured I might as well buy a pregnancy test, because that weekend I would take it if I didn't start my period. I didn't know the exact date, but I thought it was like Saturday or Sunday of the weekend and this was a Wednesday. So, when I got home I looked at the calendar to see what date I needed to be aware of. I started counting the days and quickly realized I was already a day past. My heart started racing and I started getting really excited. Being a day late was already a good sign! I battled with myself if I should just wait, because I really wanted to give Bry the shoes, but I also knew I couldn't keep it a secret. It only took me about 5 seconds to know I could never wait to take the test. I immediately went into the bathroom and took the test. I was so nervous! I started shaking and stuff. Haha. The test came back quickly with a big + sign! I had to look at it like 5 times before I really believed it was positive. Then I even looked at the directions to make sure that was the right sign. It was so silly, because it was so obvious, but it was just too good to be true! I knew I couldn't wait to tell Bry and I certainly wouldn't be able to keep my emotions in check so I just ran into the leaving room and jumped into his arms telling him we were going to have a baby! It felt so similar to how I felt when Bry proposed to me. I was in total shock. I couldn't stop smiling and had a hard time talking. We just talked about it for a while and how exciting it all was. So terrifying, but so wonderful! I told Bryant about the shoes and showed him a picture. I was bummed that it didn't work out how I had planned, but who cares? I was too excited and heck we are having a baby! Plus, that seems like the theme of us. Things never go as planned and that is just fine with me! Anyway, I had been craving a hamburger all day and had even joked about being pregnant to Bryant earlier in the day, so we went to Red Robin for dinner to celebrate. :) Then we went to a baby store to look at clothes! Ah! So much fun!

Since it is our first we had a lot of fun thinking up fun ways to tell our family. It was so hard to keep it a secret as long as we did, but here are all the ways we told the family:

My Mom-

We wanted to do something with BYU, but couldn’t find any cute baby clothes that fit what we were looking for. We really wanted to find something that talked about grandma, since the baby will be my mom’s first grandbaby. We finally came across this website that you can make your own onsie’s. So, around dinner one Sunday afternoon I just handed it to her. It took her a minute, but she finally put it together. She was excited!

My Dad and Marcie-

We went out to eat with them one night and I ordered a special cake. We arranged with the waiter to bring it out for dessert. She did an excellent job. She put it right in front of them and we all waited for their reaction. Their faces were priceless and we even got the waitress to tear up. J

Bry’s family-

We waited for Ethan to get home from his mission to tell them so he wouldn’t miss out. The day of his homecoming we put a this shirt on our niece and had her walk into the room where everyone was sitting. It took them quite a while to get it and I finally had to tell them I was pregnant. Haha!

It’s been a relief now that everyone knows. That’s a pretty big secret to keep! I have been feeling pretty nauseous and many other not so lovely pregnancy symptoms. I’m in to my 2^nd trimester and everyone keeps telling me I should be feeling better, but no luck yet. Oh well, it could be worse. I have a lot more respect for my mom these days! Also, I hear it is worth it. J Anyway, we get to find out if it is a boy or a girl in 3 weeks. We have some names we both really like right now. If it is a girl we like Kennedy and if it is boy we like Max. Right now Bry and I both think it is a girl, but we’ll see!

Our First Christmas!

We had a great Christmas. We did a lot of family things and plenty of relaxing. Bryant and I were planning on having our own Christmas on Christmas Eve morning, but I couldn't wait and we ended up opening presents on the 23rd. :) I got Bry a REAL track jacket he had been dying for, some shirts, and a race car track for fun. He got me tickets to the comedian, Brian Regan, which I was dying for, and sunglasses! It was great! On Christmas Eve we stopped over at Bonnie and Mike's house for a little breakfast burrito party and then we spent the night at my mom's house with Mike and Tabi. We stayed up late opening presents and playing with our helicopters my mom got us. Haha! Christmas morning we headed up to Bry's family and opened even more presents. Finally, we finished off the day going to Julie and Nelson's house for dinner and to talk to Anthony, which was really awesome. Bry also talked to his brother whose on a mission in California and comes home in February! I've never met him, but I'm excited to! I have a feeling I'm going to like him from all the stories I've heard. We both felt like we got tons of presents and had a great time. Our families are awesome and we are so glad they are close to us! Merry Christmas!

WE also got to go to a Jazz game and sit in the 3rd row! I've never sat that close and it was sweet. Those basketball players are giant. We were so close that we ended on the "Mistletoe Cam" and had to kiss on camera. :) It was funny and the first thing I thought was that one of my students would be at the game and sure enough about a week later one of my former students came into my room and told me he had seen us kiss on the screen. A few other teachers and friends also told us they saw us. Never thought that would happen. :) Thanks to Nelson for the tickets!

Happy Holidays!

It’s our first Christmas as a married couple! We enjoyed being engaged last year and getting to know each other better during that fun time, but this year is even better!

For Thanksgiving this year we decided to go to Disneyland. I’m not sure why exactly, but we just wanted to do something fun together and Bry loves Disneyland. We had a lot of fun and I’ve never been there for Christmas, so I really enjoyed that. Here are some pictures.

We decided to get a Christmas tree even though our apartment is pretty small. We figured we’d just get a little one, but ended up getting a decent sized one that barely fits in our apartment and blocks our coat closet. But that’s okay, because we love it! It is perfectly rounded and has great, full branches. We took 2 days to find it and then a few more getting it all decorated. It was quite the event. I guess I see why a lot of people don’t get real trees every year, because it is a lot of work and very pricey. We had a lot of fun though. We went searching all over for Christmas ornaments and such. We ended up with a red and green theme plus adding snowmen, Santa, and penguin ornaments. It turned out great. We were thinking of letting our future children pick out a new ornament each year to add to the tree. That of course will not be for a while, but it’s fun to think about…It stemmed from an idea Bryant’s mom had where she bought all the kids a new ornament each year. For now we just get to decorate it how we want and I’m happy about our decision!

I hope everyone is enjoying this Christmas season. I was able to put out my nativity set that I have been collecting for a few years. It is beautiful. I can’t wait to add a few more pieces to it. That is the real reason why we celebrate this wonderful time; to celebrate the birth of Christ. We have so much to be grateful for this year and we owe it all to our Savior. Merry Christmas everyone!

We've been married for 5 1/2 months! Woot woot! It's gone by really fast. We're back into normal life. Bry is going to the U and is working hard. He says he really likes most of his professors, but overall doesn't like the school a lot. I'm happy about that. ;) School is going alright for me. My class is really wild this year. They all like to chat and do anything, but what they are suppose to be doing. I'm just having to lay down the law a little more. Hopefully they will mellow out a little. I have one student who was adopted from Africa with a lot of problems, but he is really cute. We had a 2 hour meeting with his mom and councilor before school started explaining some of his issues. I've always had this weird desire to adopt a child and now that I married someone who went on a mission to Africa we've talked about adopting from there someday, but after hearing all of the stuff this mom has gone through it makes me a lot more cautious.

Well we've been trying to enjoy the weather while it's still nice. We've gone to some Real Salt Lake soccer games, been golfing a ton, hiking, boating, swimming, and just going on walks. It's been glorious. I love fall and wish it would stay like this all year. We really want to get a trip to Zion in before the weather gets too cold. Hopefully we can. Here are some pictures from recently.

Hiking with Jordan and Cristy! We love hanging out with them. We started dating about the same time, so we always went out on double dates and now we're both married. They're super fun and we are trying to see them as much as we can until they move to California.

BYU football!!!

Boating. It's been nice for me to be able to wakeboard this year finally now that my knee has completely healed.

Jordan bought a motorcycle and left it at our place since he had a car with him. He asked Bryant to drive it down to Provo, which I was not super excited about, but I did have some fun on it before we took it to him. Too bad Motorcycles are so dangerous, because they really are so much fun and they can be super convenient. We took it to one of the football games and parked right across the stadium and had no problems with traffic after the game. But they can be so scary. Sorry Bry, no way!