Tuesday, June 22, 2010

2009

Life was fine in 2009. For Christmas Ryan's parents surprised us all with a trip! That spring we headed to DC and NYC! I couldn't believe my good fortune. I have some extended family in the DC area as well as two of my best friends ever. It was so fun to be able to see all of them. So fun in fact, that I can't even describe how fun it was. We explored Georgetown, we did a night bus tour of the monuments (I HIGHLY recommend it), headed up Mt. Vernon, saw Abe Lincoln's home and theatre where he was shot. We did the FBI spy tour (amazing for kids around 10 years old), had dinner with Jen and Holly. Had dinner with Sterling and Ellie, saw many wonderful museums. There was so much to do and I can't wait to go back someday. Here are some pictures of DC. Holly, Momma Jen, & Me. The three amigos! The Terry Crew Grand Central Station George Washington's Toumb The Fam at Mt. Vernon NYC was COLD. But we loved it anyway. We saw my favorite musical Mary Poppins, did the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, happened across Kathy Lee Gifford, Lots of cheesecake, and the best italian in little italy ever. I seriously love public transportation. Even in NYC. I miss it so much. We loved our waiters and their inhospitable attitudes. One thing you must do, walk across the Brooklyn bridge and get pizza at Grimaldi's on the Brooklyn side. I loved the white pizza just plain jane. Playing with the shutter speed or f-stop, I can never keep them straight. The view from the empire state building Kathy Lee in the flesh! Our faces were frozen stiff at that point. Our pro photo taker in action Us at Ellis Island You have to get the stuffed french toast and a frozen hot chocolate. Seriously. One of my all time favorite pictures of Grey The Manhattan Temple The Brooklyn Bridge I had started training that January for the SLC 1/2 marathon. I didn't get really serious about it until about a month before. I never thought it would be so fun. My sister-in-law Susie inspired me because she did it the year before and was doing it again. I was bummed because we lost all our pictures from the trip. I stole this from Suz's blog. We also met Blaine and Daine from the biggest loser. About a week after that, we announced to our friends and family we were expecting our first addition to our little family! For Ryans family we made pink and blue sprinkles cupcakes and wrote a cute poem: "Boy or girl which will it be? I guess we'll find out in January!" There was so much screaming and tears, my heart raced, it was a happy moment. For my mom we were celebrating mother's day a little early and in her gift I put a picture of our first ultra sound. She was more than surprised. She was shocked. She had no idea. She asked when I was due and when I responded, "End of December." she replied, "THIS December?" I loved that moment. May 2009 Ryan graduated from ASU in the Housing and Urban Development program. What a joyous day! Except, I was sicker than a dog, but it was still joyous. I can brag that he was Summa-cum laude. We went to a fabulous dinner at Roy's after, I unfortunately couldn't keep it down. End of may we headed to California and had a Colton-Jensen family reunion. Oh it was so much fun! It is such a treat to get together with all of my family because we are all so spread out. And it couldn't get better than the beach and disneyland! No one told me that you burn faster when prego, I got burnt the first day and spent the rest of the time trying to stay covered up. Thank goodness for Ryan's Angel's hat! The only other picture I had of the trip! I don't know what happened to them all! The day after we got back Ryan drove down to Tucson to go pick up Hiro our new golden-doodle puppy. He was a cutie and a sweetheart but we ended up selling him 6 months down the road to a family with a backyard and another dog and 2 kids. It broke my heart but now I know it was the right thing to do. I highly recommend not selling a dog when you are pregnant. My nesting/nurturing hormones kicked in and I was a mess for 2 weeks. I felt like I had lost a child. I couldn't even talk about it until after I had Finn. Anyway, here are some pictures taken from Megan's blog. June, July, and August are a blur. I spent the time avoiding the heat and trying not to be sick and working. My Mom and Dave moved to Germany and I missed (and miss) them terribly. Here is a little taste of Lake Powell 2009. (hopefully it works) Do you remember hearing about the survivor package at the Rancho Bernardo Inn? Well, we took them up on that little offer. Starting at $19.99/night you could stay at the hotel with no electricity, no beds, no air conditioning, pretty much all you had was a lockable door and a room with a porch. It was in San Diego though, so it was worth it. That was in september and I was just starting to show. The week we got back I had 2 friends give birth, and a baby shower. My brother Trevor and his wife Brooke were expecting their baby any day. I finished up at the baby shower and Brooke called and asked us to come over so they could head to the hospital. She was in labor! She gave birth to baby Tyler the next morning. October came quickly. We headed up to St. George, Utah for my brother Dave's wedding. He married the cutest Lizzy spelt with a Y that I know. They are one beautiful and happy couple. For halloween I dressed up as a S'more. I cut out two pieces of cardboard attached one to my back and one to my belly. I wore a brown shirt with a hole cut out the middle with a white shirt showing through for a marshmallow belly. Too bad I didn't get pictures. I also was thrown the cutest baby shower ever by Chris Ketring and my sister-in-law Megan. Seriously, it was darling. They did a fall theme with pumpkin shaped breadbowls and different homemade soups, caramel apple dip, and all sorts of goodies. I made pumpkin cupcakes with little buttons on top that said, "Thanks for coming to celebrate our future pumpkin!". In November we celebrated our 3 year anniversary. Ryan took me to see The Phantom of the Opera at the Gammage Theater. It was awesome. I went in for my 36 week checkup the day before Thanksgiving and they told me I was dilated to a 2 and 80% effaced and the baby was starting to drop. I panicked. I wasn't ready to give birth yet! I had predicted I would have our baby December 28th (one week late) there was no way I was ready to have him early! I got through Thanksgiving and family pictures. I was even able to get some maternity photos taken. I got everything for Christmas, decorations and shopping and neighborhood gifts included done by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. When I went in for my 38 week checkup I was dilated to a 3 and 90% effaced. When I came back at week 39, my Dr. felt so bad that he had given me false hope. I wasn't really miserable so I didn't mind at all. I was really enjoying cleaning EVERYTHING and organizing and just having a little time off work to do nothing but get ready to be a mom. Plus, I really wanted to have him after Christmas. 40 weeks came and still nothing. My Dr. was in shock. I was scheduled to be induced Monday Dec. 28th 8am. Sunday morning the 27th I woke up with serious back pain. I thought I had slept on it wrong. I kept doing normal things and I did some cleaning because I couldn't help myself before we went to Ryan's parents for Sunday dinner. I could hardly walk my back hurt so bad and I was starting to get some strong contractions. I thought we would just wait to go to the hospital once my water broke but by the end of dinner I was ready to go. Especially since it was a 30 minute drive and we needed to stop by our house to grab my "Go bag". We pulled into the hospital around 8 and I meekly walked up to the nurses and said so kindly, "I think I'm in Labor" even though I was screaming on the inside, "HELP! NOW!" They slowly showed me to a room and told me to put robes on and they'd be right in to check on me. I did and felt like I was waiting forever. I could hear them talking and laughing outside the door and I wanted to yell. Finally a nurse came in and checked me. My contractions were 2 minutes apart, I was dilated to a 6 and she was very surprised. I had debated on whether I would get an epidural but once I realized how much contractions hurt I was begging for one. By the time the anesthesiologist got there I was at an 8. He was worried he did it wrong because I didn't flinch at all. I was too worried if I moved I would get paralyzed and I was also worried Ryan was going to pass out. One of my big fears was that ryan would pass out and miss the whole thing because he'd be getting stitches or something. He did not do the epidural wrong. I was quickly feeling much better and became a much happier person. Ryan's family got there right about when I became a happier person. It really became fun and exciting. Around 11pm my nurse checked me and I was at a 10 but my water still hadn't broken. She pinched it, it broke, and she called my doctor. I started pushing. I pushed for about 15 minutes and then Dr. T got there. Another 15 minutes and we had a new baby boy with a full head of hair. 12.28.2009 12:20 am, 7lbs. 15oz, 20 inches. I knew all that acid reflux was going to pay off. I remember they pulled him out and put him right on me. Ryan and his mom and megan were checking him out but I couldn't really see him and didn't want to move him because he was so slippery. They said, "Oh my goodness look at all that hair on his back and shoulders!" In my mind I was saying, "Oh poor guy, I don't care I love him so much!" Then they noticed his birthmark on his forehead and were like, "Oh my and look at the cute birthmark on his face!" My thoughts went to, "Oh this poor kid, he has a giant birthmark on his face, he's a monkey baby with a giant birthmark, I love him so much!" Then when I saw it I thought it was darling. Unfortunately the hair on his back and shoulders and most of what was on his head is all gone now. Thanks Megan for taking all of those photos in the delivery and maternity shoot. Check out more of her stuff at www.meganpapworth.com I will post Finn's newborn shoot and what we have been up to the last six months soon.

The Beginning

So, where do I start? I know I have been needing to start this thing for a very long time. I guess I will go back to the beginning of my life with Ryan. We got married 11.18.2006 in the Mesa, AZ LDS Temple. (Sorry for the picture of a picture) We lived in my parents cassita for almost our entire first year of marriage. We were spoiled popping homemade popcorn with m&m's and hanging out on their giant couch watching movies or suns games whenever. I worked at Tia Rosa's and Ryan sprayed and sold pest control. He was in school at ASU in their Housing and Community Development program and I was finishing up at the American Institute of Interior Design. We had so much fun. If you know my husband well at all, you know that he loves pirates. He secretly wishes he was one, and sometimes I think he thinks he really is one. So, it was only appropriate when his 23rd birthday came around back in 2007, we threw him a pirate birthday party. All his buddies from selling pest control came, I made goody brown bags with IBC rootbeers in them and treats and we took them to the midnight showing of Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Oh the good old days. It was a bitter sweet day in October 2007 when we moved out of that lovely little cassita and into our new home in Gilbert. Sorry, the only pictures I have of it are at Christmas time ha ha. We are Christmas fanatics if you didn't already know. I dyed my hair red that Christmas. (Not for Christmas) I remember walking in Ryan's parents house, Ryan was across the house and had to do a double take at me because he almost didn't recognize me. It was more of a purple at first, but faded nicely. I am always tempted to try it again. Instead of hurrying home from Aspen Grove that Christmas to get back to work, I did the responsible thing and called my boss and asked for some extra time off so we could go to Disneyland for New Years with my big brother Dave and his buddy Cameron and his wife. Best New Years celebration, ever. 2008 brought us many good things. I got a much better Job, I turned 21 so I was a little more willing to give my age when people asked, we got a first nephew for the Terry side, Grey, and though Ryan miserably sold pest control even though I begged him not to that summer, we got 2 new great friends. Mitch and Glo. Glo went with me to audition for american idol. Yes, I auditioned for American Idol. Don't worry though, I got cut right away. It was such a randomly fun experience. I wish I had pictures. We also had a few token trips to the lake to keep us sane. We escaped AZ for a short while that summer and visited the beautiful city of Bountiful and the Swartwoods for the 4th of July. One of the best 4th of July's I can remember. One reason, we got one of the biggest packages of fire works known to man. August of 2008 was very memorable because it was my first experience on a houseboat at lake powell with the Swartwood and Bollard families. Don't you love the orange shirts? I love el lago de powell. With the economy not being so great for the developing world in AZ, Ryan was thinking of other options for his career. He was up to graduate in May the coming year. We thought it would be fun to research starting a self-serve frozen yogurt business that September. We went to a seminar on it in California and since we were down there took another trip to the happiest place on earth. We were going to name our frozen yogurt place Kiwi's. We had it all figured out, but we just didn't feel good about it. (Plus each machine was around 10 grand) Probably for the better, I would have broken records on the amount of frozen yogurt consumed. Before During After Halloween 2008. You may not know that Halloween and Christmas are pretty much a tie for me. I love it so much it hurts sometimes. My costume was going to be a rendition of Martha Stewarts Jellyfish, but my clear umbrella didn't get here in time. Ryan made a Wally costume and we went to a party with our friends Devyn and Celeste. I was really impressed with everyone's creativity. I felt like such a sell out ha ha. If you didn't know already, our honeymoon was a hilarious catastrophe. We thought we would be smart and not do Hawaii, and instead do a cruise of the Caribbean. (We definitely are not as smart as we thought we were) We got a super good deal on a Carnival 5 day cruise since it was right over Thanksgiving. It stormed the ENTIRE time. One night it was storming so terribly, I woke up at 3am in a panic thinking our ship was sinking because we were rocking and there was lighting. We got scuba certified but didn't get to go at all since it was too stormy. Anyway, the point is we opted for a redo. We went to San Fran in December 2009. It was the best idea we have ever had. We stayed at the Hotel Palomar which we loved. Since we booked it so far in advance, they upgraded our room to a room with a Jacuzzi. AMAZING. The weather was also perfect. We had an indian summer weekend in December. I'm dying to go back. We would start our days at a doughnut shop, skip lunch, do an early dinner, and end the night at Ghiradelli Square. Life couldn't get much better. We did Alcatraz, Biked across the Golden Gate Bridge, Hiked Lombard street, Found the Goorin Brothers hat shop, walked the wharf several times, saw the aquarium, and fit a smidge of shopping in. I recommend the book "Eat.Shop.San Francisco" so sad this came out blurry I will return to that store someday when i have a little girl. I think I have put enough on my first post! I will do 2009 and current soon.