A Whirlwind Weekend

It all started Thursday night when I went to bed. I felt sick. The next morning I woke up and also felt sick. I took a pregnancy test and . . .

SURPRISE!!! It's positive. 

(It wasn't a surprise to us! We are way excited!)

I texted Shaun at work and a few hours later he showed up at home with

 

these flowers and my favorite kind of apple from Rocky Mountain! He sure knows what I like.

I called my OB's office and they wanted me to come in for a test, so I ran down there real quick since Shaun only worked a half day. I took a test there and it took forever for it to turn positive so the nurses were worried. They sent me to the hospital lab to get blood drawn. I was nervous that something was wrong.

After the hospital Shaun brought the kids down to my mom's and I met him there for dinner! My mom and I were doing our big Carb-loading dinner for the next day.

After dinner, Shaun took the kids home in the van and I ran to Lowes to grab some things.

I was stopped at a red light waiting to turn left onto the freeway to get home when I saw a car coming right at me. I just closed my eyes and prayed that it wouldn't hit me. Well, it didn't hit ME, it hit just a few feet behind me. The lady coming from the opposite direction that I was heading ran a red light going 45-50 mph. She hit a car that had the green light, ricocheted off of her into me, then into the truck behind me, then crossed two lanes of traffic before hitting the guard rail and slowly rolling to a stop. It was scary! I called Shaun right away and told him I just got hit. Then I called 9-1-1 and talked to a complete idiot. After calling her back, the police finally came along with an ambulance to take one of the passengers to the hospital. I was a little emotional because I didn't know what to do and the very first person to know about my pregnancy (besides Shaun) was the driver in the truck behind me. He was such a nice man. Our friends came to the accident scene and waited with me as the police took down all of the information and the tow trucks came to tow all four cars away. They were the second ones to know about the pregnancy. I told them my mom would be mad that they knew before her!

This is the pic of the car I took on my phone when it was still in the middle of the road. Shaun went to the tow yard today to look at it and said the picture doesn't do it justice. The tow truck driver and our mechanic are both sure it's totaled. Which isn't too hard to do when it's not worth very much in the first place.

I eventually made it home and was trying to settle down. My mom was at a wedding reception when all of this happened and she finally called me back so I could fill her in on what happened.

I put myself in bed that night, wishing I could take a Tylenol PM or something. I didn't sleep all night. My shoulder was really sore from where the seat belt was and I was nervous about the next day.

I didn't think it would ever come, but finally. . . the TRIATHLON was here!!!!!

  

Look at this good lookin' fan club! It was so fun to hear them cheering for me at the pool. Shaun parked them right at the end of my lane!

Lap number . . . I don't know! I beat my PR by 15 seconds!

The cheerleaders at the end of the biking route!

 

The biking route was BRUTAL!!! I'd been training on it for the last 4 months and never did I have a wind like we had on Saturday! A few days before I did my last training ride and I was averaging 17-18 mph for the whole 12 miles. On race day, I was averaging 14 mph but I still felt like I should be going 17-18. It was way frustrating and way draining.

The run was just HOT! Didn't notice the wind as much but the heat was intense. 

I was soooooo ready to be done with it all. We won't find out our times until the end of the week, but I'm just proud that I did it. I did it pregnant, and with a bruised shoulder and no focus or sleep.

Official Times:
Swim: 11:13
Bike: 51:44
Run: 39:31

After we got home, I vegged on the couch all afternoon watching a close BYU football game and then put myself to bed at 8:00 pm.

I love when he actually cuddles me!

On Sunday we were able to have some great friends over for games and dessert. It was nice to have a distraction from everything. Also that day we called the insurance (I just wanted to get the triathlon out of the way first) and filed our claim. We are slowly trying to get it all worked out, but today we paid almost 300 bucks cash just to get it out of the tow yard. How frustrating for not doing a single.thing.wrong!!!!!!! I'm sure everything will work out the way it is supposed to, but right now, I'm just annoyed.

But I should be happy! The Dr. called back today and said blood work all looked normal for how far along I am and he scheduled an ultrasound for me in 3 weeks to make sure everything looks good so far! What a relief! We decided to break the news early since a bunch of people already know. We wanted those who didn't to hear it from us! We are so excited about this new addition to our family, but a little bit nervous because now Shaun and I will be outnumbered!

Picture This

It is 12:15 am and a very tired and exhausted wife and mom is peacefully sleeping in her bed. She is suddenly startled by a loud vacuum right by her head. She sits up, confused, and says some not very nice things to her husband who had just returned home from basketball with an old friend from Kansas. He turns the vacuum off and peers into their closet and then says some not very nice words himself. Apparently there was a large spider on the wall in the closet. . . too large to smash with one of the hundreds of shoes that are on the racks in there, and apparently that spider had was also startled by the vacuum noise and hid itself. Have it ever been mentioned that this husband is terrified of spiders? This now very annoyed wife told the husband to just shut the closet door, put the vacuum away, and get in bed. He was ready to head for the couch. So his now grouchy wife got out of bed, found the spider, sucked it up with the vacuum and crawled back in bed. Then she laid there starring at the ceiling for two hours because she couldn't go back to sleep, all the while her scaredy-cat husband was snoozing away next to her.

Yeah, can you picture that? I sure can.

August Randoms

 These are all pictures from my phone, but still things I wanted to document!

 Maisey's choice of outfits isn't getting much better. This is what she chose to wear today.

And yes, I took her to run errands looking like that!

 When Shaun's fam came, his dad and I were getting ready to go to Wal-Mart to get food for our campout and Maisey came running out and asked Papa if she went to Wal-Mart with us if she could ride a ride. Then she told him that I won't let her ride them because they cost money. She asked Papa if he had money and he said back to her jokingly, "I have lots of money!" Then Maisey went running into the playroom to tell her friend Peyton that they could go to Wal-Mart and ride the rides because her Papa has tons of money! It was really cute!

 I went in to get Gage up from nap one day and found Max like this!

 Nothin says summer time like a fresh peach shortcake from the Shortcake Stand at EZ Orchards! YUM!!!

 We went with the cousins to a lake to feed the ducks. Did you know baby ducks like to eat corn? We took some corn and some bread and the kids had a great time! 

We went to my mom's school a day this week and Maisey and Peyton took the tub of bugs and separated them into categories! It took the a while, but they were pretty proud of their accomplishment! They called it their bug party!

FHE at the Temple

 Maisey has been begging all summer to go to the temple for a visit. Well, our temple has been closed all summer until just a few weeks ago. So the first Monday after it opened we headed up for a special FHE. We walked around the beautiful grounds, tried keeping Gage out of the fountain, talked about specials things that happen at the temple, tried keeping Gage out of the reflecting pool, and watched as Maisey pretended she was a bride and she sat on every white bench, posed, and asked me to take her picture!

 She will make a beautiful bride, someday!

 She was pretending Daddy was her groom!

After the temple we stopped at Divine Yogurt (I thought divine and the temple went hand-in-hand! Haha!) for a treat!

I think this was our best FHE ever!

(Minus Gage in the water!)

Sunriver

Sunriver was a blast, just as usual. It was definitely the busiest we've ever seen it. We actually had to pay to make tennis court reservations, which we've never had to do before. And to even find a court with an available reservation was tough! We also did a ton of other things that were way fun!

1. Getting delicious doughnuts from the bakery in the village!

2. Getting in lots of sweet baby time with my sister's new baby, Brock!

3. Eating ice cream with Aunt Spider on Thursday night.

 (btw, Kate is wearing my sweatshirt in this pic, and it kinda looks like me!)

4. And eating ice cream again on Saturday night!

5. Going on a long walk/run/bike ride with 3 adults and 3 kids while we let Daddy sleep in until 10:45 am!!!

6. Playing "This little piggy" with Baby Brock

7. Sneaking out to where the deer were

8. And watching 6 deer in a row!

9. Winning "Mom-of-the-year" award for going down the big water slide, which I didn't want to do, and holding Maisey up out of the water so her precious face didn't get wet, all the while I get the whole pool up my nose!

10. Swimming in the pool with the fam!

11. Watching Dad go down the slide over and over and over again with both kids.

12. Catching Maisey going down the tube slide by herself. This was more of my idea of having fun!

13. Watching Maisey, 2 years later, still giving a thumbs up with her pointer finger! 

14. Laughing at the kids giving each other rides in the John Deere!

15. Enjoying the new Cars Bouncy House!

16. "Hiking" in the village!

17. Hangin with Grammy, poolside!

18. Playing lots of games after kids went to bed, and dominating most of said games!

19. Beating Guitar Hero on medium!

20. And I think the funniest thing from the whole trip was that Kate adopted a new nickname - Aunt Spider! Gage says spider in this really funny growly voice and he kept saying it and pointing to Kate. We couldn't figure out why until we were at lunch one day and Kate's head was bent down and Gage did it again. She wears two bobby pins on the top of her head and they are crossed and apparently Gage thinks they look like a spider. Even since Kate left to go back to Idaho, Gage still says, "Aunt Spider, Baby, Buh Bye!" Sorry Kate, I think this one is going to stick!

We love going to Sunriver and we feel so grateful that we have the opportunity to do it so often! It is seriously one of the most peaceful and relaxing places that I have been to!

Ward Campout - Bar View Jetty

Our ward campout was just north of Tillamook so we decided to go a day early and hit up the Tillamook Cheese Factory on our way. For how obsessed Gage and I are with Tillamook cheese, I can't believe we've never been. We ate at their little cafe area. Everyone got a variation on the delicious grilled cheese sandwiches. Then we headed on the factory tour, which ended in a cheese sampling bar. YUM! After the tour we all settled down for some ice cream.

Peyton, Maisey and Gage inside the loaf van.

 Look at all that cheese!

 Sample bar!

These bricks were the size that Costco sells and my kids could barely lift them! 

 Ice Cream!

(oh yeah, did I mention Shaun's fam came with us on the campout? We all had a great time!)

 My mom drove out to do the factory with us, but then went back home! No camping for her!

Gage ate all of his cone, then happily finished off Peyton's, then Maisey's!

After the factory, we headed to our campground. It was definitely sandy! I wasn't used to camping on the beach! We got our camp all set up, roasted bratwursts for dinner, played games and crashed the first night. The next day was followed by more games, naps, playing at the beach, and a cheerleading show put on by Maisey and some other girls from the ward!

 See! This is our tent, and that is the sand!

Maisey found some crab pinchers! I'm surprised she touched them!

She also got the dirtiest I've ever seen her! The picture doesn't even do it justice!

The cheerleading show - complete with lifts and all!

 Playing at the beach doesn't mean playing in the ocean. The kids found these little pools in the sand to be much warmer than the ocean water!

 Daddy and Maisey built a beautiful sandcastle. . .

. . . and seconds later, Gage came by and made sure to crush every mound. 

Hoodies at the beach in August is inevitable in Oregon! Brrrrr, it was cold!

My cutie little boy on the beach at sunset!

We took off pretty early Saturday morning and stopped at the cheese factory one more time for some lunch and ice cream, then enjoyed a peaceful quiet ride the whole way home!

And it's two weeks later and we are still finding sand everywhere!

Thursday's Thoughts

I've kinda been avoiding the blog lately! I have soooo much to post on and we've gone on 2 trips since I updated last.

We have officially retired our suitcases for the summer! We actually took them out to the garage, and when I did laundry this week, I put clothes away in drawers and not right back into suitcases like I have done ALL summer! I'm not going to lie, it feels nice.

I'm ready to be done with summer and to have the routine of the school year! I think the busy-ness of the summer is catching up with me. I actually took a nap yesterday for the first time in months! My house is suffering, my yard is suffering, our dinners are suffering (apparently you can't eat oatmeal for dinner every night of the week), like I said, I'm just ready for fall!

I love the fall holidays, I love the cozy evenings on the couch cuddled up to the hubs (it's hard to cuddle when it's 87* inside your house!), I love the shopping, and the fall activities. I may sound crazy, but I'm looking forward to that first good fall rain! Before anyone hurts me for saying that I'll change the subject.

The last scheduled thing that I have is my Triathlon next weekend, and I just can't wait for it to be over. Honestly, I wish it was this weekend so it would be out of my mind! I put my running shoes on the other morning to go work out and my mosquito bites were so bad by the time I walked from my room to the front door I had to take them off. I haven't done anything all week, which isn't good. I'm hoping to get out for a real good workout on Saturday morning.

Oh, and about my bites. They are slowly getting better. I only woke up once last night because my one foot bumped a large bite on the heel of my other foot. The pharmacist recommend this stick thing called After Bite. It worked for about ten minutes before I had to reapply. It smelled like straight ammonia, so I was a little worried about putting it on my skin as much as I was, but it did help.

Maisey is really into drawing all of the sudden. Some of her pictures are actually legible! When I post about Sunriver I will have to put up a picture she drew while we were there. It was great!

Gage is going through this HUGE separation anxiety thing. Boo! Insert lots of hysterical crying here.

I'm picking up 40 lbs of peaches tomorrow and I'm going to attempt to can them. I also ordered pears that I will get in a couple of weeks. I've never canned before, so this will be quite the experience. Luckily there are people in my ward who are willing to teach me! Thank goodness for good friends!

Those are a few of my thoughts. When I get around to it, there will be lots of posts coming!

43

43 mosquito bites that is.
It wouldn't be bad if they were spread out randomly all over my body.
But NO!
They are all on my lower calves and feet.
And they itch like no one's business.
I can find no relief.
I've tried Benadryl itch cream.
I've tried toothpaste with baking soda.
I've tried nail polish.
And nail polish remover.
Deodorant.
Solarcaine.
Aloe Vera.
I look like a leper.
No joke.
I didn't sleep last night.
So technically I look like a tired, grouchy leper.
Any other suggestions?

P.S. Maisey said to me this morning, "Mommy, I'm going to go outside and tell all the mosquitoes to quit biting our family and then I'm going to spank them all in the bum."