Bear Lake 4th of July

Lance and I love our G-squared vacations with the Green's this time instead of heading to the Caribbean we headed to the Caribbean of the west... also known as Bear Lake, ID.
We arrived Thursday morning and spent a glorious day on the beach cooking hot dogs, enjoying a casual jaunt on the wave runners [I only went 10-15mph because I'm pregnant, where as Lance was going full speed and had to do circles around me to stay close by].  The entire day was turning out to be absolutely perfect... and then the storm came. 

We saw some dark clouds rolling in from the north and heading south to where we were.  We quickly started packing up all of our belongings and hauling them up to the road where we parked.  Greener went to the launching dock in hopes of meeting his cousins there on the wave runners.  Just when we were down to our large canopy and a few chairs the rain began to pour, sand began to blow and within a matter of seconds we witnessed multiple large canopies, tubes, and chairs all go flying in the air and into the water.  People were screaming and running for cover.  We quickly ducted under our half taken down canopy and held on for dear life.  Suddenly the rain turned into marble sized hail and was bouncing off the sand and bruising our legs.  Max and Mia, the Green's 5 year old twins were with us and huddled in grandma's arms.  The once tan beach turned solid white with hail.  We literally thought the world was ending, but luckily it all stopped after 15 minutes and we were able to make a run for our cars.  We experienced the real Independence Day.

Friday we spent out at the pool which was filled past max capacity and then took the Green's great dane, Chole to the lake where we ran, swam, and even pooped in the water (which made bystanders really mad).  We finished off our weekend with a BBQ of burgers and a trip down to Garden City for true Bear Lake Raspberry Shakes!!

 [pooping in the lake]

We bought a house!

I am so behind on posting things because of how hectic the past month has been but now I can officially say that we bought a house!! We had plans in the works to build our custom "dream" home, but after 5 months, only a hole in the ground, and "unforeseen costs" that increased our home $30,000 we opted to cancel and just find and buy an existing home.  It was quite and roller coaster ride and still we are still currently fighting to get our deposit back with the help of an attorney, but at least we will be moving into a house of our own in a week and a half.

Our House Hunt:

The end of June when we decided to cancel our contract with our builder we then set up quite the task for Natalie to find us our perfect home.  Lance and I were dead set on the east side, but opted to look at newer homes on the west side of Salt Lake County.  Walking through numerous houses I was trying to be positive and optimistic while Lance was rushing through each property nit-picking out the smallest flaws.  Needless to say it was an extremely frustrating process. A week into our house hunt we found the cutest house located in Sandy/Draper on a street called Cinnamon Ridge which we kept calling "the cinnamon bear house."  We quickly put in an offer, but with the house only being on the market for 3 days they received multiple offers and ours was not picked.  Discouraged, we continued to seek out a place to call home.  Lance found "home" in a new build located in Herriman, while I wasn't in love with the floor plan nor the square footage.  I fell in love with a remodeled rambler up in Bountiful, but it's location would make for quite an extensive commute to my work.  Two weeks into our search I was sitting at work one morning pulling listings in the Riverton/South Jordan area and fell upon a home located in Riverton on Shawnee Drive.  The house looked upgraded and was built in 2012.   It wasn't until I viewed the pictures of the backyard that I knew this could be a house for us.  I immediately texted Lance and told him to pull the listing meanwhile our agent, Natalie had also found the house that morning and sent me the link.  I told Lance we needed to go see the house the second I got off of work and luckily we set things up for when we did because 8 hours later, 12 hours after the home had been listed it already had 2 offers and we were pulling into the driveway to see the home for ourselves.  With a quick scan of the home we knew it was exactly what we had been looking for.  The floor plan was extremely similar to the home we has been building and was already fenced, landscaped, and came with a trampoline!  We then locked up and rushed over to Natalie's to write up our offer and that following morning we got our acceptance letter!  After completing sellers and buyers due diligence we are now just waiting for our loan paperwork to get its okay through underwriting and we will be good to close a week from TOMORROW! AH exciting day!  

Here are pictures of the home (with the seller's furnishings...)

 [my new house]

 [front living room. view from front door]

 [front living room]

 [dining room looking into the kitchen]

 [kitchen]

 [family room]

 [master]

 [main floor powder room]

 [upstairs "kids" bathroom]

 [master bathroom with walk-in closet and separate toilet room]

 [master shower and soaker tub]

 [backyard]

I can't wait to move in, get it clean to my liking and start decorating it and making it feel like home!

Mother's Day

I am so grateful for mother's day.  I remember back to Mother's day a year ago and I was depressed, sitting at my "cubicle" at work so upset that I once again wasn't pregnant.  To make matters worse, my period had started that very morning!  I was trying to hard to be happy and grateful for the mothers and motherly figures in my life, but I just couldn't be happy.  I didn't understand why we had been trying to over a year and still had no luck with any procedures we were attempting.  I was to put it lightly a mess that day.

Now a year later I see that the trial we faced was such a blessing.  This baby is going to come into the world at such a perfect time with me done with school and hopefully a new home to settle into.  Things happen for a reason and on this year's mother's day I am so grateful for the reminder of how precious it is to be blessed with the role of being a mother.  I am grateful for my own mother, and mother in law. I am grateful for those mother's of my dear friends who help raise me into the person I am and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be blessed with a growing belly and a baby on the way.  There is truly no greater gift in this life than being a mother.


To celebrate my graduation from nursing school, mother's day, & our upcoming 3 year anniversary my dear sweet husband surprised me with a beautiful eternity band.  When we were getting married I had a matching band picked out, but when we went to order it was out of commission and it was going to cost double to make.. and wouldn't arrive until AFTER our wedding day.  So we then went and ordered just a plain band.  I have loved the symbolism in this plain band, but oh am I so grateful for this very pretty and sparkly new band :)

We're expecting a...

Well most of y'all already know but we are expecting a BABY BOY!! 

We went to Fetal Fotos at 15 weeks and were able to spend 20 minutes just watching our little guy move, bend, kick, and roll around.  It was so amazing to see that even though he is so small, he still has all the necessary parts: 10 fingers and 10 toes, a little heart beat, and cute little eyes and a little nose. 

he is upside down with his little hand showing off all 5 fingers

his little boy parts.. three little circles.

it isn't super visible but his leg is up in the air resting on the other side of the uterus.

profile shot with all his little vertebre visible

Seventeen Weeks : Finally a real BUMP

Total weight gain: 10! Ahh a little frightening
Maternity clothes? just some regular women's maxi dresses
Stretch marks? none.  
Sleep: loving sleep.. 
Best moment this week: finally showing... 
Food cravings: no real cravings... I did eat my first set of french fries this week which I haven't been able to do since pre-pregnancy.
Anything making you queasy or sick: teeth brushing!
Gender: BOY!!!!!!!
Belly Button in or out? in
Wedding rings on or off? On
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy.
Looking forward to: spending the summer relaxing and traveling.

Graduation.

Thank heavens the busy month of April is over!! The end of April was filled with family, good food, a growing baby in my belly, finals, graduation, and taking my state boards to become a registered nurse!

my companion through nursing school, Nicole!

Getting my official nursing pin!

We did it!!!

my mom, brother, and father came up from California/Las Vegas to celebrate.

my amazingly supportive husband.

Lance's Dad, his wife and her children came to join in the festivities.

's 

 Following my graduation it was time to hit the books once again... this time for a much more serious test... the NCLEX!  I traveled down to BYU and spent a day in the library taking practice questions.. 180 of them to be precise .

 On Monday, May 6th I traveled up to Bountiful to take the world's WORST exam ever.  190 questions of torture got me this....

 My Registered Nurse License!

WOO HOO!!