Grateful

So I have been feeling so blessed and so loved. The past month has been so great, I have been feeling pretty good other than a few aches, a full bladder, and a few sleepless nights. But I think most preggos feel those things, I have had such a blessed pregnancy, sometimes I think labour might end up being pay back... hopefully not, but it could happen.

And I only have 5 1/2 more days of work! Which honestly I have mixed feelings about because then I will have 3 weeks before my due date, and if I am like my mom, or most first timers I will be over due (in the case of my mother, many weeks). I was going to work longer, like up until the last possible working day of October, and since I work with a bunch of doctors I wasn't too worried about "what if it comes early...".The doctor I work for is going on vacation until the beginning of November and they really had nothing else for me to do so I decided to go on Mat leave early. I have been making quite the list of things to accomplish during my days, but I have a feeling it wont be long enough. And I think I will miss work.

So last weekend Karmyn (my sister-in-law) threw me a baby shower for friends and family who lives in Southern Alberta. It was really nice how many people were able to make it. We played a game where some of the girls had to drink some juice out of some really small baby bottles, it was really quite entertaining.

So there was Cassi, and Shay (my nieces on Jared's side of the family), and Cheryl (a great friend)

They were all really close, but Cheryl was a machine, and got the most. She said her mouth hurt quite badly after.


We also played "The Price is Right" type game with baby items like soap, onsie's, bum cream,ect. it was fun, and I got all the stuff in the end. Bonus! Then we had delicious cupcakes, and Emily made a beautiful cake that was really good. I scored awesome gifts that we are very excited for. Unfortunately we didn't get very many pictures.

Also in my things to be grateful for, is how loved and appreciated I have felt lately. I know that some of the people I work with are very sad that I will be leaving soon. There was even one of our patients who came in the other day with her boys just to give me a baby gift. It was so kind of her, it made me feel like I have a greater affect on people other than just the ones I work with. Plus the fact that Karmyn and her mom put on a beautiful baby shower for me, and all the people who came. I even received a gift in the mail from Heidi, a very dear friend of ours who lives in Denmark.

Here is the latest picture of my growing belly for all to enjoy, Im in my 35 week. Today I have exactly 1 month till my due date, kinda crazy!

These shoes were made for walkin'

Alright so I don't know if you remember my post about my favourite pair of jeans ... but I definitely had another one of those "favourites" be replaced this past month. This time shoes.

Now if anyone knows me I have some pretty funky feet, my feet probably look like your grandma's minus the wrinkles. How you might ask, well I have bunions, beautiful bunions. Heres a picture. Needless to say, I have never been much of a shoe girl and pretty much despise shoe shopping, unless I am in a really good mood.
So "those" shoes I had been wearing as a street shoe I had bought about 5 years ago and they were well broken in...


My mother almost had a break down every time she would see I still had "those" shoes and was still wearing them.

Yes, they were Diesel Shoes and like the awesomest shoes ever.

and no after so many years they no longer had the capacity to keep my feet dry or warm any more, but I still wore them year round.

But they have now been replaced by these:

Thanks mom. They are Merrells, and so far have not been that bad to break in. The only problem I seem to run into is looking down and seeing a different pair of shoes on my feet... but that will only take some time. So bring on winter this year, cause aint no water/snow/freezingness leakin in from any uninvited holes!

I will also have you know that I completely threw out "those" shoes so that they could no longer tempt me on a bad day, and have only kept pictures as a keep sake.

99 bottels of beer on the wall...

Okay well definitly just root beer, but still the count down in double digits is on. According to my widgit on the right there are 99 days left until our little dude is born. Not that I'm really counting honestly, this pregnancy has not been horribly uncomfortable for me. I have been VERY lucky, and blessed. As of right now I feel this guy could stay in there as long as he needs to... well I'll give him a max of 2 weeks after my predicted due date. I keep meaning to take pictures, I was so from like the 16th week to the 22 week and now I have totally fallen off the wagen. But I will try to get a more recent pic of my belly up soon, it's definitly bigger than the last time you saw it.

Also I added a new widget that says where people are from who visit my blog, yes that means you reading it right now... and I honestly don't know how I feel about it, I think it kinda creeps me out alittle, especially cause there are no names attached. I guess the purpose of having a blog is to have people read it, but if names were attached I might feel abit better about it. And I really have no problem with people I know reading about my life, but for example there is a person/people from Red Deer who ALWAYS seem to be reading my blog and like seconds after I signed on, and I keep wracking my brain about who I know in Red Deer and for some reason it is just not coming to me, so if it's YOU maybe you could comment and let me know that you enjoy my blog or something. I might just take it off so that I am not so thrown off by all the unknow people reading about my life.

On a third note, my cousin Mitch James was in a seriouse car accident last night and is currently in the ICU with some very seriouse injuries. Please keep him and his family in your prayrs, he is dearly in need of them at this time.

Riley Graduated!?

I was so lucky to get time off work to be able to go to Riley's grad, and spend Canada Day with my family!

So Riley decided that he didn't care to go to the banquet so Dad took us all out to the Saw Mill for dinner. For any of you who don't recognize the two extra cute girls in the picture. Riley had is girlfriend Madison, and Dallin brought his girlfriend Makenna. Both of them are really fun, it's kinda wiered that both my little brothers have girlfriends!


After dinner Dad wanted to get some pictures down at the Legislative grounds, it didn't last long cause it started to thunder and lightening so we high-tailed it out of there before the rain started.



(yes Emily's hand is on my belly in the next picture, she thought it was pretty funny.)


Riley and Madison were both lookin smok'in that night, pictures don't do justice.





Crazy right, I know. This also means that Riley is planning on leaving on his mission in a short 6 months.

Our fetus flavour

So I have a lot of things I've been wanting to post about lately, but I really wanted to do them in order that they happened and I really wanted to be able to put up pics, so I had to wait till I was able to scan these pictures, but I am really excited for this post!

So we had our ultrasound on Monday, which went really well. My two favourite parts were when I could see and feel the movements at the same time, and when we saw it making sucking motions. So cool. And yes we did figure out what it is...

So in this pic, I don't know if you can see without me pointing out, but just above the body were its legs, it had like completely folded it's self in half.

Then it moved and we got a really good shot of the legs, knees and everything.

And a great picture of its little had and arm!

Alright so, the story about the flavour. So keep in mind that the ultrasound techs are not aloud to tell patients what the gender is, the have to just say it in the report and then leave it for the doctor to say. So that is why she didn't just tell us...

But anyways, so part way through the ultrasound I asked our tech if we could try seeing what the gender was. so she moved from where we were looking down to the side of the leg and then around, and we got a really good shot of its butt with the legs bent up. The legs weren't blocking , and so not wanting to assume anything, I asked if that thing between it's legs was the umbilical cord. She replied by moving back over to the side of the leg and pointed out the umbilical cord, then went back to the butt shot and pointed out the bum and legs. My reply... " So that isn't the umbilical cord..?" She then again went to the shot of the umbilical cord (which is much bigger than the thing in between the legs) and then back to the butt shot and said " if you don't know what that is you should go back to grade 5." HAHA! ( I really just wanted her to tell me than me have to make assumptions).

So yes it's a BOY! We are both very excited. And we do have a name picked out, we have actually had a boys name since like a year and a half ago. Although I don't think I am going to post what it is, at least not this post. I have told some people, like family, and for some reason calling him by his name while he is still in me kinda gets to me, I don't know why. But I just call him, him or wiener ( my mom thinks it is so crude that I call him that, which makes it funnier).

Also during the ultrasound she got a really good shot of the heart which she seemed so intrigued by and just kept saying how good it looked and how amazing the shot was, which was so good to hear. Not that I was ever worried about there being something wrong with any of its body parts, but just to hear how good she thought it was made me feel awesome. It was really cool since we could see all 4 chambers of the heart and the different stages of it beating.

So we haven't been officially told by our doctor what it is, but it's pretty safe to assume what is in me is of the male gender, but if it's not we will know by Wednesday and I will repost...

Emerald Pools

Day 4, the last day of camping.

So this was still in Zion, we decided to do one more hike before we headed back to Orem.
The name of the pools my make it sound like some magnificent pools, and they were really nice but not cause they we a pretty green and all sparkly and what not. They were actually given the name because of the fungus that grows in them makes the pools look green, and more like a brown-green. But they are still really cool cause they are filled by a waterfall.







So thats the end of our Utah adventure. We had a really awesome time, and the best tour guide ever, with like infinite patience. He even drove our whole camping trip.

After camping we spent a couple days in central Utah area, went out to Park city and did some outlet shopping. Hopefully it wont be so long before we can go on another awesome adventure, although it might not be as crazy once we have this kid out I'm sure.

Zion

Day 3....

Oh my where to begin, first of all if you ever go to Zion (especially for the first time) go in through the East entrance! It is totally worth it even if it takes longer to drive there, just do it!

I always wondered how someone could go to a place, and knowing what the word "Zion" could mean to a person and then name a place that, how someone could compare the beauty of something to Zion. But when we got there, I totally understood, it was magnificent. The pictures just do not do it justice.



So we did this hike called "Angels Landing" it was pretty intense. It took us 3 hours round trip to hike (which was pretty quick, it said on the sign it takes the average person 4 hours). The 1.9-mile trail to Scout Lookout is paved, though steep - it climbs 1,000 feet. The route to Angels Landing is more rugged, adding .5 mile and another 500 feet in elevation to the hike. Both trails are popular. (Some of the info I did copy and paste from a web site, so I can't take credit).


This was a bit of what the beginning looked like.


Once you were close to the top, this is what you still had to ascend.


With this as your only grip on safety. This is what one of the signs read:
Caution: The route to Angels Landing involves travel along a steep, narrow ridge with support chains anchored intermittently along the route. Footing can be slippery even when the rock is dry Unevenly surfaced steps are cut into the rock with major cliff dropoffs adjacent. Keep off when it is wet, icy or thunderstorms are in the area. Plan to be off before dark.



Once you got to the top, this is what you saw.



This is whats called "Walters Wiggles" it is a series of 21 short switchbacks. It was fun... to look at, not so much to hike up, we had fun going down though.

This was probably the hardest hike I did the whole trip, and I was glad we had done a few "warm up" hikes before this one. I really enjoyed it. I am one of those crazy people who kinda loves heights, and the excitement it brings. It felt really good to accomplish especially because I was 4 months preggers at the time we did it. Jared kept saying I needed to slow down a bit cause I was making him look bad for needing more breaks than I did. haha.

For some reason my blog wont really let me put on more pics, but really I have a hard enough time choosing as it is. This was definitely one of my favourite days, and I would do it again in a heart beat.