Dear Evie

Dear Evie,

I am grateful for your determination and energy. I love that you are so willing to work hard for the things that you want. I am also so, so grateful for your sense of joy and happiness, and for your smiles and giggles. You truly brighten our lives every day. Your daddy is the sun to my world, and you are my very first ray of sunshine. I love you to pieces!!

Love,

Mommy

Family Vacation... 2013!!

 

'Round about July/August every year we usually go spend a couple of weeks at Karl's parents' house (where ever they might be living at the time), but this year, due to his parents being out here a bunch for weddings, a lack of funds, and various other impediments, we aren't going to be able to do that :(

Things have been pretty stressful lately (trying to figure out finances, Karl's job kind of requires him to be on-call a lot of the time, things falling through, life events/changes happening... etc.) and our summer visit is usually our break to kind of reset before the crazy stress of the school year sets in, so I finally just decided that we just needed to get away somewhere, even if it was just for a couple days.

Extremely fortunately for us, we managed to get Karl's 18-hour Friday shift covered/traded so we could get away for the weekend (seriously... this was a miracle)!!

So, I made some quick plans (yup... even my spontaneity is planned), booked a hotel, found something fun to do, and we were set! We didn't actually end up going far, but it was nice, and I really enjoyed getting some family time in with out work and junk interfering.

The day of our vacation came along and we were super excited... but, by the time we visited 5 different stores looking for an essential water floaty, being accosted by a mean/sweet old lady trying to get us to get a Babies-R-Us member card, forcing a cranky Evie back into her seat for the 5th time, and then getting on our way, we were all pretty hungry and grumpy. Thankfully, it was only about a 30 minute drive to... Sandy, Utah!

I know, that doesn't sound super exciting, but for us, it was pretty perfect!

Cranky Baby. Not happy to be in her seat...

We got to the hotel and went to put our things in our room, Evie saw the king size bed and was immediately in the best mood ever; she was so excited to be in that hotel room! She got up on the giant bed and jumped precariously on the edge, ran around the room, climbed on the sofa, looked in the bathroom... I think she was happy for a change of scenery ;)

Karl and I were not quite as impressed by the new surroundings, and still pretty hungry, so we had to gather up our little bouncing ball of energy and stick her in the car once more. While I was trying to get Evie in her seat (not an easy task) Karl offered to get the navigation on my phone started to get us to our dinner destination. It was right about when I looked up and realized he was getting back on the freeway that we both realized something was wrong... The phone was directing us to a restaurant that was 20 minutes away, rather than the one just down the street. But it was too late to not get on the freeway, it was rush hour at this point, and it ended up taking us about 15 minutes to get on and then off again and get to the restaurant... So more grumpiness... I was getting kind of nervous about the success of this trip when we finally arrived at our destination: Crown Burgers!

If you've never eaten at Crown Burgers, you really should... Maybe I was just starving to death, but seriously, FANTASTIC burger and some of the best fry sauce I've ever had. I was a little worried about getting a "crown burger" because my stomach has been a little sensitive lately and that burger is packed with pastrami, but I am so glad I didn't wimp out... It was amazing! We all really enjoyed our food and were honestly just soooo much happier after being fed, haha!

Also, we realized that the last time we were at a Crown Burgers restaurant was almost 7 years ago on one of our very first dates as an "official" couple! So, in honor of that, we had to take a picture ;) I don't think the two super young, naive college kids in that first picture could have possibly comprehended where we would end up 7 years down the road, but I don't think I could have imagined anything better!

October 2006
 (oh yeah, we're so cool)

July 2013
(Happy family!!)

Finally full and in a much happier mood, we headed back to the hotel and got ready to go swimming in the pool! Evie is a little fishy baby; she LOVES water. Last week for our family reunion she stood in the little sprinkler thing until her lips turned blue and still refused to get out. So I figured getting a hotel with a pool would be a good bonus ;)

 

 

It took quite a bit of convincing, but we eventually got her out of the pool by telling her we could go watch "Nemo" in the hotel room. We took a quick bath and then all snuggled up in the big bed to watch our movie on Karl's laptop!

Karl eventually fell asleep and half way through the movie, Evie remembered the swimming pool. She jumped off the bed, grabbed her floaty, and ran around the room saying "water! suit! again! go! again! WATER!". I managed to distract her by letting her play with the hotel phone (which I unplugged), she LOVED that... lol. Never thought an old land-line phone would be so impressive, haha. She kept calling her daddy on it, it was cute ;)

The only downside to the whole hotel experience was the fact that Evie REFUSED to sleep. It was seriously after 11pm before she finally gave up and passed out. We didn't have the most comfortable night ever, even with the awesome big bed, but we kind of expected that. Evie's not the best sleeper, even at home. Evie was okay with it though, she thought the whole thing was just the best ever. When we were down at the desk asking for a crib, they had a plate of warm cookies out, which Evie sampled, lol, and when we passed the desk after breakfast, the guy gave her candy! So basically, awesome. hahaha.

The next portion of our adventure was... The aquarium!!!

Finding Nemo was Evie's very first favorite movie, and she still loves it! She loves fish and sharks and water, so we thought this would be an excellent adventure for her!

It was pretty awesome. Evie kept calling it the "ocean", haha! We saw a lot of cool fishies, and Evie even got to have sharks and a giant sea turtle swim right by her face!

 We also got to see penguins!

 

Evie really liked the HUGE amazonian fish (totally brought me back to my "Amazon Trail" days, lol!), but there was one giant catfish that kept "chasing" her, she was so scared that it kept swimming after her that she ran away! I'm sorry, I may be a bad mom, but I thought it was funny ;)

The mean catfish

Running for her life...

Luckily, Daddy saved her!

Evie had such a good time! I don't think she wanted to leave, but mommy and daddy were tired, and Evie needed a nap after a morning filled with so much excitement! We stopped for lunch quickly, and then it was off to Grandma Janice and Grandpa Jack's house (which is also Uncle Christer and Auntie Myrna's house, for the time being, so we got a two for one deal!!)

We had a lot of fun playing at Grandma and Grandpa's, especially since Roxy dog was there!

Aaaand, playing with Christer and Myrna was pretty fun too... Once we warmed up to them a little ;) She wasn't in the greatest mood, since she was in a new place and hadn't been sleeping the last couple nights, but eventually we had some fun!

All in all, it was a pretty good trip, and the day we left, we realized she had sprouted TWO new teeth! That explains some of her grumpiness that week, I'm just glad she was still able to enjoy our fishy trip (which was all planned in her honor)!

I'm so happy we had a chance to get away from the everyday grind and spend a little family time, and even see some of our extended family! I love them so much!

False Negative

So,  this morning I decided it was high time that I go to the clinic and make things officially official. Though, I didn't decide this until after I had just gone to the bathroom... *sigh* Luckily for me,  first trimester hormones were working in my favor and by the time we got there I REALLY had to pee again (yeah, this was only about 20 minutes later...) 

Anyway, went back with the nurse who handed me a cup and asked "are you expecting this to be positive or negative?" Now, at this point I had already taken 5 home pregnancy tests of varying sensitivity and brand and every last one came back with two little lines (starting 5 days ago) and I am 4 days past when my period was supposed to start,  so I was pretty darn positive it would be positive! Anyway, did my thing and went to meet the nurse who was standing there performing my test (ie. sticking a test strip in a cup) and she started asking me all these questions about what made me think I was pregnant.  I thought she was just making small talk at first,  but then eventually she said "well,  it's probably just too early,  I'll give it a couple more minutes to see if we can get anything." So we spent a minute or two continuing our slightly awkward conversation about all the reasons a person might think she is pregnant before she eventually pronounced the test to be negative and told me to come back in a couple weeks if my period hadn't started yet. 

Frustrating... and slightly unnerving to be honest. So, disappointed, we went home. I had one pregnancy test left over from my testing binge and I decided to take it as soon as I got home (yes, I already had enough of the necessary material to complete the test... haha), and sure enough, it was almost immediately positive! Not only that, but it was quite a bit darker than the test of the same brand I had taken 4 days earlier, which was extremely reassuring!

Anyway, in all my days of peeing on sticks, I have never gotten a false negative (even the dollar store tests came back with a pretty strong line this time around!), and the last thing I expected was to get one from the "official" test.  Oh well, at least with all the bloating, indigestion, fatigue, and needing to pee every five minutes, it seems pretty definite to me that I'm pregnant, no matter the results of that stupid test...

*Update* 7/11:

Went back in to the clinic today and had almost an IDENTICAL experience to the one I had on Monday... *sigh* Either that nurse doesn't know how to read a pregnancy test, or they are the LEAST sensitive tests in the world, but either way, SO FRUSTRATING! However, we finally managed to get a faint line and that was enough to call it! So it's official, we've got a baby on the way!

A Visit from Grandma Christine & the Dino Museum

Karl's family has been in town this last month for his brother's wedding, so last week we were able to have a visit from Grandma Christine and Auntie Preah! I'm so sad that they live so far away and we don't get to see them very often, because Evie just loves them (even if it takes her a bit to warm up, haha)

Last weekend they came down for a quick visit (they've been sick and haven't been able to come, and Preah was getting anxious!) but ended up staying the night on an air mattress in our living room. Evie was so excited to wake up and see Preah asleep in our house, that even days afterward she kept saying,"Peah seeping? Gamma seeping??" it was cute.

Evie just LOVED having Preah around, she thinks she is the most fun, funniest, person ever. 

 

Evie didn't want to go to bed because she wanted to stay up all night with her auntie! So Preah climbed into Evie's crib and read her some books :)

Preah didn't even want to leave the next day either, but since they hadn't really made the proper preparations for a long term visit, they had to go back up to Layton. We did eventually make a deal with Preah that we'd go to the dinosaur museum after the weekend so she could visit with Evie again ;)

So, today we got to go to the Mueum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point! Anika and Leina even came too, so we had a lot of fun with the rowdy girls! It was Evie's first time, and I was a little worried that she'd be scared of the big dinosaurs, but she absolutely loved it!

Dinosaurs are AWESOME!!

There was a cool exhibit at the museum all about "Tinkering", it had all kinds of fun technical and sciencey things for kids (and Karl). The girls seemed to have a lot of fun with this one, but Evie was a little too young to really appreciate it.

Preah making her own movie :)

One thing that I think ALL the girls loved was the erosion table... Which is basically a bunch of sand with water running though it that you can play in. Preah and Anika got stuck in this area of the museum FOREVER, lol. Evie probably would have loved to hang out here all day too, but Mom got tired of holding her up to the table so she could reach.

Playing in the sand and water!!! I mean... Learning about erosion.

Riding her first dino!

Evie loved all the dinos, this was probably her first real exposure to them, but she EXTRA loved that they had sharks!!! Ever since she started her obsession with Finding Nemo she's had a thing for sharks. In the shark room she kept saying "Shark! Shark! Bruce!" (the name of the shark on Nemo)

 

Bruce!!

Look!! It's a SHARK!!!

The other activity that the girls all thoroughly enjoyed (we had a hard time getting Evie to leave) was the sandbox... er, the fossil excavation room. Evie thought it was great... by the end she was dumping the sand in her hair and her feet were caked in the stuff, lol.

We had so much fun at the museum, and THEN Grandma Christine even got Evie a cute little sea turtle (or "Crush turtle", lol) as a souvenir AND we got to go to Wendy's for some chicken nuggets (Evie's favorite). Such a busy, fun day!! So glad we got to spend some time with Grandma and the girls! Having family around is the best ;)