It's a....

 Boy!

I don't know what I was expecting them to say but boy wasn't it. Maybe, "It's an asparagus." Or "It's a tree." I mean, I was floored. But the longer I've had to digest the fact that it's a boy, the happier I am. 

He wasn't very good at getting pictures taken, to which I sighed and realized he was just like his dad, so the only other good one was of his feet.

Can you see his little foot with the other one folded behind it? Kind of hard I know.

Well, there was another good picture but it's pretty self explanatory by saying, "It's a boy." 

Oh my gosh, it's a boy. Awesome!

And, a funny story. We were shopping at the mall a few weekends back, I know, I was surprised too but Brent needed new shoes for work. Brent takes FOREVER to choose shoes. Granted he wears them till they fall off his feet, but I get bored. We had just come from Barnes and Noble where we had gotten a baby book so that was sitting next to me as I watched Brent walk around and around in his shoes. (Love you!) Anyway, the clerk was watching him walk around and around and finally asked me what book I was reading. Long story a little bit longer, I said baby book and she said congratulations. Then the advice began. (This is definitely a weird thing about pregnancy!) She asked me a few things then said, "Do you have heart burn?" to which I replied yes. Then she said, "Oh, that means it's a boy with a lot of hair." I kind of laughed at the time, but now I'm wondering. Is he going to have a lot of hair? And is it going to be curly?

Yep, Still Here

I don't know if you've noticed, but I haven't been blogging much lately. Before this whole baby thing was known by everyone, I didn't want to spill any sort of beans before we were ready.

And, this whole time, I've been tired and nauseated and just not feeling funny. Then I thought I'd do some blogging on the laptop while Brent was watching basketball - it is March after all - but I read that you're not suppose to put a laptop on your lap when pregnant, so that was out the door.

So, this is my catch up for the whole year! Luckily, with me not feeling too good for most of it, we haven't done that much, so it will be easy. Mostly just a few trips to Utah.

First trip to Utah for the year was the first part of February. Why? For Rylee's baptism!

Doesn't she look ready? She was so cute when she was baptized. She giggled the whole time. Just made you smile. We were so glad that we could be there!

It was such a fun day. Our trip to Utah was only about 42 hours, so we didn't get to do that much, but here are some of the pictures.

Some of the family there. We had a hard time getting everyone together for pictures.

Silly boys playing around.

 Then we went to Tayler's soccer game. It was fun to watch! She is quite the soccer player!

Tay's the #88 on the left.

Go Tay!

Much too soon, it was time to go and have some dinner with my family before we flew back to Washington. Sorry, no pictures from that dinner, but it was a great time!

Then in the first part of March, I went to Utah for a little bit longer for two reasons. The first one was that one of my good friends, who started out as one of my young women, was going through the temple and I had to be there. She decided that she wanted to go on March 2nd. Hmmm...a plan began to form. You see, my mom's birthday is March 1st. So, I began to conspire with my dad and grandma to surprise my mom for her birthday. Hee hee!

Dad and I decided that it would be the most fun to surprise her at dinner on her birthday. The place and time were set.

Then, earlier in the week, my dad went to the doctor and found out he needed a stent in a vein leading to his heart. Scary enough. But when they got to the blockage, they found it was much worse than they thought. They didn't know if they would be able to get the stent in. If they couldn't get the stent in, he would have to have open heart surgery the next morning. Eeek! That was a hard day as I was waiting to hear. Luckily, they did end up getting what turned out to be two stents in and he's feeling much better! Needless to say, if he had had open heart surgery, I would have told my mom that I was coming.

But, thankfully, the doctors were amazing and got the stents in. Dad is now completely cleared to do anything he wants, which mostly means golfing. He's so happy.

Anyway, Dad insisted that, even though he had just gotten out of the hospital, he was still game for our surprise. So, Friday night, I went to Market Street, sat down at their table and said, "Happy Birthday!" I wish I would have gotten a picture of Mom's face. It was hilarious! She was so confused. But we pulled it off.

Saturday was spent almost entirely at the temple with Hunter. Not a bad way to spend the day! It was a gorgeous day! I'm so thankful that she asked me to be apart of it with her!

Here are some pictures. Notice how beautiful it was! Spring is a great time of year!

It was such a special day! Hunter is going on a mission to Arizona in June. Those people are so blessed! She is going to be such a wonderful missionary.

After the LONG day downtown, I went back to the apartment to then go back downtown for dinner. Wow! Haven't spent this much time in downtown Salt Lake in forever! But dinner was good and it was fun to see Grandma and Gene again.

On Sunday, after a quick sacrament meeting, I spent the day with my parents. There are a lot of birthdays that time of year, so there was a family dinner already planned. My mom decided to not tell any of the rest of my family that I was there so they could be surprised too. They were. It was funny. Everyone kept saying, "I didn't know you were here." Nope, no one knew.

Then back to Washington for me. And no more traveling while pregnant and sick.

But, then two weeks later, Brent went to March Madness with my dad. He didn't take any pictures, but had a wonderful time!

Three trips to Utah in 2 months. Wow! Crazy!

And that's been about it. I really am just getting my head around the fact that in August, there will be another person in our house. And now to prepare.

:)

The Cat is Out of the Bag

Well, looks like the cat is out of the bag. Just goes to show you that if you tell the YW anything, then tell them you don't mind if they tell anyone, it gets around!

We are going to be having a baby in August! 

We're so happy and scared and excited and surprised and all the other things going through out minds! We got to see the Little Squirt - as we call them - this week, which makes it all the more real. We do not know the sex yet, but that will come next month.

So, if I'm cranky and tired and grumpy, now you'll know why. No, I don't have a personality disorder! I'm just pregnant!

And Now We Say Adieu!

The last day of the cruise was spent just sort of relaxing. Brent wasn't feeling super hot - remember how he brought pneumonia home as a souvenir - so there aren't a lot of pictures. But here you go...

We had dinner at the sushi place again because, well, we just liked it. It was a good place to eat.

Then there was a BEAUTIFUL sunset that night. Kind of appropriate for our last night on the boat.

Can you tell I was a fan?

The next day was getting off the ship and flying home. Getting off the ship is always a pain. There's just a lot of people to get off. But then we got stuck in Houston on our way home. With a VERY sick Brent, that was not my favorite travel day ever. We got home at about midnight our time, which made for a LONG day.

It was a fun Birthday Extravaganza! I'm already thinking of what to do in 2024! Ok, maybe not thinking so much as having it in the back of my mind. :)

Cozumel

Oh my heck! I have been such a dork about this darn blog. I'm bound and determined to finish the cruise!

Cozumel, Mexico...our last stop on the grand Birthday Adventure. We didn't have anything planned in Cozumel because I had read that this was the place to shop. It was most definitely the place to shop in that there were a lot of shops, but...I'll get to that.

I took a bunch of pictures of the water because it was such an interesting color, don't you think? 

 

I think that color is what they're talking about when they say Caribbean blue!

We also saw a pelican...

It was hanging around some fishermen who were throwing the fish guts to it, so it made for easy pictures.

We found out that Cozumel is the place to go for sea glass. They must throw a lot of glass stuff into the ocean there because it wasn't hard to find at all. I love sea glass.

We took some other pictures...

It was a beautiful day! But...it was a hard day to shop. Why? Well, the shop keepers, actually, most shop keepers, not all shop keepers, felt a need to invite you into their shops when you walked past. Loudly. And with much feeling. It was way too much for me! At least they didn't touch me. In Encinada, Mexico, they touched me. I do not like that!

So, our shopping was somewhat short lived, but we did get a few treasures in our last port.

Then we had some fun on the boat. (I swear some of these pictures are from the next day, but the properties on the pictures say it was the same day so I'm believing the camera.)

Brent is already starting to look a little green around the gills...

There was a funny show with these jugglers, who then gave juggling lessons. We snuck in and watched Dad give it a try.

Mamadillo liked the blue blue sea too!

While the next time I go to Cozumel, I'm going to go snorkeling - remember how pretty the water was - we still had a great time! It's kind of sad to think that it's almost over...

Now THIS is What I'm Talking About

Our next stop was Roatan, Honduras. Roatan is an island off the coast of Honduras and also one of my new favorite places in this world. It is most definitely my favorite stop with this cruise. You'll see why.

We woke up to this...

Isn't that a cute little pier? Very nice. And the trees everywhere. This is what I thought we'd see when it kept saying you had to walk through the "jungle" to get to the different Mayan Ruins. You saw the pictures. I thought a jungle was different.

Mamadillo liked it too!

So, we went down and looked around a little before our adventure that day.

This was pretty much the most Christmas-y thing we saw on the cruise!

Then it was time for our adventure. Anyone who knows me knows that I am an animal lover. That may be an understatement, but it's true. I love all animals, but I love whales and dolphins the most. One of my all time favorite days was whale watching with my mom in the San Juans when an orca swam right underneath the boat and looked at me. Wow. Anyway, I have always wanted to swim with dolphins, but there was a problem. I wanted the dolphins to be well taken care of. I didn't want it to be a money making scheme. So, I thought and thought about doing a dolphin encounter. I talked to a couple fellow animal lovers who had done it and they assured me that it would be great.

So, the decision made, it was time to go on our dolphin encounter adventure. We took a bus through the cutest village we've seen yet to the other side of the island.

This is a picture that they supplied but I thought it was kind of nice to see the whole thing.

We waded out into the water and there was our trainer and her dolphin, Margarite.

It was so amazing to be able to get this close to an animal that is just so darn cool.

At first, we weren't suppose to have our cameras with us. Because they had to take pictures to sell us and they wanted to be able to sell them. I think they were worth it.

When you see this as our Christmas picture this year, just pretend that it was this year and that you haven't seen this before.

After that, they let us go and get our cameras. Dad and I went trudging back to get them and when we came back, this is what we saw.

Yep, Brent and Mom getting extra time petting Margarite. This still makes me sad. I mean, fun for them **grumble grumble** but I wish I had thought of that!

Anyway, I shook that huge disappointment off and took a whole bunch of pictures.

This HAS to be one of my all time favorite pictures, ever!

I almost forgot the video. You might want to turn the volume down a little if you watch it. Margarite is SUPER loud! (Drives Daisy crazy...it's kind of funny!)

Before I was ready, it was time to go back to the ship. It was so much fun. I want to live here and work with the dolphins. That would be so amazing! Too much fun!

We did a little shopping when we got back to the pier.

Mom's more of a shopper than any of us, so we took a picture while we were waiting.

Too soon it was time to leave Roatan and go on to our next adventure. We got a towel crab for the night...

Saw a rainbow...

And a gorgeous sunset...

A perfect end to a perfect day! If you're ever in Roatan, definitely go to Anthony Key! Next time, I'm snorkeling with them!