Portland

This past weekend my parents were nice enough to fly me home for a few days. It was so nice to escape Spokane for a few days and just relax. While there we had a big family dinner and we went shopping. I got some awesome maternity clothes. It's so nice to have some jeans that fit and I don't have to button with a hair tie :) The weekend flew by and now I'm back to Spokane where the forecast is snow :/

The only picture I took this weekend was of my niece Claire who bought these awesome glasses at the dollar store with her toothfairy money. She was pretty excited

This Friday is the big day when we get to find out the gender of our baby!! So I'll post again after that

When You Live In West Spokane

When you live in West Spokane anything can happen. It is not a nice area. Last week around three in the morning we wake up to someone knocking on our door. Three in the morning, it could be anyone. When David looked out and said it was our apartment manager I knew something had happened to one of our cars. Just as we suspected he came to let us know someone had broken into our car. When we went out there, the driver side window was smashed and there was glass EVERYWHERE. Our apartment manager had already filed a police report for us and said that the cops weren't actually going to show up. I guess not too long ago Spokane cut the damaged property unit so the police don't have the resources to do much of anything anymore. Thanks Spokane. So we taped up our window and attempted to go back to bed. Our manager assured us that he would listen and if anyone came back he would get them :) We didn't get back in until 4 and we get up at 5 so there was no hope of falling asleep. It was a long day for us. But thankfully the weather was pretty nice and we were able to get the car fixed that day. It was an unexpected expense but we were lucky there was nothing in the car for anyone to steal.

I guess we should have seen this one coming. We have the nicest car in the neighborhood (this is a really, really run down area). However, I do take consolation in the fact that my life is better than the person/people who did this. I have a future that doesn't include winding up in jail and smashing people's car windows for kicks. I have real hobbies. Therefore in the end, I win.

On a brighter note, everything else has been going great for us. I had another doctor appointment recently and I got to listen the heartbeat. It was at 150 bpm. I am 15 1/2 weeks right now and on Friday November 18th we go in for the big ultrasound! I'm so excited! I cannot wait to find out if our baby is a boy or a girl.

                                                                     14 1/2 weeks

                                                    
This past weekend we headed out to Greenbluff with some friends. Greenbluff is a place where there are a ton of farms so they get together and during October have a sort of festival. We ate super yummy pumpkin donuts and fresh apple cider. We also bought some fresh Honey Crisp apples. My favorite! I made some apple crisp out them and it was soo good. Next year we'll have to go back a littler earlier in the month. We went on the last weekend so there were only slim pickins left in the pumpkin patch. We had a great time.

For Halloween we went out and bought a couple bags of candy for the expected trick-or-treaters. No one showed up. I love seeing kids all dressed up, they are always so cute. But I guess when you live in West Spokane you can't expect parents to let their little kids come to some of the homes here :) We did dress up our puppies in cute costumes. Maggs was an elephant and Blake was a joker. They were so cute! They love getting dressed up. It's a little weird. Once we had the costumes on them they hardly sat still. So it was a little challenging to try and get a decent picture of them.

The Unexpected

Well life has been just a tad bit crazy since we moved here to Spokane. David started school, I got a job, AND we found out that I'm pregnant!! We are so excited to be expecting! So these last few weeks have been filled with morning sickness, working, and trying to find someone to take over our lease so we can move into a bigger place. We sorta need two bedrooms now.

This past weekend David and I went to Portland to spend some time with my family. We got to hang out with everyone and were fortunate enough to be given a couch set that my parents don't use anymore. So David left on Saturday to drive our new belongings back to Spokane. I stayed until Monday with my fam. It was so nice to have some time with them. On Monday I had my very first doctor appointment. I was a little nervous for it since I heard it can be quite invasive. It was, but luckily I had my mom there with me. I was able to see my baby on the ultra sound which was so amazing! I was surprised at how active it was. It looked like it was dancing around. I was 9 1/2 weeks when I went in and it was so amazing to see that in that short amount of time my baby actually looks like a mini human-well alien really but still. It was an incredible experience, one that I will never forget. Over all the appointment went well, the baby looked great and I was healthy so that was a relief. I'm now 10 weeks and I'm looking forward to getting out of my first trimester soon!!

Picking blackberries in the field by my parent's house

They love to run!

Our cute puppies at Manito park (here in Spokane)

Hello Spokane

Well we made it. Not too long ago we packed up our things, left California, stopped in Portland for a day, and made the final leg of our journey to Spokane. It has been interesting to say the leaset since we've been here...Our apartment is definitely TONS smaller than we thought it was going to be. It has taken a lot of work finding places for all our things. But we did it. We don't love it but it will work for us for the next year. Unfortunately when we got here we found out the nickname of the neighborhood we live in - felony flats - how inviting...

Moving in all of our things

(we swear we aren't hoarders)

Turned that into this...

All with only one storage closet!! Now up the stairs

To the smallest bedroom ever!

And the best feature of our apartment is:

We have a yard!!

Since being in Spokane we have been working hard to get our apartment somewhat organized and we still don't have any decorations up, but those will hopefully come soon. David started law school and has been working hard to stay on top of his homework. At least it's homework he enjoys-for the most part. This past weekend my parents were able to come visit us. We had a great time with them and we were able to do a few fun things. I'm so happy that I'm living a lot closer to my family than I have in a long time.

Other than the location of our apartment and it's size, we are excited to be here and look forward to the next few years in Spokane :)

Do Brunettes Really Have More Fun?

Brunettes versus blondes, the age old rivalry...both claim to have the "most fun." I have been a blonde basically my entire life, however, a couple days ago I decided to switch it up and join the other team. I am now a brunette! It has been an adjustment for me, but so far I think I am liking it. I had tons of fun as a blonde so this new color has a lot to live up to :)

Beach Day!!

This past week we took our puppies to the dog beach. It was awesome! I love the beach and being here in San Diego means there is actually great beach weather!! This was Maggs second time to the beach and Blake's first. They aren't big fans of the water and were a little shy around the other dogs, but David and I had some good laughs watching them run away from the water :)

Life

Life has been pretty crazy this past month with moving, trips, and even a new addition to our family. So now it is time to give the update…

The time finally came for David and me to move out of Rexburg! I was soo excited! I had been there for almost six years! I can’t believe how long it has been. I will miss our first apartment though, it was great. We were lucky enough to have my family help us make the move. We rented a trailer, loaded it up and attached it to my dad’s suburban. It was great! We moved all our things to Spokane to put in storage for the summer. The drive through Montana to Spokane was gorgeous, definitely one of our better drives. We took a little time in Spokane to look at Gonzaga, where David will most likely be attending law school this fall.

The next leg of our trip was to head down to Portland for a week with my family. It was great! We were able to relax and spend lots of time with our cute nieces and nephew! It was fun to be back with my family for a week, especially since we hadn’t seen them since Thanksgiving. We were also able to introduce Copper, the family dog, to our newest addition in the family, Maggs. I have wanted a puppy of my own for as long as I can remember. I always told myself that as soon as I graduate from college I would get one. However, the apartment David and I lived in did not allow dogs. So not too long ago we were finally able to get me one! She is a Pug and is currently 9 weeks old weighing in at a hefty 4 pounds. When we got her she wasn’t even 3 pounds! She has been doing a lot of growing! She is super cute and funny. Potty training her has been a challenging but she is doing great with it now. Knock on wood. While visiting my family we would take Maggs and Copper on walks-for those of you who don’t know much about Copper he weighs 150 pounds so they made quite the pair!

This past Saturday we took a trip to the Oregon coast. It was so much fun and the weather was excellent according to Oregon beach standards. We went to a drive on beach which are my favorite because you don’t have to worry about carrying everything you need from your car to the sand. It was Maggs first trip to the beach and she loved digging in the sand. David even tricked her into going in the water. So cute! We also had a yummy bbq and an intense game of soccer. I have some nice bruises and scratches on my arms thanks to my sister Jayme :)

 

When Sunday rolled around we were on the road at 5:30 am heading to San Diego; our final stop for the summer. The trip was going great-I had a couple naps and Maggs is an amazing traveller. Midday though, the weather started to heat up and we are probably the only people who still don’t have air conditioning. We were sucking it up though and making great time until we reached the middle of nowhere and there was stop and go construction. It was about 90 degrees outside so we rolled down the windows trying to get some air…we had been in this stop and go traffic for about 20 minutes when all of a sudden we saw black smoke and heard a “clink, clink, clink” noise. At first we thought it was one of the semi-trucks but we very quickly realized it was our car. We had to force ourselves into the right lane to pull over and turn the car off. It had overheated and smoke was still billowing out of hood. So I grabbed Maggs and we got out as fast as we could. When we looked at the car we noticed that there was stuff dripping out from underneath and all our coolant was gone. We had no idea where we were and we were stuck. Luckily our insurance covers towing, but we couldn’t get a truck cause we didn’t know where we were and there was no exits close to us so David had to go off and find our location. While that was happening, I was just standing next to the car watching people in the stop and go traffic right next to me. Now I have always disliked semi-trucks but out of everyone in that traffic only truck drivers rolled down their windows to make sure we were ok. One driver even gave us two gallons of antifreeze. Anyway, David figured out our location and a tow eventually got to us and took us to a little town called Shafter. There also happened to be no hotels in this town; go figure. So now here we are, stranded outside this little car repair shop in a sketchy area at night. Awesome. We tried calling a cab but they said it would cost us $60 for them to come get us and take us to a hotel. Thanks to David’s parents though, we were able to contact the local LDS Bishop and he came to pick us up. We were so grateful to him! It was 10:30 at night when we called but he was willing to come get us and take us to a hotel in the next town, Wasco. Once we were at the hotel all we could think about was our car and if it was dead or how much money the repair would cost. We were sure it was going to be a ton of money. What car repair isn’t expensive; especially if it has to do with the engine? The next morning the car place called us and it turned out the reason our car had overheated is because a fuse had blown so the fans weren’t turning on to cool the engine. They were able to fix that no problem for a great price-considering how much car repairs usually cost!

We were able to make the final four hours of our journey without any more car issues! It was great! Now we are in sunny San Diego living the dream. David has a great job for the summer and I will be staying at home with Maggs and relaxing. Sounds pretty good to me :)

 

Unfortunately this past Tuesday my Grandma in Ireland passed away. She lived 86 great years and was the last one in her family to go. As sad as it is to lose someone in your family, I’m so happy that she is in a place where she doesn’t have to suffer anymore and that she is reunited with her husband. She will be missed.