Our Big Christmas Announcement . . .

Merry Christmas . . . .

Did you see that?

Take a closer look . . .

That's right, it's a POSITIVE pregnancy test! We took this test about a week and a half

after we moved to San Diego.



Actually, as of this Christmas we are nearing the end of the first trimester! Which we feel is a great time

to start letting everyone know!


How could we keep it a secret so long, you might ask? Well it was really hard!! We have been so excited to tell everyone we know, and we almost slipped up a couple of times, but we have been counting down the days until Christmas so it could be our special surprise! So . .

SURPRISE !!

We went for our first prenatal appointment last night and were able to finally hear our baby's heart beat! It was an amazing and long awaited experience. Here is a little video so you can hear it too . . .

We are expecting the stork to arrive around the first couple of weeks of July

So Merry Christmas to all! We are excited to share this long awaited news with all of our family and friends. We look forward to seeing everyone soon and we wish you a happy and healthy New Year!

Jack and the Beach . . .

So our apartment in Escondido is about 30 minutes from the beach. We try to go at least every Saturday and we have found this fantastic dog beach in Del Mar that we take Jack to. He is not a huge water fan, but he LOVES all the dogs and people. He is afraid of the waves coming in after him and really has to take a second to build up his courage to jump over them and to venture further into the ocean. When he sees other dogs charging into the water after balls and toys he wants to go charging in too, but he is usually quite a few paces behind. As soon as the water starts hitting his belly (which, at his size, doesn't take more than a few steps out) he starts heading for the shore. He is getting a little bit more brave each time we go. Here are some pictures and videos for you to enjoy. . .

This is Jack's first experience in the ocean. It is at a beach in Oceanside that we later found out doesn't actually allow dogs (oops!)

Here is Jack going after his squeeky fish. Look at him go!!

Here is Jack looking very "California"!

Here is a picture of Gary and Jack playing on the beach while the sun goes down. So cute!

In this video Jack wants to run with the big dog, but he just can't get past the tiny wave . . .

In this video you can see the big waves crashing on the beach and Jack saying hello to the puppies and people . . .

Here is Jack building up the courage to jump over the waves . . .

Our Apartment . . .

So we arrived in San Diego on Sunday night and started our apartment search on Monday morning. We must have looked at about 20 complexes! Some were really nice (and hugely expensive), and some were sort of sketch (the worst one looked like they had just removed the chalk outline off of the floor). It made it a bit tricky to find a place that was inexpensive, accepted dogs, and didn't charge three times as much for a month-to-month lease. After two VERY long days of apartment searcing we finally settled on a one-bedroom apartment at the El Norte Villas in Escondido. It's a pretty nice place, we have a fireplace, a pretty decent sized patio, and a stacked washer and dryer in our apartment. Our complex has a big pool, a hot tub, and a tiny fitness center (I guess you can't have it all). Late Wednesday afternoon we elisted Gary's cousin Jake to help us move most of our furniture and heavy stuff into a storage unit. He was a huge help! There was a questionable moment, when Jake and Gary almost died trying to get his enormously heavy toolbox down the ramp of the moving truck, but don't worry, everyone is fine. After we were done at the storage unit Gary and I took on the long task of unloading the rest of the moving truck. It was HORRIBLE! and it took FOREVER! We had tried calling the Elders Quorum to help, but we had the wrong ward apparently and there are a lot of apartment complexes and moves in this area, plus, they have no idea who we are, so we can understand the hesitation. We were reminded that when we eventually move out of our apartment into our new house that we should call the missionaries, because they are always excited about doing service. It turns out that they live in our complex, so we made sure to get their phone number. Here are some pictures of our place. We are using the bedroom as an extra storage room for all our boxes, so we basically live in a studio. It is good though, that way we will be ready to move out as soon as our house sells. It is quite an adventure!

Our extremely long road trip . . .

After a mad-dash remodel, which we couldn't have done without loads of help from friends and family, we were finally on our way to San Diego the morning of November 1st. Gary was driving a 28' bright yellow Penske moving truck and hauling our white VW Golf behind it, and Jack and I were following behind in Gary's work car, a silver Impala with "Sentry Insurance" written all over it. We had intended to make the 10-hour drive in one day, but ran into a setback when the Penske truck blew a high-pressure oil line just outside of Beaver, Utah, spewing 5 GALLONS of oil all over all of our vehicles! It was horrible! (I've attached a picture of us sitting on the side of the road. It was taken in the dark, so most of what you see are the reflectors on the truck) The repair took about 5 hours, most of the time bored out of our minds sitting on the side of the the freeway. We were exahsted and it had gotten late so we decided to spend the night with Grandpa Joe in St. George and start again in the morning. That morning happened to also coincide with daylight savings time, so by the time we finally arrived in California there was a two-hour time difference from when we had started our trip out of Salt Lake. We still haven't fully recovered from this as we get tired around 8:00 pm and seem to wake up around 6:00 or 6:30 am just about every morning. Gary's Uncle David said we could stay at their house until we found an apartment, but before we finally landed there we headed north to Thousand Oaks to see Bliss' cousin Casey, who had just returned from his mission to Ohio. It was fun to catch up with Casey, Erin and Uncle Bob for a few hours, and Jack was relived that the people throwing Casey's homecoming party were so hospitable and let him walk around and stretch his legs a bit. We wish we could have spent more time with them, but we were tired and we still had two more hours to go before we would be in Del Mar, so we said good-bye and headed back on the road. We finally landed at the Smart's house around 10:30 pm and immediately hit the sheets. We were lucky to stay at David and Brenda's house while David was in town. He travels a lot for his job and had just gotten back from China a few days before we arrived. It was great to be able to chat and catch up with them over the next few days.