It's a...

We are SO thrilled!!! This little guy was most definitely not afraid to let us know his gender. I was mildly embarrassed at how willing he was to show it all off. :) The sonographer took full advantage of this little boy's immodesty by printing four different pictures of just the goods. We saw so many different views of this little man that the sonographer claimed to be "99.999% positive" that we have a little boy. Yay for sweet little boys!!!

Boy or Girl???

So this Friday Erin and I are going to find out the gender of our little baby! I actually wasn't able to be at the first time Erin went to the doctor due to my busy schedule with school but this time it worked out great as I just finished my first quarter of dental school and have a week break. So on Friday I get to see my baby for the first time! Anyways... Erin and I have our preferences for the gender of course but we wanted to get your opinions. But to maybe help you make up your minds, I am hoping for a boy and Erin is hoping for a girl but both would be excited for the other. Hoorah for babies! P.S. I put both our pictures together to find out what our babies would look like and so here they are. Just kidding but a post without pictures is lame in my opinion. :)

The Shrimp

Hooray! I think this is my second time posting on our blog. Maybe I'll become a regular...but don't get your hopes up. I suppose I'm our only hope for this blog as dental school has officially consumed Jared's life. Maybe that will be the pressure I need to keep up with this thing...maybe even bust out the camera more often and download my pictures! Annie knows how great I am at downloading pictures. It only took me like a month to send her pictures she requested. Apparently just downloading pics on the computer could be quite the accomplishment for me. Anyways. Folks, the real reason I am here today is to officially announce...we're pregnant! We are thrilled! As of today, we are 13 weeks along...almost clear of the first trimester. Hooray for that! According to babycenter.com, our little tyke is about 3 inches long from head to bum--apparently the size of a medium shrimp. At our initial doc appointment at 10 weeks, February 26th was determined to be our due date. So mark your calenders, people! We have a baby coming at the end of February! In case you needed a visual, this is how big our baby is, in baby form, of course. So I was expecting to have a pretty breezy pregnancy as my Mom had three fairly easy pregnancies. She experienced some nausea and discomfort, but not unbearable or super out of the ordinary. But don't be so jealous just yet. Yes she had pretty easy pregnancies, BUT, an epidural could not be placed on the woman. Three babies, au naturale. Yikes. I am not cut out for that. I am a super wimp. As for me so far, my Mom and I are virtual opposites (and for placing-an-epidural purposes, hopefully we continue to be opposites!). I was hoping me and nausea wouldn't get too friendly during pregnancy since nausea and my Mom were mere acquaintances. But...some pretty intense nausea set in for me around week six. I didn't panic too much as I knew nausea is a very normal symptom of early pregnancy. Whatever. Just deal with it. It was about a week and a half or two weeks later that I had experienced a week plagued with nausea and lost four and a half pounds that I decided something had to be done. I called in the doc's office to set up my first appointment and to tell them what was going on and came out of it with an appointment and a prescription for phenergen. Apparently (according to Kaiser, anyway) if a pregnant woman has already lost weight due to nausea and vomiting they skip the wimpy remedy suggestions and give you the real stuff if you want it. Thank you Kaiser and kind phone nurse. I want you all to know that phenergen is a drug of the gods. Life on prescription meds in awesome. Now I see why people get addicted. Just kidding. Really. Besides being drowsy and chill all the time (in addition to the normal first trimester sleepiness) life is great. I'll take drowsiness over n/v any day. Even now, every once in a while my body freaks out for unknown reasons and I experience the n/v all over again. Days like those are great reminders of what life could be on a daily basis and I become more grateful for all those people who used a lot of brains and their precious time inventing phenergen. In addition to being grateful for all the smart people of the world, I am also grateful my body responds to oral phenergen since the next option for me might look something like this: Erin in a frantic search for a large box of gloves and some lubricating jelly. Thank the heavens that hasn't happened. (If those weren't enough clues... there's only so many natural orifices on one's body that a med with more systemic effects can be placed. You do the math.) Anyways. Hopefully the n/v thing will slow down a bit since I'm moving onto the next stage of pregnancy. I've experimented not taking phenergen a few days in the last couple weeks...didn't go over so well. Someday it will all subside and I can stop being a drug addict. Until then, I'll continue to be chill Erin...which surely trumps acid-breath Erin. My only request through all of this? Any mother's request--that my baby is healthy. I would take feeling sick all pregnancy long to guarantee my baby's health. Too bad we can't make bargains like that. Life is truly a miracle. I feel incredibly blessed to be pregnant. And in all reality, being sick is probably a good thing. Not everyone endures the more typical symptoms of pregnancy, but if they're present, it probably means things are moving along as they should be. And for that, I am grateful. To our little shrimp, we love you and can't believe we still have to wait 27 more weeks to meet you. But take your sweet time in there. Do your thing. I don't want to see you any earlier than 25 weeks down the road. Is that clear?

Graduation!!!

I don't want to hear it. I know that my blogging skills have gone down the pooper. Actually I don't think they were ever good. But let me tell you, Erin knows everything about your lives if that makes you feel any better. However, it is my fault that you don' t know anything about our's. So I have committed to catching every single one of you back up to speed with our lives once more. The real question is how long it will take. :) GRADUATION!!! The long awaited day for Erin had arrived! Who would have thought at her elementary graduation that one day Erin would be here... graduating from a prestigious university in field of Nursing. (Side story: turns out it was in her late elementary school years that she was determined [and perhaps a little brainwashed!] to become a nursing student at BYU.) And here she is! And let me brag just a little bit. She finished up her BYU career with an incredible overall 3.7 G.P.A. Mine was only a 3.4. :( Now all she has left is to take the board exams and she is done with school and an official RN! (P.S. we have her results as of two weeks ago but that will come in a later post so stay tuned!)Graduation day was great as we had lots of support from both families. I would say the only down fall to the whole thing was that blasted cap! She could not figure it out! And even though she was so paranoid about it and constantly fixing it, it still fell off as she finished her walk across the stage. But she kept her composure and walked down the wrong isle anyway! :D Erin's life at BYU was a blast and a very crucial part of her life (that's where she met me!!!). She became a true Cougar fan (once again brainwashed, but this time by me) and actually enjoyed "the bubble life". It was a very sad day when we had to leave P-Town since we knew a chapter of our lives was coming to a close, but we are excited for the next phase of life. We will always have a special place in our hearts for Provo and all the happiness, memories, and life-long friendships it provided us!

Emergency Preparedness Training

With the way the economy is going these days and with our beloved president (El senor Obama), for some odd reason things aren't looking to hot. But I'll leave the politics out of this before I get heated up. So... I have been thinking a little about home protection. And then I remembered a little gift I recieved for achieving the rank of Eagle Scout (my .22 rifle). I know it's not the most powerful gun but hey... i'll take what I get. Anyways... so it's been a while since I last shot my gun and my birthday was coming up so I had Erin take me to the shooting range to brush up on my shooting skills and to teach her proper gun handeling skills. And it was great. Erin was a hoot. Before we got there she was bragging about how the last time she went shooting (probaly 10 years ago) she hit the bulls-eye.

So I shoot first, emptying the 10 round clip in no time, and it felt great. Then I teach Erin how to load the clip, load the gun, take off safety, and then how to aim. So just as she's about to pull the trigger for the first time, a loud bang goes off, scaring the dickens out of Erin as she jumps thinking that the .22 just went off and something went wrong, and pretty much drops the gun. Luckily I grabbed the gun before it could go anywhere. Turns out another person showed up and was shooting a 9mm 2 lanes down from us. Obviously that pistol has much more pop than my BB gun which Erin didn't like. :)

So after winding down, she gets back to the gun and is getting ready to shoot. But for some reason she can't seem to figure it out. So I remind her to just line up the two notches right at the target you want to shoot. It's not hard. Yet she can't do it. She can only see one notch. And i'm baffeled. So she tries shooting anyways, missing the target, then tries shooting again and hit the target but nowhere close the bulls-eye. What happened to those amazing skills she once had? So, trying to figure things out, I unload the gun, turn on the safety, and have her aim while I'm to the side of her looking at what is going on. And there it was. The reason she could only see one notch! You see... most right handers hold the gun on their right side, meaning they close their left eye to aim. Yet Erin is different. She still was holding the gun with her right side but was closing her right eye and aiming with her left. Oh I love that girl!

So after correcting the mix-up, we got down to buisness and things went great. We have our own targets (seen below) and we enjoy the rest of my birthday shooting the gun. And Erin did quite well for the little experience she had. :) And yes... she once again hit the bull-eye and from a far distance too. And I'm sorry we don't have a picture of us at the range. Erin forgot the camera. But let me tell you she looked pretty good with those goggles and huge ear muffs holding that gun!

This was my target from 75 feet out.

And this was Erin from 75 feet out. She started off a little rough. See those long grey rips at the top. She hit the holders on both sides. But she was smoking the last 3.

My target was the one on top. I feel pretty good about that. And Erin was the bottom target. Impressive!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Let the madness begin! Oh how I love this season. Although, I'll be honest... I didn't really fill out any brackets except for the ESPN bracket. It's weird not being in the Intramural competition. But so life goes. Erin and I are having a little bet and I'm sure we'll get one going with Mark as well. But so far I'm doing pretty well (94.25 percentile). I've only missed 2 games (both the 8 vs 9 games). BYU... I don't even know what to say. Anyways... I'm going with Pitt this year and Erin randomly picked Gonzaga. She says it's intuition. We'll see. I think I might be enjoying a nice prize afterwards!

Honeymoon Time!!

So... Erin and I have finally booked our honeymoon! I know, I know... it's two years late but who cares. We've been busy with family vacations and just haven't had time for ourselves (not that we're complaining at all:) ) So for one last hoorah before death by dental school and kids, we have decided to go on a cruise to the Mexican Riviera in May after Erin graduates! We are so excited (and I'll be able to brush up on my rusty Espanol)! So... as the map shows... we will be first hitting Puerto Vallarta, then to Mazatlan, then finally Cabo San Lucas. However, we need ideas of what we should do. Any past cruisers out there with wise words of wisdom? We'll be going scuba diving in Cabo since Erin and I are now certified :) but we don't have any plans for the other two. I have been doing some research for P.V. and looking at Yelapa. Anybody? Well... Please let us know of some experiences you might have had and what you recommend we do. We could use them. :) Anyways... we're stoked!

"California... California... Here we come!"

For those who don't already know... Erin and I are California bound (UOP Baby!). And for those who are just baffled that we would want to leave the wonderful state of Utah... this is why!!! For some reason, coming back to Utah just wasn't that exciting after spending a nice long Christmas break in California basking in the sun on the beautiful beaches in Carlsbad, or taking Erin's dogs for a walk on a beautiful day (which somehow turns out to be just about every day) and looking out onto a nice golf course in Valencia. And to come home to this?! Don't get me wrong, I like the snow. I even don't mind driving in it. But come on...this?! I don't know... does this seem wrong to anyone else?! Okay... Utah has been great to Erin and me these last few years and we are eternally grateful. But we are most definitely stoked to be back in California. Here we come San Fran!!

And the WINNER is...

Sorry it has taken so long to post the winner of the contest. I'm kind of slow, in case you hadn't noticed. There were two things that were "off" about the picture. The first being the ID band that the emergency room triage nurse so graciously gave to me...and the second being that little white strap going across my shoulder. *ding ding ding* That's right!! I broke my wrist snowboarding at Brighton with Mark. The whole day was a little cold and on top of that, it was snowing. But the problem was that it was a very wet snow so it was kinda hard to see. So... I was going off a fairly large jump, couldn't really see, and as I was going off I attempted to straighten myself out which lead to the board slipping out from beneath me. Now, because of the size of the jump and the speed I was going at, the landing didn't work very well not having the board beneath me. So I tried to break the fall with my hands. Not a good idea. I knew I jacked it up pretty good but I didn't think I broke it. I got up right away, rode the rest of the way down, and ended my day. But because of Mark's persistence (partially because these kinds of things freak him out) I went to the hospital to get it checked out. And turns out it's broken. Luckily however, it was a clean break and everything was still in place. So I just got a hard cast put on Friday and it should come off in about 4 more weeks. So until then, I'm a gimp. :( But thanks everybody for your concern. And just a side note, I found it very offensive that some of you thought my facial hair was the thing that was "off". Come on... it doesn't look that bad, does it?!!

Contest!

Whoever* can correctly identify all the elements of this picture that are 'off,' wins a prize...

*Sorry Mark (and anyone else who happens to know), you are not allowed to enter this contest.