The Mormon Battalion and the Temple

We went to Old Town- but more specifically- the Mormon Battalion visitor center there in Old Town. It's changed A LOT since the last time I was there. It's pretty awesome.

J got to be the helper while the Sister Missionary was talking about how a soldier would have been outfitted.

 He probably needs to grow a foot or two.

 But he's a pretty cute soldier. 

We panned for gold!

And tried to use binoculars,

And then we went to dinner. Guess what? These boys really enjoy Calamari!

The next day we went to church at the Ward I grew up in. It was lots of fun. After church was nap time :)

Then we went to the Temple!

My boys like to climb.

Oh, Brotherly love. Sometimes I'm convinced that they actually like each other.

San Diego- The Beach

Oh, La Jolla Shores, I miss you! 

We played in the sand......

....we sat in the sun.....

.....We built sand castles.....

.......and more sand castles.......

AND we went in the Ocean!!!!!!!!

Little B saw a crab.

J made a Sand Angel

B put his sandwich down on the sand, and pushed it around....then he didn't want to eat it. Odd.

There was a nice kid who let us help dig a big hole in the sand.

He's just too cute not to take pictures of.....

SEE! The camera is DRAWN to him!

I made the boys sit down in front of this succulent garden, They didn't understand why, but their Grandpa Turner would. 

We drove over to La Jolla Cove for a short walk.....

And then our day at the beach was over! 

Oh, how I miss the beach.

Trip to Vegas, Celine and a nice little family trip to the Strip.

We took a trip....at the end of June :) When we got home I started loading pictures onto the blog so that I could put together some blog posts....and then the computer shut down while I was moving pictures and I got mad and NEVER WENT BACK......well, it's time to let go of my frustration and just get it done. AND to be completely truthful....did you know I'm almost 28 weeks pregnant :) Yep, and I'm tired and my house is a mess and sometimes I feed my family cereal for dinner.....and I feel slightly bad for blogging when I can't get all those other things done in a normal manner. Now that I've told you the deepest secrets of my pregnant soul, Here's our trip! Vegas and San Diego and back again! It will be several posts, and you will probably see them all backwards- what FUN!

Check it out- we saw a dinosaur!

I love that my children sleep on long car rides :), it's a blessing that I do not take for granted. Also, notice how little B sleeps? It's genetic, he gets it from me.

Checking out the view from the Penthouse :) Awesome! 

This pool is 50% of the reason we stayed in Vegas for a few days.....I love lounging in a lazy river, and apparently so do my boys.

Our boys have had some swim lessons, but they don't swim- SO this 1 foot to 18 inch  baby pool was also much loved.

They would crouch down and walk around on their hands with their legs trailing behind them and scream "I'm Swimming!" or "I'm a Crocodile!" 

Nap time for Mommy, I don't have a cute plaid blanket for my head, so I just use a pillow.

And the other 50% of why in the world we would take a trip to Vegas in the middle of Summer. Celine! It was an amazing show, in fact I cried a little, which is weird because I wasn't the one who was totally excited about seeing the show.

We took the boys down to the the Vegas Strip, because we are totally awesome parents, as you can tell from this picture of our totally awesome children. 

And of course we had to see the sign!

Our condo had a shuttle bus that would take us to the south end of the strip....

 ...we then proceeded a 3.5 mile round trip, to Harra's for their buffet. It was the most expensive free meal we've ever had- thank goodness for meal vouchers, AND for the Gelato Bar at the Buffet!

 After we stuffed ourselves silly we walked over to the Pirate Ship. There was no show, which was okay with us, we just wanted to see the ship.

We arrived at the Bellagio fountain just a minute or two before a fabulous show. I think I like the fountains at the Bellagio more than fireworks!   

By this point most of us were hot and ready to go take a nap

Well, we eventually made it back to our condo and went back to the pools. 

Check it out, even my shadow has a cute little pregnant belly!

When you've got a penthouse condo, even the second bathroom has a really nice tub!

When your parents don't bring toys on trips, you have to come up with other ways to entertain yourself.

The DENTIST!!!!!

 A little over 2 years ago, J had his first visit to the dentist. At that time the hygienist explained to me that the first visit to the dentist was really "just a ride in the chair" in the hopes that the child would see that it wasn't scary and then the next time they came back they could have a full dental check up. WELL, J surprised everyone by WANTING a full check up that first time. B on the other hand......did not. 

Our appointments were scheduled for 4 and 5 pm, so I told J that we would go to the dentist after B woke up from his nap. J LOVES the dentist and so he wanted to wake his brother up! When B did wake up J said  "Brother! It's time to go to the DENTIST!!!!" and B immediately ran to my bedroom, climbed up onto my bed and got under the covers. When I went to get him, he said "No dentist! Dentist is SCARY!!!!!" We brought his blanket to help him not be scared, but it didn't really work. 

When it was B's turn, he wouldn't even sit in the chair, so Ken sat with him. He didn't want to do much more than look at the tools the hygienist showed him, I think he may have shown her his teeth....but that's about it. My Poor little B, I hope we can get him excited about the dentist before our next visit in January.

The Beginning of June; Camping, Soccer and a Race-

 The second weekend in June was big for us. It was the Fathers and Sons camp out, J's first soccer game of the year and my 1/2 Marathon. Since the boys were off camping I tried to go to bed early. I had to be on a bus the the next morning by 4:30.......on the other hand......the boys just "pretended" to go to sleep.

You can see how peacefully they are sleeping, how tightly their eyes are shut. Sleeping or not- those were happy, happy boys, and as much as Ken dislikes camping, he has vowed that he will take the boys on these camp outs......and I have vowed that I will do whatever it takes to help Ken be comfortable and sleep more than 2 hours while he is camping- so don't be surprised if next year our tent is big enough to hold a super nice air mattress for my super nice husband.

 Ken learned something about our children- if they are hungry enough......they will stand in line on their own and get food rather than wait for their dad to make a plate for them. I'm pretty sure J helped himself to more bacon than his father would have given him....and as you can see, B picked up some bacon too :)

 They found some water! Too bad we don't know how to fish.

 Looks like a bunch of 5 year old kids playing soccer, right? J is lucky this year, there are a couple of kids on his team this year who actually know how to kick a ball towards and INTO the goal! J enjoys being on a winning team, even if he mostly just cheers and gives moral support. He has kicked the ball a few times.

 At one point near the end of the first game we told J that he could go play goal keeper. I've never really played soccer and so I explained to him as best I could that he should do his best to keep the ball out of the goal.....and he could even lay down if he needed to use his body to stop the ball. He ran right over to the goal area and laid down in front of it.  

 That morning I ran the Utah Valley Half Marathon. I had a sign on my back that said "Baby on Board" and this elicited some cheers for me and shouts of things like "Yay for BABIES!!!!" My official time for the 13.1 mile race was around 2:58 minutes. There was a pretty big mix up with the planning of the race course and there were NO PORT-A-POTTIES! When I finished the race my GPS watch said that I had actually run almost 13.5 miles- at one point I ran off the course and down a hill (I'm guessing that added about a 1/3rd of a mile) to use a restroom at a park. The race was actually run on the Highway in Provo Canyon and then down University Avenue in Provo- I had to run across the part of the Highway that was open to traffic to get to another restroom (don't worry- I waited until there were no cars coming) and then for my final potty stop I noticed that the Curves location on University Ave had it's door wide open- I thought to myself  "That's a place for women to exercise....they have GOT to have a restroom and I bet they would let me use it, so I figured out how to get there (which was kind of hard because there was a little man made ravine between the little strip mall it was in and the road the race was on) but I made it there and they even wished me luck as I ran out of their gym back to the race course. I figure that having to leave the racecourse to find potties is what added the extra 0.4 miles to my run and it probably added about 20 minutes of time as well. All in all, even with the extra time used up locating bathrooms, I finished right around the time I figured (and hoped) I would. It was great........and I will never run a 1/2 marathon again while I'm pregnant. :)

Addicted to the Doppler

Well, look at me! This is not what I expect to look like the week before I run a half marathon- but I've never run one while I was pregnant, until now. So yes- my belly is "a little fuller" than it's been during my previous races and I even had to buy some maternity running pants, but, come rain or come shine, my baby and I will be running 13.1 miles on Saturday morning. We've trained for it! And I'm excited to be able to wear a "Baby on Board" sing on the back of my shirt.

This week is a weird week, it's a week of unfulfilled expectations. I've been signed up for this particular race since October of 2011. I had to postpone my entry from the 2012 race because of injury and then in the end I had surgery a week and a half before the race. Then last October when I found out I was pregnant I realized that I was due on June 10th 2013. Since the race was on June 8th I was 100% sure that I would either have to pay to defer my entry again or just give in and admit that I would never run the Utah Valley Half Marathon. Well, if you've been following our blog you know that we lost our baby in November, but what you may not know is that in December when I set my 2013 goals I wrote down this one "I WILL run the Utah Valley Half on June 8th" and I set my training schedule and got to work.

I was about half way through my training when, in March, I discovered once again that I was pregnant. I immediately stopped cutting my calories and immediately started gaining weight (it's amazing how much weight you can gain even when you are running 20+ miles per week) I've discovered an immense NEED for something other than just plain water on my long runs (turns out Gatorade or Powerade and prunes ((yes, prunes-they treat pregnant ladies a little different from other people, it's a nice thing)) are perfect running companions for the pregnant woman on a long run) AND I discovered that I needed a little bit more than my doctors reassurance that my exercise wasn't hurting my baby.

SO, I contacted this fabulous group of people-tinyheartbeats.org -and got a Doppler. And as you can see by the title of this post, I'm addicted. It was kind of world shattering last November when my doctor couldn't find a heartbeat during my 3rd prenatal visit. He had found one the last time I was in his office, why not now. He talked to the ultrasound tech and she fit me in for a quick ultrasound and sure enough- there was a sweet little baby on the screen but it was completely still. When had it's little heart stopped beating. I don't know, I'll never know and that kind of sat in the back of my mind. If I hadn't had an early miscarriage earlier that year I wouldn't have been going to the doctor as frequently as I was and how long would it have been before I found out that I had lost my baby. I don't like those kinds of thoughts. But I think they are probably thoughts that many women have about lost pregnancies AND I don't think I'm the only woman out there who finds herself somewhat uncontrollably anxious when she discovers that she is pregnant again after having experienced the loss of a pregnancy. If I was the only one, then there wouldn't be groups like the Tiny Heartbeats organization.

So now, I've got a Doppler, and each morning I get to find (which Ken can attest, is sometimes frustrating to me) and hear the heartbeat of that sweet little baby growing inside me. After I run I do my best to rest while laying on my side for 20 or 30 minutes and then I find the heartbeat again and guess what- EVERY TIME- it's there, beating ever so happily. It's enough to keep me thinking positive thoughts. I don't know what I would do without the ability to hear those tiny little heartbeats.

So as I said a little earlier- this is a week of unfulfilled expectations, because I had expected to be holding my brand new baby if not already- then any day now. But that expectation won't be fulfilled. On the other hand, I am going to fulfill one of my goals for this year- I am going to run the Utah Valley Half on June 8th! AND even better- I'm going to run it with a sweet baby who, in my opinion, LOVES TO GO FAST! I'm of that opinion because of some thoughts that pop into my head sometimes- one of which I remember quite clearly- it was while I was running my 8 mile training run and this is what popped into my head. "This baby HAD to wait, so that you could run this race and so that they could run it with you" SO- call me crazy, but some day, I fully expect for this child of mine to show a love of speed, whether they run, or ride, or get way too many speeding tickets, this child likes to go fast (even though I don't run very fast these days- I've added 2 1/2 minutes to my mile pace- adding to your pace isn't exactly most peoples goal while they are training).

SO- those are my thoughts this week. I'm grieving a little, because I so very much want to hold my baby in my arms, but I'm also so very grateful that I get to run this race with my sweet baby. I believe that each of us has a different "race" to run as we go through our lives. I am grateful that I am able, each day, to run my own race and to find the joy in my own journey.