15 weeks

I wish (kind of?) that I could say this pregnancy was flying by, but it's really not! I was 15 weeks earlier this week, but I'll be 16 weeks tomorrow . . . So really, this is like a 16 week update.

I get to go back to my midwife this week, which is exciting. Although I'm hoping for a boring and regular appointment! I'm pretty sure we're just discussing some optional tests to see if my baby will have any kind of disorders (Down Syndrome, things like that). If they're covered by insurance, we may go ahead and do it. But the Panorama test also gives away the gender of the baby . . . No thanks!!

We are holding off on finding out the gender until we deliver the baby because that's how it's meant to be! It's meant to be a surprise. . . science is getting in there and ruining a whole lot of things about growing a human and birth, in my opinion. ;) We were both on board with the idea way before I even got pregnant, and it makes us even more excited for March!

I've been feeling pretty good. I'll randomly get sick and feel like I'm going to throw up, but it's rare that I actually throw up. Although the other day, we were driving around town and running errands and I was like, "Oh no... I don't feel good. Pull over. Pull over!" Hahaha and we pulled into some Rancherito's on state street and I puked.... so fun. I. hate. puking. Jake was like, "What can I do?" and I said, "Run in there and get a sprite!" hahahaha. Overall though, I feel pretty good.

My pants are DEFINITELY getting tighter. Holy cow. I'm not sure how much longer using the ponytail trick is going to work... but I'm definitely not big enough for maternity pants. And did I mention it's getting cold so dresses aren't that great of an option?!?!

We don't have another ultrasound until our anatomy scan which is our 20 week appointment... That's gonna be a long wait. I'm pretty sure during that appointment they make sure everything is measuring correctly (head, femur, etc). And they usually give you the gender of the baby at that appointment. Hopefully they remember to tell us to turn away and don't accidentally say anything like, "Oh, he's looking good!" It obviously wouldn't be the end of the world, but it'd be pretty sad to not keep the surprise!

Other than that, everything is pretty good! Sleeping is still good so far, even though I switch from side to side a lot through the night already... I'm a stomach sleeper and that's been rough because I can't quite do that anymore! Luckily Jake pretty much sleeps in one position all night and I don't feel like I'm bothering him too much.... yet. Haha

Summer at the farm

This summer was SO much fun! I didn't quite know what to expect going into it because when I was there last summer, it was ALL play. This time, it was going to be WORK and PLAY! Going into it, I knew that I wanted to really learn how Tracey made her garden grow so well. Other than that, I wanted to play with the chickens, maybe set up a little "love shack" so she doesn't have to keep ordering chicks, and become more familiar with the sheep. Tracey also wanted me to work on the website. She hired a lady to do all the actual work, but she needed opinions and ideas to get the new website flowing! Other than that, there are the usual farm chores and things that come up that need to be done. Needless to say, it was a busy summer.

Tracey took this picture about a week before Jake and I left. The zinnias were pretty much pure heaven! Earlier in the summer, a bunch of us were thinning the small seedlings to ensure that each of them would be able to get enough nutrients. We also put a "netting" system up that you're supposed to do with zinnias to ensure they have straight stems. We were happy when they actually started growing that they had straight stems!!! Florists don't generally buy them when they're all wonky and curved so this was a big feat.

On the far right, you can also see a little bit of the sunflowers that Tracey planted for fun. Sunflowers are nice because you don't have to stake them at all; their stems are big enough to carry the weight of the flower. Not only that, but they are SO EASY TO WEED. They can pretty much grow in grass, so we were just weeding them once a week (AKA pulling grass out for like 5 minutes) to make sure they were getting enough sun, water, and to make that bed look overall prettier. It was all SO worth it when these babies started to bloom.

One evening, the boys were playing pickle ball and I was just sitting outside talking with Ashley. We saw the horses and Edward standing like THIS! They were ready for their dinner, but they were posing so perfectly for a picture! We grabbed Ralph's phone and snapped this beauty. Hahaha it is definitely a treasure photo now . . . They are funny!

Girls trip!!!! We went to Bowling Green, KY to pick up Bridge from EFY and made a fun girls trip out of it. We ate at this awesome and random pizza restaurant, went to Zappos TWICE! We mainly had a lot of fun laughing and talking and catching up with each other.

This is what the garden looked like in the BEFORE stage, when we spent hours weeding, thinning, and then putting up the netting. Crazy how much it changes!

Beth and her family were at the farm for a few weeks in the beginning and that was so fun! Her kids are crazy and fun, if you can't tell by the way Lucy's holding that chicken!

We got SO many jobs done this summer (and by we I mainly mean the boys because near the end of the summer I was a lazy pregnant lady). I'm hoping next summer we get to spend at least a little bit of time at the farm. Obviously it's a place that holds a lot of special memories for me. ;)

st louis to nashville!

We were super lucky this summer and were able to get Taylor and Megan's old Ford Escape! It's the perfect little car for us, even though I joked about wanting a mini van more... haha. They told me, "You probably don't need that yet."

So with this awesome new little car, we wanted to make a road trip on our way back to Utah! My friend Aubrey lives in St Louis which is about 5 and a half hours from Cincinnati so we decided to go there first and it was SUPER FUN! The drive wasn't bad at all, either, which was nice (Especially because I had been mostly nauseous in the car with being pregnant, but it felt like it all went away during this road trip)!

We got there around dinner time and were lucky enough to catch Todd and Mandy when they were free! We met downtown at a restaurant called The Atomic Cowboy. It's like a Mexican/barbecue place and it was really good. It was mostly fun being able to chat with Todd and Mandy about medical school and have Jake be able to hear some people that really love what they do to get him a little inspired!

After we went to dinner, the three of us went to the City Museum. I didn't have high expectations for this place but it was crazy cool! Ralph and Tracey told us they went there one time while they were in town for a soccer tournament and they LOVED it. It's basically a huge adult playground. Jake had a lot of fun seeing how everything was made and trying to fit through all the tiny little crevices and I tried not to freak out and get sick when there were things involving heights. It's an exhausting, sweaty place but it was so fun!

We stayed the night and slept GREAT in Aubrey and Nate's bed (hahaha thanks guys) and then we spent some time at the St Louis zoo that morning before eating a a delicious thai place. The st louis zoo is so big and FREE! That was the best part . . . I've never been to a free zoo before?!?! Also there was a baby rhino. So cute.

From St Louis we headed to Nashville which is about 5 hours away - not a bad drive at all! We were excited to see the Smith family and spend some time in Nashville. It's a place we've both been to but we've never been downtown! It's a lot more like Vegas than I imagined. We drove down the "strip" a couple of times and it was so cool hearing a bunch of random country songs coming out of each bar and all these cool cover bands. We were driving around looking for a place to eat but because the eclipse was going on the next day, literally everything was packed. It was crazy. The first couple of restaurants we were going to had run out of food and we kept having to find a new place to go to.

We ended up at Mellow Mushroom because we were ALL STARVING and we didn't want to wait any longer to eat. Plus we all kept thinking about the amazing bruschetta that MM has and it was a done deal. We had to go. It was a fun dinner but when we got finished, everyone was ready to go to bed. 

The next day, Monday, the day of the eclipse, we had a lazy day in the morning and were playing monopoly and eating chocolate chip pancakes. We stopped by the gas station and grabbed snacks and then headed to the pool. Nashville was in the line of totality and Heidi had previously grabbed us all glasses. Jordan set up his camera with some special paper so his lens could catch a picture of it and we waited. It was actually SO MUCH COOLER than we thought it was going to be. It pretty much got completely dark. The street lamps came on, the crickets started chirping. It was the coolest thing ever! We were all amazed. After that we spent some time playing in the pool. They were all trying to get two people on Jake and Jordan's shoulders... they could only last for like 3 seconds but it was SO FUNNY to watch. I'll have to get the videos from Jake's phone. 

We went home and made sandwiches, dried our swimsuits, and packed up our bags. It was time to go which was sad but I didn't want to drive a ton during the night. We ended up driving to somewhere in the middle of Arkansas and stopping at a cheap hotel and sleeping. The traffic was SO BAD from all the eclipse traffic and people leaving Nashville so we were happy with completely missing it and just sleeping.