Thanksgiving Gingerbread House

After our Thanksgiving dinner at Brent and Jan's, we had a family gingerbread house decorating contest.  It was couples/families, and Clayton and Grandma Beckstead.  The unbiased voters chose ours. Probably because we had a sweet Santa on the top.

I Peed on a Stick

No literally, I peed on a stick!  So now, it's time for a little story that parts of the recount may be considered a little TMI.  I've never had much of a "schedule" when it comes to cycle time.  It just comes and goes as it pleases, but it always comes eventually every month.  However, when I realized it had been around 26 days and still no cramping, I started to panic. I kept telling Zach that I better start tomorrow or we're in trouble.  Well, tomorrow (day 27 or so) came and went. Nothing. Monday, day 28. Nothing. I have not gone 28 days that I can ever remember in my history of "cycles".  So a stop at the store on my way home from work for a stick or two was now in order.  As soon as I got home, I ripped on of those babies open and "full stream ahead," I took the 50/50 true or false test.  If you've ever taken one of these things, you know that the window starts getting darker as the window fills with liquid.  I set it on the counter and watched intently as the window filled more and more with the liquid.  Now, the horizontal line is always there if it's a test that shows + or - (some are just one or two parallel lines).  But once the liquid reached the point where the vertical line would be, it was already appearing.  I thought for sure I was seeing things, so I waited the two minutes and left the room for a few minutes.  When I came back, it looked the same.  I won't go into details of the thoughts that ran through my head but I will say that shock was the biggest.  We have always been more than careful when it comes to pregnancy prevention.  But...since we had planned on starting to try in January, November was only 2 months earlier. I guess God knows best and decided it was time for us to start whether that's what our plan was or not.

Since this is our first baby/pregnancy, I wanted to tell Zach in a way other than, "Here babe catch! It's a pee stick!"  I meant to tell him the next evening after I had devised my plan, but I had forgotten to email myself the printables I had made on my work computer Tuesday evening. I didn't want to try and re-invent the wheel so I waited until Wednesday evening to tell him.  I had bought a stuffed horse (there were only about 3 options and none were what you'd really refer to as cute), a farmer-type onesie and printed my papers.  I set everything out on the kitchen counter for him to find when he came home. 

I had dinner going and was doing some laundry when he came home.  I was conveniently in our office (soon to be nursery now).  I heard him walk in through the back door, then around the corner into the kitchen where everything was sitting.  About 30 seconds went by and I finally started to hear the papers rustle.  About TEN seconds later he hollered at me asking where I was, but by the time he finished his sentence he had already found me.  He was lit up like a little kid at Christmas. "Are you serious?!" he asked. "No," I replied, "I'm joking. Why would I joke about something like that?"  Then he just gave me a great big hug and sappy pappy told me how much he loved me and how excited he was. Then proceeded to ask, how far along I was, when we would find out if it was a boy or girl, etc. It was really quite adorable.

So...this is the reason I have not had a blog post in months. I've had nothing else really too exciting to blog about! Now I'm going to post all the glorious details that have happened along the way and everyone (all two people) who read my blog can catch up on my pregnancy woes of endless misery. :)

Halloween Time! Whoop whoop!

I don't think it's any secret to anyone who knows me that Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday.  I'm not entirely sure the reasoning behind it, but I have always loved Halloween.  We just did the usual and went to Brent and Jan's for soup.  Ali and Alex showed up as a molar and the tooth fairy. Very fitting! Scarlett and Londyn ended up having the exact same costume without even knowing it until both babies showed up. Can you say, "Adorable!"?

The "molar" and the tooth fairy!

Yoga for Congo Women

Chantile invited me to come to a yoga event her sister was putting on. Her sister, Ann Richmond, is a yoga instructor and does these yoga presentations all over.  I had never "officially" met Chantile, but we talked nearly every day since our meeting through working for SOS.  I agreed to come just so I could meet her and dragged Shyanne along with me.  You wouldn't believe the stories of the women in countries like Congo.  It's sad to know we live such a privileged and oblivious life here in America and take it for granted on a daily basis. I can't imagine living somewhere that I was always in fear of my life, or where there are children being forced to be soldiers for these radical groups and where gang rapes happen every few minutes on average.  When we got there, we had to pick a wristband and we were able to see pictures of the women we were "representing" while we did our yoga practice.  My "sister" was named, Neema.  Some of the stories were hard to hear or even believe, but it's a great cause.  We were glad we attended and hope our menial donation can help the women in these struggling countries in some way or another.

Shyanne and me after the event with our "sisters" in Congo that we represented during the presentation

Shyanne, Chantile, Me, Ann Richmond and her little girl (Chantile's sister and the instructor and her niece who was obviously ready for bed)

First Anniversary

I had bought a Groupon quite a few months ago for our anniversary to go up to Park City and stay at a resort up there in Deer Valley.  About a month or two before we went, I found another Groupon for the Olympic Park up there, so I bought two tickets to that as well.  Our anniversary was on a Thursday, so that day I gave Zach his gifts in the morning and made him breakfast. We don't really eat breakfast because neither of us is really a big breakfast type. I usually eat a bowl of oatmeal when I get to work and he probably eats a donut or something. Who knows? But instead, we had scrambled eggs and toast and I surprised him with his gifts that morning.

When I wrapped his gifts, I put 8 Seconds quotes on the boxes and the main dialogue from the scene I used outside of the first box.  It's the scene where they go to the grocery store and Kelly wants Lane to put everything in the back of the truck because she had his anniversary gift in the back seat.  He finds the gift and starts unwrapping saying, "Well darlin', it ain't my birthday." So I put the lines leading up to him figuring it out on the outside, then the box with his new sweaters in it I put "world's champ...time you started dressing like it. You'll always be MY world's champ." I changed it from 5th in the world to world's champ and added stuff obviously, but the gist of the dialogue is the same.  Then I had given him a watch as well and an "unspeakable" in another box.  That box said another line from the movie. "I got something for me to wear...it's for later."  We had a good laugh about it.

I knew Zach wanted me to pick out some jewelry as my gift while we were in Park City so I wasn't expecting anything on the actual day of our anniversary.  About an hour or two into work, the front desk emailed me saying I had a delivery.  I immediately texted Zach..."What did you do? I just got an email from the front desk saying I have a delivery."  I went down to get it, and he had sent me a beautiful arrangement of various colored roses.  It made our office smell so good!  Apparently, he didn't even call his mom or sister to do it for him either. He did it all by himself. I was so proud of my little "man." He's growing up too fast.

We just did a quick dinner that night because Zach worked all day and a few hours that night. He didn't even shower before we went over to Dalton's.  Saturday was when the real celebration was. We had so much fun in Park City.  We started by going to the Olympic Park.  It had snowed the night before and the Alpine Slides were wet.  We thought it was a little dangerous, so we passed up on that altogether and decided we'll do those some other time.  We did the extreme zipline first.  When our doors opened, I went flying out...then suddenly Zach goes zooming by and got way ahead of me.  I'm sure he cheated somehow.

Riding the lift up

 

After the zipline, we walked over to the new "ride" called "The Drop Tower" which is a 65 foot platform you walk off of.  You zipline over the the platform and the only way down is to walk off the edge. Of course, you're strapped into a harness, and eventually the slack is out of the rope and it slows you down and put you on the ground, but still...it's a rush.  The guy said, "Who wants to go first?" So we looked at each other and I quickly nominated myself.  He was saying that the best way to do it is just when he opens the gate to just walk straight out to the platform and off. So that's what I did. I squealed as I walked off.  I thought the rope would be taut, but it wasn't. There was slack in it, so you had to walk off with nothing to slow you at first. You free fall for the first 30 or so feet before the fan kicks in and slows you down.  It was the shortest ride I've ever done in my life, but seriously such an adrenaline rush.

 

 

 

After that we did some shopping at the outlets and I got this awesome Nike hoodie at the Nike outlet.  Zach swears he'll never take me there again because if he would've let me, I would've bought half the store.  I love that place.

 

 

We went to lunch at this little cafe my family had eaten at while we were up there for my grandma and grandpa's 50th anniversary like two years before.  It was really good. 

 

I got a necklace and a LeVian ring at Kay.  I need to take a picture of the necklace, but the ring has white and chocolate diamonds with a black back set on the front.  Really really pretty!

 

 

 

After lunch and shopping, we checked into our room not really knowing what to expect. I got it 50% off so it really wasn't that bad...and the room turned out to be sooo nice. We loved it. Definitely would like to go back. It was called The Chateaux at Deer Valley.  We had a jetted tub and a shower separate from each other.  There was a towel warmer and a fireplace.  It was a really nice room.  It was beautiful up there too with all the leaves changing.

 

 

That night, we got massages a "Knead a Massage."  Unfortunately, they didn't have a couples room and we didn't find out until right before, but hey...you take what you can get for a massage in Park City for the price we paid.  The massages were actually really good and relaxing.

 

We then had dinner at this really cool place called "High West Distillery and Saloon."  It was an actual saloon that this guy bought and turned into a bar and grill.  He loves brewing his own bourbon, so he made a distillery there too and they do their own alcohol beverages there.  It was a really cool old building, but really loud because we were seated in the part that is more of  a bar scene.  Mark Eaton was there. He was standing behind me at one point and I could see Zach's eyes looking up really high so I slowly turned and my head just kept going up and up until I felt like my chin was clear in the air. He's like 7'5".  SOO tall.

 

We only stayed one night, but the next day was pretty cool too because we got tickets like a week before to go to conference for the afternoon session. It was my first time ever and Zach's first time in the new conference building to watch. He'd sung at conference when he was like 10 or so and that was in the old tabernacle.  The 5 block walk in heels literally set my feet on fire. It was supposed to be pretty chilly that weekend so I brought my boots that have a little heel on them. After 5 blocks...I had blisters and had to take my boots off to watch conference and never put them back on. I walked all the way back to the car in my socks.  OUCH!!

 

It was Cade's birthday that Sunday too so we went over there for his little birthday party.  I can't believe he is 5.  He was turning 3 a few months after Zach and I started dating!

 

 

 







Lake Powell

Everyone except Brock and Arin's family was able to go to Lake Powell with the Harper Family.  We drove our Dodge and Ali, Alex and Clayton rode down with us.  The weather was supposed to be a little chilly and rain was forecasted too. Getting out of town proved to be a chore.  I had everything ready to go by the time Zach finally got home, but then we stopped and ate at Café Rio and didn't leave Spanish Fork until ohh...around 9 ish.

We stopped in Hanksville for some caffeine around 11:15 which apparently was a bad idea, because the result was the purchase of some California-style ugly @$$ cowboy hats. They kept trying on hats and we were all laughing so hard. It's a good thing the guy in the store was still cleaning up and was way chill because he actually closed at 11 and I think we left around 11:40 or so.

We got in around 1 am and had to wake Brent and Jan up to help us find the house boat and get all our stuff aboard and situated.  The wind was so bad, they hadn't left the slip. We actually didn't leave the slip all weekend because it was such a short trip and the wind was off and on, it wouldn't have even been worth it to go anchor somewhere.

We were afraid it would be too cold to boat, but the next morning we drove the ski boat over to where they usually anchor. We had a good wind block because it's in a channel.  Everybody took their turn on the wake board.  I have only ever tried once before this trip and I had a hard time getting up. I'd get almost there and the slurp up a mouthful of water.  I was all the way up one time, then somehow fell down right after.  I had to quit because it was making my shoulder hurt.  It wasn't cold after you were in the water and used to it and because we had that good little wind block, it wasn't even cold out of the water. 

The next day we went knee boarding. I'd never tried or even seen knee boarding before.  Zach kept giving me contradicting instructions so I was really confused about how to get up. When I finally did on the 3rd or so try...Zach fell off right when I got up and started riding so I had to let go.  We got up one more time for a little while, but it made my shoulder hurt so bad from trying to get up so many times that I couldn't go anymore. 

We went back to the house boat and changed and got Jan, Sharon and Kody to go sight seeing. We saw some cool old miner's steps and some really cool natural formations. 

We had a really great trip with no accidents...even though it was just a quick two day trip.

Best Neighbors Ever

We have the absolute best and cutest neighbors of all time. They are always bringing us goodies and come over and tell us what they have been up to when they see us outside.  When they jump on the tramp and I'm weeding the garden, we are just a fence away so they jump and tell me about dance class, or learning the guitar, or what they did over the weekend.

It was time for them to go back to school and we decided to do something nice for them for once, so we made them back to school gifts and took them over.  The kids insisted that we come inside and we chatted with them and Sally for a little bit before leaving.

The gifts for the girls. What girls can go back to school without chapstick and fingernail polish?

The next day, I came home to find cute cards that Ivy had drawn for Zach and I.  She had made a card for each of us telling us how much they loved having us as their neighbors and since we weren't home, she put rocks on the edges so they wouldn't blow away. It was too cute.

Not too long after, Sally texted me one afternoon saying, "Be sure to check your porch when you get home. We left you some fall goodies." I opened it up and it was full of home baked goods and other treats. Zucchini bread, apple streusel, peanuts, candy corn...it was all so cute! Sally said Kimmy, Tyson and Ivy had so much fun putting it together for us and were so excited to give it to us.  We feel so blessed to have such great neighbors!

First Flood...Yes, Flood

The weekend of the 6-7 Zach was up by Strawberry with his young men for a stake campout.  He was leaving Camp Heleman and called me to say he was leaving because they were getting rained out.  I had just got out of the shower and needed to go grocery shopping because it was Saturday and I was in charge of bringing corn for Beckstead family dinner the next day.  I looked out the window and the water was literally a river down my street.  It had come up so high that it was over the sidewalk and into my yard.  I ran downstairs to be sure we weren't being flooded out in the basement.  We later learned that a few ward members did have their basements flood. We were grateful to be on the high end of the street so the water was running down past our house and not making a pond in front of our house. 

I didn't get any pictures because I had to run to the store and on my way back, turning onto our street, the water was probably halfway up my car door.  When I went in to Smith's to shop, the rain had let up quite a bit. But when I left...I got completely drenched. So much for my shower and clean hair...  I was outside for maybe 30 seconds and I was more wet than when I had got out of the shower earlier.  When I got home, I had to take off all my clothes and put, clean, dry everything on.  I had to get towels and dry out my car because there was so much water on my grocery bags and from leaving the door open to put the groceries in that my seats were all puddled up.

I found this picture on KSL which was taken just one street over from us (I recognize the house on the corner).  The main street that the Ford is pulling up to is 800 South (the second Payson exit).  This is right by the Hillman Baseball Fields.  Our street looked just like this.

First "Legit" Zipline

For Valentine's day I bought passes for each of us to do the zipline up Provo Canyon in the summer/fall.  We only had until September 30 to use them up, so I finally got them all scheduled for Saturday (9/14).  It was actually really fun...especially because I got them 50% of the normal price. BAM! Now that's a deal!

There were a lot of little kids in our group and it was kind of funny because the group had around 11 people in it, and the other 9 people in our group were all family. They were really nice though and even took pictures and video for us. Hopefully the lady will email those to us soon! 

The zipline is actually 5 separate lines that equal out to be about 1 mile of zipline and you actually have to brake on the line and stop yourself at the end or you'll smack into the trees.  The scenery was beautiful and it was such perfect weather.  We were worried we would end up getting struck by lightning or something because it was forecasted at like 60% chance of rain and was down pouring in Payson when we left.  It was perfect fall, sunny weather though.

Our guides were really fun too. The one was actually an RM that spoke Dutch but went to the West Indies. He called it a "Caribbean Dutch."  He took some pictures for us with his phone and texted them to us as well.  It was a little weird though because he had hippie sandals on and painted toenails. He was a definite "granola" type person, but actually really a great tour guide and a lot of fun.

Mini Golfing

Jeremiah had a date and insisted that we all must double (is it called triple dating if there are 3 couples?) with him for his date that night.  We ended up just eating at Texas Roadhouse because Jer said that we could eat anywhere except PF Cheng's, or chinese food, or asian food, or seafood. Well...that leaves umm...steak? HAHA The twins relentlessly teased Jer at dinner and then we went to Trafalga for a round of mini golf.

Ali and Alex are the cute couple saying things such as, "Oh babe, that was a good shot!" Or, "Not so hard next time!" Or, "You should be teaching me how to play."

Then there's Zach and me..."That was horrible. You should probably quit while you're ahead, hun!" It makes it ok because I throw in the "hun" at the end though, right? Or something like, "HAAAAA! That was awful. Awesome, I'm ahead three strokes now after that performance you just displayed."  It works for us though. Two competitive people, but yet, somehow we still figure out how to have fun and not hate each other at the end of the night.

First Labor Day

It has always been a Jewkes Family tradition to go camping for Labor Day. However, since Teigen is doing high school rodeo now, and my parents just bought a new living quarters trailer, they opted to only go up for dinner Saturday.  Also, because it was forecasted to rain, and had been down pouring in Emery County all week (something that NEVER happens).  We decided to go up with them for dinner on Saturday. It was enjoyable, as always. At Jewkes family gatherings, it is basically a competition for who can be the loudest if you want your say in anything. I usually leave with a headache and a gut ache from laughing so hard.

Since it was raining pretty hard when we left, and continued to rain all night, we woke up to this in my parent's lot behind their yard Sunday morning. It was running like this nonstop all day long and was still going when we left that evening, even though the rain had stopped entirely several hours before.  I'm just glad they decided to keep the ditch in the back when they bought that piece of property when I was younger.  It actually ended up serving a useful purpose to leave it unfilled.

First Time Airboating

Well, for me anyway. Zach had gone a month or two before. I'll admit, I did not expect to have that much fun. It was actually really fun though. Pretty sure Alex is going to talk Ali into buying an airboat someday.

Zach's uncle Ryan and his son Tyler have 2 airboats and they go out all the time. They were talking about duck hunting on them, and I think that sounds even more awesome.  Tara and Tyler had just got back from their honeymoon, and Jay and Jared were in town, so it was fun that most of the family actually got to go.  Ryan, Tyler, Tara, Jared, Tanner, Dawson, Brent, Clayton, Alex, Ali and Zach and me...how could you possibly have any more fun?

Tyler was trying to be funny one time when Alex, Zach and I were on the front of the airboat looking for fish and he gunned it really hard. Alex reacted, grabbing for whatever he could, which happened to be me. Zach was already holding onto me, so, like dominoes, we all fell down. I'm just glad I didn't spear one of them with the arrow!

We had a blast shooting carpe. All of the girls got a fish too! The boys were pretty impressed with our skills.