- · Pregnancy is a crazy experience, and honestly unless you experience it for yourself you have NO idea what you’re in for. No amount of reading up on the subject prepares you for it. With that being said, I am so grateful we are at this place and experiencing it. I thank my lucky stars every day for our miracle baby.
- · I feel great in the mornings and afternoons but come evening time my body feels completely different. Like I’ve gained a bunch of weight as the day goes on or something. Everything is harder, from our nightly walks to just relaxing on the couch... it’s not just the lack of energy but something hard to describe. I joke with Mic when he has to help me up from the couch that I’m going to need some type of lift eventually. LOL. He is just so great at helping me and not laughing when I become ridiculous. We are both new at this but taking things in stride. I couldn’t have a better partner. Some days I sit back and look at what our life has become and I can’t help but think “how did we get to this point?” And I’m pretty sure I ask him that on a daily basis. I thought we were happy before but honestly this is a whole new level.
- · Tomorrow marks our 25 week mark. According to my app our baby is the size of a rutabaga (whatever the heck that is) but basically she is 1 ½ lbs and 13 ½ inches. I love feeling her crazy karate moves and now we can even see her kicks when we watch my abdomen. How something so little is so tough is amazing to me. I tell her every day that she needs to stay in there and keep growing.
- · I like to joke with Mic about all the things “they never tell you…” that you’re going to experience in pregnancy and he gives me this crazy look like “yes you did know that you were going to experience such and such” mostly when I joke while looking at my growing belly “they never tell you that you’re going to get huge…” even though I’m pretty sure that is in pregnancy 101. Honestly I’m kind of a weird planner always thinking 10 steps ahead, so I told Mic today that maybe when I decided about taking the whole pregnancy plunge that I took into account step 1 and skipped to step 20 which bypasses the whole delivery btw and goes straight to a newborn in my arms. I’m still trying to get a handle on all the steps in between. And don’t even get me started on thinking about the delivery because I have no idea what to expect- aside from the textbook version we learned in nursing school. I have a feeling reading about what to expect is much different than actually experiencing it. Good thing I'll have a great labor coach/L&D RN aka my sister.. that is unless she "fires" me as her patient partway through my labor ;)
- · Mic is the king of coming up with nicknames for everyone- mainly his family/nieces & nephews. Even before we knew the gender Mic decided to call our baby “kiwi”. And no for the 100th time he didn’t come up with the name because our baby was the size of a kiwi at the time (which would’ve been at 10 wks in case you care). I’m pretty sure he came up with that name back when she was 7 weeks and the size of a blueberry. I had gotten tired of him jokingly referring to the baby as “Rupert”, “Milo” or “Walter” Mostly it was Rupert though and I got SO mad every time. Then one day he sort of combined the two names we’d decided on for both genders and came up with Kiwi. And it has stuck ever since. Although it definitely fits for a girl nickname over a boy. If a fruit can even sound feminine? Pretty sure Mic will always refer to our daughter as Kiwi, and she’ll go to kindergarten wanting to be referred to as such. Which reminds me; when Mace was little he randomly decided he wanted to be called TJ, short for Tiger Joey. He signed all his drawings Mayson TJ. What a funny kid.
- · It is crazy to think our life is going to be completely different in approximately 103 days.
- · I’m sure I have 100 more random thoughts but for now this is it.
Random thoughts on my pregnancy in no particular order
Annual St G. Girl's Trip
We had our annual girl's trip weekend to St. George to see a play at Tuacahn. This year we saw Mary Poppins. I'd seen Mary Poppins on Broadway at Capitol Theater in 2011 when we had season tickets to the theater that year. But Tuacahn def knows how to put on a good play. I love the red rock amphitheater. If only it had been a little cooler, because boy was it HOT.
Next year there is talk that they are bringing Little Mermaid back (which was my absolute favorite) and maybe Beauty and the Beast. I'm already looking forward to going again- crazy to think that I'll have a 6+ month old next summer.
This time we made it a longer weekend down in st george. We left Thur after work and stayed until Sun afternoon. Fri was my mom's birthday and what better way to celebrate than with Bear Paw breakfast, shopping (I found a bunch of maternity clothes on sale that I desperately need so I'm stoked about that), fancy dinner at The Painted Pony (to die for food and the presentation is incredible- I was in food photo taking heaven), and then finish off the night with the play.
Saturday Tif, her mom, and I woke up way early after going to bed less than 6 hrs before- and started yard selling. At first it was a total bust and half the signs we followed led no where and the other half of the addresses we looked into didn't even have a yard sale. So weird. But we finally came upon a gold mine. Tif's mom scored a bargain on 6 tall barstool chairs and a matching tall table. After some crazy tetris arranging we managed to fit everything into the back of her Toyota Rav4, Tif smashed in the back, and I sat in the front with a bar stool half taken apart on my lap. I still have no idea how we managed but it made for the best story. We also got a cute doll double jogging stroller that if I didn't have to hold onto until our baby is 3-4 yrs old, I totally would've got it but it doesn't make sense to store something for that long. So Tif is going to give it to her cousin instead because it was seriously so dang cute.
Saturday night Cass made dinner for us at the condo and we played Farkle and Apples to Apples way into the night. I've seriously never laughed so hard in my entire life, my stomach ached! And I won at Farkle which NEVER happens.
Overall it was a great trip and its always nice to get away with my bff and our sisters and moms. I love St George so bad and wish I could up and move there, crazy heat and all.
Next year there is talk that they are bringing Little Mermaid back (which was my absolute favorite) and maybe Beauty and the Beast. I'm already looking forward to going again- crazy to think that I'll have a 6+ month old next summer.
This time we made it a longer weekend down in st george. We left Thur after work and stayed until Sun afternoon. Fri was my mom's birthday and what better way to celebrate than with Bear Paw breakfast, shopping (I found a bunch of maternity clothes on sale that I desperately need so I'm stoked about that), fancy dinner at The Painted Pony (to die for food and the presentation is incredible- I was in food photo taking heaven), and then finish off the night with the play.
Saturday Tif, her mom, and I woke up way early after going to bed less than 6 hrs before- and started yard selling. At first it was a total bust and half the signs we followed led no where and the other half of the addresses we looked into didn't even have a yard sale. So weird. But we finally came upon a gold mine. Tif's mom scored a bargain on 6 tall barstool chairs and a matching tall table. After some crazy tetris arranging we managed to fit everything into the back of her Toyota Rav4, Tif smashed in the back, and I sat in the front with a bar stool half taken apart on my lap. I still have no idea how we managed but it made for the best story. We also got a cute doll double jogging stroller that if I didn't have to hold onto until our baby is 3-4 yrs old, I totally would've got it but it doesn't make sense to store something for that long. So Tif is going to give it to her cousin instead because it was seriously so dang cute.
Saturday night Cass made dinner for us at the condo and we played Farkle and Apples to Apples way into the night. I've seriously never laughed so hard in my entire life, my stomach ached! And I won at Farkle which NEVER happens.
Overall it was a great trip and its always nice to get away with my bff and our sisters and moms. I love St George so bad and wish I could up and move there, crazy heat and all.
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| Some of our delicious food at the Painted Pony |
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| Happy Birthday Mom! |
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| I love love this picture. And holy baby bump! 23 wks prego. |
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| Bff for life. |
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| Tif smashed in the back with the table, 6 chairs and doll double jogging stroller. Who needs a truck anyway? |
Alan Jackson Concert
I thought I already blogged about the Alan Jackson concert but apparently not. Anyway, a bunch of us went to the Alan Jackson concert at Usana Amphitheater on Aug 10th. Our country concerts this summer have been a great time. Tif got a free ticket through work, so I dragged Mic along. He hates doesn't love country music. I don't even know Alan Jackson's music but it was part of our Country Megaticket 5 country concerts pass thing. Mic actually knew more of his songs than I did, lol. Regardless we had a great time & it was a fun date night.
Annual Ashby Family Camping Trip
Every summer we go camping with Mic’s family. Last year we
went to Lake Powell where we melted for a wk. Seriously it was SO hot. So this
year we decided to go somewhere a little cooler. And boy did we choose somewhere
much much cooler. We headed up to Fish Lake National Park.
On the first night at the campground Keagan crashed his bike and hit his forehead on the handlebars, so despite wearing a helmet he got a huge gash in his forehead. After I cleaned it up really well (boy head injuries bleed a ton!) I could assess the damage and see the extent of the gash. I told his parents he’d definitely need stitches, so at 9:30 at night they had to head down the canyon and find a hospital/clinic that would be open at that hour. We were hours away from any type of town. I was thankful for my experience with wounds from clinicals in the ER, and knew which types could heal on their own, and which were deep enough for stitches.
Mic and I left a day earlier than everyone else so we could
enjoy a day/night to ourselves. It was nice to get away and to the beautiful
outdoors. Sadly this was our first camping trip of the season.
When Nate and his family got to our campsite we decided we’d
head further up the canyon and see if we could get an actual campsite with
water & bathrooms* (port-a-potties, puke) and less cows. Who knew cows made
such annoying noises, lol.
We found an awesome campground area that we ended up being
the only people at so that was nice.
Lots of fishing, high altitude hiking, 4-wheeling on the
ATVs, and hanging around a campfire. So nice to get away and enjoy the great
outdoors with family, and get away from tv, cell phone service, facebook, etc.
The high altitude kinda messed with my pregnant body but I
took my iron pills so I don’t know if that helped my lack of oxygen or not. The
first couple days we did a lot of exploring and hiking around, but I soon
realized that was a bad idea and took it easy the last couple days.
I don’t sleep as well on an air mattress as I did
pre-pregnant but even with less sleep I’m still glad we were able to get away.
Sophie had the time of her life, being off leash and exploring the surrounding
woods. Luckily she always came back after her “adventures”.
We fished in a couple little ponds, but didn’t have much
luck catching anything over 6-8”, so it was mostly catch and release but the
kids had fun trying to learn to fish. Mic used my “lucky pole” and got a bite
at one of the ponds, and I hadn’t had much luck, so being the nice husband he
is he handed me the pole so I could reel it in. Little did he know though, that
he’d actually caught a big one. I was struggling to reel in this fighter, and
Mic thought I was just pretending to suck at reeling it in, and tightened the
reel because my line kept going further out, instead of reeling the fish in, he
was taking off with my line. After another attempt to tighten my line, I
finally got the fish close enough that we could see just how big this fighter
was. Neither of us could believe it but we’d caught a 16” fish! Who knew that
little pond even had anything worth keeping in it. Mic let me take the credit
for catching the biggest fish since I’m “Lucky Lisa” when it comes to fishing
with him or my dad. But really Mic caught the fish, I was just fortunate that
he let me reel it in, which is the real fun.
Camping was fun, but definitely a lot colder than I would’ve
liked. 30*’s, during the nights and 60*’s during the day, except the day we
drove to Capitol Reef National Park- which was super warm and beautiful with
all the red rock formations. I’d never been so I was glad we were able to go. It
rained every day too while we were camping so we spent a lot of time in the
tent or Nate & Natalie’s trailer.
On the first night at the campground Keagan crashed his bike and hit his forehead on the handlebars, so despite wearing a helmet he got a huge gash in his forehead. After I cleaned it up really well (boy head injuries bleed a ton!) I could assess the damage and see the extent of the gash. I told his parents he’d definitely need stitches, so at 9:30 at night they had to head down the canyon and find a hospital/clinic that would be open at that hour. We were hours away from any type of town. I was thankful for my experience with wounds from clinicals in the ER, and knew which types could heal on their own, and which were deep enough for stitches.
Not sure where we’ll go next summer but there is talk about
staying in a cabin rather than tents which would be nice, since both Brook
& Keith, and Mic & I will have 6+ month old baby girls. So excited for
Mic’s brother and his wife, they are due with their first baby as well, just two weeks after us and just found
out that they are having a girl also! The Ashby family needs more girl
grandkids. Our two girls will be #10 & 11 of grandkids with 7 boys and with
our girls there will now be 4 nieces.
Mic’s sister had her 6th baby two months ago, so
the Ashby family will have 3 new grandkids in 6 months! That has never happened
before, I’m not even sure that they’ve had 2 babies born in the same year.
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| Keagan pre bike accident |
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| Kate & Sara |
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| Love reading our hammock |
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| Mic always balancing on something while fishing |
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| the 16" fish I reeled in :) |
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| Soph's spot for the long drive home |
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| Soph assisting with building the fire |
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| Glad I brought Soph a hoodie bc it sure got cold! |
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| The kids riding around camp NASCAR style |
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| Mic helping Jaden put on his helmet. Safety first. |
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| Part of the group, lots of ATVs. |
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| Me & Soph posing for a picture, she didn't actually ride on an ATV thank goodness. |
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| Mic teaching the kids how to fish. |
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| Silly Jaden, as always. |
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| The kids loved riding in the back of the truck. |
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| Holy Baby Bump! 22 wks along. |
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| Mic, Baby Tyler & Logan checking out rocks for Mic's rock collection. |
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| 1920's Cabin in Capitol Reef. |
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| Doing nails with Sara & Anika. |
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| cute Sara & Anika |
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| Love our little family. Last day of the 5 days of camping. |
This week's fun adventures
I had finals on Mon & Tue for summer semester. I was both surprised and glad with my final scores and overall grades. Summer semester seemed more challenging than the previous two. I would've thought the semester prior would've been the most challenging with the overload of tests each week. But cramming 15 weeks of a semester into 11 weeks and going to school during summertime in general made it hard to stay motivated. But I did well, and its over :)
I have a few weeks off until Fall semester starts which is great so I can relax and regroup.
On Tue night we went out to celebrate the end of the semester with Tiffany & Mitch. The 4 of us went out to sushi for dinner, bowling, miniature golf, got ice cream, and then finished the evening off playing games at their house along with Tiffany's brother & his girlfriend. We stayed up until midnight. But what a fun 7 hour double date!
Oh and I've never beat anyone at bowling before but I managed to get 2 strikes, along with a ton of gutter balls, and didn't score the worst! Almost hit 100 too, LOL.
Friday I spent the day at the pool with Tiffany & Jessica from school and got a lot of sun! It was fun to just relax and not worry about upcoming deadlines.
Friday night I went to the Brad Paisley concert with Tifanie and her mom and Krista & Abby met us there. We got there early enough for great lawn seats. Before we got our food there was a line for some trivia game contest where if you answered your one question correctly you'd win 2 tickets in the front seated section for the concert. Abby wanted to stand in line and try and win. I watched people ahead of us not get their trivia questions right, and Tifanie & I decided it wasn't worth waiting in line for. I don't know much about Brad Paisley to win. So we left Abby & Krista to try and win. They met us back at our lawn area holding two tickets! Krista had gotten her trivia question right! Abby's was "what is Brad Paisley's middle name?" and she guessed Mike, lol, but apparently its Douglas. How would anyone know that? But Krista owned her question about what state is mentioned in one of his lyrics. Krista let Tif's mom and her friend sit in the front row seats for the openers, and then Tif and I went for a bunch of Brad's songs, and then lastly Abby & Krista went for the remaining concert, so we all rotated and got a chance to sit front row. Literally. I had no idea how close our seats were until we passed multiple security check points to end up literally as close to the stage as you could get. It was such a good time, and we took A TON of pictures.
We're loving going to all these country concerts with our summer package we purchased. I'm hoping to be able to go to a bunch next summer as well.
I have a few weeks off until Fall semester starts which is great so I can relax and regroup.
On Tue night we went out to celebrate the end of the semester with Tiffany & Mitch. The 4 of us went out to sushi for dinner, bowling, miniature golf, got ice cream, and then finished the evening off playing games at their house along with Tiffany's brother & his girlfriend. We stayed up until midnight. But what a fun 7 hour double date!
Oh and I've never beat anyone at bowling before but I managed to get 2 strikes, along with a ton of gutter balls, and didn't score the worst! Almost hit 100 too, LOL.
Friday I spent the day at the pool with Tiffany & Jessica from school and got a lot of sun! It was fun to just relax and not worry about upcoming deadlines.
Friday night I went to the Brad Paisley concert with Tifanie and her mom and Krista & Abby met us there. We got there early enough for great lawn seats. Before we got our food there was a line for some trivia game contest where if you answered your one question correctly you'd win 2 tickets in the front seated section for the concert. Abby wanted to stand in line and try and win. I watched people ahead of us not get their trivia questions right, and Tifanie & I decided it wasn't worth waiting in line for. I don't know much about Brad Paisley to win. So we left Abby & Krista to try and win. They met us back at our lawn area holding two tickets! Krista had gotten her trivia question right! Abby's was "what is Brad Paisley's middle name?" and she guessed Mike, lol, but apparently its Douglas. How would anyone know that? But Krista owned her question about what state is mentioned in one of his lyrics. Krista let Tif's mom and her friend sit in the front row seats for the openers, and then Tif and I went for a bunch of Brad's songs, and then lastly Abby & Krista went for the remaining concert, so we all rotated and got a chance to sit front row. Literally. I had no idea how close our seats were until we passed multiple security check points to end up literally as close to the stage as you could get. It was such a good time, and we took A TON of pictures.
We're loving going to all these country concerts with our summer package we purchased. I'm hoping to be able to go to a bunch next summer as well.
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