Easter Celebrations

Monday we joined Mark and Jeanene for Family Night.  We went to dinner at PF Chang’s and then saw Draft Day at the Gateway movie theater.  After the film, Zach felt inspired to take of his shirt and pose next to a giant movie advertisement.  Literally he was shirtless in a very very public place and didn’t mind one bit.  Every day is a surprise with this man of mine…

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This week means that I am through with week 10 of my pregnancy.  I have been feeling great!  I haven’t been sick a single day yet [knock on wood] and certain days I have crazy bursts of energy. Tuesday I went into fast forward:  I finished all my work projects, made two loaves of my family’s favorite bread, ran 3.1 miles, did 6 loads of laundry, and cleaned my house.  I know that this energy won’t stay forever…but I’ll be grateful for it as long as it sticks around.

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Mid week I met some cute friends [and their darling daughters] at the new Swig in Bountiful – yes 6 minutes away from my house – for their infamous sugar cookies.

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Friday was celebrated at the AMC in Layton [we are obsessed with the reclining leather seats] to see Heaven is For Real.  Zach accidentally bought tickets to see Disney’s BEARS.  We about died laughing when we were the ONLY souls in the theater.  Then we realized we weren’t in the right movie at all.  Once we got our correct tickets, and bought a giant bag of fruit snacks, we enjoyed the film we intended to see all along.

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Zach fell asleep, but I thought it was a very sweet movie.  Perfect for the week of Easter.

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Saturday was spent at the Red and White Utah game.  The day started out cloudy, but quickly turned warm and sunny.  It was a gorgeous day for a football game.

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After dinner with my parents and some friends, Zach decided he wanted a treat.  His treat of choice was a McDeez vanilla twist cone.

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Mine was a little more extravagant.  Zach waited outside of the Cheesecake Factory with me so I could get a slice of s’mores cheesecake to go.  This one never disappoints…

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Easter Sunday was really relaxing.  We enjoyed church in our Easter duds [Zach said he only liked my dress because I looked like a Seattle Seahawk] and then exchanged Easter baskets.

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Baby Hendo got an Easter basket, too.  Not able to fit inside was his/her new high chair.  A blog I follow had a killer deal on a modern version I have had my eye on, so we let the Easter Bunny snag it for the babe.

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We spent the remainder of the Sunday at my parents’ house.  They gave us a joint Easter basket [aka a baby bath tub] with treats for us and our unborn child.  Zach has been telling everyone that if we have a boy, his name will be Juan Pedro (JP for short) so my parents addressed a package of Peeps to Juan Pedro…just in case.

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Another exciting bit this week was going with my mom to get her hair cut.  She’s been needing an updated style and my sweet friend Whitney hooked her up with a very “Clare Underwood” type of look.

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We also did some serious yard maintenance this week.  We put out all our planters and brought out all the outdoor furniture as well.

10 weeks down!

10 weeks

Our Next Adventure

Zach and I have always had a “5 Year Plan”.  We had even discussed this plan before we were married.  I guess every couple discusses their goals in life, and ours were simple:  both obtain our degrees, work in our careers, and spend as much time together doing the things we love before we had kids.

We have been so blessed.  I get really emotional when I think about these last five years.  We have had so much fun and made so many memories together.  I wouldn’t change a single thing about this time that Zach and I have had, just the two of us.  Our lives are so simple and easy.  We go to movies on Wednesday nights for no reason and eat out way more than we should.  We’ve been on weekend trips, stayed up all hours of the night, and been totally irresponsible for the past couple of years.  I love Zach more than I ever dreamt I would love my husband.  Maybe part of me didn’t want to share him.  He’s been all mine for so long, it seems.

It’s kind of a weird feeling going from every month hoping you don’t get pregnant to suddenly hoping you will.  And since I am a huge planner, I prepared myself for the long haul.  For some reason I kept having feelings that it would take a while for Zach and I to get pregnant.  I felt so strongly about this that infertility treatments and adoption were regular topics of discussion between us.  So many people close to me have struggled with infertility and I just didn’t want to get disappointed.  With that being said, I was completely shocked and humbled when I got a positive pregnancy test after we had only been trying casually for one month.  I was so humbled, in fact, that when I saw the result on the test I fell right to my knees, sobbing.  It still seems so good to be true, that I constantly find myself worrying that something might go wrong.  I remember the first thing I did was pray.  Then I texted my husband.  It was absolutely nothing like I had planned it to be.  I had envisioned in my mind telling him in some cute and elaborate way, but even in those first few moments I couldn’t keep it from him.  Maybe if I had had more time to plan something, but it happened so fast that it felt wrong keeping it all to myself.

So here goes!  Come November this little nugget is going to change our lives forever.  I think becoming parents [and a real family] will be our greatest adventure yet!

I have been trying to document with pictures – along with something we did that particular week.

5 weeks

6 weeks

7 weeks

8 weeks

9 weeks

An Eagle // A Wedding // A Baptism

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Our weeks lately are full of family and we don’t mind one bit.

My goal this week was to spend as much time with Zach before he left on his boys’ trip.  So Monday we had a lovely FHE, just the two of us, with Little Caesar’s Pizza and a Walking Dead marathon.  I don’t know how we waited this long to bite the bullet, but we are loving some zombie action.

Tuesday we drove up to Farmington for our oldest nephew’s Eagle Court of Honor.  It’s fine.  Keaton is 16 at already 8″ taller than Zach and I.  We couldn’t be more proud of our [little] Keato Bug!

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Mid week Zach and I got to pick up my new ride!  We have been looking for a new (new to me, but used of course) car to replace Silvie [my Mazda SUV] and finally got to pick her up on Wed.  She doesn’t have a name yet, but we are actively pursuing the possibilities.

Friday I got to spend the entire day at my sweet neighbor Jake’s wedding.  His mother Lori is one of my mom’s best friends and they lived near my parents in Taylorsville.  Jake is my brother Blake’s age and they were inseparable growing up.  I got to attend his beautiful sealing in the Draper Temple and his delicious wedding luncheon afterwards at the Highland Gardens.  It’s crazy to think that my little brother and his childhood best friend will both be married this year!  It just made me that much more excited for my brother’s wedding in September.

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I also had the opportunity to do their wedding invitations.  I love simple and classic wedding invitations and Breanne, the bride, wanted exactly that!

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Conveniently, Highland Gardens is located wayyyy too close to Slurp [another cousin of Swig] and I convinced my entire family that we need to stop and get some cookies.  They didn’t have a choice, to be honest, because I was driving.  They now serve Leatherby’s ice cream…so…enough said…

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Meanwhile, while I was stuffing my face with a sugar cookie, Zach was enjoying his boys’ golf trip in St. George.

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Zach and I have this thing where we text each other photos of what we are doing if we aren’t together for a long period of time.  I know it’s weird, but it makes me feel like I am with him in an odd way.  He texted me literally 6 golfing photos nearly identical to this one the whole weekend.  He had a great time with his friends and enjoyed the gorgeous weather of St. Geez by day, Mesquite by night.  I don’t even need to explain what he did in Mesquite every single night…

Saturday was my cousin’s son’s baptism.  It was a very emotional day for our family.  Not only because Camron chose to be baptized, but because my uncle [his Grandpa] got to baptize him.  My uncle Kenny recently received the Melchizedek Priesthood and is taking temple prep courses.  It’s a huge step for their family considering my uncle has been very closed off from the LDS church for so many years.  Not only was the baptism very special, but the confirmation as well.  My dad confirmed Camron and it was one of the most beautiful blessings I have ever heard.  Sometimes the littlest things have the strongest impact on my testimony.  Witnessing my dad confirm Camron was just another affirmation of how strongly I feel about the importance of the family.

Saturday when I got home from the baptism I got a call from my sweet neighbor, Flora, who asked if she could come by and visit me.  In December, Flora asked me to help her set up a helicopter ride for her husband for his Christmas gift.  He is over 80 years old and he has been dreaming of doing it for years.  Flora and I did a little scheming and planned a date and time (with Zach’s help) to take Reed for a ride.  When she stopped by my house on Saturday she brought me a delicious treat and a gorgeous hooded sweater she knitted herself!  Apparently her husband is losing his memory, which absolutely breaks my heart, and he is forgetting things constantly.  She told me that the silly 20 minute helicopter ride he took was one of the best experiences of his life.  Something he hasn’t forgotten amongst all his memory loss.  She said the sweater was a thank-you for the ride and for the experience.  As soon as she left I tried on the sweater and it couldn’t have fit better.

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I couldn’t help but cry.  I cried for the sweetest handmade gift I have ever received and for her husband who is going through this difficult time in his life.  I also cried because Flora makes me miss my grandma so very much.  My mom’s mom, Claudette, passed away 14 years ago.  Sunday was her birthday.  Flora reminds me so much of my grandma it is spooky, and for some reason all of the emotions hit me at the same time and it was a full-on water works production.  Good thing I couldn’t capture myself sitting in my hallway, with my new sweater on, crying my eyes out.

Luckily I had a dinner date with my friends later that night to get me out of my slobbering slump.  We dined at From Scratch [really…this is getting ridiculous] at then I drove our whole crew to Gourmandise for some dessert.

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I am so grateful to my friends and family for keeping me company while Zach was away.  I couldn’t ask for better people in my life.

Homeland Security // Conference

The Sunday before conference our ward had an “emergency preparedness” combined third meeting.  Normally these type of meetings don’t ruffle my feathers, but for some reason I was impacted by a certain video that was shown.  It was this terribly sad video of all the natural disasters that have occurred over the past 5 or so years.  It kind of freaked me out.  So as I looked over the handout that was distributed to everyone, I realized I had nothing prepared for an emergency except a giant barrel of water, rice, and canned potatoes.  I don’t know if it was really the video, or the earthquake my friends and I felt in California, or me just being a crazy person.

Regardless of what scared me, Monday afternoon [after I finished all my freelance projects] I put together three 72 Hour Kits, a first aid kit for my car, and an emergency car kit.  Zach was making fun of me the entire night.  But we’ll see who’s laughing when there is a real emergency and he has to wear the clothes I packed in HIS 72 hour kit.  It will teach him to make fun of his very “passionate” wife.

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But that wasn’t it.  I called my dad for a recommendation for a concealed weapons permit class.  He told me that for my birthday he was planning on giving me his H&K 9mm handgun, but never got around to it.  [We agreed not to give birthday gifts this year to each other; we were planning on saving for a family trip to Europe, but with my brother’s upcoming wedding we have postponed our family Euro trip for a later year].

So Friday he showed me all the ins and outs of the gun, including how to clean it, and gave me wayyyy too much ammo.  Now all I need is to pass that class with flying colors.

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The weekend came and it was time to drive up to the Hendo Cabin for our annual conference/Easter tradition.  We only had four families up at the cabin this time, which made it a little quieter, but by no means less exciting.  The first thing Papa did was take the kids out on a ride to see if they could spot the Easter Bunny in his natural habitat.  Sure enough, EB was spotted…

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The kiddies were thrilled.  They wore their bunny ears around all night, talking about the rabbit non-stop.

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Sunday morning was so nice and peaceful.  I slept in as long as I could and later let the kidlets wake Zach up [in their coordinating pajamas] with a song from Frozen.  Georgia doesn’t mess around – she just full on tackled Zach to get him up and out of bed.

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After breakfast we distracted the kids by telling them bunny stories around the “camp fire”.  They didn’t even realize that Papa and Zach [dressed as EB, of course] had slipped out and taken the snowcat for a drive up the mountain.

Then we had the kids wait by the big window in hopes that we would spot the Easter Bunny.  10 [really long minutes] later, the Easter Bunny was spotted again, this time hitching a ride on top of Papa’s snowcat, Old Glory.  The kids went ballistic!  I was just grateful Zach didn’t fall off…

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Then the bunny hopped on down to the basement where all the kids could hunt for their eggs.

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Easter will always be one of my favorite holidays.  Partially because the Easter Bunny is my very best friend…

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