Happy Birthday to My Love!

Morgan's birthday was yesterday, Sunday the 26th of July. On Saturday I surprised Morgan by waking him up at 6:45 am and taking him up to Stumpy Meadows Lake (a little past Union Valley Resevoir). I had purchased an inflatable raft the day before hoping to take him fishing and perhaps paddle around the lake. The fishing part didn't really work out because the raft wasn't as hefty and as big as I had hoped it would be. Even then, we still paddled around a little bit and even got out and swam a little. It was nice to be up in the mountains and see the beautiful scenery.

Here's a picture of Morgan blowing up our little raft. We were both laughing most of the time while we were blowing it up knowing it was going to be more of an adventure than actually working out as planned.

Yup, a little squishy.

After we were done with paddling around and swimming, we put the raft up to dry while we ate lunch.

We played the famous game of "War" in the back seat.

It's a beautiful lake.

We arrived home to the wonderful aroma of "Chicken and Stuffing" in the crockpot. Morgan loves that stuff! My mom was so nice to come over to our place while we were gone and make the crockpot meal so that it would be done by the time we got home. Thanks Mom!

I then had Morgan open up his gifts. We are trying to cut back on our budget so they were homemade mostly, which is actually what he had asked for...he's so cute. I framed the dedicatory blessing of our little home which had been done just after we had moved in. I also gave him "Family Home Evening in a Jar!" It has different songs and topics/lessons for our Monday Nights. I also gave him a half finished cross stitch that I am still working on, which will eventually say "Home Sweet Home".

We then took a nap because of the early day and later went over to my parents to celebrate his birthday with them. We had cake and icecream and Morgan opened up a couple more gifts from my parents. They got him a 100 piece drill set and a hair cutting kit (we're always borrowing my parents hair cutting kit, so now we finally have our own!) :)

Don't you just love the candle!!???

I just fall more and more in love my husband everyday. He makes everyday so wonderful. He is so positive and optimistic and such a wonderful example of love, charity, and service. I am so grateful for him and for the blessing that he is in my life. I love him so much! Happy Birthday my love! I hope you enjoyed your birthday!

Celebrating My Mom's Birthday

Sunday, July 19th we celebrated my Mom's birthday at our family friends house, the Reynolds. We had a wonderful stuffed pork chop dinner and visited a lot and ate Pear Cake! We had an enjoyable time. The following evening Morgan and I had my parents over for dinner and Family Home Evening. We ate, visited and taught my parents how to play Domino's! It was a lot of fun.

I'm so grateful for my mom and all that she has done for me. She is such a wonderful example and I hope that someday I can follow in her footsteps and be the wonderful person she is.

I LOVE YOU MOM!

B O W L I N G

We forgot to post the fun we had on July 4th. We went bowling! It was the first time that we had gone bowling since we were married. Surprisingly there weren't very many people there during the day on Saturday, July 4th. We played a couple games.

You gotta love the bowling shoes.

Check out his form!

I love my best friend!

IT'S A.......

....IT!

Today Morgan and I went in for my 22 week ultrasound which normally would tell us if it's a boy or a girl BUT our lil' baby decided to play HOUDINI and wouldn't show us anything! It's legs were crossed at the thighs and there is no tellin' what it is. I even rolled over on my side for a few minutes and poked at my tummy hoping it would move and spread those legs but to no avail. So, the ultrasound tech said she thinks it's a girl and is 80% sure but to not buy pink just yet. So, long story short, our baby is still an "it".

Everything else looked healthy and normal, the heart, kidneys, bladder, brain, spine, diaphram, etc, so we are grateful to know that the baby is healthy. Below are some pictures from the ultrasound.

This first picture is a profile shot and our baby's mouth is open.

These next few pictures are 4D pictures of our lil' one. As you can see he or she is very camera shy.

This last picture is obviously of the spine.

Oh, there are stories to tell about spines. We just found out that Morgan has a severe case of Scoliosis. His left leg is 1 & 3/8" shorter than his right, causing one hip to be a lot higher than the other and a distinct curve in his spine. Luckily, his back went out a couple weeks ago, causing him to go to the chiropractor and that is where he found out and saw in his x-ray the reason for his back pain. I say "luckily his back went out" because had it not and he'd gone on with his life for 20 or so years, his back would've been done for. We're praying that the "Spinal Reconstruction" that he is involved in in the next 4 months will recorrect most of the damage.

GARDEN UPDATE

So here are before and after pictures of our garden. We finished our garden in May sometime and now it is starting to show signs of the actual veggies!

This was just after we finished planting the garden in May.

These next two pictures were taken June 18, so a couple of weeks ago. It's amazing how much it has grown since then!

These pictures I took today, the 2nd of July. This first picture is of the grow box with 1 pumpkin plant, 2 watermelon plants and 4 strawberry plants. The watermelon plants are taking over!!

We are realizing now that we should have dug up another iris bed so that we could have more room. But this is how we learn. It is so fun to have a garden and we can't wait to start eating it!

We love camping!!

Thursday, June 18th through Saturday June 20th, Morgan and I had the opportunity to go camping with my parents and my sister Emilie, her husband Ben and their two little ones, Charlie, age 2, and Myles 8 months. We camped at the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park near Santa Cruz, CA. Our campsite was beautiful but full of poison oak and luckily nobody got it. We were right next to the bathrooms which is a pregnant womans dream come true and we were about 15 minutes away from the beach. We spent the majority of the day on Friday at Natural Bridges State Beach. Morgan built sand castles and later he and Ben went body surfing. We visited the tide pools nearby and munched on food all day. My legs and feet got pretty burned and actually swelled a lot. The swelling is finally subsiding. Morgans back was really burned as well and is already peeling. Saturday we went on a stroll through the redwoods. It was beautiful. We had a wonderful time and have yet again learned to put on sunscreen.

20 week Tummy Shot

Here is the tummy shot that has been requested. I'm 20 weeks along now, halfway through the pregnancy. I don't think my face has really gotten as pudgy as it looks in the picture. I just don't take very good pictures, so disregard the face;)