21 weeks

How far along? 21 weeks
Maternity clothes? Still mostly pants, some maternity t-shirts. Maternity leggings are THE BEST invention ever.
Stretch marks? Nope.
Sleep: I am sleeping pretty well. Although, I have had some very strange pregnancy dreams.
Best moment this week: Don felt the baby kick! It has just happened once, but hopefully he'll start feeling alot more movement.
Miss anything? Sleeping on my stomach
Movement: Lots and lots of movement. Usually at school when I am reading with small groups of kids (because I am actually sitting down) and at night.
Food cravings: avocados and anything salty! Mmm...
Anything making you queasy or sick? Luckily not this week. Hopefully we're done with that.
Gender: Boy
Symptoms: Lower back pain (prenatal yoga has been saving me).
Looking forward to: Feeling more movement and decorating the nursery!

17 weeks & a small update

I am not even going to make a new year's resolution to blog more, because as long as we have the full-time work/full-time grad school thing going on at our house, that's just not happening. So, as per tradition, here's the annual update.

We found out that we are expecting our first baby! I took 6 pregnancy tests because I couldn't believe it was real (in a good way). That news of course has been the highlight of the last few months. And other than the usual Thanksgiving/Christmas stuff, we have headed to baby land. We have been busy preparing for baby, even though he has a while until his debut. Winter break is my last real break from school/work until he arrives. So, let the nesting begin!

How far along? 17 weeks
Maternity clothes? Mostly just pants. It makes my stomach hurt to have anything pushing on my stomach. Plus I am large. Not cute-pregnant large, but people judge me because they think I-ate-too- many-holiday-treats large.
Stretch marks? Nope.
Sleep: For a while I was waking up every morning at 4:30 am and could never fall back asleep (in addition to the bathroom trips throughout the night). Luckily that has gone away, and I am sleeping pretty well.
Best moment this week: Starting to buy BOY baby clothes, now that we know what we're having.
Miss anything? Ibuprofen. I have been plagued with almost daily headaches and let's face it, Tylenol is just not good.
Movement: One or two times I have thought I have felt something, but it's hard to say.
Food cravings: water (I have to constantly be drinking--I am so thirsty!) Other than that, not really. The ramen noodle/ white rice phase has gone away (aka plain, bland food).
Anything making you queasy or sick? Not this week. The gagging about every.little.thing has seemed to subside.
Gender: Boy
Symptoms: Headaches and zero energy
Looking forward to: Telling the first graders that the baby is a boy! Before we went on winter break, we made a graph of what they thought the baby was. Nearly  everyone thought a girl--mostly because I have a girl-heavy class and they all voted girl. :)

The Garden

This was the first summer we spent in our house and it was fun to plant a little garden. This is only the second time I have planted anything (seriously), so it was a big learning experience! Somewhere there is a picture of the actual garden, but we all know what those look like. We were able to get enough tomatoes to make/can 25 jars of spaghetti sauce, so I would consider that a success. The biggest thing I learned was NOT to plant 3 zucchini plants. 1 is more than enough. Geez. 

Peach jelly from Brigham City peaches. 

Thanks, Brigham City for the peaches!

The pumpkin we didn't plant...

Bandith has mixed feelings about all of the gardening and canning fun.

Bozeman

As one last summer adventure, we headed up to Bozeman, Montana for the weekend to visit Don's aunt. It was a nice, relaxing getaway complete with a visit to the local Sweet Pea Festival (which of course means tater pigs). Turns out we were all too busy eating tater pigs to take a group picture. Oops!

Cambodia Highlights

I think that it is impossible to sufficiently do justice to the experience we had in Cambodia. But, I will try. In the months leading up to leaving, I was pretty nervous. I had to get 12+ vaccinations (mostly shots) (Don had many of his when he went to Africa a few years ago), we had to buy special clothes, special bug spray, etc. I was pretty nervous. Plus I had never been on that long of a flight (24 hours total of flying). But, it was amazing. I would go back tomorrow, or even today.

We flew into Siem Reap where we met up with some Cambodian's from Don's mission who were visiting from Long Beach. It worked out perfectly to have them with us for the first part of the trip. We spent a few days in Siem Reap visiting some of the ruins (including Angkor Wat).

We then traveled down to the countryside of Battembong where we spent one night. We visited some family members of people that Don knew from his mission. Don had a chance to plant rice, which he says was the highlight of the trip. It's true what they say...Cambodia is covered in rice fields.

Next we traveled to the bottom of the country to visit the beach-Sihounkville. It was okay. Kind of trashy and sketchy. But we did get to go on a boat ride to some fun islands and go snorkeling.

We ended our trip in the capitol city of Phnom Penh. It is the BUSIEST city I have ever seen. Seriously. It's waaaaay busier than I have ever seen New York. The traffic is out of control. Tons and tons of cars and no traffic lights! Everyone just does their own thing (including going on whatever side of the road they feel inclined to travel on). The interesting thing was that we didn't see any accidents. Everyone is actually paying attention to what's going on while they're driving. (Imagine that!). Unlike in the States where everyone is on Facebook and texting whilst they drive.

In Phnom Penh we met up with some of Don's ASUU (U of U student government) and an old mission companion and his wife that were there for the summer. In Phnom Pehn we went to the Killing Fields from the Khmer Rouge as well as Tuol Sleng (a highschool that was turned into a prison during the Khmer Rouge regime). Both sites were extremely somber. At Tuol Sleng, they have done nothing with it, so it is completely how it is when the Khmer ROuge occupied. There were blood stains on the floors, weapons used to torture and kill prisoners, barbed wire, etc. Very sad. At the Killing Fields, we had a similar experience.

Another highlight of the trip for us was to deliver 130 hygiene kits our ward had helped compile. We were able to take some to a school for the deaf and blind, a local children's library, an orphanage and to some people planting rice.

One of my favorite things about the trip was seeing the reaction people had to Don when they found out he speaks Khmer! (Cambodian). They were always so shocked that a white man could speak their language :). One man asked for Don to sing him a Cambodian song. Pretty funny.

We took close to 1,500 pictures, so here's a small handful from our experience.