A garden, a belly, and apricots coming out of our ears

Summer is flying by!  I can't believe its the middle of July. Here's what we've been up to:

Apricots.....

Apricots all from my 2 trees..

...Out of our ears I tell you! We didn't get the big around to pruning our 2 Apricot trees and there is SO much fruit! My in-laws spent 3 hours this week picking these beauties, and the tree still looks full! We spent the next few days making jam and juice. We ended up canning 140 jars of delectable jam! And around 30 jars of juice. I feel so domestic! This was my first canning experience and I'll be the first to say canning is not easy! But its worth the hard work. Thanks Ann, Alex, and Liz or all of your help! With the rest of the fruit I will be making dry apricots and fruit leather. FYI, it takes 20 hours to dry apricots..who knew?

The finished product!

Our apples are growing! We did prune this tree so we should have a "do-able"amount of Apples, can't wait until they are done!

Apple Tree

Garden.....

Garden 7/13

We have got 3 zucchinis out of it so far! SO yummy! And everything is growing nicely. We have only lost 2 tomato plants to the hose. No raccoons!! I think the hawk scared them off ;)

(If you look closely you can see that our apricot tree is full and ready for the second round of picking, I already feel like I need a nap just thinking about it)

Zucchini! I think I'll bake bread.

 And now on to the less boring stuff! BABY BUMP!

25 weeks and 6 days

I am 25 almost 26 weeks along! 3 months to go! Grow baby grow! I LOVE that my belly is getting bigger. I can feel him kick and move everyday now. One thing thats new this week is he will push up against my stomach and it will go lopsided and I can FEEL HIM! Like his butt or head or something. Its the craziest feeling! It makes me so excited! I am only 2 weeks away from my third trimester! Can I get a HIP HIP HORRAY!? 


I have not quite started on the nursery yet. I have a crib, rocker, armoire (it just took me a full minute to figure out how to spell that), and fabric for the sheets. I can not decide what color to paint the wall! I am having a complex. The sheets are cream background with Navy blue bikes.. I am in love. But I do not want navy blue walls and I especially do not want tan or neutral walls (its a nursery not a living room), and no gray (my kitchen and bedroom are gray). So I have considered doing baton board on the bottom half and mustard yellow on the top half. I don't know.. any suggestions are welcome!

Garden..Round 2

On memorial day we finally got our garden planted! Nate had been tilling and getting it ready for about a month. We planted tomato plants, a melon, basil, cucumbers, zucchini, acorn squash, spaghetti squash, and another squash, strawberries, peppers, corn, beans, and broccoli. And here's where tragedy strikes...The next day I went out to water the thing and some of the leaves had been bit off. Then the next day practically the whole garden had been bit off and we found RACCOON tracks in the dirt. Filthy raccoons ate our garden. All we had left was 2 (of 8) tomato plants, 2 (of 4) peppers, and the corn, beans, and broccoli (because they were seeds and hadn't sprouted yet). GRR... so we took care of the issue and replanted our garden. We hope this time no intruders will eat it.

This is what the garden looked like in the spring. 

The work in progress

I forgot to get a picture before we started but this is basically the start. It was such a mess. Even though it doesn't look like it, there was a plot already there for the garden. The people who lived here before us dumped all of their grass clippings on it for the past 2 years


And here's what it looks like today!

The finished product (round 2)

Yes, thats a hawk on a stick in the middle of the garden. After all of that work we are not taking any chances.

He or She?

Nate was right! IT'S A... BOY!!! I can hardly believe it! I am so excited to have a little boy! I was so sure that I was having a girl that I really hadn't thought much about having a boy first. But we couldn't be happier! We went in for the Ultra Sound on May 21st. The doctor said everything looks great and he is right on track with size. But for some reason he has extra long legs...hm wonder where he gets that from. ;) We feel so blessed that he is healthy and that all is going well. Its so nice that we don't have to call him an it any more. He is officially a HE. :) 


Here is a picture that we took the night we took the pregnancy test. Not the best picture but at least its documented. We actually weren't 100% sure we were pregnant when we took this picture. It was a faint double line. But when we got back from dinner that night the double line was clear! Such a great feeling!

4/30-5/13/12 Ragnar Relay Series: Cape Cod

I just finished my first race as a Race Coordinator for Ragnar. As fun as it was to plan the race, it's such a relief to have it over! It was a great experience. A little background on the race is that it is in Massachusetts. The race started in Plymouth and finished in Provincetown. The course was close to 200 miles long and we had about 5,000 runners participate. As the coordinator the director and I had to go out to Plymouth 2 weeks before the race to make sure that everything was good to go. (meetings, binder packets, filling the uhauls for the volunteers, filling the staff SUV's, AKA a lot to do!) 

I didn't get a lot of pictures but here are some that I did get:

Binder Packets

Printed and organized and hole punched all of the papers that go in the binder packets for our SWAT (sweaty, wet, and tired) Volunteers. Then in an assembly line put them together in binders. Oh the Joys!

S'mores on the Beach

The two weeks before the race we stayed in a house right by the beach! It was beautiful! We didn't get to spend a lot of time there but we did have s'mores one night.

The Mayflower

 Our course went right by the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock. Awesome.

Just a day in the life of a race director

This is a picture of what my car looked like as I was traveling up to Provincetown for a Public Hearing to get permission to use the area for our finish line, before the race. I had to sit up at a microphone in front of 5 city officials and a room full of locals explaining what Ragnar Relay is and what we were going to be doing in their community. It was a great experience! I loved it.  I only had one complaint from a local and I answered all of her questions so the finish line got approved. Success!

The Trailer

The trailer right after we dropped it off before all of the fun of getting everything out of it started. 

Filling the U-hauls (thats me in the Royal blue with the hood on)

We had to fill the Uhauls for the SWAT Volunteers with various things that they would need through out their shift.

Start line!!

And finally the start line! This was taken the day before the race started. It was such a cool location! It was at Miles Standish State Forest in Plymouth. It was beautiful! There are a ton of trees and lakes! We started at this lake called College Pond. It had rained everyday that I was there except for the race days! We lucked out there! 

The race was overall a success! But being 15-16 weeks pregnant during the whole thing made it really hard! I couldn't do any heavy lifting and I was EXHAUSTED the whole time. But my co-workers were understanding and helpful and my mom, dad, brother, and husband all came along to help out. It was so great to have them there for help and support. I wish I would have got a picture of all of us there but I didn't. During the race, Nate was the Water Station Manager. My mom and I were the final course floaters. We followed behind the final runner and kept track of where they were. My dad and brother were 2 different Major Exchange Managers. Half-way through the night my mom went with my dad and Nate came with me to "float" the course. That night/ at 3 AM, Nate and I got 30 minutes of sleep. After we rested we jumped to the first floater position and checked to make sure that the first part of the course was being set up correctly. Then jumped to the finish line to help set up and we picked up the 600 lbs of fruit for the finish line. And finally around 8 AM we got to go to the hotel and sleep for a bit. We slept until 10, then went to the finish line. And around 1:00 PM I couldn't be awake another minute so I went back to the hotel to sleep and my family covered for me. I tell ya with being pregnant, I could not have done it with out them. Then I went back that night to help clean up. And it was over!! Such an accomplished feeling!

After that we drove to Washington DC. I will post about that later because this post is already way too long! :)

12/15/11 Two years and counting

 Last December we celebrated our second anniversary. It was such a fun night! I thought we didn't have plans but Nate surprised me and took me to dinner in Ogden Canyon then we stayed at the Alaskan Inn. I had no idea that he had planned it, he packed my bag and everything! It was a fun surprise.

The cabin we stayed in

We had such a great second year together! Nate graduated with his Bachelors in Technical Sales, we bought a house and moved out of our apartment, I graduated and got my first REAL job at Ragnar Relay. We are excited to see what this next year will bring! I am so grateful to have Nate as my husband forever. 

12/9/11 Graduation

Last December I graduated with my Bachelors Degree at Weber State University. I majored in Health Promotion and minored in Nutrition Education. After the ceremony we went to dinner at Maddox. Then later Nate surprised me with a graduation party with our friends. It was a great day. I am so glad to be done with my Bachelors Degree! Here are some pics of the day.

Grandma Rose

My Family (some of them)

Announcement!

Life has been crazy busy this year! I have so much to post about. But to start, we are expecting a baby in October! I am already 18 weeks along, almost half way done! I thought I would be one of those pregnant people who post monthly updates and pictures of me holding a veggie the size of my baby... but turns out that I have been super busy and had no time! I have been traveling a ton for work! I found out we were pregnant in February. And I say I because Nate didn't believe the pregnancy test, in-fact he didn't believe that  I really had a baby in my belly until we heard the heartbeat at our first ultrasound :). Everytime I threw-up it was when I was at work or on my way to work (yes I barfed in my car), so he never saw I was sick. He just heard me complain ALL the time about my nausea. (he was so nice about listening to me complain, such a good man :)) Oh the nausea... it was brutal! I am so grateful that it has subsided, for the most part. I never knew how hard it was to feel like I was going to throw up constantly. The only thing that helped was to eat, but I had no appetite EVERYTHING sounded awful, even water. But I wouldn't change a thing. It will all be worth it when we get to hold our sweet baby. It has been an amazing experience watching my tummy grow and seeing the ultrasounds and hearing the heartbeat. We will find out if its a girl or boy next Tuesday!! I truly think that it is a girl! I have always thought I'd have a girl first, even before I was pregnant. Nate thinks it is a boy. But he wants a girl. We will be happy with either. As long as its a healthy little babe!

Here are some pics I did get:

12 weeks along

18 weeks along

We are so excited for this new chapter in our life! October can't come soon enough!