Weekend in Utah

On August 5th we flew out to Utah for Rick's younger sister's wedding. On Thursday morning we were able to go through the temple with Caitlyn, David and their family. It was a great experience. It was the first time I had been to the temple with Rick's family. We went through the beautiful Bountiful temple. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon with both families eating, getting to know one another and working on the wedding flowers. We made 11 boutonnieres, 3 corsages, 3 bridesmaid bouquets and 1 bridal bouquet. They turned out beautiful. Red, orange and bright pink roses with greenery. They all looked very vibrant and full of color. 

Friday morning we had a wedding breakfast at the Joseph Smith Memorial building and then headed across the street to the Salt Lake City temple for the wedding ceremony. Of course it was a beautiful ceremony. I typically cry during ceremonies and I knew that being pregnant wasn't going to help me any. However, I did pretty good and wasn't too emotional. After the ceremony we took pictures around temple square. Some of the family members headed over to Cafe Rio for a late lunch before the reception. After lunch we headed to Em's restaurant to set up the reception. It was a great time and so fun to share this time with Caitlyn and David. 

On Saturday day we headed over to Mariah's house to help her take care of some painting and handy man things. Rick did a great job helping her work all day. I tried to stay away from the paint as much as I could. My main job was an easy fun one. I got to babysit my darling little niece Georgia who is a happy little almost 2 year old. 

Since Rick spent all day helping my family out, I thought it would be best for us to spend some time with his friends on Saturday night. We were able to visit Steve and Krista and enjoyed catching up with them. 

Sunday Rick was sick in bed all day. He spent too much time with all the sick nieces and nephews on the wedding day and caught a bad bug. We had family dinner at the Bingham's and was able to visit a few short minutes with Ben. 

Although our flight was delayed and we didn't get home until almost 1:00 on Sunday night, it was a great trip to Utah. We didn't get too many pictures while we were there because we let his sister Caitlyn borrow our underwater camera for her honeymoon and it was packed away in her bags most of the trip. I'll try and post some pictures later.

In the mean time, here are a few of the bun and I. Rick loves to take pictures of this site. This is about 22 weeks. A side view, front view and back view. I feel like I have widen out a little since these shots. More to come next week.

Roller Coaster Ride

We've been on an emotional roller coaster for the last six months and finally just finished our ride. As you know, the beginning of our ride started at the end of January when we lost our first little bun - an experience that was both physically and emotionally painful. The next big bump was in May when we thought we were loosing our second little bun. Luckily for us, it was just hemorrhaging from a condition called complete placenta previa. Placenta previa lead to bed rest a few times, lots of bleeding, no exercise, cautiousness, and a lot of stress. 

Only July 24th we went in for our 20 week ultra sound to check on the little bun and his progress as well as the placenta previa. To our surprise, just three weeks after having heavy bleeding for two weeks straight the placenta had moved completely out of the way. Typically this big of a move takes place over the term of your pregnancy, for us it disappeared within three weeks. Obviously we were blessed and our prayers were answered. However, after surviving that bump on the ride we hit another one. During the ultra sound Rick noticed some differences in our little bun's heart. He noticed that the left side was n0t functioning like the right side was. Sure enough we got a call on Monday morning from the Stanford Children's Hospital Heart Center. They wanted to do more testing on our little guy's heart. They told us that the ultra sound showed that he had a small left heart valve, and they scheduled us for an Echocardiogram.

After spending time on Google, we were more concerned and worried with what we saw and heard. A small left heart valve could be one of the most serious heart diseases a baby could have and it has a significant mortality rate. On top of all this stress we were in a car accident this week. Someone rear ended us while we were stopped and waiting to turn left (luckily it didn't put us in to labor).

Friday morning we went to the Stanford Children's Hospital for our test. I was pretty emotional. It was difficult walking through the halls, past the Children's Transplant Center, then the Children's Blood Disease and Cancer Center on to the Children's Heart Center. It took a lot to hold back my tears for all those little ones spending time in that place. We did our Echocardiogram and then waited in the room for the lady to come back. She came back and told us the doctor has requested more pictures for a better look. This scared us (they did this to us 3 times when they diagnosed us with placenta previa). After the second round of tests we waited in the room for what seemed like forever for the doctor to come in and discuss the results with us. Sure enough the heart specialist came in and told us that our little guy's heart looked perfectly normal and healthy with nothing wrong at all.  What a relief. The roller coaster ride is finally over. We got to the car and I couldn't hold back me tears (a pregnant lady has way to many emotions) and we said a little prayer thanking the Lord for another answer to our prayers and a blessing in our lives. 

Now that things are normal, it's back to the gym, the pool and our daily routine. We are hoping our last half of the pregnancy is our best half!