I'm 15 weeks pregnant now, finally starting to show, and we find out next Friday if it's a boy or a girl. We're super excited. Jake bought me two little binkis for my birthday (one says I love daddy!) and his mom bought me the cutest little moose outfit for the baby. I am so anxious to go out and buy EVERYTHING, but haven't yet. You should all be proud of me.
My birthday was great! We went to dinner with my family the night before and then Jake had secret plans for me on the day of (he had so much fun tormenting me as I was dying to know what we were doing.) Since it had been a year since we got engaged, he took me up to the same place up Rose Canyon and we had a nice picnic and cake and presents. He wrote another letter to continue what he had started last year. It was super great!
We are doing well. I'm starting to feel better more and more and throw up less and less.. Nice details there huh? Jake seems to like his new job and we're going to have to stop calling it new here soon. I'm still happy with my job as well and am half way done with my hours to become licenced! Something I'll definately have to finish up even after the baby arrives.
I also got called to work in the young women's as the Laurel advisor about a month ago and am enjoying that. We have great girls and great leaders. Hope all are well. Good luck with your endeavors.-Ashley
Jake and I went camping with some friends over the weekend up in the Uintas at Moosehorn Lake. It was beautiful and another great time! We remembered the camera, but the battery was dead! So here is a picture of Jake and our tent so you can picture what it looked like set up in our campsite.
I was hoping we'd get to see a moose, but no luck. Kenny and Steven saw a moose up our own canyon back home. We went all the way up to the Uintas and we didn't see one. Oh well! Maybe NEXT summer! It was beautiful and finally felt like real camping. I was super worried about throwing up because I'd have to do it in the outhouse and I truly can't imagine how horrible that would be, but it turned out to be a good day. No sweat! I guess what's really on my mind today is Grandpas. We were sitting around the campfire and I got a faint smell of the wood burning and it brought back these strong memories of my Grandpa Pope. He passed away when I was 8, so I don't have a lot of memories of him. I remember him down in the family room working on his woodburnings. They were so awesome! It was so awesome to watch him do them. I said something at the campfire and sounded like an idiot.. "It smells like woodburning." .. 'Yeah, that's wood we're burning!'.. "Right. But I mean woodburning, like where you make pictures with a hot tool thing. It's art." Apparently, not many people have been exposed to the world of woodburning, which I just learned is called pyrography (Isn't that cool Danny!) So those who were lucky enough to get one of Grandpa's woodburnings, hold onto them because we'll have to explain what they are to our children and I can't even explain it to my husband.. They're beautiful pictures. My Grandpa's looked just as good or better than the ones in the links. The other memory I have of my Grandpa is they would come out when we'd arrive to visit from California and Grandpa would stoop down and give me a big hug.
Jake's Grandpa is on his way out of this life. We left the Uintas early in the afternoon to make a trip up to Logan so Jake could say goodbye in case it was his last chance. It was sad. He's had alzeimers for quite some time now and isn't the same guy they've always known. It really was heartbreaking to see Jake say goodbye. His Grandpa is already gone in so many ways, but to loose someone is always hard. (I'm writing this after the fact, and he is doing better now and may stick around a little longer afterall.) Emotions definately run stronger when you're pregnant.
I'm grateful for wonderful Grandparents. They truly enrich our lives so much and become so much of who we are.
I'm also grateful for great parents who went the extra mile so often so we have so many wonderful family memories and I know how to start a fire and set up a tent. They're going to make incredible grandparents and I can't wait to see it!
