Here are a few pictures of my belly through out the last couple of weeks, It is crazy how it has gone from a little bump to a Belly, mostly in between months 5 and 6. I am now 24 Weeks and 2 days along and there is no denying that I have a baby belly now! Its nice to get past the "chubby stage":) Paul has also been able to feel the baby move from the outside of my belly so that is pretty awesome!

Baby Face

As many of you know we found out we are having a baby GIRL three weeks ago, It was really fun to see her in the ultrasound! Everything is formed perfectly as far as we could see, so that was awesome! She still measures exact with her due date of Feb. 11, 2010! Here are a two of her first pictures :)

Here is her profile

Here is our little Goul picture, actually this is from the 3D ultrasound but the baby was really deep inside of me and it didn't work too well.

I have a few more, one of her hand and another one of her profile with her arm above her head, and of course the picture that show's she's a little girl, but I'm not going to put them on here.

We are really excited for our little girl to get here! 18 weeks left from today if I go to 40 weeks! :)

Jamin's mission farewell, Buying our first house, Fishlake, Having a baby, California and Camping, WOW!

So the title pretty much explains the other major events that have taken place this summer. After we went to New York we came home and went up north to see Jamin give his farewell talk. He's now on his mission in Mexico!

(This is horrible picture of me but a cute picture of Jamin so I'll post it)

The next major thing was that we bought a house! We have been fixing it up and trying to move everything in!

(our new house)

After we moved we went on our annual friends trip to Fish Lake and as always it was beautiful and fun to be with good friends.

(Me and Paul at the lake)

This next big thing was actually here the whole summer but was a secret until the second week in August, the secret was that we are going to have a baby! I am 16 1/2 weeks pregnant and find out what we are having on Sept 17th!

(here's me at 14 weeks)

After we announced to all the Family, We took a family trip with Paul's Family to San Diego and L.A., it was alot of fun!

(Family Pictures on the beach in Oceanside)

To cap off our summer experiences we went Camping this last weekend at Pine valley with Kevin and Charity and their cute kids, then we went to the Enterprise corn festival and bought some fresh corn! We will be eating it for the next couple of weeks I'm sure. ;) Those are pretty much all of the major things we did this summer! Its been a busy, crazy and an exciting summer!

(sitting by the camp fire)

(me and Charity)

(our cute niece and nephew posing for their mom, I think they've got this picture thing down)

part two of our eastern trip

the view from the top of the bunker hill monument in Boston

Us with Ben Franklin, who knew he was still around! (his breath was definately cryptic)

(bunker Hill Monument, yes we climbed that after walking the entire freedom trail, I was sore for days!)

(one of the many cemetarys in Boston)

(delicious Homemade icecream at christina's, my favorite was coconut butterfinger, yummy!)

Continuing on from my last post, here is what we did the rest of our trip back east. We hung out in Boston for Mothers day. The next day we went to New Hampshire and visited Paul's brother up there, we then went to Hampton, NH and saw the beach house that Paul's bro was helping fix up to live in, lucky for him! (me and Paul at David's work, the State House)

(dave looking across the ocean to England)

(me and Paul at Dave's Beach House, yes that is the ocean so close to our window)

the Atlantic Ocean

We spend the rest of our trip in Boston went to the Blue man group for our anniversary, that was fun! we walked the entire freedom trail and saw lots of historical sites.

we went to the aquarium,

We had such a awesome time on this trip!

The first of our summer adventures

So this summer has been crazy and looking back on it we have done so much and experienced so many new things. I wanted to recap on all of the big things we did this summer since I didn't post them on here.
The first major thing we did this summer was take a trip back east. We flew into Buffalo New York, then drove to Kirtland, OH and saw the temple there and the visitors center, we drove into Cleveland, OH looking for a grocery store. Who know that kirtland was so close to Cleveland!

(us in front of the Kirtland Temple)

Next we drove to Rochester, NY where we stayed while we visited Palmyra, NY and the Joseph Smith Farm and the Sacred Grove, we got to see Paul's Mission President and his wife who are the directors over the Palmyra sites, we also ran into a friend of mine from high school who was serving her mission out there. It was the first day of her transfer there, how lucky! (me and Paul at the Joseph Smith farm with the Palmyra Temple in the backround)

(Paul in the Sacred Grove)

The next day we drove back to Buffalo, NY and then we went to Niagara Falls and got to ride the maid of the mist and walk around the beautiful park! (us in right before the maid of the Mist)
The Next day we flew from Buffalo, NY into New York City. It was such a shock to go from sweet peaceful Palmyra and Niagara Falls to the hussle and bussel of New York City. With the help of a very nice subway driver who obviously sinced we were lost and stuck his head out of the subway to ask where we wanted to go, we made our way to the heart of the city and then got lost trying to find our hotel, we finally found it and then went and waited in line for tickets to a Broadway play, we saw Phantom of the Opera that night.
The next day we met up with Paul's sister and Bro in law and they showed us all around NY, they took us to a place with friets (Belgian frys), which I still crave by the way, (they put a gravy on homemade fry's with cheese that melts on them, yum!) That is where we learned that nearly nowhere in NY city takes debit or cedit cards! That was a little embarassing. We went to central park, the manhattan temple, Ground zero, a delicious hamburger place, the brooklyn bridge, Grimaldi's (the yummiest brickoven pizza!) we then went to get frozen yogurt and then we left NY at like 1 in the morning to drive to Boston.

(us in Central Park)

(us at the Manhattan Temple)

(us on the Brooklyn bridge)

Renovations!

So, as many of you know we have been moving into our house for the past three weeks now and we have painted our whole house, ripped up old linoleum, replaced door handles, cleaned out cabinets, and are about to re tile 1/3 of the house. It has been alot of work! I'm excited to see it all come together! So, along with those renovations it only seemed fair that we would have another drastic renovation, here is the picture of what we want to do.

In case you are still wondering what I mean by this, or are thinking what a stupid post! I will tell you that this will be a major life renovation and those feet definitely won't be twelve inches right off the bat (at least for my sake I hope not)! What I'm trying to say is that we are going to be parents in February!!! February 11th to be exact! This picture is how we broke the news to our parents. I saw a picture like this a while ago and always thought it was clever because it took me a few minutes to figure out. So if you are the one who posted that picture and I stole your clever idea, consider it a compliment! :) We are super excited and can't wait to find out what we are having! which should happen around the middle of September. So we will keep you posted!

Puppy Surprise

On Sunday me and Paul went to his parents house with his Brother Adam for dinner. After dinner Adam went home and to his surprise someone had tied a little Chihuahua looking dog to his front door with a bag of puppy chow. He went around to all of the neighbors to see if they knew where it came from but no one had seen it before. The leash was from a Veterinarian office in Las Vegas, so who knows! It is the sweetest dog, Adam brought it over and it crawled on my lap and fell asleep. Seriously so cute! Here's a picture.



Today Adam came over again and Paul introduced it to the Kitty, I guess they got along well... ha ha I love how you can tell how the kitty wants to make a break for it in this picture. Who knows maybe they will be a future Milo and Otis... :)

The Beautiful Arts!

So, I have been privileged the past two days to attend Paul's concerts for both Band and Choir. I really feel blessed to have him involved at school in both and that he is able to continue to develop his musical abilities.
All growing up I viewed band concerts as a torture that you only went for the sole purpose of supporting the person who was in the band. However, I have really come to love going to the college band concerts and look forward to the next one. The Concerts have found a place in me I guess. It will be a sad day when Paul is all done with them, hopefully he can find a local one to play in to keep up his skills.

(Soap Box/Aryn's Epifany...feel free to tune out)
I have decided however, that too many people let that part of them die when they move on from school. I have come to realize what a privilege it is to have Art museums, Band & Choir Concerts, Plays, Dance recitals, etc. in our communities. Having the arts around us really illuminates the beauty of the world that we live in! I've always been passionate about the arts but recently the resources around me have made my passion for them catch fire! So, I hope that everyone can realize that there is always an opportunity for us to attend something locally that will uplift us and awaken our inner artists!

Okay back to Paul's Concerts, His band concert was amazing! They performed eight songs and if you have the time, Click on this link to www.songza.com to listen to them yourself, I would recommend it! My favorites were Raging Machines composed by Brian Balmages ( this song intreged me), Four of a Kind composed by Jack Bullock, I couldn't find a recording of this that did it justice (this made me want to break out some swing dancing!), All those Endearing Young Charms composed by Simone Mantia (A classic! and the Trumpet Soloist got her decree from Burklee School of Music in Boston, MA, she was absolutely amazing! it was really beautiful!), Rhapsody in Blue (I'm sure you have all heard this one, but hearing it at a concert was just amazing! The Pianist that soloed was really talented! Totally perfect! How do they remember 10 minute or longer songs! I have a hard time remembering the top hand of hymns! :) They also premiered for the first time in the United States, (or so they told us) a new composition called Concerto for Timpani and Band This one wasn't my favorite but the drummer was super talented and the song was enjoyable. Now the dreaded conclusion, I have spent my whole life avoiding becoming a Band geek by never taking a band class, and now look at me I'm blogging about movements and composers! :)

Anyways, I guess I should save the rest of my thoughts for some future paper on honoring the Arts that only a teacher would take the time to read :), but I just wanted to share my excitement for my newly burning passion, and hope everyone finds something beautiful around them so they enjoy life a little more fully!

Recipe experiment... yay!!!

So yesterday, I had the urge to make up a new recipe and take pictures along the way. So I looked for things in my fridge that I had, that I thought would go good together. I had asparagus, bacon (left over from our camping trip), frozen chicken, and cream cheese (left over from making Chicken Enchiladas) So I originally wanted to make asparagus with bacon wrapped around a few of them, but then decided to do them all together when I did a internet search for the ingredients, I found a few recipes for asparagus in chicken, wrapped in bacon. It sounded delicious, but I was missing some key ingredients so I decided to make it my own and forget about the recipe.
So my first step was to cook the asparagus in butter with fresh garlic, then after the asparagus got nice and green.


I pounded out the chicken, I put grated Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, and Italian Seasoning on the inside of the chicken, then the asparagus and then some cream cheese.


I rolled it all up and wrapped it in bacon. Put them on a tin foiled pan and bake it at 375 for about 40 minutes. then on broil for the bacon for about 2 minutes.


It turned out totally delicious and it wasn't really that hard, the best part was that most of the bacon grease melted onto the pan and not all over the chicken, so even though this recipe was probably a weight watchers nightmare, it didn't seem greasy at all!

This recipe didn't take that long and looked totally gourmet. :)


For a side I decided to use the rest of the bacon (only one piece) and the asparagus. So I chopped up the asparagus cooked it with the bacon and a little water to steam it. Then I cooked about a cup of Macaroni noodles. After the water had dissolved out of the asparagus, I added a can of corn and browned it, then I mixed the macaroni, asparagus, bacon, and corn in a bowl, I cooled it down in the freezer and added a little mozzarella and Parmesan cheese and some zesty Italian salad dressing. It went well with the bacon, asparagus chicken. So it made for a great meal and it was fun experimenting!

First camping trip of the year!!

So, this weekend me and Paul went camping for the first time this year! We went to Red Cliffs with our friends, Brian & Lindsey& their 7 month old baby, Mike, Brett and Janell. Mike, Brett and Janell didn't camp with us but came up for dinner. We ate dutch oven potatoes, Chicken and of course Smores. Everything was delicious and the weather wasn't too bad either, as long as we kept close to the fire, we were just fine and once we were in our tent we were really warm.
So we had a great time visiting with everyone for dinner. Sleeping in our tent was perfect and we were pretty comfortable. Brian and Lindsey were worried how there daughter would do on her first camping trip and she actually slept through the entire night and woke up happy!
In the morning we woke up to the voice of the Ranger, telling us that we couldn't camp next to the river because it was a flood plain and not even a camp site, who would have thought, we thought it was perfect. I guess last year there were "20 foot waves" crashing over the bridge by our campsite. :) So, I guess we are lucky that we got to the campsite late and didn't get kicked out last night. :) All in all, it was a fabulous trip and I'm looking forward to doing it a lot this summer. So if anyone wants to join us, give us a hollar! :)

California Trip

(Katie on the Balcony of our Villa, on a clear day you would be able to see the Ocean but it was really foggy everyday we were down there!)

California Trip
So me and Paul went to California a couple of weeks ago for New Years and to visit Paul's Grandpa. We went with my Sister in Law Kim and her Husband Brian, there two Children Katie and Brogan, My sister in Law Laura and her hubby Jared, Paul's parents and Paul's Brother Jon.
The Trip was a lot of fun! Lucky for us Brian works for Marriott and got to go to the Newport Coast villas and stay for free and we got to go with them.

The First night down there me and Paul went exploring at the resort, we found the Ping pong tables and Giant Chess Set, the Pools and Hot tubs and then we played Basketball on there outside court, then we played Miniature golf on there mini putting green. They also had a big Fire pit going that people were sitting around. It was really fun to have all of these things right at our resort.

After that we went back to our villa which included a full kitchen, dinning room, front room, , two bedrooms, two bathrooms one of which had a jacuzzi tub and a walk in double headed Shower, and two balconies! Me and Paul found something on the back of our bedroom closet door that said this room goes for $800 a night! wow! I'm sure thankful Brian works for Marriott!(here is our Villa, This was taken on the last day, so everything is messy, should have taken pic's after house keeping :))

The second day we entered into an Iron Chief Competition at the Resort. The secret ingredient was Water Chestnuts. So we went to the store and got the other ingredients and had to rush back to the Villa to make everything in 1 hour. So me, Laura, Jared and Paul made a dish and Kim and Brian made another one. We made a Chicken Alfredo with broccoli, Carrots, Water Chestnuts, Garlic, Ginger, Mushrooms, Onions, and Chicken and put it over egg noodles. It turned out pretty good! Laura came up with the idea from a recipe she made in her crock pot! good thinking Laura! Kim and Brian made a Asian Style salad with Water chestnuts and Chinese crunchy noodles on top. Theirs was delicious and won first place for Taste! They won a Marriott mug. Katie thought it was pretty exciting! :) So that was a lot of fun!
(Here is our creation!)

We went shopping a lot while we were down there and of course I came to a Victoria Secret Store where all of their fragrance and makeup was 75% off! So, needless to say I spend money on things that smell delicious but I don't really need.

On new years day we went to Paul's grandpa's Home where he is staying in Laguna Beach. We visited with Paul's family, uncle Don and Aunt Susan, there children were visiting from Pennsylvania - Savanna and her husband, and Iowa - Channelle and her Husband. and Aunt Gwen and Uncle Jay, and there Children Talon and Ali and her husband and two kids. They were visiting from Temucula, CA and up by San Francisco. Uncle Jimmy was there as well as his Son Mike and his Girlfriend Sue. (I hope I got all of those names right) anyways, after playing the Chimes at Grandpa's Home we all went out to eat and enjoyed a nice dinner visiting one another.(all the Men & boys with mustaches and Berets)

(Santa (Jay) came to visit Grandpa, sorry its so blurry)

The next day we went to the beach and walked around a little before heading for home.

(a panoramic view of Laguna Beach)(Another picture of the Beach, I love the beach! I think I could be happy being a beach bum, it is just so beautiful and relaxing!)

(The city portion of Laguna Beach, in Panoramic view)

(Kim and Brian, Katie and Brogan on the beach, What a lovely Family)

The whole trip was a lot of fun, I enjoyed spending time with Paul and his family and appreciate all that they did to help us have such a great time.

Christmas Time!

(here is a Christmas Card Paul designed and created for us, but we didn't get around to sending it out, But I thought it was pretty cool looking so I thought I would post it)

For Christmas we stayed here and had our own Christmas morning, then went to Paul's Brother Adam and his wife Dominique's house for Christmas with Paul's family. As always we had the usual funny gifts and of course the nice ones. I love Paul's Family Christmas because there is always some gift that makes me laugh into tears! This year it had to be the old Reindeer hoof that Dori lovingly wrapped in a brown paper bag and gave to Dale with a label that said, To Dale. love, Rudolf. I guess this hoof has been circulating throughout Paul's Family for a while and I don't really know the whole story or inside joke behind it but the shear randomness of the gift made me laugh until I cried!

(Paul on Christmas)(Me and Paul after a very, very long and wonderful Christmas Day!)

(our annual Friend Christmas party, Alan, Eric, Kim, Steve, Teigan, Brian, Lindsey, Halie, Mike and me and Paul all showed up and we had a good time, we were sad not everyone could make it, maybe next year)

Christmas was wonderful and as always it was over before far too soon. Of course if you look at the weight I gained from all the goodies, it lasted long enough! That's the blessing of New years resolutions! I'm focused this year to keep my goals and continuously set new ones. I think this year is going to be a year to remember! :) At least I'm going to try to make the most of it!