Christmas Vacation

    We were so excited to be able to spend our Christmas vacation with our Deuel side of the family for Christmas. We got to stay with my in laws, as well as enjoy time with Grandma Deuel, and a few visits with uncles Bob & Tom (yes, those are their real names. Awesome huh?) We ate TONS of delicious food, enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL weather, and just overall enjoyed getting away from life for 11 days.

Are these temps even allowed in December? I sure wish they were in Utah!!

On Sunday after church, Ry and I decided to take a walk on the beach & the pier. Although everyone else on the beach was wearing a jacket, I was basking in the 60 degree day and enjoying the sunshine! 

The family took me to my first professional hockey game. They are all big fans of the LA Kings and it was fun to have the experience. It was SO loud though, and baby was probably wondering what the heck was happening! The team lost in the last half, but they still played well (I think, but what do I know!)

 After the game ended they had a pyrotechnics & laser light show to celebrate the holidays. It was pretty fun to watch too. A fun way to end the night!

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love animals. Like, borderline obsession. Especially small animals, cause I'm totally obsessed with tiny things. So Ryan made sure to take me to the tidepools so I could go "be one with nature" and frolic among all the fun critters. The sun was really bright, so I couldn't take many pictures because the sun kept reflecting on the water's surface. It was still fun though and again, it was a beautiful day!!

    On Christmas, baby woke me up by moving around a lot. And I felt him having hiccups for the first time. That was his gift to me I guess. It was fun! I caught some of his movements on video, but he always did the bigger movements when I would turn the camera off on my phone. Of course. I tried to load a tiny clip on here, but it won't work. Fail! Oh well. Life goes on. 

    Ry and I made a big Christmas breakfast for everyone, carrying on my family's tradition. My mom's parents started in, and my parents continued it, and now we are hoping to continue it in our family too. We do orange julius, scrambled eggs, orange or cinnamon rolls, and tator tots wrapped in bacon. SOOO YUMMY!! Not to mention it has always been my Christmas breakfast, so it's a comfort thing too. After breakfast, we opened presents which of course is always fun! Everyone received amazing things, and it was so much fun to watch everyone get so excited for their presents. Later we had a delicious feast made by Grandma Deuel of ham, potatoes, rolls, veggies, and homemade cheesecake. It was divine! A magical Christmas. 

    One of the other highlights of the trip was doing a session with Ryan at the LA Temple. I had walked the grounds years before with some friends, but hadn't ever been inside. It's fun to experience the different temples and enjoy their beauty. 

    We loved our vacation, most especially spending time with family. We are SO grateful to have them in our lives. We know that we are truly blessed to call them family. Especially me, since I know that not everyone is able to say that about their in laws. We may not be related through blood, but I sure love them as much as my own family!!

                                           

Winter is upon us

    Winter is fully upon us now! I don't HATE the snow, but it isn't my favorite thing either. Especially when driving. I feel pretty confident in my driving abilities, but I DON'T have confidence in the drivers around me. I swear, every year people forget how to drive in the snow. They may have grown up here in Utah and driven in the snow for years, but somehow by the first snowfall each year they forget all of their snow-driving-memories. Retards. Anyway, we've had a few snow storms that have each dumped quite a bit of snow, but for the most part it hasn't been too bad weather wise. With one of the first storms, we woke up to find like 8 inches of snow on our car. We dug it out so we could go to work, and then at the end of the work day we went out to find the car buried in snow again. Isn't winter fun?

(Giant icicle from our next door neighbor's roof)

    This month went by really fast for us. Each year at work (we both work at a mental health office) the case managers and therapists review their clients' needs and find those that have no family or support system in place to give them a Christmas. They then fill out wish lists and those are submitted to the committee chair. I'm the co-chair, and this was my second year doing it. Once the lists are all turned in, they are adopted out to various people. Usually these people are employees, local organizations, church members, etc. Any clients that aren't adopted out are adopted by work. This year, we had 149 wish lists. Only 18 didn't get adopted and needed to be sponsored by work. The chair and I worked together to fill those 18 lists so those clients would also get Christmas. The whole project is massive and takes LOTS of time & organization. Most of that is done behind the scenes, so other employees have NO idea how much work is involved. It is a rather rewarding program to be so closely involved in, and I'm grateful to have been a part of it. I will say though it was MUCH easier doing it last year when I wasn't pregnant! My body tires out much easier, and I can't do the heavy lifting and such that is sometimes required. So I had to ask for help for things that normally I could do by myself, and that was frustrating. But since there's a good reason for it, I couldn't get too frustrated with it. At least I tried not to anyway. :) I loved doing it, and will love it even more once it's done! ;)

    This year for Christmas we decided to save money and do homemade gifts instead of buying them. So after talking to a friend who makes beautiful embroidery hoops for her Etsy shop, I decided to try making some myself. And I think they turned out great! I was so happy with them! Here are the ones that I remembered to take pictures of. 

 
 

    

There are two others, the one for Ryan and the one for Grandma Deuel that I forgot to take pictures of, but oh well. I plan on making one for Baby's room too once I can decide on a quote for it. As for making these, they went a lot faster than I expected. I started back before Thanksgiving thinking I wasn't going to be able to get them all done in time, but I didn't have a time crunch at all! That made me much feel a lot less stressed, especially with all of the Christmas stuff I was already involved in at work. 

Can't wait for the holidays!!

November

    November has been a fun month for us. Closer to the beginning of the month, we had our 21 week ultrasound. That was the anatomy scan, to make sure that baby is growing healthy and developing correctly. He passed with flying colors. I just started feeling him move at the beginning of week 20, and it's not very regular. We were hoping to see him moving all around on the ultrasound, but he's just not a very active guy! We did get to see him yawn which was really cute. We're glad that he's growing on target and is healthy!

    My mom, sister & niece came out for a few weeks near the end of the month. They stayed with us for one weekend of that and up north in Ogden with my mom's family for the rest of the time. When they were down visiting us, one of the things we did was take them to the Provo Recreation Center. My niece Heidi LOVES water, and the rec center has a big kiddie pool area for her to enjoy. She loved splashing and playing in the kiddie area, but loved the foam and bubbles found in the little lazy river more. Every time we went around, when she started to see the bubbly area she'd start yelling "Bubbles!! MORE BUBBLES!!". It was so funny. Since Ryan and I were playing with her while my sister rested, everyone kept telling us how beautiful she is, and that was almost always followed by "But where does she get her red hair??" Apparently two brunettes can't have a redheaded kid in the eyes of the world! Tragic. I guess we shouldn't hope for redheads in our kids, cause no one would believe that they were ours! Anyway, she loved the water so much that when we tried to get her out of the water to leave, she would start to cry. Finally when her lips started having a bluish tint my sister played what she calls the "mean mom card" and made her get out in spite of the tears. We took her home and got her bathed, then hung around the house playing her silly games and dancing to her favorite song, "What Does The Fox Say".

              

 

    For Thanksgiving, Ryan and I drove up to Ogden to stay with my Aunt and spend the time with my mom's family. We had such a great time with them! Thanksgiving was a fun day, starting with setting up the rooms at the church for eating, then a quick volleyball game with the cousins. That is not an easy game to play when pregnant! My hustle sucked! Haha. The food was delicious, and we of course stuffed our faces. It was good to see family that I haven't seen in a long time and catch up with them. We all opted not to do any Black Friday shopping, so we got to enjoy that night just lounging rather than going out to get in lines at the various stores. I don't think that my bladder would have agreed with waiting in long lines, even if I had wanted to go. Which I didn't. So it all worked out!
    On Saturday my sister and I went out to have a "sister date" for breakfast, and I thought that's all it was. When we were finished eating and she asked if we could run a few errands, I figured she was enjoying the quiet time away from Heidi for awhile. Once we got back to my Aunt's house and walked inside, I quickly learned that she was just buying time for everyone to set up a surprise baby shower! It was so sweet of my family to do that! We worked on quilting a blanket that my Aunt & Grandma made, all while enjoying the good company and yummy treats. Then I got to open the presents my family had bought/made for us, which is always fun! Even though I had just seen them all a few days ago, it was nice to be able to catch up and also pick the brains of my aunts & grandma about becoming a mom. I learned a lot through their stories. I'm so grateful for a family that loves me! Below is the finished product! It's the cutest set of animals that my Aunt found, enlarged, and traced onto the fabric so we could end up with such a cute quilt. I'm sure that baby will love it too!

    We were sad to say goodbye to everyone, especially my mom, sister & Heidi since they live so far away. But knowing that we'll see them again in a few months for the baby blessing eases the sadness a little.

Weeks 14-16

So as far as the pregnancy goes, there’s not really anything new to report. Everything has still been pretty easy breezy! I do have more acid reflux than normal, but since I’ve been dealing with that since the 4^th grade (yes, literally) it’s not a big deal. The one thing that has started becoming a problem is my tailbone. I’m pretty sure it’s due to the fact that it was broken in my car accident, but I think in my mind I wasn’t expecting so much pain this early on!! I ordered a coccyx cushion (a special seat cushion that has a cutout where the tailbone is to relieve all pressure) to see if it would help, but so far I haven’t been blown away by it. Sometimes it helps, but more often than not it just changes the pain from one area to another. Since I’m a secretary, I’m sitting all the time. Not such a good thing when it feels like you have a broken tailbone all over again!! Unfortunately it seems to be the worst at church. Sitting on those pews just does NOT feel very good. I can make it through the first 2 hours before I have to go home and lay down to give my back a break. It’s frustrating, but of course I can’t complain when I’ve had such an easy time with everything else so far!

On Friday, we got to have the optional early gender scan and found out that we’re having a BOY!!! All along I haven’t really cared what we were having as long as they are healthy, but I have had a feeling that it’s a boy. Ryan on the other hand was absolutely convinced that it would be a girl. That’s what he was really hoping for, so it may have clouded his guessing ability. Haha. However, he’s just as excited as I am that we’re having a boy first. That means any girls that come later will have a big brother! We’ve talked about several names, and have a few that we both really like. We’ve come to the decision together that we won’t completely choose a name until we see him. Then we’ll know for sure. We hope. It was so fun to see his little profile and watch him wiggle a bit. I’m still not far enough along to feel him move yet, so it was fun seeing him move on the ultrasound. I was hoping he’d be moving a lot, but at least we got to see some wiggles. That’ll be good enough until I actually can feel him in there! At this stage (16 weeks) he’s about 4.5 inches long and around 3.5oz. Roughly the size of an avocado. In the next few weeks he’s supposed to double in size. Talk about growing pains! I know that’s how it’s supposed to go, but if you think about it, that’s a lot of growing. Can you imagine doubling in size in the space of a few weeks? Holy cow.

Hopefully in my next pregnancy post I’ll get to talk about feeling him move! My fingers are crossed that it happens soon, cause I’m just not very patient! J

Finally public with our baby!!

Here are the pictures we did for our pregnancy announcement. We think they turned out so cute! Thanks so much Laura for sharing your time and talents with us. You're the best!

Week 13

      Every Friday is the start of a new pregnancy week for me. It makes it easy to keep track! And since that is the slowest day for me at work, and Ryan is free after his morning classes, it also makes for a perfect day to have our OB appointments. Currently, we have our OB appointments every 4 weeks. Since our last appointment was at 9 weeks when I was freaking out, our next appointment fell at 13 weeks. Since that was technically when we finished the first trimester, we figured once we heard from the OB that all was good and well, we’d finally announce to everyone outside of the few that knew about our little peanut. We got to the appointment only to find that the OB had been called out to a c-section, and learned that there was a chance we wouldn’t be able to see her until the next week. I was so bummed!! I’ve discovered that I’m not very good at keeping secrets since I’ve wanted to tell the world pretty much since we found out. Each time we had a scare I was glad that everyone didn’t know, but then once those moments passed I was back to wanting to share the news. They were able to give us a call when the OB returned to the office, so we did get to see her after all.
      We talked about how things have gone, and I asked how they choose the date for a c-section, since I know I need to have one. (Due to the nature of my injuries from that car accident, as well as the titanium screw I have in my pelvis, my pelvis can’t open the way it should to deliver a baby. My orthopedic surgeon from the accident told me it was extremely important for me to inform any OB I worked with of this so as not to endanger the baby or myself during delivery.) She said that she wasn’t aware that I needed one and asked me to explain why. I told her all about it, and that I had gone over all of that with the nurse practitioner at my initial visit to their office. Apparently she didn’t think that was important enough to write down. Odd, right? Anyway, I pulled up a picture of my pelvic x-ray right after the accident to show her as an illustration to why a c-section was necessary. She said that she delivers lots of babies and she thinks it would be worth a shot to try a regular delivery, especially since she can turn to a c-section as a last resort if necessary. Hmmm. Ok wait a second. I understand that there are risks associated with having a c-section. But in my case there are also risks associated with having a vaginal delivery! It could re-break my pelvis!  Um, no thank you. Maybe she’s presenting that as an option because she really thinks it would be better to go that route. Maybe she’s suggesting it because she prefers those deliveries over c-sections. Well, I’ll go somewhere else if you don’t want to do my surgery, lady. I did sign a release of information so they can get everything from the hospital in Texas and she can review everything further. She wants to have an orthopedist here take a look at the scans and give a second opinion to what I was given years ago. I’m ok with her looking into different options and getting a second opinion. But what it comes down to is what feels right and best for me and my baby, and anyone who knows me knows that I will not be shy in sharing that opinion. So we’ll see what happens. She may take one look at everything in person and say there is no way she would try anything but a c-section. Time will tell.
      My symptoms have returned, so I constantly have to go to the bathroom again. When it happens in the middle of the night, I play a time game with myself. If it’s within an hour to an hour and a half of when I’m supposed to wake up for work, I tell my bladder it’s out of luck and it has to wait. Otherwise I drag myself out of bed and go. I guess that is just preparing me for later in my pregnancy when it gets worse as well as once Baby is here and I never sleep again! Haha. I still haven’t had many cravings, but the one that keeps popping up is the need for popcorn. Movie theater popcorn would be ideal, but since we don’t go to the movies often (and popcorn there is waaaay expensive) I just have to do with regular popcorn. It works well enough.
      I started to show a little around 11 weeks, and my little bump is continuing to grow. I can’t wait until I feel Baby move so that maybe I can finally actually feel pregnant!!
      We had a lot of fun taking some pregnancy announcement pictures, and even more fun finally announcing to everyone. Yay for happy times!! Thanks to everyone for being excited with us!! :)

Week 8 thru 12

      Starting at week 8, the few symptoms I had completely disappeared. So of course, being me, I started to freak out that something was horribly wrong. Having those scares at the beginning left me a little on edge that we were just playing a waiting game for everything to come crashing down on us. After worrying and fretting and everything for a full week, I called the OB’s office and explained everything that was happening. Since it had been my primary care doctor that had ordered the tests and ultrasounds in the beginning (I wasn’t “established” yet  at that point with the OB, so they wouldn’t do it) they decided to have me come in for an appointment the following day (9 weeks to the day) instead of waiting 2 weeks for my scheduled appointment. I was a wreck at work, worrying that we were going to discover that I had experience a missed miscarriage. For those of you who don’t know what that is, I’ve decided that it’s even worse than a regular miscarriage. What happens is your baby stops developing, but your body still thinks it’s pregnant. All of your symptoms will continue (usually), and the only way to find out what’s happened is when you go to your next OB appointment and get an ultrasound. So there you are thinking that you’ll get to see your baby, only to discover that your baby stopped growing weeks ago. Isn’t that horrid???
      So we went to the appointment (after basically having to move mountains for Ryan to be there) and we explain to the doctor what was going on. She had me lay down and tried to find the heartbeat with the doppler (a type of ultrasound wand that just picks up sound but has no picture). She tried and tried but couldn’t find it. So of course at this point my anxiety went from high to through the roof. They didn’t have any openings for an ultrasound right then, so we had to return in a hour and a half. Longest wait ever! Finally we went back and checked in for the ultrasound. The ultrasound tech at the OB office went off on this whole monologue on how she wasn’t going to be able to tell us anything and we would have to wait for the doctor to call with the results. So when she started we didn’t have an overly positive feeling, much less any hope for her to find our baby with a healthy heartbeat. When she started moving the wand around and brought our baby into view, we recognized the heartbeat right away (since we had seen it before and knew what to watch for). At that point the tech did verify that it was the heartbeat, and that everything looked great. She said that she had to tell us all that stuff at the beginning in case she DIDN’T find the heartbeat, but since it was there she could tell us everything. Baby was measuring exactly 9 weeks (perfect) and had a healthy heartbeat of 150 bpm. She printed out some pictures of Baby, which is included below. Picture a gummy bear laying on its side facing you, with the head to the right of the picture, and you might be able to figure out what you are looking at. After that appointment, even though my symptoms didn’t return, I could look at that picture and feel peace.

Our little gummy bear!!

Yay! We're having a baby!!! Positive test thru week 8

     We got our positive test a few days before my missed period. I had used a dollar store test and got a very faint positive, so I was convinced it was a fluke. I tested again the next day with a better known test and low and behold it was positive, just like the first!! Ryan and I were both shocked because although we were hoping it would be positive, we were prepared for it to be negative. It took awhile for it to sink in. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure it has sunk in even now!
     Our first scare happened when I was just over 5 weeks, when I started having some symptoms of miscarriage. That resulted in several blood draws to track my HCG, and an early ultrasound. The ultrasound showed that everything looked like it was a week behind where I should have been according to my last period. The ultrasound tech said that was pretty normal, so we didn’t worry too much until the doctor called to review the results. She said that she was concerned that it wouldn’t be a “viable” pregnancy, and the only way to be sure was to have another ultrasound in a week to check for growth. Trust me, when you’ve already been crying truck loads of tears when you think you could be losing a baby you’ve wanted so long, the last thing you want to hear it the word “viable” (especially said in a questioning manner!). It made everything sound so sterile & mechanical. As the next few days passed, those scary symptoms decreased until they were completely gone.  We were happy about that, until they came back with a vengeance, which of course made everything much scarier. So at just over 6 weeks I again had more labs drawn, which showed the pregnancy hormone wasn’t increasing the way it should. Then we had the second ultrasound. We were terrified that there would be no growth, but instead we watched in amazement at the fluttering tiny, tiny heartbeat. I was too stunned to cry. Our ultrasound tech was amazing, and she kept going back to the heartbeat between taking the measurements necessary to determine gestational age. Turns out, baby just started out growing a little slower than expected, but caught up to exactly where it should be by the time of that ultrasound. That day was such a relief! We got some pictures of our tiny peanut and a shot video clip of the heart beating.
     I’ve not had any morning sickness, except two days when my stomach was upset. But no throwing up or anything. I know, any woman reading this that experienced that will probably hate me a little for that, but I just figure I paid my dues when I had a broken body after my first bad car accident and had to recover from that. Trust me; you’d want morning sickness over that! So try not to hate me too much. ;) My only symptoms have been a sore chest, bloating and having to go to the bathroom all of the time. If it weren’t for the ultrasounds I’d be wondering if I was really pregnant! I’ve only experienced a few small cravings, and nothing too crazy. The first was chips & salsa. But it had to be restaurant chips & salsa, nothing else would do. The other was I really wanted mint chocolate chip ice cream. That one only lasted two days, where as the chips & salsa one lasted for like 2 weeks. Mmmmmm. So yummy! I re-learned that chips & salsa does NOT help a bloating situation, but since I felt like my pants were too tight to button starting at week 5, it was still worth it!

Baked Artichoke Chicken Pasta Recipe

2-3 TB olive oil, divided
1/3 C yellow onion, diced
salt & pepper
4 cloves large garlic, thinly sliced
1 lb boneless & skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 tsp Italian seasoning, crushed
12 oz rigatoni pasta
3 TB butter
3 TB flour
3 C whole milk
pinch nutmeg
1 heaping C grated Parmesan cheese
12 oz artichoke hearts, quartered (use jarred, packed in oil & drained)
1 C mozzarella cheese, shredded

Instructions
1. In a large skillet heat a tablespoon or 2 of oil over medium heat and add the onions. Season with a dash of salt and pepper, cook 5 minutes, stirring often. Add garlic and saute until fragrant. Remove to a small bowl and set aside.
2. Season the chicken well with salt and pepper. In the same skillet heat another tablespoon of oil over medium heat and add the chicken. Cook through, stirring every few minutes so all sides get browned. Remove from heat.
3. Cook pasta to al dente in plenty of salted water. Meanwhile make the sauce and preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
4. In a medium saucepan melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook 3 minutes, whisking often. Slowly whisk in milk, bring to a simmer for 3 minutes, whisking often. Turn heat to low, whisk in nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt, 1/8 teaspoon black pepper, Italian Seasoning and the parmesan cheese. Turn off heat.
5. Generously butter a 9x13-inch casserole or baking pan. Drain pasta, add back to the pot and toss with the chicken and onion/garlic. Add about 3/4 of the sauce to the pasta and stir well. Pour into the casserole pan and spread out evenly.
6. Scatter the artichokes evenly over top then spoon the remaining sauce over them. Sprinkle with the mozzarella.
7. Bake 40 minutes until bubbly all over and golden on top. If the cheese starts to get too brown cover with aluminum foil. Allow to set 5 minutes before serving.
(Recipe found at: http://www.cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice.com/)


My notes:
1. If you follow the directions as written, everything gets done in a timely order. Don't start the noodles before it says otherwise they will probably get over-done or get cold. The sauce doesn't mix as well with cold noodles.
2. The first time I followed the directions for the artichokes as written, and it was good but Ryan and I didn't think the flavored blended with everything as well as it should have. So the second time around, I used our "Slap Chop" on the artichokes to make them much, much smaller. You could also use a knife and mince them as well. It turned out so much better that way! The overall taste of each bite was just right instead of some bites having large chunks of artichokes while other bites having nothing at all.
3. When I make this again, I think that I'm going to 1 1/2 the sauce recipe instead of doing it as is. This is why. I love to dip garlic bread or bread sticks into stuff like this. While we were able to do that with the bread sticks I served, I would have preferred to have the whole thing a bit more saucy. It would just add that extra little bit for my delicious bread sticks!

This recipe is seriously SO GOOD!!! It's probably my new favorite Italian dish. It does take some time to make (I'd guess about an hour and a half or so from start to finish) but it's actually quite simple. I'm not a chef by any means, so if I can do it I'm sure that you can! And you most definitely should!!! :)

Xoxo!

The Fabulous Month of July: Part Two

    So not only did we get to play with my family this month, we also got to spend a week with Ry's dad! See why our month has been so fun?? Papa Deuel flew in on Sunday night (the 21st). On Monday, we both worked so we didn't get to play that day but we made up for it that night. Because it was a full moon, Sundance Resort does a lift ride at night that we wanted to take dad on. It's the same ride that Ryan and I did the night we got engaged, just after he proposed. We had some time to kill after work before that started, so we decided to begin the evening by taking dad to dinner at a local Mongolian BBQ. Seriously, one of my favorite places to eat! Soooo good!! Once we had our fill, we took dad up Provo Canyon and made a stop at Bridal Veil Falls to let him take in that beauty. If you live in Utah County and haven't been up there recently, you should go! Right at the base of the waterfall, they've added a little fish pond type thing with a gazillion fish! They even have some dispensers that take a quarter and you get fish food pellets in return. Because they all want to eat, they swarm right up next to the rocks which allows you to stick your arm into the water and touch the fishies! Since I love animals, that sort of thing excites me. It was really fun, for real. Check out my fishy friends below!

    After I got my fill of the fish, we decided to go up to Deer Creek Reservoir to watch the sunset. It was beautiful!!!! It had dad saying that he wasn't sure he wanted to leave Utah. We'd be ok with that!! Haha.

       Magical, right? So pretty. After we left Deer Creek we went to Sundance for the lift ride. We had to wait maybe 15 minutes in line, then enjoyed the 50ish minute ride to the top and back. On our descent we noticed that the fairly short line we had to wait in had expanded almost to the road!! No 15 minute wait for those folks! Yeah, it's blurry but the lift chair wasn't holding still! Anyway, you can still see how long the line was! All in all, it was a lovely evening!

    On Tuesday we grilled up some chicken and made mashed potatoes, along with some biscuits. Then, we headed off to the Spanish Fork Fiesta Days Rodeo! Again, it was a lovely evening. It was sold out, and there was a lot of energy in the crowd. My favorite was the mutton bustin'. Seriously, those kids are so funny! Several of them rode their sheep backwards, which seemed to help them hold on for a bit longer. That's how the winner was riding, so I guess that really is the way to go!

We left right before the last riders went, so we were able to beat the rush of everyone leaving as well as the traffic jam. That made me very happy! Also, they kept mentioning how much the different riders made at the various rodeos that they competed at each season, and I was blown away. I mean seriously? They are essentially teenagers making up to 6 figures each season! Good grief! I want that kind of money! I'm sure it makes all the pain and such they can experience worth it, so I guess good for them. I'm still jealous though!

    Wednesday was Pioneer Day, so we had no work! Those are always exciting days. I made a big breakfast with a new recipe. Banana & Nutella Stuffed French Toast. It was good, but I think if I make it again I'd rather just add the bananas to the top for garnish. I discovered I'm not a big fan of heated bananas. After that we cleaned up and head up Hobble Creek Canyon to go shooting. Other than it sprinkling a little bit, the weather was perfect. It was overcast and the air was cool. Usually the spot we go shooting is pretty populated, but there was only 2 guys there besides us, which was great. Nothing like shooting without distraction!

We drove around the canyon a bit after we were done shooting to show dad the giant houses that are back there. I rode in the truck bed and loved having the wind in my hair! And I had unrestricted views of everything we were passing. So fun.

     We went home after that and took naps, then ate more yummy food, and decided to make funnel cakes and watch a movie. Ryan was our funnel cake chef and made fantastic & delicious cakes.

    Thursday I made Baked Chicken Artichoke Pasta, which was delicious. I'll post the recipe soon because I'd highly advise you making it too! Later that evening, we decided that dad needed some Hawaiian Shaved Ice. It has ice cream on the bottom, then the flavored ice, and topped with sweetened condensed milk that Ryan likes to call "frosting". It's so yummy.

   On Friday, we decided that we needed to go to Park City. We took the scenic route to get there, going through Big Cottonwood Canyon and over Guardsman's Pass.

It's a beautiful drive. Once we got to Park City, we chose this amazing BBQ joint to eat at. And oh boy was that an amazing choice!!! The food was delightful. Definitely a place we want to go back to!

We walked around some of the streets and the little shops before going home.

    Our last day with Dad was on Saturday. We took him to Kneader's to experience their fabulous french toast breakfast. We ate such yummy food while he was here!! After that we went over to the Provo Beach Resort and played some mini croquet. I had never played before and had a lot of fun. Dad ended up winning, which made him just happy as could be.

    We then went up to Salt Lake to walk around Temple Square. There is a log cabin that is over between the genealogy & church history building called the Deuel Cabin. Obviously, you can see why we would want to show that to dad. It's a pretty cool little piece of history. Ryan has done a lot of his family history work since becoming a member of the church, but never found the connection from his family line and the cabin. He's going to talk to my grandpa (who is like the family guru) and see if together they can figure it out. It'll be fun when they do! We also showed him some of the fun things in the different visitor centers & the tabernacle. Then we walked around the new City Creek Mall for a bit before taking him to the airport. We were sad to see him go, but again so grateful that we were able to have that time with him. Up til the end we were trying to convince him that retiring from the Fire Dept in California would be a good step for him, especially if he moved out this way. Haha. If we keep working on him, maybe it will happen!!
   
    July has been such a fun month for us. We're sad to have all of our family gone and not knowing for sure when we'll see them all again. But I do have to admit, it will be kind of nice to get back into our normal routine again. I'm a creature of habit and after so long I get the itch to get back to normal. Since I'm such a home body, it was nice to have the motivation to get out and do stuff. Maybe I'll have to start motivating myself to get out more often even without family being involved. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking...haha.

Xoxo!