The District

From July 1-18 I was able to take an amazing trip to visit my family in Washington D.C. Over the past few years my family has been meeting up in Utah for most of our visits, so I had not been back east for over 2 years! It was long overdue, and an incredible few weeks. One of my big reasons for going out was saying goodbye to my baby brother Jacob who left on his mission to Guatemala City, and my dad who is leaving tomorrow for Afghanistan for 9 months.

Day 1

I flew out on the first and I was greeted at the airport by my parents who I had not seen since Thanksgiving and my siblings who I had not seen since last August, almost a whole year! We went back to my parent's apartment and I got to see our little dog Molly. She just might be the funniest dog I have ever met and we all love her to pieces.

Day 2

We went to lunch, did some shopping with my mom and sister while my dad took Jake to his final interview for his mission. Then we all went out to dinner and then we saw Toy Story 3. It was seriously adorable, and by this time I was already feeling very spoiled! Out to eat twice in one day, shopping, and movies are not exactly part of our daily routine in Minnesota!

Day 3

We went and saw the movie Grown Ups, it was pretty funny. Then we all went to a Washington National's baseball game. It was looking pretty dismal until some amazing plays in the 8th and they ended up scoring the winning run in the bottom of the 9th. After the game my mom and sister and I hit up the mall and did some major clothes shopping. I actually have lots of cute maternity clothes to wear now!

On a side note, my little sister has a boyfriend back home in Provo and my little brother has a "friend" that he dated for a while until he came home to prepare for his mission. The girlfriend title may not be there, but the sappy attitude and constant texting still were!

On another side note, last year after my little brother moved to provo, my parents put their house up for rent and moved to a one bedroom apartment in the city. It works perfectly for them, and having three extra people there was a little cramped but really fun.

It did however pose a problem for two of the people in the apartment. The lack of privacy led my younger siblings to extraordinary measures. The only two rooms you can be alone in are the kitchen(which has a door) and the bathroom. They each took turns using the kitchen to skype with their significant others.

Yes that is an air mattress my little brother pulled in the kitchen, and both of these pictures were taken after 1 in the morning! This is what I dealt with EVERY night!

Day 4

The 4th of July was an exciting day for us! We went to church and then after my little brother Jake was set apart as a missionary in the Guatemala City South mission. It was a wonderful blessing and I am so grateful that I was able to be there with him.

Later that night we went downtown to see the fireworks. It was a madhouse! The fireworks were great though, and my parents live close enough that we decided to bypass the crowds and the metro and we walked home after.

Day 5

We spent most of the day packing Jake up. We went out for a last meal with him to the Cheesecake Factory, and mostly tried to enjoy our last day with him for 2 years!

Day 6

The bittersweet day was here! We took Jake to the airport and said goodbye to him for 2 years. It was a hard day but an exciting one as well. These next two years will be the best of his life so far and I am so proud of him for making such great choices. I still can't believe that my baby brother is a missionary!

Good lucky baby brother! We love you!

Day 7

My sister and I relaxed, and watched a lot of terrible/awesome tv. Why are there so many shows about Jersey on these days? We also brought out our inner nerds and played some awesome computer games. Oh yeah my parents apartment building caught on fire! We thought the alarms were a drill at first but while going down 16 flights of stairs we started smelling smoke and then firefighters passed us and I got a little nervous. It was a minor fire and taken care of quickly, but there were about 6 fire trucks and ambulances outside. At least we got some fresh air!

Day 8

Sister Spa day! Julie and I went to lunch and then we went to get manicures and pedicures. We had a delightful time being pampered and having some bonding time.

And we can't forget about our other sister that we played with a lot that day!

We love Miss Molly

Jake also entered the MTC. My brother Jordan, his wife Aubrey, and their son Kaden took him along with my grandparents. We all wanted to be there but we were glad that Jake had family in Utah to take him.

Lets end there for today shall we. I will post days 9-18 soon!

DC

I know ,I know it has been forever since I last blogged! I am currently in the middle of a two week stay with my parents in Washington DC. We just sent off my little brother Jacob on his two year church mission to Guatemala City. I just celebrated my 25th birthday tonight by going to Mary Poppins at the Kennedy center, and we have been keeping very busy with many adventures. I am apart from Justin who had to stay back in Minnesota for work, but he is flying out here to meet up with my on Wed night. I am feeling great and I have to admit that I really love being pregnant. I just can't believe that I am 25 weeks already! I have been posting lots of pictures of my trip on facebook but I thought I would post the link to the album on the blog so here it is

Jessica's trip to DC

And I guess it is time for a shot of my pregnant self so here you go

I just happened to turn 25 years old and I am 25 weeks along!

That is all for now! More to come soon!!!!

It's A ......

I have so many things to blog about like the awesome trip to Chicago we took last week, camping with our friends, being pregnant, the LOST finale, etc... but this is too fun not to blog about first.

We went in for our first ultrasound today. It was so amazing to see our little baby moving around! Everything was there and in the right place, and everything looks really healthy. We were thrilled to finally be seeing our baby but of course we also were dying to know the gender. We were basically convinced for some reason that we were having a boy. Everyone thought it was a boy and Justin and I just sort of pictured ourselves with a boy, but we really had no preference, that is just what we were thinking. Low and behold there were no boy parts to be found, and our baby is a little GIRL! We were both pretty surprised but we couldn't be happier. We can't believe that we are going to have a daughter! My emotions have already changed so much just knowing about our little girl and dreaming of princess dress ups, barbie dolls, and playing house. I am all girl through and through so I can't wait for a little play mate. After the doctor's we went a picked out a little something for our soon to be very spoiled princess. All in all it was a fabulous day and we can't wait to meet our girl. And no, we don't have any names picked out yet! We are very indecisive and we might just let her pick when she turns 5!

Here is our baby girl

Here she is facing down, and a view of her spinal cord.

Here is her first little dress and shoes.

(getting them on a great sale helps too!)

10/21/10

October 21, 2010

That would be my due date.

Watch out world, we are going to be parents,

and we could not be more thrilled.

P.S. Thanks for holding my pee stick so I could get a cute picture of you honey.

Hello Again

Well hello blog world. It has been far too long since I have updated this here blog, and for that I am sorry. I have not even blogged about Thanksgiving, Christmas, or anything after that. I want to catch up, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing so, so I think I might try this in one post.

Here goes...

My parents came out for Thanksgiving. We looked at sculpture gardens, went to the Mall of America, had a huge homemade dinner made from scratch by my mother and I, ate juicy lucy's at Matt's Bar, went to the Spaghetti Factory, saw the Holidazzle parade, and braved Black Friday. Their stay was too short but we loved seeing them and taking them around our city.

In early December we got free tickets to a Jazz game, had great seats (we may or may not have snuck down low) and visited our friends who had a suite. Jazz lost but it was a nice night out.

Then it was finishing work and finals and then taking off for Christmas. We spent two weeks in Utah with Justin's family this year. We had a lot of fun, played lots of cards, ate lots of food, went to lots of family parties, and watched lots of movies. It was great to have the whole family together. We got so spoiled from both of our families this year (not that I am complaining). It was great to be back in Logan. It is just so familiar and we have a lot of memories there, not to mention some of my favorite places to eat ever! We also drove to Salt Lake one day and spent some time with Jordan, Aubrey, and Kaden. It was really good to see them and of course that kid melts my heart!

Oh and did I mention that our memory card completely crashed the day after Christmas and we lost all of our pictures? I was a little traumatized over losing 1,000 plus pictures, but life moves on. Here is my cute nephew though (taken after a new memory card was given to us at Best Buy, after learning that there was nothing they could do to save our old one)

This kid loves to Skype. He is fascinated by it and gets the biggest grins talking to Grandma and Grandpa and Molly dog.

And of course I made Justin take our "show us what you got for Christmas" picture that both of our moms made us take every year (minus a few things that we forgot to put in the pictures)

Upon arriving home after Christmas we made it our goal to get through all 5 season of LOST before the new season began and we did it. We almost watched it every night after work and school. This was my view every night for approximately 2 months.

One of my Christmas presents from Justin were tickets to see the Titanic exhibit that was here at the Minneapolis Science Museum. I was so excited and it was so fun to have something to look forward to after Christmas was over. The exhibit was awesome, I have always been fascinated by the history of the Titanic.

Learning about Science/Dance party.

Our favorite part of the day may have been when we found plush dolls that represented diseases. Here is Justin giving loves to the "Herpes" doll. I don't remember what mine was.

We have also been having fun playing around with the pasta maker Justin got me for Christmas (and it was almost confiscated at the airport because apparently it looked like some kind of weapon on the x-ray). I LOVE fresh pasta and turns out it is pretty easy to make (with a kitchen aid that is).

Our state of the art drying rack

Top it off with homemade Alfredo sauce. SO GOOD!

Oh and just so you know, I have one of those awesome husbands who gets me beautiful Spring flowers in the middle of January, just so he can brighten my day. Ya, I love him a lot.

Wow, that was a lot of picture uploading. So there you have it, the highlights of our life up to January. I think I will start February in a few days, I am a little burnt out from this humongous post.