Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Maternity Photos

My amazing friend Kayla has kind of been our personal photographer lately, taking all sorts of pictures for me. I have to share some of the maternity photos she did for us! :)












Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Utah Internship

For Kyle's grad school applications, he had to get a bunch of shadowing hours logged with a PT, and he made a connection with a physical therapist at the Veterans Hospital in Salt Lake. So, we spent most of the month of May in Utah! I went ahead and left my job earlier than originally planned so that I could be down there with him. On the drive down, we went the long way and stopped at the gorge, and the City of Rocks, which was awesome.
We had a ton of fun being there with Kyle's family! He had a great experience shadowing the PT, and also had a lot of time to play, which was awesome. He and Kevin went on tons of bike rides, and we also squeezed in a camping trip to Moab! It was a great way to spend our May:)





 




Hells Canyon

On May 1st, we went on a roadtrip up to Hells Canyon to go on a jet boat tour. We had a ton of fun driving up through one of the beautiful parts of Idaho and spent the night in a hotel in Lewiston. The next morning we woke up and headed into New Meadows, WA across the river and got on the jet boat! It was so beautiful and sooo green! We only got about 30 miles into the trip when the boat broke down. (it was their first tour of the year.) So we got sent back down stream to the dock and got vouchers to come back another time. So that was kind of a bummer, but we still had a ton of fun and we are excited about making a trip back up there sometime in the future! :)
After we got off the boat, we went to the Locomotive Park where Masen and I used to play and took a picture to send to him on his mission:) and then on our earlier-than-expected drive home, we stopped and looked at/hiked to a super gorgeous waterfall!









Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Level 2 Ultrasound!

As I'm sure is pretty normal for anyone expecting a baby, we had been anxiously awaiting our big ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby, and to make sure he or she was healthy and growing properly! My doctor scheduled the appointment at 19 weeks. So on March 12th I got off of work early and headed to the hospital, where Kyle and my mom met me! 
I absolutely loved getting to see our little babe moving around in there. I still wasn't showing much at this point, and hadn't felt any really obvious movements from Baby, so it was really reassuring and amazing to see that there really was still a tiny human growing!! 
The ultrasound technician asked to make sure we wanted to know the sex, and that was the first thing she looked for! We were so shocked and so excited to find out that Baby is a boy! And on top of that, everything looks normal and healthy for the little guy. We are so blessed, and we cannot wait to meet him this summer!





Cutest ultrasound I've ever seen! :)

Mini Reunion with the Perrys

As a Christmas gift to the family, Brandon put together a trip for the long President's Day weekend! Originally we were all going to go snowmobiling, but the unusually warm weather and lack of snow changed our plans. So we all met down in St George to hang out together and also go hiking, caving, and rappelling! The weather was gorgeous, and the house we were renting had a heated pool. I didn't go caving because of being pregnant, but I did get to rappel with everyone:) It was a wonderful weekend, and so nice to be where it was warm! Plus, with living in Idaho, we don't get to see Kyle's family as much as he is used to, so it was awesome to get to spend time with them!






Florida!!

We had been planning a getaway to Florida for months! And finally the day came! We flew from Boise to Orlando on January 1st! It was so so beautiful the whole time we were there, which was a much needed break from the stormy inversion that was Boise.
In true Kyle and Mary fashion, we put 1600 miles on our rental car in the 10 days we were there! We had it all planned out, and the first thing we did after getting our luggage and car was to drive all the way to Miami, where we stopped for a bit before continuing to Homestead where we stayed the first night.





The next morning we headed into Everglades National Park! There were tons of alligators to see which was super cool. We drove to the very end of the park where it meets the ocean. 
Then we headed on down the Florida Keys! We had to catch a boat the next morning, so we stopped at a few places in the Keys but not everywhere. It was actually perfect because the beaches on the Keys weren't all that great. Perfect to stop and admire, but not much sand to speak of. We ate at a little hole in the wall seafood place and then camped that night in Key West! 





The next day was my favorite part of the trip! We got on our boat first thing and it took us 70 miles off the coast of Key West to the west, to Dry Tortugas National Park. Such an interesting NP! The entire thing is one single small island that is home to an old Civil War fort/prison. The fort covers almost the entire island. We got to explore the history there and walk all over the fort and see the old canons, etc. The beach around the island was fantastic, and we went snorkeling and found conch shells and I fell asleep sunbathing (I was like 9 weeks pregnant after all, and fatigue was my biggest symptom.) I got quite the sunburn, but that didn't start hurting until the next day, so it was still the most perfect day ever:) We got back to Key West in time to have a Five Guys burger (haha) and then we drove back up north towards Crystal River, FL. 







On Sunday, we drove in to Crystal River where we were able to go swimming with manatees! It was the coolest thing ever! The water was a bit chilly, but it was so worth seeing those amazing animals. There weren't tons, but we saw about 7 or 8 of them, including a baby with its mama. Such a fun part of the trip! 


Sunday night we drove back to Orlando, where we spent the next three days. A friend from Kyle's mission and us met up and stayed with a mutual friend who works at DisneyWorld, and we got to spend 3 days in the parks!! It was so much fun! It was Kyle's first ever time to DisneyWorld, and it did not disappoint. On Monday we went to Magic Kingdom and Universal Studios. Our NJ friends hadn't arrived yet, so we spent the first day just with our hosts, Sheila and Alex. It was great. We love Disney magic:) and my doctor even okay'd me to ride roller coasters, so that was awesome!
We met up with everyone that night at dinner! (By this point in the trip, my face was very swollen from the sunburn in Dry Tortugas...)






Tuesday was Epcot day! We got a little later start to the day than we wanted, but we still had such a fun time there. I adore the World Showcase, and even though we did most of it after dark it was still so great. Kyle and I ran through it all like little kids, kissed in France, got the most expensive ice cream of all time in Italy, kyle made Canadian jokes in Canada, we talked to a hilarious cast member who was sure we must have met on farmersonly.com because we were from Idaho, and just explored all the different countries:) 



From the Spaceship Earth ride... 

The last day of Disney we spent at Animal Kingdom! That park closes earlier than the others, and we had reservations for Sheila's luau dinner show that night, so it worked perfectly. Expedition Everest was me and Kyle's favorite ride of all the parks, so we did that one twice:) We also went on the safari which was cool, to see all the animals! 
Then it was time for the Luau! Kyle even got chosen to go up and dance on the stage for a minute and it was hilarious and awesome. 
After the show, we decided we weren't ready for Disney to be over, and we still needed some souvenirs, so we went to Downtown Disney! It was really fun, and we bought baby his/her very first anything, a Mickey onesie:)







The next morning we were off on our next and last adventure! We stopped by the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral National Seashore on our way to St. Augustine and then spent 2 nights there. It was the coolest city we have probably ever been to together! It is like the oldest town in America, founded long before America was. There was a cool war fort, and the old main street was so much fun to wander. So many cool old buildings were all over. At night, all of the town had white Christmas lights turned on and it was seriously magical and so cute. There was also a beautiful lighthouse that we spent some time checking out. We ate outside at the most delicious place on our last night. It was a little but chilly while we were there, but even so it was the perfect way to end our trip. 

We absolutely loved getting to go on this adventure together! It really was the best to spend so much time together having fun. That Kyle is the best husband and best friend a girl could dream of!