baby shower

I have truly come to learn, first hand, why people value living near their families. Not only do you get to be physically close in location to people that you love and perhaps understand you a little bit more than other people, but there are also major perks. Like delicious weekly dinners, people to play games with, and trusted opinions and support whenever you need it.

And, I discovered, a new perk. They throw awesome baby showers.

My Aunt Linda and my cousin, Annalise, offered to throw me a baby shower almost immediately upon their move to Utah in May/June. Little did I know what kind of party planners they were! The shower was September 10th, and I was seriously blown away by the cute decorations, delicious food, and the totally-fun-and-not-involving-"poopy"-diapers games.

I took pictures of the decorations before everyone arrived. This was the entrance table, complete with:

 --Cute name tags (made by my momma) that had you put your name, and your relation to baby. 

For example, "Hello, my name is Leanna, I am Baby's Best Friend."

--An awesome tree (created by my aunt/cousin) to hang these bird pages (made by my momma) for guests to write a note to Baby.

--The beautiful bird cover to hold the book together (made by... of course, my momma).

There was the snacks table (pictures do not show the full extent of the snacks), including:

--Bird cages to perfectly follow the theme of the party.

--Awesome banner that I kind of want to replicate for the baby's room.

--Birds, flowers, and candles placed throughout the table layout.

--Super awesome milk-jug styled vases and glasses for drinks.

Then there were the party favors. Bird houses!!

Pretty amazing, right? This was a Pinterest perfect party.

Besides the decorations and delicious food--(hummus and cinnamon rolls? Reminds me of my wedding... yum)--there were wonderful people there as well. However, it seems as if the camera didn't capture many shots of these beautiful people. I do, however, feel comfortable posting awkward photos of myself--which it seems like all pictures mid opening a gift are pretty awkward.

In this one, I seem to be saying "Whoa-ho-ho! I am a large pregnant women and that is a small baby jacket!"

blitz room makeover

When my mom was visiting Utah for my dance show at the end of June, I had just recently decided to rearrange our living room. The results were disastrous. Our beige walled living room with beige carpet and greyish-beige couch with orangey colored pillows just looked awful in the new configuration.

I am so sick of beige--it is the go-to color of all Utah interiors, it seems. Sure, we are in a rental, but come on people!

The impetus for this move was the prospect of at some point, some way, getting two large leather chairs that previously lived in my dad's office in Madison. We didn't know how we were going to get them out to Provo, but I was starting to plan for it.

Anyways, when my mom was out, we started dreaming and designing things in our minds. We started looking for color inspiration, and went off to some fabric stores to find fabric inspiration to pull all the colors together that we were thinking of.

Then we went to Pier 1 Imports and decided to just buy it all. Ha. Blitz Room Makeover.

Unfortunately, I am struggling to find any "Before" photos... though I am sure I posted some once upon a time when we moved here.

The "After" photos are better anyways, right?! Our motto was "MORE COLOR!"

Oh, and now that WE OWN THIS PLACE (as of today), there will hopefully be many more upgrades and makeovers to come!

And in case your curiosity is killing you, we did, in fact, get the chairs out to Provo, thanks to some Madison friends. They are big and tan :) We've found some pretty good spots for them, though.

My eye is now turned to the baby room...

friends in utah!

Emily and Benedita, my friends from high school, came out to Utah for a visit over the first weekend in August. Luckily the rain had stopped and the weather forecast was looking hot and sunny! I had never been to Bear Lake--The Caribbean of the Rockies, so I thought we would go adventure up there together.

Little did we know it was Raspberry Days. Hooray for raspberries and raspberry milk shakes, but boo for crowded campgrounds.

We were just a little stressed out about finding a place to set up camp. Also, all the closest beaches were flooded and we were told we'd have to go all the way to the north or south end. We chose south since it was closer, and the map said there was camping there. But, of course, that too was full. In desperation to find a campsite, we kept driving around the east side of the lake to the more "primitive" campgrounds.

I guess primitive means perfect! Our own private beach access:

We got in the cold, cold water before the sun went down, and then gorged ourselves on our many snacks, including cheese curds Emily brought from Wisconsin.

Before the sun went down, we built a fire--with the conveniently left logs waiting for us in our fire pit. 

We had prepared a tin-foil dinner mixture and were, yet again, nervous about how exactly to go about cooking them and knowing when they would be done. Taking them out of the fire was the exciting part. I used two sticks, one which was bent perfectly to help the process along, and Benedita held the "dinner rock" nearby for transportation to the table.

Benedita and I were in girl scouts together when we were wee and here you can see we remembered camping rule number one: No sandals by the fire.

Everything was cooked--in fact, some bits were a bit too charred. But we ate something that wasn't sugary snacks!

The next morning, after it got deceivingly cold that night, and we three were crammed in a two person tent, and Emily was forced to be in the middle, we huddled in blankets eating some breakfast until the sun came over the ridge behind us and then we promptly went for another chilling swim. This time the waves weren't so forceful and we could more easily see where to step without hurting our feet.

Eventually, after many many rounds of Bananagrams, we packed our things and headed out towards Park City to ride the Alpine Coaster. We didn't know we had to drive through Wyoming to get there, but that was all the better. 

Back in Provo we had dinner at Black Sheep Cafe, walked around "downtown" Provo, which to Aaron and my surprise, they thought was cute and interesting. We got frozen yogurt, and came back home for some Jungle Speed. *Highlight: Aaron dragging Benedita across the table and floor and Benedita refusing to let go of the totem. They were fighting for nothing--neither of them could get rid of any cards if they won.*

The next day, Sunday, we made waffles for breakfast and then went on a jaunt up Rock Canyon. It was really hot. We only brought one water bottle and we didn't ration too well. Luckily there was a water fountain on the trail. Unluckily it was swarming with bees. Emily the courageous filled it up.

It was so fun to have these ladies out for a visit!

might as well...

(don't mind the dirty mirror)

huntsman 140 aka the day that should have never happened

Way back on June 15th, Aaron biked in the Huntsman 140 mile non-competitive bike ride. He signed up to ride from Salt Lake City, down 70 miles to some little tiny town south-west of Utah Lake, and then back again. For several days leading up to this, I was seriously wondering how this was even possible. The day itself turned out to be stranger than I could have imagined.

Aaron was supposed to be in Salt Lake at the Huntsman Cancer Center at 7:00am. He woke up and was all ready to go at 5:30, kissed me good-bye, and left the apartment. Thanks to the fact that we were still sleeping with our windows open, I could hear him get in the car and... not start it. He tried several times, and I started trying to wake myself up enough to figure out what was happening and what the problem could be.

Aaron came running back upstairs, as I was already making my way out of bed to go see what the problem was. Yes, he informed me, the car wasn't starting. We both stood there for a moment in anxious wonderment, having driven the car home last night together, not knowing how to proceed next.

"Can you call your grandpa and see if we can borrow his car?"

"It's 5:30 in the morning! I don't want to scare him half to death!"

"There's no other choice! I don't know what to do! I'm going to be late and miss the race!"

It was a strange few minutes. Well, realizing how wonderful my grandpa is, I--still a bit frightened--gave him a call. He picked up immediately, sounding just slightly worried. I explained, kind of, what was happening, and he agreed to loan us his car for the day. (Only later I learned that he really had no idea what was going on or why Aaron desperately needed to be in Salt Lake.)

The next part is the strangest part of the morning. Instead of Aaron riding his bike up the short distance to my grandpa's house and leaving from there, or having Grandpa drive down to our apartment, load up Aaron's bike, and then have Aaron drop him off again, or even have me ride up on my own bike to get the car and bring it back down to Aaron, I laced up my running shoes and, nearly 6 months pregnant, took off for a brisk morning jog at 5:45am.

Grandpa was standing in his garage, and asked my why I didn't ride my own bike. I didn't cross my mind. Unfortunately, everyone involved was a little too sleepy and anxiety driven to think of a better alternative. So, back down to our apartment I went, Aaron packed his stuff in the car, and he took off.

I told Aaron that if he died that day, I would never forgive him for not listening to the car gods who tried to prevent his travels.

By this time my adrenaline was pumping so much that there was no going back to sleep. Which was actually fine because it was only an hour or so before I had to be to dance class. I had actually already arranged for a friend to pick me up, since Aaron was originally intending to take our car. I didn't even try starting the car again before I left.

From dance class, I tried to find someone who was going up towards Salt Lake, figuring I could combine hitch-hiking with riding the Trax to make my way up in a decent range of the Robison's so that Aaron's mom could pick me up. Luckily, there was a girl at class that day who also needed to head up to Riverton right after class. Hallelujah! I got dropped off at South Town Mall, picked up by Aaron's parents, and spent the day hanging out with Kaye.

I was tracking Aaron via Find My Friends (thank you iPhone!) as soon as he left our apartment. He got started about an hour late, I wouldn't learn why until later, but was making his way down towards Utah Lake and beyond. We saw him get to the end of the road--the point at which they turn around and head all the way back up to Salt Lake--and then he didn't seem to move for quite some time. I thought, his phone can't be dead, oh wait, he wasn't driving our car, so he couldn't charge his phone during his drive up. Blast, his phone is dead! How will I know when he's near the finish line?

Kaye and I decided to try to go find him. We knew the route they were taking, and eventually we found other bikers and race guides at corners directing the bikers. We saw a couple bikers in Qualtrics uniforms coming up to one of the rest stops and decided to ask them if they knew where Aaron was. They did, he was somewhere behind them. A few minutes later, we found Aaron and his biking buddy coming up on the rest stop. He was dead beat and later admitted that he just wanted to jump in the car with us.

But instead, he continued.

He said they thought they had about an hour and a half left, so Kaye and I planned accordingly to try to be at the finish line.

About 45 minutes later, as we were on our way back up to the Cancer Center, Aaron is calling my phone. His phone hadn't died, but he had turned it to airplane mode to try to save battery life, and it's a good thing so that he could make this call.

"I'm dead. I can't move my legs! Come get me!"

We found him, laying in the grass on a busy street corner in Salt Lake, resting in the shade of a Walgreens sign. He was pretty delirious and nauseous feeling as we put his bike in the small car and drove the rest of the way to the finish line--about 8 more miles, all up hill.

He kept mumbling things about his biking buddy, "He's so fast. He's so strong. He's so good and fast. I have to go give him something. He's so fast." Mind you, Aaron's longest bike ride before this point was about 35 miles, and he was able to get about 120 miles in the blazing sun that day! I kept trying to tell him how amazing he was, but he said he never wanted to see his bike again, and that this ride was the worst idea ever.

(That eventually wore off, and he does still love riding his bike.)

We got back up to the Huntsman Cancer Center, switched the bike into my grandpa's car, and took off. I convinced Aaron that we should pit stop at his parents house, get some water and food, let him take a shower. I thought he would run for the shower, but no. He laid on the couch for about 2 hours without moving, just sipping some water.

Aaron admitted that he was dead and done about halfway down the first leg, before even turning around. But he pushed on.

He said that once he was past Utah Lake, couldn't even see civilization anymore, just dry, hot desert, he just wanted to scream, "I HATE CANCER!" He also wanted to cry. I told him he should have done both, but I guess that's not very manly.

Eventually the shower was taken, some food was eaten, and we headed back down to Provo to drop off Grandpa's car. Well, when we got there, we discovered that somewhere along the way, we had lost Aaron's front wheel. Where? We have no idea. Kaye even drove all the way back to the parking ramp in Salt Lake the next morning, and it wasn't there--though I'm not sure it would have survived all that time just sitting in the parking ramp.

We chatted with Grandpa for a moment, discussing all the weirdnesses of the day, and decided that this day was perhaps never supposed to happen.

The next day, I woke up and expecting to have to walk to church, left Aaron asleep at home, and headed out a little early. Might as well just try the car, though, I thought.

Try I did, and the car turned on.

big springs

Right now, Utah is really beautiful. Everything is green, it is often really amazing temperatures, the sun shines, and there is still some mystical snow on the mountain tops. It doesn't stay like this forever, so it is time to get out and enjoy it!

The Gandalf worthy walking stick...

The blue butterflies kept fluttering all around our path. Finally I stopped to wait for Aaron to explore something, and they came to land on my toes.

finally! a post!

So much for photo a day...

Aside from the actual pictures of our baby girl, this picture is the next best thing

We had our ultrasound on Tuesday and came prepared with this card, an envelope, and a permanent marker. After looking at the baby's legs and arms and brain and placenta and other stuff I couldn't distinguish, the tech told us to look away while she took the gender picture. After a minute or so of her squishing my belly, trying to find the right angle, I assume, she said "Ok, keep looking away while I label it." For some reason in my head I thought, Ah ha! It must be a boy! It wasn't until we left the office and were in the car that we figured they would probably label girls parts too.

In anxious confusion we drove around trying to figure out where we should go to open the envelope. Somehow we ended up at a little park that we have never been at before. We sat at a metal picnic bench and slowly opened our envelope. Ta da! It's a girl. I think after the initial sounds of excitement died down, the next thing I said was "Humph, I wanted her to make a check mark."

We stayed there for a bit, discussing our excitement, then decided we better go to Provo Bakery and get too many donuts to eat in one sitting.