My husband is back and we're having a baby soon

Ryan is back.

No more grumpy posts full of downer metaphors about produce.
I know that this post is only about 2 weeks post his return but still. Better late than never.

My sweet joy of a husband has returned from the Holy Land and it was the best moment to finally be with him again at the airport.

Once I got up to Salt Lake for my conference, I was literally counting minutes until he got home. I HATE being apart from him. Anyways, the first couple days of my conference were long and full so they passed easily enough. But then it was the glorious day of Wednesday which meant he was coming home! He had been texting me from Paris (thank you iPhone) and it was so nice to know he was getting closer by the minute. Well then, it was the last layover in Minneapolis that was the real kicker. I got to have a legit phone call from him without losing signal or internet! Best feeling ever! Well I wanted to head to the airport then. I was done waiting. So I got all dolled up and headed off to the airport and waited.

Torture.

There were 4 or 5 missionaries coming home that day and all their families were there with signs and balloons and petting zoos to welcome home their sons. I was crying when those elders came down the stairs for goodness sake and I have no clue who they are. Then a guy proposed to his gf in front of me and of course I cried then too since I am a basketcase.

And then, the joyour moment when my bearded man from the Middle East came down the stairs :)

It was so wonderful.

I can't give you a better description because there aren't words for that moment. But I think you can imagine. 

Well then it was time to get the baggage and get some food and head back to the conference in Salt Lake. 

Ryan was saddled down with lots of gifts and everything from our friends in Jordan and Egypt. But he, being the most amazing man on the planet, got me the most wonderful gift I could have asked for. He got me a replica mosaic of the Via Dolorosa map from the Church of St. George in Madaba.(http://www.seetheholyland.net/madaba/) if you want more info on that. But it is beautiful. The perfect combination of a map and art. I absolutely love it and I still can't believe that I now have it. I have loved this map for years and now it's part of my home. 

My beautiful new mosaic!! :)

My bearded hubs :)

Anyway, we have cute little baby clothes for Tucker and the cutest little blessing outfit you could imagine. Needless to say we are excited to have our son with us. But I won't post a picture of the outfit since you can all just see it when it is inhabited by my adorable son :)

But we got caught up on everything, shared our stories with each other that Skype wouldn't allow us to tell one another. And just enjoyed being in Salt Lake and hanging out with each other.

We had a lovely dinner and meeting with our friend Mazen from Jordan and it looks like he and Ryan will be going into business with one another in the future. 

We had a great time with Ryan's family who came up for a really fast little trip and got to go to my future sister-in-laws bridal shower. 

We sat by the pool, got tickets for a play next month, got our bikes ready for summer, listened to a lot of Bruce Springsteen and Journey and bought a grill. We are officially cool people now. 

Memorial Day was great, we had 4 missionaries over for dinner and grilled up a ton of meat and some pineapple and veggies. 

Enjoy the pictures of the nursery finally!
I still freak out sometimes when I think that I am having a baby soon. I have contractions all the time. Not the painful ones but just the extreme tightening that make my tummy look deformed. Everything is ready for the baby's room. It's kind of just the final countdown now. All I need to do is get a box of wipes and a pack of diapers and he is free to come into the world. Ryan and I are beyond excited for this little man to come. We want him to stay in for as long as he needs but we are definitely excited to meet his sweet little self. 

That's right ladies and gentlemen, we are having a baby soon :)

Little things called lemons

I love lemons. Always have. Always will.

However, these past 2.5 weeks have been one big lemon that I am trying hard to make lemonade from.

It's hard to be positive when half of you is 7000 miles away, you're 7 months pregnant and Skype has decided to come between you and your spouse. And as much as I love my beta fish, he is not very good at doing tricks yet so I can't say he has helped much. Although he is a great glaring partner. We have stare-offs quite regularly that usually end up making me smile. 

In FOUR days Ryan will be boarding a plane back to me. That means I have almost conquered this unbearable mountain. 

But you know what? There have been a lot of positives over the past couple weeks.

Ryan and I have come to appreciate each other in a way we didn't really have to before. Because yes we are one of those couples that NEVER spends time apart. This is our first time being apart for longer than, oh probably, 12 hours. So yes, three weeks and not really being able to talk to each other on a phone for longer than 10 minutes without cursing Skype has been a little difficult for both of us. But once he is back, I know it will all seem like a distant lame memory.

 I realized once again what awesome friends I have. They have reached out to me and taken care of me even when they didn't know just how lonely I was feeling at the time. I had a FANTASTIC baby shower that I just loved beyond belief. Of course it helped that it was Batman themed and Ryan had Mother's Day flowers delivered to me right in the middle of it. Yes I cried. I couldn't help it. I will continue to try posting some of the pictures of it but sadly Blogger has mood swings and doesn't like my phone uploads right now. 

And you know what else? I actually have learned to appreciate my job. My mostly dull job has kept me mostly sane. I am really grateful that I could come here (yes I am writing this at work) for 8 hours a day and now that I have become an expert at keeping myself busy here, I can slide right into that routine after I have eaten a lonely breakfast and usually shed a tear or two on my drive here. 

But most of all, I don't know what I would have done while Ryan was gone if I hadn't had  my little man to keep me occupied and up most of the night. No he is not born yet but man oh man he sure can kick. And he is a night-owl. Definitely takes after his Father and probably Batman. But that's fine with me too because when I am asleep, Ryan is awake and I have been able to email back and forth with him some nights. That makes it great. I love our little bun :)

Anyway, the final hurdle is about to be jumped. I am so glad that I am heading to SLC this weekend to stay there until Ryan gets back. It is my company's huge conference and that will keep me busy until the blessed Wednesday that Ryan finally gets home. There will be much rejoicing 

So I guess you could say that this experience has at least made a large batch of mostly sour but slightly sweet lemonade. 

One that I will promptly pour down the sink once my husband is back :)

While Ryan has been gone...

Well there is nothing like living a lonely life in Provo. So I figured that I should update the blog to assure you all that I have not spiraled down into a land of depression. I am doing just fine and I am just eagerly counting down the days until I am reunited with my bestest friend :)

But on the bright side, Ryan is FINALLY in Jordan and I get to talk to him after a week of one sentence emails and final freak out when Ryan was in Alexandria and the road back to Cairo got blocked because of a protest and I didn't know where he was or if he would make his morning flight to Amman. So yes, after a long and stressful day of waiting and lots of tears, I finally heard from my sweet husband and he let me know that he was all safe and was going to make his flight. I am so ready for these next 2 weeks to be over. I love my husband and I am so over him being  gone. But at least I can Skype with him every day and hear his sultry voice and Heaven knows how much I love hearing Arabic so it just makes my days worth waking up for. Ryan is busy spending his days working over in Amman right now. He is gearing up for interns to start arriving this weekend and, thankfully, next week is his last full week there. Then it's just a couple random days and then his flight back here to Utah! If you couldn't tell, I am quite excited about that last part. I am so ready for him to be home! 

 I think we have officially decided that next summer, after I quit working, we will just head over to Jordan for a couple months before Ryan starts his PhD somewhere. We need one last family outing before that to get Ryan geared up for another degree program :) I love having such a smarty pants for a husband. 

Speaking of smarty pants in the family, I have found another way to ensure that Tucker will be a brilliant astrophysicist. I have found a baby swing that has a built in star show and it will be the first of many steps to lead him down that path of awesomeness. I know its weird, but I always have loved astrophysics and I dearly want one of my children to work in that field since I didn't. So there you have it. I am going to be an overbearing, but awesome, mom. 

With that said, I have been working hard getting the baby's room all ready to go. It is 95% done now! I have his bed all put together, clothes organized and put away and the dresser top is covered in all things baby. I also made a cute little name to hang on the wall. All we have left to get are our glider and diaper bag and some diapering supplies. Hopefully this next week the rest of these things should be delivered! I would post some pictures of it but sadly I am not going to do that until Ryan gets home because he has said he wants to be surprised with it all. So just hold out another 12 days people and you can see my son's room in all its glory. 

I have also been so blessed by so many amazing people in our ward. Ever since Sunday when they all found out that I was home by myself they have taken the time to reach out and invite me over for dinner, to hang out, brought over goodies and treats and just all around been amazing to me. I really am so thankful for them because it makes me feel like I am not really all that alone. It's pretty great.

In other words, today has been a pretty good day :)

A World Apart

I dropped off Ryan at the airport. I cried. He cried. I'm sure Tucker cried.

Worst feeling ever.

Now it's snowing for some unknown reason here in the Salt Lake Valley and I am bummed out beyond belief. But it is very appropriate for how I am feeling today. 

Ryan lands in Cairo in about an hour so hopefully we can Skype or something. But I sure do wish I was with him. I woke up at 3 am this morning and realized that's when he was landing in Paris. So I sent him an email and low and behold right after that I got a very much desired text message (thank you iPhone messaging) and I got to text him for about 20 minutes before he had to get settled into his next flight. 

Well I have no idea how to describe how much I miss my husband right now. But I sure am hoping that these next few weeks go by quickly. I am so ready for May 22nd. It will be the most glorious day ever.

In the meantime, I am looking forward to putting my stroller together tonight and going to the gym. 

As you can tell, my life is so exciting while Ryan is gone. Feel free to join in.

Alright sorry for the downer post. I promise I won't be like this all month (hopefully).

Baby Shower - OC Edition

Well I have crossed the threshold into crazy nesting mother mode... And a baby shower has only enhanced that insanity.

I had a beautfiul baby shower in Orange County this past weekend. And it was glorious.

We left Provo about noon on Thursday and headed down to the warm depths of SoCal.

And by the way, I am so proud of Tucker and myself for being able to make it to the designated stopping points for restroom breaks. We partied the way down with Magnus (the hound that belongs to a brother in law) and it was a nice trip to just sit and spend a lot of one on one time with Ryan before he leaves for Egypt.

California did not disappoint. It was 85 degrees and sunny and just perfect. Friday we woke up and had a lovely breakfast, Ryan and his mom went to go get some tables for the shower and I took one of the pups for a nice long walk around the neighborhood for  my exercise. And then we lolled around the rest of the day in the backyard by the pool soaking up some much needed sun for our pasty white skin. Of course though, thanks to pregnancy, my skin decided that no matter how much sunscreen I was going to wear, I would still burn. No matter, it was not too bad and I would rather be a little pink than white. Plus, my bathing suit was super cute and comfortable and there wasn't a stitch of ugly maternity pattern in it at all. Definitely a bonus.

Well then it was time for the family to eat some dinner so we decided to all go to a delicious southern bbq joint called Lucille's nearby. Now granted I still prefer to make my own ribs and jambalaya and such at home but what can you do... Well I definitely looked like the fat kid at the table when I ordered a full rack of ribs but let me just say that I only did that because Ryan said he wanted some ribs but also his tri-tip that he ordered so in the end, I may have only had 4 ribs in total once he and David got done eating away. But honestly that's fine. I should have just ordered the corn and watermelon that I got as sides since that's all I wanted anyway when it came down to it.

Then it was off to the house to finish getting everything ready for the shower the next day. We made really cute dipped rice krispie treats and cupcakes. There were also delicious cake pops and sugar cookies from a lady in the ward who makes the best ones. And finished up some decorations.

Then it was time for bed and we woke up early the next morning to do the finishing touches. As you can see in the pictures below, it was an adorable blue theme with cute elephants and monkeys. We had delicious pasta salad, fruit galore (my favorite), blue punch with duckies, and lots of little goodies that were all delicious. We had some lunch once the ladies began to arrive and then we opened all the amazing presents! I feel so blessed and grateful. We got so many of our big presents and it was awesome to be able to relax as I opened each gift and realized I didn't need to stress about that anymore. I know I am weird but I am a freak planner so it's just how it is... I will post more pictures of everything once I get it all in order this week at our house.

We had a blast spending time with family and friends and it was so fun to just enjoy the afternoon with them.

Well sadly the trip had to end at some point and Sunday morning we woke up, packed everything in the car until it was bursting at the seams and headed back to Utah. With only a day and a half until Ryan leaves for the Middle East, there was plenty to do! I will post more on the baby's room and everything in the next little bit. I just need to get adjusted to being a lone woman again.

But until then, thanks to everyone who made the shower so fun and beautiful! It was perfect :)

I adore this man

The boys had a contest to see who could finish a bottle of chocolate milk.

Cute little puppies :)

The Final Countdown

Well it's official, there is a baby in me and he is going to be here in 90 days. 

Unbelievable.

He is so energetic and fun to play with and he isn't even born yet. Ryan and I just have a blast every night poking my tummy and feeling him kick and move. We cannot wait. I also cannot wait for my joints to start realizing their full potential to work again. Apparently even my shoulders need to fall apart for my baby to be born. Because that is where I need the flexibility most. Thanks anatomy.

I know Ryan is even more excited for the toddler stage but I am just as excited about the squishy and soft newborn stage. Ugh those little feet are just going to be the cutest things ever. And his little face! Sorry, I started down the path of cuteness that could be a long train ride for you all.

Also, I need to let everyone know once again how grateful I am for my husband. He has been so amazing throughout this pregnancy. Whether it was my food hating stage or my constant fidgeting because no matter how I sit some part of me goes numb now stage, he has been such a solid trooper and I wouldn't trade him in for a new model any day. I hear people all around me (especially at work) complain about kids or marriage or pregnancy and other family related issues and I just have to stay out of those conversations because when it comes down to it, I am the happiest I have ever been and even though life throws curve balls and it can be a royal pain sometimes, I love every minute of it. And I am grateful to have a husband who equally appreciates family and kids and is a hard worker. I never have to complain about my husband because there is nothing to complain about when it comes down to it. And I don't think I could ask for anything more. 

Well onto other issues, you all remember that time that I said that we would all be in Italy this summer? Falsehood. Apparently Utah County needs two weeks to process a birth certificate so that I can get a copy to file for a passport for Tucker.... Sadly Italy is only 5 and a half weeks after he is born. So that means, no Italy trip for Tucker. I am heartbroken. So it will just be Ryan going now to Italy. I feel awful about that since he is going there to present a paper and that is such a huge honor! But sadly, the timing is just a few weeks off and it just won't work out. But hopefully Ryan's dad can go over with him. That would definitely make me feel better about it all. I want someone to see how amazing my husband is while he is there. But the nice part of the trip is still that I will just go down and hang out at Ryan's parents house for that week while he is gone since he is flying out of LAX and have some time to relax and hang out with Tucker's grandma :)

But it will all work out though since we might be heading back to Jordan this September for another conference. And that IS in the right time frame for us to get baby boy a passport! So fingers crossed that Jordan comes together! Because I want to travel sooooo bad! And I want to show all my friends in Jordan my baby! It will be like a post birth baby shower over there I am sure. If you couldn't tell, I am super excited about taking Tucker to my favorite places and showing him off to our friends. And thankfully I married a man who is just as fond of travelling and living in different countries as I am. So Tucker and our other children are definitely in for a wild ride. 

Ryan leaves a week from today. Not excited about that. At all. But it's for the good of the world that he goes so I guess it will just have to do. But if anyone in the area feels the desire to come visit me and rescue me from my loneliness, I will gladly bake you cookies or a casserole or something to pass the time. I may also need rescuing from my crafting efforts as we all know that that is anything but my forte and I am going to attempt at some crafts for Tucker's room while Ryan is gone. I may just end up being burned by hot glue and giving up after 10 minutes. I will also probably cry myself to sleep after watching Iron Man 3 without Ryan since he is my Tony Stark and those movies just remind me of our marriage... But enough complaining. It will hopefully go by quickly and we can be reunited and party our last two months before Tucker comes along.

Well here you go too I guess. It is a lovely self portrait taken in my office bathroom mirror. See the resplendent wall colors and breaker box behind me. I feel it accentuates my curves for sure. Either way, I am ashamed of the fact that I did that but I knew that if I put off taking a picture until I got home and Ryan could take it, it would never happen and I have received enough threats from those who want more bump pictures. But yes, ignore me and the surroundings and just focus on that all important baby bump :)

6 months! 

Best Parents Already

So, not to brag, but I think Ryan and I are going to be pretty cool parents. Last week we got to go see Bon Jovi in SLC. It was AWESOME!! And Tucker had a blast I am sure. Nevermind the fact that I had beer spilled all over me even before the concert started by two drunk girls behind me. Nevermind the fact they didn't even apologize or offer to get me some napkins. No sir, they were the rudest and most useless people I have encountered in a long time. But besides that and the monster contractions I had in the middle of the concert, it was a fabulous night that no amount of beer or Braxton Hicks could ruin. 

Well Bon Jovi was so excellent. He is so worth going to see in concert. He is an excellent entertainer. 

I apologize for the terrible iPhone picture. But that's what you are going to get. And Blogger won't let me upload my sweet video of Livin on a Prayer. So sadly you don't get to experience that joy. But just know in your heart that it was epic. 

Overall, it was an awesome night and I am soooo happy we got to go together and enjoy the strange looks that people gave me when they noticed I am prego and at a classic rock concert :)

Thank you Ryan for getting me the best V-Day and Anniversary present yet!