Awesome Family Fun

This has been a busy couple of weeks! Kolt's family came to visit us for Spring Break and we had such a blast. Brandi, Nathan, Ethan, Mialee, and McKenzie were here for 6 days and Kolt's parents are leaving tomorrow and will have been here for ten! It's been wonderful to get to spend the time with them.

It feels like we did EVERYTHING while they were here. We went to the Wild Animal Park at Natural Bridge, Sea World, Corpus Christi, and down town San Antonio. It was definitely an exhausting several days but so worth all the fun.

We took Kolt's parents up to Driftwood to the Salt Lick BBQ (yes it is Salt LICK, everyone thinks they're saying Lake lol) and it was the best meal I've ever eaten, bar none. I'm really excited to go back. It's in the hill country and a really pretty drive. Kolt says next time we're taking the S2000 and going on a more winding route :)

I am now 18 weeks pregnant and have been feeling the baby move for about two weeks! It is the most amazing feeling ever and I still get surprised every time I feel him. I'm so grateful to have made it this far!

I had an appointment at 17 weeks and everything is looking good. I have the anatomy scan ultra sound in a couple of weeks and am getting really excited! Kolt still doesn't want to find out the sex but I'm hoping that I can convince him to change his mind!! Doubtful, but we'll see.

I'm headed back to Idaho to visit my family on the 23rd and will be there for a week. I'm also going to get to spend a couple of nights with my best friend Lauren and her family! YAY!! All of these visits with family will make March fly by so fast! By the time I get back from Idaho it will be time for my ultra sound. We've had so much fun in March I hope April isn't a let down!

New pictures of our baby

Hello everyone. Greetings from the second trimester of my pregnancy!!! I've never been this pregnant before and it's been amazing to watch the pregnancy continue and develop. We went in for an ultra sound last Friday, Feb 12th to screen the baby for down's syndrome. It was such a great experience. Normally when I go in for an ultra sound I go to radiology where they aren't very pregnancy friendly. The dad is the only one who can see the screen and so during any given appt I got to see the baby for all of about 30 seconds. Well for this ultra sound they do it on the maternity floor with a screen for the mom's to look at as well. The baby was being stubborn and the tech had a hard time getting measurements so we got about a 45 minute session just getting to stare at our baby :)

We saw the baby kick and spin and do a full flip. (I'm calling the baby a him from now on, easier to say than "it". But we won't be finding out the sex so don't take that to mean that he will really be a he) We also got to see him sleep, this annoyed the tech because he was in the wrong position and so she shook him and made me turn from one side to another, and even get up and take a long walk. Over all it was just an amazing experience and I wish I had another ultra sound soon! My next and probably last one will be somewhere around the 18-20 week range.

Even though I'm out of the first trimester I'm still pretty sick. I was hoping it would magically go away, but so far it hasn't. I'm fine with it, it's kind of a pain in the butt, but I welcome the symptoms and the strong reassurance.

We're down to less than a month til Kolt's family gets here! I'm so excited to get to see them. I might get to go back to Idaho at the end of March after their visit. My sister has spring break then and Kolt will be doing a field training all of that week, so we're looking at me going back home to see my family. That's almost 3 weeks of family time in March, I hope! That will be so great!

I really think I'm finally starting to legitimately show now. For bed at night I wear t-shirts, the same ones I've always worn and they're pulling really tightly across my belly :) I told Kolt the other day I don't remember them ever being this tight before, he said that's because they haven't been :)

Here are the pictures. If you look in the last one the gestational sac is shaped like a heart, I didn't notice at first but a couple of friends pointed that out!

Keeping it all in Perspective

Today on the pregnancy blog I am on, we lost two more August mothers, for a total of 18 losses so far. One of the women was 4 days ahead of me and it just really hit home as to where I am in my pregnancy right now. I lost my first baby at 12 weeks three days, just 3 days from now. I can't imagine finding out now that our baby wasn't going to make it. I'm so in love with this child already, it's simply impossible to imagine getting past another late first trimester loss. Sometimes I still don't know how I've moved on from those losses. Time really is the only thing. I can't believe it's almost been 2 years since I lost my first baby.

The good news is this pregnancy has been completely different right from the start of either of my previous two. I'm still sick at 12 weeks, despite taking medication, for which I am extremely grateful for. I haven't had any spotting and did with both of my prior pregnancies. And the best part of all is I have my own doppler so that I can check in on my baby daily. With out that peace of mind I don't know how I'd be doing right now.

So I'm trying to just keep everything in perspective. Does it suck to be sick and throw up? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely. That wonderful, albeit awful, reassurance has been very helpful in easing my fears. I know that there are much worse things than being tired and sick all the time, especially since it's all for a very wonderful reason.

I'm wearing maternity clothes now, I wouldn't say that I'm totally showing yet, but my old pants no longer fit. I've actually lost about 4 lbs so far this pregnancy, so I know it's all baby poking out and not fat! For which I am also very grateful.

Kolt and I have started picking out nursery furniture and decor. We won't be buying any for quite a while, but it's nice to have it planned out. We also have our car seat picked out, it's a Recaro car seat. For those of you who don't know (which I assume is all of you) Recaro manufactures racing seats for race cars, they just happen to make baby seats as well. Kolt wants nothing but the best for our little one, and so it will be the coolest kid on the block riding around in a black and red Recaro seat. Kolt wants to get the little peanut started out in their racing future as soon as he can.

Over all things are going very well, this is just kind of a scary week for me but I'm hoping to get past it and move on to the second trimester. Hopefully soon I'll be feeling the baby kick, which is an experience I've dreamt of and longed for my whole adult life. I feel so grateful to be pregnant and to so far not have had any complications. I love this child so much and can't wait to meet them!

So Happy to Write this Post

Yes, those are pictures of our beautiful baby!! We are having a baby on August 20th of this year. We weren't really planning on this, it just kind of happened, but the timing truly couldn't be more perfect and I'm so grateful to be having this baby.

As of today I am 11 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Morning sickness, aka ALL DAY sickness, has been in full effect since 5.5 weeks. I've been taking medication to help with it and it has been a life saver. I tried to come off of it yesterday since I had been feeling so well, alas, I'm not ready yet. So on it I will stay for the time being.

I have had 3 ultrasounds and all of them have gone beautifully. So it really does look like we'll get to be parents at the end of this pregnancy. I bought a fetal heart rate monitor and was able to find the heart rate at home on Saturday for the first time, holding steady at 165 bpm. It is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard.

The reason I haven't posted in so long is because I couldn't reveal this surprise yet and didn't trust myself to talk about anything else. The last two months have pretty much consisted of me throwing up and sleeping, not very exciting!

We are really happy to be getting some visitors soon! Kolt's whole family will be coming to visit on the 10th of March. I am counting down the days until they get here and know that we will have such a blast. There will be a lot of pictures from that week I'm sure and I will be sure to post some.

I don't think this announcement comes as a surprise to any of my readers as I think I'm friends with everyone on facebook, but this is by far the best post I've ever made!!

Happy in Texas

I'm not even sure when the last time I posted was! It has been a busy month. I went out to Wisconsin for my niece's wedding which was a blast. Then right after that Kolt's parents and I took off for Florida followed by Alabama. We had a wonderful time and it was a great experience to be there when he graduated from COT. I've loved being with him full time again and don't take it for granted for a second!

We had a great time at Thanksgiving in Idaho. It was a mad dash to run around and see everyone before we left. We saw two sets of friends, one in Utah one in Preston, Kolt's grandmother in Preston, then Kolt's sister and her family and his parents. We did a quick Christmas party then drove back to my parent's for Thanksgiving. It was delicious and I hope we get a chance to go home for the holidays next year! The drive out here was long and thankfully uneventful. The dogs did great on the trip and I'm very grateful for that. Then we stopped in Ft. Worth and spent the night with my Aunt Laura and my grandmother! It was wonderful getting to see them, however briefly it was. Then the next day I got to have breakfast with my childhood best friend, Katie. THAT was one of the highlights of my year. I haven't seen her since I was 15 and I've really missed her. She lives in Ft. Worth as well and so is only 4 short hours away now! She really helped me to feel like I was as alone down here.

We are mostly settled into our house on base. We haven't decided wether or not we want to stay here permenantly. It's small and has no garage, which is a big problem. BUT, we don't want to move again. The big issue is Wilford Hall, the airforce hospital, and Brooks Army Medical Center (which will be referred to as BAMC from now on) are merging. Kolt's unit will be moving into BAMC in about 6 months to a year. Problem is BAMC is all the way on the other side of town and one of the huge reasons for living on base was proximity to work. We'll figure it out as we go but there is a big possibility of us moving in the future. Wether we will buy or rent is still undecided.

For now we are happy and mostly settled into our new home in Texas. The weather here has been warm but mostly cloudy and misty. It's the strangest thing, but when it's misty here it's not really raining per se, but there's moisture in the air and it makes the roads almost as slick as with ice! I'm learning to drive on it and have been very careful.

It hasn't really hit me yet that we're alone down here and I haven't had time to get lonely yet, but I'm sure it will come. We don't have any plans to go home at the moment, but I'm sure we'll make some soon. To all of our family and friends, we love you and miss you! Merry Christmas!

10 days to go!

I thought I'd pop on and write one more post before my traveling adventures begin tomorrow! I leave in the morning to drive to Salt Lake with my mother, we have a bunch of errands and appointments to go to, including a manicure and pedicure, and then we fly out Wednesday afternoon for Wisconsin. We will be in Wisconsin for my niece Jessica's wedding on Saturday and then fly home on Sunday. I'll have just enough time to go back to Piper's, check on my dogs, repack, and then head out Monday morning to go back to Salt Lake with Kolt's parents.

We fly out Tuesday the 17th for Pensacola, FL and will spend Tuesday and Wednesday there. Thursday we will drive up to Montgomery, AL for Kolt's pre graduation dinner. I'm am SO looking forward to it. I have a gorgeous new dress to wear and that will be when I get to see Kolt again!! After that we have graduation Friday morning and then the four of us will go back to Pensacola for the weekend. Then Kolt's parents will fly home and Kolt and I will drive to San Antonio. Monday morning we will inprocess, get our housing set up and then Tuesday fly back to Idaho for Thanksgiving with my family. Friday we will spend time with his family for a Christmas party and then we will hit the road with our dogs and all to Texas. THEN we will be done traveling.

Whew, that was a lot! Hope that makes sense to everyone, it took me weeks to work it all out, lol. So if you don't hear from me or us for a while, that's why!

Kolt is doing amazingly well at COT. He got a 92% on his first exam and a 91% on his physical. He's lost 8 lbs while he's been there and is in the top of his class. They had the last exam this morning, and after today are doing the physical stuff, ROPES course, obstacle course, leadership course. He's really happy that the academic portion of COT is over, it was a lot to take in, in a short amount of time. I have high hopes that he'll finish in the top 10% and be a distinguished graduate, but even if he's not, he did great and I'm proud of him!

This time apart has gone by amazingly fast and for that I am grateful. I have been able to lose 13lbs so far and will hopefully lose at least 3-5 more before I see him in 10 days. But no matter what I'm proud of myself for losing what I have and will continue to lose more until I'm back down to where I was when we met. It's a great feeling watching the pounds fall off and seeing the results of my hard work!

Day 18 of the Separation...half way there!

I thought that since today represents the half way point of our time apart, it would be good to do another update.

Kolt is doing very, very well at COT. He's not loving it, merely surviving it, but is doing well nevertheless. He passed his physical with flying colors, he's done well on the obstacle courses and puzzle courses, and passed the only test he's taken so far with a 95%. He's figure out a way of efficient note taking and is studying like crazy. His stress levels seem to have gone down because at this point he's pretty much got the swing of things figured out. He has two full weeks left and one partial week until he graduates, and believe me, he can't wait to be done.

I am doing really well. At the half way point I'm down 10.5 lbs. It should be more, but I finally allowed myself to cheat with Halloween and all. But today is back to the grind, and I'm going to push it really hard until I go to Wisconsin to give me a little leeway on that trip. Oh, I don't think I've mentioned that yet.

My oldest niece is getting married on November 14th and my mom and I will be going out to Wisconsin to be there for the event. I haven't been there in about 5 years and haven't seen a few of my nieces and nephews in that long either. It will be a lot of fun, and a wonderful break in the time that I'm waiting for Kolt. I fly out on the 11th and will come back on the 15th, just in time to leave on the 17th for Florida/Alabama!!! I have only 10 more days until I leave for the first trip and it's coming so fast!

We're getting really excited to finally settle down in San Antonio and be done with all of this. It will be really hard to leave our families, but this marks a new starting place in our lives together and it will be an incredible new adventure. If we can survive this last month of displacement and travel, the rest will just fall into place I think.