Spokane and Glacier National Park

On July 13th, Steve was offered an excellent internship in Spanish Fork, Utah. He will be working for Neways and he is scheduled to start on July 27. Because that was originally the day that we had planned to leave for Spokane, we packed our bags and left the next day. We enjoyed a 10-day trip to the Northwest and took one of those days to visit Glacier National Park.


Joshua travelled so well! We were very happy that it worked out so well. There was only one time that he woke up that was inconvenient--in the middle of nowhere. This is a typical rest stop for us. I would climb in the back next to him, lay him down on a pillow and we would let him eat. Steve would normally change his diapers and fill up the car. We got it down to a science.












While we were in Spokane, we had ample opportunities to rest. Not only did Josh travel well, but he has been sleeping well too. When Joshua gets mad, he doesn't usually cry that much, he holds it in until his whole body is red and then he squawks at us. It shouldn't be so cute, but it really is. He is mid-squawk in this picture.<



Here he is around 7 in the morning when he likes to be awake. He loves to sleep in daddy's arms. Its just darling!












On one of our first days there, Steve took me to Coeur d'Alene where we had desserts at Dockside. Mine was the Snickers ice cream sundae, and Steve's, in the background, was a Huckleberry Pie. Steve's was fantastic, mine was mediocre.















My two favorite people in the whole world!

After the desserts, we walked on the dock and checked out all of the nice boats. It was a gorgeous walk, but Josh did not appreciate the heat.





Although I don't have picture of it, we took all day Saturday and went boating on Lake Coeur d'Alene. It was so much fun! Becky was kind enough to watch Joshua on the shore most of the time, and I also took a turn when the boat went out. Steve got up on a slolum and enjoyed taking his neices and nephew on a tube ride. I enjoyed the tubing and even tried to knee board, but decided that I didn't want to be overly sore the next day if I pushed myself too hard. It was a very enjoyable day and we were very happy that Joshua cooperated.

That night, Josh decided to spend many hours awake. At one time, I leaned over to give Steve a kiss and Josh belched louder than anyone I have ever heard. At first, Steve and I thought something was wrong, but when we saw he was alright, we laughed so hard we must have awakened the entire house. It was awesome.

In Spokane, there is a beautiful park called Manito Park. Manito Park is enormous and has different themes to the gardens that are separated by large pine trees and short walks. This one is the Rose Gardens. It would have been magnificent a week or so ago, but it was very pretty here too.

The park wasn't entirely stroller friendly, so I got a shot of Steve carrying the stroller up the steps.

This picture is an archway leading into the Duncan Gardens.

Here is part of the Duncan Gardens. It is a very long, well organized piece of landscape with beautiful flowers, large fountains and a nice gazebo. Steve pointed out the hill on this part of the park that he used to roll down while his mom looked around at the flowers.

On another day, Steve took me to Centennial Trail--a trail that runs by the Spokane River for many miles. Part of this walk included a manmade waterfall complete with live turtles. I was so excited to see the turtles that Steve had to practically drag me away from the spot.

This is the waterfall.

Oh, this is part of the Rose Garden. Spokane is just beautiful.

I may be mortifying our son in the future. He will probably always wonder why Steve and I thought it was so funny to take a picture of him with my bra on his head. We don't know either, we just thought it was--and his face tells all.

This was our last night in Spokane. Mom and dad left for the coast to meet Shauna's family and we headed out to Glacier National Park. Originally, Glacier was not in the plan, but the more we thought about it, the less we wanted to end our wonderful vacation.

Our little family.

Glacier National Park is a very beautiful place. This was on our way up the Going-to-the-Sun Road. It was a magnificent drive and we highly recommend it to anyone who happens to be travelling through or to Montana.

We were there during early evening when the lighting was just perfect.

There were dozens of these little waterfalls.

This is called the Weeping Wall. Most parts of the wall are wet from little trickles that are coming out of the side.









Once we reached the top of the mountain, there was a visitor's center that we stopped at. Outside of the visitor's center, there was a trail that lead even further up. What a nice hike!

The scenery was breathtaking and Joshua slept through most of the trip.

This deer was maybe 10 feet of the trail just happily grazing away.

This goat came within about 5 feet of our car while we were sitting there trying to change Joshua, who decided it was the perfect time to have a bowel movement. We also saw a few ravens--possibly the largest birds I've ever seen--as well as little marmots. Very cute.

Overall, I'd say Joshua enjoyed his first road trip--we certainly did!

So Happy Together

Life is good! We have now had our little Joshua home for almost 2 weeks! He sleeps well, doesn't really cry all that much and just brings so much happiness into our lives!

Here is Grandma Nufer! She sure loves to spoil him and us! We have been so grateful to have her here with us for a few weeks! Steve and I love this picture because of how he tends to curl up his feet when we hold him.

Great-Grandma Nufer came to visit a few days after we had been home. She also brought with her the classic Grandma blanket that she makes for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It is blue gingham and we love it!
Mom took me to see Great-Grandma Richards a few days later.

Our sweet little man.

Steve LOVES being a dad and it is so fun to watch him take care of our son.

All-time favorite picture! This was the day after his first bath. When we picked him up in the morning, he was drenched in his own urine. Go figure. So far we are 0 for 3 with his baths. Each time we clean him, he does something that would cause us to have to go and either rinse him off or just give him another bath.

I love being a mom!

Playing "house" with our new arrival

Joshua Steven Monson was born Wednesday June 17, 2009 at 2:47pm. He was 20 inches long (including his rather severe conehead) and weighed 8 lbs 3 oz.

This is me after the epidural was given, as indicated by the fact that I am smiling. Contractions started Monday night at 11:17pm. After 5 hours of labor, they died down a bit going on about every 30-60 minutes. It was frustrating to think that the baby would be coming on Tuesday when in fact, he decided to hold off for another day.

We went to the hospital at 9:30pm on Tuesday night after a good celebration of Quinn's birthday at the Sandy Aquarium and then ice cream at the Gibbons household. When we got to the hospital, frustratingly enough, the contractions pretty well stopped. They sent us home, after giving me a sleeping pill. It was about an hour later (midnightish) when my contractions became severe. Steve was very worried about me because the sleeping pill was honestly making me delirious (enough so that I didn't know who he was a few times) and he monitored my contractions for about an hour an a half before he drove me to the hospital again--2:30am.

My water broke in the hospital and they were quick to give me an epidural soon afterwards. I slept soundly for the next 6 hours. It was a beautiful thing.

Joshua took 3 hours to push out (absolutely exhausting) and the doctor ended up using foreceps. Because he was face up, he ended up with a much larger conehead than most.

Joshua was also very pale when he was born. They worried that he may have had a pinched umbilical cord, so I didn't really get to see him for 4 hours after he was born.

This was the 15 seconds that I saw him after birth.

Our family!

Proud daddy.

This is his going home outfit. It was the smallest newborn outfit that we had and it still drowned him when it was on.

The car ride home had the desired effect.

We've had lots of visitors: Kevin and Kristen, Emily, Shauna and her kids, Elise, and Mark and Ada all made it to the hospital to help us welcome him to the world.

Happy Fathers Day Steve!

And now we wait...

Here was our Memorial Day picnic. Matt and Emily had the same idea we had, so we all joined together and had a big picnic. Quinn seemed to like the food.

Mikayla is just a doll. I'm pretty sure she gets cuter everyday.

Watermelon was a hit.

And Matt and Emily found some really good sandwich meat. It was fun to get to a park and eat on a big blanket.

Thats what it has felt like lately---waiting. I'm ready to play with this baby! I'm fully aware that everyone says "The baby is easier to take care of in there than out here." Thats okay.

Bring it on.

In the meantime...

I made curtains and a cute little pillow for our glider in the baby's room. The curtains took a while, since I didn't have a blueprint, but I'm excited about how they turned out! The curtain rod is made of PVC pipe, two little ends to go with it and a couple of bent hooks. Total for the rod was $3. Very worth it!

One of mine and Steve's best friends, Greg Sorenson, had a birthday bonfire up in the canyon. It was fun to get out and see a bunch of our friends that we haven't talked to in a while. During a rare moment of boredom, we made goldfish s'mores. Its a lot tastier than it sounds! I also tried roasted Starbursts for the first time. Interesting. We took a picture together, but we both blinked really badly because of the flash.

I introduced Steve to my favorite pie--lemon meringue. SO good!

I think Steve liked it too.

Here is the latest picture of me taken today. Don't mind the no hair done and lack of makeup. Also ignore the fact that I look like I haven't slept in a while. I really do sleep just great! :D I guess I won't be saying that for much longer. Two days until the due date!!!

Updates

So, I was looking at the most recent pictures on our camera and noticed that we just haven't taken pictures in a while. Here's what is going on:
--I go for a walk in the mornings with Emily. It has been a nice habit of getting me out of bed early and going on with the day. When the walk is over, I shower and get ready for the day, and proceed to work on my Independent Study classes: Hepe and English 314. I just finished Hepe today and requested the exam. I hate when emails tell you "If all goes well, your exam should arrive in 2 weeks". Give it to me now! Hopefully, this little guy will just come on time and I'll be able to be finished with it.
--Steve's schedule: He wakes up at 7:15am, gets ready and heads to school. He has found that if he gets going early, he can come home by about 1pm every day. Its wonderful to hear the key in the lock and know that he is home! Steve is working in research for food science right now. He likes the freedom of making his own schedule. OChem seems to be treating him well enough. He studies hard and does well and I'm proud of him! He has signed up for 2 independent study classes that he plans on getting mostly done this summer. I'd say this beats taking the second half of OChem with a newborn!
--I just finished curtains for the baby's room and I'm almost finished with the crocheted blanket that I've been working on.
--Steve and I have mastered fresh strawberry jam and we love sharing it with people and making them happy!
--We are looking forward to several weddings this summer, most especially Kevin and Kristen's on the 15th of Aug and Elise and Mike's on the 18th. They will definitely keep us busy!

My new favorite YouTube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlokPJO2h-Y

This is SO funny! If the link doesn't take you straight there, go to youtube.com, type in "Old Lady Driving" and click the one with the lady in the passenger seat. You'll get a kick out of this, I promise.

Road trip!

Steve and I finished our finals on a Tuesday. Since we knew that we would both be ready to be out of Provo for a day or two, we planned in advance to visit Las Vegas. I had only been there once and it was to drive the strip with my family. Steve decided to show me around. Something that I enjoyed enormously was the faces of our nurses when they found out that we were taking a 6-hour long trip in a car when I was 8 weeks away from delivery. Honestly, the trip wasn't bad at all. Each time we stopped, I was sure to walk around for several minutes. Steve did a great job at driving. :D

This is the enormous castle that we stayed in: Excalibur. It was nice and cheap (thus allowing us to take the trip) and at the very end of the Strip. We unfortunately forgot to get our camera out of the car for our grand tour of Vegas, but we were able to take some the next morning.


This is New York, New York. Its much cooler from the outside.

Our favorite part of the trip was visiting the Las Vegas Temple. It is SO beautiful and extremely peaceful after the worldliness of downtown.

No pets for us!

A few days ago, Steve had gotten up early to study OChem and heard some scratching noise in our apartment. When he failed to find the source the first time, he returned to his studying. Upon hearing it the second time, he was able to locate the source of the noise: a small black bird had gotten in through our dryer vent and was freaking out at his captivity in our small storage closet.
The reason we don't want pets: this little guy pooped and peed all over our things in this room. Can you image what would have happened if we had actually had a dryer hooked up to that?

Memory lane and such

April 15th: this is what we woke up to. Kind of random. Very pretty, but random.

We were on the Mt Timpanogos grounds today. This flower caught both of our eyes. We thought it was pretty.

One year ago, we made the best decision of our lives: to get married! Steve and I drove up in the canyon to celebrate Steve's proposal anniversary.

Dear Mom and Dad, Thank you for the clothes!

For my birthday, mom and dad (actually on both sides) were nice enough to get me new clothes. (or at least some money for the new clothes!) Here are a couple of the outfits:
This one is one of my favorites: we were able to find black and tan shorts for me to use all summer long! The shirts are also wonderful--I got black and white and the pink undershirt is the only one of my undershirts that I don't have to stretch out now!

I love this green shirt. Steve convinced me to buy it. Also, this jean skirt is fun to wear--it makes me feel kind of sassy.

Okay, so I thought I was wearing my other new skirt in this picture. Here is what else I got: I now have two new skirts, a very pretty yellow blouse and a blue shirt that goes along nicely with my white shirt underneath.

Thank you thank you thank you for the clothes!