Drum Roll Please....

It's a BOY!!!

Clarke and I really wanted a boy first and we were so excited to see that he is healthy and moving around like crazy. I even cried a little when the technician said it was a boy. I would have been thrilled for a girl, but for some reason a little boy is what I was dreaming of having.  Suddenly, this feels more and more real and it's so exciting and a little scary at the same time. I hope we can be the best parents to this little guy!

I was going back and forth on whether I should post this pic because I always said I wouldn't, but I can't resist! Here's proof we have a baby boy!

They also moved my due date up a week and a few days due to the measurements of the little guy so my due date is now May 21st! So so excited I am more than half way there!

20 + weeks. 

Christmas 2012

Well today is the first day of the new year and it's a pretty lame one at that! Clarke got called in to work last night, new year's eve, at midnight and has been there all day which means I spent new year's eve and almost all of new year's day stuck in my house alone. Oh, and our TV has been out for the last few days so I couldn't even enjoy watching the ball drop. Oh well! I know holidays can't always be about parties and socializing. Maybe next year we will be able to do something fun??!

I wanted to post about my really fun trip out to Utah for Christmas. It was so much fun and a perfect trip to renew my spirits a little. I'm sad that Clarke wasn't able to share it with me and I'm so lucky to have an awesome husband that will allow me to take a trip, even if it is without him, when ever I need to.

My vacation started out with my sister, Nicole, coming out to visit us in St Thomas for a few days. It was fun to show her around and just lay by the beach. I wish we would have taken more pics with her out here, but here are a few we did:

Magens  Bay

Yacht Haven Grande

I noticed not very many houses were decorated with Christmas lights here on the island. I'm sure it has to do with the outrageous cost of electricity and people not wanting to waste the money by putting Christmas lights up, which I think is really sad. However, I thought it was cute someone decided to put a few ornaments on this random tree:

Nicole and I planned it to where we would both fly out to Salt Lake City together, which turned out great. It's always nice to have a buddy with you to tough it out through a long travel day. Our travel day got even longer when a woman on our flight from Atlanta to Salt Lake went into labor and we had to make an emergency landing in Denver which delayed us about another 1 1/2 hrs. We didn't get to SLC until 1:30 in the morning!

I had a packed full week of eating at all of my favorite restaurants, shopping, visiting friends and family, and enjoying the time off of work! I had the best time and was sad it ended so quickly. Here are a few pics of my trip:

Me, Nicole, and Grandma

One of my besties, Silvia and her adorable little boy!

This is the house in Herriman built just like the house in the Pixar movie "Up". Super cute!

First time doing the Zoo lights at the Hogle Zoo.

Zoo lights

Got my white Christmas!

Visiting Grandma on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve tradition eating at Olive Garden downtown SLC

Christmas Eve walking around Temple Square/Main street

Clarke totally spoiled me this year. We both said we didn't want anything for Christmas, so I got him a few things, but he totally went above and beyond as usual. He arranged for me to have a spa day while I was in Utah, so I completely got pampered with a pregnancy massage, facial, pedicure, and hand treatment. It was heavenly! He also bought me some cute maternity clothes since I am now outgrowing all of my regular clothes and he got me this:

It's so fun to see Clarke getting more and more excited about our little babes! I think our baby will be absolutely adorable in those cute little cowboy boots!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a happy new year!

Electricity Woes

Maybe you can blame it on me being pregnant, but I haven't been able to sleep the last few nights because of anxiety. Anxiety over our recent electricity bill. Yeah, I know it's something really stupid to have anxiety over, but I am really peeved at having to pay a crap load for nothing. This latest bill is the most expensive one yet, which doesn't make sense since it has been a lot cooler over the last few months. We haven't used the A/C unit at all and I am using less fans during the day. We haven't changed anything else for it to be more expensive. It's not like I have every light, fan, TV, A/C on running 24/7. So why is our bill $464.58 for absolutely nothing!!!!

The fuel charge alone was $367! They also just approved an increase in the rates effective Jan 1st. So, instead of paying $.43/per KWH (which is already the highest in the nation) we will be paying $.59/per KWH! This is just another reason for Clarke and I to get outta here as soon as possible!

Thanks for letting me vent a little. Hopefully this will ease my anxiety a bit and I'll be able to sleep a little better tonight!

12-12-2012

I am 16 weeks today! I wanted to post a little pic of the growing belly on this awesome day 12-12-12!

The next few weeks are going to be great. My sis Nicole is coming out to visit and then we are both flying back to Utah next week to spend Christmas with the family. I love the Holidays!

Feeling Good

I am finally feeling normal now. I was pretty lucky and never threw up at all, but I felt nauseous from about 7 -14 weeks. It was the worst for me at night. I never really lost my appetite and actually have been really hungry this whole time. At first I thought it would be awesome to eat all the time, but it sucks! It's so exhausting plus I want to eat as healthy as I can and that takes work! Clarke is a lucky guy and hasn't had to run to the store yet to get me ice cream or pickles or anything. I'm not really craving anything, just have a few things that I want to eat more than others.

Food I love right now:
1 - hard tacos
2 - grapes
3 - honey crisp apples (can't be any other kind)
4 - cottage cheese
5 - meat (steak, ground beef, bacon)
6 - apple juice

Food I can't stand right now:
1 - chicken (weird, but it makes me gag)
2 - Crystal Light (made it easy to break my addiction!)
3 - anything overly sweet

Time has flow by and the weeks go by so quickly. We will be finding out if we are having a girl or boy in about 4 weeks. I really hope the rest of the pregnancy will go just as fast as these first four months have! I'm starting to get a tummy that I know now is baby and not food!

My mom was so sweet and sent me some crochet supplies a few weeks ago since I told her I wanted to learn and possibly make our baby a blanket. This is my first project after teaching myself in just a day. They turned out pretty cute except one is bigger than the other. Maybe we'll be lucky and our baby will be a girl and have one foot larger than the other.

They Can Swim!

Yay I'm back! I knew I would be bad about keeping this blog up to date! Well I do have some big news: we survived 6 months here on the island! Yippee! I gave myself about 6 months to a year to get settled in here and I must say that it is not getting any easier out here and in fact, the things that slightly bothered me before are really driving me crazy now! Come on, just give this girl a break from the heat and humidity already! It's crazy to think that right now most people are getting snow and I'm sitting here complaining about our 85 degree sunny weather. I guess you always want what you can't have huh? Good thing I'll be making a trip out to Utah for Christmas to get my fill of the cold and snow.

Well in other news, I have been working on a little something for the last few months that I am pretty excited about:

Finished product is estimated to be due May 28th, 2013!!!!

Catch Up From Last Month

Sorry everyone for the lack of posts this last month. I haven't had anything "post worthy" lately. We still are adjusting to living out here. Some days I am good and other days I am not so good. Clarke is desperately trying to find ways to get transferred out of here and it's not looking so good. They keep telling him that there is no way he will get to leave and we may be out here for 5 or 6 years. Oh my, I can't imagine living here that long! However, you never know what may happen, so Clarke is working his butt off and trying to do the best he can. I am so glad that Clarke is an amazing worker and has so much motivation to be successful in everything he does! I know that things will work out for us the way they are supposed to! Ok, enough with that, this post was meant to highlight my parents finally coming out to St Thomas to visit! You have no idea how nice it was to have familiar faces here and for them to see where we live. My goal was to convince them how bad it really is to live here just so that when I complain about things here, they agree and are on my side! I tried to take them to all the ghetto places (not hard since they are everywhere and have to be driven through to get anywhere on this island) and showed them where I am forced to go grocery shopping and the outrageous prices of everything. Not sure if it worked, but at least they have a good idea of our lives out here. Here are a few pictures of my parents and their time out here:

Magens Bay, St Thomas

On the ferry to St John

Trunk Bay, St John

Trunk Bay, St John

Snorkeling in St John

My mom lounging on the beach while we snorkel

Cute little crab

These iguanas are everywhere and they are mean!

Secret Harbour, St Thomas (some of the best snorkeling on the island)

In front of the largest cruise ship in the world, Oasis of the Seas.

View of the ship leaving as we were eating dinner.

My mom also got to celebrate her birthday with us while she was here. Sorry, mom for not singing you happy birthday (I just realized we never did that)! It was such a fun time with them here and I wish they could come more often.

I am really excited for our upcoming trip to Austin in just about a week! I'm afraid that I'm not going to want to leave Texas once I get there. Clarke may have to drag me on the plane!