Blood Pressure, Moab, and Almost There!

So, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday. I went in fully expecting it to be the same as all the others. And it was, for the most part.

Aside from the part where my doctor told me I can't go to work anymore.

Or clean.

Or go on "shopping sprees" (because I do that SO often).

Apparently, my blood pressure was a little higher than my doctor was comfortable with. So I was banned from working. At first, I was pretty frustrated because we'd been planning on my working for a couple more weeks, if possible. Nate, kindly reminded me as I sobbed (dang pregnancy hormones) that I don't have to go to work anymore! Well DUH Alisa - you're thrilled about that. But I also don't LOVE the idea of sitting around the house, waiting for the baby to come. I'm going to have to get myself some projects to work on while I wait for her arrival!

I went in for a stress test today as well, just to make sure she's okay. The nurse didn't give me the results, but said she would fax them to my doctor. It seemed like everything was okay though, so I'm not too worried.

So here I am, sitting at home (when I would normally still be at work) eating a bowl of ice cream, FINALLY updating my blog!

Last weekend, as kind of a last Hurrah before Frakeserella (my sister's nickname for the little munchkin) comes, we took a little trip down to Moab.

Now, before you start thinking I'm a bad mommy, I DID have my doctor's permission and I felt great, so we weren't worried.

It was, without a doubt, one of the most memorable Moab trips ever for both good and bad. For example:

BAD: We left Friday afternoon and got there around 4:30 or 5. We drove around for almost THREE hours trying to find a camping site. The place was PACKED! Moab is getting much more busy than it ever used to be, even 3 years ago when I first started going. It's depressing.

GOOD(ish): We started talking about just driving back to Provo, but decided to try one more place. We stopped at one of those campsites where the camping spaces are about 5 feet from the people next to you:
We remained optimistic, saying maybe we'd be able to find something less close to others the next day and at least we got to stay in Moab and build a fire and still be camping.

VERY BAD: This tent was right across from us. Since this is a public blog and I'd like to keep it G rated, let's just say Nate, Damien and I got woken up and ended up getting about 2 hours less sleep than we would have liked, because of the couple in there. That's all I'm gonna say. Very bad.

GOOD: I'm pregnant. Of course I would include food as part of the good list. We had some awesome strawberries and yummy muffins (as well as lots of other good food).

GOOD: We had a great time hiking around Saturday morning! We went on some pretty easy hikes for my sake (all less than 1/2 mile). The only time I was uncomfortable was when I had use the bathroom or the little munchkin decided to sit on my bladder (okay, those were pretty often, but I still had fun!).

Gross, I know. But Nate insisted I be in SOME pictures, even though I'm NOT a fan of how I look. Oh well.
That's Delicate Arch in the background. Usually we hike right to the arch, but that's a LONG hike with a lot of steepness. So we opted for just the short hike with a distant view. By the way (you can probably tell from this picture), I way more than Nate. He tried to keep up with me, but failed miserably (which is probably good, since I'll loose a lot [most] of the weight within a couple of days after baby's here).
Don't tell Natalya he did this, but that cliff goes down about 100-200 more feet. Yikes! (this is at Gemeni Bridges, by the way)
Um...I think we took more pictures of this animal than anything else combined. I'll only show you one picture though. We're weird.
This is Canyonlands - I had never gone here before, even after all the times we've gone to Moab, so that was kind of fun to see. Someday, we're going to hike to Angel Arch, which is in Canyonlands (it's like a 10 mile hike or something).
Just look at the background or the handsome guy in the blue sweatshirt...those are the good parts of the picture.

GOOD: We found a new campsite for Saturday night!

BAD: It was kind of windy...and knocked our tent over (even with ALL of our stuff in it!) while we were out to dinner.


GOOD: We still got to build an awesome fire and roast S'mores!
GOOD: Sunday we did a few more short hikes, like Balance Rock (where the boys got a little snap happy). We also went to Sand Dune Arch (way fun arch for kids/husbands :D)
BAD (or FUNNY): ALL hygiene goes out the window for these two when we're camping. These pictures don't even do their hair the justice (or injustice) it deserves.
BAD:

I look like I have elephantiasis or something...

And finally...

GOOD: Little girl is due in TWO WEEKS! YAY!

So I have a belly picture I might post. And I might take some pictures of our sweet crib and recliner - both of which we got KILLER deals on (now if we can just find a dresser for a similarly amazing deal...).

But I don't have the pictures now and I feel the need to post...something...I just need to babble I guess. It'll be pretty random, so good luck with this!

1. Can I just say I'm really glad I married who I did? There are definitely some things we have different tastes in (e.g. Taco Bell would be his FIRST fast food choice and almost never mine. Vice versa for Panda Express). But, for the most part, we agree. An good, recent example is music. We just bought some CDs on Amazon:

The Eagles
Simon and Garfunkel
Kenny Loggins

And so on.

Maybe we're not "weird" and there are lots of other people in our generation that like this kind of music, but I think it's kind of funny that of ALL the CDs we could buy, we chose THOSE ones. Also, I've been listening to Phil Collins all morning. I love that man. His "...Hits" CD is next on my list of CDs to buy.

It reminded me of this one time 6 of my friends my freshman year of college were in the car with AJ and me. A Lionel Richie song came on and AJ and I started singing along. Everyone in the car looked at us like we were crazy - none of them knew the words, let alone who SANG the song.

I'd like to thank my mother for listening to the radio our entire childhood and exposing us to the good stuff.

2. I know I talk about this a lot, but I seriously think I have the coolest dreams.

Last night, I dreamed I went into labor at the White House.
And Obama wasn't the president.
And I was trying to hide the fact that I was in labor from the janitorial staff that was nearby.
I have no idea where Nate was, though I know he was around somewhere.

I also dreamed that one of the managers at work had to send out these specific memos every day and this particular day, she sent the wrong one: instead of sending a memo that J.Lo and Marc Anthony were getting married, she sent one that J.Lo and Ben Affleck were getting married (and then halfway through the dream, J.Lo changed to Jennifer Aniston). And my boss was really mad that the wrong one got sent out.

But I thought it was funny.

So funny, in fact, that I started laughing. Apparently, I was actually laughing because it woke up Nate. He asked why I was laughing and I was able to give a coherent answer. That NEVER happens.

3. Speaking of sleep, I took an hour nap yesterday afternoon and then drank about 4 cups of Dr. Pepper at about 7:00 PM.

Never again.

I tried going to bed around 11:30 and didn't end up falling asleep until about 2:00. I have a friend and a couple of sisters-in-law who have mentioned not being able to sleep late in pregnancy, but I've never had a hard time, so I'm attributing this to the caffeine (which, by the way, seemed to have no affect on the baby, except maybe making her more calm).

It wasn't all bad though. I got some laundry done and read a good chunk of Mere Christianity, which I've been trying to read for several weeks (AMAZING book, by the way. The whole world needs to read this book. For realz.). And, as I lay in bed, I had some great ideas of crafty improvements to make to my house/things to get ready for the baby. I'm not even completely exhausted today, so maybe it ended up being a good thing.

4. I'll update more on baby stuff when I post pictures.