Cruise

Man, I really am a slacker. This was over 2 months ago!

We went on a cruise for our 5 year anniversary with some of our best friends, Troy and Lindsey (who were also celebrating their 5 year anniversary!). They were the perfect couple to go with, as Nate and Troy NEVER have and never will run out of things to talk about. Lindsey and I still just roll our eyes about their ability to turn any conversation to something financial - for example

"This ship is HUGE. How much do you think it costs to build something like this?"

"Better yet, How much does it cost to run this thing for a week? With food and electricity and water."

"Yeah, and then on top of that, paying employees?!?"

"[some random, probably WAY off number is thrown out]"

On and on. :)

So anyway, we went from Miami, FL to the Cayman Islands to Isla Roatan, Honduras to Belize to Cozumel, Mexico and back to Miami. We only scheduled one excursion through Carnival - for the rest of the days we got a taxi, drove to a beach and snorkeled or relaxed on the beach (except in Honduras - more on that).

And here come the pictures...

The obligatory towel animals...

There were 2 "dressy" dinner nights, where we were just uncomfortably dressed while we stuffed our faces. :)

(by the way, I was JUST barely pregnant on the cruise, so I had no idea. I was however, very confused why both of these dresses felt SO TIGHT on my ribcage. Huh. :)

Speaking of dinner, here were our servers for dinner:

They were both from Indonesia and by the end of the week, Lindsey was ready to "adopt" them. They were pretty funny guys, but man would it be a hard life working on a cruise ship. They work for 6 months, then get 2 months off. The one in the back on the right has been doing this for 18 years and has 2 kids, who he basically missed growing up. We (meaning Troy and Nate of course) figured out that he saw his kids a total of 4 years of the 18 years he did this! I think I can handle busy season pretty well, knowing it could be WAY worse. :)

So I mentioned that at 3 of the 4 ports, we just grabbed a taxi and went to a beach to snorkel and relax. In Honduras, that's what we did, but Nate talked to the taxi driver to see if there was anything else to do and he mentioned a little "zoo" that we stopped at. Here are some of the pictures of that:

There was a little monkey that had a little bit of devil in him. He bit Troy, tried to bite me, and got into Lindsey's bag and stole her Bang! cards (probably thinking they were candy) and scattered them ALL OVER the cage. It was funny and scary all at the same time. :)

And my video of the devil monkey is not working. Apparently his devilish powers reach pretty far.

We did a LOT of snorkeling (Nate more than anyone else - he says all our vacations from now on must involve snorkeling). We bought a little case to put our camera in to take pictures. It worked...uh...really well.

And then there was Lindsey's awesome camera and her awesome camera case:

The snorkel boys

Here are just a few random pictures to complete our cruise story

I have a good excuse!

I realize my last post was over a month ago and basically told NOTHING of our lives (except that Karly sleeps with plastic toys).

It's sad, really, because we've been on a cruise, I went to girl's camp, we went to Utah for 2 family reunions, so we've been busy! And while I haven't taken many pictures, others have plenty of picture proof I can steal, so there's even lots to SEE and SAY!

But can I tell you how unappealing blogging is when I feel like I'm going to puke all day? And when I don't feel like I'm going to puke, all I want to do is sleep?

J

That's right folks. Baby #2 is on the way!

Not that most of you care, but for those who do, I feel like I've been more sick than with Karly. I've been wrong before (I'm 0 for 1), but I think I'm having another girl. Aside from being more nauseated, it's been very similar to Karly, including the NEED for milk. One night I drank 4 12-oz glasses of milk. I have definitely experienced more cravings (even though Nate tries to tell me it's just a woman's way of getting her husband to go to the store in the middle of the night for whatever she wants to eat). I have been wanting Chinese food for about 2 weeks (FINALLY got that one!) and I'm dying for salt and vinegar chips. I was craving buffalo wings, but I got that one covered. :) Nate has actually been very sweet about it, offering to get me chips at 10:30 at night and offering to pick up Chinese on the way home.

Up until about 2 days ago I wouldn't have said I necessarily looked more pregnant than last time - just fatter (which I am, let's be honest). However, getting ready for church Sunday I thought "geez, anyone who doesn't know I'm pregnant will now and I'm not even 12 weeks!" I really think the layer of pooch that I never got rid of from Karly doesn't help, but that's only part of it. Yay.

I had a 12 week appointment today and heard the heartbeat for the first time (only saw an ultrasound at the 8 week (which was actually 6 weeks) appointment (see picture above). It took the nurse a few minutes to find it and I kind of started freaking out (just a little), but it was 150 bpm. Karly was 175 at this point, so...boy? :) We'll know in September!

Anyway, I have lots to update, so hopefully I'll get back to doing that now and in the next few days.

Who needs a soft cuddly baby doll...

...when you can sleep with a hard, heavy, plastic toy?

For those of you who know Nate well he...

"...had a curious way of listening; he didn't so much listen to what you were saying as subcontract to some remote region of his brain the task of deciding whether whatever you were saying was worth listening to, while his mind went off to play on its own. As a result, he never actually heard what you said to him the first time you said it. If his mental subcontractor detected a level of interest in what you had just said, it radioed a signal to the mother ship, which then wheeled around with the most intense focus. "Say that again," he'd say. And you would! Because now [Nate] was so obviously listening to you, and, as he listened so selectively, you felt flattered.*

*The Big Short by Michael Lewis

For those of you who may not know Nate as well, this won't be nearly as funny as to those of who who DO know that Nate totally does this (or you have a spouse who also does this {cough} Becki {cough}). It's taken 5 years and actually READING this quote from this book to have it not drive me crazy and instead accepting that when I ask him a question, it will usually take around 15 seconds for him to actually respond (but he ALMOST always does, so he must have a high level of interest in me!). :D

We'll be celebrating our 5 year anniversary in a few days and it just makes me laugh at how much has changed. I think we've both become much more patient with each other and the things we do that those 5 months of dating/engagement didn't show us. :) I'm excited for the next [insert bajillion-type of number here] years to laugh about the differences and enjoy our similarities some more!

Until later...

Okay, migraine's gone, but now I won't be able to blog for over a week, so I wanted to get a little update on here (mostly, I didn't want my haircut to be on the top of my blog anymore).

I'm just going to put a bunch of random pictures with very little description. :) Surprising huh?

Karly recently learned how to take off her pants. This is how she spends much of the day.

Say "Cheese!"

Hangin' out in Costco with cousins (I love this picture. They really don't usually get a long all that well, but I'm glad they were willing to long enough for a picture). :)
Stella Bella
I LOVE this boy's cheeks. :)
Circle K has 44 oz slurpees for $.79! So we all got one. This thing was HUGE!

See? Even next to an adult, these things are massive.

We went to a fun park in Scottsdale with a carousel Karly loved. Maybe I'll post the video someday of Karly saying "Whee!" However, I was on the carousel with her, so watching it might make ya'll sick. :)
Little Ladies in Red.

I definitely didn't take enough pictures of all of Karly's cousins while we were in Phoenix or enough pictures of the Pool/Birthday Party. Here is one of Karly opening presents.

Her cheese face again. :)

I'm sorry that aside from the cute pictures, this is kind of boring. I'll try to be better next time! :)

I have a migraine from you-know-where, but I can't sleep and I might as well try to do something to distract from the pain, so you lucky people get to see me update my blog! Since I have a bajillion pictures and videos (Birthday! Trip! Hair! More!), I'll start with the easiest:

My Haircut:

Before:

After:
All the hair (it seriously felt like a pound of hair):

Easter! A little early...

Nate's mom is out of town and will be for Easter, but she wanted to do an Easter Egg Hunt for Karly and Adi, so she had one this past Saturday. That woman seriously goes above and beyond - she had 60 eggs filled with candy for 2 not even 2-year-olds. So guess who will be eating most of the candy? (anyone want to come over and take some off my hands?)

Anyway, we had a ward Easter Egg Hunt that morning in which Karly didn't actually pick up any eggs because she didn't get the concept and those other kids were FAST! The whole egg hunt was over in less than a minute!

Okay, it took a lot of work, but I finally got this video to upload (thanks to my AMAZING husband who knows how to google things like this :D). This video is SO Karly and so funny.

Until the video works, here are some pictures to hold you over:

Showing off some of her spoils.

It was a beautiful day and so fun to see Karly get into the whole Easter Egg Hunt. Thanks Kippy for putting it all together (even though I secretly curse you every time I pick up a piece of candy). :D

The Gimp

Last week, Karly fell while playing on a playground set near our house. She ended up being fine except for a limp for a couple of days (doctor said she probably just pulled a muscle). As sad as it was that she was limping, it was even CUTER to watch her do it. We tried to get a couple of videos of it, but I don't feel like they do it justice. Here they are anyway.

I {heart} Colorado weather...

...most of the time.

This was one of those times.

Kippy and I took the girls on a walk around the block and they grabbed each other's hands. These pictures can't even do justice to the cuteness. These two are best buds. We can't wait for the third Musketeer to get here next month!

Harper Mae :)
Practicing fly fishing...casting...or something
This is actually a different day. On the first floor of our building, there is a woman with several cats and every time we walk past Karly looks to see if any of the cats are sitting in the windowsill. If there are, she will sit and watch them. Sometimes like this: