Rite of Passage

Well folks i found the first stretch mark last night. LOL Guess that means i'm on my way to becoming a real live Mommy. I found it, showed david, and then said that this baby better be cute. Guess that's life.

Look what cute maternity clothes can do for your self esteem...

China

Our guide TK isn't she cute.

Our hotel, quite nice.

After i got sick of Chinese food all we ate was pizza.

Lowering the flag Tienanmen Square. They raise the flag at sunrise everyday and lower it at sunset. They stop traffic and everything so the soldiers can march from the forbidden city to the square to do the flag.



Oh yeah Walmart is everywhere!




Olympic stuff.

Rickshaw ride.

Watch tower.

Drum tower. They used to wake everyone up in the morning with drums, before alarm clocks.

They have these exercise parks where old people go during the day to work out. They definitely did better than me. There was a 70 year old man doing full on splits.

In the temple of heaven.

All the old people who were around during the revolution come to sing the revolutionary songs. Interesting.

Temple of heaven.

Altar at the temple of heaven. The emperor used to come there every spring to pray.

Entrance to the temple of heaven.

In this park there are a bunch of people who come and paint poetry. The older ones do this in the old unstandardized Chinese.

Great wall!

Check one thing off my bucket list.

It's pretty amazing. And very steep.

We saw real pandas but the pictures of them aren't very good.

In the summer palace.

The mote around the forbidden city.

This used to be the tallest building in Beijing. Well at least the highest point. It's on top of a mountain.

Forbidden City

Chairman Mao.

Tienanmen Square.

Now that we've been back for almost 2 months there's my china post. It was pretty awesome! I'm very happy that we were able to go. A once in a lifetime experience. I could say tons more but i don't have the time and if i did this would go on forever! If you have any questions ask :)

By request...

8 Weeks

9 weeks

15 weeks

I stopped taking pictures for 6 weeks. something about being crazy busy with christmas preparations. But yes i'm definitley getting big. Can you tell that all my shirts are turning into belly shirts?

2

"Welcome to your second trimester! Your energy is likely returning, your breasts may be feeling less tender, and your queasiness may have completely abated by now. If not, hang on — chances are good it will soon be behind you (although an unlucky few will still feel nauseated months from now)." ~ Baby Center

Yeah that would be nice. Energy? Nope less. Breasts? Still tender. And Queasiness? Well it's turned from being minor to throwing up almost daily. (PS i know for a lot of women throwing up daily would be better than multiple times a day, but any throwing up still sucks.)

So did anyone else develop morning sickness or did it get worse in your second trimester? I'm starting to think I'm one of those sick in the second women. Sigh.

Happy New Year!

Snow

It's one of those years i guess.

Took several hours to get home from work and when we were in walking distance of our house people were stuck on the hill and cops had blocked off another road, only letting people with 4 wheel drive past. Good thing we have great friends that live a bit further down in the valley! Thanks for letting us regroup on your couch.

I have two things to say...

1. i do not live up a canyon; i should not need 4 wheel drive to get to my house when 6 inches of snow falls.

2. you really failed salt lake county. Way to not plow any of the busy main roads! When we eventually made it home at 11 last night there was 6-8 inches of snow on the road.




PS really tempted to just go out and buy a truck today but that probably would not be the best impulse buy lol.

It's alive...

Baby's first picture.

That's right there's a baby. That's one of the reasons i haven't blogged, i was afraid the secret was going to slip out. But today we heard the heartbeat and got to see the little baby kick and it's little beating heart, so since we know it's alive I'm OK with telling everyone. So far so good with the pregnancy. The midwife says everything is looking good so I'll trust her. I have been one of the luckier pregnant ladies because i haven't gotten too sick. I'm gaining weight normally and things are going well.

We're starting to think about what we need to get together and it's exciting and scary at the same time. We said we wouldn't buy anything until the 1st trimester was over so we still have a couple weeks to live life normally.

Since people will want to know, I'm 10 weeks. The due date the little online calculator gave me is July 2, 2011.