We made it!

Well we finally have a home of our own now and we are no longer homeless! Yay! After 4 weeks, 3,000 miles, 10 states, a wedding, a kidney stone, a one-year anniversary, and nearly depleting our savings buying gas, we have safely arrived in the Buckeye State. Much has happened since we last posted so this might be a little bit of an overload...beware. I'll probably just post some pics and narrate. Here goes...

July 18th - Olympia, WA

This is the day we moved out of our apartment and "moved in" with Grandma and Grandpa Kohler for a week. Earlier this summer we planted some cabbage and cauliflower in their garden and now it was time for harvesting. The cabbage grew sooo big, it looked straight out of a Cabbage Patch Kid commercial.

We planted a few too many so we had cabbage and cauliflower coming out of our ears.

While staying with Grandma and Grandpa Kohler we saw Wall-E, had breakfast in Grandpa's new secret garden, ate one last time at our favorite Mexican restaurant Puerto Vallarta, and went to the Regional Youth Dance Festival. We had a fun time spending our last week in Washington with Andrew's grandparents.

July 19th - Mercer Island, WA

Also during that first week of homelessness we went up to Mercer Island to visit with Emily and Jeremy. They were in town visiting Jeremy's folks. We had a nice little dinner out on their patio and you can see some of Emily's photo skills below. She just got a Nikon D60 and wanted to get some practice in. She's getting pretty good! (Em, you should probably start ordering business cards and feel free to use my pregnancy shots in your portfolio. )

July 25th - Leaving WA

Here's Andrew with his grandparents the morning we left Olympia. He drove in his truck with no air conditioning and pulled the trailer while I drove our car in front of him and blazed the way. We basically drove the Oregon Trail backwards. Driving through Washington and Eastern Oregon was really pretty but after that the scenery was dead looking until Kansas.

July 27th - Blackfoot, ID

We stopped in Boise for our first night then continued on to Blackfoot the next day and spent some time with Andrew's aunt and uncle. They were so nice to let us stay with them while they had other family in town. Andrew's cousin and family live in Japan but his cousin's wife was expecting a little baby so they came to Idaho to have their fourth baby in the States for better medical care. The other three kids in the picture above are their other kids. We were both meeting these little cousins for the first time.

Andrew built a lego plane with Perry. Perry goes to a Japanese school and taught us some Japanese words.

This is Elinor. She taught us that apparently in Japan you're supposed to say "right?" after everything, right? She's the cutest little girl, right?

July 28th - August 3rd - Provo

For the next week of our trip we headed down to Provo and I stayed with my sister Laura while Andrew stayed with some old roommates. We spent most of our time playing guitar hero and hanging out with Laura at Costa Vida. She works there and was able to get us discounts/free food almost everyday, which works out nicely because their food is the bomb. Freddie is also in Provo so it was fun to hang out with my little brother and sister I never see. Freddie works at Jamba Juice and was able to get us some discounts there, too! We had the hook-up! We also went to Seven Peaks Water Park one of the days we were there. I wasn't able to go down any slides but it was still nice to be out in the sun and I'm pretty sure our little baby was loving the wave pool, she was kicking like crazy in there. (Well, or I guess that could mean she hated it!)

August 3rd - August 6th - Salt Lake City

Andrew's family got into Salt Lake on Sunday night (August 3rd) so we headed up there to see them. On Monday we ate at the Lion House and walked around temple square and went to the distribution center to get Jessica's temple clothes. Grandma Kohler got me a little dress to bless the baby in.

August 5th - Mt. Timpanogos

Jessica and Terence

Andrew and Me

On Tuesday we went up to Mt. Timpanogos Temple for Jessica's endowment and then we had dinner at a nearby park with Terence's family.

August 6th- Salt Lake city

Jessica and Terrence got married on August 6th in the Salt Lake Temple. It was a really nice ceremony and their Temple Sealer was the same one who sealed me and Andrew, so it was kind of deja vu from about a year earlier when we were married there.

I forgot to bring my camera so you can see more pics at her photographer's website.

We left Utah on Thursday morning (August 7th) and made it to Cozad, Nebraska that night. The next morning we headed for Missouri and made a stop in Liberty and Independence to see some church history sites.

August 8th - Missouri

Inside the visitor's center there is a recreation with original stones in the actual spot where Joseph Smith and four others were in jail in Liberty, MO. You can kind of see it behind us. I would highly recommend this Church History site, it was definitely worth our time to stop.

We couldn't leave Kansas City without eating at a good BBQ place. Andrew just informed me that the KC in K.C. Masterpiece (BBQ Sauce) stands for Kansas City and apparently originated there. Interesting. Here's Andrew enjoying one of his favorite foods-RIBS!

Here he is about 3 minutes later...(no, seriously)

August 9th - Cincinnati, OH

We made it to Cincinnati on Saturday night (August 9th) and met Jessica and Scott at Cheesecake Factory for Scott's b-day. Here's a picture of the two love birds. Thanks for sharing your birthday with us, Scott!

We stayed with Jessica and Scott until Wednesday (August 13th) then headed to our new home. We stayed at the (not so) Super 8 Motel until we found an apartment with availability. I had narrowed it down, so we really only had 2 or 3 to choose from. We picked the one closest to Andrew's school so we could save on gas and so he could spend more time at home with me and the baby rather than driving to and from school.

We finally got moved into our new apartment on Friday (August 15th). The missionaries helped us unload our things. We spent the next day, which also happens to be our anniversary weekend, unpacking and setting up our new little apartment. After all was unpacked we went to find a place to celebrate our first year of marriage. We found a yummy little Mexican place called Mariachi Coco's.

August 15th - our new home!!!

This was probably the best moment of our life....unhitching the U-Haul trailer from Andrew's truck after 29 days and 3,050 miles!

Here are some pics of the inside and outside of our new little home.

We got ourselves a new bed and bedspread. It is super comfy!

Here's our little nursery. There isn't really a theme...I just got some white sheets at Target and a pink bumper. That'll do, right? If you look closely you can see the cute blanket Emily got me on the changing table.

Here's her closet. As you can see she already has PLENTY of clothes (most of these are the hand-me-downs from Jessica's girls). Also you can see the diaper bag Grandma Kohler got for me. It's really cute, right?

Andrew had his first week of Orientation last week and we went and took a little walk around campus. I made Andrew pose for these pictures.

Here he is looking for his textbooks that we would later spend $900 on!!! Gotta love Law school. But Andrew reassures me that it's ok, because he will continue using these books next semester. Whew, that makes me feel a lot better, right?

Well I think that about does it. So far we are enjoying our new life in Ohio. Andrew enjoyed his first week at Law School and is excited to be a 1L as they call first years. I spent his first week of law school at mainly driving around and getting acquainted with town and at Borders reading Breaking Dawn. This week I'll go get myself a library card and find some more books to read as I wait for our little girl to join us.

Oh and another thing, we got a family pass to the student rec center. It's really nice, I'm excited to get back to kickboxing classes after our little one is born. The pool is pretty dope, too. There is a lazy river! How cool is that??
One last random thing to end on (and speaking of needing to get back to the gym), we celebrated the start of College Football with some brownies, ice cream, chocolate syrup, and peanut butter M&M's. Yummy, right? Sorry to make you salivate, but I couldn't resist!

Moving...

So starting tomorrow we will be homeless for about 3 weeks! In order to break our contract here at our apartment we would have had to have paid $1700! No thank you! To get out of that fee we found someone to take over our contract. The only way they wanted it is if we moved out on July 18th (tomorrow). So that puts us out almost 2 weeks before planned.

Our plan is to squeeze all of our belongings into a 6'x12' U-haul trailer to be pulled by Andrew's truck, and I will follow behind in our car. We're alloted 12 days for the flat fee to use the trailer and $20 each additional day we need, which sure beats paying the $1700 to our apartment management! We'll stay at Andrew's grandparents for a week here in Washington while Andrew finishes up some things at work and I have my last doctor's appointment . Then we will hit the road and head to Idaho and stay with an aunt and uncle for 2 nights. Then it is on to Provo to stay with Freddie and Laura for a week! Then Andrew's sister Jessica is getting married in Salt Lake the first week in August so we'll stay up in Salt Lake with Andrew's parents. Then it's on to Ohio for law school! Woohoo, sounds like fun, right? So I'll be back to the blogging world sometime around mid-August! See ya then!

Andrew's birthday and a Salmon Bake

Like usual, I have a couple of things to catch up on...

First is Andrew's birthday. In his grandparent's ward they had an auction type of thing and they won a boat ride on Puget Sound. They decided to invite Andrew and me and make it a birthday celebration. So on Andrew's birthday, June 27th, we went out on the Johnson's boat on Puget Sound. It was a beautiful day! It was a little bit windy, but at least the sun was shining!

Mt. Rainier

Here's a picture of Andrew's grandparents, and then me and Andrew.

We rode up to Gig Harbor and had lunch at Anthony's right on the shore. It was delicious!

We had some cake and ice cream at Andrew's grandparents with some of of Andrew's cousins and aunt and uncle. I got Andrew a sheet birthday cake because that's his favorite.

For 4th of July we had a ward pancake breakfast. It was a rainy day so after breakfast we were looking for something to do inside. Andrew had the great idea to go to Wal-mart and buy a puzzle. It was actually really fun to spend the day working on a puzzle, I kind of felt like a little kid during the lazy days of summer. Later on in the evening we went over to a friend's house for some dinner and fireworks.

On Saturday after 4th of July we were looking for something fun to do around Washington and found an annual Salmon Bake on Anderson Island, a tiny little island about 5 miles by 3 miles. We did a little research and found out we drive up to Steilacoom and take the ferry over to the Island. Rather than paying 18 bucks to take our car over on the ferry with us we decided we would just go over as pedestrians and walk to the Salmon Bake once we were on the Island --according to mapquest it was about a mile from where the ferry docks. Well we got on the ferry and noticed some other pedestrians so we thought "ok, cool, other people will be walking to the festival too." Wrong. When we got to the Island they had people waiting to pick them up, or they had bikes, or some other means of getting to where they were going. So there I was, 6 months pregnant and wearing flip flops, headed off on our hike to the Salmon Bake. It turned out to be uphill about half of the way, and it ended up being more like a mile and a half, AND it was drizzling. The walk back to the ferry after the Salmon Bake wasn't as bad. It sure made for a fun little adventure! Here are some pictures...

Here we are on the ferry-notice the cloudy sky :)



Can you tell how excited we were to finally have reached our destination?? I think Andrew captured me mid-jump in the air.



The long anticipated Salmon platter


I really thought I was going to have to use one of the old school outhouses...luckily they had something a little more substantial.


Headed back to the ferry


Here comes the ferry!

Father's Day!

So we decided to go ahead and celebrate Andrew's first Father's Day this year. Plus Andrew's birthday is coming up this week so they will kind of be combined. I got him a shaving cream warmer thingy and I made him a coupon book; the taking out the trash one was his favorite!

We also went up to Seattle for a Mariner's game and watched them lose 5-2...they aren't doing very well this year! But we still had a fun time and had good seats. The only weird thing was we brought a blanket and actually had to use it! It was freezing! Apparently it is the coldest June on record in Washington!

There is a Babies "R" Us on the way up to Seattle so we decided to stop and register for baby stuff! It was pretty fun and I actually think it was easier/funner than registering for our wedding! Here I am with my handy-dandy clipboard.

This past week I made Red Beans and Rice which came out really yummy and I made homemade bread for the first time! We have a breadmaker, but I wanted to try making it all on my own. It was really tasty and kind of pretty, I was REALLY proud of myself! (it was a healthy pride though) Emily gave me the recipe a while back and I've been wanting to try it. I halfed the recipe and it still came out huge!

On a side note, I thought I'd post some pregnancy pictures. I never thought I'd be someone to post pictures of my growing belly, but I know some of you who won't be able to see me pregnant are curious what I look like, so here goes....

19 Weeks

21 Weeks

23 Weeks

This past week I feel like I really popped out, even though it's hard to tell from the picture...

Andrew's mom sent us some onesies and receiving blankets a little while back before we knew if it was a girl or boy. They are so cute and tiny and I can't wait to put them on our little girl! She also sent us some cute holiday bibs. Now our baby can make a mess in style! Thanks for all the goodies, Pam!

Now that we know it's a girl I went and picked out some girly clothes that were on sale at Gymboree and BabyGap. It's fun to see more little baby things in the closet!

Also, Jessica sent me a ton of her girls' hand-me-downs.

I'm so excited to have such a big wardrobe of cute clothes for our little one! Thanks Jess!

It's a girl!

So, today we had our first ultrasound and got to have our first look at our little baby.

After a lot of poking and shoving the technician told us she was confident we're going to have a girl, but couldn't quite get baby to cooperate for a visual. Our little baby was just content to sit at a really awkward angle for the entire ultrasound. The technician even tried to move me around some but it didn't work. Anyway, here is some footage from our visit. You can see her swallow and see her little heart beating. Awwww! It was pretty neat! We can't wait to meet her! Luckily everything measured good and the size and everything is right on for a due date of October 20th.

A couple of weeks ago while Andrew and I were at an eye exam we were talking to the technician and I told her I was pregnant. She told us her little girl was 16 months and she didn't plan on having any more kids so she wanted to give us a little swing. So we arranged to go pick it up from her and it turned out to be a really nice one and in good condition! It can swing two ways, has adjustable speeds and after a quick wash in the washing machine it was as good as new. She also gave us some baby toys that were basically new. Now we just have to wait wait wait to see our little girl!