Swim Fun

My younger brother Garrett has been in town since Zach was born on July 1st. We decided to go swimming last Friday so he could have a chance to get out of the apartment. Hanging out all day with a new mom and her baby was probably getting old for a 17 year old boy.

I got some free swim passes to the Helaman Halls pool and Derrick got off work a little early. We decided that since we were going swimming Zach should dress the part (even though he slept in his car seat the whole time). In case anyone was worried, we kept a close eye on him the whole time. Here are a few pictures to document Zach's first trip to the pool.

This is Zach's gangster pose. Notice the low-riding with the pants to show off a little diaper.

At the pool with Dad. The white shirt he's wearing was actually Derrick's when he was little.

At the pool with mom. That's Uncle Garrett in the background.

New Developments

Zachary is officially 3 weeks and 2 days old today. It's been really fun to see Zach grow and learn that there is a world around him. He still needs to eat about every 2 hours and sleeps a lot but his periods of alertness are getting longer.

His 2 week appointment was on Tuesday, July 15th. The stats are as follows:
Weight: 7 lbs 15 oz (birth weight was 6 lbs 8 oz)
Height: 20.5 in (birth height was 19.75 in)
Head: 38 cm
These measurements were all pretty close to the 50 percentile.

Last Saturday (the 19th) I was changing Zach's diaper in the morning and was surprised to see that the raisin-like umbilical stump was no longer attached. (It'd fallen under him in his onesie). Zach has now joined the majority of people in the world and has a real belly button.

Zach at 3 weeks - yeah! I have a belly button!
(This is a shirt Zach was given at the hospital. It works great as a pajama shirt when it's so hot)

Also Zach can now have real baths (as opposed to sponge baths). He had his first real bath on Saturday also. He's pretty unsure how he feels about them right now. He'll probably like them more once his parents aren't so clumsy in their baby-washing abilities. Here's a picture of Zach's first bath.


This week Zachary's started getting a lot more interactive than he was (still not saying much though :) ). He's started looking at us more and showing some interest in things we hold in front of him. Below is a picture of what we call Zach's space pod. This is where he often spends his time when we're not holding him. Last night Derrick and I had a lot of fun watching him as he would stare at the hanging toys and swing his arms at them. Zach usually missed since he's still working on getting control of his arms so the few times he made contact were happy accidents.


Zach is very active in his sleep. I laid him in the pod facing vertically but he was wiggling so much that he ended up horizontal. This also shows Zach's favorite way to sleep. He needs his arms to be free so they can be above his head and his legs to be swaddled. He's showed an amazing ability to kick out of his swaddling (which leads to crying at night time until I re-swaddle him). We've had to figure out more effective ways of sealing his legs in. He kicks so much that we had to start taping the front part of his diapers because one night he kicked his diaper half off which led to quite the puddle in his bassinet.

For the last note on this post, Zach's eyes have been changing color. They started out pretty dark and slightly green tinted but this week they've changed to blue. The lighting in the picture makes Zach's eyes look darker than they are but I'm putting it in anyway. We definitely love this kid.

Juggling Act

So not surprisingly, becoming a parent comes with lots of changes. The main reason I have time to post right now is because Derrick and my siblings who are currently in the area are at the movie theater watching The Dark Knight. Zach is sleeping as usual and making his funny grunting noises. That kid is going to be quite the sleep talker.


Just making it so Derrick and I can see this movie we've been anxiously waiting to see has been quite the juggling act. Because Zach eats like crazy and sometimes can't even wait 2 hours between meal times, we decided going to a 2 1/2 hour long movie on Pioneer Day when the theaters are crazy wasn't a good idea. To have any chance at getting good seats you have to get there extra early and I'd feel like a terrible parent making Zach wait so long for food while I'm at a movie. Also, that babysitting experience probably would have scared my sister Melissa and her husband Nate away from watching Zach again. The only reason I let Derrick go without me (and am not bitter about it) is because he's busy M-F working and Saturdays he works at the temple so this is his only day off until Labor day. Also, my dad and I are going to go see it as a daddy/daughter date when he comes out for Zach's baby blessing this next week. My mom is great with Zach and can help him happily wait the 3 - 3 1/2 hours he'll need to wait between feedings. Who would have thought going to a movie would take so much planning?

The Labor Experience Part 2

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

We checked into the hospital at 1 am and I was told to change into a gown and was checked to see if my water had broken like I guessed it did. That test proved positive so they started hooking me up to monitors. It was such a weird feeling to realize that the next time we went home we would be parents. I was calling my mom throughout the night giving her updates. Since none of us expected the baby to come so soon or so fast (and in the middle of the night) she was pretty unsure what to do. She decided she and my brother Garrett would start driving early in the morning but they were so excited that they gave up trying to sleep and started driving at 3:30 am.

When I got to the hospital I was pretty effaced (I wasn't told any exact measurements) and dilated to about a 2. I steadily continued to dilate and was at about a 5 between 3 and 4 am. Every time I started to relax and go to sleep my contractions seemed to get worse so by 3-3:30 am I asked for the epidural. Having the needle stuck into my spine by a guy wearing a do-rag scared the heck out of me but was completely worth it once the epidural took effect. It was really weird to lose feeling from my waist down. My left side went a lot more numb than my right. I couldn't move my left leg at all and at one point couldn't find where it was under the blanket. (Hard to explain). I was jealous of Derrick who got to sleep for about 2 hours. Every time I almost fell asleep some nurse would come in to measure something.

Around 4:30 am I was put on pitocin to speed things along since my water had broken so long ago. The baby's heartbeat started to slow down and worry the nurses but luckily would pick back up every time they did things to try to wake Zach up. By 5:30am I had dilated to a 10 and Zach was ready to come. My bed was missing a stirrup so a nurse went hunting for one to take from another bed and my doctor was called into the room.

Everyone got into position about 6 am and I started pushing. It was really hard work and got exhausting fast. I was very glad I didn't need to feel the contractions while I was focusing on pushing. Epidurals are wonderful. Derrick was great and right next to me the whole time helping me get into position between pushes. We had to stop for a couple minutes in the middle of pushing so I could get a quick 2nd dose of penicillin through the IV. After a few more pushes Zachary James Bowen was born at 6:21 am. We stayed at the hospital until around 4:30 pm July 2.

Visitors at the hospital: Grandma Jones, Garrett Jones, Melissa Sharp, Nate Sharp, Grandma Bowen, Tara Anderson, and Bishop Thorne.

The Labor Experience Part 1

So I've been meaning to write for awhile now about my experience having Zachary (for journalistic purposes) but surprisingly (said with sarcasm) I've been tired and kept busy. Now that I've gotten around to posting, here it goes:

- Caution: I will be including terms like mucous plug and dilation so feel free to skip if you'd rather not hear about that :)


Monday, June 30, 2008

This was my last day of work because it was the day my student status expired. I graduated back in December but was able to extend my student status for 6 months because there had been a shortage in student employees. Also, Derrick and I attended the ward camp out Friday night and Saturday (June 27-28).

In the morning before work I noticed that I was having some weird discharge (don't worry, I won't go into detail there). I called a nurse at my OB/GYN just to make sure that this was okay. I was told that I had passed the mucous plug. I was first told to go to labor and delivery which seemed weird since I wasn't having contractions. The nurse called back about 10 minutes later to tell me she had talked to my doctor and I didn't need to rush to the hospital. I could go into labor either today or in a couple of weeks (the due date was 2 weeks away) so I should wait to go to the hospital until I was having contractions. Thanks nurse.

Since labor didn't seem pending I went swimming with my friend Tara and went to work as usual from 12-5 where I said my goodbyes and was given a plant which Derrick and I have surprisingly not killed yet. After leaving work I noticed that I was leaking a little. I found out later this was because my water broke but I didn't think too much of it at the time because it wasn't the dramatic flood I'd been expecting.

That night Derrick and I went about things as usual. We took a long walk for FHE and by the end I noticed a stomachache, backache, and that I was starting to waddle a bit because walking hurt. We turned on a movie when we got back and I worked on the crib bumpers I've been making for Zachary.

Around 11:o0 pm I noticed that my stomachache was cramping and decided to call my mom to see what contractions were supposed to feel like. She was able to confirm I was having contractions and told me to start timing them and let her know when they were 10 minutes apart so she could have time to drive the 8 1/2 hours from Colorado. I went to Derrick and surprised him with the news that I thought I was going into labor and we started timing contractions. The contractions were a constant 6 minutes apart and starting to get stronger and more painful fast. By 12:30 am the contractions were only 3 minutes apart so we jumped in the car and drove to the hospital and called our parents to let them know the grandson was coming.

Baby pics 2

So the out of town parents were hoping for a few more pictures of the grand-baby. Here you go, two weeks down, 5510* to go.


Here's a close up of Zach-o in his very first Sunday outfit. About 15 minutes after this picture he had his very first Sunday diaper blow-out and had to switch clothes. Now he's back to being a pirate. (it actually was his first official blow out as well, as I'm sure you are excited to hear)

Our dignified after church family photo shoot.

It took a coupla tries to get a dignified photo from the shoot.

One of the times when Daddy was sleeping but Zach wasn't. Usually Zach is most awake between 11 and 1:30 at night.

He's been quite the professional pee-er, and managed to squirt through all the extra clothes we packed (as well as Derrick's lap and Melissa's shirt). We brought him back from Great-Grandparents Jones in a toga made of a waterproof lay down thingy and burp cloth.

This is what happens when Jen takes a nap and leaves her family to take care of Zachary

oooo, cool hat.

oooo, cool hat.


He's an excellent driver.

The Official 1 week picture of the momma and the babe.


*(that's assuming he lives to be 106)

Baby Pics

oooooo how cute....

And 2 became 3

So our little boy apparently got impatient and decided to come 12 days early.

Stats:
Name: Zachary James Bowen
Birthday: July 1, 2008
Birth time: 6:21 am
Weight: 6 1/2 pounds
Height 19 3/4 in.

We were really blessed. Zachary and I are doing great. The labor went quickly, epidurals are wonderful inventions, and the baby had no complications. Derrick or I will add pictures of our really cute baby and more of the details once I get more sleep.

Lots and lots of baby updates

I hit a big milestone on Friday. It was June 13th and with my due date being July 13th I was officially one month until the due date. It's amazing to think that in 4 weeks(ish) I'll be done being pregnant and be the mom of a little boy. I'm so excited to meet him and I definitely can't wait to feel relatively normal again. It's hard to remember not being pregnant but the end is in sight!

Our little guy is still pretty active and since he's run out of room I can feel his movements all the more. I'm convinced he's trying to create more space since a lot of times he sticks out his foot and pushes hard and just stays like that for awhile unless I push (gently) back. Not so comfortable but his moving around always helps me feel like he's doing just great. Heartburn's been striking with full force and I've had a bad cough for the last little while but other than that I've been spared a lot of the unpleasantness of pregnancy. I haven't really had any problems with swelling, stretch marks, sleeping through the entire night, back pain, etc. so I have lots of blessings to count.

I had another appointment with the OB/GYN last Friday. I was shown right to the room where she saw me but didn't see her until an hour later. Sitting on a table for an hour when 8 months pregnant is not comfortable so I wasn't very happy about that. It was my luck to be right after some girl who had an emotional breakdown and took the doctor's attention for 45 minutes. Grrr. Seeing the doctor this whole time has been pretty uneventful since there have been absolutely no complications. (another blessing) She even told me last time that I was really easy because there was never anything for her to do. My visits with her rarely go over 5 minutes.

The baby's heartbeat is "happy" according to the doctor and I'm assuming that's a good thing. I don't get told the numbers but it sounded good and strong. Also in good news the baby is head down and I've dilated to 1 cm. It sounded like that was good for a first time mom. With any luck this baby will come a little early. I'm just praying he doesn't come late though I know that's really common with the first.

Also on the baby front Derrick and I took a tour 2 weeks ago of the labor and delivery area of the hospital I'll have the baby in. It felt good to pre-register and see where exactly we need to go when we're feeling a little rushed. It felt funny to be walking around with a small group of very pregant women and their husbands. It was good to hear a little more about how the whole process works. After hearing about some of the different parts of the process I've decided that I'm going for the epidural. I'd considered seeing if I could tough it out for awhile and have the epidural as back up but I'm thinking I might just skip to the epidural. We'll see. My one complaint about the visit was that the "tour guide" kept joking about things which got confusing since I'm so new to this whole thing and had a hard telling when she was joking or really telling things as they were. Yikes.

As a final note, Derrick and I have been spending the last week decorating the baby's room. We decided to do a tropical/beachy theme to the room instead of the traditional pastels. We had fun finding great deals on wooden shades, fake flowers, and other decorations. Because cute baby bedding is so expensive we decided to make some of our own. Derrick helped me pick out different blues, greens and tans from the fabric store. He designed the different panels for the crib bumper pad on the computer and since then I've been creating the patterns and making them. It's been a lot of fun for me to figure out how to do this since I haven't done too much sewing. I've got half of the panels done and I'm really excited about how they're turning out. We'll post more pictures once I finish.

Belly pic at 8 months (the first day of week 37). The background shows how we decorated one of the walls in the baby/computer room. Yea for small apartments.

Down to One Job

So after working for 3 1/2 months in a preschool class at Farrer Elementary School for children with autism, I am done. The school year ended the last week of May and I don't think the timing could have been much better. Working two jobs everyday and needing to get down on the ground with high maintenance kids for one of them was starting to take a lot out of me. The kids were really cute and it was fun to learn the best ways to interact with them. Each kid was so different and figuring out how to keep them happy and doing what they were supposed to be doing (instead of inciting tantrums) was always an exciting accomplishment.

I think I was the most excited about the progress I made with a little boy named Jaxton. He never wanted to stop moving so keeping him focused on his work was frustrating and I'll admit I usually tried to let the other aides deal with him. After working with him for a few months I learned to love his quirks and we became good buddies. He was one of the kids I most looked forward to seeing and he went out of his way to make sure I was the aide who was helping him.

I was usually too busy to take pictures during work but I did get some from the last day. A few of the kids are missing. It was hard to get most of the kids to actually look at the camera. I've added captions to the pictures in case anyone's curious which one is Jaxton.

Trip to the Cabin at Fish Lake - May 23-26

So I'm finally getting caught up on blogging about the vacations Derrick and I went on in May. For Memorial Day weekend we went to the cabin Derrick's maternal grandpa and his siblings built at Fish Lake here in Utah. It's a 2 1/2 hour drive south of Provo. I was surprised to find that Spring hasn't reached Fish Lake yet. It was still really cold and even snowed a little on some of the days.

We met Derrick's parents and the Sessums, a family from their ward, at the cabin and had a lot of fun with them. Over the weekend we made s'mores around the fireplace, watched movies, went on 2 walks/hikes, and played lots of games. We went to church at the lodge there (about a 3 minute drive from the cabin) and during the sacrament a bat started flying around the room. I'd never seen that before! Also, it was so cold in there that most of the women didn't bother to wear skirts and most people brought piles of blankets with them. An old lady sat next to me and threw one of her blankets on top of Derrick and me because she brought so many. She was pretty funny to talk to before church started.

The cabin is pretty rustic. The only sources of heat were the fireplace and a wood burning stove. We got to climb ladders to get to the lofts we slept in at night. There was some question before we got there as to whether or not I could handle the ladder but luckily there was no problem. I'm glad I can still do a lot of the things I could before I was pregnant. One of the biggest things I miss is being able to bend over. Tying my own shoes without difficulty is one thing I won't take for granted anymore :).

We didn't take very many pictures during the trip but I did want to show what the cabin looks like, especially the ladder and the loft. As a disclaimer on the pictures, we were semi-roughing it so showering and using makeup were not regular occurrences over the weekend.

New Job

So, I'd been doing some freelance work for different companies (mainly little web based projects in php) but 2 weeks ago or so they started to thin out, so I thought I'd check out a more solid job. (Actually a bigger issue about it was that I would have to spend a certain amount of time looking for opportunities, which is time that I wouldn't get paid for...) So on a Monday I sent out my resume to a bunch of places, and by Wednesday I'd landed a solid web developer job at a local company called Cleantelligent.

Cleantelligent started out as an in-house web tracking system for a janitorial/facilities management company called Bear Com. They needed a system to track customer work-orders/emergencies/outages and there wasn't a commercial product that really fit their industry. After they had done a significant amount of development, they realized that they could profit more by selling the system as a service to other companies than by the simple competitive advantage, so they split off the software division into it's own company.

Being a custom system, its direction is heavily based on feature requests from clients. This is one of the major benefits of the program, if a company really needs a certain functionality, they can pay us to put it in there. So that's basically what I do, in short, the bidding of the highest bidder.

Since starting I've mainly done little bug-fixes and minor customizations, but now that I'm getting the hang of how the program works, I'll move on to some bigger projects. Besides the web side of things, there is also a version of the program for Tablet PCs and blackberry/PocketPC devices, mainly for on-site inspections.

The system is mainly Java based with an increasing amount of Flex, and the desktop apps in C#. In the near future we're putting in some advanced scheduling/calendaring features, multi-language messaging, and a scaled down version of the web site for things like the iPhone.

It's been really nice there so far, its pretty laid back, with all the snacks a guy could want and benefits including monthly massage and haircut (though luckily not at the same time) I'm looking forward to continuing on there for a little while.

Camping Trip - May 16 to 17

Because I'm lazy and catching up on a lot of posts, I'm posting another slide show instead of trying to artistically incorporate pictures with the words.

Derrick and I organized a camping trip to the Wedge Overlook in the San Rafael swell (not too far from Price, UT). Derrick's sister's boyfriend recommended it to us so we thought we'd try it. This place is called the mini Grand Canyon. I'm still not used to desert camping but it was a really pretty place.

The Sharps (my sister and brother-in-law), the Ropers (Derrick's friend growing up and his wife), and the Chandlers (some friends from the ward) came with us. After we sent up our tents a few of the girls came over and told us that they were there for a bachelorette party so they might get a little loud. Luckily they were never a problem though we all thought that it was pretty strange that the girls each seemed to have a dog and that they were camping for the bachelorette party.

We were all in charge of our own food and still ended up all having the same kind of tin foil dinners for dinner. The Chandlers made some really good peach cobbler with a dutch oven we borrowed and Jeremy (Roper) had a lot of fun with playing with lighter fluid and the fire after we were done cooking with it.

I was able to sleep surprisingly well considering I was 33 weeks along. I didn't feel at all guilty bringing a queen-size air mattress to sleep on.

After breakfast we drove down into the canyon and stopped to see some pretty cool petroglyphs. The signs explaining them didn't know too many details about them. Some things they did tell us were that the petroglyphs were thousands of years old, had been added to several times, and because of their prominent location, were meant to be displayed. After having a good look we found a river to play around in. Heat is starting to be pretty uncomfortable so the cold water felt so nice. After eating lunch we headed home. Showering felt so nice.

Louisville, Colorado Trip May 7 - May 13

During the 2nd week in May Derrick and I got to fly to Denver and visit my family in Louisville. Melissa and Nate joined us there and it was great having so much of the family together. Usually we drive but there was no way I was going to sit in a car for 8 1/2 hours when I was 32 weeks along. We timed the trip so we could help out with my sister's Colorado wedding reception. Because of this, my parents surprised us by buying our tickets for us. We were happy with the deal.

While there:

- We did a lot of preparations for the reception (grocery shopping, making torte, ironing table clothes, decorating the church gym, etc.) and hosted the reception. I curled Melissa's hair for her. Here's slide show of pictures Derrick took before and during the reception.



- I got a hair cut so now it's 4 inches shorter and a little more layered. The person who cut my hair was actually pretty frustrating and kept only doing tiny changes until I gave up asking her to do more.
- Derrick had someone who would actually play Halo with him (my younger brother Garrett)
- There was lots of game playing. This trip the main games were Settlers of Catan and Rook.
- We did our family's traditional trip to hike Boulder Falls then a picnic and walk along Boulder Creek. While walking around these places I got really excited to come back and show them to our little boy once he's old enough to notice his surroundings. Here's a slide show with pictures from Boulder Falls.



- Mother's Day - Derrick and I made a fancy dinner that my mom got to choose. We ended up having steak, baked potatoes, fried zucchini and squash, fruit salad, and frape (sp?) all served on the china. We also sang songs around the piano and played extra games with my mom since she loves playing games. I had a really fun time going back to the Louisville ward. It's the ward I grew up in and I hadn't been there since last May.
- Derrick and I went to visit his younger brother Tyson who's going to school at CU-Boulder. We met his new dog Oswald, made smoothies, and watched Live Free or Die Hard.
- We received a lot of baby clothes and supplies. My mom had fun shopping for her first grandchild and got a little carried away. We're not complaining though!

XKCD

A web comic Jeremy and I like to read put up this one that seemed all too a propos:



You'll probably need either Firefox or the latest IE to see it right, and make sure you check out the tooltip (hover your mouse over the image for a lil bit).

fun times.

TIme to play catch up

So it's definitely been awhile since we've posted on here. Sorry to those who actually read this blog. Derrick and I have been getting most of our vacations in this May because we aren't sure how much traveling we'll be up for later this summer with our new edition coming this July. Hopefully, several new posts will be joining our blog in attempts to document the last few weeks.

The Sharp Wedding

My younger sister Melissa married her sweetheart Nathan Sharp, a.k.a. Natey Batey, in the Mt. Timpanogos temple on April 26,2008. Congratulations you two! Derrick and I are so excited that you'll be moving into an apartment about 2 minutes walking distance away!


In the morning we had a great wedding breakfast at The Hampton House in American Fork, UT. The food was great and lots of people from the Jones and Sharp sides of the family came. The dads both gave mini-speeches and Nate put in his few words (few being the key word here :) ). After stuffing ourselves with cinnamon french toast, seasoned potatoes, peppered bacon, scrambled eggs, cinnamon rolls of different flavors, and croissants dipped in chocolate (not your healthiest breakfast), we had three hours to do whatever before the wedding. Derrick and I went with Melissa and Nate to Nate's uncle's house in American Fork and after hanging out there awhile we went to Kohl's to do some baby shopping. We still had a few gift cards left from our wedding a year ago.

The temple ceremony at 2:00 pm was beautiful and was performed by Grandpa Jones who's set apart as a sealer at the Jordan River temple but got permission from the first presidency to seal Melissa and Nate at the Mt. Timpanogos temple. Melissa and Nate looked so happy and now get to be together for time and all eternity. The day they'd been counting down to finally came!

We ended up waiting a long time for Melissa and Nate to join us outside the temple for pictures. We saw Nate run past everyone twice without Melissa and later found out he was making trips to their car to try and find her tiara. After one unsuccessful attempt and lots of looking, Nate found the tiara.

Having pictures taken outside the temple turned out to be an interesting time because it was so windy. On our way into to temple we saw one bride's veil blown vertical. The wind hadn't died down much by the time Melissa and Nate came outside. This is what happened when they walked out.


Derrick helped control the blowing veil for a little while. Another, more efficient way was to have Nate keep his arm around Melissa and use that arm to hold it down.

Just for fun, here's a picture of Melissa, our mom, and me.

After pictures, Derrick and I rushed home so we could try and get some sleep before we needed to get to the church to help finish setting up for the reception. Melissa put me in charge of the flowers for her wedding so we was up until 5:30 am working on them. Three hours of sleep while being in the third trimester is not so fun. I made the boutonnières, corsages, and bouquet Friday night but decided to do the rest of the flowers right before the reception. Derrick was really nice and stayed up with me and even taped and wired the salal leaves for the bouquet after I showed him how. Three cheers for a supportive husband!

Our refrigerator at the end of the Friday night

We only had time to sleep an hour and then we headed to the church building here in Provo where they the reception was being held. I needed to hurry and finish the flowers for the cake, the table arrangements, and the tossing bouquet so I set up all my supplies in the Relief Society room. Derrick was sent on several errands with my brother Garrett and everything came together pretty well by the time guests were arriving. Nate's family also did a lot to help.

Here are a few pictures from the reception:

This is the first picture of the whole family we've had since before Jason went on his mission. We've had three (and 3/4 if you count the baby) new editions since then.

Daddy/Daughter dance to Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up"

Just after cutting the cake Grandma Eddington (Melissa's maternal grandma) made and smashing it into each other's faces a bit.

Graduation

So with both high school and now college, I graduated in December and walked the following spring. My parents and brother Garrett got to Provo in time to make it to the commencement exercises Thurs, Apr 24th. Melissa, Nate, and Jason also came. Elder Bednar was there spoke about learning to love learning. Because this was the big ceremony, I decided to be untraditional and not dress up in the cap and gown and sat with my family instead. It was more fun enjoying the ceremony with them and we were able to leave quickly afterwards so we could get dinner and make it to the Mt. Timpanogos temple where my sister Melissa went through for the first time at 8:00 pm. This picture is with my mom.

After commencement exercises, most of us met up with Derrick's parents at his grandparents house and had a great dinner. We didn't want to try and mess with the crowds at any restaurants.

Convocation for the David O. McKay School of Education started Friday at 8:00 a.m. Derrick's parents, my parents and two of my brothers willingly woke up that early to come support me. It meant a lot to me to have so much family come support me even though I graduated several months ago. I graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Communication Disorders. Elder Perry was there and I got to shake his hand after the dean handed me the folder to hold my real diploma. I think he came because he had a granddaughter graduating.

Derrick's and my parents were also very generous with the graduation gifts. Derrick's parents bought me a glider chair for the baby's room (I was determined to have one one way or another so this was very exciting) and my parents bought me a matching stroller and car seat. Here are some pictures with family after convocation.

With the Bowen parents

Derrick showing off my prego belly

Posing with my brothers Jason and Garrett

With the Jones parents

One wonderful year

On Monday, April 28th, Derrick and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. It's so wonderful being married to my best friend. It's hard for me to really put the why into words. I love that he's considerate, dependable, loving, patient, forgiving, hard working, tons of fun, creative, spontaneous, intelligent, good with money, great at communicating, has a great sense of humor, and honors his Priesthood. The list goes on. I love getting to spend time with him everyday. We have fun together whether we're doing the laundry or playing in Hawaii. One of our goals has been to read the scriptures together everyday and so far we have a perfect record. He is definitely the perfect match for me. I'm so grateful that we get to be together forever.

We didn't do anything fancy to celebrate our anniversary since we're currently on a college income. We did get to spend most of the day together and made a fancy dinner. We cooked filet mignon, baked potatoes, shrimp (for Derrick), zucchini, apples, juice. For dessert I made strawberry shortcake from scratch. It all tasted so good. We pulled out the candles and place mats for fun.

Year two of our marriage will definitely be a big adventure since two will become three. Derrick will make a great dad and it makes me so happy that he is looking forward to becoming one. I'm excited to work with him to raise our little boy. I love you Derrick!!!

Current Events

So I thought for this post I'd lump a couple different recent happenings together:

Coming to an end

So we are now at the end of another semester. Derrick is finishing up with the second half of the junior core in the ISYS program and will hopefully be starting the combined senior core and first year of the master's program in the fall. (We're still waiting to hear back about his getting accepted or not). I'm excited to have more time with Derrick in the evenings and to not need to work hard to not distract him too much from his homework. This was my first semester after graduating. It's still a little unreal to not be worrying about finals at this time of the year. I did decide about 3 days ago that I'd be walking in the graduation ceremonies. I was pretty indifferent about going through the ceremony (I did get my diploma in the mail months ago) and personally would rather skip it and have a family party instead. My parents seemed to care enough, a friend in the ward looked up all the information for me, and it surprisingly wasn't too late to order a cap and gown so I've decided to go for it after all.

ASM Closing Social

On Tuesday we had the closing social for BYU's club for Derrick's major. Apparently ASM stands for Association for Systems Management. It's a pretty nerdy club but going to club events more than makes up for the membership fee. Usually big companies sponsor cool events like high adventure courses or snow tubing. The closing social was a nice catered dinner by BYU catering at the new Hinckley building. We won a booklet of $25 in gift certificates to one of the nearby movie theaters so that was pretty exciting.

Here's a picture of Derrick and I at the dinner. I've had a really bad cold all week. I also want to add that Derrick's wearing his glasses because the shower drain ate one of his contacts a few weeks ago (he wears the hard kind).

Baby Updates

I am now in my 28th week and this last Sunday marked exactly three months until our baby's due date. Sometimes it feels like being pregnant has lasted forever and other times it's crazy to me that I'm already 2/3 of the way done! I'm really grateful that so far I've been spared a lot of the unpleasantness that comes with being this far along. To name a couple, I have no trouble getting comfortable and sleeping and I also don't have the back aches or swelling yet. We'll see how long that lasts.

Earlier on Tuesday I went to the OB/GYN for another of the many regular visits. Everything is coming along on schedule. I'm growing enough size-wise and weight-wise and our baby's heartbeat is getting stronger each time we hear it. The baby's a lot more active now and this week one of the kicks I received actually felt like it came from something shaped like a foot. It was pretty funny. I like looking at the different websites to see how developed he probably is by now and it's fun to see that he can now blink and his lungs are pretty well developed.

Now in response to many requests from my old Nauvoo roommate Megan, here is a belly shot. Derrick took the picture today when I am 27 1/2 weeks pregnant.

Not your average work day...

So I was working at my receptionist job yesterday and only had about 5 minutes left when I heard yelling just outside my window. I saw a high school age boy running up to one of the doors of our office that we keep locked (thank goodness). He started heading closer to the main door where I work and the next thing I know two policemen have caught up to the boy and with guns out are yelling at him to get down on the ground! I didn't notice they were cops at first because one of them was undercover (I could see his badge after looking a bit closer). The boy started yelling too but was forced down to the ground with his hands behind his head.

As they were hand cuffing the boy I saw about 5 cop cars and a news crew van pull into the parking lot. One of the cop cars even created its own entrance by going up and over the grass. By this time the rest of the office was gathered by my desk watching as the police started emptying out the boy's pockets which contained several large pill bottles, a pack of cigarettes, and a pretty decent sized knife.

Our building is pretty close to a grocery store called Allen's and we guessed that the boy used his knife to hold up and rob the pharmacy. I ended up hanging out at work for an extra 10-15 minutes until they got the boy loaded into one of the cop cars. I figured it wasn't a good idea to try to get to my car since all the commotion was happening right by it. We were very grateful that we usually keep two of the office doors locked and I know for next time to hurry and lock the main door if anything crazy happens outside again (luckily one of my co-workers thought to lock it this time). Who knows what would have happened if the kid had made it inside the office?

Here's a link to Channel 2's story about the incident.
Here's a link for any who are interested showing the boy's picture and description of his charges. By clicking on his name Derrick and I found out that this is the 4th time he's been arrested within the last year - though this is the most serious thing he's done.

Conference Weekend

I know this is a delayed post but I keep getting distracted every time I start trying to update. I apologize in advance that this post is pretty scattered feeling. Oh well. So this last weekend, conference weekend, was a lot of fun but pretty busy. Derrick's parents came into town on Friday and we had fun seeing them throughout the weekend.

On Friday night after Derrick finished a test, the four of us had Cafe Rio at Derrick's grandparents' house (they live by the stadium). After dinner, we headed over to a stake center by the temple for Derrick's mission reunion complete with slide show and other nostalgia for those who served in the New York, Utica mission. It's obvious now that I'm pregnant and at one point Derrick's old mission president's wife told me that I'm either pregnant or really fat. It was pretty funny. I wished I'd thought to play it off like I was offended and not pregnant.

Saturday morning my sister Melissa and her fiance Nate came over for breakfast and the first session of General Conference. We had homemade waffles with strawberries, muffins, and juice. It was amazing to participate via KBYU in the solemn assembly especially since I don't have any memory of the last one. I loved watching President Monson watch everyone sustain him. What a scary calling to be the prophet. I'm glad that in the solemn assembly we get to practice common consent and for those in the meeting, show the prophet that we accept him as the Lord's chosen prophet. I've grown up listening to President Monson in different conferences and meetings and I could definitely see a difference now that he is our prophet. I miss President Hinckley but I have a testimony that President Monson is the man who God has chosen to lead His church at this time.

Immediately after the morning session of conference we said goodbye to Nate and Melissa and headed up with Mom and Dad Bowen to the conference center to watch the afternoon session. A weird thing was that we never saw or heard any protesters. Maybe it was just the direction we walked.

We hurried back to Provo after the session was over so Derrick and Dad Bowen could meet up with family to watch the Priesthood session of Conference and so I could try and set up for Melissa's bridal shower which started at 6 pm. Melissa's roommate Emily was great and had most everything set up before I got there (which was good since I walked into Melissa's apartment as the shower was starting). We played some games, ate banana splits and gave Melissa presents. It was a pretty regular bridal shower but Melissa seemed to have fun and only get a little embarrassed :). Here are a couple of pictures I took:

After hurriedly cleaning up I rushed over to Kirsten (Walker) Burningham's apartment for the second half of her baby shower. I know her from my semester at Nauvoo and got to see a few other people who I haven't seen since that semester ended. It was a lot of fun to catch up and see how much people have changed. For those who also went to Nauvoo, Kirsten is going to have a boy in May and Natalie is due in August. It was actually funny how many pregnant people were at the shower. I guess that's how things work in Provo.



On Sunday morning we went back over to Derrick's grandparents' house to watch conference wi his parents. After the session was over we had a birthday lunch that Mom Bowen made for me since they'd be back in Colorado on my real birthday (the 9th). Thanks again Mom, it was really good! They left to drive home to Colorado after lunch and we went back to our apartment where we were joined by Jason (brother), Melissa (sister), and Nate (almost brother-in-law) for the afternoon session. We had plenty of food since there were so many leftovers from Melissa's bridal shower. I love having family so close by.

One thing that really stood out to me in the last session of Conference was President Monson's request that we pray for him. To put it in his words: "My dear brothers and sisters, I love you, and I pray for you. Please pray for me. And together we will reap the blessings our Heavenly Father has in store for each one of us. This is my prayer, my plea as I add my testimony. This work is true. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." I love President Monson. He is truly the prophet called of God on the earth right now. He's got such a big responsibility and we all need each others' prayers.

(I'll admit that I "back-blogged" (post-dated) this entry:) )

For Mom Jones

So after living in their house for over 50 years, my mom's parents moved to a condo in Provo on March 29th. It's pretty weird to think that they no longer live in Sandy, but we're excited to have them close by. Moving a house-full of stuff into a condo takes some work but Grandma's made a pretty good dent in it. Here's a picture of the family room and a picture of the condo from outside.

Finished Goal

So for the month of March, Derrick and I made the goal to read the whole March Ensign together. We figured that since it focused completely on the Savior it'd be a great way to get in the right mindset for Easter. We finished the last article for FHE on March 31st so we reached our goal. One of my favorite times with working to meet this goal was when we were driving to Grand Junction Easter weekend. I read some of the articles aloud to Derrick and we got to have a really good discussion about the Savior. This was a fun experience so I thought I'd document it. Have a great day!

What I've been working on

Here is the link to the website search engine I've been creating for PBSI. fun stuff.

PBSI Presentation Search Engine

You can search by presentation, author, topic, or conference. It even ranks the authors in each presentation by the order that they helped participate.

good times.

-Derrick

Fun Surprise

So Derrick picked me up from work yesterday and had these waiting for me:

Derrick rarely buys me flowers so this was a really fun surprise. He didn't tell me he bought flowers but had fun waiting for me to notice them. We usually have 3 vases, each with a fake flower in them, where these flowers are so they were a bit camoflauged. Derrick made a few attempts to get me to look at them without realizing he was trying to get me to look. Luckily it didn't take too long.

Easter Grand Junction Weekend

Derrick and I drove to his parents' house in Grand Junction, CO for Easter weekend. It's only a 3 1/2 hour drive but it's getting a little harder to sit through as I'm getting farther along. Derrick's siblings Tyson who lives in Boulder and Tonja and Rob who live in Boston came for the week.

Here's the basic rundown of what we did. I decided to just write it down in list form since it was mostly just a nice relaxing weekend. On Saturday we walked the river trail walk, played tennis in the backyard (Rob making great comments/yells throughout), had good food complete with Rob's special dessert (brownie, chocolate pudding, vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge, whipped cream, and jimmies/sprinkles - basically really bad for you) and watched a movie. On Easter Sunday we got to go to church, see our nephew Ryan and his mom Christa, and then have more good food before Derrick and I drove home.

Here are a couple of pictures of our cute nephew Ryan from when he came over:

With Christa his mom

With the wagon Tonja and Rob bought him

Ryan with Tyson his dad

Ryan reading with Grandma