Frustration

So we remember way far back when Santa got me the Silhouette Cameo for Christmas right?! Well I learned a valuable lesson while preparing for preschool graduation last night. DO NOT cut construction paper with your Silhouette. It mucked up my blade so bad I think I have to order a new one... not happy about that. especially since an hour before that happened I had just placed the order for my new cutting mat since Deezul ruined mine.

So I'm a little frustrated, instead of simply cutting out all the shapes on appropriate colored construction paper, I am instead forced to print the shapes, cut and color them myself. Graduation starts in 3 hours... Can I do it? More to come!

7 Questions.

We are going to make this a totally random post! I've never done a "linky" post, but figured it would be a good way to throw a curve ball into my usually blog! I'm linking up with this new blog I have found Gentri Lee

Here is my ridiculous picture of the week. While taking the usually boring 2 week belly shot, Rye always tries to see if he can frustrate me. I'll be standing against the wall waiting or fixing my shirt or whatever and he will just start snapping away... So we have plenty of non-usable pictures. This picture is pretty horrendous.. and I cannot believe I'm putting this out there :) just for you guys!

1. If you were to start your own business, what would it be?
I don't know that I have any interest in becoming a business owner, but if I HAD to choose... probably some kind of freaktastically awesome restored furniture store. Like with all the amazing furniture that has potential, all re purposed and made up!

2. You wake up on the wrong side of the bed, do you embrace your grumpiness or try to fight it?
Depends on the day. Yesterday I for sure had an attitude problem first thing in the morning. But I powered through to try and find some middle ground, I don't know that I would be able to make a complete turn around... So we will go with try and fight it!

3. What's the very first memory you have?
I remember going to the hospital the day my brother was born when I was 1 day shy of turning 4. I remember my dad telling me that I was going to get the best birthday present in the whole world. We were walking from the big blue house down towards my grandparents house next door, standing in front of the big garage.

4. The world is ending, what do you do? Allow yourself to die? Fight? Hide? Etc.

Well WHY is the world ending, is it a zombie apocalypse? Is it a string of natural disasters? Was there some sort of government take over and now militias are wiping out the human race? Regardless I would like to stay alive as long as possible. I don't think I would do questionable things to ensure that, but when the time came, I would embrace that I did everything I could.

5. What is your favorite meal of the day?

Lunch, an amazing sandwich! You know the amazing kind with fluffily bread, perfectly sliced turkey and some cranberry sauce, loaded with lots of good veggies! YUMM-O

6. How do you best learn? Visual? Listening? Hands on?

I really hate this question. It seems like EVERY time I am at the doctor they ask me this. I don't know why the military doctors insist on asking me every single time... yet they do. It depends on the material. What do I need to learn? If it's how to do some crap on the computer, a youtube tutorial is always a good jumping off point. If it's I don't know, CPR... I would need to physically have my hands on it. If it's a simple craft, just a few pictures can do it justice... I feel like yelling this at the nurse every few weeks at my appts. 

7. What is your favorite joke? 

Hmmmm... I'm always up for a good joke, don't know that I have a favorite. Probably my go-to joke that used to always make Rye laugh.

"Man walks into a bar, and says Ouch!"

Memorial Day Weekend & 26 Weeks

Let's smash a few posts all into one, shall we. p.s. I'm halfway through writing this and it's long... I am SO sorry... I will add pictures, I promise!

Memorial Day weekend! To a military family there are few words that bring more happiness than "Ninety-Six"meaning a 96 hour weekend or 4-day weekend... I mean obviously leave, liberty, homecoming all top it. But few others ignite the same excitement as this one. This will be our last 96 together for a while so we wanted to make sure it was lived to the fullest. I went into work on the Monday before and just thought I would double check and make sure that I ACTUALLY had that Friday off work. I normally only work Mon-Thurs, but with events and other things at work, it seems like at least 2-3 Fridays a month I end up working for some reason. My boss informed me that we had a staff meeting that day at like noon, so I would need to come in just for a bit. There are only 4 girls total in my office, and we all get along great so I have no problem with staff meetings. I was just a little bummed that I had to work while Riley would be off.

Friday morning arrived and I had my long weekend to-do list ready to go! I was accounting for an hour- 1 1/2 TOPS for the meeting and had a list a mile long of things that had to get done with Rye getting ready to leave so soon. We went out and got breakfast and then headed back home to get started. Riley asked (very nicely I might add) that we spend a little time that morning trying to organize the garage. See when we moved in, Riley left the next day. I did not want to live with boxes surrounding me, so I gladly left everything that was not an essential out in the garage to wait for his return. We started a little after 9 with pandora blaring through the house from my phone hooked up to our sound system. Propped the inside garage door open so Deezul could wander in and out, and got to work. I let Rye know that I HAD to stop at 11 to shower for my work meeting. We powered through for 2 hours, 11 o'clock hit... I tried to quit and go shower, but somehow Rye convinced me to just go a few minutes longer, cause we were almost at a good stopping point. 11:20 hit and I started stressing and told him we were done and had to shower. I hurried and showered, got dressed, and then sat and waited on the couch for Rye to get dressed to drive me to my meeting. He took his sweet time.. as usual. The entire drive over I was probably telling him how late I was and how I said I would be there at 11:30 and I really hope they weren't irritated with me... bla. bla. bla.

He dropped me off with a kiss and said he'd see me in an hour, and I headed inside.

Little did I know that the girls in my office had planned a surprise baby shower and invited all of my preschooler's and their mama's to it. Since I teach a "mommy and me" preschool, I know all the mom's very well. we have all become pretty good friends over the past year. Almost all of them are moving to new duty stations over the summer and I am EXTREMELY sad about this. After preschool graduation, chances are slim that I will ever see them again. It was so sweet of these girls to want to come together and celebrate with me. A lot of them have known me since pregnancy number 1. And one of them has known me since right before the fertility treatment started. She shared in my anxiousness of the testing, The joy of knowing that we were both "normal enough to procreate", The excitement of getting pregnant... The tragedy of losing that baby, and then returning the next week to a classroom full of small kids. She stood there when mom's would make ignorant comments about how I shouldn't try for kids, and I should be grateful I didn't have any yet... and then she would quietly "tell them off" in the most polite way, and make it very clear that was not a subject that should be discussed in preschool. I am going to miss her.

Wow, sorry I got a little side tracked. Any-who, The baby shower was amazing. I seriously have some amazing people in my life. It's nice to be reminded occasionally that people actually DO care about me more than I think they do. I found out that Riley had been in on this whole thing and had been secretly texting one of the girls at my work all week about it. I never caught on!

After that we headed over to the barracks to pick up 2 of the guys before going to check out some deals at pearl harbor. If you remember right, I worked enough overtime hours while Riley was in California to get me a mac (to replace my 2nd or 3rd broken laptop in 2 years, seriously I am convinced that pc's are not made to last.) I also worked enough to be able to get Rye a tablet. We had been discussing a few different brands, but when I went to purchase my mac the guy was selling us on all the cool ways you can "share" with an iPad and mac... We both then decided that an iPad would be best, but Rye wanted to wait until memorial day to see if they had any good deals. I gave him crap ALL month saying that it's apple and wouldn't have a big "sale"... He shut me right up. The iPad 3 was recently released. Which means that the iPad 2 is MUCH cheaper than it was just a few weeks ago when I wanted to make the purchase. While at pearl harbor we checked them out and ended up getting him one for $100 cheaper than it had been a week prior. It felt good to finally make a long awaited and planned out purchase... but it was still hard swiping the card for that amount of money. So now we are both cool kids with Apple products :)

Saturday- I told Rye we HAD to complete some of our to-do list that was neglected due to a super long baby shower I had not planned on when making our weekend schedule. Our good friend Jon joined us that day for our adventure of registering for a baby. We first stopped at a running store for Riley to pick up his packet for his half marathon. Then hurried over to babies-R-us to get registering over with. 2 1/2 hours later we were just about done. That store is intimidating. Being a first time mom, you may have an idea of what you think you need... but let's get real here... I don't know what I'm doing (Shhh don't tell anyone). While at BRU we were looking through the strollers and realized that they had brought in a shipment of the Bob strollers. They usually only sell them online, I got an e-mail earlier in the week that they were having a blowout sale on "last year's model" seriously they were more than $100 off. I was ECSTATIC! usually you have to order online and HOPE they ship to Hawaii.. I told Rye that we might be making yet another big purchase cause it was just to great to pass up! He then gave me the whole "we JUST spent a lot of money last night, maybe if we hadn't bought the iPad we could get that". So at that point I'm feeling like a terrible mother for spending money before seeing this awesome deal. He tells me he thinks they will have them all weekend and we will think about it and most likely be coming back for one before the weekend is over. We head home where I work on extracting music and pictures from my broken laptops hard drive and move them to an external hard drive. Rye leaves to go with one of the guys to get a car part, and leaves me with Jon at the house... telling me he'll only be gone for a little bit.

3 hours later I'm starting to worry just a bit. I text him, and get a reply that the boys wanted food and that he would be home in just a min. An hour later I'm in the kitchen doing dishes and in rolls a Bob stroller with 3 of the guys with it. Apparently they had been planning on going in together and buying me this stroller for months and Rye tipped them off about the sale. I was completely stunned and shocked. I'm not a screeching girl when it comes to surprises... I mostly feel humbled when I am surprised by something like this. I turn bright red and usually just stand there in complete awe of the situation. Wondering what I have done to deserve such amazing people in my life. So I hope the boys were not disappointed in my reaction. It seriously was the most unexpected and possibly one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for me in my life. Grateful is the only word I can use to describe my feelings on the entire thing!

Sunday morning 3:30 am, I get out of bed and make breakfast for Rye who I let sleep in till 4. We were on the road by 4:20 and parked in Honolulu by 4:50. Race was set to start at 5:30 Rye did a quick warm up and right before heading over to the start line told me that breakfast was a bad idea... and he should not have eaten what he did... I felt awful hoping that he would still hit his goal of a new personal record.

The lights of the lead car starting out.

Rye in the first group of the pack, This included half marathon, 10k and 5 mile runners. So some took off faster than others.

And here he comes!

Kind of an awkward picture. But him just after he finished.

 So Riley had a goal of shaving over 12 minutes off his previous best time. He didn't hit that, however he DID shave nearly 5 minutes off (which is still amazing!) He began telling me how he did everything wrong. He changed up his entire routine, from dinner the night before (normally a pizza carb load) to breakfast the morning of (usually we have something light, like a smoothie... NOT a massive egg sandwich) This next picture is his "I'm really disappointed that I didn't hit my goal" face... He at first wanted me to delete this picture... but it says too much about the post race "regret" that can happen after you have a race that just didn't go right.

 Don't feel sorry for him. If you zoom in on this picture you will see that he still placed number 53 overall for the half marathon, out of 850-something runners. Poor Rye. 6 months ago his only goal was to be in the top 100, He destroyed that! He told me later that he had been fighting "The Wall" the ENTIRE race. Anyone that is a runner knows how dreaded "the wall" is, and can imagine how bad it would suck to run 13.1 miles while fighting the wall the entire time. Not fun.

So we then went home, I at this point was feeling like I was coming down with something. It felt like the flu, with the body aches and the stuffiness. I was PRAYING it was not the flu. But decided to play it safe and let the girl in nursery with me know that I would not be at church. I seriously spent the entire day doing nothing but pretty much sleeping.

And by Monday morning I felt fine! I am not sure if it was a small version of the flu that has been going around, OR if it was just from a complete lack of sleep.. either way I was glad to be back to normal!

Monday we decided we were head up to north shore, and then stop by Costco on our way home for some more bottled water. We went to Waimea Bay beach, got in the water and not a minute later Riley had already spotted a huge sea turtle only a few feet away from us feeding on the coral. After a good hour in the water we made our way back into shore. Not more than 3 minutes after hitting shore did we hear a couple talking about the dolphins. We looked out and spotted (MAYBE 20 feet from where we had just been swimming) 20 spinner dolphins playing and jumping. We spent the next hour just simply enjoying the show of these amazing creatures "playing". For lunch we drove into Halewia for some mexican food at the only decent Mexican place on the island. Cholo's. By this time, Rye (who turned down my 50spf sunscreen at the beach) was pretty red! We decided it was time to start back towards home. Only to find out that costco is closed on Memorial day, So stopping there was a complete waste of time!

And that was pretty much our entire 96 in a nutshell... I'm getting freaking tired so I am going to hurry and wrap this up with my 26 week update!

I am no longer sick..well maybe 2 days out of 2 weeks, which is a HUGE improvement! like I said before I would gladly throw up everyday for the whole nine months for this kiddo. However I am grateful that I may get some relief for the last 3 months.

He kicks constantly, which I love... grow baby grow!

I'm knocking things over with my belly now, even though I feel huge I don't feel THAT big... whoops.

back pain is getting worse by the day.

I believe I am up 1 lb from my starting weight! but after my insatiable appetite today, It's probably a bit higher. Overall I am still doing ok gaining wise, and am trying to make the healthiest choices when possible.

So here is my 26 week picture! This is one of my new maternity dresses that I ordered. I think they are both adorable and I'm in love! I feel huge but don't know if I look much bigger than I did 2 weeks ago... Who knows. However this is the first picture I have taken in the morning time. I'm usually quite a lot bigger by the evening.

Cloth Diapering

Yea, you read that right... I'm a weirdo.

I have had interest in cloth diapering since probably around the time we started trying for kids (2007). However at the time I knew nothing. I assumed I would have to go through a diapering service to do such a thing and then would it REALLY be cost efficient to cloth diaper. I'm not really the "go green" type, So it has to prove worth while money wise for me to make a "green" decision. Riley shot that idea down right away, said it was gross and he wouldn't do it and bla bla bla. So I dropped it, for a while.

Nearly 2 years ago my friend from middle/high school gave birth to twin girls. To save money (A LOT of money) she decided to cloth diaper. I've been reading her blog since she was pregnant, and it made me want to look more into the modern cloth diapering options. I would read her blog posts about using cloth and would root for her when she was having a tough time, and get so excited when she would post a tips or stash post. So that I could see first hand what was and wasn't working for someone that I knew personally, not some stranger on the Internet getting paid to do a review.

When I first found out I was pregnant back in August I mentioned to Rye that I was still thinking about cloth diapering. Went over a few of the options on HOW to do it, and then gave him the price rundown. If we potty train at 2 1/2 years (I could be dreaming) then for the 30 months IN diapers it would cost between $40-$72 a month for diapers which adds up to $1200-$2160 spent in diapers alone. However I can build an AMAZING cloth diaper stash for well under $400 and then be set for and children we have. Laying out the numbers for him was ALL it took and he was game. So I started my research and felt SO unprepared and under educated. I spent hours upon hours reading or watching reviews. We had a deal that we wouldn't buy ANYTHING baby until I was 12 weeks (which didn't happen). After my mourning period I got back into the game (fertility appts and such) and decided I should still try to gain as much cloth diapering knowledge as I could before I became pregnant again.

So here I am, 6 months pregnant and feeling ready for the challenge. I want to say I have 20-ish diapers and so far my cost is at $200. I've been watching the online sales and every time one strikes I buy 2-3 diapers. I am hoping to have a stash around 30 diapers (plus a stash for newborn) Which means I'm almost there, then I only have to worry about the newborn stash. I'm holding out for a big purchase of the "best of the best" I keep hoping they will go on sale, but if not I have an amazon gift card waiting in the wings ready to help me make the cloth diaper purchase I am most excited about.

Riley will be installing our diaper sprayer either this weekend or next, Cause I want to make sure it's done before he leaves. He also has to move OUR washer and dryer into the new house and move the ones that belong in housing out to the garage. We bought our fancy front loaders 3 years ago and it has the sanitize setting on it (which was another reason Rye decided to go along with this). Rye has been a champ about this, the man has never changed a diaper in his life, and yet is is totally game to do cloth diapering. I am hoping that when he gets home from deployment he will follow through and learn how to change diapers like a pro, I'm sure he's so looking forward to that.

I'll take pictures and post my "stash" in the nearish future. It'll be interesting to see how well it works vs my expectations of the entire thing. Overall though, I am excited. The money we don't spend on diapers can go towards other things (you know like race entry fees)... Speaking of, Rye has a half marathon this weekend, so I will be blogging about that this next week!

Riley's First Triathlon

It's been a week since Rye completed his first Tri, but I've been busy having awesome adventures with my favorite guy... So here is the rundown (a week late)

Rye has biked his entire life. He has always been a mountain biker, and about a year or so into our marriage he found the motivation to try road biking. Riley's cousin started his own bike company that you can check out Here at Fezarri. Riley and I invested in a road bike from them and he started riding around St George.

Shipping his bike out to Hawaii was an ordeal. Mostly because Riley didn't trust the moving company with his bike (and probably for good reason since nearly a grand worth of his tools went missing during the move). So for his birthday this year, his parents and I split the cost and shipped it out here.

Rye's been running for a few years now, and he's good. So he had 2 out of the 3 skills for a triathlon down. "How is he at swimming?" you are probably asking yourself. Not great.

Enlisting the help of some of the Marines who had been to a swim instructor school, He set out to try and acquire some swimming skills. This is still a work in progress. What we learned from this first Triathlon is that if he can improve his swim time, He would be sitting pretty nice in the standings. His swim has a bit to go though.

This was a sprint Tri, Meaning it was SHORT. 500 meter swim, 11-ish mile bike ride and a 5k run. The race was held on our base, which meant we didn't have to worry about getting up even earlier to make it over in time to do the staging.

Our alarms started setting off at 4AM on Mother's Day. by 4:15 I had Rye out of bed and we were quickly getting ready. We had everything ready to go the night before so it was mostly just loading up the car and getting a small something to eat. 4:30 we were in the car and making the full 2.5 mile trek across base from our house to the flight line. We arrived and couldn't believe how few cars were there already. Unloaded his bike and I grabbed the camel bak with all his transition gear and we headed over to the bike safety check area. His bike passed basic safety and we were allowed to enter to the bike Corral and pick a spot to set up.

After setting up the time was only about 5:15, The race didn't start until 6:30 so we had a bit of time to just wait. I'm sure Rye had the "first race butterfly's". Since this was something pretty new to him, He knows how to do the sports but he was worried about how the transition would go.

We found the bathrooms (port-potties) surprisingly there was TP (don't worry I bring my own on race day for when they are out.) Here is a lovely image for you, I'm in the port-potty trying to hover while simultaneously holding the camel bak and camera in one hand so that nothing touches the floor, I'm also trying to keep the bottom of my yoga pants off the floor as well. Riley informed me AFTER this ordeal that there is some sort of cable hook or something from above the door that could have held all my stuff... 20/20 vision in hindsight.

The sun was just BARELY coming up at this point (Ya, it was early.) It's one of my favorite parts about freaking early races, Getting to enjoy the sunrise from different parts of the island. I'm a sucker for a sunrise.

Nearing race time I ran into my friend Kelli, who's husband was also doing his first ever Triathlon. It's nice having someone to chill with while you wait for them to complete a race. I think this was the first time I've ever had someone to wait with. 

We headed over to the edge of the flight line where they had a ramp leading down to the bay. They had all the men staged and ready to go, I was smart and brought my extra big lens so I was able to track down Rye, maybe the first time ever I've been grateful for his back tattoo :)

 FOUND HIM!

 Does he look excited or what?! We were joking before the race that since this bay is a breeding ground for hammerhead sharks that they would pick off the weakest swimmer. Riley assured me that would be him.

 And they are OFF, He's in the middle of the picture right behind the guy in the white shirt with the green/blue cap.

 He's in the group out there, as the women are starting.

 Finally coming back in!

 Getting the salt water hosed off of him before he switches to bike.

 Drying off his feet and putting socks and biking shoes on.

 Ya, he knows I'll always be somewhere with my camera. Don't let that look fool you, right after I snapped this he gave a big cheesy grin for the camera, and I missed it.

 Rye really likes this picture.

 And He's ready to go!

 Running out past the timing mat. Are you loving the spandex.

 And there he goes, with a bit of a disadvantage after his slow swim time he has a lot of time to make up.

 He got back from his Bike portion A LOT faster than I was expecting!

 Check my man out!

 Switching from the bike to run! This transition went MUCH smoother for him, since he just needed to ditch the helmet and change his shoes.

 Gotta get going and make up some time!

 Ok quick story about this woman... She WAS on the outside corner and was yelling at all the runners to go around the cones, and EVERY runner was cutting that corner, and she was getting pissed... It took her a good 5 minutes to realized she should be on the inside corner directing traffic... Some people have their "dense" moments.

 Finding his stride!

 Here he comes to the finish!

 And......... DONE! He finished 98th overall... In the swim portion out of 230-250 people he finished 193rd (ouch, not great.) HOWEVER in the bike he placed 69th overall and 66th in the run, That means Had he done better in the swim he would be sitting much better in the standings.

I am SO proud of him! He did amazing for his first time. It was a learning experience

This woman was also Riding a Fezarri, Rye passed her while biking and had to track her down to get a picture afterward. She thought it was pretty amazing that his cousin owns the Fezarri company and was pretty excited to meet another person with the same brand of bike.

And there you have it, the complete rundown of Riley's first ever triathlon! I'm married to a pretty amazing guy!

24 Weeks

I have been meaning to blog for the past week about SOOO many things. But with Riley being home (and with our days together dwindling) I have been focused on the more important things in life. So since it is early in the morning and Rye is out for a nice long run I will attempt to catch up on a few blog posts.

24 Weeks


If you go by the 4-week increments I am 6 months pregnant... I don't think I am quite counting it like that. I real have about 12 more days till I'm REALLY 6 months pregnant. But Riley is definitely taking advantage of the 6 month or more parking spot.

It seems strange to me that I am so far along. People (some that I am not super fond of) are starting to ask the "How much longer?!" question. Do people not understand that just because you are poking out, it does not mean your water may break at any second. I was walking in church from sacrament to nursery, and Miles had just kicked in a very awkward spot. I had my hand on my stomach and someone stops and asks me if I'm having a contraction.... um no, I sure hope not. I have a few months left.

Here is the random bullet list of pregnancy crap pertaining to the last 2 weeks!

• Miles can be felt kicking from the outside. And a few times I have been able to watch my stomach jump, that is a pretty cool thing.
• He kicked my bladder so hard and fast during church the other day I had NO warning and almost peed a little. 
• Still feeling Nasues but I have not puked in over a week now! Although yesterday almost ruined that.
• I HAVE to sleep with a pillow between my legs now or the pain is so bad I wake up more times than I already do. 
• At my big ultrasound almost 2 weeks ago he was measuring at 1 lb 1 oz, So I know he is much bigger at this point... probably pushing 2 lbs soon.
• My skin is STARTING to get a little itchy. So I'm even more careful about using my skin care stuff.
• I am still down 1 pound from my starting weight... which means after losing 10 from morning sickness I have gained 9. With approx 15 weeks to go, I am ok with this :)
• I am still running. I ran a 5k about a week ago, and my Midwife cleared me to run the 5k in Utah next month. She just suggested I take it slow due to the altitude change. 
• Still not really craving much... Or I am and I just know that just because I'm pregnant doesn't mean I can eat anything... So I am TRYING very hard to replace my cravings with a healthier option. Guava has been a constant... I can't get enough of the guava smoothies at jamba.
• Miles is a fan of the blues. Rye didn't believe me until we were in a little coffee shop waiting for our sandwiches and listening to this extremely talented guy sing the blues, and Miles went CRAZY. 
• I'm still doing everything I would normally do. We started unpacking the house and hanging things up, and of course I was up on the little ladder placing things where I wanted them on the wall. I still do any and all chores (I have no choice, he's deploying very soon, I don't really get the chance to milk this pregnancy) However, my belly is making reaching the faucet on the sink a little bit more difficult now... Oh the plights of a short girl. 
• My back aches, ALL the time. I'm starting to be able to control it a little bit more. 

I could seriously go on and on with this list but I'll spare you all. So here is my 24 week pictures, as you can see we have upgrade from the painters tape on the wall. We have unpacked enough that there is now enough things on the wall to help the camera focus. And for the next few weeks Rye is home and able to take the picture for me!