It's a.....

Boy! We think. Give us another month and another ultrasound and we'll let you know with more certainty. Oh and to back up, in case you didn't know we're pregnant! Due Jan. 23rd, this baby - whether boy or girl - will be almost exactly two years younger than little Claire. I have felt great (morning sickness started to get better at 9 weeks - amazing!) and even trained a little through the first trimester as I prepared for a 10k which I ran at almost 14 weeks. It's all still sinking in but we're getting more excited by the week.


In other news, we just returned from a whirlwind five week vacation to L.A., St. George, Provo-area/Salt Lake, and Island Park, ID/Yellowstone. It was so fun and filled with family, friends and events that it flew by. Since this blog is my family scrapbook, here are pictures for posterity's sake:

 Loungin' on the Marriott's lawn for Fourth of July

Recognize those stairs? Maybe Claire will walk up them someday as she goes to study on the fourth floor. I love my alma mater.

I took Claire to my college residence - Monticello. Maybe she'll carry on the tradition someday. Her Aunt Laura and Grandma and Grandpa Bennion lived there too. And Claire and Aunt Sam had lots of fun making faces on her phone. She loves her Aunties.

We loved getting to spend so much time with John, Ida, Jonah and baby Mae! 

The cabin we got to stay at in Island Park.  

 Yep, that's Old Faithful in the background...and Oreo on Claire's face.

Gettin ready for family pics 

 My Grandma's Wedding dress. They had their 50th Wedding Anniversary. 

We turned around after the Spanish Fork Fiesta Days parade and saw Claire and Jonah cooperatively eating a sucker. He'd take a lick and then feed it to Claire. Those two are little buddies. It was so fun to see them play and to hear Jonah cry excitedly when he saw her, "Hi Cairrre!"

Grandma, after much persuasion, got Claire to sit on her lap. Love you Grandma and Grandpa Furse!!!

Such a wonderful vacation but glad to be back in our home - and happy to have Christian home with us another few weeks until school starts again. He had the whole summer off (only time that will happen probably ever) after he took the boards in June which he passed! We had to wait the whole vacation for the scores because it came in the mail the day we left but so happy to know he did well. 

Summer Kick-Off

We're only six hours away from Southern California! How cool is that? To start off our long summer vacation (the longest of Christian's four years in dental school) we went to San Diego to cash in some free tickets to Sea World (a perk of the military) and Marriott Reward points for hotel stays. We also used these ideas to guide our trip.

San Diego was SO much fun! It was our first trip as parents with a child old enough to enjoy the activities and to see the joy on her face as she ran around the beach or squealed in delight at animals was priceless. This trip made me so glad for this little family of ours and it really sunk in how fun it is to be a parent!

Furiously signing "eat" or "food". She was hu-ngry

With a giant pre-historic ape at the Museum of Man at Balboa Park. So many cool museums there. I want to go back

What a google maps car looks like!

Excited but nervous. She bolted straight through the line to see Elmo and cried when we made her wait. When our turn finally came she reached out to pet his fur but then turned away and cried and then repeated the process a couple times. I guess he's a little scarier in person :)

Probably the best part of her day was running around a tot-friendly bouncy pad in Sesame Street land

We were especially excited to take her to the arctic area because one of her favorite books right now is "Baby Beluga"