Time to meet Baby C

Alright, kids, are you ready?




3
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
2.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
1
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

That's right 3 out of 18 of you! IT'S A BOY!

We can hardly believe it! We were expecting a girl, all the way, but we are so excited to have a boy! It'll be the first boy in the Williams side of the family. My parents have all daughters (thus, I have all sisters) and we have 1 niece/granddaughter so Baby C will be the first boy. I told Josh we get to have a real baby Jesus in our Christmas nativity re-enactments now! Baby C will also have plenty of boy cousins on the Calvert side to be best friends with. We promptly went to Target (conveniently 4 blocks away from the hospital) after our ultrasound and bought a baby boy outfit. We've pretty much decided that for the first 3-8 months of Baby C's life he'll live in white onesies and sweatshirts so all the cutesy outfits will wait until he's old enough to start doing cute things. I also bought a set of Duplo Lego's (my FAVORITE!) even though he has to be 1.5 years to start playing with them. I guess it's just so crazy to have a gender assigned to our little baby.

More to come on the nursery and wardrobe planning. Love!
j & k

Summer Work

In the spirit of journaling I have decided to share with the world my summer occupations.

Teaching Assistant, STDEV 139 and 399R, BYU- I completed this assignment in June after working with the same woman for 10 months. Nothing interesting to note here aside from the fact that my boss left the job, BYU, and Provo, to start her training for the FBI in Quantico, Virginia.

Lab Technician: Drug Testing Facility, Provo- If the job title sounds professional or glamorous at all you have been misled. While I am excited to put it on future applications as clinical/lab experience, what it really means it that I saw roughly 200 male "anatomies" each week since the end of April. Because we test for the probation and legal system, all of the tests are monitored, and yes, you read/inferred correctly. I literally get paid to watch guys urinate, and Yes, I have to make sure that they are providing a "real" sample that is really delivered from their "real" "anatomy." As opposed to the plethora of fake/creative/ingenious means of putting somebody else's urine into their cup.

Bonus Note: The guys I test are actually pretty awesome and I haven't even been shivved OR shanked yet.

Super Bonus Note: recently learned that by driving to and from SLC to pick up supplies I can make $25 an hour with mileage compensation.

Janitor-Early morning, BYU, HFAC- How, in one summer, do you spend more time in the HFAC then my brother Adam did in his entire tenure at BYU without joining Men's chorus? Join the early morning cleaning crew. I am not trying to make the reader feel sorry for me in any way, but the first thought that runs through my head when my alarm has gone off at 4:30 every morning is not "I can't wait to vacuum today." It is instead, simply, "I want to die." My crew, which started as a group of 4 at the start of the summer, is now down to 1, me. Shouldn't I get paid 4 times the salary for doing the same amount of work?

Bonus Note: Learn from my experience, don't work early morning janitorial.

Intern-The Road Home, Homeless Shelter, SLC- The best work of my summer was not paid. My other jobs allowed me to have at least one free day a week to drive up to Salt Lake to work at the shelter. Cliche as it might sound, this was one of those amazing, eye-opening, challenging experiences. I spent the bulk of my time doing assessments to determine eligibility for a government housing program that was specifically targeted at families who were made homeless by the recession. I have heard, smelled, and seen some very unique, heartbreaking and funny things, and I honestly cherish all of them.

Bonus Note: Did you know that 60+% of the homeless population uses less than 10% of the total money spent to combat homelessness. That means that the majority of "bums" you see aren't really costing you and the Gov. as much money as you'd think.

Researcher, BYU- I recently started doing my research project for my MPH program. Inspired by my experience at the shelter I am researching in what way the homeless use the internet to access health information. Just so you know, recent research has found that over 90% of homeless access the internet, and over 50% carry a cell phone. More information to come.

It's been a blessed and busy summer. Kendall has taught me so much in marriage about working hard for your goals (Thanks babe). I think we are both thrilled we get to go to the NW for a few weeks of rest.

Ultra Bonus Note: I can't wait to be a dad. There is nothing in my life that I am more excited for.

New House, New Life

Things I will no longer take for granted:
1. A silverware drawer
2. Walking space on both sides of the bed
3. Kitchen drawers
4. Freezer space
5. Drawers in the bathroom
6. A pantry
7. Storage, storage, storage

We completed the move to our new house! It. Is. Wonderful. We now have a second bedroom, a bigger first bedroom, a real kitchen with all kinds of drawers, and a storage room with a washer and dryer and FREEZER! Obviously there's more, but those are the key points. Basically, Josh and I are soooo happy with this move. Want to see a picture of the baby's room? OK. Just don't judge it since we only moved in 2 days ago and the baby won't be here for 5 months. My Grandma would call it the "Tomorrow Room" because I'll get to it tomorrow.


Also, this last week I sort of feel like there's a real baby inside! 4 out of 5 of my pants don't fit any more, 70% of my garments are now in storage, and I cleaned out my closet of all the shirts and dresses that won't fit my baby bump. This stuff is getting real! I also felt the baby for the first time this week (I think). It's sort of hard to tell if I'm actually feeling a baby move around or if I'm just making this stuff up in my head because I know I'm supposed to be feeling something by now. The first time that I definitely felt something was on Thursday night when Josh and I were camping with Mal, Alaina, Adrie, and Brad. We were laying down getting ready to fall asleep I felt the most distinct movement-like thing. I can only describe it like a bubble in a really viscous liquid popped. It was sort of weird, but really really exhilarating.

I'm looking forward to going to Oregon next month to shop maternity at all the Ross's free of tax. I also can't wait for M&D to get here from Oregon with my baby changing table.

I'll end this little ditty with a list, because that's what I'm good at.

Cravings: Thai food (Green Curry and Pad Thai), pizza, cranberry juice, and hard shell tacos
Aversions: eggs (still), salad (still), J Dawgs, smarties, and Burger King

Doctor Day

Yesterday was Doctor appointment #3. I'm officially 17 weeks along. We also got to hear Baby C's heartbeat again, which is such a relief every time. The exciting news was we set our next appointment for the 20 week find-out-baby's-gender ultrasound! We'll officially know August 10th around 9:30 AM. The "guess my baby's gender" poll will be up shortly so please put your votes in!

I TALK ABOUT VOMITING IN THE NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS SO DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT IT.
Today marks the first day of barf since I've been pregnant (and engaged or married, for that matter). I'm not sure if I can completely contribute the incident to pregnancy though as it was really random and kinda came out of nowhere and wasn't preceded by any true nausea. Basically, I got in the car this morning with Joshua about to run a series of errands and like 3 minutes later, I grabbed the trash bag out of the back seat of the car (lucky we actually had one today) and it was gross.

After like 3 minutes of that I felt okay and we drove to my work to get my pay stubs for the last 2 weeks. Then I used the restroom there and threw up again. Then we came straight home and I slept for an hour, did homework, went to Sammy's, and I haven't vomited since. Soooo...you be the judge on if that's pregnancy related or not.
END VOMIT STORY

This week we're in the process of moving between apartment 1 and basement apartment/home to be. It's about three blocks South East of our current place, it's a 2 bedroom beautifully renovated home. I can't wait to throw the Christmas party there this year, so ya'll better be prepared. I also got the cutest maternity swimsuit so I'm officially ready for the 7 peaks excursion of the summer.

Until next time!
K

Stalker net!

HOW DOES FACEBOOK KNOW I'M PREGNANT!? Seriously. I haven't even announced it ON facebook. Creeper.

In the meantime, here's my first "I sort of look a little barely in my 2nd trimester pregnant" picture.

Homebound

This weekend I got to fly home to Portland for my friend, Gabbe's wedding. My Mom and Dad have done an awesome job at spoiling me-I'm already planning for our trip in a month. A list of all the fun things we got to do this weekend:

• Chevy's for dinner on the way home from the airport. 6 chips and salsa refills
• Burgerville strawberry milkshakes
• Mid-morning Saturday garage sales where we left with .50 cent baby clothes, books, toys, a free couch, the prettiest changing table you've ever seen (happy birthday to me!) with a gaggle of free baby supplies, 3 maternity dresses, 3 maternity shirts, and 2 pair maternity pants.
• Attended Gabbe and Duck's sealing
• Helped at the wedding reception
• Ate lots of Foushee cookies
• Burgerville raspberry milkshake
• Hours of guilt free reading time

Unfortunately, tomorrow marks my return to real life. I have two mid-terms to take by Wednesday so I'll be busy studyiny for those. On the bright side, I get to return home to Josh (!) and we get to start moving stuff to our new place this week! Also, I am DEFINITELY showing, which is exciting. I'll get some pregnancy pictures up in the next week or so, but in the meantime, enjoy these two pictures of my garage sale finds.

The 1st Tri

BEHOLD! The 1st Trimester Monologue:

The first symptom I noticeably noticed (genius) was extreme exhaustion (like 10 hours of sleep a night and a 2 hour nap during the day). Also, the day I took the pregnancy test, but before I thought I should, I couldn't finish my egg and spinach scrambled eggs. My other first symptoms were increased thirst and decreased appetite.

Pregnancy nausea: I never threw up. Weeks 5-13 was a constant battle of trying to stay ahead of my nausea. If I was hungry, I felt nauseated, but nothing ever sounded good, so I was pretty hungry most of the time, and therefore nauseated. So basically every time I was "craving" something, I ate it, which resulted in a LOT of fast food and not very much cooking at home. Poor Joshua suffered the most, because I didn't make any meals or buy any groceries (save pickles and cheese-its) for 8 weeks.

Cravings: I really am disappointed that I never had any crazy cravings! I would randomly crave a Crunchwrap supreme, a california roll, potato chips, or trolli gummi worms, but it was never anything awesome like a PB&Mayo sandwich or sauerkraut cupcakes. Currently, my cravings are for tart candies like: smarties, laffy taffy, sour gummy worms, sweet tarts, skittles, sour starbursts, and the list could go on. My tongue is paying the price.

The funniest craving I had was for roast beef. I wanted it SO BAD one night, I went to the grocery store and bought 3 pot roasts and 1 package of instant just warm it up pot roast. Josh was a little shocked when he came home and saw all that beef in the fridge.

The nausea started tapering off a couple weeks ago, and life has been soooo great without it. I do, however, have a whole other list of new symptoms I get to enjoy. More about that later!

KC

Early Christmas

I think we can establish how crazy I am about Christmas. It's the best holiday, best day of the year, best 2 months associated with a holiday, best music, best parties, etc. This year Josh and I get to experience something we have never associated with Christmas before.

A BABY.

Yes. We're having a baby! In fact, we're having a Christmas baby, due on December 22. I'm nervous and excited, and Josh and I are so looking forward to a little addition to our family. I would say 'I can't wait', but I think we're both excited about the 6 months of preparation we're gonna have before our lives change for forever.

I am in my 15th week, and for those who don't speak weeks yet, half-way through my 4th month. Meaning, we're out of the first trimester, and we get to find out the gender the second week of August. It's crazy how fast the last 14 weeks have gone, and we have a mere 6 weeks to find out if we're having a girl or boy! Eventually I'll get one of those polls up so ya'll can vote if it's gonna be a girl or boy. We will be excited either way, because one side of the family needs a boy (Williams) and the other needs a girl (Calvert).

Needless to say, we'll be listening to a lot of Christmas music, and having a lot of preparation for my favorite holiday and a perfect little addition to our family. Love you all!

Honeymoon

Rachel's wedding blogging inspired me to write about the stuff I never got to before. I'm gonna post some (read:1,000) honeymoon pictures for your viewing pleasure. Josh and I just looked through them all, and I suddenly want to plan a getaway where we can spend gobs of money without worrying about it...unfortunately, now that we're married, that money has to come from somewhere. And it seems sort of silly to "get away from it all" when it's just Josh and me and I don't want to get away from him. Moral of this story is our honeymoon rocked. Joshua was resourceful and wonderful and fulfilled my two requirements 1) Long (7 days) and 2) Foreign country (Canada counts cause the signs are in French, too).


Here we're preparing to cross the border and Josh was so nervous he about had a heart attack. We had absolutely no idea how the liters to gallon thing worked and the Canadian pumps didn't have the auto fill thing so we had to estimate how much gas to put in the Tahoe.



Everything worked perfectly checking into our hotel (after we sorted out the booking for the wrong week...) and we had such a fun time wandering around Whistler. They were so prepared for the Olympics.



We spent the first three days trying to decide if it was worth $90 to take the "Peak to Peak" gondola ride. Essentially the ride goes up one mountain and down the other, with the worlds longest unsupported gondola ride between the two mountain peaks. Everyone we talked to said it was fantastic, but it was painful to think about spending the $90 on the "experience". By some miracle on our second to last day an older couple randomly asked us if we wanted to go on the ride. Apparently they bought tickets but didn't have time to do the whole thing before they left, so we got to play Kenneth and Judy Olgstreth for the day. Terrifying pictures of the ride are below.



We had to take two different rides to the top of the first mountain, one about halfway, and the other to the very top. This is where we got pictures with the Vancouver Olympics man. We were too lazy to wait in a tourist line so they're sort of far away.





This is the only picture I was brave enough to take on the actual peak to peak ordeal. It was mildly terrifying being so high in the air.



Sick of staring in the sun so we took pictures with our eyes closed. And that tennis shoe picture is just to show that I'm growing up; it's about comfort, not cuteness.



This one Josh likes but I find terrible. Anyway, on our way out of Whistler we got stuck on this bridge for around 80 minutes to get into Vancouver to leave Canada. This is another one of those times where we were highly anxious because the car had barely less than a 1/2 tank of gas and we were worried it w0uld run out. It didn't, and we made it back safely.

End.

New Moon Fans and Haters

This is for you.



I wish I could tell you how many times I've watched this. Love it!

The Sweetest Little Town

So as many of you already know I spent the weekend in Pennsylvania interviewing at Penn State Milton S. Hershey College of Medicine. The interviews went great and I fell in love with Hershey (yes, Hershey is the actual name of the town). The total population is only 20,000, and smells deliciously of chocolate. The school offers many amazing programs and I would consider myself lucky to be accepted. Unfortunately, I have to wait to find out my fate at the school for 6-8 weeks when I will receive a decision in the mail.

One of the fringe benefits of interviewing for school was the experience of visiting the East coast. I am not so naive as to believe that visiting one little town counts as "experiencing the East coast," but I loved the idea of being in place that is so rich with U.S. and church history.

I spent a long day traveling yesterday. From Harrisburg I flew to the land of my birth, Chicago, where I haven't been in almost 23 years. From the busiest airport in the U.S. (O'Hare) I traveled to the largest airport (Denver) and then on to Salt Lake. By far the greatest aspect of the trip, beyond the smell of chocolate, the satisfaction of a successful interview, and the various metropolitan cities I visited, was returning home to S.L.C. where my beautiful wife surprised me by picking me up from the airport. I know that it sounds cheesy, but after being married for only 3 months it is amazing how much you can learn to depend on someone. There was nothing like walking out of the terminal straight into the arms of my lovely little wife.

I will keep the blogosphere posted on my other medical school pursuits as I continue to think fondly of Hershey, PA (for at least 6 more weeks, when my opinion of the town could be drastically changed).

My gift to you.

Sorry I'm queen of short (AWESOME) blogs, but I just wanted to let you know that Christmas music IS playing on the radio. Which makes me not such a crazy person. Thank you 100.3 FM for my holiday cheer.

And I also wanted to let you know that stores aren't selling Thanksgiving stuff anymore now that I'm getting all excited about that holiday.

Cheers!
K

Uh huh?

Does anyone know if the Distribution Center has a Black Friday sale? 'Cause I could really use some new garments at 10 for $10.

It's Christmas!

I waited as long as I could, I promise. Josh leaves for Pennsylvania tomorrow and I wanted to get the tree set up so I could work on other Christmas stuff while he's gone. We've been listening to the Elf soundtrack all day and enjoying our first Christmas together.

Adrie was here to help us put some ornaments on the tree. I hope her mother doesn't mind if she thinks it's almost Christmas...

And the almost finished product....

I also attempted something I've never done before in my whole life. I made gingerbread men cookies. The jury is still out on whether or not I'll do it again. I'm planning on having a Christmas party (feel free to schedule this in) and am considering having decorating gingie's (short for gingerbread cookies) on the activity list. As you can see, I made a lot of them, but they don't look so good. We'll see.

All in all, Christmas is a pretty big success. I feel kind of bad for Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving should know that I consider it a very important holiday leading the way to Christmas. I love turkey (probably more than the average person) and I can't wait for Adam and Emma to get here and to celebrate the day with everyone else.

So anyway, welcome to the Christmas season. I don't care if you say it doesn't start until Thanksgiving ends, because it's here. And I'm happy. So enjoy it while it's here, and look at my beautiful house. Cheers,

KL