A Visit from Tina and Parker

We had a visit from some of Ryan's family on Sept. 22. We wish the whole family had been able to come, but Michael wasn't feeling well, and Stu had to stay and work. We were really glad we could have Tina and Parker come though! Lucy is the first grandbaby on Ryan's side and it was so fun to introduce her to them.

We took them to some of the things we enjoy in Columbus, like the outdoor farmer's market (I stayed home with Lucy because she was being fussy), and of course went to eat at Piada. (Piada is "Italian Street food" - basically they are kind of a Subway for Italian food. They have delicious noodle dishes, wraps, or salads that you tell them exactly what stuff and sauces you want in it and they build it for you.)

Saturday we wanted to experience something new, so we went to explore the Olentangy Indian Caverns. They were pretty cool, actually. They took about an hour to explore through. You go down quite a ways into the caverns. They said there's actually another cavern even lower, but they haven't excavated a way down into it yet, as that is pretty costly to do. That one is supposed to me huge though.

I'd say Lucy loved the excursion, but she slept through the entire exploration. 

Lucy's First Bath

I was a little worried that our little one would scream throughout bath time, but it was quite the opposite! Lucy seemed to thoroughly enjoy bath time and it was calming to her I think. Either that or she was just too busy taking in the new stimuli that she didn't cry.

Lucy loves being naked. She's always happy when she's naked. 

Lucy looking like she's not so sure she was ready to get out!

Lucy's here!

Little Lucy is finally here! My due date of July 27^th came and went and I was so ready to not be pregnant anymore. For the week leading up to the due date I kept hoping she’d come early, but no luck. On the 30^th, I went to the doctor and I was dialated to a 4, and they said the baby’s head had started to engage. It made me wonder why I was still going about my normal activities and wasn’t in the hospital yet!

Around 12:30 am I woke up and realized that what woke me up was that I was having contractions. I stayed in bed, but with my cell phone I started timing them. They weren’t too painful, definitely bearable, but strong enough that I couldn’t sleep through them and they hurt more lying down. So I went downstairs and did crossword puzzles, looked at facebook, and read conference talks. Ryan woke up around 4 and realized I wasn’t in bed and came down looking for me. My contractions were getting stronger and closer together, but I still was handling them just fine. I told him we were going to the hospital that night, so we got dressed and pulled together the last items we needed for the hospital bag.

I was admitted to the hospital just before 5 am. I was doing fine with the contractions at that point and didn’t really want to be confined to bed quite yet, so I held off for a while on the epidural. Ryan was exhausted, so I told him I was fine and to nap for a while on the couch. He was a little reluctant, but finally agreed and I’m glad he did. I needed him to be awake and ready to help me later on. Finally around 7:30 or so I told them I was ready for the epidural. We sent Ryan to the cafeteria for breakfast so he wouldn’t have to watch. I’m glad I didn’t see anything either. The epidural was surprisingly more painful than I expected it to be. But I’m definitely glad I got it. While the earlier contractions were not a problem for me as long as I just took a deep breath, I could tell as I got closer to delivery that the contractions were way stronger than anything I’d actually felt. I could feel the tightness of the contraction, but there was no pain. It gave me a chance to rest for a little while before delivery.

Around 9:30 they came in and broke my water and from there contractions started to get stronger in preparation for delivery. Around noon they said I was ready to start pushing and delivery commenced. While labor was much easier than I expected, delivery pretty much met my expectations in terms of pain and difficulty. To that point it was probably the most intense thing I’d ever experienced. With every push they were telling me they could see the baby’s head and that I was making progress, but to me it didn’t feel like it. Ryan was the best support I could have asked for helping to count out how long to push and when to breathe and push again. Most of the birth I just fixed my eyes on him and he helped me get through it one push at a time.

The pushing lasted 45 minutes and toward the end I just felt like giving up. I didn’t feel any closer to having the child than I had 30 minutes earlier, except that my whole body felt like it was ripping apart. With tears streaming down my face I could hear Ryan’s voice faltering just a bit too and could tell he was close to tears as well. When at last they held up our sweet little girl and placed her on my bare chest she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and Ryan just held on to both of us. It was an incredible feeling as I was both exhausted and overcome with love for this little one and for my wonderful husband who supported me through the painful process of bringing her into the world. Our little baby was just absolutely perfect to me.

Baby girl weighed 7 lb. 3 oz., and measured 20.5 inches

Ryan is a proud Dad!

And I'm an exhausted new mom!

Ryan and I cuddled and loved all over the baby as they got me stitched up and ready to move to my recovery room. I was glad that the worst was over, or so I thought. I got settled into my room and tried to nap. As I adjusted a little bit for a better position to breastfeed Lucy (who wasn’t named at this point, by the way) I felt a large blood clot leave my body. I figured that was probably normal, but called the nurse because I didn’t want to be sitting in it. They got things cleaned up and said that if I could walk again, I should use the restroom because my bladder was really full. It’s funny how now that I didn’t have a baby sitting on it, I had no sensation of needing to go! One leg had regained feeling pretty well, but the other was still pretty dead, so I asked to eat lunch first to give it a little more time before putting weight on it.

When I was ready to go, I called the nurse to help me since I still didn’t have full strength in my legs. As I sat down to go I felt a sensation of several large clots of blood leaving my body. It felt like losing about 2 pints of blood all at once. I told the nurse I just lost a lot of blood and was getting dizzy and light headed. Then I pretty well blacked out, sitting right there on the toilet. Next thing I knew, there were about 5 nurses in the bathroom with me and they were holding some sort of ammonia smelling stuff to my nose to bring me around. Which it did, but the smell also made me feel like I couldn’t breathe or was being poisoned. I couldn’t remember exactly where I was for the moment, and was really confused about how all these people I didn’t know got there. My mind filled with panic and my heart began to race, which combined with the asphyxiating smell, made it difficult for me to breathe.

As they carried my weak, limp body back to bed, I searched the room for Ryan, but couldn’t seem to find him or focus on him. He was there of course, but was holding Lucy and had stepped out of the way of all the nurses, but I needed him with me. He put Lucy back in the bassinet and like and angel she was perfectly quiet (although since I was having problems, I immediately thought Lucy was in danger too, especially since I couldn’t hear her or see her since she was behind me.) My whole body had plunged into shock with the loss of blood and I was only taking short shallow breaths so they inserted an oxygen tube in my nose. I was so terrified. They immediately began administering Pitocin to me in my IV to help the uterus contract. They also had to drain my bladder because it was so full that it was putting pressure on the uterus and aggravating the hemorrhaging problem. They inserted a catheter into my bladder, which may have been the most painful part of my whole childbirth experience. It’s the only time I remember actually screaming in pain, but at this point, all the pain medication from the epidural had worn off, and everything was bruised, stretched, torn, stitched, and swollen.

Ryan was at my side and I think I squeezed every bit of blood out of his hand. The experience was so intense that I had to just focus on his eyes as he told me things would be ok and he helped me breath in and out, trying to slow my heart rate and regulate my breathing by calming me down. It’s hard for me to describe how much Ryan helped me through this. It was probably the most intense experience of my life and I know that feeling Ryan there with me, holding my hand, looking into his eyes and focusing on his voice was the only thing that kept me from total hysterics.  It was terrifying.

I had known what to expect in delivery, so the pain there was not unexpected or alarming. But I knew this wasn’t how recovery was supposed to me, which made it really scary because the hemorrhaging wasn’t something I was prepared for. The nurses would press on my stomach and I’d feel yet another blood clot leave my body, and I’d want to panic again. Even after they got the immediate problem in hand, I was so scared to do anything. I was scared to move because I felt like I’d lose more blood. I was scared to go to the bathroom because I feared the same experience happening all over again. So the next morning the nurse asked me if I’d gone and I told her no because I was scared to go. Going to the restroom was something I dreaded. It was a relief when I was able to go without losing another blood clot.

In all of this, I’ve come to love Ryan even more than before for all the care, support, and help he gave to me during this. I honestly don’t feel like I could have gone through this experience without him at my side. He’s the one who helped me keep pushing when I wanted to give up. I think I would have blacked out again if he hadn’t been there with me through my recovery challenges. Seeing the emotion in his face, and hearing his voice falter while I was in pain was really bonding and I felt how difficult it was for him to watch me suffer and know there was nothing he could do except hold me and encourage me. 

Now that it's been a month (I wrote this a couple weeks ago) it's easier to block out the pain and it becomes just a memory. We love our little girl so much and are so happy to have her here with us. 

Our baby is a...

GIRL! We found out last week that our little baby is a girl! I was kind of surprised because I'd mostly just assumed we'd have a boy. I'd accepted that I was probably going to have a family of all boys. So to find out the first was a girl was not what I expected. Except that during the week before we found out, Ryan and I both had dreams about having a girl. Then the day before we went into the doctor I just had this feeling that the baby wanted to be known and that she was just as anxious as us to have us find out that she was a girl.

I'm amazed that the doctor can tell much from the ultrasound pictures. There were a few things I recognized. Like the head. And he pointed out the heart, which that was pretty amazing to see the 4 chambers and watch it beat. But a lot of the things he pointed out, seemed unidentifiable to me. I struggled to see when he said "this is the thigh," much less "you've got a girl!"

Because I was so certain that we'd have a little boy, we spent a lot of time brainstorming ideas for names. I feel like boys names are difficult. I wanted something that wasn't weird, but not too generic. And I'm opposed to unigender names, and want names for boys that aren't going to become girl names in the next few years. I kept saying that boys' names are so hard, and that there are tons of pretty girls' names. I figured since there are lots of great girls' names, I'd work on the harder one. So... we had to start over on names. But as I expected, in about an hour or 2 we had a pretty good list of names we like. We'll narrow it down over the next few months as we fill the baby room with pink.

Moving to the Ohio

After we returned from our quick trip to Ohio, we got down t the business of getting ready to move. I worked on trying to find someone to rent our place, continued to work the transition of the business to Ryan's parents, and thought about how I needed to get packed. There was so much to do in such a short time! And it was so quickly that we had to say good-bye to all of our friends. We kind of dropped two bombs at the same time. "I'm pregnant, and we are also moving." It was a shocker.

I had some great help from my in-laws and also from my friend Rachel with packing. They came the Saturday before we moved and helped us pack a lot of our stuff. I could hardly believe how many boxes we continued to fill, and there was still more stuff! I had no idea how much stuff we had and it was kind of mind-blowing.Where did it all come from?! I guess when you have everything delivered, piece by piece, it all really adds up. All of our furniture we bought and had delivered to our place, and most of our kitchen stuff was wedding gifts, many of which came via mail.

Wednesday was a beautiful sunny day in Virginia, and we were ready to pack the truck the next day. Our plan was to take the day to pack it, stay the night at Ryan's parents' house, and then leave Friday morning for the drive. Our plans changed very quickly when we woke up to this!

Over 14 inches of light powdery snow had fallen in a single night! We were completely snowed in. Our friends, the Dows braved the roads in their Four Runner to get some groceries and were great to bring us some milk and snacks. We had packed almost everything at this point and had no food really accessible to eat in the house, and most of the perishables had been thrown out. Most of the morning we just continued to get ready to leave, although it was pretty obvious we'd not be packing the truck that day.

There was a beastly amount of snow to remove. Thank goodness we found a shovel in our closet that the owners left!

Ryan went out in the afternoon and spent about 4 hours digging out our cars, as well as a few of the elderly neighbors. I helped for a little bit, but just by brushing the snow off the tops of the cars, creating more for him to shovel. :) Thankfully the Dows saved us again that evening by having us over for dinner. We are really going to miss them when we move.

We delayed packing the truck until Friday morning, but it took us much longer than we expected to get it all done. Dan and Ryan's family came to help us and they did an amazing job to get everything to fit. There were very few things that we had to leave behind at Ryan's parents. I attribute part of that to Dan's puzzle skills, and part to Ryan's brute strength.

We didn't get away until almost 5. It seemed almost ridiculous to leave at 5 pm to move to another state, but we were watching storms closely, and it was going to snow all day in the mountains the next day, so we needed to get through the mountains if at all possible--it was supposed to be clear until 9 pm or so. So we hit the road. Ryan ended up with the bad end of the deal though. The cab of the van smelled bad, like it was something coming in through the heater. So he bundled up and rolled down the windows and froze all evening as he drove. By the time we stopped, he had a pounding headache from the smell, and well as freezing cold hands. We stayed the night in Morgantown, West Virginia. I guess you could say we went on a romantic getaway to a hotel in the middle of the mountains for Valentine's day. That sounds a whole lot more charming than other ways the day could be described.

The next morning, it had snowed a few more inches and the snow was still falling. We hadn't made it all the way out of the mountains yet. We waited a little bit, until we felt like the roads had probably had enough time to be cleared. As we got going, I got ahead of Ryan and he ended up getting squeezed into the wrong lane and turned south when the road split. It was difficult to navigate the traffic with snow and such a large vehicle. To make matters worse, the windshield wiper then flew off the car! I had to turn around and meet Ryan and we got the wiper fixed at an auto shop that just happened to be right off the nearest exit.

The rest of the drive went smoothly and we arrived in Columbus 15 minutes before the apartment complex office closed for the day. I had just enough time to sign the lease and pick up some keys, and they locked the door behind me on my way out. Phew! We had a few people from our new ward come and help us get moved in, which was absolutely a blessing to us. The missionaries from our ward came and I think we have the strongest missionary in the Columbus mission. Or at least, we have one of the Tongans of the Columbus mission.

They were having a difficult time getting the smaller section of our sectional up the stairs because there's a turn at the top of the stairs. They said there was no way they'd get the second section up that, so the solution was to open the balcony door off the kitchen on the second floor, hoist the couch up from the truck, and take it in through the balcony. Well, three guys pushed up from below, and our missionary wrestled that couch up almost completely by himself, swung it the right direction and with a little guidance, got it through our door.  It was astounding. A few weeks of unpacking and decorating have ensued. If I get to it, there will be pictures of our new place sometime!

Crazy Things Happen in Mexico

You'd think it all started with a plate of nachos in a tree house in Mexico, but really it started before that.  A few days prior we had boarded a cruise ship, leaving from Long Beach, CA, bound for Mexico.  We boarded around lunch time.  We're old cruise pros now, having been on a few in the past two years.  We know that on the first day of the cruise, if you head to the very back of the boat, you have total peace and quiet.  No one else has yet made it back that far.  Usually, we hit the hot tubs and have them all to ourselves, but not this year, as baby is in embryo and hot tubs and embryos aren't so hot together.

We grabbed some long chairs and spent the afternoon reading, working crossword puzzles, and wondering why an adjacent boat "The Queen Anne" was walled in.  That still remains a mystery.  In between all of that, we were discussing what we were going to do with our future.

We had involved Ryan's parents in the business with us as they needed a more stable financial footing.  Ryan's dad had lost his job a few years back and done different things, but the money wasn't as predictable or as substantial as they would have liked.  They were a huge help in getting the business going and more profitable, but they also put some strain on us, both financially and time wise.

We felt it time for a change, but what.  Ryan had thought of some other entrepreneurial endeavors, but had some hesitations and fears on those.  He had also contemplated going back to corporate America, but felt that would be both a step backwards in salary and responsibility. Ryan suffocates in corporate America though and I can't ever force him to go back to something that drains him that way.

We were hoping that tropical sunset off the boat might provide some inspiration.  No such luck.

So we decided to revisit it later.  The next morning arrived bright and early and we debarked to Catalina Island, famous for salad dressing and tandem bicycles.  We took option 2 as Ryan is a Ranch man.  We rented a tandem bike for all of $15 and proceeded to cruise around the island.  Along the way, we rode past a museum, a casino, an Amish ice cream store, and a really cool, former aviary that has been converted into an apartment complex. Although it's a little creepy I think to live in a former bird zoo.

After our epic bike expedition, which also included a jaunt up the hill, where Ryan's heart almost exploded, it was time for lunch.  A tandem bike and a steep hill burn a lot of calories.  So we found lunch in this cool diner, where the waitress had spent her entire life there, living in a 5 mile square radius and everyone, literally everyone, drives a golf cart.  Catalina Island speed of life = 7 1/2 miles per hour.

Then we set sail for Mexico.  The next day, we hooked up with the rest of the Five Star crew to go see "La Bufadora", which is Spanish for The Blowhole.  Although we had high hopes it was a beached whale, it was in fact, a naturally occurring water spout off some cliffs near a Mexican sea.  Think Old Faithful, but probably not that old and not real faithful, as the geyser explosions were small and random.  After all 5 minutes of fun were had, it was time for some new adventures.

La Bufadora, in action

Squinty shot in Ensenada Mexico

And so we wound up in a restaurant that looked like a tree house eating a gigantic plate of nachos.  And then our lives changed forever.

As we sat there making small talk with one of our fellow franchisees, Tom from Ohio, it turned out that he was looking to sell his business.  He was looking to pursue other opportunities and was looking to find another Five Star franchisee that might be willing to take over his territories in Ohio.

These were the life changing nachos that would set us on the path to Ohio

The more he talked, the more compelling it became.  This might be the answer we were looking for.  Ryan's parents could continue running the business in Virginia, and we could move to Ohio and run Five Star there, which we know can provide for us.

So we talked with the Five Star corporate leadership, started working out details, and then two weeks later were in Ohio for a 3 day visit.  We found ourselves a cute little townhouse, and set a move out date a few weeks later.

The adventures continue.

California Adventures!

Despite the name of the post, we didn't end up having time to go to California Adventure, the theme park, but we had plenty of adventures of our own. The original purpose for the trip was to come out for the annual Five Star Painting Conference, but since Ryan was born in Southern California, both his parents were raised there, and all the extended family is there, we decided to go early and visit people for a few days before the conference started. Last June when we bought the tickets we figured that there wouldn't be much of anything going on in the painting world the week between Christmas and New Years, so why not?!

One of my favorite things about the trip was that I got to see Cassie Jones a few times! It was so fun to see one of my best high school friends again after so long! I think the last time we were together was for Mallory's wedding, which was like 3 or 4 years ago (I lose track!). Anyways, the day we flew in we met Cassie and her two cute girls at the Balboa Pier in Laguna Beach. We had a picnic on the beach and played with the girls in the water and sand while we talked. They live a little ways inland, but she was awesome to drive in and hang out with us for the day!

We had awesome milkshakes from a restaurant at the end of the pier

Balboa Pier, oh, and this was also the first time Cassie got to meet Ryan!

In the evening I took Ryan to a Pirate Dinner Show that I bought him for Christmas. With Ryan's deep and abiding fixation with pirates, costumes, and awesome sets, I knew it was sure to be a hit. For the hour or so before the show started they had people in pirate costumes walking around with appetizers and then they did a bit of a pre-show in the lobby to introduce the characters for the show. Each section of the theater (which was in the round) was designated a certain color, and that matched with one of the pirates. The pirates had various competitions they had to do as part of the show, so there was fun audience participation. The food was just ok in my opinion, and I was super exhausted so I don't remember as much of the show, but the sets were absolutely amazing! I don't think the pictures even capture it!

Huge indoor Galleon that was decked out with every pirate-y detail!

On Tuesday was our Disneyland Day, which was my Christmas present from Ryan. We weren't sure at first how many of the rides I'd be able able to ride since I was pregnant, but it really wasn't a problem for me. Since about the week of Christmas, I've pretty much felt fine and back to normal as far as health and the pregnancy goes, which is great. (I never really felt THAT sick anyways, but any that I did have has disappeared, and I'm starting to have much more energy again.)

On the tram from the parking garage, ready for my FIRST DAY AT DISNEY!!

Entrance to Disneyland first thing in the morning before things got too crazy. It was wall to wall people in a matter of hours. 

Disneyland was SUPER packed because it was New Year's Eve. Maybe that wasn't the best day to go, but it was the day that fit into our schedules the best. They didn't have any parades I think that they usually have because I'm pretty sure they had the full staff just directing traffic. They pretty much had every pathway designated as one way because the throngs were so intense. Because of the crowds, it was hard to ever stop and take pictures much, so I only got a couple. But it was a fun, and magical day. The Disneyland rides, while not really all that exciting or thrilling, are just incredible because of their sets and how everything is so complete down to the last detail. Some of my favorites were the Buzz Lightyear ride, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, and the Matterhorn. We had kind of bad luck with being in a line when a ride broke down (it happened 3 times!), so we just missed being able to ride Indiana Jones because it broke just before we got to it, but couldn't stay and wait too long because we wanted to make the last showing of Fantasmic. Other times we just waited it out and they got it fixed pretty quick.

Haunted Mansion, one of the rides that broken down just before we reached the front of the line. But we still got to ride it as they fixed it quickly.

Fantasizing over our dream treehouse while in Tarzan's treehouse. 

What a beautiful view!

A divine break we took with dinner at the Mexican restaurant. It caused us to miss the fireworks, but we heard them!

Very difficult to get a photo of the castle lit up at night, but isn't it beautiful! I snapped this on our way out.

Because it was New Year's Eve, the park was open until 2 am, but they were saying that if you stayed until after midnight to expect up to a 2 hour delay in getting back to the parking garage and then a lot of traffic trying to get out of the area. We left around 11:15 as we were exhausted and ready to go anyways. I knew I wouldn't make it through that kind of a wait.

The next morning Ryan's dad flew in and we picked him up from the airport and drove down to Oceanside to stay with Ryan's grandma (Stu's dad). She's 92, but still lives in her own house and gets along pretty well still. We went with here and Ryan's aunt and uncle who also live there down to the water and ate at a restaurant for lunch. The next couple days we spend down there with them and had a good time. One day we went to Torrey Pines State Park. Apparently this particular pine tree is very uncommon and only grows in a couple of places, so they make kind of a big deal about it. It looks like any other pine tree to me! But we took a cool walk down through some trails that had some beautiful overlooks of the ocean.

What feels like a green oasis to those on the west coast, felt like a desert to Ryan and I after being accustomed to the lush greenery of Virginia.

It was a beautiful sunset from one of the lookout points

Nothing like a "half-mountain" pose in front of a sunset to look like a boss. 

The last day I ended up being pretty sick. I couldn't keep food down and threw up after every meal, or at least whatever I could eat of each meal. People wanted to chalk it up to me being pregnant, but I think I caught a 24 hour bug or something. I hadn't thrown up at all during my pregnancy to that point, so it didn't make sense to just start that day. And by the next day I felt much better and it hasn't bothered me since. Friday night, even though I'd been sick all day, Brandon and Cassie drove in again with the girls and we all went to dinner. It was so fun. I've never spent much time with them together since they've been married, so it was fun to get to know her husband and for the guys to talk business. I wish we lived closer, they are such awesome friends!