Brett and Chelsea

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Southern Trip Part 1

At the end of July, first part of August Brett and I took a trip to the South. We had decided that when we moved out to the East Coast a few years ago that when we travel home we would go the Southern way and visit the South, particularly Atlanta, Georgia where Brett served an LDS Mission for two years. Since the news of a baby joining our family and the uncertainty of not know where we will be in 6 months from now, we decided we better ‘just do it’. So we did. We spent 16 days total traveling and saw lots and lots and lots of awesome country and lots and lots and lots of history.

Route of our trip

We started on Saturday, July 27, 2013 and made our way down to Washington DC, which is about 5 ½ to 6 hours away from Connecticut. We arrived at Mount Vernon that afternoon at around 230 pm and toured the great George Washington’s homestead for about 3 hours before venturing into the Nation’s Capitol. We stayed at a Hilton one block from the White House. We walked to the White House after resting at the hotel for little bit at about 10 pm that night. There were still lots of people milling around out front and we could even see the shadows of some guards standing on the rooftop.

Mount Vernon

The White House

Brett and the White House

Sunday: We started out with a bus tour through Georgetown, followed by a harbor tour of downtown. We saw the Lincoln Memorial and Korean War Memorial in the day but didn’t want to spend too much time there because we wanted to do all of the monuments at night when they are all lit up all pretty. So we headed across the river to Arlington and saw Robert E Lee’s home, the changing of the guards, JFK’s headstone/memorial, the Pentagon and Air Force Memorial. We ventured to the “the castle” to get some information on the different Smithsonian’s and decided to check out the museum of Natural History. We headed back to our hotel around 8 or 830 that night and we were pooped!

A little more on the changing of the guard: it is so meticulous and it’s very humbling to think that this has been done for nearly 100 years, starting in the year 1921 the EXACT same way. It’s the one thing that has been constant in our nation’s history and is today, performed the exact same way that it would have been in 1921. And for those of you who haven’t seen this it is incredible. Such a peaceful feeling resides there and as I said a meticulous way and order to how things are done. Everything is done by the count of 21, the solider taking 21 steps from one end to the other, turning one way for 21 seconds, then the other for 21 seconds and then places the fun between the crowd/amphitheater and the tomb representing guarding against any possible threats.

Natural History Museum

Changing of the Guard

Monday: We started with a tour of the Capitol Building and the Library of Congress. We caught the bus up to the Ford Theater. The tour for the theater lasted about an hour and Brett decided he didn’t really care to see it, so I stayed and did the tour and Brett went to the American Indian Museum. We both enjoyed what we saw. The theater is very beautiful and still operates as a theater today. We met back at the National Archives and were able to see the originals of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and Declaration of Independence. We visited the American History Museum until it closed and made our way back to the hotel, stopping along the way at a hole in the way pub for some grub. When we got back to the hotel we grabbed the car and were off again to visit the monuments at night, visiting the Jefferson, FDR, WWII, and Iwo Jima monuments. Getting to the Iwo Jima memorial was very interesting and we had a few tense moments but luckily there were very few cars out and about and everything worked out in the end.

Ford's Theater

Iwo Jima

Jefferson Memorial

FDR Memorial (just part of it)

Tuesday: We toured the Udvar-Hazy Center, which is the giant airplane hanger that is in movie the Transformers. It houses all sorts of aircraft and space stuff. It was amazing the amount of planes that were in one place and it was very cool to be able to see the space shuttle right up close. It’s not as ‘put together’ as they appear to be on TV. That afternoon we split up again and I headed to the holocaust museum and Brett spent the afternoon wondering around the Air and Space Museum. When we rejoined each other we headed back to the hotel. We took a little break until dark and then headed back out to visit the rest of the monuments that we didn’t get to see the night before. The Washington Monument had scaffolding surrounding it due to the repairs they are making since the earthquake in Aug 2011 did some structural damage. Unfortunately, it made it look a little weird but it was still cool. We saw the Lincoln Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, Washington Monument, and The Capitol Building. We hit the hay earlier that night so we could rest up for our long drive ahead of us the next day.

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Baby Girl update

So I thought I would make it official on my blog that we are going to have a baby. We have been married for 5 1/2 years and have been very busy going to school and furthering our education that we haven't even thought about having children. Although we have loved our time together without children we are excited to start a new phase our lives together. I can't wait to be a little family and experience the joys of parenthood with Brett.

I thought I would tell the "announcement story" in a little more detail on the blog.

On June 6, 2013 we headed to Utah to bid farewell to Brett's parents before they made their big move to China. Craig was asked to go to Nanjing to start a new plant over there so they will be there for the next 2 - 3 years. Sue says she is going to be splitting her time 50/50 between Utah and Nanjing for those years. But I guess we will just have to wait and she what she falls in love with over there. Anyway, the Petersen's were all together for one last hoorah before they left. That Monday before they left, June 3, 2013 we found out that we were finally 'in the clear' and there was only a 3%chance of miscarriage from that point forward, at this point we were 11 weeks along.

To back up a little bit - we unfortunately had to go through the experience of 2 miscarriages in the past. The last one was at Christmas, which we had plan to surprise the family with the news on Christmas. However, that didn't happen as I lost the baby on December 16. The second one wasn't quite at traumatic for us, as we had not been seen by a physician yet confirming the pregnancy, but there was one more between the first miscarriage and the current pregnancy. Needless to say we were not letting anyone know until we were 'in the clear'.

We found out on April 14 that we were pregnant but didn't want to genius hopes too high. We got a dr appointment scheduled ASAP so that we could make sure everything was healthy. I then had an ultrasound on may 7 to check the heartbeat and begin to monitor things a little closer due to past miscarriages. Everything looked great at that appointment, and we were given a due date of Jan 1' 2014. We had a 2nd ultrasound on May 21 to check the heartbeat again and everything still looked good. The due date was moved to December 30, 2013. Everything seemed to be working out and growing as normally expected. We were very happy but it was difficult to get really excited about things just yet as we knew the risk of miscarriage was still high for us. So when we got that confirmation from the dr on june 3, we couldn't wait to tell.

My mom did not know that we were making a trip to Utah, so we surprised her at work on Friday afternoon. Just seeing us we didn't think would be surprise enough so we showed up with a Dr. Pepper (her favorite thing in the world). We had a picture of the announcement wrapped around the Dr. Pepper. Mom was so excited to see us that she didn't even notice the announcement until she was walking back to her desk. Then she shouted for her entire office to hear, "and we are having a baby!!!" Dillon and dad knew that we were coming home to Utah but didn't know about the other surprise. So they got a little surprise too. We visited my grandpa Gale that afternoon and also gave him the news.

The next day we headed to the Petersen's cabin at Bear Lake to spend some quality time with the family. We had "done up the day" with go-karting, a dog run, visiting a Blackhawk helicopter, the beach/swimming, and finally ended it with dinner. We were all hanging out back at the cabin that night when Brett handed Garrett an announcement and told him to take it to grandma. Sue said "what's this?" Then read it out loud to everyone.

I didn't want go leave out my sister in Alaska and I knew the mail would take a while to get to her so I sent an announcement to her in the mail following our dr appointment on Monday. She received the card on Saturday so we she didn't miss out on all the news.

The Thursday after we returned home from Utah I was at Young Women's when I decided to tell Stacy Mitchell, who is the Young Women's President in our ward. For a long time it has been just her and I serving the Young Women's together and she is has been a huge support to me through the previous miscarriages. We were writing Thank you notes to people who has participated and supported the young women in the attaining their fundraising goals for girl's camp this summer. Stacy stepped out of the room for a minute and while she was gone I put the picture in the middle of the stack of card. When she came back, I asked her to look through the cards to be sure that we had made one for everyone. When she came across the card she started screaming and jumping up and down. It didn't take long before everyone in the building knew. When I got home that evening we decided that word was going to spread and that we better let people know. So we placed the announcement on Facebook and sent a text to close friends.

On June 24, we had a scheduled appointment to screen for genetic defects and any birth defects with the baby. It was going to take like 2 hours so I told Brett it probably wouldn't be anything special and not to worry trying to get the day off from his clinical. I went by myself and while they were doing the ultrasound they said "we can tell the sex, would you like to know what it is." I said I didn't want to know since my husband wasn't with me. The cute little lady said they could write it on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope for us. I said I would love that and she did. We opened it together that night and found out that we are having a sweet baby girl.

This was the way that we announced that we were having a little girl:

With the votes tallied....

The Dr note says....

It's a GIRL!

Dr. Note is the sticky note

I have to be honest and say I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a boy because I always wanted an older brother but as I have thought about it and watched the little families in our ward that have boys and girls I am so grateful for the opportunity to be entrusted of the Lord to raise a righteous woman in the Gospel. As I sat in 3rd hour meeting today I had the thought that I feel so blessed to be able to raise a little girl who will invite the spirit of the Lord and challenge us to rise up to our potentials and help us to be stronger in the gospel. As many of the prophets and apostles have said, if it wasn't for their wives they wouldn't be where they are. Oh the responsibility of parenthood and raising a righteous woman! Bring on the PINK!

Latest photo - 3.4 in, 1.5 oz, size of a lemon

Baby's first gift from Sis Stacy Mitchell.

Next blog entry will be more about how I have felt during pregnancy, cravings, etc.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Guatemala Day 7

March 9, 2013 (Saturday)

Well today was the big day that we had to head back to the real world. I got up with Gary, Amy, and Michelle at 0700 and went for a little walk. I split off after a while and headed back for some breakfast. Then went to the Galeria market to make my final purchases. I got the purchases made just in time to head back to the hotel, finish packing a few things up, and get ready to head out. It was so kind, Sabina wasn’t going to be driving us back, but she came to the hotel anyway on her day off to say goodbye to us. So we got the truck all loaded up, packed in and headed off to Guatemala city to hit the airport. Gary and I rode with Clay and Jonathon in the truck and Omar took everyone else in the Van. It was a real nice drive. We discussed a little bit about the week, and also how the process of having other groups come down goes, and just some of the different dynamics. After about one hour we arrived at the airport, said our goodbyes and boarded the plane. We did a reverse flight as on our way out, hit San Salvador, then caught a 4 ½ hour flight to JFK. And here I am now on the bus ride back to Fairfield finishing up this weeks Journal.
I’ve had a fair bit of time to reflect on this week, and I’m sure that a lot of it will continue to hit me over the next days and weeks. I restarted writing in this journal about a month ago to take time every day and reflect on the hand of my Heavenly Father in my life, this week has helped show me just how much he is in my life and how much I have to be grateful for. This trip was in a lot of ways similar to my full-time mission yet in a whole lot of ways different. As I am sitting here I’m just realizing that I am only about a month away to the ten year anniversary of leaving for that incredible experience. That mission definitely shaped and polished me to be a better person and prepared me for what life is really about; this mission I believe helped me truly see how much our Father in Heaven truly loves and cares about all his children, and that it is important for us to have clear eyes and full hearts to be an instrument in his hands to bless and love others. I saw and did things that I did not expect and often had to remind myself that it is not all about me but that there is a grand scheme that is much bigger than I am. I remember thinking on the plane ride home from Atlanta eight years ago, about all the incredible experiences both good and bad and also thinking about the amazing people I was able to both serve and serve with. As I was caught up reflecting a line from a song we often sang at our meetings kept coming to my head and now I can’t help but think of it again “building friendships that will be eternal.” I know that I will never see the vast majority of the people I interacted with in Guatemala, and I presume that many of the folks I worked with will over the years no longer be in contact, but just like with my first mission the friendships that were forged in the furnace of adversity will always be locked deep in mi Corazon.

Sabina, our translator

The LDS Church house, we past it on the way to Guatemala City

Clay, Jonathon, and Omar

Guatemala Day 6

March 8, 2013 (Friday)

Well today was our free day. We all decided that we wanted to hike the Pacaya Volcanoe. It was on the backside of Agua and about an hours drive away. It was a very cool drive where we got to see a lot of the countryside. It is an amazing land where the people have adapted in incredible ways to utilize the fertile yet steep and rugged land. When we arrived at the trailhead we were accompanied by a group of vacaroes (cowboys). They hang out hoping to rent out their horses to those wanting to go on the trail. They have an interesting breed of horse, it is much smaller than the American and European breeds. It was fun to get to be around the caballos and talk to the people. We opted to hike instead of ride with the exception of Michelle Lusardi who is starting to advance in age. I am not exactly sure on the details, but I believe the hike was about five miles round trip and I would guess about 1500-2000 ft of elevation gain. The volcano is still active with its most recent eruption in May of 2010. The last half of the hike up we were hiking in the lava flows and I have to say that is an interesting hike. At the end of our hike we came to an area where there are some fissures that the heat from the volcano still escapes. They make a natural oven and we roasted some marshmellows and had some smores…what a cool and unique experience. Myself and Cri roasted our own mellows and accidentally touched them to the roof of the oven, when eating them there was definitely a distinct taste somewhat sulfuric; so we decided that we truly experienced the volcano by ingesting it. On the way back down myself and Clay decided to run down the we made good time at eleven minutes to descend. When we all got down it was apparent that none of us had taken proper precautions for the sun and were cooked to a crisp, myself included. We headed back to Antigua following the hike and headed over to the market. I was able to help support the local economy well! The items I ended up getting: carved wooden mask of a rooster (Mother Teresa), table runners (rest of family), little woven bracelets (friends and family), headbands (the ninas), and the stuff for Chels (skirt, jade earings and necklace pendant). Following the market we went back to Iglesia del Camino for our final dinner. Pastor Mike and his wife were our host for the dinner. At dinner, the big souvenirs arrived. There is a gentleman (Elio) that makes custom boots for people. I got myself a nice new pair of cowboy boots, and I got Chels (without her knowing) a pair of those long riding boots. Following dinner we got all of our luggage that we had used for transporting the shoes and headed back to the hotel. We then went over to the crepe place adjacent to our hotel and had a ‘little’ dessert…the crepe’s were huge. I had a strawberry banana with nutella and a strawberry banana smoothie, while most of the rest of the group had some adult beverages to finish off the day/week. Following the crepe’s a few of us joined some of the church folk for some futbol in the church. Every Friday night following their youth group they play some soccer, it was really fun to hang out with them, and very kind of them to allow us to really be a part of their lives. Following the soccer a few of us went to the roof and just hung out, chatted, and had some good laughs, then it was off to bed.