Sunday, April 17, 2011

Easter Concerts

After going to the temple last night Christina and I went to see the Temple Hill Choir and Orchestra perform an oratorio called, "The Lamb of God." We both enjoyed it a lot. It was a great retelling of the Easter story (from Christ's last miracles to his Resurrection) through music and narration coming directly from the scriptures. It will actually be performed again tonight and next Saturday at the ISC auditorium by the temple and next Sunday at Cathedral of Christ the Light. Here's the information.

I am also in a choir, Valparaiso Singers, that is singing an Easter concert. The concert will actually be on Good Friday, which is this Friday. It should be really great. We are singing A German Requiem by Brahams (ironically we're singing it in English, not German) along with several other Easter songs. The concert should last about 70 minutes. We have an amazing guest soprano singing too. Tonight is the dress rehearsal and I'm pretty excited. I couldn't find any updated links for this concert, but it's 7:30pm on Friday at the Valparaiso building in Menlo Park. Come and see!!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

The Baby Facts - Trimester One is DONE!

Many of you may be wondering: now that the news is out, when do we actually get to hear the juicy details?!  Well, that would be today.  Don't worry all the details herewith provided are G-rated, according to 2011 standards.

NOTE TO READERS: I have numbered each segment with a one-liner "reader's digest version"  followed by what I consider a well-rounded retelling of events.

1. Nausea was mild, but an all-day event.
The first trimester was quite mild for me in regards to nausea, which I am extremely grateful for!  Yes, I felt like throwing up for hours on end, but thanks to the suggestions of various family members about eating habits, I am happy to say that I only threw up one time :)  And with all this not so settling of a stomach, I have felt so thankful for Jordan's understanding and easy-going nature.  I didn't cop out on meals, but there were many nights that I made what I call "fake dinners".  Aka: Pasta Roni, Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese, Chicken Alfredo.  Anything that didn't take too long to cook and was fairly mild on the seasonings.  (No offense to any individuals that make these meals on a regular basis, I just really enjoy cooking and thus for me it's not my typical meal)

2. To say it simply, I just wanted to sleep every waking moment.
Although nausea was present but not prevalent, fatigue hit me hard.  I was always ready for bed.  When Jordan got home at night I didn't want to make dinner and eat, I just wanted to go to sleep! Let me share one quick day.  It was a Sunday.  I slept for about 9 hours the night before, completely exhausted from a Saturday of fun. Then my Sunday schedule began...
9:00 am: wake up, eat breakfast, get prepped for the day
11:00 am: nap time (my body demanded that 30 minutes of sleep was essential!)
11:30 am: get ready for and attend choir practice and church
4:00 pm: go home, make and eat dinner, sing hymns with Jordan
6:00 pm: Jordan goes to Valpraiso Choir practice, I take another nap.  (2 hours this time!)
8:00 pm: wake up and chat on the phone for a bit with family and friends
9:00 pm:  Jordan gets home and we study scriptures and play a game.
10:30 - 11:00ish pm: bed time
Essentially, I slept a lot and just could not stay awake no matter how hard I tried.  It seemed my body wanted to sleep and it was usually stronger than my willpower to stay awake.  Granted, every day was not as sleep-filled as this particular Sunday. Haha.

3. Food Craving - Tomatoes???
So, at first I didn't recognize that I even had food cravings.  As it turns out, for about a week or so all I really wanted to eat was tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich.  If Jordan and I weren't having it for dinner (which we didn't do a lot) I planned ahead and had it for lunch!  One day it was particularly hot.  Soup in 75 degree weather just isn't fun.  So what felt good that afternoon for lunch?  A tomato sandwich!  Hahaha.  Yes, I know, what were the odds of that?!  Another testament of my desire for tomatoes came that weekend. Jordan and I went out to dinner...all I really wanted to eat was french fries.  Not because I was craving french fries, but because I wanted to load them up with ketchup!  I grabbed about 10 packages of ketchup and used 6.  Gross to think about eating that much ketchup, but I did.  Looking back on that 1-2ish weeks I realized that I must have been craving tomatoes.

4.  1st Check-up: TB test negative, Ultrasound, and Expected Due Date!
Jordan is going to come to all my checkups!  (as long as we can get them all in the early morning time slots)  We were so excited-nervous-excited for the first check-up.  I will admit , I hate needles and wasn't too tickled to have the TB test.  But it came back negative, so no worries.  Plus, when giving me the TB test the nurse informed me that our doctor loves to give ultrasounds.  I had been hoping for an ultrasound, but knew it was probably a bit early for that so that got me and Jordan all happy!  In addition to getting to see the baby and have photos taken, we also heard the baby's heart beat, which is strong and healthy.  It was one of the most incredible moments for us :)  I can't even think of words to describe how it feels to hear your baby's heartbeat that first time.  Finally, we got our baby's due date:
OCTOBER 18th!!!!
This truly is perfect because Jordan's birthday is in November and mine is in December.  A nice spacing out :)

I hope that was concise enough and the number bullets helped those that just wanted the basic picture.  As Jordan and I now venture into the second trimester I am already enjoying a renewed sense of energy as of last week.  We are so very excited to be parents and look forward to welcoming our first child into our family.

Random fact:  This will be Jordan's parents' 10th grandchild and my parents' 1st grandchild!  It's kinda nice to think our baby will have lots of cousins already here and many to come :)

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Surprise!

We're gonna have a baby!