We're having a boy!

I know this news is a little late, but we're having a boy. I am 24 weeks along and I just started feeling the baby move this past weekend. He's a pretty active little guy but not big enough to cause any pain or extreme discomfort yet. It is exciting to being able to feel him moving and to be able to pick out cute baby clothes now that we know the gender. I'm posting a pregnancy picture people have asked, but I promise I really don't look this pregnant on most days (it's the outfit).

Big News

So now that I've started to show we've decided to start making the news public...we're expecting a new addition to our family. I'm 19 weeks pregnant tomorrow and I have an ultrasound on Tuesday October 5. We'll let you all know when we find out the gender on Tuesday, but we're super excited!

Grand Tetons - Table Mountain Hike

Labor Day weekend we decided to go backpacking in the Grand Tetons with our friends Steph and Jarom.

The first day we did some short day hikes in the Grand Teton national park and set up camp in the dark that night.

We woke up to find that our campsite was overlooking a beautiful valley and a couple of rams meandered by as we cooked our oatmeal. Leaving camp we stopped along the road to gaze at a moose (a safe distance on the opposite side of the river).

Fortunately we did not have any bear encounters on the trip. The second day we drove to the west side of the Tetons and hiked to just below the tree line of Table Mountain. We set up camp for the night, built a fire, hung our packs in the trees and went to bed shortly after it started snowing. The morning of the third day we hiked to the summit of Table Mountain and took in the breath-taking view of the Tetons.

We hiked back out that day for a total of 14 miles roundtrip. The hike was beautifully adorned with wildflowers and streams all along the way with a crowning view of the Tetons at the summit.

Boise Trip

This weekend we took a trip with some of our friends from our New Zealand study abroad up to Boise to visit another friend from the group. We had a busy, fun filled weekend. Friday night we experienced summer sledding on a giant hill (more like a small mountain). Summer sleds are plastic sleds with wheels on the bottom and when you're going downhill they get going pretty fast (especially with two people on them) and the only option for breaking is your feet which can be pretty hard (and painful) when you're going fast. A few members of our group had some pretty good wipe outs. After summer sledding we watched "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" on a giant screen in the park and then ate some delicious scones at Boise's famous Merrit's Cafe.

Saturday we started the day off with a rafting trip down the Payette River. Our guide was super fun and we got more than the usual ride down the river - riding the bull, intentionally flipping our raft while spinning and doing other fun tricks our guide had us try. After rafting we did some bridge jumping and then headed over to this man-built rapid with perpetual wave. It was built for kayakers to practice their skills, but we had a ton of fun riding it with body boards. After a long day on the river with lots of sun, we decided to hit up the Boise music festival. We made it just in time to see the Backstreet Boys in concert (something I would have died to go to in the 5th grade, but on Saturday I was hoping to see some random local band instead). We ended the night with s'mores - a great end to a fantastic trip.

Update on our lives

So I haven't blogged in a while because life has been keeping us pretty busy as I'm sure you can all relate to. As part of the honors program at BYU, I've been working on a thesis since fall of last year. The honors thesis requirement involves conducting original research and writing a thesis on your research. So my research was on businesses' uses of Facebook to reach their audiences and Facebook users' perceptions of businesses' Facebook Pages. I surveyed students at BYU and in New Zealand during our study abroad. Since we got back to BYU in April, I've been analyzing the data and writing up the thesis. I submitted my final thesis the first week of June and defended it on the 21st. Thankfully I passed my defense! So I'll walk in the August graduation ceremony, and my thesis is being published right now. I also might submit it to some professional communication journals and a conference. While working on my thesis, I was also working at my old job at the McKay School of Education's PR office. It was kind of stressful, but I was able to get everything done for the honors graduation requirements, have an income, and have the flexibility to interview for various jobs so it turned out to be a real blessing.

I am now working at The School Improvement Network. We create professional development software for school teachers. PD 360, an online professional development tool, is our flagship product that used in over 3,000 schools across the United States. It's a really great product for teachers, and everyone I work with is passionate about education which is great. I am a client implementation specialist, which is basically like an account manager so I am assigned to the Tennessee region and work with schools to create a professional development plan using our product to achieve their goals. I do a lot of tracking usage and trying to figure out ways to get people to use our product more effectively which involves strategic communications and messaging. This past week was my first week, but I am really enjoying it so far. It's exciting to have a real job where I get paid vacations, holidays and benefits. I feel like a real grownup! Now for a quick update on Darren. He took classes spring term and applied for dental schools for the fall of 2011. He should start interviewing in the fall and we should find out where he's been accepted in December. He is now getting paid for the research he does at BYU and is doing that as work for the summer. His research involves muscle dystrophy, type two diabetes and the protein AMPK. Fall semester is his last semester at BYU so he is almost finished with his undergraduate degree, but has four more years of dental school ahead of him.

We bought a national park pass for the year so in our free time, mostly on the weekends, we've been trying to get to as many national parks as possible and enjoy the outdoors. Most recently we backpacked in Bryce Canyon, which was beautiful. I'll post some pictures from that trip and some hiking we did in Zion National Park the next time I update.

Our New Apartment

So we finally unpacked the last of our many boxes and hung all the pictures in our living room so I decided to take some pictures so the family could all see what our new place looks like. The big empty wall in the living room is reserved for Darren's future tv that he's been saving up for. It's much smaller than our last place, but besides the lack of storage space we've decided that we prefer it to our old apartment. The windows let in more light, we have a nice balcony with a great view of the mountains, no cinder block walls, and a much lower monthly rent (which is the apartment's most appealing factor).

Rock Climbing in Wanaka

For our last outdoor adventure class trip we went rock climbing in Wanaka. There were so many rock climbing sites and Darren and I both did some lead climbing in the outdoors for the first time. It was so much fun! We can't wait to get back to Utah and go rock climbing all summer.

The Remarkables

March 15-17. After a day of recuperation from our 3-day hike on the Kepler Trek, we left for another 3-day hike to the Remarkables near Queenstown, New Zealand. The first day was sunny and gorgeous, and we were all hot and sweating after climbing from an elevation of 400 meters to 900 meters. After setting up camp the first night, Darren and I did a little hike/rock climb to the top of one of the ridges of the mountains. The view was spectacular but our legs were all cut up from these nasty bushes, called spaniards, with long sharp blades. Darren also managed to somehow tear a hole in his shorts - again.

The second day started off cold and by mid morning we had a light rain that increased in intensity as we hiked. We were hiking through long grasses with hidden spaniards on uneven ground with frequent hidden holes that would catch us off guard and made for slow hiking. A couple hours into the hike one of the girls in our group fell in one of the hidden holes and broke her ankle. We stopped for about an hour and sent a couple people from our group back down to the base of the hike so that they could get cell phone reception to call for a rescue team. We set up a tent and left the girl and her roommate to wait for the helicopter, but we were all super worried about them. The last part of our hike that day was up a super steep mountain of broken slate rock and was pretty challenging with our packs in the wind and rain. We set up camp at 1800 meter elevation with no protection from the wind and rain which later turned to hail then snow. The wind broke a couple tent poles and kept us up all night - worst night sleep ever. The most exciting part of the day was when the helicopter arrived to drop off the roommate of the girl who had broken her ankle and we learned that the other girl had made it safely to the hospital.

Luckily the weather had cleared in the morning but our boots were frozen from the rain and freezing temperatures and our tent was covered in frost. Many people's fuel had frozen so we had to share two stoves for boiling water amongst 20 of us. It took about an hour of hiking before our boots and toes thawed out, but the views were again spectacular and worth the aweful hike and weather the day before.

After the hike we were rewarded with fergburgers, which although I do not normally care for burgers, these were delicious. Hands down the best burger I've ever eaten. You can see in the picture that they're huge! Needless to say, Darren was in heaven.

Stewart Island

This video is from our two day trip to Stewart Island. Darren and I entered a drawing and won two ferry tickets to Stewart Island which is off the southern coast of New Zealand. Only four hundred people live on the island and most of the island is national park land. There aren't many roads, but the island is amazing for backpacking so we hiked along the eastern coast of the island and stayed in a backpacking hut that night and then hiked back to town the next morning. The hike was so beautiful and there were very hikers on the trail. The trail hugged the coastline so we had beautiful scenery and remote beaches that are only accessible by hiking trails so we stopped at some of these pristine beaches and had the entire beach to ourselves to relax and find cool shells. The second day of our trip we rented kayaks and kayaked out to Ulva Island which is a smaller island off of Stewart Island. All rodents have been removed from the island so the bird life there flourishes and we were entertained by a continuous choir of various birds during our hiking around the island. One of our favorite birds to watch and listen to was the Tui bird which is the bird in the video above.

Backing up a few weeks...we borrowed a car from one of our host family's friends the last weekend in February and drove up to the Fiordlands with a few other people from our group. We did a lot of driving and cool hikes with beautiful hikes but the primary reason for the trip was to see Milford Sound. We took a cruise through the sound that lasted about 2 1/2 hours and really got to see the fiord and the waterfalls pouring into it. We also lucked out because a pod of dolphins came up to our cruise ship and started jumping out of the water. The weather was beautiful and our cruise guide told us that they were experiencing a drought because it hadn't rained in 6 hours. The average annual rainfall of Milford Sound is 276 inches a year.

Kepler Track

March 11 to 13 was the Kepler track. Sixteen of the thirty five students signed up for the 60 kilometer hike. We hiked up hill the first day of the hike and stayed at a hut at an elevation of about 1200 meters. Near the hut was the summit of mount Luxmore and the Luxmore caves. After arriving at the hut we headed off to the caves to explore...they were so cool. You could never go caves like this in the States without a guide, but they were just open for exploration. There were beautiful stalactites and stalagmites, and we were able to explore any of the side shoots and caverns of the caves. Some of the passages were in the cave were so small that we had to crawl and some members of our group couldn't fit. Darren and I continued pretty deep into the cave for over an hour until we saw the sign in the picture below which reads "To prevent degradation of this fragile passage please remove overalls and wash boots before entering."After our caving adventure we returned to the hut for the evening and saw the most beautiful night sky we've ever seen. The stars were so bright and there were so many of them. We could have stayed out there all night if it wasn't for the freezing temperatures. In fact the next morning it snowed for the first couple hours of our hike. We hiked to mountain summits and along the saddle with the views looking down in the South Fiord. The views were spectacular.
After descending again to non-freezing elevations we camped in our tents near this waterfall. The third day of the hike was the longest - about 24 kilometers, but it was mostly flat land through forests.

Tramping in Fangorn Forest

Tramping is the New Zealand term for hiking and we've done a lot of tramping on this trip. This beautiful panoramic shot was taken after bush wacking our way for three hours up the side of a mountain. Looking down from above the tree line we could see North and South Mavora Lakes and the river that connects the two. We camped down along the river and practiced more of our white water kayaking skills. I was able to master some of the skills I'd been working on, including S turns, and I only flipped once during the two days of kayaking. Darren flipped several times, but he was attempting harder skills such as backwards S turns. It rained a lot over the three days we were there, but it was green and beautiful and we were very grateful for our rain pants and gortex hiking boots that kept us nice and dry. If you don't recognize the scenery, Darren could point out to you the place where Gandolf calls the white stallion and where Merry and Pippin escaped from the Orks into Fangorn Forest in Lord of the Rings (You can see it more clearly in the photo below - it's in those fields to the left of the lake.)

Surf Class

Last week and this week we've had surfing class (tough life right?) Darren had served quite a bit before so he couldn't wait to get in the waves and just play all day. My one previous surfing experience wasn't too successful, but the beach we surf at here has some good learning waves so I was able to get the hang of it pretty quickly and had some good rides my first day. Sadly I never had the camera out when Darren was out in the bigger waves and he was with me whenever I was out there, but we did film a little bit on the smaller waves closer to shore. We're sad that our surfing classes are over, but we look forward to surfing back home in California or Oregon...gotta live by the coast.

Bungy Videos

So you'll notice in the videos that Darren and I both chose to be dipped in the water. Before I jumped the guy strapping me into my bungy made a big deal about using proper dive technique and tucking my chin so that my face would get bruised from the impact of the water. Not being a natural or frequent diver, the dive was all I was concentrating on during my entire jump so please ignore the inital jump and the ridiculous dive position that I hold in the entire video even after I'm out of the water. At least I jumped - next time I'll worry about how I look on film :)

Queenstown

We had the most amazing day in Queenstown on Saturday. We started the morning off with a hike to a look out above the city and the lakes. While we were at the top, we asked a couple from Australia to take our picture. We talked to them for a bit and they asked if we planned to go up the gondola to another look out point. We said we'd like to and they gave us two extra tickets they had for the gondola. We thanked them and later realized that the gondola tickets also included a buffet dinner at the restaurant at the top of the gondola. Talk about generosity. After our hike we headed out to the bridge shown in the picture above to go bungy jumping. This is the place where bungy jumping began.





















Darren and I both chose to be dipped in the water from our heads up to our waists. It was so awesome! Darren jumped first so that I could film him and then I jumped. I wasn't nervous until I stepped up the edge of the bridge with my feet tied together. I didn't think much about jumping - I was too focused on keep my chin tucked and arms extended for the dive into the water but it was such a rush.




















After our jumps we ran down to the pier in town to meet up with some of our friends for jet boating. Through a connection with our host family we were able to jet boat for the price of a child's ticket (half the price of an adult ticket). The wind was pretty strong so the lake had white caps and about 4 foot swells. Our jet boat caught some wicked air and since my feet didn't touch the floor of the boat, I caught some air too. Our driver was awesome and threw a bunch of 360s with the boat and whipped us around all over the lake and the rivers. It was pretty much like being on an hour long roller coaster on water. Darren was on the edge and got soaked from his head to his knees so we sat out on the beach to let him dry off a bit afterwards. We hit up a couple souvenir shops before heading up the gondola and having dinner. The buffet was pretty good but the view was amazing. Darren took this panoramic shot with his camera.

Kayaking Adventures

Our first skill that we have learned for our New Zealand Adventure course is kayaking. Like any water sport, Darren took to it immediately. Water is his element and he always excels at anything in the water. Kayaking was no different and after only four days of kayaking he not only looked like a natural pro but he was teaching and rescue the other students on our trip. I've posted a couple of videos of him playing in some rapids. He flips on purpose in the video to show off his eskimo roll (being able to flip his kayak by himself). I enjoyed the kayaking trip and only flipped my kayak three times on the river (the same as Darren), but I had to be flipped by someone else or wet exit because I can't hold my breath under water for long enough to practice the eskimo roll, but I want to try on our next kayaking trip.

First New Zealand Post

We arrived safely in Invercargill and we love it here. Our host family is amazing and their house is lovely. We're learning all the New Zealand lingo like dinner is tea and dessert is pudding. Darren and I made pizookie for pudding last night and have been permanetly assigned to pudding duty. We're making fudge oatmeal bars tonight. Our host mom is a great cook and is making us all sorts of Kiwi food - we've had two barbeques, kiwi pizza, scallops and corned beef. A kiwi is a native New Zealander. Our host parents are a lot of fun and their children and grandchildren come around a couple times a week which is fun too. Well to catch you up on the last couple of weeks, we've uploaded some photos of some of things we've done. The first picture is of us zorbing. Yep, we're inside one of those little gerbal looking balls that are about to be rolled down that hill. You can't tell, but those balls are filled with a little bit of water and we sloshed around in it while we did flips over each other all the way down the hillside. It was a blast!


This next picture is of Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings. We hiked to the summit of it, but apparently missed the official trails and crawled straight up the face of it on our hands and knees as rocks fell every few minutes from the loose sandy terrain. It was an adventure, but one we wouldn't choose to repeat. After getting our trashed kicked by Mount Doom we hiked another 12 miles through desolate volcano land, grasslands and a rainforest. It was the most diverse hike we'd ever experienced.

This last photograph is of the Franz Joseph Glacier. We hiked out to this glacier and another glacier called Fox Glacier - both were absolutely spectacular.

New Zealand is such a beautiful country with so much diversity. The coast line reminds me of the Oregon coast but Darren says the ocean is a just a tad bit warmer. There's a beautiful beach here in Invercargill and we spent the afternoon there on Friday. We're loving it here and promise to post more pictures of our adventures.