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.