Tis the Season

We have had such a busy holiday, but it has been a blast! This Christmas I decided to be domestic, so I made stockings for us! It was a lot of fun, but after that I was over being domestic for a while. The best was on Christmas Eve and getting up and finding we are having a baby GIRL! It was amazing to see our tiny baby for the first time, and it made it so real for us. I am at 20 weeks along and the baby is due on May 13th.

After our appoitment we met up with my brother and his wife and drove up to Ogden to meet up with my mom and dad. My dad flew up this year to spend Christmas with us, it has been great to see him so much. We had a great Christmas Eve at the lodge at Snow Basin, ending with fireworks. Christmas day was full of activites, starting with presents, breakfast and making rolls at home with Adam, just the two of us. Then it was off to my mom's to meet up with all of my siblings and my dad. We had lunch, then did our gift exchange and then we did our annual white elephant gifts. Then it was hanging out and heading out to the movies. We got home around midnight and we were exhausted. It has been great, and next year will be much busier I'm sure. You know, because of the little one!

The new stocking

My first time sewing in years. I was so proud of our new stockings.

The new proud mommy, so happy we are having a GIRL!!

The proud Dad with his new favorite pictures.

The Ogden Cabin, we spent our summers and winters here while growing up.

The Snow Basin Lodge

Brother Hunter and his beautiful wife Alina. We had a blast hanging out all day.

My mom cracks me up, she had just skiied for the first time in 20 years. I brought her pink flowers to tell her the news, but they died (if you can't tell that by the picture) on the way up to Snow Basin, but she was thrilled to get the news anyway.

Christmas Eve traditions. Reading the story of our Savior's birth.

The best Christmas present, a cute little dress for our little girl.

Adam making breakfast tacos. mmm....our favorite.

Sister Brooke getting her secret santa gift. She is so cute!

Good times during the gift exchange. I love my family

Adam getting his present. In case you can't tell, it's a dead animal. He was so excited, and it's a long story.

My sweet mama. She makes me laugh

Dad won the prize, the actual white elephant. It's a tradition.

This elephant appears every year. I love playing white elephant, and eveyone got these perfect gifts this year.

Sister in-laws Carol and Alina. They are so much fun.

Brother Braden palying his guitar with ammo around his neck. Good times!

Alina showing her love to Logan. It was a great Christmas!!

Baby Time!

We have not yet told too many people, but I am four months pregnant! We are just as excited as we were surprised. It was not planned, but we welcome change well. We will find out what we are having on Christmas Eve, so Merry Christmas to us! The first couple of months was actually pretty good. I was only sick a couple of times for a couple of weeks. I never missed work and rarely missed school. Now that I'm in my second trimester, I feel great. We are learning a lot about what to expect, which makes us both laugh because we are not yet baby people. But now that it's in front of us, we have been making lots of changes and decisions around the baby. While in Texas we have been house shopping. We will move out to San Antonio while I am 8 months pregnant. Then we will be living there for a year while Adam applies to law school. So lots of changes, all which are great and we are looking forward to all of them. Life just keeps getting more exciting for us and we are having so much fun. I would post of a pregnant picture, but it would no different from when you saw me last, which is fine by me.

First Baby Shower

Our first baby shower was a hit. Our good friends Matt and Heather threw us and our other friends Derek and Regan a combined baby shower. She is due in February and will have her baby in California, and I am due in May and will have the baby in Texas. So we got together before we all leave Utah. It was a couples shower which made it that much more fun. The food was fabulous!! They went all out. They had baby bottle shaped sandwiches, pregnant people bread dip, and so much more. The games were a blast as well. We had to feed the guys baby food and they had to guess what it was. It was actually pretty hard, and from that we decided to not feed our baby that garbage. It was fun to gather with family and good friends. It really became real that we were actually going to have a baby. It's been a very exciting time. And it's only going to get better.

The cards say pregnant CheyAnn & pregnant Regan

Babies in a blanket.

First time trying baby food.

A couple of times it took them forever to guess what it was, so we kept feeding them. So gross!

We had so much fun. And it was the worst flavors.

I'm a pretty visual person, so this game was hard for me.

But once we ate it, we were just fine eating out of a diaper.

Design Studio

I recently had to put together my final project for my portfolio class. It was a branding assignment. I actually had a lot of fun putting my style together. We had to do two different looks, and that was the hardest for me. But I was pretty happy with the results. Here they are.

My favorite advertisement.

Adam's favorite advertisement.

Texas Ranch

I found these pictures and forgot to post them.

This summer we drove out to the family ranch to see it before we left for Africa. It was so much fun, and it happened to be a beautiful summer day. Adam worked on his family's ranch every summer for 6 years. And after we got married, we lived here for a month before we moved to Utah. The ranch is about a half an hour outside of San Antonio, in a very small town called Boerne (pronounced burny). We are planning on living in this same town when we move next year. I love this part of Texas, lots of green hills and not too many people around. The ranch sits on 110 acres, its just rolling hills and lots oak trees and cedar that Adam used to spend months clearing. They have a handful of longhorn cows and while we were out there, we got to see the new calves. They were so cute! It has been a fun place to visit and lots of memories. We miss it.

The Prestidge Ranch

I love this photo. I took it at Nouri the taxidermist's, the day before we left for Africa. The best part is that he wasn't even posing for the picture, I just turned and that is what he was doing.

I love porches

This hangs upstairs by the girls room.

Sweet Sarah feeding the cows

Everyone thinks Texas is dry and flat, but not here, lots of green rolling hills.

This is the view from the highest spot on the ranch.

Culture Time

Besides being busy with work and school, we are also becoming very cultural in a short time. Adam has been somewhat passively doing the Honors Program at BYU for a while, and he just remembered that a part of that is seeing many plays, foreign films, concerts, etc. So by January we have a certain number of each to cram in.

Last weekend we went to the Opera to see MacBeth, and we really loved the experience. We have been keeping our weekends busy with plays, and so far one foreign film, which I really could have gone my whole life without seeing, even though Adam really liked it. It has been an interesting experience, and we are learning a lot. Plus it has been fun to do something new and see some of Utah before we leave in April. Adam and I both love seeing plays and traveling, so this has just been a great way to do more things that we enjoy.

The Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake City

I loved this chair.

We sat in the nose bleed section, but we enjoyed it just the same.

I thought the ceiling and chandelier were beautiful

Leaving happy after the Opera.

Busy, blah blah blah...

We are tired and worn out, and we aren't even half way through the semester. We lose track of the days and the time. We miss sleep, and having a social life. The good news in all of this craziness is that we are going to Vegas this month and then Texas in November. So there is light that shines in our tunnel every now and then. The other good news is that this is will all be over for us in April. Is it too early to start counting down the days? We are very excited to move next year, and are looking forward to big changes. If this sounds too down in the dumps, well, it's a little hyperbolic, yes, but it's after midnight and we both have long days beginning early in the morning. Life is great, but it's busy.

Last weekend we attended our mission reunion. It was a lot of fun. It was really good to see the missionaries that don't live close to us and to catch up. And it's always fun to see the those that we do keep in touch with. It was a great break from our busy schedule of school and work. We will try to keep up on our blog, but right now, here are some photos...

Beautiful Montana. Taken at the place where we first met.

Our district in the mission, 3 years ago.

We had so much fun seeing everyone, and especially President Fisher, who was pretty tired by the time this picture was taken.

Some of CheyAnn's favorite sistas.

Hitting a Wall

After returning home from safari on Sunday, nothing has seemed exciting. We had an incredible summer, and the thought of returning to our normal life of school and work was not a pleasing thought. 

After our trip to Africa, we finished off our summer in northern California. After 24 hours of flights and 12 hours of layovers, we got into Texas on Friday morning at 1 a.m. and then we were back at the airport later that day to take an evening flight out to Cali. On Saturday, my cousin Katrina was married in Loomis.  It was a beautiful wedding, and it was so much fun to see all of my family. It was a great way to end the summer. Our last flight was a relief, in July and August, we took a total of 20 flights! I'm pretty sure we don't want to step foot in an airport for a while.  In the month of August alone, we spent over 60 hours in airplanes and nearly 40 hours in layovers—and that's not even counting 20 hours in July!

This week has been back to reality, and coming back from one of the best summers, it was hard to return to life here. We both have hit our wall with life and say every night how we wish we were back in Africa. 

But while we know it will be a long time before we return to Africa, we learned how important it is to relax and enjoy life.  We had the greatest time this summer, and it made us realize that life is not about worry and stress, it's about happiness and enjoyment.  And while we'll look forward to going back someday in the future, we'll remember that lesson daily. 

Our last flight. FINALLY!

Lots of lightning when we landed.

Wedding in California