For the week of 4th of July, my "baby" sister Sophie flew in for a taste of Utah. She is 17 and hoping to move up to Utah next year, so of course along with a tour of one of the college campuses we also had to do outdoorsy Utah things.  Mind you, I was around 31 weeks pregnant at this point, so we had to keep it tame. Dallin and I had hiked the .7 mile Rocky Mouth Falls trail a few weeks before, and it was pretty enough that I decided to take Sophie there as well. In addition to this, we got a bakery lunch and walked around Sundance Resort, played games with our sister Olivia, and watched a few manga that Sophie recommended.  For the Fourth of July, she helped me make several festive treats including sugar cookie bars decorated to look like an American flag, and then we had a BBQ at my in-laws' followed by an evening watching fireworks from above the valley.

 With Dallin's stepdad being a pilot and his sister Brie needing to build her flight hours, it was easy enough to convince the family that they should fly his younger sister Hanna up to Utah.  The very morning that Rachel and Dick left for Alaska, Dallin's family flew up just long enough for a quick breakfast before dropping Hanna off for a week to hang out. 

While she was in town we visited one of the local summer festivals for strawberries and cream and, for Dallin and Hanna at least, carnival rides.  We tried out the bakery next to me and Dallin's new apartment.  While Dallin worked, Hanna and I shopped and visited the poppy fields and the aquarium.  Hanna wants to be an interior designer, but she can also appreciate exterior design and "needs to be rich one day," so we had fun driving around rich neighborhoods a few times. 

A big highlight of the week was visiting Mount Timpanogos Cave.  We had gone to the national forest for a quick "hike" in the woods and hadn't realized the cave museum was nearby. When we stopped in and found out the cave had just been reopened, we immediately booked tickets for the next day.  I had been wanting to visit for years but it was always either booked out or closed for months on end.  

The 1.5 mile hike was a lot more challenging than it sounded, especially with the zigzag trail straight up the mountain.   For a pregnant girl, it was a lot, but the cave tour made it absolutely worth it.  We trekked through a series of three caves, the first of which was badly damaged in the late 1800s by thought its stalagmites and stalactites would be worth a pretty penny.  The most impressive and best-preserved cave was the last, Timp Cave, which hosts thousands of twisting and twirling little stone structures making their slow crawl from the walls.  The paths were very narrow, and I tried not to bump my head (or my belly) against the rock. Dallin and I had to laugh as we thought about our trip to Neuschwanstein last year--turns out the cave room in that castle did an excellent job imitating the appearance natural caves.  We just couldn't decide if the fake cave looked realistic or the real cave looked fake!

 While Hanna was in town, we decided to find the Alpine Poppy Fields shown so much on social media.  Though the route wasn't extremely direct, it was easy enough to find it by following photographers and moms decked out in their best. At 28 weeks pregnant, the slow incline of the walking path felt admittedly more difficult, so I shamelessly wore my tennis shoes with my dress to make the "hike" a bit more doable.

Saying bye to Rachel

My work baby shower

The last month of summer hasn't all been sunshine, though.  Rachel, my sister who has been my best friend all my life, moved to Alaska with her husband.  For the months leading up to their move we tried our best to hang out regularly. We binged European sci-fi shows together, went on walks, and tagged along with our husbands and their buddies, the only two girls in the group. 

We also encountered a few rescue kitties, including Sako, a young cat found outside the college dorms by our brother's girlfriend  (the same girlfriend who found my Atticus two years ago).  Rachel had thought she would never have a cat, but within ten minutes of meeting Sako her husband Dick decided they should foster him until they found the original family or until they moved to Alaska.  They were living short-term with our friend Mug, who consented to housing the cat.  Sako looked a lot like Dick's childhood cat, and we originally thought he was a purebred Russian Blue, which would make him hypoallergenic for Dick. Unfortunately as Sako matured over those few months, the allergens started to kick in, but alas it was already decided that Sako would be a permanent resident at Mug's.  It wasn't long after taking in Sako that Mug, Rachel and Dick found a pair of 5-week-old kittens and their mama in the backyard under the deck. We contacted a rescue who recommended that we trap the kittens so they could start being socialized.  (The mom ideally would be trapped, spayed and released back to where we found her).  We all took care of the kittens, making sure they were fed and comfortable in the house until another foster family picked them up.  

The evening before the move, my parents flew up. Dick, a hunter, had been saving all of his best meat for a special occasion but now had to grill it all up for the family because it wouldn't save on the trip.  I had spent the whole day with Rachel, helping her pack and going with her for a last bite of food she wouldn't have in Alaska (such as In-N-Out), and finally decided to go to bed and drive back down at 5 in the morning to say my goodbyes.   Dick had a giant trailer packed full of all their belongings, and with my parents helping to drive their other vehicle they were ready for the 52+hour drive to Alaska. 

Dallin and I also moved, albeit only 20 minutes away from where we previously lived.  I wasn't allowed to lift boxes because I was in my late second trimester, but I had started packing a few weeks before the move and meticulously labeled all the boxes so that people would know where to put them on the big day. We had started collecting furniture prior to the move, and combining two big sofas plus baby furniture plus the growing stack of boxes all in one small apartment made me and Dallin (and even the cats) go absolutely bonkers.  We couldn't sell the old sofa until we could clean it, but that would be impossible until the cats and their summer shedding were relocated to the new place.  Moving to our new apartment, which has three bedrooms and a garage, felt like moving into a mansion. It's been almost three weeks since we moved and tonight we finally finished the rest of the decorating! Our wallets are a little sad, but I think it looks really nice! We had help from Dallin's little sister Hannah, who is considering going into interior design. 

Arlo and Atticus have quickly acclimated to the new place and love running up and down the stairs.

Dallin's stepdad is a pilot, and he flew up Dallin's sister Hannah the day Dick and Rachel moved away. I think Dallin wanted to keep me distracted, and Hannah had talked about how much she enjoyed Utah when she stayed with us about 3 years ago. That first night we went to the town carnival, and I bought fancy grilled cheeses for the three of us while Dallin and Hannah rode on the rides.  That week we watched scary movies, went to the aquarium, went on hikes, and drove around rich neighborhoods. To quote Hannah, "I need to be rich so I can have a house like that."  More in the next posts! 

20 week scan

We found out I was having a boy at 16 weeks, and that is when we announced on social media. Honestly I had started to suspect he was a boy in the weeks prior, having dreams that he was a boy and the like.  I started regaining my energy and tried to be more active with goals to go to the gym or walk two miles up and down the hills of my neighborhood 5 days a week. I first felt baby's kicks at around 19 weeks. Rachel and I were watching a movie, and my position laid back in the recliner was apparently the optimal position to feel those first flutters.  It was another few weeks before Rachel, with luck, was able to put her hand on my stomach to feel his kicks, and Dallin felt him kick about a week after that.  I really wanted Dallin to feel the baby and knew that laying back was the easiest way to feel him, but of course the one time I convinced Dallin to recline on the couch with me to watch a show for an hour-and-a-half was the one time the baby decided not to kick. We were on video chat with my missionary brother when he FINALLY decided to start kicking again, and Dallin felt it. I was 25 weeks when I was able to catch a video of the kicks to send to my parents.  Towards the end of the second trimester, my work at the school was wrapping up and me and the Dallin moved, so I started feeling very achy all the time in my hips and feet.  I was worried the rest of my pregnancy would be like this, but fortunately once we got settled into the new apartment and school let out a lot of this pain went away. As long as I wasn't over-exerting myself physically, I was OK.  No more daily two-mile hikes up and down hills, but I could handle a few shorter walks per week.

Arlo loves to lay on my belly.