when father comes into town!

 my dad came to visit us!!!!!! it was back in mid-march and we had so much fun. jon and i both get along with him so well that we were excited for him to come and had fun the whole time he was there. 

we picked him up from the airport and immediately stopped for mexican. my dad went to mexico city on his mission, so he loves all things mexico. this restaurant was very authentic (even gary said so), it was like we were actually in mexico!! we told him about the pregnancy right before we went into the restaurant and he was so happy. the new baby was the focus of the conversation during lunch as my dad helped us out with planning and joking about telling everyone via social media. he did a good job at keeping it a secret for a couple weeks!

we then went to see the ALAMO! my dad is very well traveled, but this was his first time to san antone! he still knew everything about the alamo, though. 

 the alamo is right in the middle of downtown, its pretty cool.

 walking down to the riverwalk. 

this is a view of the buildings lining the riverwalk

 we went to eat at hard rock cafe mostly for the enormous sundae's they have/HAD! we ordered the big one and the waitress had no idea what we were talking about. she brought out a very regular sized sundae with a brownie that had been heated up in the microwave way too long. by the time the three of us had a bite or two each and decided to send it back, she told us that since it was mostly eaten she couldn't give us money back, she could only bring out another sundae. hahaha. the second one was much better although still tiny. while we were eating, we witnessed a mama squirrel carrying her baby allllll the way up this big tree and drop it off in a hole in the trunk. it was so cute! after her trek, she laid out flat by the hole and we could see a couple babies popping their heads up to look out. 

after dinner, we took a river cruise. we love those because the tour guides talk all about san antonio's history and about the buildings lining the riverwalk. one sad thing about this trip was my dad had purchased souvenirs at both hard rock and the alamo gift shop and put them in a bag with our left over food. when we sat on the boat, i put the bag under my seat and forgot about it
:(!! so we lost our food and souvenirs, it was a bummer. 

 beautiful

while my dad was in town, we thought we'd do some business. the two of us hosted a cruise night!!! it was a success if success means handing out ~500 flyers with our info on it, buying a small but yummy array of foods, renting a room at the library, getting 5 people to come (three being family) and no one booking a cruise, then yeah! it was a success! if you're wondering, we've both booked cruises since then so it was actually good experience. it was nice to be able to do a cruise night together since we are usually doing business together over the phone. we book all types of vacations, but as of now, cruises are our specialty :)

the next day we went to fredricksburg for some german food and history and salsa/jams/chipotle spreads/honeys/peanut butters etc, etc, etc. i look unhappy because i am. you always eat way too much at that place.

at this point in my pregnancy (4.5 weeks!!!) i was not feeling that sick yet, but i was so hungry!!!! during the whole trip we laughed about me needing food all the time, eating a little bit of it, and letting my dad or jon finish it for me. my abs also felt really weird. whenever i would move and roll over in the night i would wake up because my abs felt so tight. my dad said i was imagining things, but i wasn't. i was also sleeping very poorly. as soon as we found out i was pregnant, jon bought me an early birthday gift: a fitbit! i love it because it's been helping me track my weight and steps throughout the day as well as my sleep. i would wake up lots of times in the night and have trouble getting back to sleep. it was rare that i slept more than 2 hours straight, i do not miss that. 

 on our way home, we stopped in Luckenbach, texas! we only stopped there because of the song and apparently that's the only reason why anyone does. there is nothing there. 

 while i worked the following day, john, jonathan and my dad went and did boy things. i mean, girls can definitely shoot guns(and enjoy it), but not this girl. they had so much fun! jon and his dad love going shooting and my dad had a good time hanging out with them.

 the PGA tour was being held at the marriott right by our house just a week or two after my dad left!! we wish we would have scheduled his trip a little bit better, but it was fun to go to the golf course and see everything getting set up anyway. we told the hotel staff that we were travel agents and wanted to tour the hotel and they let us roam free. we really want to see the rooms, but they were totally booked!

on our way to natural bridge caverns, i needed food! we stopped at a BBQ place and i got a baked potato with brisket. this photo makes me sick to look at, but it was so good. i ate some and gave the rest to the boys, hehe:)

this was our last event with my dad! it was really crowded, we waited in line to get tickets for about an hour. it was worth it once we got in the caves, they are huge and beautiful!

 lots of people!

 

 this gives you a good idea of the scale. this wasn't even the biggest room!

we had so much fun with my dad in town. i miss him almost daily and wish we could spend more time with him more often. we loved having him come visit because he's easy to please and likes trying new foods and seeing new sights. we had a good week with him working and playing! it was also special because for the whole week he was here, he was the only person who knew we were expecting. it was fun to be able to talk to him about it and make plans for when the baby comes. (we are hoping to go out to utah over christmas with the little one) right now my dad is planning to come help out soon after the baby arrives and we are so glad. he's cute with his grandkids, especially the babies!

it's official.

we have lived in san antonio, texas for an entire year. 

it has been a challenging year, but we have soo many good times to look back on. i was ready for this adventure in a new state and ready to see why people like texas so much, and ready to do that with jon. it has taken us awhile, but we are starting to really dig it here. 

(i think the polarized sunglasses help. they make everything beautiful)

the day we got here with alex, our two dogs sadie and logan, and the kitty bandit. 

june 8, 2013. 

june 10, 2013. 

jon jumped right into school and has been going full time ever since. such a good student!

 june 13, 2013.

back when i thought it was fun and cute to have chickens living in the front room!

 july 4th, 2013.

in austin with jessie! she spent the summer in dallas and it was a treat to see a friendly face!

july 14th, 2014.

i mean..?

 july 19th, 2013.

right though? it is true what they say, the texas sky really is the biggest one i've seen. and i love it so much.

 july 20th, 2013.

fredricksburg with jon. eating chocolate, learning about their german history and taking in texas' history at the same time. (ah, that simple phrase of defiance just thrills me as a proud american)

 august 22, 2013. 

two skinnies training for a half marathon. pregnant me is lovvvving pre-pregnant me. get it gurl. 

 september 20, 2013.

i joined jon at UTSA for my final semester of school and was admittedly very confused with my california/texas mishmash of outfits. but my goodness are those boots comfortable. 

october 11th, 2013.

 yeah.

 october 12, 2013.

we fell in love again lots of times over this past year and i mean lots of times.

 october 13, 2013.

awww our babies at church. the 4/5 year olds which we moved up with in january to teach them as 5/6 year olds. they were so happy when we told them about the baby. it was easter and one little girl said "have a good easter! and have a good baby!"

 november 3, 2013.

we moved into the third floor at the house after completely and utterly renovating it. it needs work, but that flag though.

 november 6th, 2013.

new braunfels is right outside of san antonio and is a little german town. since this family loves germany, we always go to germanfests, wurstfests, bierfests, the works. when jon's dad and step mom were trying to recruit us to move to texas in august 2012, we went to a german festival where my FIL sang along to all of the songs and held up his drink as if it was a bier stein with all the other drunkards. jon sang along too and i think that was the moment i knew we wanted to move to texas although that feeling could have come a couple hours later when we were at the AT&T center watching the professional bull riders, but who knows.

 november 6, 2013.

this family doesn't go out a lot, but when they do go out…they go all out. fooooood. 

 november 17th, 2013.

ran our first half marathon. together but separate.

 december 7th, 2013.

ran our second half marathon, this time together the whole time and it was one of the funnest things we've done together.

 december 15, 2013.

visited the alamo quite a few times. although some of the details are still fuzzy and hard to remember, it is an amazing and spiritual place to be. 

 january 6, 2013.

bought a car! now it's safe to say that we sold my nissan and bought this toyota as baby prep. we can't wait to have a little toddler making a mess of our leather interior!

january 11, 2014.

got treated to a nice group meal from my place of employment and were really into being the sober ones.

 february 15th, 2014.

jon will kill me for posting this but it is just too lol. we are part of a group at the san antonio museum of art called young friends and we meet for art things and have a season pass at the museum. its alright, the museum itself is tiny. (especially compared to those in san diego and la, but we take what we can get) this night we went to a surprise party for a friend from work in a nice downtown loft and afterwards came to the art party. this is jon rocking out to the live music and making me laugh so much.

 march 5, 2014. 

heyyy we even got pregnant this year. maybeeee the most notable thing so far.

march 29th, 2014. 

we went to disneyworld!!! i need to write about it because it was the bomb.

 april 7th, 2014. 

saw our little baby for the first time and could see the tiny heart beating. while we were watching it, we saw it move (it looked more like a full body twitch) but its the cutest thing we've ever seen and it has made us laugh to imitate it ever since. 

april 27, 2014.

eeeeek my father and father in law got me a bow with arrows for my birthday!! it is from the 70's, has a 35lb draw and i'm proudly getting better. the other day i almost did a good job imitating katniss when we heard a bunny in the wilderness but i'm still quite stumbly loading the bow, hahaha. 

april 27, 2014.

enjoyed sadie and logan so much. every single day i'm grateful to have our dogs here. logan makes us so mad because he is OCD about biting/scratching/licking anywhere on his body but his puppy eyes and excitement to be outside in the morning makes up for all of it. and the way he puts his ears forward and cocks his head to the side when i go upstairs or leave the house without him makes my heart break in a good way. cutest dog ever. sadie has some quirks of her own, her incessant barking/whining at jonathan when we are in conversation and her ear piercing bark when the doorbell rings, but it's pretty endearing that she waits all day for jonathan to get home and interrupts our conversation because she just has so much to tell him about her day. we are both so happy to have them.

april 28th, 2014.

finally scratched old timey photo off of our bucket list on my birthday!! we went downtown to take them and it was so much fun! i was only 12 weeks along, but the corset was most uncomfortable. jon looked swoonie in his getup and it was all around fun.

may 11, 2014.

celebrated FOUR YEARS together!!!! i'm wearing my necklace from jonathan and we are posing by his clementine tree from me. more on that later.. :)

june 8, 2014.

cuterton almost didn't make an appearance, but here he is. we've enjoyed his company too and we are so glad that everything worked out so that he had a home while we were between homes and was able to move here with us. 

we are so happy together and are looking forward to another year here in san antone.

so far the things we love about it are:

the green scenery and blue sky.

family.

the bbq.

fredricksburg.

homegrown peaches.

the riverwalk.

a quote from our favorite song right now:

"It don't matter where we go, we'll never be alone. Anywhere beside you is a place that I'll call home."

more utah before i go back to utah.

yep, i am going to utah tomorrow for my best cousin friends wedding! jon is in school and can't come with me, which makes me sad, but i know i'll have a blast!

back to our vacation...

finally got to meet this baby. he is so tiny and well behaved and all around adorable. i didn't get any pictures with his mother or my sisters but i promise we had such a fun picnic, it's always fun to catch up with emma.

another favorite tradition of ours when we go home is golfing with gare. usually at mick riley since it's the cheapest and most convenient. while my dad was in town, we went to the JW Marriott right down the street from our house and toured the TPC golf course. the big tournament was there just a week after my father left. he was getting souvenirs and picked a shirt off of the buy one get one half off rack. i asked him who gets the half off shirt and he said "whoever jumps on it first". jon is more likely to wear a polo shirt, so we picked one out for him and it just happened to be the same color as gary's…….just kidding. they totally picked the color to match each other and it paid off later when they matched while golfing. we missed our uncle bud this year, he wasn't feeling good. usually we get two carts so we can all ride, but since there were three of us, we just got one cart. i very quickly realized that riding in the cart probably wouldn't be for me that day. all the bumps were making the baby very upset. (green pukey face)

for memorial day we always drive up to the franklin cemetery, we've been doing it forever. when i was little, my grandma knew every single person at the cemetery and it was always fun to talk to the old people who knew my dad when he was young. this year we went the saturday before to clean the headstones and take the flowers up. it was a warm, sunny day! i was about 16 weeks at this time.

we stopped at Big J's afterwards and got ice creammmmm! that little boy doesn't look happy, but i'm sure he was. (amanda sent me the photo from the other car)

check this out. jon's parents lived in germany for about three years, and that's where jon was born. they have so many awesome stories about life in germany living above a little bakery, smelling the fresh bread every morning. his mom has told me about the walks she would take jonathan on in his german buggy along the cobble stone streets. when we told his grandma we were expecting, she told us she's been keeping his buggy safe for us and she was right. it is in excellent condition and i almost lost my cool when she unveiled it. i'd heard about it, but i was not expecting it to be so adorableeeee! i can't wait to push our little baby around the neighborhood in this.

remember what i said about katie sending us home with all of her baby items? we weren't joking. jon's car was packed full with all of his camping stuff (haha) plus the cradle that my sisters and i used when we were babies, a little dresser of my gran's, tubs of clothes/blankets/burp clothes/everything, jon's buggy, andddddd a crib that we bought at down east for $144 that we simply couldn't leave utah without. we don't know much about babies/cribs, but we think/hope it was a good deal. we had our eyes on a $100 crib from ikea, but liked this one more since it's not painted and the fact that it was a lot more sturdy. hopefully all our babies can use it. it was a successful trip home for the baby and makes me feel ready. isn't it cute that i don't even know what babies need besides clothes and a place to sleep? this will be fun!

sunday walks.

on memorial day the whole family hiked up to donut falls. jon and i hadn't ever been, and it was a lot of fun! i get bummed out hiking to water destinations and not being able to even put my feet in, but whatever. the trail was crowded but we still had fun with good company. my dad had a big bbq for our friends and family that night and it was delicious! it was our last hurrah as we were leaving early the next morning. i hate goodbyes, but it wasn't so bad knowing i'd be back in a few short weeks!

can't wait to see these happy children!