second trimester bliss.

the second trimester was awesome! i started weaning myself off of nausea medicine at about 17/18 weeks and was completely off of them by 20 weeks. i still got bouts of nausea everrrry once in awhile, but nothing to complain about. everyone was right-i got all of my energy back during this time. my doctor is very conservative and told me not to continue running until i was in my second trimester so that all of the oxygen could go to the rapidly growing baby during the first trimester. the first time i ran was when i was about 14 weeks along and i nearly cried i was so happy. it felt amazing to be stretching my legs and doing something that makes me feel so good, i had no idea i would miss it as much as i did. 

may 5: 13 weeks

definitely not showing, buy not the stomach i had pre baby:)

june 7: 17 weeks 5 days

This is about the time i felt like strangers would think i was pregnant. it is funny to look back on these photos because i felt so much bigger than i look. we had an appointment the day before and the heartbeat was 151.

june 12: 18 weeks 3 days

june 14: 18 weeks 5 days

this was at Jill's wedding and my extended family could all tell I was showing.

june 15: 18 weeks 6 days

Katie is coming out here a week before my due date and staying until a week after! hopefully this is not the only belly picture she gets with me. i won't see audrey before having the baby. she was the cutestttt about me being pregnant, she kept running up to me and hugging and rubbing my belly. we went on a hike in may when we were home and on a scary part she turned around to face me and said "be careful with that baby!" 

june 18: 19 weeks 2 days

this is really when jon and i could see a baby bump. 

june 27: 20 weeks 4 days

halfway there! right after this photo we went to the horse races and placed some bets. (don't worry, gambling isn't bad as long as you come out with the same amount or more that you left with, heh heh) this dress was my go-to in the beginning because it is so comfortable but thanks to my growing size, it is now too short!

july 3: 21 weeks 3 days

me and sadie the day before the fourth of july! 

we had an appointment on july 1st and the heartbeat was a strong 148!

we went to visit my cousins john and kat in dallas for the holiday and any time we went swimming john would say "i keep forgetting you're pregnant and when i see you in your swimsuit think 'wow, she's let herself go.'"

july 17: 23 weeks 3 days

all non-maternity clothes but barely making them work.

july 22: 24 weeks

the top part of my belly button started poking out so early on. the one thing i didn't want to happen to me was have a big belly button sticking out because that weirds me out, but lucky me! 

august 1: 25 weeks 4 days 

here we are, ready for our ultrasound! we could have done an ultrasound at 20 weeks, but since we weren't anxious to find out the gender, she pushed it back to our following appointment when i was 25 weeks so that she could check the brain, heart, etc. when it was a little bigger and stronger. we both look sleepy because our doctor constantly runs late so we started booking her first appointment for the day-7am!

it was amazing to see that little baby up on the screen. the baby was laying so that we were looking down on him/her. we could see that the little one had the hiccups and i could feel it through the ultrasound thing she was pushing on my stomach. the whole abdomen would contract with the hiccups, it was too cute! i can't ever tell when it has the hiccups, so it was cool to see it on the screen and feel it from the outside. we saw its little mouth moving too. she told us to look away a couple times as she measured the legs. she said she wasn't checking for the gender but didn't want us to be looking at the screen in case we got a surprise crotch shot. she doesn't know the gender either, so it'll be a surprise for all of us when the baby is born! we are sooooo excited for that moment. neither of us have a clue what we are having. for the last few weeks jon felt as though we are having a girl, but the other night i asked him "what is our baby??" and he said "my first thought was boy!"

25 weeks 4 days 

how cute!!! we are looking down at the baby here so you can see two eyes, a chin like mine and audrey's, the abdomen with the black spot for its heart. jon lovingly said that our little baby looks like sid's doll on toy story. he was right.

august 2: 25 weeks 5 days 

this is pretty typical. it was recommended to me that i get birkenstocks for my pregnancy and i have been loving them-they are easy to put on and very comfortable. these are not maternity shorts but my sisters friend gave them to her to wear while pregnant because they are stretchy and comfy. this is when we were out for top-notch snow cones at Bahama Bucks with our friends who just found out they are expecting too!!!!

august 12: 27 weeks 

august 13: 27 weeks 2 days
during the second trimester i started to go to physical therapy for my back. it had been hurting so bad that it was affecting me at work. i got a referral from my OB and the first visit at physical therapy the doctor told me my rib was out of place and that's why the top/middle part of my back was in so much pain and the front part of my rib right where my bra hits hurt as well. he pushed it back into place and i continued to go to PT once or twice a week for about 6 weeks. he kept encouraging me to go to the pool to water jog and try to get a workout while in the water where there is no pressure on my back. it has helped tremendously.
i continued to have heartburn throughout this trimester but my doctor gave me medicine that helps. i got a body pillow that has helped me sleep through the night and walking/running/and swimming has helped me feel okay about the weight gain. i loved the second trimester because i started to feel like myself again and people kept telling me how cute and tiny i looked. my friend kim told me to really enjoy those compliments while they last because by the end of the pregnancy no one will be telling me that! although we've been here in texas with the heat and humidity, it really hasn't bothered me yet. i keep wondering when i'm going to start to feel hot all the time and secretly hope it just won't happen. all in all, it was a fun summer and has been so exciting to be planning our new life with a little one. 

guadaloupe national park

our last full day spent on our trip was actually back in texas. we drove past carlsbad national park across the NM/TX border to another national park...

 

28 weeks!

look how close we were to getting the sign in the picture with us! haha

 we decided to do a four mile hike here called Devil's Hall.

the hike was kind of separated into three portions. the first was regular hiking on a trail through brush and trees with not much shade.

the second portion was through a wash which meant we were climbing lots of big boulders and following cairns to know where to go since there wasn't a trail. i didn't mind this on the way up, but the way down was kind of difficult with my belly. downhill in general really isn't that great, it starts to hurt under my belly and i wasn't wearing a bellyband or anything. there was pretty much no shade while in the wash.

 

the third portion was short but through these step-looking things!! it all looked manmade to me and was so cool!

here i am standing in devil's hall itself! i don't know why it is named that because the cool breeze blowing through the hall felt heavenly. we ate lunch on some of the stairs at the end of the trail and it was so relaxing. we were the only people there! we saw maybe 7 people the whole hike, it was great. this canyon really reminded us of slot canyon in anza borrego, ca where jon liked to off road. 

doesn't this look like the facade of a building or museum or something? so pretty. it is layers upon layers of sediment. 

 the whole guadaloupe mountain range is an ancient reef. at one point it was all underwater; the ranger described it as one big fossil. it was a pretty hike with great weather, difficult but not too strenuous. we drove back to the hotel to rest for a bit and then swam at carlsbad lake again. my back was hurting a bit after the hike and i felt great after swimming, it is so amazing how that works. we finished the night off with some little caesars and television, haha.

believe them when people tell you there is not much to see in west texas. we wanted to take a different route home than we took to carlsbad so we could sightsee, but this was literally the only stop worthwhile. this stonehenge replica was in Odessa, texas and it was awesome! neither of us have been to the real thing, but we did appreciate this pretty good replica.
our trip was so much fun, we are grateful to be able to spend some quality time alone together before the baby arrives. 12 weeks and counting...

carlsbad day two!!

today was such a fun day! new mexico is an hour behind san antonio which probably explains why we keep waking up so early. today we got up and went to the lake again after breakfast. we were the only ones there and it was so relaxing. my back has been bothering me a lot since i have been pregnant so a little over a month ago i started going to physical therapy. my therapist really encourages me to swim as much as possible so we have been doing just that. it feels so good to stretch underwater and be weightless. i 'water jog' and doggy paddle around a lot which is a bit of a work out, haha. 

 on our way to the caverns we stopped at a gift shop for some funny pics.

after that we went to the caverns for our lantern lit left hand tunnel tour!!!!

seeing the caverns and formations lit by only candlelight was a great experience. i kept getting the feeling that we were underwater. it looked so much like ariel's dads house on the little mermaid and the flickering candles made it look like water on the ceiling. we blew out the candles and sat in the quiet darkness again on this tour and luckily everyone behaved themselves. 

 the last thing we did underground was walk around the big room which was amazing!!! big does not begin to describe this cave, it was unbelievably large! i wish pictures depicted it better because there were some really cool formations. you'll just have to take our word for it and maybe a trip down here yourselves.

 behind the park ranger is the 'natural entrance' to the caverns, aka where the tens of thousands of bats fly out every night. we waited until dusk then saw them all circling the entrance and flying off into the distance. we weren't allowed to take photos because i guess our electronics give off noise when they're on and these are country bats not city bats. (so the ranger said)
this was our last day at carlsbad national park and we had soooo muchhhh funnnn. i am just so grateful to be spending non-stop time with jon.
tomorrow we are headed to Guadeloupe mountains national park!

Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

 yesterday jon and i finally headed out of san antonio to new mexico! we've been planning this trip for over six months and we are so excited that it has arrived!!

 we made sure to stop and walk around plenty of times on the way and it still only took us about 6 hours to get to carlsbad! here is jon in sonora, texas...a weird tiny town we walked around in...

 made it to the hotel!!

 after checking in, we went to go get some recommended hamburgers at Happy's. we saw this "loving" street sign and had to stop. we always say "loving" to each other and randomly text each other that simple word....hahaha. 

 happy's was eclectic....

27 weeks 5 days.

 i had forgotten that jon saw this street while he drove through here in may. he surprised me! so cool! there is also a really great ice cream shop on canal street and hagerman street...so we got ice cream too.

 today we woke up early from excitement and got a good start on the day. jon wanted to take this picture because two years ago we were on our way to st. george with our family and we took a picture of him like this with a buck. here is version 2.0. 

(please note jon's birthday hiking boots. he's now a legit hiker)

 so excited to be here! the weather above ground was really nice, not nearly as hot as it is in san antonio.

 we had a tour at 10:30am and didn't begin our decent through the "natural entrance" until 9:45am. they recommend giving yourself an hour and fifteen to get to the bottom, but we did it in about 35. we would not recommend rushing the whole way down! we were so stressed that we were going to miss the tour, but it was a cool hike. we are going to do it again tomorrow at a slow pace so we can stop and see the formations.

 once we cooled off from running down into the cave (750 feet underground), it got cold! it is a constant 56 degrees year round.

 it is really difficult to capture the beauty underground. it is almost pointless to take photos because they don't portray what you are really seeing at all. just take our word for it that the caverns are enormous beyond belief and beautiful. we did the King's Palace tour which took us through three or four very large rooms. at one point the tour guide turned off all the lights and we sat in total and utter darkness. she asked for complete silence as well. almost as soon as we all quieted, someone decided to...pass gas. i felt like a teenager in church again trying desperately not to laugh throughout the entire prayer. it was so ridiculous, but jon and i have been laughing all day about it. the nerve of some people.

 after the tour we went on a 9 mile scenic drive and saw these big horned sheep! at first i thought they were iron statues like we saw in anza borrego, but they were the real deal!! it was so cute seeing them move in their little pack away from us and our car!

look at this funny veggie jon found growing out in the wild! he thinks it is some sort of squash. 

the scenic drive was really beautiful, but we were both so tired for some reason! the gravel road was putting us both to sleep. it took everything in us to get out and take these photos, hahaha. 

we came home and napped and then went to the pecos river to swim around only because the pool at our hotel was broken! it turned out to be pretty nice and the temperature wasn't bad so we will probably go back tomorrow. for dinner jon had a salad and i ate 9 bagel bites.
we are having tons of fun, i just love being together.