Cancun part 4 My birthday

For my birthday I was in Cancun! That day started with breakfast in bed and then we went on a shopping tour of Cancun, which was soooooo fun! Pictured above is me on our shopping tour.

Darren having fun shopping.
when we got back to our room Darren surprised me with the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen and a birthday cake.


My fave thing to do is order room service, and the room service was all inclusive. Yes, I did share with Darren my food, but remember I am eating for two now.



At dinner we went to this fabulous Mexican restaurant and they sang to me Happy Birthday in their cute accents and gave me this. What you don't see is they were holding two rifle guns above my head while singing.

Our favorite past time in Cancun, Darren even let me win on my birthday.

I love this pic. It's my first baby bump picture. You can kind of tell I am pregnant here and not just getting fat!

Cancun part 3 Xcaret

One of our other excursions we went to Xcaret. It was all about the culture of Mexico, plus snorkeling and seeing some cool animals.
the underground river we got to snorkle through.


Shortcut to Brazil
Darren caught a Butterfly on his finger.
and I caught 2 parrots on my shoulder
Taking a little boat ride.
xcaret!

Going into the night show and Darren having fun with one of the Mayan people.

This place was awesome!

Cancun part 2 Tulum

Our first adventure in Mexico was the Tulum Ruins. It was really cool and beautiful. We loved learning about and seeing some of the history in Mexico.


Taking our little bus to the entrance.
All the Mayan people in front of Tulum trying to sell us their "goods"
Darren headed into the entrance of Tulum

Darren made me pose in front of the Fertility builiding. :) He even made me kiss it for good luck.

Some of the beautiful scenery at Tulum.

Darren thought this was soo funny. I had drank 4 water bottles on the way home from our 2 hour bus ride. Well as we are almost home I had to pee so bad I was going to pee my pants. Darren thought it would be funny to take a picture of me after I got done in the bathroom lol.

Cancun part 1

Last August Darren and I decided to plan a big trip to Mexico. We had been trying for a baby for almost 3 years with no luck and decided just to bite the bullet and plan a trip. We also laughed that if we did this we would get pregnant. :) A month after we planned our big trip we indeed get pregnant and decided to go on our trip anyway. We had so much fun and glad we did this big trip before our baby comes in June.

We did a lot of this on the beach.

and a lot of this.

We also ate A LOT!!!

Darren and I got to try coconut milk. He loved it, me not so much.
my cute husband.
Even though I am pregnant and in paradise. I was exhausted!

We have good news.....

I am almost 12 weeks pregnant! Can you believe it?! We are finally having a baby!

On Labor Day we had a miscarriage and decided we needed to go to a fertility specialist. We did. We had planned on taking a couple tests, but had to wait for my cycle to start. It never started. I thought it was just messed up because of my miscarriage the month before. Finally, I decided to take a test and sure enough it was positive. I called my doctor immediately and he started me on shots of blood thinners twice a day. We are hoping this will solve our Miscarriage problems and so far so good. We are very happy and the doctor keeps telling us everything looks textbook perfect. I am due June 16th, but will be induced 2 weeks early, because of the blood thinners.

Thanks everyone for all your prayers for us. We totally have felt them and excited for our little miracle baby!

We love the Fair!

Darren and I went to the Utah State Fair. I had to drag him to it, because apparently you're not cool if you go to the Fair. I have wanted for the longest time to go to the Fair and try fried Twinkies. I got my wish and more! We also got a fried snickers MMMMmmm. While we were at the Fair we saw a hypnotist show. That was awesome! We had so much fun and I made a believer in him that the Fair is fun, plus lot's of good FOOD!

Darren about to eat the Fried Snickers.
Taking my first bite of a Fried Twinkie. Darren loved it and I thought it was overrated.
This is what happens when you eat a fried Twinkie, you get powdered sugar all over your nose!

Fertility issues

This week has been an emotional one. It has had a lot of downs for me. Now that it is almost over it has made me think about my past 3 years of trying for a baby. I have always wanted to be a mommy since I was a little girl. I was the little girl who went to the neighbors house to just hold their baby. I was the little girl who had 10 baby dolls in a row. I was the little girl who just adored and loved babies and I still do.

Almost 3 years ago Darren and I started trying for a baby. We successfully got pregnant after 5 months of trying and were ecstatic. We told everyone I was pregnant right away. We couldn't wait for our first appointment to see a heartbeat. The day finally arrived at 10 weeks to see the babies heartbeat. The doctor was telling us he see's two babies in there, but something isn't right. He went to get the vaginal ultra sound to get a better look and told us, there was no heartbeat. I cried so hard. I didn't want to lose my twins, but I have.

After a long LONG year later, we had to finally get on clomid. We got pregnant after only two cycles on the clomid. I was way nervous this time around. The doctor made me come in every week since week 5 to get ultra sounds. Everything was never really great with this pregnancy. The doctor always said, "I wouldn't tell anyone you're pregnant just yet." Of course we did. We thought this was our time to have our miracle baby. Boy were we wrong. We lost this baby too. We got attached to this baby early on. We had seen a heartbeat many times and had named the baby "Hank." We loved this baby so much. When we lost this baby we were at a loss. Our hearts hurt. We loved Hank.

I told the doctor we wanted genetic testing done. He agreed. The test results came back. We had found out that I have a blood clotting disorder called Prothrombin. Which for my pregnancies it means that the babies placenta gets a blood clot and then the baby can't get any nutrients and dies. We thought we had figured out the answer and we could solve it by taking blood thinners when I got pregnant again. HALLELUJAH! Wrong!

I have gotten pregnant 2 more times since and haven't made it far enough to even try the blood thinners. You would think by now I would be depressed and upset. Quite the opposite. I have learned a lot about myself and my faith. This past week I have had my 4th miscarriage and I wasn't depressed. I was sad, but this one was different. I took a step back and realized something. God loves me. He is hurting just as much as I have. He is helping me learn and become a better mother someday. I love him for this. I love him for all the trials I have been facing in my life. He has made Darren and I become a stronger couple. I also have realized I am stronger then I have given myself credit for.

Someday Darren and I will have our miracle baby and we can't wait to share the news with all of you. Until then we are happy being the best Uncle and Auntie out there.

Running, running, and more running.

Ok, so Heather's been kind of bugging me to post about my Ragnar race, so here I go. I started January 1 this year training for the RAGNAR/Wasatch Back. It's a relay race from Logan to Park City. There were 12 people on my team called the Nutter Butter Runners. Everyone ran three legs which totaled anywhere from 14-21 miles. It was really hard, but in the end really rewarding.


This is me and Phillip the morning of the run. We both got steps and mohawks, and were both just excited to start this darn race.



This is my team. We all sat at this table and waited here at this exchange for a couple hours ready to start our first legs. It was a long wait, but good times.


This is Jill handing off the wristband to me for my first leg. My first leg was four miles straight uphill on Trappers Loop. I trained for a month or two before the race running up 1800 South in Bountiful. It was tough but I did it in a very good time, actually.


The dudes after the race. Very rewarding. Big thanks to Jason for putting everything together including the cool uniforms.

Overall we all finished the race. Our times weren't the best, but honestly I think most of our team just wanted to finished. I got really sick right after my second run and right up to my final run. I didn't think that I could do it, but I persevered and it paid off in the end. The race was a blast, but I don't know if I'll do it again, it was just that miserable.



Me running hard


The beautiful woman behind it all, Heather.

A few weeks after I also ran the Freedom Festival in Provo. It was a fun race as always and I was determined to beat my old 5k record of 27:50.


I love this picture because it show just how close I beat my time. The race went very well, and I really pushed myself through the whole thing. The last 3/4 mile is a gradual uphill run and it is killer. However, as I neared the finish line I knew I was close to beating my old record. So I decided to sprint (as you can see in the picture) and beat my PR by a whoppin' 6 seconds! So my new PR for a 5k is 27:44.


I ran the race with Hayley and Jake. They both did awesome and I was very glad to run with them, it was a blast. Here's to running the race 2011!

He had to have a LARGE snowcone......

Zoo Fun!

Darren's sister, Tiffany had just had a baby. So us being the cool aunt and uncle we are, took her two year old daughter, Jane to the Zoo. We had a blast and so did Jane. We let her get anything she wanted and see any animal she wanted. She got spoiled by us and we loved every minute of it!

Jane and I watching the giraffe feeding.

Jane measuring up to the gorilla's.
Jane and Darren looking at Monkey's. Darren will be a good daddy someday.
She loved the monkeys!

Where did Jane go?!

I think we wore her out. What do you think?