Fall

Ry and I headed out to Shipshewanna--Amish country. I had been out there before, but it was Ryan's first time. It's always fun to see the horse and buggies and try the yummy Amish treats!

We went to Rise'n Roll the MOST amazing bakery ever!! 

We got cinnamon caramel donuts! They call them Amish Crack
These are our absolute favorites. I was a very happy pregnant girl!

Mmmmmmm

One thing we love about the fall here.. Fresh Michigan apples straight from the trees! :)

We got to go to the Chicago temple. The drive was 2 hours there and at LEAST 3 hours back. All in all it ends up being a minimum of an 8 hour commitment, maybe more. Makes us realize how lucky we were in Utah to have multiple temples all within 20 minutes. It was nice to be able to go though! I love going to the temple with my husband. It's so peaceful there.

27 Week Baby bump!

We made the BEST homemade ice cream!! This was only the second time we ever used our ice cream maker. This stuff was so delicious we couldn't believe we hadn't used our maker more often. We definitely want to! This stuff is so much better than store bought! Too bad it's not very healthy...

Homemade Vanilla!

K this was UNBELIEVABLE. This was a recipe from our friends the Benscotters.
It's called "Decadent Chocolate." So yummy!

Fall is SO pretty here! I absolutely love the fall in South Bend, Indiana. This place is just gorgeous in the fall. I wish it would last forever. Especially because Winters here are the worst!

ND Campus is so beautiful right now

On a walk around ND campus. The campus is so pretty this time of year! It's gorgeous!

The cemetery on campus. So much gold!

Sunday walk around the lake at Notre Dame. 

In my third trimester now :) Can't wait for our baby girl to arrive!

Ryan's Birthday!

My favorite holiday is Christmas. Can't beat Christmas. No matter what. But my second favorite is definitely Ryan's Birthday! I just love celebrating him all day and getting to spoil my man! :) Lots of fun! This year worked out so perfect because my boss texted me the night before and told me I didn't need to come in the next day. I was so excited to have Ry's b-day off! :)

I still had to teach early morning seminary and then I came home and decorated the house in b-day balloons, a sign and a note on the mirror and set all his presents up on the table. When I snuck back into our room, Ry was just waking up. His face was so surprised to see me! He wondered why I wasn't at work! It was so fun to surprise him and be able to spend the whole day together. He started the day with a nice facetime from his family and opening their gifts! They are so sweet and made sure his presents arrived in time for his bday. He got a TON of Haribo (his favorite candy), and a Fitbit. He has really enjoyed using that so far and tracking his activity.

Later, We went to see Guardians of the Galaxy which we ended up really enjoying. Super funny, it was way better than we expected! We also got Ryan an Iphone 6. He was so excited to upgrade after a few years. He's had a lot of fun with it so far and loves the applepay. It's pretty cool you can pay with your phone!

For dinner we went to our favorite place ever- Corndance. So good!! Seriously. Everything is so perfect. Everything is the tastiest thing ever. We left so stuffed that we couldn't eat the b-day cake I had made for Ryan ;) (Pumpkin Cheesecake). Oh well. More cake for later right? Then he got to open the rest of his presents. A few shirts (dressy casual he asked for for his new job) and a weight lifting bench he's been wanting for a while from me. He also got a book and a gift card from his sisters. Everyone was so sweet and thoughtful. It was a great day. 

OK here's our amazing food! The sword of John Adams (Ryan's fave), the pear ravioli (my fave!), and a yummy fruity salad with walnuts and goat cheese. We also got the spinach artichoke dip as an appetizer--AMAZING :) So much food! 

OK here's the sword of John Adams up a little closer. It was an 8 oz. steak, 2 chicken breasts,
a cheddar jalapeño sausage, and a bunch of peppers all skewered on a real sword!
Served with grilled veggies, house-made coleslaw and twice baked potatoes. YUM!  

Everytime we come here Ryan always wants to try out the sword of John Adams but
we never have. It was fun to finally try it out and have our food come out on a sword! 

They brought out a free b-day dessert. Yummy apple crisp and ice cream! :) 

Happy Birthday to my favorite person ever! I love you so much Ryan. Every day I am so grateful that I married you. I could never ask for a better husband. You make me the luckiest and happiest girl in all the world. I love you with my whole heart. Happy 29th!

Oh and here's a pic from the night before Ryan's birthday. We had the missionaries over and got to sing happy birthday to him.

Pregnancy Update

So I'm 26 weeks! Almost in my third trimester--can't wait! We are so excited for our baby girl to arrive. It feels like I've been pregnant forever! I am so anxious to meet our little girl :) I get giddy just thinking about having her here with us! Here's a few updates on my pregnancy so far. 

This is Josephine, one of my best friends! When I was in UT she confided in me that she was pregnant. I couldn't believe it! I had just found out a few days before that I was too! We discovered we were only 2 weeks apart! It has been so nice to have a close friend to talk to and go through all of these changes with. She's having a girl too! We're so excited for them to be friends!

My very first craving was a donut. Oh my gosh I wanted one SOOOO bad but I kept denying myself because I was trying to "be healthy" or whatever. I kept day dreaming about these Amish donuts back in Indiana. They call them "Amish crack."

If that is what crack is like, I totally understand why people get hooked. These donuts are unlike anything you've ever had. I couldn't stop thinking about them for like a month and a half! Soon enough every time I went to the store or watched a TV show there would be donuts everywhere calling out to me. Finally this baby and me couldn't take it anymore and I decided to try to MAKE them. This resulted in what was probably the biggest disappointment of my life. They were absolutely disgusting. We're talking burned on the outside and 100% dough on the inside. Of course I started crying (thank you pregnancy hormones) and when Ryan came home he insisted we go to Krispy Kreme. I didn't argue :) They aren't Amish but still. Krispy Kreme is yum.

Oh great. Now I want one. Where's Ryan? I think we need to run an errand...

The donut thing was kind of a one and done thing. Once I had one (ok actually three) I was satisfied and didn't crave them anymore. I was too sick to really want anything anyway. I pretty much lived off of crackers, soup, and otter pops for MONTHS. It was horrid. I felt so sick all summer long. I tried different brands of ginger-ale, ginger tea, Ematrol, preggie pops, some kind of nausea drops from Wholefoods, Sea Bands etc. Nothing seemed to help. I just had to deal with it and learned a valuable lesson (a little too late) to always carry a barf bag with me. It came and went so sometimes I got a good meal in but for the most part I just felt really sick. The throwing up eventually slowed down and stopped around 19 weeks. I've only barfed a few times since then which is great. I'm still nauseous everyday but I finally got some medicine at my appointment this week to help with that.

I had the donut craving. I really loved peaches for a while and fruit in general. And I have been craving caesar salads so bad! I always want caesar salad! Other than that I haven't had a ton of cravings. EXCEPT for sour candy. So weird. I don't get it. I've never been a sour candy girl. Guess our baby is! :)

This boy bringing me sour candy home :) Oh how I love him. 

K i found these at an Asian market. They're sooooo good and super sourly delicious :)

 Baby purchases so far...

This is our baby's first piece of clothing! :) Thank you to
Ryan's parents for this hilarious gift when they came out to visit!

Once we found out we were having a girl, I had to go shopping :) I found this swim suit for two bucks!
Had to get it. Never mind that she won't actually fit into it until she's two years old. It's just too cute to pass up! :)

We've gotten so lucky with getting free/cheap stuff! The minute we pulled into our parking lot in Indiana, we found these by the dumpster!!!

 

Um who throws that away? They were in pretty spanking good shape and easily could've been sold. All I had to do was get a good lysol scrubbing in to sanitize it all. Also, we got a pack-n-play for 20 bucks from a friend, and a simple little foldable stroller and carseat for free from another friend. Our ward is chock-full of young families so we have gotten so lucky to have inherited lots of hand-me-downs from sweet momma friends in the ward. It's so fun to see this baby stuff in our house! It makes everything feel so much more real and makes us so excited and anxious for our girl to arrive! 

Since we're moving a few months after our baby is born we won't buy a crib till we move into our new place. In the mean time we will use a bassinet. I found this one for 15 bucks! :)

K these are the cutest shoes in the universe am I right?

Now come the baby bump pictures! 

It's been interesting... in the last few weeks/month my bump has certainly done some growing! I've been amazed at how comfortable people are with commenting on my belly/size. Here are a few of my favorite comments so far...

"Wow! I can't believe how big you're getting already!"
"When are you due again? Oh wow! I would've thought you were further along based on your size."
"I don't think I even got as big as you my whole pregnancy."

Yes. These are a few real comments I've received. Some people have no fear to say what they're thinking...  I recently read an article that reminded me of some of these comments. Couldn't agree with it more! You can check out the article here.

Pregnancy has been so hard. I had no idea how hard it would be. I think it's one of the hardest things I've ever done. Being sick all the time is NOT fun. Not to mention all the other stuff on top of it like crying so easily and being more exhausted than I've ever been before. However, I am so so grateful to be pregnant. I'm so happy I get to have a baby with my amazing husband and I absolutely love feeling our baby girl move around inside of me. Pregnancy is just the craziest, most wonderful phenomenon.
Feeling our girl's kicks is my favorite thing everyday! I love it so much! She's getting a lot stronger and her kicks are becoming more frequent and a lot more noticeable. Ryan has loved being able to feel her kicks too, so fun :)

We've got an ultrasound coming up this week. It is so much fun to watch our baby on the screen. Gosh we love her so much already. I seriously cannot wait to hold her and have her here in our family. 

Back in the Bend

We are very happy to be back in South Bend. The fall is so pretty here! We are loving it! It was so nice to see our friends again and come back to our apartment. We are soooo happy to not be living in that crappy apartment in Daly City anymore. This place felt so welcoming to come home to! 

This is along the bike path that we love. So pretty and green when we first got back.

We had really rainy weather the first week back but after that the weather was so nice and warm! We were so happy to see the sun again after a very cloudy summer. We ate up the warm weather and soaked it in as much as we could. At every available chance we headed to Silver Beach! (our favorite beach at Lake Michigan).  It's so peaceful and beautiful there. We can't get enough of it.

Since we've been back I started teaching early morning seminary. I have a companion teacher that I get to trade off with so I'll have it for a week or a few weeks, and then she will have the kids for a week or a few weeks. It varies. It's nice to have a partner to trade off with because it really is a time consuming/difficult calling. I spend about 20 hours a week on seminary alone. Then I have my jobs and what not on top of that and it just gets exhausting. It's been good to really get into the Doctrine and Covenants though and be better at studying my scriptures. I definitely have a huge appreciation for the youth and teachers all over the world that get up so early everyday for seminary. It is tough. I had no idea how good I had it in high school having release time seminary!

I'm also working part-time as a nanny. The kids are really good and make me laugh every time I go over. They say the funniest, cutest things. I'm also doing lots of photography and have really been loving that! It's been a nice source of extra income and has been so much fun to get more into my camera and editing etc.

Ryan just finished mod 1 so he is 1/4 of the way done with the school year. I'm so proud of him. He has been spending a lot of time applying to jobs and looking for jobs (especially ones in Utah) and trying to network as much as he can. So far, it's looking like we will end up taking the job offer at Salesforce in San Francisco but we'll have to wait and see for sure. Ry also joined the Notre Dame cycling team which is pretty cool!  He has enjoyed the rides with the team and seeing all the beauty around here on his rides. (Especially now that the leaves are starting to turn--this place just lights up in the fall. It is so pretty)!

Our baby seems to be doing well. We cannot wait for her to get here! I'll post a baby update soon! :)

At the local Pumpkin patch. We "raced" these bikes and played around a little and bought a few pumpkins. 

On ND campus with my boy.

San Francisco

OK so San Francisco was not all bad. If you take out the days Ryan was in the hospital, his mono, our crappy apartment, my 3 months of terribly bad morning sickness, and the gloomy weather in Daly City, it was a great summer :)
Whenever we were feeling OK we would leave Daly City and go exploring the Bay and surrounding areas in California. We had some fun times! Here are some summer highlights.

My cousin Macy and her husband Josh came to town and we got to hang out with them!
 Didn't get a picture together, this is Ry and I in China Town right before meeting up with them.

We went to the painted ladies park. This park is super famous and also
happens to be in the intro of Full House :) 

This is the Full House house! My favorite show growing up.
It's painted blue now but it's the same place!

We ventured out to Santa Cruz and explored the boardwalk and had some fun at the beach!

The Santa Cruz boardwalk was really cool! Lots of rides, games, and treats. This place though.. we couldn't believe it.
DEEP FRIED TWINKIES!! haha could you get any more unhealthy? Didn't try one. No regrets. haha

This was the first day I had felt good all summer. I was still nauseous all morning but in the
afternoon I was feeling good! I was so excited that my appetite had come back! While in Santa Cruz
 we went to this awesome Mexican restaurant! I was soooooo excited to be eating real food!!

Unfortunately... the second we got home all of this food was barfed up.
Yeah yeah I know TMI. It was still worth it though.

Whenever the weather got to the 60s-70s we would try to head to the beach!
We bought a grill and did a couple of cookouts on the beach. So fun!

Ryan went out of town for a business trip to Southern CA and lookie what he brought me home!!!!!
I grew up on these burritos. I never loved him more than when he brought these home :)

This is the inside of the tastiest BRC burrito in the world. Miguel's JR.

We discovered the best salsa ever. We stocked up on two different
occasions and bought all they had! I think we have 8-10 jars in the fridge right now :)

Ry's family came to visit! Here we are watching the sea lions

Gotta go to Ghirardelli square!

While the boys were on a bike ride, the girls got pedicures!

Mom Van on the top, Karli on right, my albino feet that never saw the sun on the left :) 

While Ry's family was in town we went on a bay cruise. It was really fun
and we even saw dolphins! It was pretty exciting!

Another cookout on the beach, this one was FREEZING.

We drove out to Napa to explore a bit. This was a cool looking castle/winery place

Here's my boy out front of his work! This is his office he's standing in front of. It's right across
from the ferry building. Really neat location and amazing view. I'm so proud of his hard work
 here this summer and looks like we may be headed back here next summer for his full-time job!

We drove to and around the Oakland temple. We were so excited to finally live close to a temple
 because the Chicago temple is 2-3 hours away from us in South Bend. However, this place was
closed ALL summer due to remodeling so unfortunately we never got to go inside. 

This was our first day in S.F. We rode the BART up to Ry's work and walked
around the city and Ferry building and got pizza.

The Pauls came out to visit and stayed with us in our luxurious and spacious apartment :)
We had lots of fun with them and found out that Jen is prego too! Our girls are due 2 weeks apart!

Another beach we discovered on a nice, sunny day.

Salesforce treated us to a Giants game. Really fun!

Can you tell we are beach people yet? We were always heading there any chance we got!
It's so soothing to be there. This beach is called Baker beach. It has a really pretty view of the golden gate bridge.

One of our Summer highlights! We went to Yosemite! So beautiful!

We caught some nasty weather but it made for this cool picure!
Ryan snapped it right as the lightning was striking the rock!

The wind/rain got pretty bad on one of the days but we still had fun

The giant sequoias really are giant.

Daaaaaang.

K this is picture makes me laugh because in about 20 minutes from this picture, I am in a VERY foul mood. LOL
We reached the "top" and got a really pretty view of the waterfall and as we are ready to head back down, this one hiker tells us we HAVE to keep going because the view at the top is so amazing and it's "only 15 more minutes." OK that hiker was a liar liar pants on fire. It was like 45 minutes of doing the stair climber. I wanted to DIE. not to mention I was sick to my stomach, STARVING, and had to pee sooooo freakin' bad with no bathrooms in sight. Don't worry, I left the trail and risked the fine by peeing in a national park. Good thing Ryan kept a good lookout for me. hah but it brings back funny pregnancy memories :) 

Bridal Veil Fall hike. This was right after I had barfed at the grocery store buying b-fast. It was hilarious.
 I just grabbed a plastic bag in the produce section and heaved into it. This hike was just what I needed on a
day like that. It was more of a nature walk. This day we took it easy and mostly did some driving around. 

These were the NICEST guys ever! We met them on a trail and just talked and hiked
 with them and their mom the whole time. They're from Iran. Super nice people!

We took a tour of Alcatraz. WAY cooler than I expected. It was fascinating. 

The cells are TINY!

The showers. no privacy. none at all. 

The Golden Gate Bridge. Pretty neat stuff.