Oh Canada.

Well, we are back now. It was a good trip, but I am very glad to be home. We drove more than I have in my entire life and I am never doing it again. Bleh. I didn't take very many pictures except for Tashina's wedding, which is too bad.

But first, we began our voyage by traveling to northern Idaho and stopping for a couple days at a resort, literally in the middle of no where, but it was a good break. = 11 hours.

Then we drove up to Cardston for Tashina's wedding and spent a couple days there. = 8 hours.
Some pictures of the event:Us in front of the Cardston, Alberta temple.
This is Emily, one of our traveling companions. She's cute
The happy couple, now Tashina and Todd Watson.

The whole Lowry gang.
Siblings and in laws.

After the pictures, we had to drive back to the reception in Lacombe = 4 hours.

Then we went to the biggest mall in North America- the West Edmonton mall the following day. It was awesome, and I scored some great birthday presents. =) = 2 1/2 hours.

The following day we went to the cabin in Rocky Mountain House. = 1 hour.
This is us on the banana tube, everyone wanted to go with me and Clarissa because we are pregnant and can't kill our children. Apparently the Lowry family has a habit of being a little rough to those on the tube. =)

Kelly (mom) driving us all around on the tube, being nice.

After Kelly drove us around being "nice". It was hilarious.

We spent two days in Rocky and then drove back to Cardston to shorten the trip home. = 5 1/2 hours.

And then we drove all the way home from Cardston arriving safely and happily. = 12 hours.

Sooo all in all = 44 hours of driving in 9 days. Yeaah.

Birthday-Canada-Baby.

Well, this will probably be my last post for a while, seeing as we go to Canada tomorrow morning for which I am clearly not prepared. I have a lot to do today. I haven't even started packing, Josh is staying with us so our house is a mess, and we have tons and tons of food in our fridge rhat I don't know what do with. Oh well. We'll be leaving whether or not I am fully prepared, so hopefully everything goes smoothly.

But my birthday was a success. I went to work sometime during the morning, about 10:00 haha and preceded to have rice krispies made by Ethan and Miss Theresa which were delicious, then my husband and I went to Cafe Rio for a chicken tostada, which is the most delicious thing on the planet. Then I came home and Levi gave me his present, which was this:
He gave me the cream colored one. Which I was pleasantly surprised about. I've been wanting one for ages, and even though I can't wear it for several months, it is fantastic. He did a good job. =)

Lets see, then I went shopping with the grandmother for my birthday which is always a treat. =) I got a great seafoam colored scarf, jean shorts and several shirts for work. I would have continued buying jeans, but seeing as how I'm never going to wear them again since I have to dress nice every day, I decided against it. But it was a good shopping trip. I also got some new tanktops from Down East (mormon essentials man!) and some new makeup from Bare Escentuals.

Then, we went to Cheesecake Factory, which was fabulous! We got 2 orders of avocado egg rolls for the 6 of us. We LOVE them. Then I got BBQ chicken salad, which is for sure the best thing they have on the menu and oreo cheesecake to top it off. Yum, Yum. Then my family gave me their presents, I got a great shirt and jean shirt from my mom, and another skirt and purple top which are both great, some pearls- which I love. I love pearls. They are just so classy! Some soaps and lotions, that smell like melon-mango. yum... And a purse for our cruise in November which'll be nice. I didn't think it would be at the moment when I got it, but I remember not having anything to carry my stuff in the last time we went, so it should be nice. I think that would be all the presents, but all in all it was a good birthday, now that I am officially not a teenager any more! Haha, for some reason I always feel older than I actually am.

An update on the babyness-- lets see, I am 7 weeks right now and am doing pretty good. I have become extremely more emotional than I already was, which is a problem... I cry at everything, it's kind of ridiculous. Levi thinks it's hilarious but that's only cuz it doesn't happen to him. I also haven't gotten too sick. I think that when I take my prenatals without food they make me nauseous, which has happened this week because I take it and then eat my breakfast at work. But I'm trying to fix that and I've been feeling better. When I get really hungry I get really sick, and that's what it feels like now, which is a weird feeling. It's like I'm hungry all the time, which I'm definitely not. The only food I really like to eat right now is hamburgers, popcorn and otterpops. Oh and strawberries. But all in all, I'm not too sick, which I'm glad about. I have decided that since God decided we should have a kid while I'm still in school, which I swore I would never ever do, he's making up for it by making it a little easier for me. That's just my opinion though, but hopefully it stays like that, I wouldn't mind.

Well I need to go pack. or clean. or buy food. etc etc. Adios world! We're off to the other part of the world, where American phones don't work. Gasp!

exercise.

Well, I have officially decided to begin up my exercise routine since I have not done it in ages and I can feel it already lol. Me and Caitlin have begun walking aka "working out" since we both hate running and need something to do and that has been quite successful (even though we've only done it once, it was quite good in the rain). And the grandmother took us to costco this weekend and bought me a Wii Fit. It's an amazing piece of equipment. I love it cuz it measure your BMI, then your weight and then you have to make a goal to accomplish in two weeks. It's pretty cool, I feel like I actually can keep track of what I'm doing for the first time ever. And some of it is hard!! I have been getting pro at the hula hoop and the sides of my stomach hurt!! It's so fun! I have done it for like an hour today. Totally worth the $80 investment because you can do it anytime. Plus, the more you do it, the more you get to unlock. I also love the yoga stuff. It feels good! We're gonna be in good shape for this baby! For the first time since I've been in college, I think I will steadily be working out.



This week's a little crazy. The fam is in town for education week, my birthday is on tuesday!! and we go to canada on friday. Holy cow.

Amazon.

I have found the secret- or not so secret- amazingness of amazon.com today! I got mine and levi's books for the price of what mine were at the bookstore. ohh the joy of saving several hundred dollars on books i'm only going to use for 4 months! wahoo!

Oh Goodness.

It has begun. We all know I have an addiction to shopping. Now having a legit excuse, I have bought my first baby clothes! =) And I love them.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B: I ♥ ♥ ♥ this one! =)

Names.

So naturally, I have begun to think more seriously about baby names.... and since I have been looking at the Chinese calendar, I have realized that according to this, I have a 93% chance our baby's going to be a boy. Which is a little sad, considering everyone I know right now is having a boy, but I'm just going to plan on it so that if I do have a girl, I'll be really really really excited.

Anyways, my top baby names:

BOY
1. Jackson (love, love, love!)
2. Pierson
3. Carson
4. Isaac
5. Ethan

GIRL
1. Chloe
2. Olivia
3. Carly
4. Gabrielle
5. Riley

for both of my lists, I tend to run with "n" names for boys and "y/e" names for girls. Apparently I'm not that original but that's ok. I still love them all. =) Comments?

Dinner and a Show.

Well last night, we went to Showtime Utah, which was really entertaining. It was a little different than we thought it was going to be, but it was still fun. The band that played was called Dyer Highway and was made up of these siblings, ages 16, 13,12. They were amazing! I've never seen someone play the violin as well as the 13 yr old did. It was very impressive. Anyways, here are some pics
This is the "deputy" we asked to take our picture, but wanted us to remember him forever. I told him I'd put this on my blog, so here he is.


Us at our table.





Everytime we go to a dinner theatre, without fail, Levi gets called up to do something. This is him can-caning because he stole alcohol, which is also prohibited in the town lol


This is the bottle of Budweiser Levi stole. The glass next to it is an 8 oz glass. He's a heavy drinker, what can I say?




This is my playing the "bone" with the band.It literally was a honking bone, and my job was to keep time on the bucket. Good thing I know how to do that. Miss Ruby (the woman to the right) told me that "my cute husband wants to take a picture of me" (in her southern drawl) and instead of looking like I'm laughing, I just look like I'm having a really really really good time lol


All in all, it was a successful anniversary evening for us, here's to 100 more!

Yes.

So something big happened yesterday. I peed on a stick, and it said YES+. I actually did it twice just to make sure I wasn't dreaming. But it's still true. On our year anniversary, we found out we are going to be parents in about 8 months.

Holy cow.

Temptation.

So, as we all can tell from this blog, I have an addiction to shopping, which my husband quietly does not approve of. So while he was gone camping all last week, I bought these adorable sandals from steve madden to wear at Tashina's wedding in a couple weeks. They were on sale for $30.00 and I got free shipping. Score for Melissa!!!

Anyways, today I got this coupon for 25% off plus free shipping for the rest of the month as many times as I want! Now my husband is going to kill me if I buy another pair, since we have expenses like our anniversary, my birthday and driving to Canada coming out of our budget soon. Soo, I'm trying to rise above the coupon temptation. But I now know what people who have addictions feel like... Just one more won't kill me.... I seriously need to work on this! I am going to cut myself off for a while, at least until I go to Canada because the exchange rate allows me to buy things cheaper up there than down here =)

But if anyone wants to buy some fabulous shoes and get 25% off let me know =) I think you will be able to use it too since it's just a promo code but I'm not 100% sure. Worth a try though right?

Anniversary.

So, according to the calendar, we will have been married one year on Saturday!! It's hard to believe it's been that long. Last year at this time, I was in San Francisco with my best friends partying it up as the last time of my single life. However, I think I remember I just really wanted to see Levi and couldn't care less whether or not I was in San Fran, but it's a good memory now. =) Anyways, for our anniversary, we are going to a dinner theatre and it's going to be fabulous. It's in Pleasant Grove and some western place. It should be really fun, I'm excited to go to it. It's surprisingly not expensive, well it's like $50.00 for both of us, but for dinner and a show? That's pretty average lol Here's a picture of the cast:

It looks like it's going to be really fun.

So for our anniversary, my parents decided that they were going to give us some money, strictly for buying camping stuff! Funny thing about this is that we actually were just talking about how we wanted to go camping but it was too expensive for us to buy all of the equipment to go. Well, it looks like I have no excuse to not go now. Levi is pretty excited to go, I really wanted to go before we go up to Canada, but our weekends are a little crazy so that's not going to work. But sometime in September before it gets cold, we are going! I have found several things that I am going to buy to make my camping experience more pleasurable.

#1 notice the thickness of it. =)

#2 this is a "king size" sleeping bag. yesss....

#3 These will help me trek through the wilderness. I can also kick some serious trash if a bear attacks us. These babies protect ya from anything! Also, I can blend in with my surroundings, notice the camoflauge. Wahbam!