NYC

After our fun few days in D.C. we headed up to New York via the Bolt Bus. Benny was so nice to take us to our stop in a sketch part of Baltimore far too early in the morning. 4 hours and $28 dollars later, we were in the middle of New York City! Not a bad deal.

We checked our bags at the New Yorker and headed on our way. I can't remember what we did on which days, so I'll give the break down in no particular order.

 The bull

 At the top of the Empire State Building. We had this cool/nerdy audio tour that told us about the different boroughs.

 Peter with his favorite painting, "Starry night". Despite his face, he says this was one of his very favorite parts our trip.

 

 While we were waiting for our cruise around the lower part of Manhattan, we saw this giant anchor and boat.

 I'm sure you can guess who took the pictures of the sailboats.

At the top of the Rockefeller Center.

 Doughnut Plant in Chelsea

 Falafel from a street vendor

 Carnegie Deli

 Junior's Cheesecake in Times Square

 Street hotdogs



Grimaldi's Pizza

 The new Freedom Tower

 The Museum of Natural History
 
Times Square

The Brooklyn Bridge- this bridge was probably my very favorite part of NYC this time around. I'm so glad we took the time to walk across it.

We went to Newsies one night and I had a permagrin the entire time. It was just so fun. I think Peter liked it, too.

One funny story from New York, well, it's funny now. We stayed at a hotel out by the LaGuardia Airport because it was so much less expensive than staying in the city. I had an app on my phone that told us exactly which trains to take to get where we wanted to go. On the first night, we picked up our stuff around 10 pm from the New Yorker and started to make our way to the hotel. We got off where it said we should but we couldn't find the connecting train anywhere. The area we were seemed a bit sketch, not good lighting at all. And, I just started crying. I felt like such a failure because I had planned everything and we were totally lost. This nice man saw that we looked lost and he stopped to help us. He called a cab company for us and stayed with us until the cab came. It was so kind. It did end up working out well because we ended up giving a Book of Mormon to the cab driver after he told us about his wife who is a member. It was a good missionary experience.

We saw so much when we went to New York. When I went in high school, I just went along for the ride and stuck to all the touristy things. While we did a lot of tourist things this time, we also spent time in some of the neighborhoods, which I really enjoyed. Brooklyn was super charming and I also really enjoyed going to the Highline Park. We went through Central Park and basically just walked all over. We like to pack it in on our vacations, and I feel like this one was super successful!

**Somehow, this didn't get posted, so here it is. For journaling purposes.

Boy or Girl?

I love the idea of waiting to find out what gender your baby is until he or she is born, but I couldn't do it this time. Perhaps another pregnancy. 

I was going to be 20 weeks when we were to be in Monroe for Peter's family reunion, so I called to see if they would do my anatomy ultrasound a week early. They said they would. Unfortunately, they didn't have a time that worked for Peter to come, so we decided that we would have them write the gender on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope so we could find out together.

The ultrasound was really cool because my doctor has them done by a perinatologist, so he is really knowledgeable about all the intricacies of the developing baby. Once he found out I was a nurse in the NICU, he got excited and started explaining everything in even more detail. It was so interesting. Baby already has one more organ than Mom; two kidneys! He had me look away while he checked out the gender, just in case it was really obvious. 

I decided to take the envelope to Dick's Bakery and have them make a cake with colored frosting in the middle, either pink or blue. Most of our family was busy that night, but Spencer and the kids came over while we cut the cake. 

We are so excited to welcome a little boy to our family at the beginning of December!

Happy April Fool's Day

I took a pregnancy test on March 26th, 4 weeks after my miscarriage and it was negative. Every day that my period didn't show up after that, I talked myself out of taking another test. I convinced myself that my cycle was thrown off from the miscarriage. That worked for about 5 days. 

I took another test on April 1st. The timing was funny, but I couldn't handle waiting anymore. I took it while Peter was at work. I was thinking that if it was negative, I just wouldn't even tell him about it. But, really, I would have told him about it either way. I didn't look at the test for over half an hour because I was convinced that it was negative and I didn't want to face it. I was so shocked when I saw that it was positive. I was so excited, of course, but also much more cautiously excited. 

I decided to wait and tell Peter in person when he got home from work. He usually runs right upstairs to change out of his slacks and button up shirt, so I left the test in plain sight in the bathroom, knowing he would discover it just minutes after getting home. Of course, this time, he sat down at the bar and talked to me while I prepared dinner. He finally went upstairs about half an hour after getting home. I heard his run up the stairs and his run right back down. He couldn't believe it. He was so excited as well. He couldn't believe that I had been able to keep it a secret for so long. We knelt and thanked our Heavenly Father for the opportunity to be pregnant again so soon and blessed this baby that it would stay with us and we would be able to start our family here on earth.

The BEST pictures from graduation

I couldn't post the best pictures from graduation before, but now that I'm 27 weeks, here they are!

We found out that I was pregnant again on April 1st. Yes, on April Fools Day. Melissa knew I was pregnant, so her husband took the second picture and we let my other nursing friends know when we took the last picture. They were so cute and excited for us!