Just wanted to throw out a congrats to my big brother and my soon to be sister-in- law. I'm so excited to have another girlie in the family and Heather is a great one, especially for my brother. I'm so excited for you two and Mitch and I hope to see you soon when we fly out for your wedding. Love you tons!!

So this is the last week of classes and in one week Mitch and I will be traveling on our way across the U.S. of A to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.A little overwhelming but hopefully going to be a great adventure for us and our new family. Mitch will be attending Marquette University to become a dentist and is looking forward to progressing with his schooling. He graduates next weekend from Utah State University with a bachelor's degree in biology and therefore the move to Milwaukee for his graduate work. We'll be out there for four years while Mitch finishes and so that means our first child will be born out there too!! Mitch went out for his interview before he was accepted and his description and pictures of Milwaukee were bleak and flat, there are no mountains, but there's a little bit of pretty in everything right. Milwaukee is right on the shore of lake Michigan and this picture above captures not only the shoreline but the city skyline as well.

Mitch and I are going to have a baby!! We're fourteen weeks into pregnancy and finally past the queasiness. We went in for our first doctors appointment at about 9 weeks and got these amazing ultrasounds taken of our "tiny peanut". It's pretty awesome how technology can put this image into your head and carry so much emotion with it. You can't really make out the baby quite yet in these but it's there. This first ultrasound has the heartbeat showing at the bottom as highs and lows and is pinpointed by the white line going from top to bottom of the screen. At nine weeks it was beating at a racing 196 beats a minute. My coworker says baby girls always have faster heartbeats than baby boys but that could just be hearsay. In the two pictures on the right you can see the egg sac as the round white circle and below that is the fetus. At our twelve month checkup we got to hear the heartbeat again, this time for longer than the first. It's 164 beats a minute was a little less than before but the doctor said that was good. Maybe she was picking up my heartbeat as well cause it was pounding just hearing that living child inside of me.
Our due date is October 21st which is the same month as my birthday and the same date as Mitch's birthday in June. Mitch wants a little girl, but I would really like a baby boy. We'll have to see at our twenty week visit what it's going to be.

This was our main reason in going down to Salt lake to visit Maribel Lobo, a lady that Mitch stayed with in San Ramon,Costa Rica on his mission. She was visiting friends in the U.S. and they had a party for her the weekend before she left. Several missionaries that she had served in her home were there to visit with her. Mitch stayed with her only a short time but he's such a friendly and nice person that she remembered him and they chatted the night away. She speaks very little English but I was able to pick out some words Mitch has been teaching me and so I didn't feel quite so out of the loop. They made Guillo Pinto which is a rice and bean dish that is absolutely fantastic. Mitch has made it for me since before we were married and I love it especially with a sauce they like called Salsa Lizano. It's a highly seasoned sauce made out of veggies that is really tasty. She told us missionaries don't stay in her home any more because she had a falling out with some picky sister missionaries that lived with her after the elders. It's pretty sad when converts fall away because of something someone else did. She seems very happy but how could she be as happy as she would be if someone had not offended her and she had the gospel back in her life. Mitch and I had an awesome time that night and were able to hear some amazing stories from the returned missionaries.

In our wonderings we went into the old meeting house there on temple square and talked with the sister missionaries. They knew tons of information about the building so we asked them about some of the intricate designs that were all around us. I noticed the stained glass windows and that some had different designs than others. The sisters told me that when the building was restored the same glass was used for the new windows that was in the original ones. Because they were fragments of glass the designs vary throughout the building because the same design could not be made over and over again without using newer glass. That's what I call recycling. Anyways the sisters also told us about the new adaptation they have on the proclamation to the family in the north visitors center so we decided we should go check it out next. Oh! also ya know that really tiny spiral staircase on the north side upper level of the meeting house, well I've always wondered what was up there and imagined a grand room that only special visitors could go to, or a hidden room of relief for the speakers before they give their talks a quiet space to calm their jitters. The sisters told us that there is only a small attic up there crammed with chairs and other thingamabobs. A little less romantic than I expected a spiral staircase to lead to but I suppose ya need an attic.

Mitch got me a new camera for my birthday last October and were just starting to figure out all the cool buttons that it has on it. A couple weekends ago we went to Salt Lake to go to the temple, but alas it was closed for cleaning so we got to wonder around temple square and use our camera to capture so many of the wonderful sights there. They had just finished up an organ recital in the tabernacle and the pipes were lit up with a fantastic purple background. unfortunately we didn't get to hear the organ but we got a pic before they turned the lights off. Pretty huh?