Announcing our big news...

Finally we get to announce our biggest news of the year.....we are expanding our family! We have known FOREVER that we were pregnant (since mid September) and it was so hard to not share with everyone! We had shared with family, close friends on camp as soon as we got a positive test and then with the kids after we had my seven week appointment and came back from Nepal and everything still was showing signs of a viable pregnancy. 

A poor picture of a picture.....our 10 week ultrasound. The ultrasound at the clinic on our camp is really old so I am looking forward to having a better quality one starting in January! 

So....here is all the information about our big news....

I thought you were done having kids? Didn't you sell ALL your baby stuff....like everything? Yes, we thought we were done. I think with having Graham and moving all at the same time, it was a really hard adjustment. It was so much harder than I anticipated and we struggled as a family and I struggled mentally and emotionally and so we were done. We couldn't go through that again. But....life changes, your heart changes and you sit down and really want to make sure that you prayed and considered whether your family was complete. Last January I was starting to feel like our family wasn't complete. It caught me off guard but I started praying, seeking counsel from friends and decided to approach John and let him know that I didn't feel confident one way or another but that this was on my heart. I really had to prep him so he wouldn't flip out! He was pretty shocked and pretty confident that he would NOT change his mind but he agreed to consider it, pray about it and talk about it later. We both agreed to be open to it and pray. We didn't talk much more about it until the summer and we both were starting to feel God soften our hearts and see our family as a family of five. I made sure during my summer doctor appointments that I would be cleared to get pregnant if we wanted to do and we left it at that. We came back to Saudi, prayed more together and more conversations and decided that yes, we felt that we wanted to and were in a position to have another baby....but that we would give it time and see what happens. Well.....we got pregnant right away and looking back and also looking forward to when our due date is...it is a perfect time! And yes, we have sold nearly everything from Graham so we are starting over again but the nice thing is that by the time you are on baby #3 you realize they don't need nearly as much stuff as you bought for baby #1.

At 10 weeks about to go to a Halloween party as a robber! Body for sure knows what to do by pregnancy #3.....look at that bump!

When is your due date? Are you having the baby in Saudi?
My due date is May 27 and being a repeat c-section I will be delivering around May 20, pending any complications (like low fluid levels with Peyton) that would require me to deliver earlier. I am having the baby in Saudi. This was one of the biggest parts of the discussion for me and having to feel comfortable with the idea of delivering over here. It is not practical for me to take my two kiddos and travel to Washington where our only support structure is my parents and my dad works a rotational job. We have support here and a great community to help us out with driving kids places, watching kids and meals and it would be easier on Peyton and Graham to be here and adjust to this and I want and need John to be here for the birth of the baby and not stress about being alone. It is going to be so hard to not be around family during this process and during the birth and it is hard to think that they won't see the baby until we go home over the summer but I try not to focus on it and remember that those are sacrifices of being here, that delivering here at home is the best thing mentally for me and we will have a beautiful time when we do go home this summer. I will be delivering at the main camps hospital (about 45 minutes away) and have heard great things about it. I know it will be different and some culture shocking moments but I am trying to mentally prepare for it and focus that the goal is a healthy mommy and baby. I have been having my appointments at our clinic and will start seeing the specialists at the main hospital the end of January and am hoping that will help calm the few nerves I still have about delivering here. 

Is it a boy or girl?
We don't know yet and we are not planning on finding out! We are going to be surprised this time! 

We figured we have nothing for baby, the big kids are sharing a room here in Saudi regardless because it is easier and they are closer in routine so why not do things different this time and be surprised!

Were you pregnant in Nepal? How did that go?
Yes, I was pregnant and I knew it when I went to Nepal. I was right around 7-8 weeks. I felt great leading up to the trip and then two days before starting feeling so incredibly nauseous and then actually threw up once a couple days before going. I was so scared of how I would manage it. So, we looked around at five different pharmacies to find vitamin B6 to help with nauseousness. I started taking it in the morning and afternoon and during the trip was fine with just taking it in the morning and as long as I took it and ate something every two hours,  I thankfully wasn't nauseous, could eat anything and the smells didn't get to me. I felt great! And after coming home I felt the same, this pregnancy has been super easy in regards to morning sickness (more like my pregnancy with Peyton) which I am very thankful for!

The Evolution of Pregnancy.....thankful to be pregnant with friends....In this picture, I am about 9 weeks, Britnee is about  31 with her third and my friend Sam's baby boy (her second) is about 3 weeks old. We will all have babies within 7 months of each other!

What did the kids say?
The moment we told Peyton and Graham was by far the best moment of this pregnancy and was such a special moment that we will treasure forever. When we told Peyton about being pregnant she was too young to understand but this time she completely gets it and Graham was six months older than Peyton was and has a big sister to mimic. We told them that I went to the doctor to find out why my tummy was hurting....Peyton's immediate diagnosis was that I had Celiacs like them....and I told them that the doctor told me that there was a baby in my tummy. Peyton's first response, "Thank you Jesus for finally giving us another baby....I prayed a lot for one." Melt your heart! They were full of questions, lots of dancing around and singing with joy. They were so excited and ready to tell the world their exciting news. They have nicknamed the baby, "Rosie," and where that came from I have no idea....either Caillou (a cartoon) or one of Graham's Thomas Trains is named Rosie. But they pray daily for Rosie, come up and rub my belly to talk to Rosie and it has been such a special time with them. Peyton very much wants a baby sister and as said we will keep having babies until a girl arrives so we have been working on being thankful to God for a healthy baby. Graham is just excited about having a baby. He is my nurturer and is so sweet and loving already towards the baby. Really a special time sharing this with them! We have a video of when we told them but it was on our video camera and we can't figure out how to get it off and format it to view on the computers or send as a file. 

How are you feeling? 
Pretty good....EXHAUSTED but overall good. This pregnancy has been pretty tiring on me and that is the one symptom that has caught me off guard. I can fall asleep at 6:00 PM and sleep through the night I am that tired sometimes! Afternoon naps have become the normal around here and thankfully Peyton has been great about playing in the playroom while I nap in the living room but that often means more TV than normal. But I have found even after a good night sleep and a nap I still feel horrible and exhausted. Goodness....growing a baby and having two more is exhausting! I have been having cramping like I had with Graham which is my irritable uterus but know how to manage it better this time and have been taking it easy, staying really hydrated and not picking up the kids. Thankfully the cramping has seemed to lessen as I progress in the pregnancy so I am hoping that will continue. 

Around 12 weeks....

Whew....that is all I can think of for now. I will try to do baby #3 updates but I can already see how the third child gets less pictures and probably less pregnancy blog posts...I don't have the time or energy! But we are so excited about all the craziness about to happen in May! 

Murder Mystery Party

About nine months ago one of our good friends here decided to plan a Murder Mystery party. It was so much fun! There isn't much to do in regards to entertainment here and so it was a fun and different thing to do for the evening. It did take so much planning though on her part. She made the guest list and emailed all of us our parts before the summer so we could all pick up costumes while in the States. It all came together and everyone looked great. It was a 1920's theme, Murder at the Juice Joint. 

I was the cocktail waitress.....Kitty Cocktail. 

John was an illegal arms dealer and the club bouncer and my boy friend.

Here I am with one of my best friends here and the host of the evening! So thankful for her! I love that she is from Seattle too and so when we are all done here we will be close together!  

Another really good friend here. We both ordered the same dress and size but from different companies and it was funny how different they both fit. 

It was such a fun evening and we are planning next years for sure!

School Halloween Parties and Trick or Treating!

In the week leading up to Halloween both kids schools had a Halloween Parade and Party. First up was Graham's preschool. They had a parade outside to a park nearby and then had a small party afterwards. As we were pulling Halloween costume options out I started to realize we were running low on costumes for his size but we had a couple and he decided he wanted to be a cowboy this year. 

And he was a pretty adorable cowboy!

Next up was Peyton's school Halloween parade. The school does a really big one for all the students from Kindergarten to Fourth grade which she will be in next year but this year was a practice run with just the K4 classes. Despite all my encouraging and asking about being anything else or using any of the other many costumes we had, she insisted for weeks on being the ghost like last year. My daughter is for sure her own person and does things her way!

Her class had some games and then snacks and Peyton was just so excited to have me there with her. I always love going to her classroom and seeing how she interacts with her friends and with her teacher. It brings so much comfort to see her being so confident and such a leader in those situations. 

A fun couple of days hanging out with the kids classes and celebrating Halloween! And then we got to do trick or treating with friends! Peyton decided at the last minute to be a veterinarian which was a welcomed change! We met up with our Saudi family (a group of five other families) at one of our houses and did some trick or treating together. Graham got more into it this year and Peyton was a pro. Even when we were "done" she wasn't and so John took her and a friend and kept going. They loaded up and had a great time!

After we all finished up our trick or treating together we finished up at one of our houses for some yummy chicken tortilla soup. It was a fun evening going around and visiting everyone on camp and then hanging out with friends at the end! Happy Halloween!

Last two days in Nepal - Bhakatapur

Unfortunately we only had two nights in Pokhara and had to head back to the Kathmandu valley. My sister and I both agreed we could easily spend close to a month exploring Pokhara and all the activities around and we loved the feel of the area and the relaxation and peace it brought.

Before heading back to Kathmandu we walked around the Peace Pagoda.

Thankfully our flight back to Kathmandu was easy and without any issues. And our hotel was actually there to pick us up! We spent our last night in Nepal in a village called Bhakatapur. It is known for maintaining it historic charm and feel. When we arrived and drove down the cobblestone streets and came into this square with so many authentic buildings we certainly felt more like authentic Nepal. Our hotel was our favorite of the trip and was so charming and full of wood work and so unique.

After getting settled in our hotel we went for lunch across the square which was a perfect spot for people watching. There was this group of kids who kept trying to pick up these baby goats which was hilarious to watch. After lunch we wandered around the streets and to the various squares just soaking it all up.

The next morning we wandered around a little more and picked up some last minute souvenirs and then headed out to the airport. I was sad to be leaving and wished I could be spending more time in Nepal but I was so thankful for the time that I was able to have and for the chance to be able to go to a country I have dreamed about going to and I was ready to see my kiddos!

Hiking around Pokhara

Our first full day in Pokhara, we set our alarm clocks to get up and watch the sunrise because the hotel owner said on a clear day it was amazing and you could see five of the tallest peaks and it would be worth it. We were excited. It started out as a possibly good experience....

And then the fog wouldn't lift :( And it never really did the entire time we were in Pokhara. We were able to see some of the tallest peaks but some of them were hidden by clouds the entire time. October is supposed to be the best time to visit, no clouds and no rain but unfortunately it was an off week when we were there and we had both.

We had arranged with our hotel to have a guide for the day to do an easy hike around a village. We said we wanted to be gone for about five hours and nothing too strenuous. Well....it turned out to be a little more challenging especially going up in the beginning than we thought but it was great and so worth it to get out and explore the villages around where we were.

We started out at the World Peace Pagoda which was near our hotel.

And hiked up to a viewing platform...you can see the World Peace Pagoda very faintly in the left side of the picture below to give you an idea of height and distance.

We then walked up to another platform area from the second mound that is in the picture below to give you some perspective of our route and how far we had gone.

Then we stopped at another village temple....in the second picture you can no longer see our starting point.

We walked through some villages and encountered some kids along the way but mostly were able to see people doing their day to day living and just experience a different side of Nepal.

We hiked to this viewing platform/museum but it was closed :( we were going to stop for lunch there but since it wasn't open we had to hike back. Thankfully the hike back was easier! But we didn't factor in that we both forgot sunscreen and our necks were super burnt!

It was a long but great day hike! We went back to the hotel for lunch, showers and a nice long nap. We woke up that night with the idea to go into the main town/shopping area and explore. We didn't want to deal with taxis again so we found out we could walk down from the Peace Pagoda to the lake and hire a boat to take us across BUT we needed to get down before dark and before the rain storm came. So we started hiking down and down and down and realized it was taking us much longer than we expected. Thankfully we made it down in time and got a boat to take us across . It started sprinkling on the ride over but it wasn't too bad. 

We explored the shopping areas and then a DOWNPOUR hit and we were soaked. We for some reason didn't bring any of our rain gear with us shopping so we had to buy some ponchos and then started shopping again. The streets became pretty flooded and hard to cross so we decided to eat and wait out the rain. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and a restaurant we found and then finished up our shopping and then we realized we had to find a taxi to get us back to the hotel. Problem was....it was dark and it had just flooded the streets and we had to go up dirt roads up a mountain to our hotel. We were scared that we wouldn't find someone willing and would have to get a hotel in town for the night. We asked a shop keeper if he had any ideas and he was so helpful and found us a guy, talked him down to a reasonable price and helped arrange this for us....and all we bought from him was two bracelets for $3 total. The people of Nepal were so generous, welcoming and warm and this was just another example of it. 

A long, fun and adventurous day and we slept very well that night!

Travel Day to Pokhara

Day two was a travel day into the mountain village of Pokhara. This is where a large amount of the tea house treks start off from and is a big trek/hiking stop. We had a mid morning flight with the hopes of getting to Pokhara early afternoon and having some time to explore. Well, as we learned....transportation in Nepal can be very hit or miss!

We headed to the domestic terminal at the airport which was an experience itself (we were not allowed to take pictures) and found the Buddha Air ticket office who confirmed that we had tickets and just needed to go into the main hall and wait. We went through security and waited in this large room with so many other nationals and tourists heading off to different parts of Nepal to trek. We waited and waited and finally our ticket counter opened up, it was all done by hand with paper so it took awhile and our bags were then loaded onto wagons and pulled away. We then went through another security gate and waited to board....and waited....and waited....and waited. Turns out that although we kept hearing other flights leaving for Pokhara, ours wasn't. What we determined is that Buddha Air does so many runs back and forth and they got delayed in the morning and never caught up so we waited close to four hours to finally leave!

We headed out to the tarmac on a bus and then boarded our really small airplane to Pokhara. At that point I got a little nervous about taking a domestic Nepal flight but said a prayer and remembered all the research I did on which airline had better safety ratings and off we went.

The views were beautiful! It was such a quick flight and I wish we could have just kept flying around to see the mountains.

We landed in a small airport, walked into a small room to collect our bags which essentially two guys behind a desk and them lifting each bag up one by one until someone claims one....very inefficient.

And we headed out to find our driver.....who was not there. We figured as much since we were four hours plus late but we had hoped someone would be there. No problem, we will find a taxi. Found one, asked several times if they knew our hotel, yes, no problem, are you sure, yes, no problem....well.....it was a problem because they had no idea where our hotel was! We drove around and around and around. Finally we stopped and begged to use a hotels internet and figured out where it was only to find out it was way up on top of a hill/mountain and now had to argue with the taxi driver to take us without charging us a whole lot more. We negotiated a price and off we went. We had no idea where we were going, and was going up this random hill with very rough and not safe looking roads and we had no idea if this was even the right way....not comforting. Finally we get to a parking lot and some guys are there to meet us and carry our bags to the hotel which is another five minute walk. We finally arrive and it is dark so we have no idea the view we would see in the morning. We decided to eat dinner by candle light and then talked to the hotel owner about arranging a trek for the next day and then headed to bed after a long travel day!