To Delivery - And Beyond!

Rawley enjoying his bouncer and fox towel after his second bath. 

So, this post has a few different functions. First, to inform everyone about how we (and Rawley) are doing and what's been going on. Second, to document what happened for me during labor for reference and so if I have daughters they'll have something to go off of (my mom has been out here for a week with us, and she's been super helpful but didn't remember too much about her births since they were a relatively long time ago.) Third, to put a bunch of cute pictures and videos of Rawley out there without flooding Facebook with them. Because of this I've separated the blog into two sections - Labor/Delivery and Rawley's First Week. If you want to read about all of it feel free, but I'm sure a lot of people are more concerned with Rawley than an in-detail account of what happened during delivery.

Labor/Delivery

Because literally everyone has some shots like this - these were taken on our anniversary, August 1st. I'm SO glad I'm no longer this big - shortly after these were taken I fell on some steps and broke both my sandals and cut up my foot badly/still have some bruising on my toes from it. My klutziness has decreased by a lot by this point.

It all started on Wednesday night, August 3rd at 11:00. Paul was already in bed, mostly asleep, and I slowly made my way into bed (everything was slow with an extra 40 pounds getting carried around.) I laid there for maybe 10 minutes, looking at Facebook and reading my scriptures on my phone. I suddenly started to feel a very weird pressure in my abdominal area for about 15 seconds, and then there was a large gush of liquid. I was quite positive I had not peed myself, and there was a large amount of fluid, so I jumped up out of the bed before there was a chance for the bed to get soaked and ran into the toilet. Sure enough, my water had definitely broken. I waited for about 5 minutes for it to run its course a bit, then went in and awakened Paul with, "Hey, my water just broke. We need to go to the hospital." There's few things that wakes a guy up quite like hearing those words, haha. We got together a few things to take to the hospital with us while I was still gushing out liquid occasionally, and Paul gave me a Priesthood blessing before we left. We got in the car and drove 5 minutes to the local hospital, which predictably is one of the top hospitals for baby delivery numbers in the world.

Right as we first got to the hospital, after my water had broken.

Once we got there, we quickly got signed in and were taken to the delivery room. I was put into a hospital gown, and a nurse hooked me up to some monitors designed to monitor Rawley's heartrate and my contractions (I don't really know how that works, but it was pretty cool - it did a great job of measuring them each time.) We then were faced with a dilemma. My water had indeed broken, but after several hours of sitting in the hospital it became fairly clear that my body just wasn't ready to go into real labor yet. The nurse checked if I was dilated yet (I was only slightly) and my contractions on the monitor were only very, very faint and not increasing. (For future reference - if your water breaks and labor hasn't started yet, don't let them check your cervix. That act alone can introduce bacteria that could cause an infection, so they pretty much have to induce you sooner rather than later after that happens to protect you and the baby. Without the check, they can wait a lot longer before induction to see if labor starts naturally.) We ended up waiting for 7 hours, hoping labor would start on its own, and I was so nervous/excited I barely slept at all during that time. 

The nurse eventually came with the news that she had called my OBGYN, who highly recommended I get induced to stave off infection. That's the unfortunate part of having your water break early - although that's always how they show it in movies, only about 10% of women even have their water break before labor starts, and it actually carries a higher chance of infection and complications. We decided at that point to start me on pitocin, which simulates contractions and labor. Sure enough, very soon after they started me on a low dose of it, the contractions began. Now, going into this process, I had the idea I'd like to avoid getting an epidural, and planned to just use the mild narcotics they can give through the IV. After about 5 hours of doing contractions on just a narcotic however, I had definitely reached my level of tolerance - the contractions were too strong and too frequent, giving me little time to recover or cope (something common with pitocin.) 

Here's a cute post second bath video to break up the labor story. The first bath was a screaming session, but the second went pretty well.

Paul was a champ throughout all of this - although he did get to sleep during the initial 7 hours before I was induced, he was giving me back massages for the pain, helping me get in better positions, and doing his best to help me not hyperventilate. The anesthesiologist who came to administer the epidural once I requested it got there just in the nick of time though - by that point, I was breathing rapidly and couldn't really feel my hands anymore. The epidural worked like a charm, though (and getting the needle stuck in wasn't bad at all) and the pain (and all feeling below my waist) quickly went away. That was super important, because I was actually able to sleep maybe 3 hours or so after that during the labor process. They would come back occasionally and wake up up to check how much I had dilated. There was fairly rapid progress from there. Paul had to keep helping me switch sides I was laying on throughout the following 7 or so hours, because the epidural will begin to settle on the one side you're laying on and the other will start to get feeling back again. It actually takes quite a bit of effort to flip someone on their side who can't more their legs, so I'm glad Paul's strong - the nurses helping weren't very good at it without his help, haha. 

A nurse eventually woke me up and said I was completely dilated to 10 cm, and it was time to start pushing. That was not my favorite news to hear, as I honestly wanted to sleep some more, but it did also meant he process was coming to a close. What we started doing was as my contractions came (I couldn't always feel them that well because of the epidural, but the nurse was able to watch and help me know when they were coming), and then the nurse and Paul each picked up one of my legs and pushed them up to create a better position for pushing. We did this for a maybe two hours, with honestly not that much effectiveness. The nurse was trying to be helpful in telling me how to push, but I think I just wasn't really getting it. The epidural allowed me to feel pressure, but not really specifically where I should be pushing. Then my OBGYN, Dr. Broadbent, came in, and a different nurse. The second nurse was very animated about helping me push, and Dr. Broadbent was helping try to pull Rawley out by this point, which was giving me a better idea of how I should be pushing. All in all, from that point on I made decent progress, but still not enough. I was so incredibly exhausted that although my pushes were more effective, I was too exhausted to do much more. Dr. Broadbent said (Paul tells me later) that at that point he was either going to have to use forecepts to get the baby out or it would be an emergency C-section. I really wanted to push Rawley out on my own though, so I told Dr. Broadbent I'd push a few more times and if not a lot of progress was made he could do the episiotomy (vaginal cut to make the opening wider) and use foreceps to pull Rawley out. That's what we ended up doing - and thankfully Dr. Broadbent did manage to get ahold of Rawley and pull him out with a pop that I definitely felt, and the kid shot out. He cried for maybe 20 seconds, but quickly quieted down once the nurses started cleaning him up.

Post delivery (obviously) - the exhaustion is palpable. 

Paul got to cut the umbilical cord, and at this point I was so exhausted that everything is kind of a blur. My legs were shaking pretty violently afterwards, and I was not feeling very good at all, predictably. They soon brought Rawley over to me though and I certainly felt a lot better - he is very adorable and there's something calming about having your baby in your arms after all that hard work, effort, and pain. Dr. Broadbent then pulled out the placenta - I didn't even push. There was a lot of blood, all over Dr. Broadbent and even on the floor - I've never seen so much blood in my life, that's for sure. Rawley sustained a bruise under his eye and on his head from the foreceps. I was just sitting there holding Rawley for a little while (during which Dr. Broadbent was stitching my episiotomy for like 15 minutes - felt like forever), but the nurses soon said they needed to get him down to the nursery for antibiotics since both he and I were running slight temperatures during and after delivery - a possible sign of infection. I didn't really want to give Rawley up but I was so tired by that point that I knew he needed to go and get the right medicine and I needed to rest. They took him away and I just closed my eyes as the nurse did some documentation for a while. Paul left to go talk to Becca, his sister, who had shown up part of the way through the delivery and wanted to see Rawley (she was able to through the nursery windows.)

In the nursery - you can see the bruise on his left cheek from the forceps. 

Business in the front, party in the back - our lil' dude's got a mullet.

Becca visiting us in the hospital. 

I was wheeled down to the recovery area shortly thereafter, and they gave me one of those awesome maternity diapers along with an ice pack in it. The nurse that was helping us then proceeded to explain the contents of a packet they were giving us, and I was so tired all I could do was just nod my head and pretend to be listening. She left and I was immediately fast asleep. The nurses would come in and check my vitals every now and then, and at one point I felt like I needed to pee so she helped me stand up to go to the bathroom - and there was suddenly blood all over the floor. She reassured me that happens all the time, but she was very kind and helped me to the toilet and then proceeded to clean up the floor and my legs and everything. I have never had experiences with nurses before - this is the first time I've been committed to a hospital since I was about 7, and that was just to get an IV for the flu - but they literally are heroes. They put up with a lot of nasty stuff like blood all over the floor and it takes a lot of compassion, understanding, and steel nerves to be doing what they do, I figure. I'm exceedingly grateful for all their help during our stay there. Anyway, after that incident the bleeding and other aches and pains slowly got better as I was able to sleep a LOT that first night. I also ate food for the first time that night after the 23 hours from the beginning of the whole process, and that food tasted SO good. Seriously. I've never been so hungry-tired in my whole life.

Although it's obviously best for newborns to be breastfed first thing, that wasn't really an option for us since I was so tired and Rawley needed his medicine, so for the first night he was fed by bottle by the nurses in the nursery. I woke up Friday with some pain, but they gave me medicines for it and I was still on an IV with various drugs and antibiotics to try and stave off infection (as was Rawley.) I attempted a few times to breastfeed him, without success. He was generally very sweet in the hospital and didn't cry too much that first day. We also discovered the deliciousness that was the hospital food - I know people make fun of it normally, but man, with salmon and steak and many tasty things - we were very impressed. We took that day to sleep, bond with Rawley, and recover. The nurses also had to put a catheter in because I wasn't able to urinate - something they don't tell you about birth. Apparently the trauma to that area can be bad enough that you might not be able to pee for a while afterwards, or defecate for quite a number of days. The things you learn.

Saturday I really wanted to breastfeed Rawley, and a lactation consultant came in and talked our ear off without really being all that helpful. I kept telling Paul that I felt like I wasn't feeding Rawley enough with the pre-milk I was producing, but the consultant told us it was fine. Soon, though, it became clear that day that Rawley was pretty upset and every time I tried nursing him he got even more upset - which made me really upset because he was obviously very angry and we couldn't figure out how to help him without giving him a bottle, which we did eventually do. There were many tears as my emotional and physical state just wasn't quite ready for that type of seeming rejection. Eventually we asked a nurse to bring in a breast pump, however, and it soon became clear that I really was hardly producing any pre-milk at all, meaning that poor Rawley was getting half starved because the lactation consultant told us to just keep trying and it "would be enough." I felt super bad because we made our baby so hungry that day, but at least at this point he's nursing pretty well although we're still supplementing just a little bit with formula sometimes. I'm pretty glad we got that all figured out though!

Another cute fox baby video.

We drove home with Rawley Saturday night at 9:00. It was very fun for all three of us to get in the car together and drive off - a real little family for the first time. Thankfully my mom was also there that first night to help us, as I could still hardly walk at all (my tailbone must have been bruised during delivery - a level of pain I wasn't expecting, and has continued for a week but is mostly gone now) so she would bring him in from the crib in the living room where she was sleeping to me so I could nurse and feed him when he cried. 

My mom with Rawley on his first night home from the hospital.

I think that's about it as far as the labor and delivery experience. I will say that women who claim that labor and delivery are completely beautiful, natural, and amazing experiences are at least in part lying to themselves in my opinion. Rawley is the beautiful, amazing result of something that is actually pretty awful, and was actually designed to be:

Genesis 3:16 - "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children..."

Granted, the epidural made everything at least tolerable, and my contractions were probably worse because of the pitocin, but I'm pretty sure that labor is not supposed to be an "enjoyable" experience. If some women can somehow twist it to be so in their minds, that's cool, but I will never be one to claim that labor is something awesome - the whole experience was overall the most painful and difficult thing I've ever done physically and possibly mentally, but with Rawley here it was indeed worth it.

I mean, just look at this lil' chub. Our 8 and 3/4 pounds and 22 inches long baby.

Just our hungry little caterpillar. Big thanks to my Aunt Skye for making this for us and sending the book along too!

Rawley's First Week

Oh, the drama!

We sure do love Rawley, also known as Little Paul! This first week has been made a lot easier by my mom being here to help out, but it's taken a lot of adjusting to wake up every 3 to 4 hours (which is good for a newborn) to take care of him. Paul's been as helpful as he could with the nighttime waking up, but since he's working he needs the sleep a bit more than I do. I'm still working on my internship stuff, but that's finished more or less tomorrow so that will be nice. Paul's been very helpful this weekend though, especially when I feed Rawley for 45 minutes at 3 am and then he spits up everything I just fed him and is hungry again - Paul helped out with that situation and a few others like it. 

Enjoying his camo American pillow - we always feed him on this. It's Paul's pillow he's had for ages. He's really just a baby burrito when we put him in his swaddle cloth.

Rawley's got the hiccups - he gets them pretty much 5 times a day.

Rawley's been making rapid progress, as far as the word can apply to a week old baby. Initially he rarely opened his eyes, but he opens them relatively frequently now and looks around, often at our faces although I don't think he's focusing on them all that well. He also lifts his head up from our shoulders quite often when we're burping him and is pretty active in kicking and waving his arms around (although he has pretty much no coordination yet.) He only smiles a little in his sleep, and doesn't really make too many noises at this point beyond crying.

The first one is his "I'm really trying hard to poop" face. The second is his "I'm actually a mini Buddha" face.

I think Rawley definitely takes after Paul's side of the family in his looks - when I first met Paul and Becca at pioneer trek many years ago, I thought they were half Chinese because of their dark hair and somewhat Asian looking eyes. Rawley's got those same eyes, but I think he might have a slightly more Larsen mouth. But let's be real, it's hard to tell when he's so young. Looks like he might have kind of bluish green eyes so far, which of course will likely change as time goes on. Rawley also was born with a mullet - a lot more hair in the back than on the top and sides, and he seems to have a slight wave to his hair so far. 

This is his favorite position when it's Paul's turn to burp him.

Rawley's a pretty chill baby. He sleeps for 3 to 4 hours at a time, and lets us know with some crying when he's awake. After feeding him, burping him, and changing his diaper, he is generally pretty happy and just goes back to sleep or hangs out with his eyes open during the day, looking around at everything. 

He hiccups quite often after feeding, which he was doing all the time while in the womb. I think he inherited that from me, since I get hiccups all the time, but he gets his strong sneezes from Paul. If that sort of thing is inherited, which it probably isn't. 

Dreaming with his eyes kind of open.

Another picture with mom and one of him rolling around in his bassinet which we got for $15 on a Facebook yardsale page - it's been good to have him in our room sometimes during this early time period.

For those who have been asking/wondering, we also do have a baby registry, although we have most of the stuff we actually need at this point. It's mostly clothes and a few odds and ends we realized we needed or wanted now that he's actually here. Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/registry/baby/395LUZQ6AOJ21

To quote Paul, "He's a pretty cool baby." There's ups and downs with early parenting, but we are learning and growing as well. As Paul says, these days are teaching us a lot of patience, charity, and love both for Rawley and for each other. We're so glad for all the family support and love for this lil' guy as well. It's going to be so much fun for our friends and family to meet him - either this summer or at Christmas when we go back to Virginia!

The Waiting Game

With our due date on August 8th, we're really just playing the waiting game at this point. I've been having small contractions and such, which are good signs my body's getting ready for the big day, whenever that may be. I personally won't be surprised if Raleigh (pronounced like Sir Walter Raleigh - yeah, for now, that's the official nickname, based of off his middle name "Herald" sort of - at least the first three letters kind of match!) It's pretty crazy because there are several girls in the ward with due dates very close to mine, and they've already had their babies by this point. Raleigh's taking his time though, but my OBGYN said that he's welcome to come at any time now since at this point he's completely developed.

Sir Walter Raleigh - English poet and explorer, among other things. We just liked the name - but maybe we should just upgrade it to Sir Paul Herald Risk IV?

I've been feeling pretty much like a whale lately, since in total I've gained probably about 40 pounds with this pregnancy (I have a feeling he's probably gonna be bigger than a 6 pound baby.) It's very difficult and takes me about 30 seconds just to try and roll over in bed now. When things drop on the floor, I generally think of it as gone forever - it's rarely worth it to try and pick it up again. The other week I was in the grocery store with my hands full of stuff, trying to fine Paul and the cart, when I dropped something. A nearby lady stopped with her cart and offered to pick it up for me - I assured her I could do it - and did, taking my sweet, sweet time to do it from a very strange angle. Random strangers also ask me when I'm due all the time, and I think our ward at church is hedging bets as to whether we'll be in church this upcoming Sunday or at the hospital.

People keep asking us if we're ready for this lil' guy to come. There's really not too much of a good answer for that - we realize this will definitely be changing our lives drastically, but we're excited and have all the basics at least. One thing I will say is that we have a decent amount of clothes for him at this point, but since they were all free (and we're grateful for that!) I haven't gotten to pick out very many that I really specifically like - and he doesn't really have Sunday clothes, which are in my opinion the cutest thing for little boys (otherwise seems like boys clothes are pretty boring.) I'm sure at some second hand shop we'll be able to find him a cute baby suit and suspenders or whatever other hip stuff they have available for little boys these days.

I'm sure someone will have a perfect suit in Raleigh's size.

Paul got some cavities filled this past week, which was not his favorite (I am still very happy that I've never had a cavity except for one in a baby tooth, and therefore I've never gone through that ordeal.) He's had at least one of the cavities for a long time though, so we're pretty glad to have that taken care of. We also got a used window unit air conditioner a couple weeks ago, which has literally saved my life - it's been in the 90's for most days lately, and even though the unit is really only enough to cool off our bedroom, that's all it really needs to do. Super props to Paul (and our home teachers) for being willing to install it. I need to give credit where credit is due - Paul has been stupendously helpful all throughout this pregnancy, and has helped make everything go as smoothly as possible. It's extremely, extremely nice to have his support and help all the time. Seriously, don't know what I'd do without him (I also wouldn't be pregnant without him, but since he's pulling his "weight" in the relationship although mine's more literal it only serves to bring us closer together, haha.) Despite the fact that I haven't been wearing my wedding ring for about a month and a half now because of swollen pregnancy fingers, I'm exceedingly grateful for him (sorry for the sappiness) and I'm so excited to see him be the great dad I know he will be.

Paul and I went up the canyon to Provo river last week because I start going stir crazy if I've been in the apartment for too long without doing something fun. We dipped our feet in the freezing cold water and were just sitting by the bank when we saw a small critter across the way, swimming around in the water. He eventually made his way over to where we were sitting, and came very close to where we were sitting - we could see his cute little face that looked just like a ferret. He hung out around us for about a half hour, getting really quite close. We just watched people on tubes ride by, and I lamented that tubing would be pretty impossible for me at this point since there's no way I'd be able to hoist myself back up onto one if I fell off. After some research, we're pretty sure it was a mink that we saw. I don't know why anyone would want a mink coat when live minks are so adorable.

You can kind of see the mink's head peeking up from the water underneath the bridge.

This is pretty much exactly what he looked like. I couldn't even handle how cute he was.

Can't even deal.

Anyway, things are going great, and hopefully by the time I next write a blog post it will be all about Raleigh and our adventures with him. I'm still doing homemaking interviews and reading various books for my internship, and Paul's still working for BYU IT, which has been going well. Here's a picture of a rainbow we saw from our apartment one day. Looking forward to great things to come!

New Car, a Big Baby, Pokemon GO! and a Firework Fire

For starters, we went to visit the OBGYN a couple weeks ago for a 3rd trimester ultrasound. Everything looked great, and it appears that "Lil' Paul" as we occasionally call him may not actually be so little. He's measuring about 3 weeks ahead of where his due date anticipated he should be, which doesn't surprise me since very large heads as babies runs in my family and Paul was a 9-something pound baby when he was born. According to the pregnancy app I have on my phone, Lil' Paul is about between 17 and 19 inches at this point, and might weight between 4 and 6 pounds (most likely the 6 in his case.) He's gaining a half pound a week and I'm gaining a half pound in amniotic fluid and placenta mass etc., so thing are going at quite a clip at this point (and I'm sure feeling it!)

We got to *sort of* see Lil' Paul's face on the ultrasound, and he sure looks cute to me! Just a little over a month before we get to meet him, instead of just get kicked in the ribs by him. You can see we're still at somewhat of a loss for what to call him, since the nickname changes pretty much every blog post. Still open to suggestions!

We had a lot of fun a week ago with Paul's sister Becca (who lives out here now and it's great to have her here) when we went to a place called "The Puppy Barn" in American Fork. It's essentially a store where they get rotations of puppies from breeders all around the area, and have them there for people to hold, cuddle, and buy. It was so much fun to hold the lil' guys! We had a few favorites while we were there for sure. As a friend of ours who recently went there said, "Don't take in your wallet - or you'll definitely leave with a puppy." Good thing we didn't, cuz our car broke down shortly thereafter and we needed all our cash!

At the puppy barn - this was one of my favorites. He was some sort of Yorkshire Terrier mix (as a teenager I had a yorkie and he was the best.) I really like terriers a lot.

Paul interacting with some puppies - they kept them in these large open containers so people could just reach down and hold them.

This was my absolute favorite one. He's a border collie/Australian heeler mix, and was absolutely precious. Very cuddly and kept licking me the whole time. Also one of the cheaper ones at $350 instead of the running rate of $1,000 something for a lot of the other breeds there.

Becca and me with some English springers (I think that's what they were.)

Paul with my favorite one. Soon that's gonna be a baby he'll be holding :)

Paul really liked the German Shepherd ones. I like German Shepherds, but we'll probably stick with "smaller" dogs while we still have young kids around just to be safe - not too small though. Corgis are kind of our current dream breed to start of with.

This lil guy was some sort of Maltese or something and was determined to eat my hair. I think small dogs are cute but it can be hard to find "smart" ones with real personalities sometimes.

I'm really not too hard to please - when it comes to hanging out with puppies or dogs or cats or kittens, that will definitely make my day. We had a lot of fun.

The two cars side-by-side, our old Toyota Corolla that bit the dust and our new Toyota Matrix.

And now I will tell the saga of our first time car shopping. This has a happy ending, but was quite the process. For starters, we had issues with the Corolla beginning a few weeks ago when it began overheating out of the blue (we've never had an issue with this car) and when Paul checked on the fluids, sure enough, the oil and coolant were both completely dry. 

Normally the car did burn oil quickly, but not THAT quickly, and when we took it in to the mechanic it turned out it had a blown head gasket and even if we had replaced the radiator, the engine would have killed it very quickly. The mechanic we went to (who is very nice and we trust them a lot - Master Muffler and Break in Provo) told us he was sorry for the bad news since we obviously have a baby on the way, but that it would likely be best to just get a new car since replacing the engine and radiator would cost as much or more than the car's even worth.

So, we thought about our options. We could wait for a while and just try to make it without a car for a while and really search the market thoroughly for several months, but as we searched for several days we realized a few things about the car market around the area (and my desire to have a car ASAP went way up because the whole week it's been in the 90's and the prospect of walking around in that pregnant was NOT appealing.)

First, we definitely wanted another Toyota or possibly a Honda car, because those ones have the best rep for running the longest and performing the best. We eventually narrowed it down to either a Corolla (safe choice) or Matrix. We liked the hatchback design a lot (and it was comparable in price to similar Corollas) and decided to go take a look at a few Matrixes (Matrices? hahaha) around at various dealers.

Our car search began on city buses in the 90+ degree heat, getting shuttled to various dealerships.The first one we went to had a bright yellow Matrix. The color was a bit of a turn-off for us, and as we drove it around we noticed it had a few mechanical issues like the RPM's dropping below where they should have been. We drove back to the place and put it on a "possibility" list, but we weren't sold on it.

One other dealership we went to was suggested to us by a friend and turned out to be a massive Toyota dealership with a ton of mostly new cars and just some used ones. We met up with the car salesman who our friend suggested, and he started talking with us about what we were interested in. We told him we couldn't afford a car any newer than a 2009 most likely and that we had a small budget to work with. He then proceeded to look on his computer for 20 minutes or so and kept asking us, "Do you want a new car? Are you sure you don't want a new car?" and we very strongly asserted that we did not, in fact, want a new car. After a long time he showed us a 2007 Carolla, and we got in and were driving it around the lot and were relatively impressed. It had good A.C. and seemed to be driving well, etc. 

As we drove it back up to the main lot, however, we suddenly noticed a very foul burning smell coming from the car. We rolled down the window and Becca, who was standing outside, said she could smell it as well. We asked the salesman about it and he said he didn't know what it was and that they'd get it looked into. After stepping outside of the car, the car salesman said to us, "Well, you let me know if you're interested, but you might want to act soon because this one might get sold fast!" Paul and I kind of looked at each other and laughed because the notion of that car, with its burning engine, selling really fast and decided to go back to looking at Matrixes.

We were then bussed over to another place with a grey Matrix. After driving it for a bit and decided we liked it better than the yellow one, and it was at a better price. This place also had a 4.9 rating on Facebook, meaning it was almost perfect. We were both a little dubious about that. The next day we decided to go to one more place with a different grey Matrix and see if we liked it better. Becca kindly gave us a ride and we proceeded to drive that one around. It had higher mileage, but ran a lot smoother and didn't have any of the problems the other two seemed to have. We were pretty sold on it. 

We took both the grey Matrixes in to our favorite mechanic and he told us the one we really liked seemed to be a pretty good bet. Although its miles were kind of high, there weren't any mechanical problems with it and it seemed to check out pretty well. We then took in the second Matrix from a dealership down the street, and afterwards the mechanic came and told us it was definitely a "lemon." He said he doesn't trust the dealership down the street the car came from and said they do sketchy things just to get cars to pass inspection. We took the car back to the dealership and said it was a no go, and then we discovered that dealership's owner and the mechanic seemed to have some sort of beef with each other. We definitely trusted the mechanic more, however, because we'd taken our car to him multiple times and he and his team had always given us honest assessments of what we should do, often for free. Plus, their agenda wasn't to sell us a car.

Paul enjoying the folding down seat feature in our Matrix. There have definitely been enough times we needed that option in the Corolla and didn't have it that we're quite pleased.

After some more deliberation, we decided on the first Matrix that checked out well with the mechanic. We wanted to get a car loan to try and improve our credit (looking to the future for buying a house, etc.) and the dealership recommended a place nearby to us that had good reviews. We ended up buying the car outright for $5,000, and after having it for a few weeks we're pretty pleased. we like the body of the car better than the Corolla (especially for the trunk space) and it's really nice to have a slightly newer car that doesn't feel like it's about to rattle to pieces when it goes over 50 mph. We're very grateful to have a good car!

It even has a red stripe down the side, but you can't really see it here.

Independence Day was fun for us this year, especially because we thought we had missed out since they set off fireworks on the Saturday before the 4th in Provo and apparently that's really all Provo does, but we missed them because you have to pay for a concert to really see them and I was indoors sick (been sick for over 2 weeks now with a fever initially and now very intense coughing - trust me, I'm super over it) so we thought we had missed out on fireworks this year. After a little bit more research, however, we discovered that Thanksgiving Point would be doing some. We asked Brooke (my sister) and Becca if they'd like to go with us. When we got there, we wandered around for a bit and set up our spot we'd watch the fireworks from. They had a big festival set up, and several nice gardens free to the public (if we were rich enough I'd love to have a pass to go walk around in their paid gardens more, but it's expensive so we don't) which was enjoyable.

In some pretty gardens at Thanksgiving Point. The place was obviously set up for weddings.

They had some very weird, floofy pink, cotton-candy-like flowers there on a tree.

Becca with some goats they had barely within reach at a "farm" exhibit at Thanksgiving Point.

Baby goats are so fun!

As darkness set in we decided to head back to our blanket and chair set-up to get ready to watch the fireworks. Paul and I were pretty surprised, but we ended up having a pretty impressive pre-show to the Thanksgiving Point fireworks because multiple people/venues/businesses were setting off impressive aerial fireworks as soon as dusk fell. We could even see them up on the mountainside which was entertaining while we waited. 

Watchin' fireworks.

Once the actual Thanksgiving Point show started, it lasted for about 45 minutes with some very large and impressive fireworks. They had a very large area roped off as a "fallout zone" for falling ash. As the show continued, we quickly saw why, because some of the fireworks were very large and a lot of still-glowing embers falling in the area. There were a couple of shed-like buildings in the fall-out zone, and sure enough, one caught fire and went up very quickly. That was almost as exciting as the fireworks honestly, since it was very thoroughly burnt by the time a small firetruck actually got there.

That orange glowing mass was the building up in flames. It was about a quarter mile away from us, and was actually pretty big.

Another big thing that's happened lately is the release of "Pokemon GO," a cell phone application that allows users to run around catching "Pokemon" in the real world. We've been having a lot of fun with it, running around to different places (think of geocaching - it follows kind of similar principles) and catching Pokemon. There are certain areas that have extra bonuses/you can potentially catch more Pokemon, including the downtown Provo library. We saw a ton of people all gathered there and knew that they were all catching Pokemon, so we went over and joined in. We saw a few friends there and sat with them for a while, catching Pokemon on our phones. It's been fun to look around campus and see people walking around, staring at their phones which definitely means they're playing Pokemon. It's certainly getting all the nerds to get out and go walking, which is a rare thing!

A ton of fellow nerds catching Pokemon on their phones at the downtown Provo library. We had fun there, and the crowd got even bigger after we were there for about an hour.

Becca was a good sport and walked around with us for a bit while we caught Pokemon. This is kind of what the app does - superimposes Pokemon in various locations over your phone's real-world camera. Becca's Pidgey impression is spot-on.

Other than that, at this point it feels like Lil' Paul or Pablito or Rolly has dropped into the birth canal, so it's really starting to feel close now! We're packing a hospital bag and getting ready for his arrival. Things are certainly getting real now!

As a final cute thought, here's my nephew Elliot peeking out from behind a chair.