Oma-To-Be Visit at 34 Weeks

Yogurl's Mom came to visit us this week. She said she wanted to come get used to our place before she comes to help out when the baby is born, but I think she just missed the beach. Anyway, it has been fun having her here. We went out to eat in honor of her birthday (The big 29 already). It just so happened that our waiter was our friend who used to live in our apartment complex. When he found out it was Momma's birthday he hooked us up with a free birthday dessert. It was lava cake with ice cream and cream puffs on top covered with caramel and chocolate sauce. Yowzers. As for Yogurl and me, we are doing great. Now that Yogurl is getting more pregnant, as you can see, her feet are starting to pay the price. She tries to keep them elevated and look for inventive ways to keep ice packs on them. She's a tough girl though, so she'll be just fine. The frequent foot massages don't hurt either.

Baby Shower

This week Yogurl had her second baby shower. This one was hosted by her coworkers, who were super excited about somebody in their office having a baby (They are almost all females in her office, but nobody has had a baby for years and years). It was a lot of fun! They thought up all sorts of games. Yogurl won the baby name game, where you had to match up what baby animals are called to their adult name--a baby dinosaur is a juvenile, by the way. There was also a game where we had to blow up balloons and stuff them under our shirts and then pop them once the whole team was done blowing them up. They also had El Pollo Loco, which was very yummy. We got lots of gifts, which I was very excited about, as you can see. The most amazing thing, though, was that they bought us a travel system! Isn't that awesome! We sure are glad that Yogurl has such generous coworkers. How cool!

Aloha!

Well as you may know, we just went to Hawaii for the first time! It was really exciting. I was sent TAD for 6 days (4 working days plus a travel day on either end) to be the Marine Corps Installations West Colors bearer. Since I was going to Hawaii for free and since we have a baby on the way, we decided, with some prodding from my OIC, that there was no better time to take a trip together to Hawaii. Despite all the forces acting against us--buy me a drink and I'll tell you all about it sometime--we had a great time!
We went to a few different beaches while we were there. We were staying a few blocks from Waikiki beach, which is next to Honolulu. We didn't like it too much, because it was crowded and had reef chunks all over the place and was very shallow quite a ways out, so it was hard to enjoy without a board. We also went to Waimea on the north shore. That is where the huge waves come in, but not this time of year. It was cool swimming there because the swell of the water would shove you way up on the beach and then yank you right back out, but it never broke so you never got tumbled or pushed under. Our favorite beach, though, was Lanikai. It was so gorgeous. The water was perfect and the sand was like baby powder.
We also hiked up Diamond Head crater which had an amazing view from the top. It was used as a fire control station by the military because the view was so good. They recommend at least and hour and a half to make the hike, but Yogurl did it in an hour even though she is 33 weeks pregnant. What a superstar! Some of the staircases there were really steep too!
One day we went to Chinatown, which wasn't that exciting, but we did find some delicious foods and saw a dead pig just sitting on a cart outside a store with flies buzzing around it. Yummm! My favorite part was going to the Polynesian Cultural Center, which employs BYU Hawaii students and is right next to the campus and the Hawaii temple. The shows were incredible, and the food at the luau was delicious. We also got to take tour of the Honolulu temple grounds from the PCC, which was really nice.

Swollen Feet at 33 Weeks

As much as Yogurl enjoyed Hawaii, all the travel, heat, humidity and walking around put a lot of strain on her poor feetsies. She is still so adorable though!

Post and Relief

Like I said, I was in Hawaii for the Post and Relief of the Sgt Major of Marine Forces Pacific. MARFORPAC is headquartered in Camp Smith, but they decided to do the ceremony in Kaneohe Bay because the view behind the flightline is so amazing. It was really hot, so the guy next to me nearly passed out. I was ready to reach out and catch his colors in case he fell. It was also really windy, so holding the colors got to be quite difficult at times. When we did the pass in review at the end, the Marine Forces Japan colors to my right got whipped up into my face and pushed my cover back on my head. Fortunately color guard members wear a chin strap so it didn't get knocked off, but it looked really goofy for the pass in review. Oh well. I'm the tall guy in the middle of the back row of colors by the way. Yogurl had never been to a ceremony like this before, so she really enjoyed it. She was especially impressed with the howitzers being fired off for the Commanding General. Since they were pointed across the bay at the nearby city, I really hope they weren't firing live rounds.

A New Niece

Last Sunday we went up to Lancaster for the blessing of our newest little niece. She is so adorable! She is an all-natural baby, too. We were going to go up for the whole weekend, but Yogurl was feeling really under the weather, so we ended up just driving up early in the morning Sunday, going to church, playing some Boggle and coming home that evening.

Locks of Love

So after years of hearing about other people donate their hair and having my father ask if I was going to donate my own, I finally did it. Today I went to the salon and had 10+ inches cut off to donate to Locks of Love. It was actually quite a liberating experience, freedom from all those long inches of hair. This means that the summer won't be quite as hot, I'll take less time showering, and that diaper changes in the future will be easier, no pulling my hair back first. Plus, I think trusting my stylist and knowing what I wanted helped a ton. So here are some photos for your enjoyment. Yogurl before (also my 32 week pregnancy photo).
Yogurl's donated locks (That's a lot of hair). Yogurl's new do (Short and sassy). Hooray!