It's a Boy!

It's true- and I must admit I was completely surprised (and pleased, too!).

The perinatologists checked everything out, and said that our baby looks healthy and great! There was no question as to the gender... definitely a boy. Good thing we had a boy's name picked out! It was kind of a funny transition for us to start calling "it" a "he", and then realizing we could call "he" by an actual name- Gabriel Benjamin Taylor. Yay!!!

Ultrasound pics

It was exciting for us to have somewhat of a picture to match with this little person we have been been thinking about so much. I have been thinking and dreaming about little babies for a couple of months now, so it was cool to finally know that it is a boy, and see him a little! I think for BJ, seeing the ultrasound was the first time it has really hit him that there is another person coming into our family. Maybe he can blog or comment about what his thoughts were after we found out. It is wild for both of us to think about!!!

I had another question answered that I had been somewhat worried about... I haven't really felt the baby moving much, but they could tell by the ultrasound today that the placenta is on the front of my uterus, so the baby's movements are pretty well cushioned by it. They said it might even be a bit longer before I can feel much movement, and definitely before anyone could feel anything from the outside of my belly. But it will come soon enough!!!

Anyway, that's the news for now. I will post other pictures soon.

It's a Boy!

Well, Rochelle has given me the floor, and I am to spill my thoughts all over it. Today has been one of those days that leaves you a little dazed and confused. As I took Rochelle to the hospital for the ultra sound, I felt like either way, boy or girl, I'd be happy and that would be that. I wasn't expecting to feel a whole lot of emotion, or to really think much about it beyond being able to call 'it' a 'he' or a 'she'. I had seen ultra sounds before. I already knew we were going to have a baby. I was excited to find out the gender, but hadn't put much more thought into it. But as we watched the images on the screen, and began to put a little bit more of an identity onto the baby, I felt overwhelmed with feelings and thoughts that I can scarcely identify. How do I explain my feelings? What do I tell people as I call them? About all I was able to say was: "We found out we are having a boy and we are excited about it." Today, excited was an understatement. But it left me speechless. Honestly, I really don't know what my feelings even are except that they are good ones. And my thoughts have little more clarity. About all I can say is that I felt an out pouring of love, joy, and happiness, for the baby, for Rochelle, for my parents, and everyone close to me. Feelings of gratitude for all of our blessings welled up in me. And all I could figure out to say was "we are excited". Well, excited we are. Feeling very blessed, we are. Trying to imagine what it will be like to hold that little boy in our arms. Trying to imagine what it will feel like to meet him for the first time. And then... trying to focus on work, and trying to be productive. Can I just say that today was not the best day at work for me? When I spoke to Rhonda today, she gave me some sage advice. I wish I could quote her, but as best as I can remember she said something like the following: "Kids bring you the greatest joys in life as well as the greatest heart aches." This is something that I have always known, but hearing it today after feeling the swelling of emotions that I had gave this concept new meanings to me. And honestly, I know I'm in for a roller coaster, but I'll do my best with the bitter, as long as I can enjoy the sweet. The bitter may be tough, but I truly believe that the sweet will out last it. And come what may, I am willing to give it my best.

Do you dig it?

Maybe this will be one of those blogs that carries absolutely no interest to you. I imagine many of you may feel that way. But I just wanted to say that I found a cool little program that I like, and that I think you might like too (if you are a nerd like me... what was your nerd score?). The program I have found does something very useful for me... it allows me to use one program to sign in to many chat clients, and email clients. Now, honestly, I only use a couple of chat clients in the first place on a regular basis, but at least I don't have to look at adds from Microsoft and Yahoo every time I log in now. Google, thankfully, has never put ads in their chat client. I digress... so maybe it isn't the end-all app for all of you, but you may like it all the same, even if you only use one chat client. Some of you probably will say that you don't use any chat client. To you, I say "Good for you." I don't suggest you install digsby. ;-) But if you do decide to install it, it is in "private beta" right now, meaning that you can't install it unless you have a special code from them to install with. But they seem to be pretty easy to come by. I've seen two codes online, blueball and cnet. You can use them to download and install the program if you so desire.

Oh, and I think the program looks pretty cool too, minus their weird icon, but I'll forgive them for that.

End of nerdy news for today.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I love you all, and hope you all have a wonderful day! I hope we can always focus on the love that our families share, and remember the many blessings that we have been given. Rochelle and I were thinking about our past recently, and thinking how incredibly blessed we are. She has started to keep a "blessings book" where she writes where she sees the hand of the Lord in her life. It's a good idea, and something that I feel like I should start doing as well. The amazing thing is that it never fails... come good times or bad, we can always see the hand of the Lord in our lives. It fills us with love for Him, and for each other, and we hope we can share that love with everyone around us.

BJ's Running...

Hey all,

While I am just getting started (started 2 weeks ago), I am going to be running in a half-marathon in March, and so I have been training for that. Today I am going to try to run 6 miles. My goal is to come back alive. The furthest I have run in recent months is 4 miles, and that wasn't easy. But due to weak knees I haven't been able to accomplish anything more than 3 miles recently. So, I'm going to show you what my training schedule is going to be, and I'm going to show you what I have done. I expect to hear oohs and aahs when you look at the schedule, and lots of sniggers when you look at what I have done. Oh well. They are goals, and goals are meant to be lofty. And I'll do my best to complete them. Because one way or another, I am going to be in that race, and if I don't want to walk the entire distance, I need to prepare myself.

So, here are my goals:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p2OyjzGNLCQev5zT7-sRaVQ

And here are my actual runs:
http://www.mapmyrun.com/user_training?username=beeg_98

I wish I could put all of that on one website, but as of yet, there doesn't seem to be a way to do so. I think they are working on it though. Speaking of running... it's time for me to go.

BJ

Where has the time gone?!

It has been "my turn" to blog for over a month, so in order to stop that from hanging over my head, I will finally blog! Why the reluctance? I don't know. Maybe because there is so much that has happened that it is a little overwhelming to try to go back and remember it all! Unfortunately, this also becomes my dilemma with normal journaling. I have good intentions for so long, until one day I realize that sitting down to journal everything that has happened since the last time I wrote is going to be a gigantically HUGE process, and then I continue to put it off. So, rather than try to chronicle everything in detail, I will just list off some of the things we have been up to (not necessarily in perfect order).

I finished finals, which went relatively well.

BJ signed up to run a half marathon in Moab (the same one I ran last year) in March. He convinced my dad and brothers Tayler and Collin to come and run it as well.

We went to BJ’s company Christmas party.

We celebrated some birthdays in the days before and after Christmas – niece Mandy, sister Marissa, nephew Braden.

We flew to Oregon to spend Christmas with my family, which we enjoyed greatly (The Arave Sing-Along, Christmas Eve and Day traditions, movies, shopping, lots of relaxation).

My family got a family picture taken- by BJ! He did a great job.

I got a few maternity clothes- a first!

We came back to Utah on New Years Eve & celebrated with BJ’s family.

BJ went back to work. :(

We went to my 12- week prenatal appointment and heard the baby’s heartbeat! (Wahoo! What a sweet sound!)

I took up learning how to crochet….? (BJ secretly wants to too.)

Our friend Dhananjay from India went back home.

I have worked a little more on the research project I am helping a professor with to prepare it for publication.

I started my first day of my last semester of college!

I met with the nurse manager at the hospital I am doing my capstone at, was assigned to a nurse preceptor (who I will work solely with for the rest of the semester) and I start my first capstone shift on Friday!

That 12 hour shift is the beginning of 252 hours I have to spend in clinical this semester! Wow! More hours required than any other nursing school around here! Hopefully that will reflect well in our marketability after we graduate!

I am in a very awkward stage where not many of my clothes fit well, but I am not big enough for most maternity clothes yet. This means that I often wear sweats, scrubs, T-shirts, and other comfy but un-flattering clothes. Oh well, it’s all part of the experience!

I am about 15 weeks along. Luckily, the nausea (and to some degree the fatigue as well) is beginning to taper off somewhat.

BJ is working hard at his office on a project that will bring his company a lot of revenue (he came up with the idea and everyone liked it, so now he is working on implementing it. Good job, honey!).

BJ has been following a running schedule to get ready for the half marathon. Last night he even ran outside (brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!) in the dark to get his miles in! (If you know BJ, it is so not like him to choose to run in the cold! He usually likes to run indoors when it is this cold outside. He is working hard to be ready, despite a sore knee.)

I think that is mostly what we've been up to lately. We will try to do better about posting in a more timely manner!

Mitt Romney and his Faith Speech

First of all, if you haven't heard his speech, you can hear it here:
http://podcast.1010wins.com/wins/788372.mp3
or read it here:
http://www.mittromney.com/News/Speeches/Faith_In_America

I think he gave a good speech, but I am concerned that he may have needed to say more. But then again, I don't know what he could have said. What people say their concerns are with him being a Mormon and what their actual concerns are, are probably not the same. I have read articles with various outspoken people stating that if Romney can believe in Mormonism, then he isn't very bright. I don't know what would bring anyone to say that. Doesn't any religion require an element of "faith" in things that you can't prove, but can accept and believe? Yet saying that someone isn't bright because of their chosen faith makes it sound like religion is purely a logical choice. So, I don't think I can take the hecklers at face value. There is a pure and simple prejudice there. (I'm hearing a big 'well... duh' in my head as I write this.) So what could somebody say to put that behind them?

Years ago, JFK wrote and gave a somewhat similar speech because he was then running for President, and was a Catholic. At that time, no Catholic had ever been elected. I believe his speech was ingenious. He called a spade a spade. You can read it here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16920600
What he did, that was brilliant to me, was that he made out any American who voted against him because of his religion as an anti-American. In other words, he made people feel guilty about their concerns. And if they heard his speech and listened to it, it wouldn't surprise me if they had come away from that deciding that they should vote for him just to prove him wrong about their anti-Catholic sentiments.

Romney echoed some of those same ideas, but it didn't come off the same way. He made it clear that religion is important, but that the details of the candidate's beliefs are not. With most of the Republican candidates touting to be religious and one of them a former minister, what he said did not make Romney stand out at all. It allowed him to blend into the background with all the others. I don't think the speech will score him many points, although I thought it was a good speech, and enjoyed it.

I don't know what I would have done if I were in his shoes. I can think of only two things. Do what JFK did, or get up there and really defend your faith. I think he may have done better if he gave the reasons why he believes in Mormonism. Show people what you are all about, and then tell them that faith is important in the Presidency and that he would rely on it to know how to handle the day to day situations that he would face. But that's probably why he is running for president and not me. But still... he did take the safe road. But will the safe road get him the presidency? Some how, I don't think so. I think he needs to do more than that. But I am probably not the person to say what.

The Golden Compass

First of all, I know my family most likely already knows about this, but there are other readers here that may not know about this. The Golden Compass in my opinion is not worthy of our money. For reasons why, you may read this website, and you can see for yourself what I'm talking about: http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp

Snopes.com is not really anything but a rumor validator. When somebody rails on a movie and the email gets passed around (for example), eventually somebody submits it to snopes which then tries to separate the fact from the fiction. In this case the originator of the email was validated. The movie is based on an anti-religious book. It is meant to be the antithesis of "The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe". Instead of encourage faith in Christ with a fun children's story, the author of these books state "My books are about killing God."

I realize the author of the books will likely care very little whether or not you or I see the movie. He probably make nothing more than a few pennies off of what we spend at the theater. All the same, I have no interest in supporting him, or the movie industry in a production like this.

The movie (being a realist here) is likely safe enough. The books are the concern. And I wish to make a statement to Hollywood that I don't approve of anti-religious themes in their movies. They have more than enough of that already. And I'm tempted to go purchase "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" just to make my statement all the stronger.

Anyways, that's my thought on the subject. Thanks to Dani for sending me that email. The movie opened today, and I most likely would have seen it sooner or later.

Lights at Temple Square

Rochelle and I took Dhananjay up to see the lights at Temple Square. My, it was pretty. We had long talks about religion too. It was a lot of fun. Here are a few photos that I took. Nothing too fancy, but not having a tripod with me, I was happy any of them turned out ok. I just love being up there when the lights are on though... it is so pretty. I love listening to the narrator tell the Christmas story, and looking at the displays. I love seeing all the lights. It's one of the many times I feel like no matter how good I ever get with my camera, I'll never be able to convey the feelings that are there through the lens.

Baby Makes Three

The time has come! We are officially going to be parents! I am just over 2 months pregnant, and we expect the baby to come sometime in July. We are very excited to finally be starting our family! I have had some morning sickness, but I am doing ok. The semester is almost done for me, and all I have left is my capstone semester. I have been tentatively assigned to work in Labor and Delivery at a smaller local hospital- the same hospital, in fact, that I have chosen to use for myself! So I'm feeling good about that.

~~BJ'S TURN~~
So... I guess I don't have a whole lot to add except that I'm going to be a daddy! Yea! And now it is my goal to sleep as much as possible now, because I won't have another chance to until I'm 64. Aside from that, we are really very pleased. Rochelle is looking forward to buying maternity clothes. She has already named our first 6 children (in order, and let's just hope the genders match up)... and if any of you steal our names... well, you will have to take it up with her. Rochelle is currently going through the lovely morning sickness stages, and is enjoying that very much. ;-) We told our families in the past week or two. And now we tell the world! So what more do I have to say? Not much I guess. Just looking forward to all the fun times ahead (and preparing to go gray).

This picture represents the physical proof we currently
possess of our good news!

Sue's Library

Mom's got a library! Click here: Sue's Library

There's a list of libraries on the right that I will add to. But I'd like to see everyone that reads this blog have a library. And I'll post it there. You can also see the most recent additions to Rochelle's and my libraries below that.

Happy Thanksgiving

A photo I took while shooting photos with Rhonda and Dad. We were over by Utah Lake. Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving!

BJ

Congratulations, Marissa!

I am proud to say that Marissa competed in Bronze level Country Two-Step and Swing in Dancesport last week, and not only did she make it to the final round, she and her partner won 5th place! Yay! Whahoo!
We were sad that we couldn't see her compete, but happy that we got to see her dance during practice. Here are some short videos I took of them dancing right before they went to go perform. Please excuse the videography- it's just a point and shoot camera that doesn't let you zoom once you start recording! (Plus, I was just figuring out how to use it... haha) If you want a more high quality version of the recording, let me know, and we will figure out how to do that... We will add some of the pictures BJ took of them dancing too.

Marissa Dancesport

Washington D.C.

I am finally getting around to posting what I wrote a week ago!
Well, as you know I have been preparing to present some research at the American Public Health Association conference in D.C. I have been here in D.C. since Saturday, and am leaving in just a few hours to return home. This trip has been a fantastic, educational, and interesting opportunity. I arrived Saturday afternoon, and after resolving a minor hotel problem (!) I saw some of the city with Erin, the professor I work for. She showed me how the Metro works here, and we went to a mall/subway station with a hall of restaurants, and we had dinner at a cute 1950's style diner. The next morning we found a church meeting fairly close that we could ride the metro to, and interestingly enough, it was probably the only ward in the whole area that I would have recognized someone in! My parents of my friend and roommate my freshman year were in that ward. So ironic- what a small world. We also attended the opening session for the conference, and heard from a couple of fairly high profile people in public health. I will write more about those later. We went to Arlington National Cemetery, which was an amazing experience. I had no idea how large it was, how many graves and memorials. It was incredibly reverent, and everyone was very respectful. I was really impacted by all the graves, representing lives given in service of our country. I had really never thought of it in terms like that. That same spirit was prevalent at the Tomb of the Unknowns, where I saw the changing of the guard, and was really touched by the guards' dedication and respect for the Tomb. I was thinking that if every person in the U.S. had a chance as a kid or at some point to go see some of the places like this, we would have a stronger sense of national pride and patriotism, and gratitude as a people. Of course I know that won't happen, so I think those things are important to teach in other ways.
On Monday morning, bright and early, we presented one of our research project findings in a round table format. The way a round table presentation works is a room has 9 or 10 tables with presenters, and people come in and rotate around. We gave three 30-minute presentations. Our table was always one of the most crowded! Although we felt strongly about what we were researching, it was somewhat gratifying to hear from listeners that they thought our research was important.
Tuesday we did our poster presentation, talking about the results of the other part of our study. This was in an exhibit hall with people walking around to see the posters they are interested in. Again, we had a lot of interest in and questions about our study. I think it went well. I will post a little later on some of the things I learned at the conference and what our study was about etc.
One of the last things we did before the trip was over was we went to the Visitor's Center at the Washington D.C. Temple. They close early, so we weren't able to go inside, but we saw the outside and had a nice visit with the sister missionaries at the visitor's center. I thought that was a good way to end the trip.

Washington, D.C. pictures

I Voted!

Did you?

I'd just like to say, that I'm proud to be an American. We are very blessed to be able to vote, and feel that the vote is fair, and that our vote counts, as opposed to some places like Pakistan. We are truly lucky to have the freedom we have.