Disney on Ice

While CJ was in Chicago for the weekend to watch the Utah game, I had received two free tickets for Disney on Ice for Saturday night. I asked my niece Cayman to go with me. She was so excited to go! When I picked her up, she was all ready to go in her Ariel Costume. We started our date night out with eating at Gateway for dinner. After eating at McDonald's we made our way over to the Energy Solutions Arena.

This is us waiting for the show to begin

The show was Mickey and Minnie's Magical Adventure. They had Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Lilo and Stitch and Peter Pan. It was a lot of fun to watch and Cayman enjoyed every minute of it. She was was so funny to watch. She screamed when Ursula came out and Captain Hook. She would clap and sing with the songs. After it was over, she said she didn't like the Monkey with the blue bum. For those who don't know, that is Rafiki from Lion King. It was a very fun night and I am glad that Cayman was my date.

Notre Dame and Chicago

On Friday morning Jackie dropped me off at the airport bright and early. I met my friend Jake and we were off to Chicago. For some reason we had a lay over in Long Beach. Our plane ended up not arriving for some reason and they had to fly another plane to LB for us. We were at that airport for over 5 hours. By the time we arrived in Chicago it was already 8 at night. We just went to the sports bar at the hotel and watched another amazing Jazz come back. We had some great food as well.

Saturday morning we woke up early and it was a good thing we did. I had always wanted to see Wrigley Field. We stopped by there and took some pictures. It was awesome. It's just in the middle of a neighborhood and has tons of sports bars surrounding it. I really wish it would have been baseball season so I could have watched the Cubs.

Standing out front of the stadium.
Statue of Ernie Banks who is known as "Mr Cub."
Here is the back of the stadium.
If you look close enough you can see the bleachers that are on top of an apartment building across the street.
The view just behind left field. Have to love their old school scoreboard.
Next we started on our drive to Notre Dame Stadium. On the way we passed Soldier Field where the Bears play and Comiskey Park where the White Sox play. After finally finding a place to park, we headed toward the stadium. Here is my buddy Jake in front of "Touchdown Jesus."
Here is me in front of the famous stadium. It was such a cool atmosphere. It's what the people in South Bend live for. It was an once in a lifetime experience. The people were great for the most part and there were tons of Utah fans.
Here is another picture of the famous building.
In front of one of the statues of one of their famous coaches.
I thought these were cool, they had them all over. They are replicas of their national championship rings. We both ate a Brat hot dog and they headed for our seats.
We got inside and had amazing seats. We were just above the players tunnel. After the ND touchdown in the second half we almost caught the extra point ball. The guy that caught it, gave the ball back and since he did, they let him down on the field. He was so excited.
It was awesome that everything was for the most part old. They have the original wood bleachers from 1930. No video jumbo tron. Just this scoreboard below. I do have to say that the ND band was amazing and were a lot of fun to watch.
Here are some pictures of the Utah section. The guys behind us said it was probably the biggest visitor crowd they had ever seen at a ND game. Ute fans were everywhere. Before the rain started and everyone put on ponchos, there was even more red in the stands.
I couldn't even fit the whole Utah section in one shot and then the rest of us fans were scattered through out. Before the game one guy remarked, isn't this our (ND) home game.
Sadly though, the game did not go Utah's way. Things just never got going for us. Oh well though, it was such a cool game day experience that even with our loss, the trip was way worth it.
Picture of the ND sideline.
Picture of Chicago on the way home. The clouds were amazing. This was my view for quite some time.
What a fun trip!

Pictures from Halloween

I meant to post these pictures last week, but I am just getting around to it today. Here are some pictures of me and some co-workers through out the day.

It was a fun day at work. We had trick or treaters that night and had a great turn out.

Happy Halloween

Utah Football Game

Yesterday the Utes played Colorado State at home. Cory and I each have two season tickets and I finally took Jackie to a game, and I sure chose the wrong game to take her to. It rained all morning and then the sun came out and we thought maybe it won't be so bad, but as we drove up to the stadium it started raining. We sat in the rain for the whole first half. Luckily Jackie had this sweet poncho that was lined with a fleece blanket inside to keep her warm. We were able to keep dry for the most part. The Utes played great again and that made the rain a little easier to tolerate.

At half time the sun peaked through just a tiny bit and then it got somewhat cold the rest of the game.
The Utes won 59 to 6. Here is us with Cory and July at the very end of the game when most of the people had left.
Here is our view from our seats.
Yesterday was also a fun day for me. I was awake and out on the couch reading and Jackie yelled from the bedroom, C.J. hurry come here, I went to see what was wrong, and she was all excited because she could feel the baby and wanted to see if I could too. Sure enough I could feel the little guy as well. He was kicking really hard. Jackie has been able to feel him for a few weeks but this was my first time. It's getting closer and closer. More than half way.

My Belly

14 weeks along in the above picture and I look back and think, I felt huge, but there really isn't much sticking out quite yet. You will notice in this picture and the other two posted that I am in the same black pants. They are the only pair of pants that are comfy to me and so I wear them everyday when I get home from work and I usually stay in them all weekend long! I will sometimes change if we leave the house, but only sometimes.

The first three and a half months I would get sick if I didn't eat every two hours. If I waited even 30 minutes too long, when I finally did eat I would end up throwing it all up and have to eat again. It was always worse in the morning if I waited too long to eat breakfast since I hadn't eaten all night. I would keep snacks and water on my bed table so if I woke up in the night I could eat something. I was usually good all night, but around 4 a.m. I would wake up hungry and I would have to eat. Then it seemed to be every morning at 4 I was getting up to eat and then again at 6. I didn't like that it seemed to be happening every morning instead of just once in a while. Poor C.J. would listen to me crinkling wrappers and crunching on my food. He was such a good sport to let me eat in bed!

Here I am at 18 weeks along. My pants can't be done up all the way without making me feel very uncomfortable. We purchased a belly band so I can still wear my pants somewhat undone and have that covering it. I was feeling pretty good at 18 weeks. On occasion I would get dizzy if I hadn't eaten for a while, but for the most part am doing really well!

This picture is me at 22 weeks. I still have some people say "Oh, you are just starting to show!" or "You aren't showing at all." People! There is a belly there and to me it pokes out rather far! I know I really don't look that big, but I feel much larger then it looks. I can't do my pants up at all now. Thank heavens for the belly band and for a desk job that I can leave my pants undone all day and no one knows!

I am feeling great. I haven't been sick at all lately and for the most part have plenty of energy. I still struggle getting out of bed in the morning, every morning, to go to work, but everyone does that even when they aren't pregnant, right? I can feel our little boy moving around every day now and it just puts a smile on my face every time I feel him. I can't wait for C.J. to finally be able to feel him. I have had him try a couple times and he couldn't feel him. I think another week or two and he should be able to. There was one night that we were sitting on the couch and I was watching my belly and I saw part of my belly poke out. I was so excited to see our baby doing that. After a minute, I thought that he might not be strong enough to push that hard on me. Gas bubble? I like to think that it really was our baby. We will need to upload shots of our ultra sounds that we have had, but that will take some time. So this is all for now.

Retiring of the Love Sac

We have this great Love Sac, but it just didn't fit in our living room so we had been storing it in one of the spare bedrooms, but with the baby on the way we needed to do something with the Love Sac. I saw online you could shrink them back to the original size and store it. So that is what we tried and it was hard to do.
After many tries and neighbors helping us beat it down we finally were able to get the cover around the end. We thought there was no way we were going to be able to fit the rest of the sac in the cover. We had to have my mom had 8 inches of fabric to it to see if we could get it after that. After a few more tries we we were able to move it up a little at a time.
Finally we were able to get it in the bag and for now we are able to store our Love Sac. Pretty amazing you can vacuum pack a 8 foot Love Sac.