Baby #1 coming July 18th 2012!

November 8th was the day. I had been having an inclination that for the past few days and didn’t want to wait any longer to find out if we were pregnant or not. I left for work a little early that day to pick up a pregnancy test. I wanted to wait until after work to take the test at home… those work hours couldn’t have gone by slower! While at work I decided how I would surprise Gabe with the news and made a banner to pass the time. Gabe was at school for about another hour, so I immediately took the test once I got home. I was super nervous so I told myself I would leave the room and not stare at it for three minutes. Well as I was on my way out, I caught a glance of it, and 2 lines were already appearing. I started bawling happy tears. I couldn’t help but watch as the lines got darker and darker. We were pregnant! I was in complete shock. I stared at that stick and cried for the longest time. I got to my knees and thanked Heavenly Father for our new blessing, what an incredible experience. During the next hour I tried my hardest to not cry anymore so that Gabe wouldn’t get suspicious. I hung the banner I had made on the table next to the pregnancy test and went to pick him up. We were planning on stopping by Best Buy on our way home, but I told him that I needed to go home to use the bathroom before we went. I had been needing to pee a lot so it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. He walked in, dropped his backpack when he read the “Welcome Home Daddy” sign and said “really?!” I of course started crying again and nodded my head and we hugged each other so hard. We celebrated that night at PF Chang’s and dreamed about our new future.

I have been really lucky to have had such an easy pregnancy so far. Knock on wood. I have a feeling that things are going to go pretty smoothly. We found out at 4 weeks and I was only having slight pregnancy symptoms. At exactly 6 weeks, I got my first bout of morning sickness . I thought it was the funniest thing, I was hunched over the toilet sick and Gabe says to me with a huge grin on his face, “you’re going to have a baby!” That made the morning a bit brighter. For about the next 2 weeks I had all day nausea, but it really wasn’t too bad. I am 10 weeks and 3 days today and for about the last week or so, I have felt amazingly fantastic! I haven’t had any issues and feel perfectly fine. I wanted to start a little diary type dealio on here of my pregnancy every 2 weeks or so, and I hope you enjoy it! I started one at 8 weeks, and again this week, at 10 weeks.

(Look at those little feet! Our favorite part of the picture. We have the cutest baby!)

How far along?   8 weeks

Total weight gain:   +2 pounds

Maternity clothes?   Not yet, although I am in the market for a nice pair of maternity jeans

Stretch marks?   Not a one

Sleep:   Fairly good. Sometimes I wake up uncomfortable, but for the most part I can sleep throughout the night. I also tend to start falling asleep at like 7 p.m from exhaustion. I could sleep all day.

Miss Anything?    My energy. It is almost nonexistent.

Movement:   Not yet. Although every so often I feel a bubble or something in my stomach and I get excited and just pretend it is the baby I’m feeling.

Food cravings:   Mostly just food aversions. My cravings change day to day.  (And Gabe has been more than happy to fulfill them, thank you husband! ) Previous cravings: lemonade, olive garden alfredo, Einstein bagels, chocolate, cheese pringles, mac and cheese.

Anything making you queasy or sick:   FRIES. I cannot even listen to someone talk about them without wanting to puke. Next question please.

Gender:   Who knows?! Gabe has a preference for a boy, I don’t really have a preference. I imagined the baby as a girl up until the day we found out we were pregnant, then I just imagined it as a boy. I have also had a couple people tell me they think it will be a girl.

Labor Signs:   Thank goodness no.

Symptoms:   Nausea, back pain, tiredness

Belly Button in or out?   Definitely in. Gabe says it’s deeper than it normally is.

Wedding rings on or off?   ON. And I hope they will stay on the whole nine months.

Mood:   Beyond excited for the new edition to our family!

Looking forward to:   Hearing the heartbeat again in 2 weeks, this time for longer than 3 seconds. Momma has gotta keep her belly still this time!

How far along?   10 weeks

Total weight gain:   +4 pounds

Maternity clothes?   Nope, just utilizing the rubber band wrapped around the button hole trick. Pants are getting so uncomfortable

Stretch marks?   None in sight

Sleep:  Has been pretty good, surprisingly. I pass out pretty early and have been sleeping throughout the night.

Best moment this week:   Getting to take home ultrasound pictures of our little babe. Cutest little thing EVER. We have been lucky to hear the heartbeat early, then get an early ultrasound, and hopefully we will be early to find out the gender as well! March is way too far away.

Miss Anything?    Feeling comfortable in my jeans. I wish I could wear leggings to work.

Movement:   No movement that I can feel yet, although I am anxiously awaiting that day. That is one of the things I am most excited for. I have been able to feel my uterus growing though, and that always makes me happy. I always announce to Gabe when I feel it, “baby’s growing!”

Food cravings:   I noticed yesterday that I may be starting to crave cold drinks. Cold water, root beer, Icees, popsicles. Hopefully I am on the road to getting back more energy and I can start cooking again. I miss planning and making a good meal.

Anything making you queasy or sick:   Still the “f” word, as stated above. The girls at work have learned to call them chips instead.

Gender:   I still have a slight feeling it’s a boy. That way, we will just be really excited if it’s a girl!

Labor Signs:   No way jose.

Symptoms:   Not too many this week. Just a growing mid section and mild back pain.

Belly Button in or out?   In.

Wedding rings on or off?   Yes, still on. My fingers don’t swell that quickly.

Mood:   I would describe my mood as ecstatic this week. I don’t think I ever stopped smiling yesterday!

Looking forward to:   My belly to start showing. All the pounds are being gained, but it’s not very obvious that I’m pregnant yet!

Best moment this week:   We got to hear the baby’s heartbeat 2 weeks early :D Baby is going strong.

We're Back!

Well folks, I think it’s about time that I let you in on what’s been happening in the Dickes household. We road tripped our way back to Utah from California and settled back into our apartment. We have been back for a few weeks now and are extremely glad to be back. It took me a while to adjust back to our daily schedules… Going back to work and all, it’s a difficult thing to be happy about. We have spent the majority of our time sprucing up our apartment a bit more, and guess what?! Almost done. Yep, we are right around the corner from FINALLY finishing our transformation. There has been a lot of gluing, sewing, sanding, painting and hole drilling taking place in our apartment. It took about a year, but hey, it’s been worth it. We love our home and love having people over to enjoy it with us. We have been basking in the extra time that we now have on Sundays, now that our church starts at 8:00 AM. I thought I would plain hate it, but it’s been great to have all the extra time to do whatever we want and more. Gabe started school back up and is enjoying having something to do for the most part and I started work back up and am not quite enjoying having something to do for the most part. I did get a new job on Thursdays and Fridays though, and it gives me a nice break between my other job. I got hired with a company called Invisus. I do online chats and send emails to people that need technical support with Franklin Covey software. It’s been humbling to see how much I do not know about computers. I thought I was pretty computer savvy, but there is so much that I have yet to learn. Sometimes it’s a little frustrating because I have to ask questions about pretty much everything and I have a really hard time understanding terms, but the girls that work there are really really nice and patient with me. It’s a laid back fun work atmosphere, and I’m lucky to have run into the job. I actually found out about the job from my new hairdresser. Gabe is getting ready to take his DAT and apply for dental schools in the spring. We hope that he will get accepted into the new dental school that they’re opening here in Utah, that way we won’t have to move once again, but we will see where the road takes us. We think it would be fun to move somewhere else, since we have had fun doing that in the past, but it would be a lot different when we know that it’s going to be permanent for four years.  Life is great, we love it and are glad to be back home! We can’t wait to see what the future holds for us.

Guest Blogging

Today I had the opportunity to guest blog over on Boerman Ramblings blog, you should take a look at it! Whether she knows it or not, Chrissy has been a great support for my etsy shop and I’m excited to have found her blog!

Sneaky Cell Phone

Okay, so I just HAD to blog about this one. Last night we were laying in bed ready to fall asleep and Gabe realized he needed his phone so I got up and started looking around and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I pulled out all the couch cushions, where I usually find all missing cell phones, but nope it wasn’t there. After looking around for a few minutes Gabe got up and we started looking EVERYWHERE. We were starting to go crazy! It had been at least half an hour looking for his phone, we looked under everything, moved everything around, but nothing. So Gabe started to retrace his steps and looked in all the places he was. Guess where we found his phone? In the Doritos bag of course!! Ha ha ha ha I swear I laughed for 20 minutes straight, my eyes hurt from crying I was laughing so hard! It.  Was. Funny.

2 more weeks

The end of the summer is quickly coming to a close for Gabe and I and we have different excitement levels about the fact. Gabe is counting down the days and ready to head home any day now because the work load has significantly picked up for him. As of last month he had two technicians working for him and he pretty much let them have all the jobs so he and I could just spend some time together and enjoy the summer. The work really slowed down and the guys weren’t getting many jobs so they decided they wanted to go home early. They left last week and now Gabe is in charge of installing every single job and it’s starting to wear on him. And just his luck, the work picked up quite a bit once he didn’t have any help.  So for his sake, I hope the next couple weeks fly by. He can’t wait to go back home and start school again. I on the other hand am not so eager to get back. This summer has been extremely fun and relaxing and I am just not ready to go back to work. At all. I am dreading it in fact. Because of that reason, I don’t want the time to go quickly. But besides that fact, I am excited to see our family and friends and be back in our home. I feel like so many people have gotten pregnant or had babies since we have been here and it will be fun to see them all. I miss my family and can’t wait to be close to them again! A couple days ago we reserved the same apartment that we lived in last semester and we are SO excited about it. We didn’t think that it was going to be available, but we got lucky. That apartment really felt like home to us and it was hard to leave it thinking we wouldn’t be going back to it. We are a bit nervous to see what condition all of our belongings are in though. I don’t remember mentioning it before, but we had a HORRIBLE moving day. We moved everything into a storage facility and by the time that we arrived, it was down pouring rain and hail on us. Better yet, the rain was going in the direction that it slanted right into the storage unit on all our stuff. So we shoved everything in there as quick as we could and left. I’m most worried about the mattress that got set on top of our brand new couch… hoping there won’t be a divot in the couch cushions! But whatever, can’t do much about it now. For those of you that would like to know, we are planning on leaving for home on Friday the 27^th. Let’s hope the time goes fast… and slow :)

Apparently we like this place

Guess where we went last week?! San Franciso, of course! And I did not complain one bit because I have become quite bonded with that city. Our friend Dan and his sister Shar came out for several days and they chaparoned us to the beautiful city while we showed them the sites. We actually drove across to the other side of the Golden Gate bridge this time, so we got pictures on the other side. So much difference, I know.

Apparently, this is a classic "Alecia" face. I believe it.

Gabe, don't push Dan off the wall, thats not very nice.

Through the bridge on our way to Muir Woods. San Fransisco just had to represent their "diversity". Ick. The town on the other side of the Golden Gate is such a gorgeous city! It's a city that I wouldn't mind living in. Shar was a trooper and drove us around finding somewhere to eat. The roads were CRAZY! Super windy and lots of back and forth and up and downs on almost one way streets through the whole town. It was worth it though, because we found this cute little pizzeria where they bake all their pizzas using solar power. It was delicious up until the point where some guy puked in the garbage can a couple feet outside the window and I just happened to look at the wrong time. Fortunately I was only a couple bites left from being done. Unfortunately he came back and we had to sit there for 5 minutes until he was done. Moving on.......

Now entering Muir Woods. So, look to the right of Gabes shoulder, see that man in the black hat? Its an amish man. There was a whole family of them and the first I had ever seen. We tried to catch some photos, but this was the best we got.

Becoming a tree, of course.

Dan was flipping with joy when he saw how huge the trees were, so he showed his excitement by doing back flips. She that man in the background with the camera? He saw Dan flipping and convinced him to do it again so he could put it on YouTube. ha ha, he was super excited.

Standing in front of a tree that was taken out by El Nino. It was the tallest tree in the forest before it fell.
"Thats the thing about trees, you just never known when they are going to fall." --Gabe Dickes

We all squeezed into the tree.. so sorry about the sideways-ness. Its annoying.

Can you see all of us?

Can you tell it was the first time Dan has seen the ocean? He is a wee bit excited.

The beach was FREEZING cold and super windy but the boys wanted to keep playing in the sand so Shar and I took a hike up to the top of the hill so we could get moving and warm up. We came back to this:

We shouldn't have left them alone :) We wanted to go back to San Franciso before it got too late so we drove back over and found a restaurant on Pier 39 overlooking the bay. We sort of lost track of time and had been there for hours when we looked outside and the sun had gone down. It was such a pretty sight looking out over the water, seeing the bridge lit up and overlooking all the sailboats in the harbor. I could have looked at that view for a long time! We did some shopping along the Pier, and Gabe spoiled me and bought me a really cute hoodie I had been eyeing from the Hard Rock Cafe and then we just had to stop by the Ghirradelli shop. It just wouldn't be a trip to San Francisco without it. It was really interesting to see how the city changed at night. The whole touristy area by the bay COMPLETELY clears out and becomes empty except for the average street corner bum and everyone moves further downtown and gathers at the bars and clubs and the hookers come out. Just the time to get out of town! We had so much fun seeing Dan and Shar and glad they came out to visit us. We have the greatest friends :)

The other side of Stockton

One thing that we have learned while living in Stockton is that there is a great part of town and a not so great part of town. We unfortunately, live in the not so great part of Stockton. So we like to take every opportunity we can to meandor to the other side. A couple weeks ago we were looking for a Krispy Kreme store and it took us over to the other side of freeway. Um, It was heaven! There were tree lined streets, completely spotless, beautiful buildings, hygenic residents who drive lexus', cadillacs and BMW's, and lakes with gondola boats!  That one litterally made my jaw drop.
This job is pretty interesting in the fact that housing is chosen for you by the company and you have no idea where your going to live. My only question is why couldn't Pinnacle have chosen housing on the other side of the freeway?! We live on the other side of the freeway where there are bums on every street corner during the day, thugs by night, crazy drivers in broken down cars, dirty stores with parking lots full of shopping carts, etc. etc. You get my drift. Fact is: we're jealous of the other side.
The other day we took a ride to the nice side and got ourselves some Panera Bread and relaxed at a park. Every few weeks Gabe and I go through a new food obsession. We had a long obsession with Baskin Robbins, then there was delivery pizza, and now its Panera Bread. Gabe was introduced to Panera Bread on his mission and now we like to make excuses to go whenever we can. We had a really fun time! We got our food in take out and then drove to a pretty park and ate on the park bench and enjoyed the warm weather and peacefulness. It was a perfect afternoon!

The Harbers come to visit!

This past week has been lots of fun. On Thursday our friends from Utah, Blake and Ali Harber, were nice enough to make the drive and come and hang out with us for a few days. We are soo glad they drove out, we had such a great time! Thursday night we went out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse, took a walk around the neighborhood and then played some games. Friday morning we woke up early and drove out to San Francisco. I LOVE San Fransisco so much, it is such a neat city and there is just something about that city that keeps me wanting to go back again and again. I love the character and diversity of the city and the fact that there is so much to do there that you see new things every single time you visit. It never gets old. We had a blast roaming the streets and hanging out. The first thing we did in San Francisco was take a tour of Alcatraz. Its been something that we’ve wanted to do for a long time now. We took a little boat ride over to the island and walked around the insides of the prison during an audio tour. It was so hard to wrap my brain around the thought that I was walking in the same place all the criminals were long ago.

It was freeeeeezing cold and super super windy on the boat ride over!

After the Alcatraz tour we went looking for something to eat and ran into some street performers on the corner. This was one of the highlights of San Fransisco for me, I was very entertained! It was a family from Austrailia and they were talking all crazy and cracking jokes and doing wild stunts. Unfortunately we didn’t catch the greatest pictures, but we took a couple.

We went to Hard Rock Cafe for lunch and filled up on some yummy food.

Once our stomachs were stuffed full, we spent the rest of the evening walking around the city site seeing, seeing the Golden Gate Bridge, and going to Ghiarradelli for dessert.

 On Saturday we got some lunch at Panera Bread (mmmmmm!), went to Target to buy some toys, and went to a nearby park to goof around. They had paddle boat rentals at the park, which we couldn’t turn down of course, so we chased each other around on those for a while. There was a few weddings that were going on at the park while we were there and lots of family reunions. It was a happening place!

Then we came back to our apartment and Blake and Gabe played with their new toys they bought, remote control helicopters! They loved them and it was fun watching them get so excited about it!

We went to dinner at Olive Garden and then to the movie theatres to watch the last Harry Potter movie, the best ending to the weekend! We all got into watching all of the movies so we were way excited to see it and it didn’t disappoint. Blake and Ali left (too soon) Sunday morning. We had so much fun spending time with them and can’t wait to be back in Utah with all our loved ones!