Long over due...

I know it's been far too long since my last post. But I'm ready to catch everyone on what we've been up to. The following is a montage of pictures from our summer. Enjoy.

All the old roomies together again for Stephie's bridal shower. (Tess, Brit, Stephie and me)

While we were down south for the shower we spent some time with Jared's sister, Katie and her girls Chloe, Emily and Jessica.

Jared was playing in a summer basketball league. He's the one in white blocking the shot.

Jared went fishing at my family reunion in Montana and this was his only catch of the day. He stood in the rain for quite some time to get this bad boy.

Hoe down in the barn. Literally. I come from a family of true cowboys. I love the Briggs family!

A view of Montana.

On our 7 hour drive back from the reunion we stopped in Idaho Falls to get some food and take a break from driving. (We didn't know it yet but I was suffering from the beginnings of morning sickness.) We found the temple which is beautiful and watched the falls in the rain.

It's tough to see because of the glare. But that says "pregnant". I took this test on Sunday as soon as we got back from the reunion. It was Father's Day so Jared got a pretty good gift on top of the new clothes I got him.

As I was relaxing and watching a movie, Bart decided he wanted to sit right next to me and watch too. I think he can sense that there's a baby on the way and he's doing his best to be cute and endearing so we don't forget about him. And he still had the cone on from the second operation.

On July 3rd my old roomie, Steph married her long time sweetheart, Tug. We've all been waiting for it for quite a while. We're so proud of you two! We were waiting outside the St. George temple for the happy couple. Their sealing was beautiful. And of course I cried but I'm blaming that on the baby.

Stephie made such a beautiful little bride.

At the reception in Parowan making a Stephie sandwich. She's in there somewhere. All we were missing was our Tessa.

After the wedding we stayed in St. George with Grandpa and Grandma Gray. For the 4th we went to Cedar to see a play at the Shakespearean Festival. We saw As You Like It and it was fabulous! (It's a tradition to go to a play at the Festival for my birthday.) We were watching the play as fireworks were going off. So we heard them but didn't get to see any. Oh well. Next year. Then instead of going home Jared and I went to Vegas for our one year anniversary. It was hot and I felt sick most of the time but we still had a blast. We stayed in the Luxor.

This aquarium was in Caesar's Palace.

Our second day there we overdid it a bit and spent way too much time out in the heat. But we learned our lesson and took it easy the next day.

We went to see the dolphin exhibit at the Mirage.

The baby dolphin is on the left and it stayed right by its mommas side.

One of the male dolphins was doing some pretty cool tricks Flipper style.

The Big Cat exhibit is also at the Mirage. This guy was HUGE!

And here's his mate.

This baby snow leopard was too cute. I wanted to take it home. I'm sure Bart would've loved that! He probably would've been an afternoon snack.

So we also went to Madame Tussuads. I know it's kind of lame to take pictures with wax figures but honestly we had a lot of fun. Here is Jared jamming with Louis Armstrong.

Julia Roberts. I thought this one looked a lot like the real thing.

Not that we're huge Bush fans or anything but I love Jared's face in this one.

This was one of the many times that we stopped to watch the fountains at the Bellagio. We also went to the top of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel and watched from up there but all of the pictures we got are blurry.

After Vegas we went back to St. George and stayed the night. Then got up and went to Cedar where we had lunch with Jared's grandparents and some of his siblings and the nieces and nephews. Then we went to a park where we did quarters which is a game that Grandpa Gray does with the grand kids and it has become a really neat tradition.

Then to top off our massive trip away from home we went to Cedar Mountain for the Hughes reunion which ended up being tons of fun! Don, Pam and their boys Jaron and Bryson recently moved to Texas so we had to make sure to get pictures with them before they left. We can't wait to see what the third one looks like in September. (Good luck Pam. We're thinking about you.)

Finally, after eleven days away we picked up Bart in Mapleton and went home! I think he was as grateful to be home as we were.

Since our big trip we've been taking it easy at home especially since the morning sickness kicked into high gear around Week 8. I'll be at 12 weeks on Tuesday, August 4th and the following Tuesday we'll have another doctor's appointment. That will be when we hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time. My due date is set for February 16th.

I can't believe it's actually happening and we're going to be parents. Of course we have our apprehensions but we couldn't be more thrilled!

(See future posts for ultrasound pictures of baby Hughes.)