Waiting for Baby

Oh man. Everyone warned me that the last month of pregnancy drags. They said it gets to a point where you are so uncomfortable that you just want the baby to come out--nature's way of making you willing to go through labor.

They weren't kidding!!! I am huge, achy, and grumpy. Sometimes I feel so so ready for baby to come. Other times I realize I don't fully understand what I am getting into with newborn care and I don't feel so ready.`But more often than not, I'm a little disappointed when another day goes by with no baby.

There are so many reasons it would be better for baby to wait, anyway. That gives him more time to grow and develop inside me.

If I can make it until tomorrow (very likely!) we'll have better insurance coverage for his birth.
If I can make it until January 5, I'll get to go to my baby shower pre-baby!
If I can make it as long as possible past January 6, I'll go back to work after our holiday break and get more done before my maternity leave.

I just need to be patient. Baby will come when he's ready. No need to rush things before.

2019 In Review

Thinking back on 2019... It's been a very busy year! Here's a few of our highlights:

January
Since we spent Christmas with my family, we traveled out to Utah to visit with Trevor's family for New Year's. All of the Lukes (plus Misty, Tanner's girlfriend at the time) met up in St. George Utah. It's only about 2 hours away from Las Vegas, so I also had my first trip there to see a Cirque du Soleil show--Ka.

February
After some saving up and a lot of shopping on Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace, we found Trevor our family's first piano! It was so exciting to set it up in our front room. That guy needs a piano like a fish needs water.

March
One of the biggest snow storms of the year! Unfortunately there was still a lot more to come, including a big storm after Mother's Day and a big storm in early October.

April
In April we went back to Utah to celebrate Tanner and Misty's wedding! They were married in the Mount Timpanogos temple, which is the temple closest to all my Bellon family members in Alpine, so we were able to sneak in a quick visit with my Grandpa Bellon too.

The wedding and reception were beautiful. Grateful to have Misty in our family now!

We also got to catch up with my awesome friend/old roommate Melissa and her husband Weston. :)

May
The day after Mother's Day, we found out I was pregnant!! Definitely one of my happiest days. I wrapped up the pregnancy test and took it over to my parents' house--I told Mom it was a Mother's Day present I'd forgotten to give her. :) All of my sisters were there when I came over, so my whole family found out at the same time (I called Jason so he wouldn't be left out). Since this is the first McAllister grandchild, there was much rejoicing.

Also in May, Trevor got his first pair of glasses! I think they make him look like Clark Kent. :)

And, we also celebrated Trevor's birthday! :)

June
We met up with Eric in Morrison and enjoyed dinner at the Fort restaurant. Very pretty area, Trevor wants to consider it as a retirement place.

This was also our last month as temple workers. :( We'd been working the Saturday afternoon shift every other week. Our temple was closed for three months for renovations and cleaning, and by the time it opened up, I was having issues with my pregnancy to the point that we had to stop serving.

July
We drove up to Island Park Idaho to celebrate the 4th of July with the Lukes. Everyone was able to make it! Highlights of the trip included a visit to Yellowstone and my very first time fishing.

August

In August, for a precious few days my entire family was together for the first time since our wedding! We all drove up to Granby Colorado and rented a cabin for a mini vacation. The highlight of the trip was definitely renting a boat to jet around Lake Granby!

At the end of August, I flew out to Washington DC for the biannual Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood grantee conference. We're down to one last year on our current grant and then it'll be time for a new project. Anxious to see how that shakes out.

National Harbor, Maryland where our hotel was

September

In September, it was time for our big gender reveal.... Baby is a BOY!

We would have been happy either way of course. :) It was so exciting to find out we're having a little boy--he seemed that much more real.

October

October was another big month. We started off with a trip to Italy with the Lukes. First we spent a few days in Rome with Trevor's sisters Heather and Amber and Amber's husband Doug. Then we met up with Eric and Kathy to go to the Tuscany/Orvieto area and tour some of the towns there.

Then, since we'd flown all the way to Europe anyways, Trevor and I stayed by ourselves for a few more days to explore Venice and Paris as a sort of babymoon.

Once we got home, it was time for our stake's youth conference. This year we were in charge of putting it together. Brad Wilcox was the keynote speaker. I think it was a great success.

Unfortunately after a very busy month, I ended up in the hospital with an early labor scare and got put on bed rest for a couple days. Everything turned out okay though, and I learned that I have to take it a bit slower while I'm pregnant.

At the end of the month, we celebrated my 32nd birthday. :)

 Oh yes, and I was a cow for Halloween, because I wanted to incorporate the baby bump somehow (man, that baby bump looks so small to me now!)

November

So after all that, we took November much much slower. We'd both caught some sickness in Europe that kept us down for a few weeks. But we did enjoy a lovely Thanksgiving here in Colorado with my family. Jason flew out from Utah and Granny came to celebrate with us too.

December

The further I've gotten in my third trimester, the more I've slowed down! This month we took a birthing class at the local hospital to prepare us for the big day. I'm so glad we did--I didn't realize how little I understood about childbirth before the class. We've also done our best to get the nursery set up for little one.

We were going to drive out to Utah to spend Christmas with the Lukes, but I was too achy and sore to make the 9 hour drive. Instead we stayed here and celebrated with my family--we'll spend the next 2 Christmases with the Lukes to make up for it.

Trevor still got to see his family for a little bit, though. They'd hired a professional photographer to take some family photos and they asked him to fly out for the photo shoot.

Now here we are, waiting anxiously for the arrival of Baby Luke any day now... Tomorrow I will be 37 weeks (full term), so my doctor told me I have permission to go into labor at any time and they won't stop me. :) Could be days or weeks--I wish I knew, but I'm trying my best to be patient!

Here's to all the new adventures we'll have in 2020!

Released and Baby Thoughts

Yesterday Trevor and I were released from our calling as teachers of the 7-8 year old primary class.

I'm usually sad when I get released and this time was no different. I love those little kids in our class and I've loved teaching them this year. It was great too to co-teach with Trevor and work side by side on our lessons. I feel like I learned so much from my time in primary, hopefully lessons I can apply when little guy is born.

That is why we were released. I requested it, actually, for the first time in my life, because I figured Primary wasn't the best place to bring a little newborn--so many cute kids there but also so many germs! I guess it's back to the adult class for me now. Gosh... I haven't really been in the adult class since my singles' ward days. Everything has changed since then! It'll be interesting to see how Come Follow Me works for adults.

I am so excited for the baby to come. A few weeks back, I had a goofy dream that he was born, and we were so so happy. And then we realized that my hospital bed was actually in a horse stall in a stable, and that my doctor had tricked me into giving birth in a stable like the Christmas story. :) Before that, the dream was awesome! I was disappointed when I woke up and realized how long it would be before I could hold baby in my arms.

Other times I get a little panicked, though. We still don't have a lot of baby things--no nursery set up, and lots to do to get ready. I need to get a move on that.  I managed to buy some essential baby items on black Friday, so we should have the basics at least, and one of the wonderful sisters in my ward gave me a lot of her baby stuff so we are at least somewhat prepared.

I found us a ridiculously cheap newborn photographer who will come to our house to take some pictures (I'm a fan of studio pictures, but Trevor isn't). Her example photos all seem to feature adorable nurseries that are perfectly decorated. My goal is to have something cute set up before she comes (and ideally before baby is here!)

Right now we are taking a birthing class. So far we've only had 1 session, but in that session I was amazed how much I learned about exactly how my body works and what labor is going to look like. This week our class is taking a tour of the birth center at the hospital--I have a feeling that will make things a lot more real. On Friday I'm also heading to the hospital to get pre-registered for baby's big day.

To sum up: I simultaneously cannot wait for baby to arrive, and am terrified thinking of everything I need to get ready by then. But mostly I am excited to meet him and see what he looks like. I'm curious to learn his personality. I hope I can be a good parent to him like my parents were to me.

Venice: Day 6

Ah, Venice!

Early Saturday morning, Trevor and I said goodbye to the Lukes and caught a train to Venice. Since we were so close, we wanted to go see it for ourselves!

And... I have mixed feelings about it. I expected it to be completely magical, but to me it felt like more of a tourist trap (more on that later). Still, I'm glad we went to see it. Most people I know who have visited loved it... Don't let me scare you away!

It is very pretty there.

I was tempted by the Venetian masks! It's almost Halloween after all.

We didn't take a Gondola ride--it turns out those are fairly pricey. Instead we opted for riding the water bus around the island. We were lucky and managed to get close to the railing, so we had some pretty great views! That's all we needed.





I know for some the Gondola ride is the most magical part of their trip. Maybe it is romantic gliding through some of the smoother canals. Our main exposure to them though was on the Grand Canal, which was a bit choppy. Just watching the people bounce around in the gondolas made me feel seasick--that part of the experience I wouldn't wish for! And to me, the gondolas just looked like gussied up canoes--that's when I realized I wasn't feeling the magic of Venice. 😅

The food in Venice was good though! We found a little restaurant where we could get a plate of Venetian finger foods. We didn't know exactly what all of it was, besides some calamari, but it tasted great!

We made sure to check out some of the most famous sites in Venice, like the Doge's Palace.

It was incredibly opulent--the pictures don't do it justice!

Then we ventured to St. Mark's Basilica.

It was gorgeous inside, although having seen St. Peter's Basilica, we weren't as amazed as we would have been beforehand.

Sometime in between the Doge's Palace and St. Peter's Basilica, this happened:

This is my Travelon anti-theft purse that I first bought for my trip to Europe with Hayley. It's lined with iron mesh so no one can cut through it and steal it. All of a sudden I noticed that both straps were coming off the purse, exposing the metal mesh. I don't think that was a coincidence or an accident... I think someone tried to slice it off me. And I didn't even feel anything! That's the creepiest part.

I think that's part of why Venice came off as a tourist trap to me--I didn't feel entirely safe there. The street vendors were the most aggressive in Venice as opposed to anywhere else we went! Before we went to Rome, my sister-in-law Amber warned us about flower vendors. They pretend they are giving you a flower for free, or they'll drop it to try to get you to pick it up, and then they charge you for it. We didn't encounter any in Rome, but SO MANY in Venice. They would come right up to me offering a rose with a big smile, and when I said no, they would still try to put it in my pockets. I had to jump back so they couldn't reach and yell "No!" again. Ugh.

Oh well. I'm still grateful I can say that I've seen Venice, but I don't feel a huge drive to go back again.

That night we got on a plane and headed for Paris.

Assisi and Civita di Bagnoregio: Day 5

On day 5, we ventured to the cities of Assisi and Civita di Bagnoregio.

Since I'm not Catholic, I didn't know much about Assisi before we went. I learned that Assisi is the birthplace of St. Francis, and a popular place for pilgrims to visit. We had a tour guide for our visit who taught us more about St. Francis and his life.

The entrance to St. Francis's birth place. It's said that he was born in a stable like the Savior. Apparently when he was born it wasn't uncommon for women to choose to give birth in stables to emulate Mary. Personally I will stick to a hospital!

We visited many churches in his honor, and we even got to visit his burial site. Since these sites are sacred in the Catholic faith, we were asked not to take pictures while we were there.

I didn't know anything about St. Francis beyond there being a hospital named after him in my hometown. It was interesting to learn more about him and the stories around his life. For the rest of the trip, I noticed he was featured in a lot of the artwork we saw--in particular, in image of him receiving the stigmata--identical wounds to Christ.

Later that day we ventured to Civita di Bagnoregio, which might be my favorite place we visited. Here's a distant shot of the city:

It's another hilltop town, but the hill is very steep, and the only way to reach it is to hike up the bridge:

At 6 months pregnant... this was a feat. I was dragging by the end, but I did make it up there! The city really is like something out of a fairy tale, or at least out of history. These days, only 10 or so people are permanent residents. But over a million tourists visit each year, so there were other people around. There's still restaurants and shops operating inside. Mostly we just wandered around marveling, but we also made time to stop for gelato (of course.) I think I had gelato everyday I was in Italy except the day we toured the Vatican.

Civita is incredibly photogenic. Here's some of the pictures we got while we were there: