Summer Fun!

 

Welcome to Seaside, Oregon! We went here to celebrate my birthday!  Seaside was really cool.  It had lots of shops and stuff.  Unfortunately, we got stuck with a dreary day.  You really couldn't see the ocean at all, it was cold and foggy and the water was freezing.

 Rachel has often told me of her memories of Seaside as a child, when her family went there and visited the Seaside Candyman.  This place had somewhere around 170 different flavors of salt water taffy.  Rachel has since then ranted about how she loved this place.  We went back and as you can see (In the next picture), tried almost every flavor.

 

 My birthday was awesome!  My wife is the best and I love her!  She got me a manly diaper bag, because I was complaining one time about how feminine diaper bags are and how much of a sissy I would look like with them.  This manly diaper bag will make me and my son look like real tough dudes.  I also got Super Mario Bros Wii!  Really fun game.  I got a few shirts.  Lastly, she got me a grill with tools, charcoals and hickory wood chips.  I am now a grilling king.

 Our baby has gradually been getting bigger.  Here's a recent picture of Rachel and our boy at 36 weeks.  Rachel has been getting more and more uncomfortable, but still feels okay most of the time.  Her main symptom is swelling in her legs and feet, pretty much all the time.  A few people have mentioned that it's the worst they've ever seen.  Other than that, she feels tired and light headed a lot.  She still feels lucky to have had a pretty easy going pregnancy though.

 A couple of weeks ago, Rachel and I went up to northern Washington to Lake Palmer for our Grimmer family reunion.  This was a monumental one, because all of my brothers and sisters were able to make it there at the same time.  The whole family was there on Sunday (Minus Steve.  He was sick, but greatly missed).  The whole week had fun activities.  On Tuesday, our sister-in-law Diana planned a baby shower for us, since we weren't going to have one otherwise.  It was really well planned out with fun games and treats for all.  Above is a picture of Rachel and I at our baby shower.  The crown had to be put on my head via scotch tape.

 The first game we played was something like, "Don't break the water."  Appropriate, for a baby shower.  You had to hold a water balloon between your legs and run to the goal.  I failed miserably.  The second, (pictured below) was some other game where you had to roll dice (doubles, 7 or 11) in order to gain control of the pot of M&M's.  When you had control you sucked M&M's with the straw into your cup.  Rachel and I came in dead last.  We really sucked... or we didn't suck.  Something like that.

 We got a lot of awesome stuff for our son.  The super baby outfit was amongst the coolest of them.  We got an awesome bassinet, and lots of diapers and wipes.  It was a success and a lot of fun!  Thanks Diana!

This is our Mom, Dad & Sibling picture.  This is the first family picture we've had in 6 years.

Here's the rest of the family.

We spent the rest of the week swimming and boating.  

This picture was of us jumping off the boat (Pictured left to right: Dan, Diana, Amber, Scott and Rob). 

During the reunion, I was the master wakeboarder!  At least, I was until I crashed and got a concussion, that is.  I'll tell you the story, because it sounds like it was funny (I actually don't remember any of it).  I was wakeboarding and I was weaving in out of the wake.  I guess I was just being retarded or something, because my board turned sideways and I face-planted into the water.  I remember that my feet rocketed out of the boots and I just floated for a while in extreme pain with my eyes closed.  After a while I swam after my board and went in to the boat.  I helped Amber figure out how to get the wakeboard on and then I don't remember the next half hour.

I guess the next half hour progressed like this: We had this other red wakeboard that was bootless.  I wanted to try it out.  I tried it before my concussion, but was unsuccessful in getting up onto it.  During Amber's attempt to wakeboard I kept asking if I had tried out the red board yet.  They said that I had and I would reply back, "Did I get up?"  This happened several times until Rachel, Kim and Dan decided to ask me other questions.  "Do you remember FHE on Monday?"  "No."  "Do you remember our baby shower yesterday?"  " No. . . We had a baby shower?"  So it was pretty obvious something was wrong.  I kept making the same lame jokes and asking the same questions.  That's pretty much it.  I still don't remember the half hour, but the rest of my memory came back.

That's the story of my first concussion.

 

In other news, we're finally done with organizing our apartment.  We had lots of little projects we'd been meaning to do, so we've kept busy going through things and organizing. Now that we're done with everything major, it's relax time until baby comes and school starts.  Rachel is 37 and a half weeks along now, so the baby is already full term. We're really excited for it to happen already. Maybe our next blog will have baby news!

Portland!

We're here!  Finally!  So this is the whole story.  I (Rob) spent all of the week after finals packing the house up.  Having this experience makes me realize that I never want to move again (a vain wish, I know).  Rachel still had her job that she was working so she could have insurance through August.  Tuesday, the 3rd, we packed everything into a tiny Uhaul.  This was a really stressful day.  We couldn't fit a ton of things and so we ended up giving them away :( to people we didn't even know.  The night before we left was really, really rotten.  Our bed was packed away, so we slept on the floor with no padding but a couple sleeping bags.  I was really sore, but I can only imagine what it was like for my seven month pregnant wife (she only got like 3 hours of sleep).  The drive went by pretty smoothly.  We had to drive separately because we have two cars, which wasn't very fun, but we listened to The DaVinci Code the whole way, which made it less bad.

Our apartment is great!  We have brand new carpet, two bathrooms and a walk-in closet.  The house smells slightly like smoke though.  Every time we walk in we smell it.  It's like the guys installing it were smoking while installing or something.  We air freshen a lot... it'll go away eventually, or we will, whichever comes first.  We had the elders quorum help us move in.  Our ward is really nice.  We've already been invited to dinner twice.  Both couples were really fun and nice.

There is one thing that I really wanted to mention though.  We got a call from the missionaries on Saturday night.  They asked if we could take them to transfer meetings on Monday; one of them was going home.  He told us that he had to drop off some things at some old investigators houses before the meeting.  We were okay with that, until it was too late.  We found out once we got to his investigator's house that we had driven a complete hour in the opposite direction of their transfer meeting.  It's like having someone ask you to take you to a meeting in Ellensburg from Yakima, with a quick stop in Prosser on the way.  Had we known this, we would not have done it, b/c we had to take our Pacifica (for the bike) which ate up more gas than we could afford at the time.  We stopped at two houses and waited for him to chat with his "old buddies" and drop off a bin, suitcase and bike.  When I went home from my mission, I spent the last transfer sending things home, giving them away, or just trashing them.  Why didn't the guy take care of all this before the day he was supposed to leave?  I don't know.  It took three hours in the car before we even got to the transfer meeting.  Then we had to wait for them to finish their meeting.  It basically took up our whole day.  The guy didn't even thank us, not that we were in a very serving attitude at that point.  So the point is, we wanted to help the missionaries, but it turns out that we just got used by the missionaries.

Fortunately, though we had to wait a long time, we were pretty close to Voodoo Doughnuts (As seen on Man vs. Food, Travel Channel).  They were all good, but I think we prefer the traditional flavors.  My favorite was the blueberry doughnut, Rachel's was some sort of cake doughnut.

We have been diligently unpacking and looking for things that we need for Baby's room.  There are a lot of things that we've had to accomplish.  Fortunately things have been working out for us.

 We had to register our Pacifica here in Oregon, so we went to the DMV.  We got new plates.  For some reason, they had trouble getting rid of this one.  We're the unlucky ones?  Eh, oh well.

 
Apparently, if we register our car here, we have to have Oregon state driver's licenses.  We were about to take the test, when I realized that I didn't want a picture with a beard.

I currently have a beard, by the way.  Doesn't everyone grow a beard when they leave BYU-I?  Here's a picture of me and my scruffiness.

Our plan was to grow it out until vacation next week.  This isn't permanent.  I don't even like having a beard, it's itchy and I look like a vagabond/scalawag.  In other words, I fit in just fine here in Portland.

So, we went and visited my school.  It's small but delightful!  I'm really excited to start.  I've already met a few people that go there.  One of them is in some of his later quarters and he works in the clinic a lot.  He said that in later quarters I can treat my wife, parents and siblings for free!

We met Rachel's OBGYN last week.  We're finally starting to feel like we're actually having a baby, instead of just focusing on the move and stuff.  We still aren't prepared at all for our baby.  We didn't buy anything for our baby before we moved, so now we're scrounging to find things that he needs before he comes.  We're looking for things on Craigslist every day and we signed up for child birth classes.  Hopefully we'll be able to prepare ourselves before he comes.

We're heading to Lake Palmer soon!  We're excited to see my family!

Husband

This is Rachel. I just wanted to make a quick blog to record a little bit about how good my husband is. Rob is the best ever, and I don't want to forget the little things that he does for me to make me comfortable and happy, especially during pregnancy. Here are just a few examples of the ways Rob takes care of me:

• Last night, I couldn't fall asleep for the longest time, and couldn't get my mind to relax. That has happened almost never since being married, but when it does happen, it's super frustrating and the frustration makes it harder to relax. Finally, around 2am, I woke him up and told him I couldn't sleep. He got out of bed, turned on the AC, got me an extra pillow, and scratched and rubbed my back and head. Then, he kindly rambled on about boring things like video games and Lord of the Rings (at my request) until I fell asleep. It took about an hour. 
• Woke up this morning to him cooking me breakfast, and right after we were done with that, he made me a lunch, too. 
• He is doing basically ALL of the packing and cleaning to get ready for our move while I'm at work, following detailed to-do lists from his control freak wife.
• He taught our lesson by himself on Sunday when I wasn't feeling great, and he's just so good at teaching-- he's way into the Old Testament and knows so many extra things about each lesson. He's definitely an entertaining teacher and has really good insights. He is a good spiritual leader in our home.
•  Every morning, he wakes up early and lets me sleep longer while he gets ready, then comes and wakes me up. I don't think I've had to set my own alarm clock since we've been married.
• He rubs my feet and belly with cocoa butter every night.
• He humors me when I tell him to "look at my belly!" Usually by the time I can say that, my belly has stopped moving, but I still tell him to look all the time.
• He goes walking with me even though it's not a workout at all for him.
• He also surprises me with treats!
• He's always willing to do whatever he can to make me comfortable when I'm not feeling great, by giving massages and taking care of things so I can relax.

Anyway, hope that wasn't TMI, but I am just so lucky to have such a loving and giving husband!

Yellowstone and Stuff

So, Rachel has been writing all of the blogs for a while.  I guess it's my turn.  I'll give a short update and then some pictures (the reason people read blogs).

Well, Rachel has been working hard at her job.  She's got a lot of kids that are holy terrors, but it was worth it so we could learn some of the things we definitely didn't want to do as parents.  She'll be really glad to be done.  I just finished my semester today!  I'm excited to be done with this school.  Not that I have anything against BYU-Idaho, I will just enjoy something different.  Also the break will be relaxing, I hope.  Now that I don't go to BYU-Idaho anymore, I can grow a beard (Rachel shakes her head).  This semester was eventful.  I took a lot of marriage/family/parenting type classes and got a lot of good books.  That's what's new with me, I guess.

We went to Salt Lake for the 4th of July weekend.  We spent Saturday morning up at a lake in North Ogden on the pontoons and canoe.  It felt good to soak up the sun.  At least it did, until I got burnt, then it just hurt.  I really got burnt on my left arm, which coincidentally is the arm exposed to the sun when you drive.  We went to Sugarhouse to see fireworks.  It took us a long time to get out of there.

On Sunday we went to Music and the Spoken Word.  It was really great.  Rachel and I went down to Provo to visit our friends one last time before we move.  We visited Dane & Bridget Smith, then Natalie Christensen, and then Taylor & Valerie Jackson.  It was good to visit all of our friends.  We planned to stop and see Kayla, and Jeremy & Emily Brown on the way home, but Rachel got sick, so we headed straight back to Rexburg.

Now, let me tell you about this crazy sickness that came upon Rachel.  I've never heard of this before, but now we're pretty well informed.  It started Friday night when Rachel started getting a little discomfort under her jaw every time she ate.  As it turns out, one of her salivary glands had something blocking it (we think it was some kind of stone).  All day Saturday and Sunday the discomfort turned into extreme pain and swelling under her jaw every time she salivated.  This made eating not very enjoyable for her unfortunately.  She had to eat really fast, take Tylenol, and sit with an ice pack held to her jaw/neck until the pain went away.  By Monday it started getting infected and instead of just the pain happening during eating, it was constant.  Any movement or talking made it hurt worse.  She says it was worse than when she had a dry socket.  We considered going to an urgent care center, but decided to wait.  We finally got her an appointment with her doctor in Rexburg, who told us to try sucking on lemon drops (which was probably the last thing she wanted to do) and massaging it to try to force the stone out.  The lemon drops were the magic cure, because in a couple of hours the pain was gone and the gland slowly drained for the next two days.

So, last weekend we went with Thomas and Lindsey Giles to Yellowstone National Park.  It had been maybe 12 years or so since I last went there.  We saw a lot of Thermal Pools and Hot Pots.

There was a really cool one that was called a Paint Pot.  It was just a lot of molten clay bubbling and spurting from the ground.  That was cool.  Here's a picture of one.

We went to Old Faithful after looking at those.  As it turns out, much to my dismay, Old Faithful is not really that faithful.  The geyser blasts every 40 to 126 minutes.  That's kind of a large gap in time.  Don't count on Old Faithful to tell you the time, because he will probably be off by a whole bunch.  Nevertheless, he did explode, as predicted (I guess he's a little faithful).  It was pretty cool.  

Here's us with the old geyser in the background.  It was calming down by the time we got a chance to take a picture.

We went and got ice cream at the gift shop afterwords.  Yellowstone was fun.  

We took a picture of Rachel's pregnancy at 30 weeks last Sunday.

We had our good friends Chris and Nicole Davis over for dinner on Sunday.  This will be the last time that we see them for a long time.  It's sad to leave all of our friends behind and to not have any where we're moving to.  We'll survive.

Our plans haven't changed.  We're moving to Portland for Chiropractic School.  We've got a place to live (almost).  We're moving in two weeks.  It's going to be super stressful getting packed and making that long drive.  I hate long road trips.  What makes it worse is that Rachel and I will be driving each of our cars.  That's pretty much what we've got going on.

Here's a cute picture of my wife!

Great House of Grothaus

     Last week, I took the week off work and went to Salt Lake, since some of my sisters were there visiting at my parents' house. Rob still had school, so he didn't come until Thursday and stayed the weekend. It was the longest we'd been apart since we've been married and it was way hard, but we both kept pretty busy. Danielle and Derek were there with their family and Lindsey came with her kids. Katie came down for the weekend and Liz came with her kids as well. It was a pretty full house.
     We did some shopping, made trips to Antelope Island (in the Salt Lake, where there were bison and other wildlife) and the Kennecott copper mine, went to the Salt Lake temple, ate tons of food, and did some car shopping. I had done some car searching before Rob got there, then when he showed up, we made the decision to buy our Chrysler Pacifica. We were planning to get a safe and reliable car before moving and having a baby, and this one had everything we wanted and more, and was in our price range. We like it a lot. I know it looks like we just buy cars all the time, but really we don't! :)

     It was nice to have a break from work, and fun to see some family members we don't see very often. I didn't take tons of pictures with our camera, but I have a few. I don't have the group picture of everyone there, so maybe I'll add more when someone sends me theirs. :) I am convinced that between the cute kids on my side of the family and the cute kids on Rob's side, our baby will obviously be really cute!

Halfway There

We've hit the 20 week mark, so 20 more and our baby will be here! We had our ultrasound on Friday and everything looks great. And it was pretty clear that we are having a boy. . . Rob and I could both tell before the tech said anything! I think we both had a feeling it was a boy. At the beginning, I thought we'd have a girl, but lately, I'd been thinking boy. For one thing, every time I've had a dream about our baby, it's been a boy!

We're really excited to have a little boy. He's pretty active too. I've been feeling little kicks for a couple of weeks now, and today, Rob felt a big kick already! The baby was kicking a lot so Rob pressed down a little on my belly and after a while I felt the biggest kick ever, and so did he! I didn't think he'd be able to feel anything for a few more weeks, but there was no denying that distinct push. It was probably a high-five actually. We like our baby.

We've been busy with work and school. Rob is working at the campus bakery every evening, and even though he is taking a bunch of fun classes, he has tons of reading and homework. In other news, our favorite summer treat shack, Snoasis, is open again after a long winter of craving it daily. That was our recent excitement, second only to our ultrasound, and our baby is probably going to be born a shaved ice addict. Did it snow enough to stick here 3 days ago? Yes. Did we go to Snoasis that day anyway? Duh.

We're getting really excited to move to Portland and have a little break before having our baby and starting chiro school. That's all the updates we have today!

Baby deets

So, we thought we'd give a few more details about our baby! Our due date is Sept. 26th. We had our 16 week appointment this morning and heard the heartbeat again. Our next appointment (May 8) will be our second ultrasound, where we can hopefully find out the sex! We're super excited.
I've been really lucky. . . no morning sickness, symptoms few and far between. I'll document a little bit about the first trimester, mostly for myself.

• Tons of sleeping, of course! Average 10 hours a night.
• I wasn't very sick, but I couldn't eat anything with strong flavors. 
• Sometimes a food would sound really good to me, so we'd buy it because everything else sounded horrible (example: cheetos). I'd have my little share and then never want it again. We bought a lot of random things that Rob ended up having to finish off. 
• Staples of my diet: rice, cereal, and cottage cheese! Probably the only things that never repulsed me.
• Ew, I had acne for like a week.
• I had a metallic taste in my mouth for 2 days, and read on a pregnancy website that it's semi-common.

There are probably more things that happened, but now that I'm in the 2nd tri, I think I'm getting a little more absent-minded! Maybe it's just that we have a lot on our mind lately though. I feel pretty good now, other than the aches and pains I feel from my growing abdomen.
The thing that has plagued me most: worry. Since I haven't really "felt" pregnant, I am constantly worrying that there isn't actually anything growing in there at all. I was certain there wasn't until our 8 week ultrasound. Then, each time another appointment comes around I can't relax until we hear the proof of a heartbeat.
Anyway, we are really excited. Our current plans now are to move to Portland at the beginning of August, to give us time to settle in and figure out insurance before our baby comes, since our current health insurance won't carry over. Rob is going to school this next semester and taking some fun classes he didn't have the chance to take before, like parenting, eternal marriage, guitar lessons, and weight training!

We had fun in Salt Lake last weekend with my family. We went to conference Saturday morning and spend a lot of time relaxing and visiting. We also bought a new car! We found an excellent deal and decided we'd better go for it, because we know both of our cars need to be replaced before we move to a bigger city. We got a 2005 Hyundai Accent. It is really small (compared to our huge, and really comfortable Olds) and it has some imperfections, but it runs well, has low miles and good gas mileage, and the price was affordable enough to just pay in cash without worrying about payments. Also, it's a little more age-appropriate for us, considering that our current cars are a grandpa oldsmobile and a minivan! Not to mention. . . even though CD players are getting outdated, this is the first car either of us has had that actually has one!! haha.

Our red car, with a crazy person in the background