An update that is way past due....

I haven't been into this blogging thing much, but I'm going to try to update a little more often now. We'll see if that actually ends up happening!

Big news in the Larsen family: We're having a baby! We are extremely excited to welcome a baby girl into our family sometime around February 26th, 2012. The whole 'being pregnant' thing is probably the weirdest thing I have experienced in my entire life. I never know what's coming next. We've had a few scares along the way, but all of the ultrasounds have reassured me that I have a healthy baby growing in there! My most recent ultrasound was on October 13th, and the baby is measuring true to my due date and everything looks to be developing normally. She sat still for most of the ultrasound, which the ultrasound tech appreciated, but we did get to see her more around a little bit, which was exciting. I absolutely love feeling her move around all day long. Sometimes she kicks a little harder then I expect which causes me to jump a little bit, but I'm starting to get used to feeling her move around. The doctor says that babies can sleep up to 18 hours in a day at this point in pregnancy (22 weeks), so that if I'm not feeling her constantly it shouldn't cause any worry. I downloaded an app on my cellphone that tracks how far along I am and tells me every Sunday the big developments that are occurring around then. It's been fun to watch over the last few months because of all of the development that is happening all of the time! Today it says "Her lips, eyelids, and eyebrows are becoming more distinct, and tiny tooth buds are even developing beneath the gums. Your baby's eyes have formed, but the irises still lack pigment. At 11 inches (the length of a spaghetti squash), your baby weighs almost 1 pound." How exciting is that?

Here's a picture that somehow proves that she's a girl:

Needless to say, we are EXTREMELY excited to meet this precious little girl!

Besides the exciting news about having a baby, Brad and I have been busy trying to get everything done that life requires right now. We are both working and going to school right now and try to figure out how to spend some quality time with each other when we can. Brad was hired by Gold Cross Ambulance as a paramedic in September and has been busy adjusting to that 48 hour a week schedule while fitting in a full time school schedule. Luckily, all of his classes this semester are online through UVU, so he can spend some of his downtime on the ambulance doing homework as well as his time off at home. He is also volunteering with the Sandy Fire Department and doing an internship with the Pleasant Grove Fire Department. He's sure been busy!

Here's a picture of his Sandy Fire Department patch:

Here's a picture of one of the first Gold Cross Ambulances. Brad thought it was funny because it looks like the car from Ghostbusters!

I'm back working at Elite Security and taking a full load of credits at BYU at the same time. I've had to learn to balance school, work, and being pregnant but I think I've finally gotten the hang of it. It was hard to learn that I had to listen to my body and slow down when I couldn't do any more, but now I know that when I feel like I need to take a break and lay down it is important!

We also took a vacation over Labor Day weekend to visit Brad's sister Amanda and her family for the blessing of their baby, Emma. It was an added bonus that it was on my birthday, too! It was so fun to travel to New Jersey and see their house and spend some time with them because we live so far away! While we were there, Brad and I took a train into New York City and walked around for the day. It was so fun to be able to see the city with Brad and do anything we wanted for the day. We saw pretty much everything you could see in New York that relates to firefighters, which was really neat because it was right before the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001.

Here's a picture from the FDNY 9/11/01 Memorial Wall:

I'm so proud to be married to a firefighter/paramedic. It's such an amazing profession, and is definitely perfect for Brad!

That pretty much sums up what's going on in our lives right now. We're sure excited for all of the fun things that are happening and can't wait to see what the future has in store for us!

Life Update!

Well we have sure been busy lately! School is almost over; Brad and I just have a couple more finals and then it's summertime! Our classes have certainly kept us busy this semester and we sure have done well considering we got married after the semester started! Our summer will be extremely busy as well, however, because I finally got a job! I work full time at Elite Security now with my sisters. I absolutely love it so far. I'll be working 8-5 every day and then Brad works 7-1 most nights. We won't see each other a whole lot during the week but our weekends will be better. Brad is taking classes to get his EMT during May and June so he will be busy while I'm at work most of the time.

We are officially moving May 1st! We got a new apartment across the street from BYU. While looking for apartments on Craigslist, I found a bunch of posts for purchasing contracts from Cambridge Court Apartments. The one we fell in love with was an extremely good deal for us, so we couldn't pass it up! It'll be really nice for me to be able to walk to school in the fall instead of being stuck at school all day waiting for a ride home. We're absolutely excited to move! The apartment we are in right now is fine, but it will be nice to live on the top floor and have no more kids running above us at 6 in the morning. YAY!!

My brother, Todd, is now engaged too! Catrina is such an amazing girl and they are both lucky to have each other! Their wedding is in the end of July in the Newport Beach temple, so it will be a wonderful vacation for our family!

Brad's birthday was over the weekend and we celebrated for three days! On Friday we went out to dinner with his parents and Heather. We went to Brick Oven and it was delicious! That's definitely one of my favorite restaurants! His family is so fun to spend time with! I'm so glad that they are so awesome!

His actual birthday was such a great day! We decided to go up to the Hogle Zoo in the afternoon. On our way up, my dad called us to tell us that Brad had mail from UVU. We had been waiting to hear if he was accepted to Paramedic School for Fall semester, and it came! My dad opened it while we were on the phone and HE WAS ACCEPTED!! Both him and my brother-in-law, Troy, were accepted. Thank goodness! So, I'll be going to BYU alone in the fall and Brad will finally be taking classes that are perfect for him! I'm so excited for him to become a paramedic and a firefighter! I'm so proud of the hard work he put in to study for the paramedic entrance exam and everything. He's going to be such a good paramedic! What a great birthday present! We then walked around the zoo for a while and saw all of the animals. I think we both agree that our favorite was the baby elephant! We got to watch it run and play and it was SO cute! After we saw everything at the zoo, we decided we were hungry. We drove to Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City and ate at Jason's Deli. It was delicious! After that, we decided to walk around the mall. Brad found some shirts he really liked at PacSun and I found my family! My sister, Cathy, and her family rode Trax up to SLC and we ran into them at the mall. What a coincidence! It was really fun to see them up there. After we bought Brad his shirts, we drove to Ikea to look for a kitchen table for our apartment. Ikea is the biggest store, so that took forever. By the time we finished walking around the store we were both exhausted. We decided to head home and pick up his paramedic packet that was at my house. Once we got that we decided we should end the day by getting massages because we had a pretty good coupon. Man, was that nice! After walking a whole day it was really nice to relax. I hope Brad had such a great birthday!!

Sunday was his last day of celebrating his birthday. We went to church in his home ward because Keith Newsom was giving his farewell talk. It was fun to see everyone there! Then we went to my parents house and made Brad's birthday cake! Funfetti of course! Haha. A little while later Brad started cooking the meat. He chose to have carne asada for his birthday dinner, and what a good choice that was! It was so delicious. I searched the kitchen cupboards for candles and found exactly 22 for his cake. I keep forgetting how huge my family is getting: we had just enough cake for everyone, too! It was so fun to spend time with both my family and Brad's family for his birthday! We absolutely love all of them! They helped make Brad's birthday and the entire weekend great.

Pictures hopefully to come!

Addition to our family ;)

Well, we have a new addition to our family! Thank goodness it's just a fish! We've been playing an aquarium game on Facebook, and decided we really, really wanted a fish. After spending about an hour at Petco with my brother, Todd, and my nephew, Kai, Brad and I chose a male betta as our first pet. A few weeks have passed by, but we still don't have a name. I think we call him something new everyday. We'd love suggestions!

Well, we got married! Duhh! The day was absolutely wonderful. The weather was SO perfect! The actual wedding was incredible and we're so grateful so many family and friends were able to be there. The whole day went off without many problems, thank goodness. I lost my jewelry for the first half of the day, so I wore my maid of honor's jewelry (thanks Linz!). Then Kai (my nephew) got super sick at day care and ended up throwing up on some of my presents at the reception. Haha! All in all, the day was perfect and I wouldn't change a thing!

The reception was absolutely perfect! It was everything I wanted. Our cake looked exactly how we wanted! It was just like the cake featured on Charm City Cakes' website! Haha.
The line was SUPER long all night, but it was fun to see all our our friends and family.

The first dance was fun, and the parent-child dance was funny because we switched partners in the middle of it and made our parents dance with each other.

Lindsey caught my bouquet, which was good because she only had a month before her wedding!

Tyler caught the garter... totally awkward? It was hilarious, though.

Then everyone escorted us to our truck with bubbles! Thanks to Glenn and Natalie for decorating the truck so well :)

Our wedding day was amazing! Thanks everyone!

And so it begins!

So... I'm totally new to this whole blog thing, but I figured it'd be a good way to keep in touch with friends and family while remembering the crazy things that happen to us. I'm pretty sure Brad won't do much posting, so I guess you'll have to just put up with me!

I'm going to post wedding pictures later once I get the copyright, so I'll write about that whole day in that post. I'll also tell the tale of our honeymoon adventure later, too. For now, I guess I'm just going to try to get used to blogging!