A fun story and some fabulous news

Story Time:
It's finally time for me to tell you about our fun story!  Keep in mind, this is for my own documentation purposes so feel free to skip to the bottom if you don't want to read about the whole thing.  

Our story started two days before we left for our cruise.
I had an appointment with the chiropractor scheduled for that afternoon and sometimes he takes hip x-rays so I started the morning off with a precaution just in case he decided to take more.  I've taken  at-home pregnancy tests several times and even though I have no expectations of it reflecting a positive result for at least another year, it's still slightly disappointing to see the single line in my "window" every time-- I guess it just gets old after a while.
Anyway, there I was going about my morning routine when I remembered that I needed to throw my test away for the umpteenth time.  Just as I went to do so, I saw not one, but two lines.  What the?  I had just recently opened a new kind of pregnancy test kit and I sat there for a while thinking about how confusing it was that they all displayed results so differently.  They should really all collaborate and make things look the same so they don't throw me for a loop like that!
So... I pulled the box out to reread the results portion and it stated clearly that two lines indicated a positive result.  Then I stared at my test for a very long time.  It was early in the morning so chances were pretty high that I was misreading something.
I reread the box, then my test, the box, then my test, multiple times until I finally came to the conclusion that I had just received my first positive result from a pregnancy test!
Instead of coming up with a clever, cute way of telling Tyler, I bounded into the bedroom and jumped on the bed without even thinking about it.  I woke Tyler up to tell him the news and asked him how this was possible.  Tyler responded with a somewhat cheeky explanation of the birds and the bees and just like that it started.
Tyler immediately purchased 3 more tests at Dollar Tree so we could be sure that the positive test result wasn't just a fluke.
3 tests later, the answer was still a resounding yes.  And I'd like to add in a little note here about how differently the Dollar Tree tests work.  First they display a negative result, then the coloring sweeps back to display a positive.  It scared the daylights out of us the first time I took one.
Thank goodness we found out before the cruise because I had plans to soak in hot tubs and eat seafood to my heart's content.  That could have been scary.
This discovery did make the cruise very interesting though since I woke up sick every morning.  And whoever came up with the term "morning sickness" deserves a swift kick in the pants because it is misleading to a first-timer who expects the nausea to simply disappear into the afternoon.  Don't get me wrong, it's totally worth it.  And considering the fact that I never get sick, I feel like this is only fair, but still... it needs a more accurate name.
As you can imagine, I had some serious issues with all of the constant supplies of food on our cruise ship.  Bleck!  Even writing about it makes me feel ill.

Our News:
Just in case you skimmed ahead or were left feeling confused about my story, here is our news:

The Grange household is going to become a family of 3!!  We are expecting our first baby on October 14, 2011 and we are absolutely thrilled!

We are still in shock that things did not take longer but are so thankful for the opportunity.  It has been a truly awesome experience so far and we already feel so blessed.  It has been amazing to see the way things have just sort of worked out so far, what an awesome testament to the fact that this child is meant to be!

P.S.  My advice to all of you who may have reason to announce births in the future: DON'T TELL ANYONE AHEAD OF TIME!  Just pick one day and tell the world.  Otherwise, the beans are inevitably spilled.  Trust me, on our next go-round, we're going to do things much differently :)  Thank you to all those who kept their lips sealed!

General Conference Weekend

I hope you're all okay with a pictureless post because I stuck to my habits and took zero pictures this past weekend. In my defense, I thought we were without a camera all weekend (it was actually packed away in our trunk). However, the fact remains that I am terrible at this documenting stuff.


Nevertheless, we had a great weekend so I wanted to share some quick thoughts.

1- Was conference this year INCREDIBLE or what?! Seriously! I absolutely loved it!
I had an awesome ah-ha moment on Sunday when my little sister turned to me during one particular talk and asked,

"Doesn't it seem like every talk was written for Jake [my brother]?" My response was something along the lines of, "I was just thinking that every talk was written for me."

Ah ha! Isn't it interesting that if you listen to conference with the right spirit, you'll find something in every single talk that seems as if it was tailored to you personally? I just love it.
Talk about some awesome, inspired men and women who unbeknownst to themselves, deliver exactly the right message for each member of the congregation! You can't tell me that's not a miracle.

2- For conference weekend this spring, we decided to take a much-needed camping trip down to Little Sahara/Cherry Creek/Jericho or as I prefer to call it, the desert.
What an awesome experience! As far as I'm concerned, dirt bikes are the best form of therapy in existence. We were of course able to visit Porter Rockwell's cabin again and that never gets old for me.

The desert may not have the most beautiful scenery in the world, but the terrain is out of this world! Seriously- I don't think you can find anything better.

So... here's our fun story for the weekend:
Saturday night was our last night in the desert (sniff) and it had it out for us. There I was sleeping peacefully, completely oblivious to the world around me, when Tyler pokes me with his elbow.

"We have to get out Sha," he says.
"Why?" I respond.
"Because I'm holding up the tent with my shoulder."

What the?! What the crap is going on? I've become a light sleeper as of late. If something was wrong, I would have woken up, right? Evidently, wrong.

"WHERE AM I?" I shout.
"You're camping in a tent in the desert. Are you okay?"
"I KNOW that! What's going on? Where is the door?"

Apparently it takes a while for me to come to my senses when I am woken up in an enclosed heap of material.

Long story short, after some struggling, we safely made it out of the tent in time for me to nearly collapse into a ball of laughing hysterics. Our tent was piled so high in heavy snow that I couldn't even recognize it! It was hysterical. Together we were able to shovel off the snow with our hands just in time for more to accumulate. We tried multiple times to pop the tent back up, but to no avail. It seems that one of our poles actually split down the middle lengthwise. Great.  Additionally, we were both standing in a snow storm in nothing but sweats, which basically means we became sopping wet in a matter of seconds.

Thankfully my parents had arrived at about midnight that morning so we were able to convince them to make room for us in their trailer after we disassembled the tent and removed several of our soaked belongings.

I've been camping many times before, but never like this. What an adventure!

I hope all of your weekends were filled with wonderfulness as well! 

Until Next Time,
Shaela

Thought of the Day

“Pray for the love which allows you to see the good in your companion. Pray for the love that makes weaknesses and mistakes seem small. Pray for the love to make your companion’s joy your own. Pray for the love to want to lessen the load and soften the sorrows of your companion.”

-President Eyring


Thank you President Eyring for reminding us all about what what we should be striving for!

Our time in the Caribbean

As you might have guessed, we have safely returned home from the caribbean.  While we're still pretty horrid at taking pictures, we didn't come home completely empty-handed and here is our post to prove it.

Our cruise made 4 stops: Belize, Isla Routan, Cozumel, and Costa Maya.  We decided early on that this cruise represented our big chance to try new things, so almost our entire spending budget went toward excursions and we enjoyed EACH and EVERY minute of it! 

One of the biggest things that stands about to me about our cruise experience and consequently one of the things I get asked most about is the food.  Imagine yourself being completely surrounded by food ALL THE TIME!  We're talking buffet lines, fancy eateries, room service, you name it.  It is ALWAYS there!  Ugh.  Seriously, I'm feeling ill just talking about it.  We knew instantly that we would be eating way more food than our bodies were used to so the first thing we did was outlaw the elevators.  Literally.  We did not touch the elevators the entire week (unless you count Tyler habitually pushing all the buttons every time he walked by them) and thank goodness that helped us out a little bit.  There were 12 decks on this ship so you can imagine.... just walking up to the 12th deck was a bit of a workout after eating an entire four course dinner.

Another thing that stands out is the tipping.  Oh the tipping!  Sometimes I forget how lucky we are in America to be able to look at a price list and understand how much money will be expected of us for a desired service/product; not so in other countries.  I've noticed this especially in Mexico but we still saw it in Belize and Routan as well.  Basically if you look at someone the wrong way, or the right way as the case may be, talk to them, or succomb to them volunteering to help you in any way, shape, or form, you owe them a tip.  It is exhausting after a while.  I think we spent $80 in tips outside of the cruise ship.  Of course once you're on the cruise ship, certain tips are automatically deducted from your account but overall I would guess that around $200 went only to tips.  Sheesh.

Instead of writing about all our experiences, I'll sum them up for you.  Here is a list of all the new things we tried:

• Cave Tubing
• Zip Lining
• Parasailing
• Snuba
• Exploration of a new-to-us set of Mayan ruins
• Duck (as in we ate it)
• Baked Alaskan
• Red Snapper
• Chilled strawberry soup
• Chocolate melty cake  mmm....
• Vegetarian lasagna
• Line dancing in a fancy restaurant
• Letting my hair stay naturally curly (Wow!  Talk about a red afro!  Please see pics below as proof)
• Living on a Cruise ship for a week
• Meals ordered in through room service
• Several different shows/musical performances onboard (street dancing was the ultimate)
• Sleeping with a down comforter in a room with zero lighting (heavenly)
• Water slides on the top deck in freezing cold weather (which resulted in Shaela screaming and jumping out of the pool)
• Seeing one of the most poisionous fish in existence hanging out in the wild
• Watching a shark and eel be fed by hand

Overall it was a glorious experience and we feel so fortunate to have been able to do this together.  We saw some breathtakingly beautiful sights, met some incredible people, and enjoyed learning about other cultures.

One more thing before I end this post: We spent a lot of time talking to three young men in Belize and it was rather eye-opening.  These boys know natural remedies for every ailment in existence (or so it seemed).  It was so cool to talk to them!  They told us all about how to combat poisonous plants, which bark to boil for which type of illness, which insects would be good in a tea for Tyler's asthma, etc...  Wow!  These people do not have access to great medical care so they create it on their own using Mother Nature.  I find it so fascinating!  Obviously you can't always rely on herbal remedies, but oh how I wish we could find a way to create a better mixture of both modern and alternative medicine.

A real Lamanite village!

The most beautiful beach I have ever seen!  But guess what?  There were naked people all over the place!

Remember what I said about curly hair?  Just watch the progression.  It took a few days to figure out how to tame it.

Zip lines in Belize.  Such a blast!

BEAUTIFUL!!!  We truly do live in a desert.

The only picture we took on our parasailing adventure.  We are terrible.

Tyler on a beach called "Banana Ramma"  So fun!

Here we are with Ty's parentals and a lovely lady from Serbia who we loved getting to know during our meal times!  She helped us find food that Tyler could eat each night.

The room staff left us a lovely creation like this one each night on our bed.  So cute!

Anyone who tells you that the Caribbean is always warm is LYING!

These water slides were on the top deck and it was freezing outside but totally worth  the challenge!

How cool would it be to feed a shark by hand?!

Davis County Ballroom Dancing

I realize that because of your location, this is not going to be an option for many of you.  Sad day.  But for those of you who live nearby Davis County.....

Davis County Ballroom is hosting two dance nights for adult couples and it sounds like tons of fun!
 
If you've never danced before but want to try it out, this is a great opportunity because they are offering free dance instruction before the actual dance event starts. 

Unfortunately I am not getting any kick-backs for promoting this event so you can zap that idea right out of your little heads.  I just think it sounds fun and wish that all of you would come with me!  I'm not sure when we're going just yet, but it definitely sounds like something I'd like to attend.

Here is their flyer for more info (just click on the image for a full view):

Am I boring?

P.S.  One quick question for anyone who is brave enough to answer--  Ever since I started this blog, I've wondered why Blogger offered so few font options.  It felt like all of the offered fonts were so dull and displayed no sense of personality.  Today I noticed that my concerns were met; Blogger has at last joined the world of cute fonts and there are so many cute options to choose from!  Hooray!
The only problem is that each time I chose a font and applied it to my blog, I couldn't help but utter an unsatisfied sigh/grunt.  I found myself thinking in a grumbling sort of way about how I wouldn't take the time to read a blog if it required me to read long passages in fonts like that.  I've read about how sans serif is supposedly easier on the eye, but I also wonder if part of it is just that I'm a lazy reader and regular fonts require much less effort on my part as the reader.
Either way, this is the most exciting option I could come up with.  Does that make me a boring person?

I'm behind

As evident by our lack of posts here, I'm behind on my blogging duties.  Drat.  On the mostly plus side though, my time has recently been gobbled up by planning for our biggest adventure yet... the Western Caribbean cruise we've been dreaming about.  Rejoice!

Unfortunately I finally have a second to blog and I do not have my camera with me which includes the other Christmas adventure I wanted to post about.  I guess those will have to come later.  In the meantime, I do have access to some lovely images of my birthday trip, so let's skip ahead for a bit, shall we? 

Turning 24 this year totally rocked!  I don't know why I didn't start doing this years ago, but I decided to take the day off for my birthday in order to enjoy the sunlight and use our new snow shoes.  It was absolutely fantastic!  Snow shoeing is now one of my favorite forms of exercise and it was so beautiful!  Thanks to Tyler for making my day blissful and perfect!  He made every possible preparation- researched what kind/how many layers of clothing and gear we needed to wear, prepared sack lunches, readied my new backpack, etc...   I even made him dig through my parents' shed to find some ski poles for us to borrow and that was a pretty miserable thing to do in the cold, dark night.  In the end though, it was beyond worth it.

One of the many reasons I LOVE Utah!  Is this beautiful or what?!  It was so fun to trek deep in the mountains where we got to see beautiful views like this that were not accessible in the car.

We are kind of nerdy.  But we love it!

I was all geared up like this for about 45 minutes.  From that point on, I couldn't get enough of this super thick, warm gear off of me.  It was so hot!  But all it took was a resting break to remind us that the temperatures were actually well below freezing.

Can you say gorgeous? That applies to both Tyler and the view.  I loved this spot along the trail because we found a little river that was mostly frozen over but you could still see the water flowing underneath it.

These last two pictures represent my best efforts to capture our snow art on camera.  In my defense, I couldn't even see the screen on my phone because the snow was so bright.  Anyway, you get the idea.

I'm now two dozen years old and I have to say that if every future birthday turns out to be as good as this one, bring it on!

Now you're probably wondering what this last picture has to do with snow shoeing in January.  Allow me to explain.  If you don't hear from us for a while, don't mind us, we're just living life to the fullest on this giant.  Wish us luck and take care!