Proof!

We had our first doctor appointment today! We got to go in and get a quick ultrasound to hear the heartbeat and it was amazing!! I cried my eyes out it was just such a great experience to have that proof that I have a living soul growing inside me. We are due December 17th! After our appointment and Nathan seeing how emotional I was asked if I wanted to tell my mom. Of course I said YES! So we went to a copy center and made a copy of the ultrasound tied it to the end of a balloon and put the balloon in a gift bag. We went to my mom's work to surprise her. She had a pretty good idea of why we were both there and Nathan had a camera. She opened the bag, saw the ultrasound and jumped up to give me a hug. It was a great feeling! Later on we went over to my Grandma's house and told her. She was excited too.

I'm super excited for this journey we are about to take! I just hope that we can show our little one as much love as possible.

Ooh another really cool thing. Our friends, Matt and Lorinda found out they are pregnant too! We are a week apart from each other! It's going to be so much fun to be prego together!

Here is me at 9 weeks. I'm already busting out of my normal clothes so I had to go buy some maternity clothes.

POSITIVE!

Holy cow! Today I found out I'm pregnant!!! We were not expecting this at all. Although the last week or so I've thought that maybe I was. I just can't believe it! We were expecting it to take a long time because of my PCOS. Some people with PCOS have a hard time getting pregnant at all. Wow! I'm sorry I'm rambling but I just am in shock! I missed my period (it was suppose to be here yesterday) and since I thought maybe I was I decided to get a test on my way home from work. That few seconds between peeing on the stick and the positive result I had a myriad of thoughts go through my head: What if I am? I'm not I can't get excited because I'm not. Holy cow but what if I am? then disappointment by the thought of no way that I am. But as soon as those two little lines showed up, I sat there in disbelief saying over and over "I'm pregnant" "I'm pregnant" followed by some tears of joy and shock.
Nathan was due home from work in the next 45 minutes. So I went to work! I made breakfast for dinner and did a special little plate for him with an egg sunny side up and sperm cakes (pancakes in the shape of little sperms.), Yes I know we are weird, but I thought it was funny. I set up my camera to record his reaction and waited. When he finally got home I had him sit down and unveiled his dinner. Now with Nathan big news can't just be sprung on him like this was. He needs time to process and adjust to change. So, his reaction wasn't much of a surprise. "Congratulations" "I'm so happy for you" "I need to make more money" were just a few of the comments that escaped his mouth. I reminded him that he is happy for us and knew he would warm up to the idea in a week or so.

Here are some photos from the day...

Bridals

I found this really great photographer to do my bridals and our wedding day. His name is Al from aa professional photography. I reasearched a lot and me, being a photographer, well, let's just say I was picky.  My bridals were done at the Ogden Union Station. It was freezing cold, but they turned out pretty good.  These are some of my favorites:

Engagement Photos

My wonderful cousin, Wendy took our engagement photos and she did a great job! Here are some of my favorites:

The Engagement

In August, Nathan and I decided to start ourselves a little competition. Who can lose the most weight in 8 weeks. The loser would have to do something big for the winner. I decided if Nathan won that I would take him to Snowbird up to the Yurt for a nice dinner and a fun time in the mountains. I chose to have him take me to see the Littel Mermaid, which was playing at the Tuachan in St. George.  After 8 weeks and working hard, I won! Sadly, the Little Mermaid was sold out online, so I told Nathan to just suprise me with a nice date.
On October 21, I took the day off of work and Nathan had a plan in place for what he was going to reward me with... he kept saying that he is going to take me to see the Little Mermaid and I kept telling him it was sold out. Well, at 5am that morning, he came into my room and woke me up with a video camera in my face.  I quickly got dressed and as I was walking out the door, my mom handed me a backpack with snacks, a hat and some sunscreen.  That's when I thought that we are probably going hiking, boy was I wrong! He got on the freeway and started to play disney songs, including Kiss the Girl and Under the Sea. He headed like he was going south towards St. George, but then he all  of a sudden went North. I was confused, where were we going? then he started to go west. In my head I thought we were going to Erda or Wendover... fun.?  But he got off at the airport exit.  I asked him, what we were doing at the airport and he wouldn't tell me. Once we got inside, he gave me my ticket so that I could get through security. The ticket was to Los Angeles, California! He didn't tell me whay just smiled.  Once we got checked in and went through security, we had some time, so we decided to get some breakfast. During breakfast he decided to tell me where we were going. He told me to close my eyes and when I opened, there was my ticket to Disneyland! I was shocked! He really was taking me to go see the Little Mermaid!
When we got to Los Angeles, we rented a car and 30 minutes later we were at Disneyland! I was so excited and he was excited too. We walked in the park and he went to the bathroom, while I waited outside. Then, we walked down Disney Main.  I could tell he was excited and happy and I thought it was because he surprised me! He took me around in front of Cinderellas castle and I kissed him and he told me how much he loved me and how it had been an amazing 2 years. He then got down on his knee, pulled the ring out and said, "Natalie will you marry me?" I freaked out! I threw my arms around him and said Oh my gosh! Yes!! and then I somthered him in kisses.  After a few minutes he asked if I wanted to see the ring... Oh ya, the ring!  So he showed me and put it on my finger and then I noticed that Jason and Jemay (Nathan's brother and sister-in-law) were standing there with the video camera.... Nathan had met up with them in the bathroom to hand off the camera and they were following us the whole time! It was so perfect! I then found out that my mom was in on it... she had known for weeks, because he took her out to dinner to ask her permission to marry me.
We then began the phone calls.  We called his mom, his dad, my mom, my dad, my sisters, brothers, his sister, and then I sent a text out to my friends. The rest of the day we spent riding rides and just enjoying ourselves.  We left the park around 6 and headed back to the airport to catch our plane back home. It was a perfect day and now I get to marry me the perfect man!

Jackson Hole

In June, I went with Nathan and his family to Jackson Hole for a few days.  Every year they do a fun family vacation and this year it was Jackson!

Here are a few photos from our adventures.  We stopped in Archer, Idaho for a Big Judd's burger and fries. I got to meet up with Krystal and Kiley too!! (A photo was taken, but I don't know which camera it was on) After Big Judds, we went to Idaho Falls and walked around to see all the water in the Snake River. It was incredible!!

Nathan tried to take a "normal" picture of me, because apparently whenever a camera is pointed in my direction, I must make a face... perhaps I will need to research this and do a post about it.

Cheesy grin

He's making fun of my goofy smiles. I love him!

We found "Hawaiian" Ice... not really even close to the shaved ice I enjoyed in Hawaii!!

Nathan in front of the Hawaiian Pacific booth

Idaho Falls Temple, through the trees

Idaho Falls temple

 After Idaho falls, we drove to Jackson Hole! We really enjoyed seeing all the pretty scenery It's funny because our suppose to be 5 to 6 hour drive to Jackson Hole turned into an 11 hour drive... we stopped a lot and saw a lot of pretty stuff! I love road trips! We got to Jackson around 8 pm and walked around and then went back to the hotel and hung out with the fam.

The next day we went to Yellowstone! It was June and there was still a lot of snow! But, it was surprisingly warm. We had fun looking at stuff like:

A buffalo... what' s Yellowstone without one of these big boys

Yellowstone National Park

Look at all that snow!!

Tree lined streets of snowiness

Nat and Nate in the great outdoors!

I'm wearing shorts so it can't be that cold!

Yellowstone River

NH + NM

My super hot boyfriend and me

Yep, more snow

In front of Old Faithful

It's Alive!!

Old Faithful

TADA!

Elk

Mr. Hottie Face

That night we got home and were wiped out!! We took naps and then went swimming and had dinner and played games and it was awesome!

The next day we took a trip to the Grand Tetons. It was rainy and cold, so we didn't do much, but it was still fun!

We went to the Jackson Lake Lodge and had dinner at a nice little restaurant. We sat right by the window overlooking a huge field and "mountains" (they were thickly covered by clouds) It was cool because we were looking out and we saw...

A FOX!

This is what it looked like that day... wet, cold, wet.

This was actually taken on our way to Yellowstone, but it is of the Tetons so i figures I would put these in here too so you can see what it is suppose to look like when it is nice and sunny out.

Kristy, Nathan, Me, Jared

Kristy, Nathan Me

Kristy, Nathan, Me, Jared

Jordan, Ashley, Nathan, Nat, Jared, Kristy

Smoochy Smoochy

The gang

Linda and Doug

Back to the cold and dreary day at that Tetons... this I believe was Jenny Lake

Nathan

Me.. there are a bunch of elk back there, but you can't really see them

The Grand Tetons!

We also managed to make it to the 6:00 shoot out at town center in Jackson Hole.. it was fun to watch and afterwards, we found the best place for pie!! It's called the Bunnery and I must say I would make the 6 or 11 hour drive up there just for some of that pie!

We also had one full day to spend in Jackson.  It was sunny so we went swimming and walked around town. That night we went to the Bar J Wranglers. We had a dinner and a show. It was fun and if you go to Jackson, I highly recommend you do this..but get the steak or the ribs!
(These photos are on Nathan's camera, so I will post them later!)

Nathan and I left a little early because he had to work on Thursday and I had a job interview. We made one last stop at the bunnery, bought a whole chocolate pecan deliciousness pie and set off home. It took us a while because, stopping is what we do!  Here are some photos of the places we saw:

Really pretty fields, mountains and trees... it started to rain/hail so we didn't get to take as many photos as we would have liked. We also stopped in Afton, Wyoming because there was this cheese factory that ended up being more like an expensive fridge full of not many kinds of cheese.

We also stopped in Bear Lake it stopped raining and was really pretty!

I LOVE HIM!

Bear Lake

All in all it was a great vacation and just what we needed... to get away!! I'm excited to see where we will end up next year!