36.5 weeks

We are now within 1 month of our due date! We are feeling ready fr him to make his grand arrival in some ways...but hoping he doesn't come too early in other ways. We had our 36 week appointment last week, and the little guy has grown quite a bit in the last 2 weeks! He's still supposedly on the small side, which I don't mind! But things could change in the next 3.5 weeks.

36 weeks

We spent Memorial Day Weekend in Canyonlands National Park. We explored the Needles District of the park--an area we had not seen previously. We did some nice, short hikes on Saturday & Monday and then a long hike on Sunday. The views were incredible! We used our brand new tent and enjoyed having space to set up our air mattress inside. I slept quite well despite being 33 weeks pregnant...besides needing to get up a lot :).

Our campsite

Slot Canyon

Hiking towards the Needles. Thankful Todd carried many, many liters of water on his back...

Bonnie hosted a baby shower in Minnesota for Baby Mitchell on June 5th. I had a great weekend with family and really enjoyed the shower. Todd's grandparents came up from Iowa and my Mom, Holly, & Lily drove over from Michigan! Grant was even able to catch a flight from Chicago. The baby shower was beautiful and it was good to see many of the Mitchells' family friends. Holly's birthday was on the Monday following the shower. We spent the day at the Minnesota Zoo!

A beautiful wall hanging made by Bonnie!

Thanks to Bonnie & Paula for hosting & planning the shower!

Lily at the Zoo

Petting the goats!

Jake & Alissa Baker spent several days with us in Salt Lake City. Alissa's brother got married in eastern Washington, but the Bakers flew into and out of Salt Lake City so we got to see them on both ends of their trip! We got an unusual amount of rain while they were here, so we played a lot of board games! We did get out for a quick hike to Clayton Peak--a hike Todd & I hadn't done before. Always good to catch up with high school/college friends!

View from Clayton Peak

Alissa and I

Todd spent last weekend up at Bear Lake for Cross Country Team Camp. We usually have team camp in late July...but that just wasn't going to work this year with Baby Mitchell coming! Team Camp was a success...lots of scenic runs, fun games, goal setting, team bonding, and swimming. We're looking forward to another great year of Olympus XC!

Spikeball at the Beach

Rope swing at Bloomington Lake

Getting ready for 4x1 mile workout

While Todd was at Bear Lake, I went to a beautiful baby shower hosted by Jessie Strike & Amanda Rottman. Baby Mitchell is receiving a lot of love already!

Thankful for all these wonderful ladies!

These next few pictures are from the XC Team Baby Shower...I just got these pictures recently :)

We bought a new car a few weeks ago. It's a 2013 Subaru Forester. We've really liked it so far! After 5 years of being a one-car family, we've graduated to each having our own car. Now we just need to install our car seat!

We'll have to see how many more of these posts I write before baby arrives...

32 weeks

Our due date is quickly approaching! We have a little less than 8 weeks left before our little guy is supposed to arrive. I've been feeling great and everything seems to be going really smoothly. I'm looking forward to Todd being done with school for the summer starting next week...his "honey do" list is getting longer by the week. We've got a lot of things to do before baby arrives.

A sneak peak of our nursery. It's coming along!

32 weeks

We had our first baby shower at the end of April. Three of the XC/Track parents hosted a shower and invited all of the athletes and many of the parents. We had a lot of fun! The parents went in together to buy us a jogging stroller! Hopefully it will help us keep up with these speedy kids when the baby arrives! We were overwhelmed by everyone's generosity.

Todd with our new stroller

Todd celebrated his 28th birthday a few weeks ago! He was happy that his birthday landed on the first Wednesday of the month, which is when our church small group gets together for dinner. We had tacos & apple pie - a winning combination for Todd. We bought a new tent for his birthday, a four person tent for our growing family. We're hoping to try it out this weekend at Canyonlands National Park!

I traveled to Kansas City, MO a couple weeks ago for the annual CPSDA (Collegiate and Professional Sports Dietetics Association) conference. As always, it was good to see former coworkers and sports dietitians from all over the United States. While I was gone, Todd coached the Olympus track team to Region Championship! Both the boys & girls teams won - the girls team hadn't won since 1982! The season ended with the State Championships last weekend. We had 2 individual state champions and 11 podium finishes (top 6). The girls team finished 5th, and just 3 points out of second. The boys team finished 7th. It was a great season!

The PAC 12 Sports Dietitians

In the Spring of Things

We’re having some rainy, gray weather right now—very uncharacteristic of Utah. But just in time for track season (right, Mom?). It’s keeping me inside and giving me an opportunity to finally update this blog. It’s been awhile!

First things first, we found out that we’re having a baby BOY! We’re very excited to meet our little guy in about 3 months (and nervous about all of the things we need to do between now and then). Everything is going smoothly with the pregnancy. He’s very active and seems to be moving almost constantly! Our nursery is slowly accumulating things. We purchased some used furniture—a crib, rocking chair, and dresser/changing table. I’m hoping to start decorating soon and will share some pictures then.

Ultrasound at 19 weeks

We are excited to have three other couples from our small group Bible study who are also expecting—due in May, July, and September! Since we’ll all be first time parents, it’s been great to navigate pregnancy and planning for baby with these friends.

In late February, we were able to spend some time with high school & college friends. Brian Odegaard, our teammate from Calvin Cross Country, was in town for a Neuroscience Conference. We spent an evening in downtown Salt Lake City with him. Jeff & Lindsey Lombardo, Todd’s high school friends, were also in Utah for the weekend. Todd, Jeff, & Lindsey competed in the US National Snowshoe Championships at Powder Mountain Ski Resort. They did a 10 kilometer race in snowshoes at 9,000 feet! 

Beautiful day at 9,000 feet

Todd & Jeff at the start

Todd, Jeff, and Lindsey

Just a few weeks ago, we traveled to the Big Island of Hawaii for a babymoon!! We are so grateful we were able to take some time to enjoy being the “two of us” before we become the “three of us”. The Big Island is beautiful! Before getting there, I had no idea how much variety in landscape I’d see there. The island has 11 of the world’s 13 climate zones. Since we drove across the island several times, we were able to see many of these different areas—coastal, desert, rainforest, alpine, etc. We spent most mornings relaxing at the ocean or pool, and went on hikes or rented gear for water sports in the afternoons.

Pololu Valley

Rainbow Falls

Baby Bump at 24 weeks

Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens

'Akaka Falls

Waipio Valley

Glow of the lava at the Halema'uma'u Crater

When we returned from Hawaii, we got to spend several days with Grant and Allison. They were in Salt Lake City to ski for a few days with friends, and stayed a few extra days to hang out with us. Unfortunately we were busy with work and track during their stay, but we gave them a tour of the athletics facilities at the University of Utah and of Olympus High School. They had the privilege of seeing Olympus Track & Field in action at the Utah Valley University Invitational as well (for 11 hours, yikes!J). As always, it was great to spend time with family in Utah!

Olympus Track & Field has had some great success already! We place 7^th out of 38 teams at our first big invitational and 4^th out of 23 teams at our invitational last weekend. We’ve had many state qualifying marks already—in the girls shot put, discus, 3200m, 1600m, & 800m and in the boys 200m, 400m, 800m, 1600m, and long jump. We’re hopeful that we could win region on either the boys or girls side this year!

New Year, New Addition

As I'm sure you all know at this point, we are thrilled to be expecting a baby in July! I'll be 18 weeks along this week, and overall I've been feeling pretty good! We get to have our big ultrasound later this month. We're excited to find out whether we're having a boy or a girl. We're savoring these next last several months as the "two of us"--but looking forward to the adventure & joy of becoming parents.

We've received lots of love and support, and are very grateful for this! I've been overwhelmed by the wonderful baby/pregnancy packages I've received from friends & family across the country.

Thanks Holly, Mom, Kristen, & Alissa! Y'all are the best!

Now, since I haven't blogged in quite a while, I'll share what we've been up to "lately". We traveled down to Las Vegas for a long weekend in December. We cheered on the Utes in their bowl game against BYU, went to our first ever Cirque de Soleil show (Zarkana), and enjoyed some R & R.

Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl

We really enjoyed our time with both of our families over the holidays! We especially looked forward to sharing the news of our pregnancy with our families.

Grandpa & Grandma Mitchell came up to MN for a few days while we were there.

Since Christmas, things have been fairly uneventful around here. We're enjoying a slower pace after doing a lot of traveling in November & December. We've started to scour online listings for used baby things--and begun to clear out our second bedroom to make room for baby. We purchased a rocking chair last week.

Olympus High School has competed in 3 indoor track meets already. We're grateful to live near the U.S. Olympic Oval which has an over-sized indoor track--perfect for running fast times indoors. Overall, the team has been doing quite well! We've had 6 indoor school records broken already this season--and one meet record as well!

That's all for now. Happy Valentine's Day!