Boy oh Boy.. it's a Boy!

Folks were done with school! Well... for a few weeks anyways. This is the first time Shaun and I have both had a break at the same time in the two years we have been married. We're obviously pretty excited about that. Shaun submitted his last final last night and I did my last (ever) tests today. Such a nice feeling to not be stressed over what we need to be doing. It's also odd, we find ourselves becoming anxious because we feel like we are falling behind since were not doing any homework. School sure does mess with the mind doesn't it!? We can't even relax when we have nothing to do, Doi!

Aside from that I feel that most people want an update on the baby so i'll just get that out of the way. I think i get asked the same 5 or 6 questions over and over, no... it doesn't annoy me. But we'll just answer those since the seem to be the go to question of choice.

"How far along are you now?"
22 weeks/ 5 months ish.

"How are you feeling?"
Seriously I feel great! This whole pregnancy thing has been  really easy for me, which I know i'm lucky to have so i'm pretty grateful!

"Can you feel the baby move?"
Ha- yes, all day, every day usually. If i'm sitting down I feel it non stop, which is sort of entertaining. I'm getting passed the whole "something inside of me is gross" mentality and just take it for what it is.

"Do you know what it is yet?"
It's a boy.... thank freaking goodness! :)

"Have you bought maternity clothes yet"
Yes... I finally did last week and i'll tell you what, I CAN MOVE! I should have bought some alonnnngggg time ago!

"Are you ready?"
uh...... I NEVER know how to answer this question. Do you mean mentally? If so, thats a heck no. physically? Well, we have a crib and a diaper bag so.... i'd say we're close. Just kidding. but really  I'm honestly not worried about being ready in that sense. I figure if we need something we didn't get Shaun heads to the store and were good to go!

I know we're probably in for a major rude awakening in a few months but we'll deal with that when it comes. But atleast we know it will happen and have accepted it early, right?

And we drive a truck.

Well family we are officially over the Colorado border and about 700 miles from our  destination. Shaun's brother (Levi) brought a new truck to add to his fleet and it happened to be just a few hours from us. Shaun had a great idea and turned to me to ask if I wanted to go on a road trip to Utah with him. I agreed and we hurried and let out work know called  the sitter and packed out things to head on our 3 day trip to Utah. My only request is that I got to stay at least 24 hours in Roosevelt( I LOVE the basin for some reason) so we started Friday evening drove to Nashville to pick up the truck and then started our way across the country!

When Shaun mentioned what we would be driving I kinda had a minor freak out. He said it would be a dump truck and my mind went immediately to the dump truck my family has that is about 50 years old and takes a special skill to even get it to turn over.

This is Caden when he literally dumped the dump truck into a hole. See why I was nervous?

Anyways when we got to Nashville I was presently surprised. Driving around in this thing. Makes me feel like Bad-A. We've named it "the beast" and I now have a weird attachment to it. Not sure why, it's a truck! And it's not even a truck I can drive... Not that I want to, according to my grandpa me and semis are a scary combination.


Anyways we jumped in the truck and headed on our way. The first night we drove for a few hours and stayed in a tiny town called Marion, IL. The Next day we did a 14 hour day and had to stop in Kansas City for some BBQ. We went to Oklahoma Joe's and I have truly never had any ribs even close to as good as these. Sorry Texas, you loose. We had to wait an hour and a half in the cold to get a seat but in the end it was very much worth it! I'll stand in line for those ribs any day! Well most days.  After the BBQ from heaven we headed to Colby, KS and called it a night. Now were driving again and  somewhere between dead field and windmill in Colorado. It's been a pretty fun trip oddly enough but I think I'd be fine to not do another road trip for a few years.

Here is the actual truck we drove and my chauffeur, plus a gorgeous picture heading over rabbit ear pass in Colorado

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Other than this fun adventure we have had some pretty wild weeks since our semesters is starting to come to an end and finals are growing near.  Shaun has a presentation on Wednesday that we have to be back for and that will be the last time he meets for his one class. Crazy we're already toward the end of another semester again.  I really look forward to the day when we are graduated and out of school.

Speaking of school I did receive my acceptance letter for my masters a few weeks ago. So starting January I'll begin my masters through Ball State. Oh boy!

Oh boy! I forgot! We found out on Monday for sure that we are having a boy! So you can imagine we we're pretty happy about that. Everything still looks good and I'm feeling great. Not sure it gets much easier than this. I've been lucky.

I think that's about all there is to update. Happy reading folks!

Things Change... Alot!

Well my friends Shaun and I have some pretty great/scary news!

Come April 2015 there will be a little one joining this Allred duo!

This has been something that I, personally have really struggled accepting! Its been one heck of a roller coaster ride and I think that because of that I really didn't want to make this a public thing. For me, I would be completely ok if no one knew that this change was happening. Not because i'm ashamed but because I see it as a private matter for Shaun and I. When we first found out I was set that I was going to tell no one. I wasn't even sure I wanted to tell family! Crazy right?  But luckily enough for me I have some awesome siblings who get me. Many times i've had texts and emails telling me that its ok to not be 100% excited about the baby and that they dont think i'm a horrible selfish person for handling it the way I am. I'm so thankful for them and because of them I'm ok sharing this crazy detail now! So that being said, sorry if we didn't tell you personally! I know we have a lot of great family and friends who are interested in how things are going and something like this is kind of a big deal. So we should probably share, right?

 Anyways, that being said i'll give you a little update of all things baby related!

The baby is doing great and is about a healthy as can be. I'm a person who wants to know EVERYTHING and isn't a fan of surprises (ironic right?) so I had all the genetic tests done. Everything came back negative so that was great news. 

We (mostly I) are HOPING that is a boy and the ultrasound tech said she's pretty sure it is one! She said that the little guy has no shame so at 12 weeks she was about 90% sure.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. 

I'm just under 16 weeks along so only 2 more and we find out whats really in there! 

This pregnancy thing goes by SO FAST! 

Yes there is a bump and i'm not sure what to think of it. I feel like at this rate i'm going to be HUGE by month 6.  It really isn't as bad as i make its sound, mostly the bump is due to poor posture i'm sure. 

The first trimester I was nauseated pretty much all day everyday but no real sickness. I usually forget that i'm pregnant most of the day until I sneeze and the shock of those stinking round whatevers  (i think its called round ligaments) bend me over in pain. DOI!

I am ready for bed by 9 each night and dont even stir till 8 the next morning so thats a new one!

I'm oddly weirded out by the thought that something is inside of me growing.  I have to remind my self that its ok or I kinda freak out. Shaun finds it hilarious, but its weird folks, really really weird.  I feel like an alien. But were getting past that. 

We decided to buy a crib and a rocker thingy. I think the rocker is called a rock-n-play. We lucked out and found it for 30 bucks off of craigslist. We're cheap. It's fine. 

I dont think we will do a big fancy nursery deal. So no, we dont have any "themes" picked out. 

Likewise we dont have any names either... plenty of time for that.  We do like the names Aiden, Carter, Kaelyn, and Reagan though... so maybe one of those? Lets be honest, probably will be something totally different! I mean Oakley is a pretty cute name isn't it? Ahh Ariell, I jus joking!

I dont have any cravings that I know of. I mean I'm always up for a strawberry shake but i'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with being pregnant.  Nor does the chocolate chip cookies, Oreos, banana royales or apple crisp. Yup, i'm a healthy one! 

Other than that things  have been pretty calm on this side of the world! Both just working and studying all day everyday! kinda monotonous but thats ok! We did get to go to a corn maze last week so that was fun! Shaun's decided that he wants to run one some day. Haha alrighty then!

We are excited for this big change and are excited to find out what the next year has in store for us. I think its going to one crazy year, and crazy is probably down playing it! Heres to the wild 2015!

Update!

The last few months have been pretty chill around here. Well that is in relation to last year which has been a whirl wind of crazy.

Shaun just finished another round of finals, luckily this module has been MUCH easier for him. So we are both very thankful for that. He is taking an IT and Operations Management class, each module he has 2 classes. Given that he majored in Operations, that class was a breeze, the IT class however has the craziest quizzes I have ever seen. But that doest stop Shaun from being nominated to the UGA honors society! He's a smarty...thats for sure.

Shaun has also decided to graduate early! Instead of graduating next fall he will graduate in the the end of May. It is going to be a CRAZZZZYYYY time for both of us but I am proud of his determination and work ethic.

I started a new job as a  ABA therapist for a company called EAP (early autism project). I've been given 2 clients so far to my case load with a few more that are in the process of being accepted (we call it intake). I am loving it so far. I have one client that reminds me a lot of my first client I ever worked with in Logan, so that is really fun! Another great thing is that since I start my masters soon the company cant offer a mentorship program which means that all my supervision and clinic hours can be done pretty easily! Thats a huge relief!

I also am heading into a new semester. I'm more than ready to be done! This semester i'm taking my final statistics class and neurology as well as a internship course to get me ready for grad school! Its going to be a pretty rough semester I think but it will all be worth it come December!

A few weeks ago we decided to head up north to a little town called Helen. Its a super cute town full of bikers and swedish architecture. Its like Midway in Utah. We decided to float the river and camp. We loved every second of it. Toby even got his own tube to float down the river as well. Everyone thought it was the greatest thing that our big ol dog would just sit in his own tube and relax. It was pretty funny.

We also went on a hike and saw some gorgeous water falls. Toby also found out he likes to climb trees. We were shocked. He was at least 10 feet of the ground and didn't even blink an eye. What the heck?

We also got to head home to Shaun parents to welcome home Ariell! We loved being able to see family meet our new niece and nephew and of course, farm!

Lucky for me a few sheep lambed the day I got there so I was able to play with the babies!

 Shaun also taught me how to drive the swather and then took a few friends for a ride. Never realized how hick that sounded till just now. Going for a ride in the swather just for fun... well its is pretty fun to drive and stinking hard too!

 We also went up towards vernal to ride. We MISS riding. We rented a rzr and did a number on it. It was so slick up there we couldn't keep traction!

 And here is Ariell! We volunteered to change water that week we were there and enjoyed every second of it. Thats Shaun in the background getting a little bothered that he couldn't get this line started... loosing his touch? Just kidding! That line hates everybody.

Home Home Home

We finally finished some projects!  Amazing right? We finished all the floor (took us 5 months... geesh). Its so nice to have it all done and out of the way. I didn't think it would happen!

We also finished our kitchen cabinets. They turned out nice but there are a couple things that I want to fix, surprisingly enough i'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to refinishing things. And there are a couple places on the cabinets that are distressed too much. So that one is about 95% finished!

To put the crown on Shaun had to router off a weird lip. It was worth it but i'll tell you what, every single thing in that kitchen was FILLED with saw dust. 

While browsing some online yard sale sites I found a bunch on celling lights for 20$ that means I only payed 3 dollars a piece! Score. I couldn't reach the celling (even when standing on a chair)  so Shaun had to do them all alone. He was getting pretty sick of it, as you can tell. 

And our last little project we did was an entry way table! When we bought our flooring it was delivered on a pallet, so instead of throwing it away I decided I wanted to build myself a table! 

I was pretty proud of myself, I did a lot of it with out Shaun, but lets just say i'm far from independent. Our idea came from this....

And this is how it ended up! I wanted a darker stain and a bit more of a sturdy look, success! 

We were really excited with how the grain turned out. Pretty yeah? 

Focus Syd, Focus!

The 4th is among us and I'm so excited! I love this holiday... probably more than I love any other holiday! This will be the first year that I actually get to spend the 4th with Shaun. Well, spend the 4th with Shaun in this country (last year this time we were in Greece). Here is a little something I found floating threw social media that I think everyone should hear.

If that doesn't get you ready for the 4th, I don't know what will!


Anyways,  aside from being overly giddy about my favorite holiday we must mention  show you some updates on our home! Its been quite the process and we have yet to fully finish any of it but if I wait till we actually finish, you will never see a thing. The sad thing is that i'm pretty helpless with out Shaun's handyman skills. Yes I could use all this boredom i'm experiencing to do the quarter round, but I don't trust my measuring skills...and neither does he! Thats why we have to wait for Shaun to have time! And.... he is a busy man with this whole MBA and all.

Here is the before and after of the floor. This is right as you walk in the front door and look to you left

Before:

 After:

This is the biggest change..but of course still not done. We are still putting up crown molding and looking for hardware... freaking expensive little buggars! 

Before:

 After:

I HATE that orange paint... makes me feel like i'm living in a Halloween house. The black didn't help did it? Well I plan on painting a grey/pewter color so that is why I went with black. 

In addition to finishing our cabinets we have about 50 other projects. Shaun keeps telling me I need to finish at least one before adding another. But i'm too ADD for that.  

We/I need to refinish our dinning room table:

P.s. that chevron rug... ugh. I'm trying to be hip but I hate fads! If everyone loves it.. I  usually hate it. I have a very spiteful attitude, its a curse. Anyway, lucky for me Shaun hates it too... so its headed to craigslist. 

RIP fashionable Chevron Rug... I tried. 

We also bought a dresser that will someday be reincarnated into an actual entertainment center. 

Ignore Toby, he is ALWAYS in the way. 

And the last thing that is taking up my garage is an entry way table inspired by this: 

Maybe just maybe it will get done this weekend.. Shaun says i'm being optimistic but I think he's being a Debbie Downer.  So we shall see.

PLUS last night I found my way to some more pallets (free wood) so that we can build a desk.  we NEED a desk.  I have the idea in my head, just need Shaun to draw it up for me. I LOVE that we can come up with these things. He's super good and seeing what i'm seeing...usually. 

See what I mean about needing to focus? 

My bad.

My bad is right... Sorry family (and friends).

I could say that we have been super busy but aren't we all? I've decided that saying were to busy is a lame excuse. EVERY ONE is busy. And you truly can make time for what ever you need to. There are those days (or weeks) where this are jammed packed to the point that you feel that you can breathe but maybe those are the times we need to say yes to that one thing a friend, neighbor, or family member asked. So yes, we are extremely busy but who cares? It's great to be busy! And using it as an excuse will get us no where...

Ok on to what we have been busy doing!

As many of you know we decided to by a house! Last year we put an offer on an adorable little green home but more or less got cold feet. So when February hit we realized that our rental contract was up and started playing with the number and realized that it was a MUCH better option for us to buck up and buy a home. So... we did! We love it! Its a 4 bed 2.5 bath so there is plenty of room for us to grow. Plus we have a yard! We were so excited for a yard and to put a fire pit out back but I'm pretty sure thats against the HOA rules... dang, right?

Here is a few pictures.

Kitchen Area

We'll get some more pictures once were able to actually go over and get into the house! We closed last week but sadly haven't been able to spend more than a few minutes there. I'll explain why later....

So buying the house was fun and even though it took a little time to get everything set up and making sure we got all the forms to the right people the process was so easy! I was shocked. We had some great guys behind us helping us through the whole process! 

We have a few plans to make the house "ours", we are going to lay wood flooring throughout the main floor, paint to get rid of a few [weird] colors and then of course I have dozens of furniture ideas I want shaun to build. First of a desk then these bookshelves... 

I showed Shaun this thinking that it would be a bit too difficult and he responded "no thats a super simple design- we can easily do that" Alrighty then! 

Oh on the topic of building things.. Last week I decided that I wanted to go for a run on this little city trail thats about 5 minutes from our apartment well sometime during that I dropped my keys..out of my hand and didn't notice. Not sure how it happened but they are very  much gone. Well of course i needed a new key for the house so i sent Shaun to HomeDepot to get a couple made... this is what he came home with...

He was so excited we had to set it up right away. It was pretty fun to do and I loved seeing Shaun fall in love all over again...with a big 12in, dual bevel, sliding compound miter saw WITH a laser! 

Speaking of Shaun... He is in his last week of the quarter so that brings another level of stress and tests into our home. He has been studying nonstop getting ready for these finals and also working a bit of overtime to keep up on some projects he has been put in charge of recently. He is one hard working guy i'll tell you what. There must be something to that raising boys on a dairy farm because all these Allred's know how to work and don't quit till the job is done. I truly admire it! 

I have just been doing the good ol' school deal and  luckily found a grad program that will be starting come January! Some how we always feel like we have something we need to do. We don't really sit around here.. My dad asked me a few weeks ago what the last movie I saw was and I truly have no idea! Kinda sad! But we do other things for fun like pulling the extra mattress into the front room for a sleepover! 

Because it was the extra even Toby was allowed to lay and sleep next to us. I loved it! Simple things right?

Simple things like my best friend and our best friend that happens to have pointy ears and 4 legs...these two make living in the city quite enjoyable! 

Uno Ano

Remember When (2013)

-Shaun Walked for Graduation

- The temporary apartment that I HATED?

- We almost bought a home?

- We bought a car?

- I made over 50 dozed cookies... because im obsessed?

- We went flying with Ryan?

-I almost quit school?

-We went to greece?

- We went snorkeling and saw a octapus?

- We ate the best gyros ever?

- Ate lunch in an amazing vineyard?

- Played enough mini golf to become pros?

- We went to the fair?

- We ate more food at the fair than we could hold?

- We got Toby?

- We got Toby a kennel that he literally got lost in?

- We went to Savannah?

- We rode around in a golf cart to see the cool old homes?

- We Kyked to a little island and went swimming in the wamerst water ever?

- We saw a fisherman catch a stingwray?

- We flew on a plane at least once a month the ENTIRE year?

- Jetson and Caden left on their mission?

- We rode mopeds up the mountain in greece?

- I decided to break through a cornice and could lift my head for a week? (ouch)

- We set up the tent in the living room to go "camping"?

- We went to an EVE 6 concert?

- We went to the mountains to fish?

- Bought Shaun a new table saw?

- Almost moved back to idaho?

- Shaun Started his MBA?

- Shaun was offered a new position...with a raise :)?

- I started working again?

- We redid our table?

-  We went to Trans-siberian orchestra?

- We prefected the oven cooked steak?

- We went back to Utah State for Shauns Work?

- We realized our time at utah state is over?

- We played with baby lambs?

- I took the lambs inside to see Shauns Dad?...EVERY DAY

- We got to know a cute little boy named Gage?

- We threw a new years party for Charlie?

-  Charlies friend was "dared" to hug Shaun.... and was SO SCARED?

-  I tried to be funny and put a glob of tootsies rolls on our bed, thinking shaun would think Toby pooped?...fail

- We went running...4 times?

- We signed up for a ragnar..in hopes to run more?

- We went shooting clays and I FINALLY hit one!