Adventure #27: Gender Reveal!!! (and more apartment problems)

"Truthfully, being pregnant is changing me as a person. Each day is part of this amazing journey that has completely shifted the focus of my life and made me reevaluate my personal and professional goals." - Holly Madison

March 2-4, 2015

Before I get into our doctor's appointment, I have an update on our apartment. It flooded. Again. This time it was much more water and it spread out further than the other times. You could hear sloshing sounds as you walked on the carpet next to our bed (which meant we had to wear shoes to get to our closet). The first picture is from Monday morning when all the water came in.

This next picture is after have two fans running on the area for 2 days. The carpet was still soaking wet.

The water came on Monday morning, and the plumbers came on Wednesday morning (the same day we had our doctor's appointment). They replaced the elbow of the roof drain - which was cracked and was leaking all the water into our closet.

And they left a nice hole and a nice mess in our closet...

It's been very difficult to get the owner of the apartments to help us out with anything. The carpet was still soaking wet and we had to clear out half of our closet onto our bed so the plumbers could fix the pipe. Basically, we needed the hole temporarily patched up and the carpet ripped out so that we could sleep in our apartment that night. The only offer I got from our owner was another fan. So I told the owner that either someone could come fix the issues, or I would find a hotel room to stay in until the issues were fixed. The owner never responded, but within two hours the manager was at our apartment with new carpet and some tools. 

I don't like being so demanding, but I'm telling you, nothing would have been done for weeks if I hadn't given the owner an ultimatum. We had to leave for our doctor's appointment soon after the manager came, so we let him do his work and we headed to the doctor!

We had our ultrasound first. It was seriously amazing being able to see our baby for so long! And to be able to look at so many small details! We could see the heart, lungs, spine, arms, legs, feet, nose and lips, brain, and of course, we found out the gender!!!

IT'S A GIRL!!!!

The technician double and triple checked because the baby had the umbilical cord between her legs, but as soon as he got a clear shot, it was certain. Our baby is a girl!!! We are so excited! We feel more confident about parenting boys, but I'm sure we'll figure out how to raise our little girl.  :)

Everything about the baby looked good and she seemed to be very healthy. The technician said that the baby was a little small (it was mostly her head that was measuring a little small). I wasn't worried about the head because I have a pretty small head, but the technician thought that I could be a week behind in the pregnancy... which would mean moving this summer would get a little tricky, but we'd figure it out.

We met with the doctor and talked to him about our baby's measurements. The doctor said not to worry and that we are going to stick to our due date of July 9th. He said looking at all the measurements together, the baby seemed just fine. He said he didn't expect me to have some "monster baby," which made me laugh and feel much better about things. He said the baby could grow a lot in the next few months, or it could grow at the same rate, and either way it was going to be just fine. Phew!!! :)  I am so grateful for doctors and modern medicine. It's nice to have such educated people taking care of me and keeping me updated on things I would never know. I think I'm most grateful for ultrasounds - those things are miraculous.

We called our families as soon as we walked out of the doctor's office and then headed home. We got home and the manager was still working on our apartment. I guess the water had spread to the other side of our bed so he had to rip out almost half the carpet in our room! I thought it was just the carpet next to our bed, but apparently it was even worse than I thought (which is why I was very glad the manager came over that same day to fix it). Since the manager was still working on our apartment, and since we just found out we were having a little girl, we went to celebrate at Macaroni Grill!!!!

We love Macaroni Grill. The food was great, but it was even better knowing that our baby girl was healthy. It was also nice to be out of the apartment for a long time. The wet carpet had started to smell pretty bad, so being away from that was great.

Once we got home the second time, I took some pictures of the ultrasound so we could send them to family. These aren't the best quality because I didn't have time to scan them in yet, but they'll do for now.

This picture is the view from underneath her bottom. Since there's nothing in between her legs where her legs meet, it means she's a girl!

This is one of my favorite pictures. This is when they were checking for cleft palate. She is positioned horizontally with the top of her head on the right. The only part of her face you can see is her nose and lips. So cute!!!

And here is a classic profile view (much different than the profile view from when I was ten weeks pregnant)!

This is one of Jordan's favorites. It's a picture of the bottom of one of her feet. So little!

And I forgot to show a picture of the new carpet. This is just a temporary patch until they replace all the carpet in the apartment when we move. 

Pregnancy has been an adventure. I've been especially surprised with how much I have changed because of it. So many of my priorities have changed. I care less and less about some things, and I care more and more about others. I'm starting to see what a genius our Heavenly Father is. Every part of His plan is perfect. Even the way He created our bodies helps to prepare us for the next part of His plan. It's exciting to experience these changes first hand. I can't wait to learn more and to change more so that I can be a better wife, mother, and disciple of Christ. 

Adventure #26: Apartment Problems, Doctor's Appointment, and Valentine's Day Weekend

"Patience is not simply the ability to wait - it's how we behave while we're waiting." - Joyce Meyer

January 6 - February 16, 2015

For some reason, January and February were months that especially tested our patience. We got home from Christmas break only to notice there was water trapped behind paint on our bathroom wall/ceiling. We notified our the owner and manager, but it wasn't a huge deal... at least not yet. Then, within the next week, water started leaking onto the floor of our bedroom closet. This exact thing had happened last winter but the problem was supposedly fixed. Obviously it wasn't. 

While water was leaking into our closet, the paint bubble in the bathroom was getting larger and water started to drip from the ceiling. To make this less detailed, I'm just going to do a bulletted list of everything that happened. I don't really enjoy talking about it, but I'm hoping this post will help me to appreciate the apartments/homes we will live in in the future. 

• Manager and owner ripped out carpet in our closet, gave us a vacuum, and told us to keep a fan on the area (some of the bedroom carpet was still wet).
• Manager cut out a section of the wall and ceiling in the bathroom.
• Plumber came (over a week after this all started) and found that the upstairs apartment's tub drain was leaking onto our ceiling. He said that there was nothing holding the two pipes together! So once it got bumped, it just started leaking more and more on our bathroom ceiling.
• Plumber also found and fixed a crack in the roof drain pipe (this pipe also runs down into the same area as the tub drain).
• Drywall people came about a week later to patch up the wall and ceiling in our bathroom. They came back two or three more times in the next couple weeks to finish the drywall and to repaint our bathroom.

One reason this whole ordeal was so inconvenient was because I couldn't get to anything in my closet without putting on shoes (so my feet wouldn't get wet) and stepping over the ripped up carpet. We also had to relocate our belongings multiple times. Our apartment just felt chaotic while our bathroom and closet belongings were spread throughout the rest of our little apartment. The most frustrating thing was the owner. I was trying to be patient, but nothing would get done unless I constantly called or texted the owner. I felt like I was pulling teeth just to get our apartment fixed!!!

Here are some pictures of the crime scene:

After the plumber came, the owner wanted the dead space behind the shower to dry out, so we spent a week showering without any covering over the wall and ceiling.

The water got about halfway to our bed, and most of the wood strips were ruined (they started to turn the baseboards orange).

This is where all the water came in (both from the tub drain and the roof drain).

This is when the drywall people were prepping to paint our bathroom.

It felt good to have everything finally fixed. And it was really nice to have a newly painted bathroom! The carpet hasn't been replaced yet, but it's finally dry.

Then, February 4th, we got to go to our first doctor's appointment!!! I was about 17 weeks and we got to have an ultrasound! The doctor measured the femur and the heartbeat and concluded that the baby seemed very healthy! That was the best news ever. :) The doctor asked us if we would like to know the gender (as long as the baby cooperated). We said, of course! The doctor tried and tried, but our baby thought it was much more fun to sit on its feet. The feet were in the exact position to where it was impossible to tell the gender! Silly baby! We were a little bummed, but still so glad that the baby was healthy.  

After the ultrasound a nurse took us to another room so she could take my blood. Now if you don't know me, I have a VERY hard time with blood. I always have, and I'm pretty sure I always will (I'm hoping I get better). I told the nurse that I'm not good with blood and she reassured me it would be quick. I turned my head to look at the wall while the nurse got my arm and the vials ready. The nurse started to talk to me and Jordan about the baby and life (trying to get my mind off the blood). It worked at first, but then I noticed she was changing the vials multiple times. After I counted four vials, I started to feel light-headed. Yes, I know that I am a wimp! Just stay with me. I told the nurse I was starting to lose it, and she told me she was almost done. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about it....  

When the nurse finished, she asked if I was okay and if I wanted to lay down. I told her I was fine and that laying down would be nice. I stood up slowly, the nurse holding one arm and Jordan holding the other, and opened my eyes. The only problem was that I couldn't see! I was seriously blind! I was so embarrassed! I didn't say anything and I just stumbled my way to the table and laid down. Within a few minutes my vision came back (thank goodness!). The nurse got me some apple juice and at that point I really felt like a wimp. Jordan just held my hand the whole time and smiled. He's always good at calming me down. And that was the end of our doctor's appointment: me laying on a table, white as a ghost, drinking some apple juice. 

A few days after our appointment, Jordan took me out for a fun date. We wen't to Babies-R-Us and looked at all the cute little clothes...

Since we still didn't know our baby's gender, we checked out the boys and girls sections. We also walked down every aisle in the store, trying to get an idea of all the things we would need to get in order to take care of our baby. There are a lot of little things you don't initially think about! So it was good to just walk around for fun and take it all in.

Toys-R-Us is right next door.... so we thought, why not? Man, Jordan and I had so much fun! We would see toys that reminded us of our childhood and tell each other little tidbits of things we did when we were little. It was exciting hearing new stories about Jordan when he was a kid. 

I'm a little embarrassed about how many pictures we took with toys, so I'm only posting two. Jordan and I got WAY too excited when we saw the Star Wars aisle....

Come on, how cute is this?!?!?

I hope our kids get their "fun-ness" from Jordan. 

After Toys-R-Us we went to eat at In-N-Out. Jordan knows how to make this girl happy! Looking at baby stuff and eating at In-N-Out made all my dreams come true! It was a perfect date. :)

The week after that was Valentine's Day. We knew that we were going to Jordan's parent's on Valentine's Day, so we celebrated ours the day before. For Jordan, we played this game I made up on index cards where we do nice/funny things for each other. It was awesome. I got a back rub out of it, and we both got some good laughs out of it. Jordan got me fruity candy (which I was craving because I wasn't really into chocolate at the time -crazy, I know) and he got this super cute decoration for our apartment. It has the lyrics to our song on it! The same song Jordan played for me when he proposed, and the same song we danced our first dance to at our wedding!

So we drove up to Jordan's parent's place on Valentine's and found out that both of Jordan's sister would also be there! Jordan's parents were so nice and took us all out to Texas Roadhouse that evening. The next day, Lana and Marcus drove up to hang out with us and Jordan's family. We had a lot of fun playing games and just hanging out.

Of course we played lots of ping pong: 

There were times when Jordan and Marcus looked like they were playing in the Olympics. It was both funny and impressive.

On Monday, Jordan drove Lana and Marcus around town to show them places Jordan went to growing up. Jordan lived in Pleasant View (where his parents currently live) from his birth until he was 7 years old. Then they moved to Florida, Virginia, and then back to Pleasant View. The first place we stopped by was the trout farm. Jordan and his family have a lot of memories at this trout farm. It was fun telling Lana and Marcus some of those stories.

 At the trout farm, Spencer wanted to see how close he could get to those black swans.

We also drove by Jordan's old house and elementary school. Then we hiked to Big Rock. It's a random rock formation on the side of the mountain. I didn't make it all the way to Big Rock. My blood pressure has been much lower since I've been pregnant, and I was having a hard time! I felt like such a wimp, again! This pregnancy has been super easy, but there have been a few short moments where the pregnancy has just kicked my butt! 

Anyway, Jordan, Marcus, and Spencer made it to Big Rock while Lana and I watched.

 You can barely see them on top of Big Rock, but I wanted to get a picture of the whole thing.

Now you can see them! Jordan on the left, Spencer in the middle, and Marcus on the right.

We had a blast with family and friends over the weekend. It was really nice to get out of the apartment (after all the chaos) and to keep our minds busy (we were still anxious to find out more about how our baby was doing and if the baby would be a boy or girl). It was the ideal break that came at the right time.

Random Post: Fun Videos

I realized that there's some material I failed to upload to the blog. I have a weird hobby of using personal videos to make trailers. I have quite a few of them, but I completely forgot to upload them with my other posts. So here are all the videos I've made. I'm a little obsessed with iMovie... but I have to admit, some of these videos are awesome (at least to me and Jordan). You'll either think these videos are really funny, or really stupid. So hopefully either way, you get a laugh. Enjoy!  :) 

Olympic Table Tennis

Trip to Zion's:

Trip to Colorado: 

Adventure #25: Christmas and New Year's

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." - Charles Dickens

December 7 - 31, 2014

I love the Holiday season! We have been especially blessed this time of year: I graduated, Jordan got accepted to Podiatry School, and we are expecting a baby in July! If you missed these announcements, I wrote about them more in the previous post.

Jordan flew in to Salt Lake Sunday morning, and we went to the Christmas devotional that same night! Our friends snagged us some tickets and I'm so glad they did. After worrying about Jordan all weekend, it was nice to listen to uplifting talks about our Savior and the Christmas season.

We got pretty decent seats considering we barely got there in time (parking was HORRIFIC!!!).

The whole night I was just so happy I had Jordan by my side again.  :)

After the devotional, we crossed the street and hung out at Temple Square. It really is such a magical place during Christmas. 

A few days later we were pretty excited about life, so we spontaneously decided to get a Christmas tree! It was so much fun! We shopped around for a tree stand and then looked around a couple places for a good tree. We went to one Christmas tree nursery place in a shopping parking lot first. We walked in about five feet, looked at the price tag on maybe two trees, and then promptly walked back to our car. Holy cow! Those trees were expensive!!! Even the little Charlie Brown trees were nearly $30!!! A nice, full, 6' tree was priced at $80-$100!!! Ya, Jordan and I don't have that kind of money for a tree. We heard that Smith's had pretty good deals on Christmas trees, and they did! We got ours for $25!!! It was so beautiful! Our tree was very green and very full.

The only issue we had was trying to get the tree back home with us. Luckily Jordan is a master-packer and fit the tree quite effortlessly into our back seat!

Ya, it did have to hang out the window, so thank goodness Smith's is only a few blocks away from our apartment!

Most people thought our tree was fake! We took it as a compliment because it really was a perfect tree. It lasted all the way through February. It could have lasted longer, but I wanted to get our apartment back to normal (you'll understand more in the next post).

Jordan and I finished out the semester and then headed down to California! It was a very relaxing week and we got to do some fun things. First we saw some awesome Christmas light displays. This video doesn't do it justice. The whole street had synchronized lights to music you could listen to on the radio! And it was only 10-15 minutes away from my parents house. It was seriously awesome.  :)

...and afterwards we watched a Christmas movie, drank hot cocoa, and snuggled up next to the fire.

I've gotta say, it was nice being home for Christmas again (last year was the first Christmas away from home for me). Baking our traditional treats, watching our traditional movies, and listening to the same music we listen to every Christmas. I appreciated those traditions much more this year. There is just something about those Christmas traditions that are familiar and peaceful. This is probably our last Christmas with our families for the next few years, so we soaked up every moment.

The day before Christmas Eve we played lots of games, including a basketball shootout! It was a ton of fun! I wasn't very good at it, but it was so much fun to play against my dad, my brothers, and of course... Jordan! The video is not super exciting, but I like it, so here it is....

On to Christmas Eve! Christmas Eve dinner was awesome. I love my parents' food! The ham, potatoes, salads, rolls, etc. I wish I could eat their food all the time.

My mom probably wouldn't be too happy about this picture, but it's the only picture I have of our dinner. We didn't have all the food out yet, but it still captures the memory for me.  :)

We also had a spectacular Christmas morning! Jordan and I were spoiled and we were pretty happy about the gifts we got for everyone else. The best part of Christmas morning was our pregnancy announcement. At this point, we hadn't really told anyone (we wanted to tell both our families in person, so we told my family on Christmas and his family a few days later).

Like I said, we were with my family Christmas morning. We opened presents as usual, but then Jordan and I brought out gifts for my parents and brothers for the very end. We had them open the gifts at the same time and they had the best reactions. I'm so glad we got it on video (I would put it on the blog but the video is at my parent's). James and Ryan looked very confused - we gave them a book titled "How to be a Child's Favorite Uncle" and a photo frame that said "I love my uncles." For my parents we gave them a picture of the ultrasound in a frame that said something like "Great News! Incredibly Good-Looking People Become Grandparents."  My mom saw the ultrasound, screamed with joy and threw her hands up in the air (for a second or two), and then immediately began to cry. Then my dad had the most normal reaction and said "Congrats! That's so exciting!!!" And gave us a big hug. It was awesome. It was so hard waiting until Christmas to tell the family, but it was sooooo worth it! 

We spent a few more days at my parent's place relaxing and having fun. Then we drove back to Utah. We pulled up to our apartment, unloaded the car, repacked, reloaded the car, and headed up to see Jordan's family. We had already been driving all day, so an extra hour and a half wasn't a big deal. When we got there everyone was so excited! We had found out a few weeks earlier that Jordan's little sister Shaylee was pregnant. As soon as we walked in we found out that our sister-in-law Mary was also pregnant. Jordan's mom immediately turned to us and asked if anyone else was pregnant (hint-hint, Jordan and Kristen?). 

We were so caught off guard! We had been waiting so long to tell his family in a certain way, and didn't know if we should say anything yet. So we told them we weren't pregnant. A minute later Jordan and I were downstairs with another copy of our ultrasound picture trying to figure out how we could tell Jordan's family sooner. We borrowed our nephew Johnny and had him carry the ultrasound picture upstairs to show the family. As soon as Johnny walked in the room, Mary said, "Johnny, what is that in your hand?!?! Bring it over here!!!" Mary saw the picture and screamed. Then one by one, the rest of the family saw the picture and screamed. It was fun to watch the reactions go from one side of the room to the other. 

After we had a good laugh, we started talking about due dates. Shaylee was due July 10, Mary was due July 8, and I was due July 15, but then it got changed to July 9th. So all three of us are due within three days of each other!!! Crazy!!!

We had so much fun with Jordan's family. We played Settler's of Catan and ping-pong, and just had fun talking and laughing. We took some family pictures as well. Below is just a picture of Jordan and I while we were taking family pictures. 

We were with Jordan's family for New Year's. It was nice to be there because the year before Jordan was working a lot and so we spent New Year's away from any family. We watched a movie and drank some sparkling cider. It was great. :)

A night or two later we played a spontaneous game of Masterpiece (a board game with famous paintings). It was like 2 in the morning, and we had five minutes to dress up and create a character. We also got some left over sparkling cider and tootsie rolls (our "drinks" and "cigars"). It was a blast. We were laughing almost the entire time. Brittany and Jordan did a great job speaking with accents, too. I think we should make it a family tradition!

I did want to share one video of Jordan and his dad playing ping-pong. They're just talking, but while they are talking, they are spinning their paddles the exact same way. I started laughing when they did it at the same time. Sometimes Jordan is like a clone of his dad. It's so cute.  :)

Adventure #24: BIG News!!!

"Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change." - Jim Rohn

December 2014

BIG News Part 1:

Jordan got back from Philly on Sunday, and we heard back from Temple University on Tuesday! AND..... Jordan got ACCEPTED!!!! And he got a scholarship!!!! I was at school when Jordan got the message, but he called me right away. Luckily I had a break and found out the great news! I totally started crying.... haha One of the other teachers thought something was wrong, so I had to explain they were happy tears. 

We decided to celebrate by having the best Philly Cheesesteaks in the Provo area.  :)

Jordan's acceptance to Temple University came with one catch... He was accepted on December 9th and had to respond with a $1,000 deposit by January 9th. Unfortunately January 9th was the same date as Jordan's interview with the Samuel Merritt School in Oakland. Even if we went to the interview in Oakland, Jordan wouldn't know if he was accepted or not until it was too late to respond to Temple. After a lot of thought and prayer, we realized we didn't really have much of a choice. We were totally fine with that though. Temple was our #1 school. We only wanted to go to Oakland to compare and make sure Temple would stay our #1. 

So just like that we cancelled the interview and our trip to Oakland. And it was official... we will be moving next summer to the East Coast! We are super excited! Marcus and Lana are from the Philly area and so they have told us about everything. Plus, Lana's family still lives in the area (that's where Jordan stayed when he had his interview). Her family is so nice and have already done so much for us. We are excited to get to know them better!

BIG News Part 2:

The week we found out about Jordan's acceptance was also the same week I found out that I was all set to graduate December 19th! I figured everything would work out, but after being in the El Ed program at BYU, you never knew if something random would come up out of no where! I was relieved and happy that I was finally going to receive my bachelor's degree!

BIG News Part 3:

Okay, so technically we already knew this part of the news since November, but it really became official in December....

Yep! We're having a baby!!! The due date is around July 9th, but we'll see if it stays that way. We actually went to get this ultrasound on our 2 year wedding anniversary! The place we got the ultrasound at was pretty weird, but we were desperate to see our baby. 

The health insurance I have through my parents is not usable in Utah. I had been trying to figure out other health insurance options for months. We would qualify for Medicaid, but not until I had graduated (I couldn't have access to "affordable" health insurance and BYU has health insurance they offer students). Jordan and I were willing to pay for our first doctor's appointment out of pocket just so we could see the baby, but I called just about every doctor's office in the area and they were all booked for the rest of the December. 

We especially wanted to have an ultrasound so that we could show a picture to our families when we announced our pregnancy. Jordan found an ultrasound studio at a mall nearby and so we decided to go for it. We figured there's not much anyone can do to mess up an ultrasound, so at least we would be able to see the baby and make sure it was okay. I have to say, it was a crazy experience seeing a little human and knowing it was growing inside me. It was mine and Jordan's baby! Soon after the ultrasound focused in on the baby, the baby started to move its arm back and forth for a good long while! It was so cute! It was like the baby was waving to us! Jordan and I definitely got teary-eyed watching our little baby move around. The ultrasound was reassuring for me to know that everything was okay.

We feel very blessed to have so many things working out for us. We know we couldn't have done this all on our own. Heavenly Father has played a major role in our lives and has blessed us with more than we deserve. We just hope that we can continue to become better people and hopefully be able to bless and serve others. We are extremely happy and can't wait to see how much our lives will change within the next year.  :)

Adventure #23: Jordan's Trip to Philly

"Together forever, never apart. Maybe in distance, but never in heart." - Unknown

December 4 - December 7, 2014

The first weekend in December was when Jordan took his trip to Philly. I dropped Jordan off at the airport and cried basically the whole way home. Luckily I had to go to school and teach, so it took my mind off things for a while. I don't know why, but I was soooo nervous about Jordan traveling across the country and going through this whole interview process alone! I just wish I could have been with him! Jordan of course was fine and made it to Philly and back safely. Because this was Jordan's trip, I'm going to let him write about it:

well, this is dumb..... Yes, that's how I'll start this thing. Honestly, this is probably gonna be a terribly long rant by me, so do yourself a favor and go ahead and skip until you see it's Kristen writing again.

Got on the plane from slc to philly... check
Immediately open up the skymall and look for things no one would ever buy.... check

I had this secret plan of mine to talk to somebody about the gospel, so naturally I traveled in by biggest BYU shirt, because then hopefully I could use it as a conversation starter and mix in the church and the gospel somehow. and it worked! while i was eating a chicago style hotdog, in chicago mind you (my layover), i was sitting down next to an elderly couple, and they noticed my shirt and said "hey, you go to byu?" i was stoked that my plan had totally worked! and of course, to my luck, they were LDS too.... not that that's bad, it just wasn't my goal haha. so we talked for a long time, they were going on a mission, and after i told them how i was working at the MTC, they didn't give me a spare second. we chatted almost my entire layover. so that was both fun and exhausting. 

Chicago hot dog rules

And the delicious Chicago dog itself.

As I arrived in philly, i was pretty excited to be back on the east coast, to be back home. it was the first time i had been back to the east since i graduated highschool.... 7 years ago. our friends Marcus and Lana are from the philly area, south jersey to be exact, and Lana's brother trey, came to pick me up. He is absolutely the best guy ever, classy, witty, clever, gentlemen, basically your all around good guy. I say that because people say we are the exact same person :) So trey was my personal tour guide! he drove me around the heart of the city and explained a bunch of the history, which was awesome. I had never heard the story of william penn before, i had only heard the name, so it was a blast to hear about the different streets, and landmarks. Loving history, i would've been more than content just talking about the sites. We drove past the liberty bell and independence hall... fyi, it's just like it was in National Treasure :)

We were going down these one way streets that big cities have, i hate them, and came across a ballpark in the middle of the concrete jungle, barrels were lit with fires and guys were outside chatting it up and staying warm, it was just like the movies... loved it. And there we made the stop to Pat's cheesesteaks. Holy hannah.... seriously just talking about it is making my mouth water, these cheesesteaks are unlike any other. The idea of the cheesesteak itself is awesome, but having one at one of the most famous places for them... man ALIVE. i cannot describe how good it was. i think i had 3 of them before flying back. I'm super excited to have kristen try one, and then waste a couple bucks buying one for a little girl who is just going to throw the steak on the ground and get all the cheese all over her cute little face. Seriously, that's one of the things i look forward to the most about being out there in philly! They have their own way of ordering and their own little culture, it was different, but i love that difference, it was such a breathe of fresh air!

Cheese steak menu

Pictures of all the notables that have eaten at Pat's

Instructions for ordering

Ok, so dont hate me, but honestly im going to keep talking about food, cause well, i really really like it. So after eating my first phily cheesesteak, we went to WAWA!!! for anyone that doesn't know, wawa is like the michael jordan of gas stations, the others can imitate all they want(kobe) but it just doesnt get better! They have these awesome hoagies that they make, and man, they have these shakes that are just incredible. So we went and got a shake, the next day we went and got hoagies :) WAWA i love you so much! i can't wait to be reunited again! 

The picture of the gas pumps below is because in jersey, they don't let you pump your own gas! they had these guys sitting out in those booths, just waiting for people to get gas. you give em your card and say how much you want, and voila! they do it... that was different!
so that night i got to meet lana's family, the Sikahemas, maybe kristen has said a few things about him already, but the Sikahemas are awesome. Her dad played football for byu and the cardinals, packers and eagles, and is now a sportscaster for the philly area. her mom is awesome, a total sweetheart. they took ridiculously good care of me, so much so that me and trey ended up staying up til about 1 in the morning eating chips and homemade salsa (another mouthwatering moment) while watching behind enemy lines.... man i was spoiled rotten! 

So i woke up at 6:00 the next morning because, well the whole point of me going out there was to interview with the Temple School of Podiatry. i mean, that is my future career and all. So i got up bright and early, shined my shoes, ironed my shirt, and trey drove me up to the school and dropped me off. The school building itself is definitely old, i was a little surprised at how old... I was thinking to myself... geez... this place is ragged! but everything besides the architecture was new, so that curbed my pessimism. So i sat there for about 10-15 minutes all by my lonesome waiting for the other applicants to show up. I was kinda hoping they wouldn't show, or they would all show late, that way they'd make me look good :) but i also was freaking out thinking i was in the wrong place, i reread and reread the invitation a hundred times to make sure. 

So just as the dean comes to greet me, another applicant shows up... rats... and then as we walked to his office, the other 2 applicants showed up too.. bummer. It's kinda rude for me to say this, but after listening to the other applicants, and by looking at some of their wrinkled clothes and "just woke up" faces... i felt pretty dang good about my chances! they were a bunch of wierdos; kinda makes me think if i am that wierd as well and just completely oblivious.... but there's no way. So we meet with the dean, a super cool guy, but for sake of length, we'll just say he was awesome. He tried to sell us on the city, the things to do, and lifestyle etc. then we went on a tour of the school, meet some students and i was overall impressed. even though the place itself looked worn down, the quality of things, and the education seemed to be on point. but let's be real, i kinda had my mind made up we were gonna go here if we got accepted anyway. it wouldnt have mattered much what happened.

All ready for the interview

So we had lunch, philly cheeseteaks of course, and waited for our interviews, the most stressful part. One by one the applicants went and came back... and of course i was last. awesome. as the interviewer called my name we went for the handshake. ALERT: i am super judgy on a lot of things, and one of those things i judge the most is how people shake hands. So i don't know what happened, but either he pulled his hand away a little at the last second, or I did, but what happened was the equivalent of an atomic bomb to my pride. I ended up giving him the limp, dead fish handshake. the one where you wonder if the other person really has a pulse or not. and not only that but it was like the queen elizabeth kind where it's only the tips of your fingers really touch....

 

my thoughts exactly! man! i felt doomed! i immediately started panicking, i had already blown my opportunity before it even began!.... well at least the food was worth the trip... so in the interview i then felt i had to do SOMETHING to make up for that terrible handshake! but it just kept getting worse... the interviewer would ask a question, and i'd answer, and he'd interrupt me... i was totally caught off guard. he would tell stories about other mormons that had gone to the school, mormons that he knew when he was a podiatrist etc. but he really didn't let me talk... i was really freaking out, until i realized i could peek at the marks he was giving me. i would maintain eye contact with him, and as soon as we would put his head down to write, i would look too, and see my ratings. For each category, he marked the furthest right option.... which was either a REALLY good thing... or a REALLY bad thing. 

I realized that, and on one of the times he looked down and i was able to get a glimpse of which it was.... and count your blessings it what a really good thing! I felt SO relieved, but still nervous.... because... well, you just never know. So after he had told some other stories about himself, we left and i made sure, ABSOLUTELY sure, that i gave him a good handshake. in retrospect, i was much more nervous, and still freaking out, not sure if i read his paper wrong or what, if i really did a terrible job or what. but looking back, i didn't need to be so nervous. So that was that! they told us we'd find out if we were accepted or not in just a few days.

I was excited to get that over with, i ended up being able to meet up with one of my best friends from highschool, jon dillard. he is going to the podiatry school there, and was around, so after he took me to his apartment in Chinatown, which was pretty cool. i had never even seen a china town before, much less walked down one. Instantly memories from "big trouble in little China" came to my mind. His apartment building looked pretty rough on the outside, but the inside was like a penthouse! SUPER nice, two balconies.... wood floors... man, just incredible. And so i think thats how all things in philly are, rough on the outside, and still possibly rough on the inside, but also possibly really nice on the inside. IT was awesome to catch up with him, talk about life get some advice from him. It was really short though, so once we're out there ima make sure to spend some good time with him!

After he left for work, i had an hour or so to burn before trey came and picked me up. I walked down to ben franklin square, everything is named after ben franking by the way, and just walked around a nice little square and people watched, even ran into SWOOSH, the philly eagles mascot! that was cool! and then just talked to kristen on the phone the entire time, talked about how things went, feelings and all that jazz. It was awesome to just be excited about bringing her out there, i think she will love it, i sure hope so, or else ima feel bad for dragging her all the way across the country! 

Franklin Square

Swoosh!

After i called my dad as i walked towards the heart of the city and got to tell him about it. The last time i had walked the streets of a big city I was in Bogota Colombia. And there i always, always, was on the lookout for would be muggers. so naturally, i went right back into that mode. i analyzed each and every person to the right and left, front and back of me. Looked at their hands, if they were reaching for anything, looked at their faces to see their intentions and their focus and demeanor... it all came right back to me. I started judging the streets by how many ways i could run if somebody came, i took wide turns around corners so i could see them before they saw me.... the whole 9 yards came back to me. but honestly, after about 10 minutes of that, i finally snapped out of it.... at least partially. I just took in the city, and just kinda let myself be a tourist and look around and what philly had to offer. IT was the first time i had felt safe in a big city... which was a new feeling for me, but it was more than welcome. I still have my reservations but i'm so incredibly excited to walk Kristen and our little kids down the city and tell them about the history of it!

Down the street from City Hall

City Hall

Just chillin in Santa's sleigh

Back at the sikahemas, we went out for italian food at a little ma and pa shop, it was great, and again they treated me like royalty... i felt really bad all i could give them in return was some of their favorite sweets. Honestly, the rest of friday night is a blur, i remember being with trey and hanging out, o yea!! we played pounce/nertz/13 down for a good little while and watched another movie. yup, another great night, but more than anything i just felt relieved that the interview was done, and just relieved in general...

Saturday morning trey drove me around some neighborhoods that we would potentially live in, some places that were good areas, and cheap areas for us poor students. and then he dropped me off at the airport...after a quick trip to WAWA's of course :) i sure miss trey... what a stellar dude... just absolutely wonderful :)

Driving around New Jersey

Last visit to Wawas

The flight home was fine, no troubles whatsoever.... except that i missed my flight. For whatever reason, the plane leaving from philly to chicago got delayed, something about the fuel tank... probably no big deal. so they gave me the option of possibly making my flight back to utah, staying over night in chicago if i didn't, or catch a flight the next day and spend the night with the sikahemas. I didn't want to have trey come all the way back and get me, and i REALLY REALLY wanted to see Kristen and get home to her, so i opted to throw up a prayer and hope our plane would somehow make it. I got to chicago, sprinted off the plane, and sprinted, literally-just like the movies, to the flight, i was 10 minutes after departure time and they knew our flight was delayed.... they said there was a chance. And alas, my prayer was answered in the negative... the plane had left. i would be staying the night in chicago... So i called Kristen... she cried... i felt bad... and therefore went into one of the airport stores and bought an overpriced teddy bear for her. 

The airline gave me a hotel and transportation, that was nice. I asked the driver if there was anywhere near that had a good chicago style pizza, and just to my luck, one of the best pizza places was just a few blocks. So i braved the cold, seriously...cold and windy don't mix, it was like rexburg all over again, and walked the few blocks to Giordanos pizza. I grabbed a seat, ordered a pizza, an entire one because apparently you can't just do slices of chicago pizza. realized i'd have to wait 40 minutes. but luckily, a bulls game was on! i ended up sitting at the bar, eating chicago style pizza, in chicago, while watching the chicago bulls play.... yea it was pretty awesome! but luckily enough i didn't get robbed on the way home, and somehow the flights worked out the next morning and i came home safe and sound, with a teddy bear in my arms for my distraught wife.... the pregnancy hormones she claims... It was a great trip, but i can't wait to do it all again, but with Kristen this time.

Ordering pizza at Giordano's

Eating Chicago pizza and watching the Chicago Bulls game in Chicago

Kristen: I was so glad Jordan had such a fun trip to Philly! Man, I missed that kid so much while he was gone! It sounds so ridiculous, but that was the longest Jordan and I had ever been apart. I was especially bummed when he had to come home a day later because of delays. I was totally fine Thursday, Friday, and most of Saturday because I just kept busy. The worst was Saturday night because I thought that Jordan would have been home by then. But honestly, I'm just glad he made it home safely. All in all it wasn't too bad, and it made it all worth it when I heard how awesome his trip was. The bear helped, too. :)