Birthday Celebrations and Late Night Adventures

I realize that the last official trip to Idaho was a few weeks ago, but we changed our minds. With my mom turning 50 over the weekend, we decided to get an approval from the doctor and head up to celebrate. But really, this was definitely our last trip up to Idaho until the boys are born; we only have a few weeks left until they are here! I got an "okay" from Dr. Allen, but he advised me to get out and walk around every hour or so. We took that advice to heart and stopped at The Burger Bar about an hour and a half down the road. Mmmm, it was just as delicious as last time!

"You had ONE job."

We pulled into my parents house around 7:00, ate some grilled chicken legs and wings with dad (his favorite) and spent the evening talking and helping Ryan and Janelle assemble their new elliptical.

The Three Stooges

Saturday is when the real party began! The kids had one more gift to get mom and met at the mall at 11:30 and spent a lot of time (and quite a bit of money) making a bookmark for her in one of the photo booths. It was so much fun! 

                             

   

Eli had a lot of fun playing in the Ball Pit
and got a little carried away filling his clothes
with the balls. Josh snapped this picture
right at the perfect moment! 

Charlie and Uncle Josh playing in the playhouse.

Kate turned 25 and Mom turned 50! Happy Birthday!

Tyler making Macie laugh.

Grandma with all 5 grand kids. 

We all then drove to Shelley and met up at the house where we spent the day playing Frisbee, cooking, and playing with the kids. Katelyn's birthday was just a week away, so we combined birthday dinners and celebrated mom's and Kate's while all of us were there. Dinner was delicious with a phenomenal Prime Rib (Thanks dad!), baked potatoes, yummy rolls, green salad and grilled Salmon. Yum! We love going home to some amazing food! For dessert, we had moms favorite chocolate cake from Sam's club and Katelyn's favorite, Strawberry Shortcake. We then spent the evening together playing games, talking, entertaining children, and laughing. It was a pretty good weekend if I do say so myself!       

After a few short hours visiting the Murphys on Sunday evening, Josh and I got in the car and started the drive back to Provo. It didn't take long before our trip was delayed a significant amount. 

It's normal to find this in the middle of the
freeway, right?

With metal this large in the middle of the road,
the damage could have been much worse! 

About an hour and a half into the drive, we hit something in the middle of the freeway. We heard crashing and banging as we drove over it, so we flipped on the hazards and pulled over. When we got out of the car, we saw that our bumper was barely hanging on to one side, and completely ripped off of the other. So, with our powers combined (all the power I could muster 34 weeks pregnant), we secured the bumper and called it good. Josh then decided to go find what we hit and take a picture to show our insurance company. He found quite a bit of loose metal and ended up helping a lady that had ended up with a flat tire because of the same metal. About an hour after we pulled over, Josh got in the car so we could drive the next ten minutes to Malad and double check our bumper. Well, we made it less than a minute before we pulled over again because of loud, unusual noises our car was making. When Josh got out, he noticed we had a flat tire! Sheesh! So, with the help of a very accommodating police officer, we got pictures for insurance, and changed the tire from our flat to the spare. Finally, an hour and half later, we were on our way. We pulled into Malad to get a little caffeine, double check all of our Jimmy-rigs and go to the bathroom. Josh and I didn't get to Provo until 12:30 a little relieved that that was our last trip for a long while. It was definitely one to remember!

Although I sat in the car, pretty much the whole time, I was
the one that hit the metal. I'm pretty proud. Good thing
I have Josh around to fix things up for me! 

Josh changed two tires in one night. What
a Stud!

A Late Night for the Murphys

Looking our best (the best that we can look)
 at 1:50 in the morning.

Josh and I have a small (it's quite large actually) infatuation with the best selling author, Brandon Sanderson. In fact, we own all of his books and 95% of them are signed copies. But, we have our most recent late night to thank for that. 

Brandon Sanderson is an incredible author and just so happens to teach a few classes at BYU. He announced the release of his newest book, Words of Radiance to be on Tuesday, March 4th at 12:00 in the morning and a book signing right after. So, Josh and Ty got their tickets for a book early Monday morning, and then after a full day of class, showed up to get them right at 12:00 sharp. Ty wanted to get home and read the book, so Josh waited in line to get our copy of Words of Radiance personalized, but he had also brought copies of The Well of Ascension, and The Rithmatist to get signed as well. 

I had initially stayed home to get some sleep, but when I found out that Josh was all by himself waiting in line to get our family's books signed, I just had to join in on the fun! So I threw on some clothes, grabbed my mace and walked to campus. An hour and a half later, we met Brandon Sanderson. It might have taken us all week to catch up on sleep, but standing in line together to get our collection of books signed was well worth the late night! 

Pregnant and lovin' it!

We found out we were pregnant the last
 week of August 2013 (4 weeks)

12 weeks, and finally showing. 

14 weeks

 16 weeks- We thought we were going in to the
doctor's office to simply find out the gender of our baby,
but it was then that we found out we were having twin boys!

18 weeks

16 weeks

22 weeks

20 weeks, over halfway!

26 weeks

24 weeks

30 weeks

28 weeks 

32 weeks! 

36 weeks-feeling quite large!

 The pregnancy has been easier than we had expected for twins, but gets progressively more uncomfortable as the weeks go on. Josh has done such a wonderful job taking care of me and catering to my every whim. The babies look healthy and the doctor says all is well. From here on out, it is just a waiting game and even though we haven't decided on names, we are so excited to meet our little boys! 

A Cold Winter Campout

Josh Loves his calling as a Priest quorum advisor and all of the fun activities that come with it. On February 21st at 5:00, they loaded up all of their camping gear and headed up to Sundance for a winter camp-out. Once they got there and set up camp, they spent a lot of time on a swing and zip-line they found nearby. For dinner the boys had packed yummy hot dogs and for breakfast they each got their own homemade egg mcmuffin; not bad for camping food if you ask me!

Josh entertaining himself
with shadows. 

Josh ended up in his own tent but stayed up until about 12:30 listening to the deacons prank each other. He also found some solid entertainment with the games on his phone and his audio book to listen to! It got below freezing that night, and Josh tried his best to stay warm, but woke up every couple of hours despite his many layers and extra hand warmers. The morning was spent taking down camp and trying to warm up the two boys that fell into the stream from the zip-line. Josh sure enjoyed the outing and the company, but it sure felt nice to come home to yummy food and a nice warm shower!

A man and his tent.

 

On Saturday morning, while Josh was packing up camp, I was at home putting a roast in the crock pot to cook. This weekend was the weekend we tried some homemade, authentic Posole! mmm..

So, I threw the Pork in to cook and headed to the store to pick up the last of the ingredients. On Sunday morning we threw the soup into the crock pot and came home from church to a delicious smelling apartment and food ready to eat. Josh ate a lot of Posole on his mission and said it lived up to Posole standards! It was one of his favorite home cooked meals in Long Beach and is still one of his favorite meals to have. And as a first for me, I thought it was delicious!