I.Heart.Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! I love all the food! I love being around family and friends! I love that it's the official start of the holiday season! And it means our anniversary is right around the corner!

Since we always spend this holiday with family, Matt and I have never our very own Thanksgiving. This year was our very first attempt and I think it's safe to say...it was a total success! We decided that in order to free up our oven, that we would rotisserie our turkey breast outside on the grill. It was the juiciest, yummiest turkey we have ever had! I totally recommend this cooking style to everyone! Matt was in charge of the turkey, which turned out fab. And I took care of the rest of the spread. I made apple pie, pumpkin pie, and parker house rolls completely from scratch! I also made stuffing (my mother-in-law's recipe), mashed potatoes, and green bean casserole. My mom made the yummy yams! She let me take charge, since she knows how much I love to cook. This Thanksgiving was awesome!


While I was busy in the kitchen, my mom had all sorts of goodies to entertain Rian. They colored placemats for all 4 of us. And they made these apple and candy turkeys. When I was younger, those turkeys were always my job, so it was fun to have Rian take on that tradition. Aren't they cute!

Rian tried on of the turkey feathers (candy fruit slice). She took one bit and said "it's too sweet", and then spit it out :) What a good kid, huh?!

Rian loves to hold her baby brother! And she loves to play computer games with Bama Lois!

Miles turned one week old today. We bought him the cute little "First Thanksgiving" outfit hoping he would be here in time! So glad that he is! I love how the feet say little turkey!

I love this time of year and the way it gets me thinking about all of my many blessings. I truly am blessed and i am so grateful for all that i have. I'm going to attempt to make a list, but honestly it could go on and on.....so just to name a few in no particular order.....that our prayers have been answered and that miles arrived here happy and healthy. my loving, hard-working, caring, supportive husband whom I just adore! the opportunity Heavenly Father has given me to bear children and witness the miracle of delivery. my smart, beautiful, out-going daughter and my new baby boy who is so good. all my friends and family back home. the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints. all the friends we have made here on guam. my calling as first counselor in relief society and the opportunity I have to serve the sisters here. matt's job and the fact that it gives me the chance to stay at home with my little ones. the priesthood and it's presence in our home. our health and happiness. the Spirit and my Savior Jesus Christ. our home. my parents who would do anything for me and constantly do. the temple and our sealing. skype. the power of fast and prayer. for my freedom. the holidays and the time it allows us to reflect and remember our many blessings and the birth of our Redeemer...these are just a few :)

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

BLISS

BLISS = supreme happiness; utter joy or contentment....this is how I feel!!!


Miles is one week old today. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by already!

Matt was burping Miles and my mom captured this on her camera. It's our favorite pic so far :)

Big Sister and Bama Lois holding Miles at the hospital

Rian has been adjusting pretty well considering the circumstances. At night, she gets a little more feisty and wants more attention, but for the most part, she is doing really great. She loves her baby brother and especially loves feeding him!

Helping feed again!

Daddy giving Miles his bath. The first bath (which I didn't capture on film) he didn't like so much. This time, he enjoyed it much more...although his face may not show it in this shot :)

The bath exhausted him!

Check out this calic....gotta love it!

Bama Lois and Miles. They just love each other! I am so grateful my mom is here. She is so awesome and I am so lucky to have her as my mom! About 2.5 weeks til my dad gets here :) Rian can't wait to see him....and neither can I!

Everyone thinks Miles looks just like Rian did as a baby. Here they are in the same outfit. She is about 5 days older than him in these pics. Rian is on the left, Miles on the right.

Miles is such a good baby. We really lucked out! All he does is sleep, sleep, feed, and sleep! Occasionally he will wake up and enjoys walking around the house. His bilirubin levels were higher than the Dr wanted, so we had to go in the day after we were discharged to check the numbers. He had lost quite a bit of weight and was not filling up his diaper like he should have been. He was dehydrated. Apparently, I wasn't producing much milk yet.....surprise, surprise...my milk never came in with Rian. I was so worried. But we went in the following day and his weight went way back up and his bilirubin numbers were great. Now all he does is fill up his diaper! In fact, last night before bed, Matt and I were laughing hysterically because Miles pooped and we seriously went through 4 diapers in just that one diaper change. He just kept going and going. It was quite comical! I love having a newborn in our home again. He sleeps so well at night and I'm getting enough sleep to function throughout the day. At least for now, maybe it will hit me in a few days.

Rian is doing pretty well considering. She really wants to be involved with Miles and she wants her own time with both Matt and I too. Totally understandable. It's a little bit of an adjustment for me, but I am trying to make her feel very special too. Any advice on what has worked for you is totally welcomed! She has her first dance recital coming up and I can't wait for it! She really loves her dance class and her teacher. She also loves her weekly tumbles class! She has been going on lots of playdates with her friends too. It's so fun to watch her play with her friends! Thank heavens my mom is here to help out with all of Rian's outings! Rian has also been doing so well with recognizing letters and learning how to write her letters too. She can even spell some words. She also loves to type names/words on the computer, as well as play educational games on the computer and ipod touch. She is such a good girl and I am grateful to have her in my life! Seriously, how did I get so lucky! :)

Introducing.....

the newest member of our family....Miles Matthew Pine!!!
Born on November 19th at 8:08pm local date/time, 7 lbs 15 oz and 20.5 inches long.
Both stats are almost the exact same as Rian, she was 7 lbs 14 oz and 20.5 inches long.
The birth story is at the bottom of this post, if you are interested.

His first picture taken just minutes after his birth.

He is absolutely gorgeous and just as perfect as can be!

Just minutes old

With his eyes open

A very proud Mommy with her beautiful new baby boy!

How precious is he?!

Beautiful flowers from my mom and my whole family....thanks guys, I love them!

In his bassinet with his stats above his head.

I loved this "property of" shirt :)





Look how long and skinny he is :)

I went to the Dr on Monday for my 38 week appt. I was dilated to a 4/5 and the Dr stripped my membranes and swore I was going to be having the baby that night. I started contractions about 3 hours after my appt. They were kind of all over the place. 4 mins apart, 7 mins, 15 mins, 3 mins, 4 mins, 8 mins, etc. We put Rian to bed and told her that when she woke up in the morning her baby brother would be here.....we were way wrong! My contractions slowed way down around 9 and I suddenly became exhausted. Soon I was sound asleep. When Rian woke in the morning, she asked if Baby Miles was here, we sadly had to tell her no :)

Tuesday I woke up with a few small contractions, so we were thinking that soon they would become more regular and therefore Matt stayed home from work. We decided to get a few errands done and by 230 I was starting to have painful contractions about 2-3 mins apart for 40 mins straight. We decided it was time and we went home to get our hospital bags. A few minutes after I sat down in the car, the contractions slowed down and once again exhaustion took over. I fell asleep on the way home. Needless to say, it wasn't time.

Wednesday I sent Matt back to work. I figured once my contractions decided to stay regular, I would call him to come home. I had contractions off and on all day.

Thursday morning I decided to call the Dr again. I knew these contractions had to have made me dilate more. She told me to come in. Matt happened to be at his physical therapy appt at the hospital when she wanted me to come in. So he joined me for the appt. I was now dilated to a 6 and she said that I needed to go to MBU (mother baby unit) now. We headed home for our bags and we were admitted to MBU at 2 pm. After some blood work and monitoring, I was given my epidural at 345 pm. I was hardly having any contractions and when I did they were hardly regular, so they broke my water and started pitocin at 445 pm. I was still a 6, 90% effaced, and at a -3 station.

My mom and Rian showed up at the hospital at 7. At 740 we asked my mom to take Rian to the store to get Matt some cold medicine (great time to be getting sick, huh?). At 755, the Dr came in to check me. I was dilated to a 10, 100% effaced, and a +2 station. I was ready to push. My contractions were still irregular at this point. I had a contraction while he was checking me so he asked me to push to see where the baby was. I pushed the baby's head half way out! He shockingly said STOP! And quickly called his team to get ready for this baby and told me whatever I do, DO NOT PUSH!! I asked Matt if he had hair and Matt said yes! Within mins they were all ready to go, but I wasn't having any contractions. Finally after a few mins of everyone waiting on me, I had a small contraction at 805 and I pushed one time. We then lost baby's heartbeat (this had been happening all night because he was moving all over the place). The RN tried moving the monitor to find it and after about a min, the Dr said lets just push since he is right there. So without a contraction, I pushed one more time and Baby Miles was out at 808 pm.

My mom and Rian returned to the hospital and came walking into the room to a sound of a crying baby just a couple mins after he was born. Rian said look at him, he is so little. She was smiling so big! Unfortunately, she is also a little under the weather, so she can't get too close to Miles. Soon we'll have pics of big sister Rian holding her baby brother!

We are so grateful for all your thoughts and prayers. Miles is absolutely beautiful and perfect! I know Heavenly Father answered our prayers! We were discharged from the hospital today and are adjusting to life at home with 2 :)

Pregnancy Update

I cannot believe how quickly this pregnancy has gone by! I love being pregnant and especially feeling our little guy move inside of me! But I am so excited to finally meet him! As are Matt and Rian! Here is a little progression collage again.

I wanted to do a Maternity Photo Shoot this pregnancy and my friend, Kjirsti, offered to do it for us. She just got a camera for Christmas so it was fun for her to play with it and take our pictures. For some reason, when I put the pics in the collages, it made them lower quality, but I am posting them anyways. I don't want to redo it! So here are a few of the pics...

I went in Monday at 1 for a routine appt. I was dilated to a 3/4 and my Dr stripped my membranes (sorry if it's TMI). Then another Dr came in to check me (apparently I had a really good cervix according to my Dr and she wanted the other Dr to check it out). She told me that I already progressed to a 4/5. And I've been feeling contractions on and off since ever since! But they won't stay regular....and it's frustrating. I keep thinking maybe this is it, but then it's not! I know he will come when he is ready and I really hope it's before Thanksgiving! I would love to be home with him before the holiday!

We had a little scare a few weeks ago....I've been consistantly measuring small since 29 weeks. Before the Dr would schedule an ultrasound, Matt and I went to our Branch President to help assist Matt in a Priesthood Blessing. (For those of you who aren't LDS or don't know what a Priesthood Blessing is, click here) Let's just say that the blessing wasn't too reassuring, and basically said things that you would never want to hear or expect in a blessing. Luckily one of the doctors I see is LDS and he got me into an ultrasound asap. The ultrasound showed everything was okay. I am still a little worried though and ask for you to remember us in your prayers. Only 9 days to go.....

Did You Miss Us?!

WE ARE BACK!!! I know you all missed us :) Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Life has been so crazy. Here is a little glimpse of what we have been up to the past 6 weeks. Warning: It's a long post!

Rian has been busy with lots of birthday parties. This is a collage of Joah's party. They roasted a pig, had a blow up waterslide, had a fairy come to paint faces and make balloon animals, had this awesome Yo Gabba Gabba cake, and played lots of games. We had a good time!

My mom flew in at the end of September and the first weekend she was here, we had another b-day party to go to. It was a tea party themed party for Kylie. It was such a cute idea!!! The girls had tea (lemonade) and little cookies and tea sandwiches! After the tea party, it was swim time! Rian had a lot of fun!

The party was at this amazing house!! Not only was the location perfect (right on the beach), but it had the most amazing features. I could seriously live on Guam forever, if I lived here! It was a fun day for all of us and I was excited to finally meet Kylie's parents, who are very cool!

We attended another birthday party the next weekend. Emma, a friend from church, had a Halloween themed party. This was also a very cute party! All the kids had fun painting pumpkins and making caramel apples! I loved how Rian ate her ice cream after dinner. It was so frozen, she stabbed it with her fork and picked the entire scoop up.

Next up was Halloween. We went to our Church's Trunk-Or-Treat on Friday, the night before Halloween. We had a potluck dinner and then the little ones played a few games. Then we all went outside and the kids went trick-or-treating from trunk to trunk. Rian was wanted to be a princess, of course, does that really surprise any of you?! Her favorite one at the moment is "Cinderbrella". I just love how she says that :)

On Halloween, I made these mummy hot dogs for lunch. Rian loved them :) Then we went trick-or-treating with the Vines, who are our friends from church. Kenzie dressed up as Dora and it was such a cute idea for a costume. The Vines had a wagon so we could pull the girls around the neighborhood. I loved how 'Dora' ran from door to door, and 'Cinderella' always came back to her Royal Carriage (ie: wagon) and had her dad pull her from door to door. Very typical of each of their personalities!

We met up with more friends from church as we walked around the neighborhood. I just loved this little boy in his superman costume, it was awesome!! As we were walking from door to door, Rian told me "Mom, I just love, love, love Halloween"! What three year old doesn't?! When we finished that neighborhood, we drove over to our other friend's house for a BBQ. I was excited for my mom to get a taste of what the locals and their BBQ's are all about! Rian passed out on the way over to the house. Once we got there, Matt took her trick-or-treating around that neighborhood. There were so many mobs of at least 20-30 kids all over the neighborhood. It was pretty crazy. We left the party at 930 pm and those mobs were still out in full force! I think it's safe to say that Rian had a very, very fun Halloween and the best part is that she seriously has no desire to break into her candy bag. What a good girl!

We took my Mom to Chamorro Village of course! It's a must when you come to island. I was excited to have her get a feel for it and sample a few of the local foods. And of course, Rian's favorite part of Chamorro Village is the carabao ride.

Something we have never done at Chamorro Village is take Rian on the little rides. Bama was happy to let Rian experience them for the first time! Rian loved the rides and then my mom and her played a very silly carnival game. They won a wannabe barbie doll named Julia.

Here are a few random pics. Rian loves to play mommy and we caught her in the nursery rocking her pooh bear and feeding him a bottle. I think she is going to be a great big sister! We got a package in the mail full of these peanuts. Rian loved playing in them. She immediately pretended it was snow. She is constantly telling us that it doesn't snow on Guam, so I think she had fun frolicking in her version of it :) She even made snow angels!

On Veteran's Day, we went to a party with Matt's co-workers and their families. It was a fun day and very nice for Matt to have the day off work. This group of people got together for a softball game. It was fun to watch them play, nothing's better than a fun, competitive softball game!

We also took my Mom to Jeff's Pirate Cove. The view is beautiful and the burger was pretty good too! We will definitely be taking my Dad back here when he comes onto island.

We have also been busy with my Mom exploring the island, swimming, going to the beach, shopping (as much as you can on this island), getting ready for the baby and the baby shower (which was on the 7th), playdates, tumbles, dance class. The time has flown by. I wish it would slow down a little bit...the thought of my mom leaving makes me so sad :(

Tummy Shots

I can't believe I am 32 weeks already. The time has just flown by! This pregnancy has definitely been a lot different than my first. I've had a lot more pain, but it is kind of hit and miss. I passed my glucose tests and am happy to report I do not have gestational diabetes this pregnancy! I'm a lot smaller this time around too (some of that probably due to the fact that I am not diabetic). In fact at my 32 week appt, I was only measuring 29 centimeters, which is only one centimeter bigger than my last appt at 28 weeks. But I seriously feel like I am growing bigger every day!!! Don't I look more than a centimeter bigger on that collage?? Our little guy is pretty dang active, just like Rian was, but he moves differently than she did. I love feeling his movements, even if they are uncomfortable sometimes. It's my favorite part of pregnancy :) Oh, and my cravings are definitely not the same this time!
We are getting anxious to meet our little guy! Rian is definitely ready to be a big sister and seems excited for his arrival too! She always mentions her baby brother in her prayers and is excited to be our little helper! I'm glad she is at the age where she understands what's going on. She can see and feel the baby move, and already loves to talk and sing to him. It's so cute!

Counting Our Blessings

Once again, our prayers were answered and we are incredibly grateful! The typhoon continued heading north through Friday night and Saturday morning. When we woke up Saturday morning, we were still on a Tropical Storm watch, but by 10 am that watch was cancelled. At that point, we knew we were in the clear! It was a little windy on Saturday, but I don't even think we even got rain to be honest.

My heart is so full of gratitude! And my testimony strengthened! This is obviously our first typhoon season, and we have had many close calls. We have had quite a few storms coming straight towards Guam, that have changed course. I'm sure this is how it will be every season we are here. And the only thing we can do is prepare ourselves and let mother nature take its course. How grateful am I for the Gospel! For the wonderful counsel of our Leaders on preparation. And the scriptures too. Modern day revelation is such a huge blessing and I have been reminded this past week how lucky we are to have it in our lives! I couldn't help but think of many versus on being prepared this past week....here is one that stuck out to me this evening:
"Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing..." Doctrine and Covenants 88:119

Typhoon Melor

It's 930 pm Friday night. By tomorrow morning, this is what the entire island should look like. All the windows covered with storm shutters or wooden boards, so the wind/flying debris won't break them. It's kind of an eerie feeling driving around town and seeing everything boarded up.

Typhoon Melor is expected to intensify over night and become a Super Typhoon, which means winds will be exceeding 150 mph. Melor is expected to hit Saipan, which is a smaller island just north of Guam. We are not on a typhoon watch, but on a tropical storm watch because we are far enough south of the eye of the storm, so we should expect winds to not exceed 73 mph.

We've been told to prepare for heavy rain and damaging winds starting tomorrow morning and continuing on into the evening. Hopefully the typhoon will continue heading west northwest and not southwest towards us!

We feel very lucky to be out of the eye of this storm. However, we aren't in the clear quite yet. We continue to ask for your prayers for all of us here in the Marianas Islands. Many smaller islands will be hit much harder than us. Thank you for all your prayers, care and concern over the past week. As long as we have power and internet connection we will continue to update our blog. It seems like every time we have gone to bed the past few days, we have woken up to news that this typhoon has intensified. I am nervous to see what we will wake up to tomorrow morning. We'll let you know...

Pop Tarts: A Disaster Necessity

So I sent Matt to the store again yesterday for some last minute disaster necessities. Guess what he comes home with........a Costco size box of Pop Tarts, NO JOKE!!! In his defense, they are a shelf stable food, right? Wait can you even consider Pop Tarts a food?!?!

Storm Watch Update

Wow, this morning has been quite the rollercoaster ride. I woke up this morning to the news that Guam has been put on a Tsunami Watch. I seriously had to laugh at this point. Really, a tsunami too, is this a joke or what??? American Somoa was hit with a huge 8.0 earthquake which triggered a massive tsunami. Many islands here in the Pacific were put on Tsunami Watch, but luckily the Tsunami watch has now been lifted for Guam!!! Yay, one less thing to worry about!!!

Now on to Tropical Storm 18W. It is still considered a tropical storm with winds expected to hit at 40 mph. The storm will be hitting the southern part of the island coming in from the east. We are located in the middle of the island on the east coast, just so you know.....not that this island is by any means big or anything :) Anyways, it is expected to hit us around 4 pm local time (it is 1030 am right now) but the military is going on today with "business as usual". I'm am definitely not worried about 18W. We have been through a tropical depression back in Dec, and 40 mph winds aren't too bad. We might lose power, but we have a generator and I am almost positive the power will be restored before our building's generator is out of juice.

Now on to more serious news! We have another HUGE storm coming! The next tropical storm 20W, named MELOR, will be approaching over the weekend with typhoon strength winds of up to 100 MPH. Holy crap, this is the one to be scared about!!! Although the current forecast is for a Saipan impact on Sunday morning (Saipan is located north of Guam), computer models are not in agreement on the track and the forecast may change over the next 48 hours.

As I learned from 18W, conditions are constantly changing. In fact, I could have updated this blog 5 times yesterday, but decided to hold off until this morning because I knew the conditions would be changing yet once again. We will expecting to hear more about 20W on Friday morning local time. That will be Thursday afternoon for you all who are stateside. We will be praying that this storm slows down just like 18W did!

I do have to say though, that I think I have been handling all this stress/anxiety over these storms and tsunami warnings pretty dang well. So I am pretty darn happy with myself. I tend to get anxiety attacks pretty easily, but I have been really trying to stay calm and not freak out too much through all of this. Especially since the conditions are constantly changing, so what's the point? Am I nervous about 20W, heck yes!!! But I need to stay calm for me and the baby and for Rian too. So that is what I am doing for the time being. :)

It's Coming....

I am scared. There is a big storm heading towards Guam. I've never been through anything like this before. We are just waiting for it to hit us and just sitting here waiting is not a fun thing.

Tropical Depression: winds less than 38 mph
Tropical Storm: winds between 39-73 mph
Typhoon: winds over 74 mph
Super Typhoon: winds over 150 mph

Over here in the pacific, we get typhoons. They are just like hurricanes. Yesterday we were informed that Tropical Depression 18W has formed and was gaining speed. It was heading straight towards Guam and would most likely become a Tropical Storm by the time it directly hit us Tuesday evening. Luckily, it slowed down and moved south yesterday afternoon and now will actually hit just south of Guam. This is great news!

As of this morning (it is 9am Tuesday right now) 18W is 625 miles east, southeast of Guam. Damaging winds will most likely hit us starting around 5am Thurs. Since it will hit south of us, we will most likely just encounter a Tropical Depression on Thursday, however a Topical Storm watch is still in effect for Guam at this time. Hopefully it won't be too damaging. However, the speed of the storm can change at any time, so we still need to prepare for the worst.

One problem with these storms is that it affects the power and water. Losing power is a very common thing here and we actually lose it during almost every thunderstorm. However, losing power means losing internet access and phone (we have digital phone), which then means, we lose all communication to all of you who are stateside. I do not like that! I have been stocking up on water and non-perishable food ever since we got back to the island in May. But I keep asking myself, do we have enough?? I can't seem to answer that question. And this is one of the reasons why....

...There is another storm following behind Tropical Depression 18W and possibly another storm (yes, that's #3) behind that one. Since this first storm won't be too damaging (hopefully), I am pretty sure we can survive that; even if we were out of power for a few days or so. But what happens when this next storm hits. The next one has yet to be named, but has been rumored to be much more intense than 18W. Will we have enough to get us through another major hit? Because you know we won't have a chance to restock after each storm, especially since we live on a island and there are limited supply of everything to begin with. And sometimes the power and/or water can be out for weeks. The next storm is projected to hit us Sat morning.

I just feel have that motherly instinct to protect my family, and I am worried that I won't be prepared enough to do that. We have food, water, gas in our vehicles, flashlights, batteries, hurricane lamps, candles, clean clothes, clean towels, clean dishes, toilet paper, paper products (plates and stuff), clean bath tubs to fill with water before the storm hits, charged electronics, etc. I've gone over the list several times and I think we are prepared in that aspect. But this is still a scary thing.

Matt just sent me this link: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/guam/guamloops/guamir.html If you want to see satellite images of the storms. I'm going to try to keep you all updated with this information as it comes to us. Please remember all of us here on Guam in your prayers :)

Beijing: Day Three: The Great Wall

This was the last day of our trip. It was BY FAR the BEST day of the entire vacation! Here is a picture of Matt and I in our hotel before we headed downstairs for breakfast and then our long car ride to the Great Wall!







Unfortunately, it was so hazy :( Of course, the visibility was the worst today out of all the days we were in Beijing. But we still took tons of pics!

If you didn't want to walk up the steps on the steep mountain, you could opt to be carried up. Some of the group tried talking me into it, because they were worried I wouldn't be able to hang.

But I was up for the challenge and wanted to be able to say that "I climbed the Great Wall while I was seven months pregnant!!"!

As you can see, the visibility was horrible. But this picture was taken from the parking lot looking up the first set of stairs. I love how you can see all the people climbing up and down.

Here is the group before our big hike up the Great Wall! We were all so excited!

Once we got through the entrance, we stopped to take a few pics. Here is looking back at the entrance.

Looking up the wall. We made it all the way to the far tower on the right.







Matt and I at the bottom.

Percy at the bottom.

The little village to the right of the beginning of the Great Wall.

A little bit of a clearer view of the first set of stairs.









Another pic of us before we started climbing up the stairs.

Can you tell how steep it was from these two pictures??

It was totally nuts!

Looking down after we stopped for our first break.

I loved this picture. Look how high we climbed and that was only the first tower.

And look at how steep it is!

We still walked up to two more towers after this.

Taking another break!

I had to pull my hair back into a ponytail at this point :)

Looking down from half way up the second set of stairs.

Lora and I. We were almost to the top of the next tower!

The boys.

Action shot of me and Lora.

You could climb up the into the towers.

This picture was taken from the top of one of the towers.

At the third tower!

Another view to the fourth tower.

Another view looking down.

Peek-a-boo!

Can you see us?!

We only had a short time to climb up the wall. I wanted to go up further since I felt totally fine (Lora wasn't feeling so hot at this point). But we only had a few more mins before we needed to head back down, so Seth and Matt practically ran up this next set of stairs to the fourth tower. I would have taken too long, so I sat back and enjoyed the view instead! I still wish I had gone up further, but I'm pretty dang proud of what I did accomplish being so pregnant. Everyone on the wall was given me the thumbs up and then rubbing their tummies. I think they were trying to me that they were pretty impressed with me considering I was so preggers and all.

Matt took this picture looking down to the third tower. He stopped before a bend in the stairs. He was trying to get a picture of the three of us waiting down there.

Same picture, just zoomed in.

Can you see us now??

Another picture of the third tower. This one was taken a little further up on the set of stairs.

Zoomed in again.

Can you see us again?!

At the fourth tower, looking down at the third tower.

Zoomed in again.

A centipede on the Great Wall.

On our way down the Wall.

Matt was right by my side the entire time, making sure I wasn't in too much pain from my SPD (symphysis pubic dysfunction). I was 'diagnosed' with it back at 20-something weeks, and with all the walking on this trip, I was pretty sore the entire time. But I hung in there, didn't complain about it, and didn't let it get in the way of this amazing opportunity we had to climb up the Great Wall of China! Although, I was feeling it the next morning, for sure :)

What a gentleman, huh?!

As we were walking down the Wall hand-in-hand, we were enjoying this little bit of alone time and were talking about how awesome this is that we are actually on the Great Wall.

I told Matt that there was nobody I would rather be doing this with than him, my bestfriend.

I love this guy!!!

How many people actually get to say that they climbed the Great Wall? Seriously!!!

At the bottom again. Looking up at another view.

We actually made it down the Wall in record time, so we did a little exploring. When we walked in the entrance we took a right to head up the wall. This pass was to the left.

This is the Juyong Guan Pass. There were cannons built here to help defend themselves.

Here is one of the cannons.

And that is the Great Wall in the background on the opposite side (the part we didn't walk to).

The wall actually was all alond the ridge, but the visibility was so bad, so it's hard to see in the pictures :(

Zoomed in with the flag.

Another view from where the cannons were.

These little things on the roofs again.

I think they are so cute!

After the Great Wall we went to have lunch. We were all starving after that huge hike!!