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...