Cruise Highlights

We booked our cruise seven months ago, and it felt like it would never get here. And now it's over. It's crazy how fast ten days can go by! David's parents came too, and we had a blast!!

View from the hotel in San Juan

You could see our cruise ship from the balcony

El Yunque Rain Forest, Puerto Rico

Snorkeling in St Thomas

School bus crushed by a tree knocked over in a hurricane in Dominica

Trafalgar Falls, Dominica

Barbados

Venus Falls, St Lucia

Zip lining in St Kitts

Our awesome dinner waiters--Marco and Joy

October

For my family, who only cares about seeing new pictures of Glen. Here you go...

Ward Trunk or Treat Night

Halloween with Gavin

Listening to Tunes

Glen's Favorite Pastime with Daddy!

Christine rocks!

This is a shout out to my sister-in-law Christine, who made her goal weight this week. She's been doing weight watchers for 11 months and has lost 67 pounds!! Check out her blog with some before and after pics.

http://schultzcrazies.blogspot.com/2009/09/weight-watcher-11-months-did-it.html

You're AMAZING Christine!

Summer

Here's a little of what we've been up to the past month or two...

David turned 30!

We had lots of fun visitors! My mom and niece Taryn stayed for about 3 weeks. They overlapped a few days with my older sister Mindy and her two daughters, Bailey and Averie, who came to visit for a week. We did the Timp Cave tour, went boating, visited Park City, and had a blast! Glen really enjoyed his cousins who would read to him and play with him.

And we've been trying to enjoy being outside a little bit. My sister bought Glen this sweet wagon and a blow-up pool for his first birthday. Our buddy Gavin has also been the lucky beneficiary of these awesome gifts! :)

Since it's usually too hot to be outside for long, we've been having fun inside as well. Glen has found a new favorite hiding place in the kitchen. And, Glen and Gavin spent an afternoon discovering stickers. :)

That's about it--that we took pictures of anyway. It's been a FUN summer!

Family Pictures

Happenings

It's been a CRAZY few weeks. Lots of family. Lots of fun. Here's a summary, in pictures, of what's been going on...

First, David's little brother Mark came home from his mission. He's #10 out of 10 kids, so everyone came out to see him. There were big dinners, games, boating, volleyball, family pictures, and late nights of computer playing.

This was after we got family pictures done. The CD is in the mail, so I'll post the real pictures later. Glen got his stitches out right before we got the pictures taken, so his cut looked WAY better than I imagined.

Wow they're handsome!!

Our walking baby boy. :)

Then, I flew to my sister's to run a half marathon with her near Bend, OR. We stayed a few days in Sun River, which is a beautiful resort community. We rode bikes, swam in the pool, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

First time in the bike trailer--went very well....

First Pool Trip!

Playing the Piano

And a few more bumps and bruises! Glen hit his head head on the banister and his lip on the fireplace. Now that he's walking, this is going to be the norm for a while I guess...

And finally, for the Fourth of July we had a BBQ at David's parent's house for dinner, and then everyone came over to our place to light fireworks. There were LOTS of them, and LOUD ones--and Glen slept soundly through it all in his crib. :)

The Story

So it's been a year, and I never posted "the" story--about Glen's birth. So, one year later, here's the very brief version (mostly just for posterity's sake)...

I worked all day Wednesday and just didn't feel good-for the very first time all pregnancy. As soon as I got home and laid on the couch at 6pm, I noticed that I was having pretty regular contractions, about 3-5 mins apart. David was out on the lake with his family. He walked in the door at about 7:30 and literally fell on the ground because he was so exhausted from boating. Then he looked and me and kind of jokingly asked if I was in labor, to which I answered "I think so." He got right up and took a shower, and then got down to business. With a stopwatch around his neck, he timed all my contractions and quickly plotted them in a graph in Excel. I love my husband!

By about 11:30pm the contractions were pretty intense and I was getting very sick, so we decided to head to the hospital. We got to AF hospital right at midnight, I puked twice in the elevator on our way up to the maternity floor, and then was checked-in. I was dilated to a 5. I spent some time in the tub, then got back into bed where my water broke. By 2:30 I was fully dilated and ready to push.

I think I should mention here that we were going natural. We had taken 10 weeks of classes in preparation to go natural. Anyhow, I started to push and push and push. I kept waiting for them to say he's getting closer, you're almost done, etc. But after almost 3 hours of hard pushing in every position imaginable, there was no progress--the kid just wasn't budging. He was face up, instead of the usual face down, but that typically doesn't stop a baby from coming--just makes it a little more difficult. So they called in a doctor (I was using a midwife) who said he could try to turn him face down, but due to the risks involved I would need to get an epidural in case they needed to do a quick c-section. By then it was obvious we needed a little assistance and I was done being in pain anyway, so I consented willingly. After an EXCELLENT epidural, the doctor thought he got him turned about 1/8 of the way, and had me push for a while. No progress. Then he gave me some pitocin and had me rest for an hour, in the hopes that perhaps stronger contractions might help get him out. So I waited and then pushed for another hour. Nothing.

So, at around 9am, after almost 5 hours of pushing, we decided to go with the c-section. The nice thing was that we had literally explored every option, so I felt completely comfortable and satisfied with a c-section. There was no other choice. Fortunately, Glen's heart rate was excellent throughout the whole labor, so we were never scared or anxious. The c-section went really well, and I was happy and laughing through the whole thing.

Glen was born on Thursday, June 19th at 10:36 am, and I was relieved to be done with it all. He didn't cry at all. The first things I noticed when I saw him were his white eyelashes and this tiny line of blond hair between his eyes. He weighed 7 lbs 13 oz and was 22 inches long. Normally c-section babies have cute round heads, but he had a major cone head from all those hours of trying to push him out. He was also pretty long for his size. His feet were big, but his heels were tiny and the bracelet kept slipping off his feet, so we had to keep socks on him to keep the IDs on. He nursed like a champ from the very start and was a good sleeper. He literally never cried, just fussed a little when he wanted something. He was an excellent baby!

So, although things didn't go as planned in labor, the end result was exactly what we wanted--a healthy, happy baby!