MISTER 'BEAN'

Today was our 20 week scan, and well, the title says it all... our Bean is a little Mister...

He is in perfect health, seems to be growing properly and everything is just great.





I was really worried that our 'Bean' wasn't going to co-operate and let us see his gender, but we had no trouble with that. The whole scan took about 20 minutes, because he was so good, and when it came time to sneak a peek, he lay there, legs wide open, revealing the whole package... it was hard to miss. There is no doubt that he is in fact another Geddes male. LOL.

Now the trouble with a little Mister, is his grandpa and uncle on my side...my brother, Jarryd and my dad are natural born trouble makers, mischief seekers and pranksters... And I have no doubt that they will eagerly try to involve our little Mister Bean and teach him the ways of the Gerber Family men...Oh, what grey hairs I see sprouting on my head after family vacations to South Africa... LOL... But then, I just couldn't imagine life without my nut-house family who so love to torment me. :D

Our little 'Bean' will also have no shortage of little terrors to play with, as the Geddes side of the family are sprouting many boys... there is Kaden, Landon, Baby Nielsen and our Mister 'Bean' and I am sure there are many more little Geddes Men still to come. It will be wonderful when we live close to the rest of the family and the boys can all grow up together.

To think of the things that lie in the future... dirty boys racing through my house, tramping mud on my clean carpets; bug collections in my living room and excuses like, "But Grandpa Said..."

We are definitely in for an entertaining adventure with our little Mister 'Bean'

MY 'SPECIAL' PEOPLE

As many of you may know, I absolutely ADORE my family.... they are loud, obnoxious, crazy, and rather 'special' people, but they are the absolute best...

Today I decided that I wanted to add them to my blog, because they are so far away and so easy to miss...

I didn't choose the most glamorous pictures, cos then you would be looking at a slide show of someone elses family... my family is VERY FAR from glamorous, so I chose pictures that show the true colours of the nut house that I grew up in, with the people whose genes I share.

P.S You need sound for the slide show

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

BRRR...

Winter it seems, has arrived.
Yesterday we had our first 'decent' snowfall. It snowed pretty much all day, and settled well.
We have had snow in the past weeks, but mostly just little flurries, that barely settled on the ground... yesterday was a good snowy day... and completely dreary in my opinion, but today, it's gorgeous outside... blue skies and white snow everywhere.

Of course, it's freaking freezing, but I guess you can't have one without the other.

Here are some pics I took yesterday of our first good snow fall.




MY FACE CLEARLY SAYS IT ALL... lol


This is how it looks outside today... it's days like this when I like snow!

ENTERTAINING AN AFRICAN...

pparently it doesn't take much to entertain me... LOL.

Jake and I recently ordered a new trash can from Costco...they had a great deal on a 13 gallon one, and a bonus feature is that it is censored, so it opens automatically so you don't have to touch it...
Well, I am not generally one for gadgets and electronics, but our trash can arrived this morning and I decided to unpack it and set it up etc... before I knew it, I was giggling in delight at this new 'toy'... I am such spaz. LOL :)

Here is a video of our AWESOME trash can. LOL

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

BABY HAS WHEELS

Recently Jake and I made our first 2 purchases for the 'Bean'... the first thing we bought is a crib linen set. It is Classic Pooh and just the cutest. We chose that one because it is very neutral coloured, so we can use it no matter what gender baby we have. I am hoping to get a cherry coloured crib, but I don't know for sure what we will end up getting.



Our second and biggest purchase is a Chicco travel system... I never thought I would be so excited about getting a pram (stroller). We hadn't planned on buying one any time soon, but we saw it in Babies R Us and between the store discount and the online Chicco rebate, we would save $60 if we bought it now... so of course we were easily sold and bought it. It's great. I can't wait to use it.



On other exciting news... I am literally counting down the days left until our big 20 week scan... our scan is on 23 December, so exactly 3 weeks from today... I just can't wait to know if we are having a boy or a girl. Between us and our families, the opinions on gender are about 50/50, so we really could end up with either. LOL.

Murpheys law, the Bean will be a stubborn little thing at the scan and not play along very well, and we will leave still not knowing what we are having and still calling it, 'Bean' or 'It'. LOL... Jake has said on a few occassions, that the Bean is definitely my child... stubborn, difficult and unco-operative. LOL... we'll see. :D

STUFFED...

Well, it's Thanksgiving today, and the day is nearly over... the title says it all... We are STUFFED.
It was great (thanks to Michelle & Kelly for kindly hosting the day). Jake & I spent Thanksgiving with the Daltons, the Farrs and the Giordano's... we had a fantastic time. As always, and as is tradition for any good Thanksgiving, there was too much food, too much dessert and we all ate far too many servings of it all. LOL Thanksgiving is one of those occassions where you start the day with the mindset that you will intentionally eat more food than is humanly possible...WHY?... because it's just too darn good not to do that. Thanksgiving most definitely isn't the weight watchers friend. :D

Of course there is plenty left over, so Jake and I will once again be stuck into more turkey, more mashed potatoes, more corn, more stuffing, more gravy, more pudding, more pie and more of whatever else it is we managed to cart home with us.

By the end of today, I think we all had our Thanksgiving bellies on... so Tara and I weren't the only ones looking 'bigger' anymore with our preggy bellies. LOL.

Cybil pointed out what we call, 'the shift'... it's the thing that everyone starts to do at things like Thanksgiving, when you have already eaten far too much, but have a 3rd serving of food in front of you anyway, and although you are turning green just looking at your food, let alone eating it, you kinda stretch your body upwards and sorta shift to the side... as though the last 2 plates of food you just ate will 'shift' to the side, so that you can make room for the next mouthful that you are insistent on fitting in too. LOL... Well, if you looked around the table today, you would notice a few bodies all doing the 'shift' once in a while. LOL... why do we do it to ourselves???

Unfortunately I didn't get any photo's of our great day... but then again, who has time to fiddle with a camera, when you are diligently concentrating on eating yet ANOTHER plate of food???

Well, as we would say in South Africa, "Maagies vol, Oogies toe"... (in other words, my stomach is full, and now its time for bed...lol) The perfect way to end a great day... stuffed on some sleep inducing turkey and a whole lot of delicious side dishes... YUMMY!!!

OUR BEAN HAS SPROUTED

So this is just a quick post... Over the last week or so, it seems that just suddenly my preggy belly has 'popped'... it's not huge, but it's definitely there, and I am loving it.

Jake keeps staring at it too... LOL.. I think we are both a little surprised at how suddenly it stuck out, because a week ago, I didn't have nearly this much belly. LOL.
Who ever thought I would enjoy having a 'big' belly :D


14 WEEKS & 5 DAYS

IF I COULD GET $1 PER BEAT I'D BE RICH

Ok... so Jake and I had a rather interesting 'date' together yesterday. We decided to go spend the entire afternoon and night at the ER... 11 hours to be exact!
On Sunday night I started developing some breathing trouble, which by Monday had gotten worse, so we decided that we would go see our GP and have me checked out... well, by the time they got our appointment time right, got me registered and had me sign all the paper work that needed to be signed, I was already hyperventilating, because I couldn't get a good enough breath... so, doc sent us off to the ER.

Now the ER has a system... you register at the front desk, and then you go an sit in the PURPLE chairs... when they call your name, you go to triage where they brand you (name tag on your wrist), check to see if you are still alive, color code you for order of importance and send you to the ORANGE chairs...well, everyone likes the orange chairs, cos we all seemed to stay there for a VERY LONG time... 4.5 hours later, a little green dude came around with a portable machine to check vitals... this is where all the fun stuff began. He hooked me up to his machine, and looks at the machine, then looks at me, and says. "Can you please stand up"... so I stood up, got a little woozy, but stayed on my feet, and then the little green dude disappeared, only to arrive back with a wheel chair... turns out it was for me... LOL...my resting heart rate despite having been doing nothing for hours, was 170... so I was wheeled away in this over sized wheel chair, and hooked up to my first IV and sucked dry of another gazillion tubes of my blood. Then they did an EKG (to check my heart rythyms)... I was covered in little stickers, all hooked up to cables, that were hooked up to machines...

Eventually, they wheeled me into an ER room, and hooked me up to more things... a heart monitor, a BP machine and some finger clip thingy got to do with my pulse... I looked like a science project all covered in stickers connected to wires. I was just all wired up...all I was missing was the flashing lights and I could be a Chrismas tree. LOL
And then we waited... for the first IV bag to finish...



FINDING SOME HUMOR IN OUR VERY LONG DAY...



When the IV fluid was finally finished, they weren't yet happy with my heart rate cos they said it was still too high, despite having already dropped quite drastically from the initial 170, so they sent me for further tests... the first was an ultrasound of the veins in both my legs, so they could check for any blood clots. Then I had an Echo (ultrasound of your heart), and they hooked me up to a second IV, for more hydration.

Finally when the second IV was empty, my heart rate was down to a little over 100, which they said was still too high, but better...so they sent me off to the labor and delivery area so that baby could be checked up on... at first, I got nervous, cos they couldn't hear our 'Bean' on the doppler, but they brought in the ultrasound machine and there was Bean, looking less than impressed to be woken up at 12:30am. The little thing was squirming around, like he/she was trying to hide, and had both arms up, covering his/her face... even the doctor was having a giggle at this little monkey. Jake and I were laughing, and just picturing little 'Bean', shouting out, "Hey, leave me alone. Freak, can't a kid get some sleep in here...?" LOL

Finally, at 1:00am, I was discharged on the diagnosis of bad dehydration that made my heart beat too fast, so I couldn't breath properly... so although my heart rate was a little high still, they sent me home. WHAT A RELIEF....

By this time, Jake and I were STARVING... we hadn't eaten all day, so we made a much needed stop at a 24hr McDonald's drive through for some gourmet budget burgers...it wouldn't be a date if there wasn't any dinner. LOL. :D

Well, today we are tired, it was a long couple days, but sleep will come soon. Unfortunately, I got a call from our doctor this morning, to say that the cardiologist report, from the Echo that was done came back and I need to go back to the cardiologist next week, because they detected a small pericardial effusion, which pretty much means there is some fluid in my pericardial cavity that shouldn't be there. So the cardiologist update will come next week... but we do have the assurance that it is very likely nothing serious as a pericardial effusion can be caused by something as simple as a virus... so it's not likely anything threatening or more serious.

Jake has decided that after our day in the ER, he thinks he might need to stop watching all the 'House' episodes for a while. LOL

Our life just never fails to be interesting... one thing is for sure... we are definitely not BORING.. LOL... :D

BABY GEDDES

On Monday I went for another check-up at the OB-GYN... Jake and I got to hear the baby's heartbeat on the doppler for the first time. It was pretty cool... very fast... and very reassurring for us. I had lost some more weight since my last appointment, because 'Bean' is still making me pretty sick a lot of the time, so doc suggested maybe drinking some nutritional drinks too give me some extra nutrients and calories. We aren't too worried though, cos I haven't lost a lot of weight, and there is still time to make up for it in coming weeks, so hopefully baby will start co-operating.

Today was an exciting day. Jake and I went for my Nuchal Translucency scan... it was FANTASTIC. I was so excited, well except for all the waiting with a full and very uncomfortable bladder, part. On the screen, we could see 'Bean' bouncing up and down like a little monkey, and waving a hand at us. The silly little thing was also sticking his/her tongue out at us quite a bit.. Jake said, "It is definitely YOUR child"... LOL... I do have a history of 'ODD' genetics in my family that have resulted in some rather interesting people, so I wouldn't be surprised if we just add to that with a little odd ball of our own. LOL...it would make my mother so proud. :D

The doctor who did the scan said that everything looked great, and it certainly seemed that way while watching our little jumping bean on the screen. The Nuchal fluid measurement was low, which is good, and there is a visible nasal bone, which is a good sign when you are checking for Downs Syndrome. They also did a finger prick blood test, which will finalise the scan results and give me a risk ratio for our chances of 'Bean' having Downs... we will get those results in 7-10 days, though neither of us are worried. Everything looked great, and we are pretty sure that it will continue on that way.

Picture #1 Baby Geddes at 12 weeks 6 days
Picture #2 Silly baby sticking out a tongue at us

Picture #1 Scary Halloween baby looking at us
Picture #2 Baby sticking out another tongue and waving a little hand above his/her nose

AND LIFE GOES ON...

Just a quick entry to let everyone know what has been going on lately.
Firstly, I totally forgot to add this a while back, but shortly before going to Nauvoo, I was called to team teach the CTR primary class. They are 5 & 6 years old. The first few weeks, we practised for the primary sacrament presentation, which was 3 Sundays ago... I thought it was great, and that the kids did a fantastic job. I taught my first lesson last Sunday... I thought it went pretty ok... Well I hope at least. My first lesson was on the resurrection, and that Jesus Christ is our Savior so that we are able to be resurrected. My class is great, and Connie, who I team teach with is fantastic...
I seem to laugh at one or a few of the children in my class every week... they are so funny, and sometimes just sooo completely random. Today, little Braeden, came up to me, while he was helping me pack out chairs before the lesson and said, "Sister Geddes...Guess What?", so I said, "What?", so he said, "I know something", so of course I asked him what he knows... and his response was, "I know that you are having a baby"... LOL... I just had to laugh at that one. Now, I am not sure if someone told him this, or if he noticed my slowly expanding belly and somehow in his 5 year old brain put 2 and 2 together... but, smart boy... LOL... it was very sweet. Good thing when he told me that little bit of information, that I knew about it too... otherwise I could have been in for a big surprise. LOL :)

On other news... Jake and I bought a new couch... a creamy-beige coloured couch, and a really awesome floor lamp to stand next to it. The plan is to get some nice bright cushions to throw on the couch, and to hang something bright up on the wall above it, but we haven't got that far yet. We also finally got cable... or U-Verse... and they gave us a really good deal on getting the DVR, so we can record all the shows we want to watch.. which although is a handy little thing, has resulted in Jake and I becoming evening tv 'bums' while we watch all the pre-recorded episodes of House and Charmed... We have become junkies for those 2 shows.

I am really excited, because tomorrow is my next prenatal appointment... It will be the first time that we are able to hear the baby's heartbeat on the doppler... we have seen it beating, but not heard it beating. On Wednesday, we are going for the next scan.. the nuchal translucency scan... I am really excited to see how much bean has developed since my first scan, where as Jarryd put it, it looked like a shrimp. I am 12 weeks 3 days today.. so I am officially into the second trimester, and I can't wait for it to feel that way. Unfortunately 'Bean' hasn't cut me much slack yet, and I am still sick just about everyday.... Grrrr... but I am optimistic that in the coming few weeks, that will be over. Or at least we hope.

Winter is well on it's way. Autumn has come, and in my opinion seems to be already leaving. We had some really beautiful colours on the trees for a while, and sometimes you still see a pretty tree, but for the most part, it seems to me that the leaves have mostly fallen off, which has made a lovely, colourful mess on the ground everywhere, so despite my objections, the inevitable winter is coming. I am sooo grateful for my black wool coat... I just LOVE IT!

Friday was Halloween... and I have still never dressed up or been trick-or-treating. LOL.. this Halloween, we stayed in and watched more tv, because Jake unfortunately had the flu, and well if he didn't have the flu, then I would have been stuck in front of the tv anyway, while he worked at the temple, which he still does every Friday night. I can't believe the year is passing so quickly. It's already November, and Thanksgiving will be here soon... not that we have any plans for that. LOL... and then it's Christmas (SOOO excited for that, cos we are heading to Utah) and then, it's another year and Oh Boy, does next year have a lot to bring...

OUR LITTLE BEAN

So, 13 days after I arrived in the USA, I started not feeling too good... Hmmm... turns out, I caught a large stomach bug... a 9 month stomach bug... You wondering how on earth this happened so quickly... lol... don't worry, we are wondering that too.

It would seem that I just got off the plane, drank some Michigan water, breathed in the foreign air and caught the 9 month bug.
Well, it came as quite a surprise... so much of a surprise, that I couldn't bring myself to actually believe it until I had done 2 tests and both were positive and got my OB-GYN to do a blood test for extra confirmation. LOL... 'ye of so little faith'... :)

My bean hasn't been very nice to me yet... I am hoping that soon we will start to get along better, because up until now, I have just been pretty darn sick and feeling totally under the weather.

Our bean is due to join the family on 14 May 2009.


We have had the first ultrasound, and it was awesome... 'Bean' is 1.93cm long and has a super large head (space for a big brain like it's dad) and little arm and leg stubs.
We also got to see the little beating heart, which was just really comforting.
Everything was just perfect, and we hope that things continue to go that way so that we can have a healthy little addition to our family, next May.

HISTORIC NAUVOO

This past weekend, Jake and I drove out to Nauvoo...I have never been there, so we had planned it to be out first trip together after I arrived in the USA. Little did we know that I would be sick all weekend... grrr... so I spent a large part of the weekend with my head in a paper bag or over the toilet. BUT, the experience of being in Nauvoo was still fantastic.

I Love this picture with Joseph and Hyrum on their horses facing the temple... how sad that they never really got to see that beautiful picture... this statue depicts the day that they drove off to Carthage from where they never returned to get to see the completed Nauvoo Temple.

On Friday night, after the 9 hour drive... though I think it might have taken us longer, cos I could barely last an hour without ANOTHER toilet stop... we went down to the temple and took some pics... it was really beautiful when the sun set and the temple was all lit up. The sunset that night was also amazing... pictures can never really give it the full credit... it was a bright, beautiful red sunset.

THE BEAUTIFUL MISSISSIPPI AT SUNSET

I was kinda excited to see the Mississippi River... Even in South Africa, you hear about the great Mississipi, and it was kind cool just to say I had been there... I guess it wasn't that big a deal when I actually saw it... I mean, it's just another large mass of water (I did grow up 10 minutes from the ocean) but I can now officially say that, "I have been to the Mississipi"... and that's really all I wanted. lol. Saturday morning, we went to the Nauvoo temple.. that was pretty awesome. It really is a beautiful building, inside and out. After our visit to the temple, we decided to take a wagon tour of Nauvoo...which was pretty fun... and seeing as I wasn't feeling so peachy, the thought of just chilling in the back of a wagon while someone else does all the talking and pointing and I just have to listen, was great... and besides, who doesn't want a free horse drawn wagon ride??? Lol...

READY FOR OUR WAGON TOUR

The biggest disappointment of the weekend, was the buffet... now, don't get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with the buffet, and Jake made full use of the 'all you can eat' buffet rule... the problem was, I LOVE BUFFET's... I am in all round happy mode when I am at a buffet.... for me it's a huge treat... the problem came with the fact that I wasn't feeling well and doing such a great job of eating... so dinner at the buffet (that we had made reservations for like 2 months ago) was like torture... lots of yummy food, that I couldn't eat too much of... After our buffet dinner, we decided to attend the 'Rendevous in Old Nauvoo', at the cultural hall... that was pretty funny... it's pretty much a little play about Nauvoo, put on by all the senior missionaries serving in the Nauvoo area... needless to say, we had much opportunity at the show to laugh at the old folk... we were pretty well entertained. LOL :)

THE SMITH FAMILY CEMETERY
- GRAVES OF JOSEPH, HYRUM AND EMMA SMITH -

Sunday it was time to head back to Michigan... on our way home, we made a stop in Carthage... that was a great experience. During the weekend, we had the opportunity to go to the place where Joseph Smith was killed and also to the place where he is buried... both were special places. Carthage was wonderful. There were only 4 people on our tour, so it was great... the sister missionary there, let us watch a short video about Joseph Smith and then took us on the tour of Carthage Jail... it was quite the experience to hear all the stories she had to tell about things that happened in Carthage and the impact that the prophet had on the family that lived in the jail house. Nauvoo has some very special history.

CARTHAGE JAIL




THE SECOND FLOOR WINDOW THROUGH WHICH JOSEPH FELL AT HIS DEATH



This is an interesting picture... I took this photo from the hallway, outside of the room where Joseph and Hyrum were killed. The photo of the window through which Joseph fell after being shot by the mobs, is taken through the bullet hole in the door made by the bullet that killed Hyrum.

LIFE IN MICHIGAN

So, I have finally arrived in Michigan, and Jake and I are officially starting our lives together. The past two and a half weeks have been great fun. We have had a lot of fun, transforming our apartment from "Bachelor Pad" to "Family Home"... we have been out shopping for the apartment, organising everything, setting up our home and getting used to actually living in the same country. lol... go figure... married people live together... ;)

Even the simplest things have been great for us over the past few weeks.... grocery shopping, dinner, lazy Saturday mornings.... when you are married and can't do those things together, you realise how important they are.

At the moment, aside from working every week, Jake is serving as a temple worker on Friday nights. He is loving that opportunity. I am still awaiting the 'call to serve' in our ward. We are both attending the gym together multiple times a week ( I am trying to keep off the dreaded pounds the USA presented me with the last time I was here) though at least for now, Jake has to be my motivation to work out, cos I have never been one for exercise, but so far it has gone well.

It has been an exciting time for us. Things are coming together nicely, and we are both thoroughly enjoying the new adventure of marriage...

FUN TOGETHER IN SOUTH AFRICA

KRUGER NATIONAL PARK

In March 2008, we went to the Kruger National Park in South Africa. It was a great experience. It was so beautiful to be in such a natural environment, and we were fortunate to experience some rare sightings too.

We stayed in what in South Africa we call, 'Rondavels', which are pretty much little round bungalows. It really felt like we were in the middle of nowhere sometimes.

We came REALLY close to some of the animals.
It was awesome.

FRANSCHOEK & CAPE AGULHUS

In December while we were on honeymoon, we went to Franschoek, a small historical town in the mountains. On our way back to Cape Town, we made a detour to Cape Agulhus, which is the southern most tip of Africa.

Jake was being silly in this picture... Still not sure exactly what he was doing,
but it was pretty funny. lol

OUR WEDDING - 21 December 2007

We got married on a sunny day in the middle of a Cape Town summer... it was perfect
...well except for the strong south-easter wind that the Cape is so notorious for.


Kim and Spence Geddes, flew to South Africa to share in our special day,
which was also attended by my close family and friends.

ALL THE PARENTS

CARLA'S SIBLINGS, LISA & JARRYD
WITH US ON THE BIG DAY


OUR SEALING

We were sealed in the Johannesburg, South Africa Temple on 22 December 2007. It was a very special experience for both of us.
Kim and Spence were able to be there with us too.