Our First Visitors

Alisha Says: We brought Mandy, Shane, Brody, and Elsie back to Mesa to stay with us for a week. Although I normally wouldn't suggest Phoenix for a vacation destination in July we actually had a lot of fun spending time in pool, floating the Salt River and visiting the Children's museum.

Halfway through this pregnancy, 20 weeks down and 20 to go!

Road Trip

Alisha says: Phoenix- Richfield- Price- Park City- Salt Lake City- Park City- Cedar City- Phoenix. July has been filled with lots of driving and family time.

Richfield, UT- First of all my Grandpa Christensen passed away on June 27th. We were all sad but also relieved that he was finally at peace so our road trip started with a long drive to Richfield to attend his funeral. Funerals are never fun but it was really good to see and catch up with lots of my aunts, uncles and cousins that I haven't seen for a long time.

Price, UT- After the funeral we were invited to Amber's house in  to spend and celebrate the 4th of July weekend. We spent some time at the park enjoying the 4th of July activities, ate a yummy dinner of pulled pork sandwiches, and watched fireworks.

Park City, UT- Dave was invited to do some mountain biking with his friend who lives in Tucson but owns a condo and spends some of the summer in Park City. I joined them for two days and we mountain biked some really cool less technical trails like Mid Mountain and Flying Dog.

Salt Lake City, UT- I left Dave in Park City for a few days so that they could hit the ski lift trails and more technical stuff and spent a few days with Richard and Brittany. It was fun playing with Arley and Olivia.

Park City, UT- Back to Park City I went to pick up Dave and squeeze in one more mountain bike ride before starting our journey back the next day.

Cedar City, UT- We headed to my parents house to stay one night before heading back. Mandy and her family drove down from Logan and met us there because they were going to be coming back with us to Phoenix for a little vacation/job search.

Phoenix, AZ- The next day we loaded up our mazda 5 to the brim with six people, two bikes, and all of our stuff for the long drive back.

It's A ......................

Alisha says: BOY!!

Early to Rise

Alisha says: Our mornings usually start before the sun comes up in order to try to beat the heat a little bit. We have been mixing it up with both road and mtb riding. We have met some members of our ward and community to ride with and have been on a few group rides which has been fun.

Good morning sunshine

Mountain biking in Usery Park

Road riding along the Salt River

In the water

Dave says: Phoenix is fun but it can be hot this time of year. We've been waking up most days to exercise at 5 am (usually mountain or road biking). However, we've also taken advantage of the heat to do a few fun water-related trips.

The first was floating down the Salt River which is less than 15 minutes from our house. We rented tubes and got dropped off at the top and made our way down for about 6 miles to the take out point. The Salt is a pretty lazy river with only occasional small rapids to keep things interesting and speed up the adventure. Along the way there are lots of birds and wild horses to look at. The river is also one big party, even on a weekday. Even with tons of sunscreen on we managed to cook ourselves a bit over several hours. It's pretty cool to be in the middle of the desert and have a giant river not too far from your house.

Our second water adventure was a fun canyoneering trip with my dad down the Salome Jug. I was almost a mean husband who kept Alisha from going but she persuaded me and it turned out to be a good time. It was really hot on the trail which made getting in the creek and even doing some swimming feel great. The water temperature was perfect for a hot day and there was lots of wading, sliding, and swimming on this hike. At the end there is one big rappel down into a pool so we brought ropes and harnesses. On the way back to Phoenix, we drove the Apache Trail past all the lakes and stopped at Tortilla Flats for a bit of wild west ambiance and some good food.

A Decade of Love

Alisha says: Yesterday Dave and I celebrated out 10 year wedding anniversary by hiking 10 miles, one mile for each year that we have been married. That sounds cheesy and we originally only planned on hiking eight miles but when Dave saw that we could make it a loop instead of an out and back he just couldn't turn it down. We tried to escape the heat a little and headed to the higher elevation around Payson. We hiked up Horton Creek to the spring and then made it a loop by going across the Highline Trail and back on the Derrick Trail. There's nothing I love more than going on an adventure with my love. Actually the past 10 years have felt like one big adventure. I love Dave so much and am so proud of all that he had done and become.

The Biggest News of All

We are finally expecting a baby and are so happy! I am currently in my 15th week and am due on December 3, 2015. Getting pregnant turned out to be much harder than it should be and it was quite the journey for us, in the end we had some help from science through the amazing process of in vitro fertilization. I was lucky and didn't experience much sickness during the first trimester and have been able to stay really active which has been nice. I'm starting to get a little baby bump although right now it just looks like I am a little pudgy around the middle.

I didn't post anything about this while we were going through it because it is very personal and we wanted to keep it to ourselves until we had a bun in the oven but I've uploaded and backdated a few blog entries about our journey.

IVF Part 1: Waiting, Miscarriage, IUI, and Finally IVF
IVF Part 2: Egg Retrieval
IVF Part 3: Waiting
IVF Part 4: Transfer Day
IVF Part 5: Blood Test Day
IVF Part 6: Ultrasounds