For those who don't know yet...

What is this? Wait, what does that say? Does that say..................

PREGNANT?!?!

Yes, Paul and I are expecting a little baby Crolley on June 7th! We are so excited. So far everything has been going well. I haven't had any major sick moments, which I am VERY grateful for.

So let me tell the story of how we found out....

I was noticing little things hear and there (like sensitive breasts, feeling bloaded, and a few other details I'll leave unmentioned), but I just thought it was because my period was coming. When I was a day late, my sister, Tiffany, told me she thought...excuse me...she KNEW I was pregnant and that if I didn't get my period by the end of the day on Friday, I should get a test on my way home from work. I totally didn't think I was pregnant because I thought it would take Paul and I a little longer than it did, but as when we were younger, I let Tiffany talk me into something...haha! So on Friday, September 25th, I stopped at Walgreen's on my way home. I took the test and was completely and utterly shocked when it showed "PREGNANT!" Paul was on his way home from Columbia, SC and was going to be home about 45 minutes after I took the test. I quickly skimmed through the instructions and it said the result will show for a hour. Just enough time! I wrapped the test in a necklace jewelry box and waited impatiently for Paul. Upon his arrival, I gave him the box and said, "I got something for you." Paul looked puzzled and wondered what in the world I got him. When he opened the box, he told me he thought it was a thermomter for a split second until he saw the word "pregnant." He looked up at me quickly and said, "You are?!" We hugged and kissed and were so excited! YEAH! We can't wait to be parents!
We had our first sonogram on October 16th and the doctor said everything looked healthy. So far so good! I would scan the 2 sonogram pictures we have, but the baby really is a teeny, tiny, little dot because I wasn't as far along as they originally thought I was at my first doctor appointment. We'll have another sonogram on November 2nd to get a definite due date (the doctor is going to get better measurements and let us know)...so our due date may change, but for now it's June 7th, 2010!

A little behind....

So I've been a little behind in my blogging. I've really only missed blogging about one important thing though: my parents came to visit back in September. They arrived on the Thursday the 17th and stayed until Monday morning. We had a great time with them...as usual. We went out to dinner Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Other than that, we mostly stayed in and played games....not by choice, it was pouring! Some of you may have heard about Atlanta flooding not too long ago...yeah, that was the weekend the rain started. Our plan for Saturday was to go to Six Flags because I had two coupons for buy one adult ticket, get the other free. However, the rain crushed our plans. Instead of Six Flags, we went down the street to look at the models of these huge townhomes, and then we went to the store to get Wii Sports Resort (Paul talked my dad into getting it). When we got home, of course the boys had to try the game out. Here's a picture of them rowing:That night, we ate at Benihana. It was pretty good...not quite what I was expecting, but still yummy and we had coupons, so it was worth it. We played A LOT of Wii Sports Resort and a lot of card games. There were lots of good laughs and yummy treats...like OREOS! I haven't bought oreos in a long time because I've been trying to not buy treats like that unless they're on sale and oreos never seem to be on sale, but Mom and Dad got some for us! So...Mom and I enjoyed eating our oreos together while playing games.
I love when people come to visit, especially family! I love my parentals!

"I got my swim trunks and my flippy-floppies..."

***Disclaimer: this is a long blog, but has good pictures throughout to pass the time***

Paul and I had a great vacation visiting Bryan and Rebecca down in Florida. We left Saturday morning (Aug 29th) and got to their place around 4:30 that afternoon. That evening we went to eat at Kobe Steakhouse, which is a Japanese restaurant, and stuffed ourselves to the max. I even tried some advanced sushi! And I liked it! I tried some beginner sushi months back and I was okay with that, but I tried more fishy stuff this time...yellowtail. Bryan ordered some, so I tried one of his and it was delicious! I also tried lobster for the first time...it was good, but Bryan said I'd get much better lobster at a different restaurant.

Sunday, Aug. 30 -Happy birthday to me!!!! We celebrated my birthday today (after a long nap after church)! Paul and Bryan made tostadas (a mexican dish) for dinner with homemade green salsa (the really good stuff). They were yummy!!! Rebecca and I made indoor s'mores for dessert, but we think we put too many marshmellows in it because it never really stuck together. They were still good despite that fact.

Monday, Aug. 31 -Paul and I drove to Melbourne Beach to get our base tans for the week. Oh, how I've missed the beach! It felt wonderful to sit on the sand, feel the warmth of the sun, smell the salt air, and listen to waves crashing!!! That night the four of us went to Pirates Dinner Adventure (it's like Medieval Times except with pirates instead of knights). We were a little disappointed with the food (thank goodness we didn't pay full price for our tickets), but our pirate won!

Tuesday, Sept. 1 -I just love water parks, so Paul and I decided to go to Wet 'n Wild. Most of the rides here have a minimum of 2 people riding at a time. For those of you who don't know, Paul doesn't like heights all that much, but I made him ride all the 2- to 4-person rides with me that I wanted to except one (I promised Paul I wouldn't even try talking him into that one). And he actually liked them! Well, he liked all but 1 1/2 (he only didn't like one part of one of the rides). I begged him to go on a ride where you sit in a big tube/tire thing and you slide down, but there are 3 steep drops on the way down...let's just say Paul expressed his dislike for me at that moment the whole way down...haha! We BOTH enjoyed the water park and had lots of fun. That night the four of us, along with 2 of Bryan and Rebecca's friends, went to an Italian ice place call Jeremiah's. It was soooo yummy! Matt ( my brother who lived in Italy for 2 years) said that's the closest he's come to finding real Italian ice in the U.S.

Wednesday, Sept. 2 -It was a little rainy this day, so this was our peaceful, "chill" day. Bryan and Rebecca went to a doctor's appointment in the morning (Rebecca found out she was about 8 weeks along, so now she's about 9), then Rebecca went to work and Bryan, Paul, and I drove to a marina so we could see some manatees! It was still raining a little bit when we got there, but we got out anyway. It was so neat how the manatess just hang out at the docks. I wanted to pet one, but we weren't fortunate enough to have one come up close enough to us.

Thursday, Sept. 3 -Happy birthday to Rebecca! Rebecca, Paul, and I hung out at the neighborhood pool until Bryan got home from class...then it was time to go on vacation on vacation! We drove to Ormond Beach that night (about an hour away) and got a cheap, but nice hotel room with an ocean view! We ate at a local seafood place called Barnacles. Bryan, Rebecca, and I all got crab legs and they were sooo sooo sooo yummy! I hadn't had crab legs in a long time, so I was excited to get some. Paul doesn't like seafood, so he got a steak. We tried to talk him into trying some crab, but he refused...oh well, it's his loss. After dinner, we rented a movie and got ice cream. We watched the movie at the hotel, then decided to walk on the beach, We didn't get to walk very far before it started to rain...BOO!

Friday, Sept. 4 -Today was probably my favorite day (Paul's too). We spent the day in St. Augustine (about 30 minutes from Ormond Beach). We tried to make it there to go sailing at 12:15, but we were delayed by an unfortunate circumstance that turned out to be fine in the end, so we just missed it. No problem, though....there was another sailboat ride at 6:15 that evening. So off to the beach we went for a couple hours. We had lots of fun in the water and walking along the beach. After the beach, we went to the old fort where, as a joke, Bryan and I reenacted a picture we were in when were were 3 and 2 (our family went to St. Augustine a long time ago).

"Is there anything in there?"

"Nope, just dark."

Then we walked around all the shops downtown, ate dinner at a great little sandwich-type restaurant, then walked down to the docks for some sailing. Sailing was awesome! The crew had Bryan and Paul help raise the sails. We also were lucky enough to see dolphins! And there were lots of them! Because of the time we went out, we also were able to see the sunset and it was beautiful! The atmosphere was so nice. We also had lots of laugh on the boat with one of the crew members because we were singng a song by Andy Samburg called "I'm on a Boat" and Brandon (the crew member) knew it too and kept singing it and laughing with us about it. We also took a "hardcore" picture pretending to be the people in the music video (Paul's got his flippy-floppies). It was lots of fun. After sailing, we walked back to the car and drove the 1 1/2 hours home. We were all so tired when we got home, but we had to shower before going to bed because we were all sandy and salty, but we eventually were able to pass out.

Saturday, Sept. 5 -Sad day! It's our last full day on vacation! Paul and I got up early in the morning so that we could do a session at the Orlando Temple. This temple is so beautiful inside and out! (Well, they all are, but you know what I'm saying.) I'm so glad we made time to go to the temple, especially since we don't have a temple to use here in Atlanta for the next year or so because it's being renovated. After that, the four of us went to Rock Springs in Apopka. We grilled some hot dogs (it turned out to be a long, difficult process....if you want to know more, ask me later). After eating came the fun part....we tubed down a river. It's a natural lazy river....you sit in a tube and just float down it. You can't go past a certain point, though, becuase there's alligators...YIKES! The water was FREEZING cold (it never gets above 72 degrees). Once you got in, you got used to it fairly quickly. After one float down the river, Rebecca and I were ready for another ride, but our big, strong hubbies were being little girls and didn't want to get back in the cold water. I wanted pictures of us in the water, so the guys stood on a rock and took pictures of Rebecca and me coming around the corner. When we trid to get out at the spot where the guys were waiting for us, the current was a lot stronger than we anticipated and we could barely move. There are some pictures of us struggling and some pictures of our wimpy husbands who finely relented to at least putting their feet in the water for a picture.

Sunday, Sept. 6 -We went to sacrament meeting at church, ate lunch at B & R's, said our goodbyes, then Paul and I hit the road back home.

It was a great visit. The four of us had tons of fun together...there were definitely plenty of jokes and laughing. It was great to get away from things and just relax for a while. We used Labor Day to catch up from our vacation and rejuvinate ourselves for the next day. Anyway, there's more pictures on facebook if you want to take a peek. Below is a video of the dolphins we saw while sailing.

Incubus Concert!

Back on August 14th, Paul and I went to an Incubus concert. Incubus is Paul's favorite band and was sooo excited about going. My managers at work were so awesome for letting me leave work early on a Friday so that we could get some food and get to the concert on time! I was so happy about that!

The concert was amazing! We both had a blast. I knew I would enjoy seeing Incubus, but they are way better in concert than I imagined they would be. They performed different versions of some of their songs...one was an acoustic version of "Drive" that was awesome. We think Michael (the guitar player in the video) changed it up a little bit during the performance because you see the smile on Brandon's (the lead singer) face at that part. Anyway, so here are some pictures and a couple videoes from the concert. If not later today, I'll post a blog tomorrow about our trip to Florida last week.

What We've Been Up To

Here are just a few snapshots of Paul and me. The first one is us outside at the Mall of Georgia back in June. It's this massively huge mall, but Paul and I weren't that impressed with it because that's all it was....a big mall. The last couple are of us at a "fake beach" at Clayton County International Park on July 11 or 18 (I can't remember which Saturday it was). I was going through beach withdrawls, so we found something as close to a beach as we could find.

Still catching up...

Once upon a time, Paul and I went to Columbia, SC for the Fourth of July weekend...and I didn't blog about it until a month and a half later! Sorry! Anyway...we were super-excited to stay at Matt and Heather's house because we got to see our newest little nephew, Nathan Phillip! We went up on Friday after work, so we were able to get some alone time with Nathan before the rest of the family showed up on Saturday. He is so adorable! I just love him so much!

Saturday was the Fourth and it was special because we had our whole family together: Mom and Dad, Tiffany and Victor and the rest of the Conary clan, and Bryan and Rebecca were up visiting from Florida (and of course Matt and Heather were there with Nathan since we partied at their house). We had a great time hanging out, talking, playing games, and pigging out on good food! I love being around my family...they are seriously my best friends! We were also able to meet Paul's mom for breakfast at Cracker Barrel on Saturday morning so we could spend a little time with her. Jayne came back with us to Matt and Heather's house for a little bit, so she could see Nathan.

The next day was a very special day because it was the day Nathan was blessed at church. Grandma Stalvey, Aunt Chyrel, Uncle Perry, Aunt Melissa, Perry and Amy, Andrea, and Jared all showed up in Columbia on that day to be there for him. Heather's family lives in Columbia, so they were also able to be there for the blessing. Nathan doesn't remember that day, but when he hears about it when he's older, he'll feel so loved and special that he had so much family there for him. It was sad to leave later that day, but everything always comes to an end. It was a great weekend and we had so much fun!

Paul and Liam

Alexis and Courtney

Mom feeding Nathan

Me and Liam with Nathan's head in the corner

Matt and Bryan grilling the meat!

Liam thought it was hilarious when his Uncle Matt would fight with him (Victor is somehow surviving)

Ginnie is spinning around and showing off her dress to us

The men in the blessing circle: Bryan, Perry, Uncle Perry, Dad, Matt w/Nathan, Heather's dad, Paul, and Victor

Matt and Heather with Nathan on his blessing day

Grandma with her newest great-grandchild

Mom with all her girls

And the Stalvey-side of the family that was at Nathan's blessing