Little Finn

So my mom was teasing me that I had better update our blog before our child was 6 months old! She has a good point. Knowing me, that would probably be the case!

So here is the story of our little Finn:

It was July 5th and I had gone to bed the night before having some stomach cramps. I had had Braxton hick’s contractions before and so I thought it was strange to just have cramps in my lower stomach. I thought contractions would be your whole stomach. So, I tried to sleep (unsuccessfully I might add). I woke up the next morning and told my mom. She wasn’t sure either. I decided to go to the 4th of July parade with my family. We walked down to Main Street from my grandma’s house and that helped me feel a little better. After the parade we went to the park with my brother, his wife, and their kids. I was still feeling pretty uncomfortable. I went home and tried to research online what contractions should feel like (good ol’ Google right?). I didn’t find much. So still, wasn’t sure what was up. I tried to take a nap since I was so exhausted, but they were too painful. I decided to call the hospital and ask them what they thought. She said there was no real way to tell unless I came in. She said I could also try and take a bath and if it subsided I would know it was false labor. Well, since Cam was 8 or 9 hours away, we decided it wouldn’t hurt to just go to the hospital. (For those of you that don’t know, I have been living at home in Utah with my parents while Cam is in Montana doing a clinical rotation for school). Sorry if that was too much info for everyone. Just wanted to give the story!

We got to the hospital and the nurse checked me. I was dilated to a six!! I called Cam and told him to start the long trek to Vernal! They moved me into a labor room. I debated for a while but decided to get an epidural (hurray for modern medicine). The nurse knew Cam was quite some time away, so she just kept putting things off. She would say, “I’ll be back in 15 minutes to check you…” and then she would come back an hour later. I was getting nervous watching the little heart monitor, but Finn seemed to be doing okay. So, we just kept waiting and putting things off, watching that clock. I kept calling Cam periodically. He took the longer way home (taking 9 hours instead of 8). He finally showed up at 2:20am. It was such a miracle that he made it! We definitely had some heavenly help on our hands! We had been praying the previous weeks that he might be able to be there! The doctor came and they broke my water and I had him an hour later! It was so amazing! We love our little guy so much!

We named him Finneas (Finn) Ethan Hardy. He was 7 lbs 8.8 oz and 20 inches. I didn’t love the name Finneas at first, but Cam thought he needed something more substantial than just Finn. I guess he has a point. Also, when he is in trouble, “Finneas Ethan” probably packs more weight than just yelling “Finn Ethan”. We shall see!

I really can’t believe we are parents! It is such and unreal feeling. It was nice to have Cam here for a few days. He just jumped into the parent thing like this was his seventh kid and he had been doing it for years! I on the other hand am the clueless, scared one! He is back in Montana now. It has been hard not being with him! I don’t feel quite like myself without him. However, we have been extremely blessed through this whole school experience.

I feel extremely inadequate as a parent! Everything worries me! I’ve already cried I don’t know how many times! My parents probably think I am a nut case! He threw up the other day (Which is awful; its happened a few times!) and then he started gagging after that! I had a little break down/outburst. Pathetic I know! I have been glad to have some help around. We have a family edition Old Testament that Cam and I have been reading that has some quotes in it that relate to the stories. Here is one that really touched me the other day:

“We humble people, we who feel ourselves sometimes so worthless, so good-for-nothing, we are not so worthless as we think. There is not one of us but what God’s love has been expended upon. There is not one of us that He has not cared for and caressed….We may be insignificant…in our own eyes and in the eyes of others, but the truth remains that we are the children of God and that He has actually given His angels…charge concerning us, and they watch over us and have us in their keeping” – Elder George Q. Cannon

I believe some of those angels are mortal! I have some amazing family and friends! I have really felt God’s love lately and I am so grateful for his mercy. Even though I fall so short and struggle in many ways, I know that he listens to our prayers and is concerned with each of us.

Well, hopefully I will get some more pictures soon and keep up with this. We shall see! Miss you all! Here are a few pictures!




Excuse my hair! I had a bit of a fever and had put a wet rag on my head.




He had the hiccups. He gets them all the time!

Making a come back?

So, I am posting my annual post! :) Ridiculous I know! So I am going to try and make an attempt to blog again. I know I have been a huge slacker. Here are some reasons:
1- I am pretty lazy. Blogging takes time. Whenever I get on here, I get distracted looking at everyone else's cute blogs (and their creativeness as well) and then by the time I think about working on my own, have no energy left.

and B (little inside joke in case Kim reads this) - I'm on the computer all day at work. Usually when I get home I just check my email and that is about it.

3- We don't take pictures. We are kind of bad about doing that. Why? Good question. I will get back to you if I find an answer. Plus, we don't do much. Cam is pretty busy with school, and I am just boring.

Well, sounds like some legitimate reasons right? Okay! I know! I guess I have no excuse. So, I will try and catch you up on the last 6 or so months.

November and December:

Both had birthdays. One year older and wiser too? :) Cam turned the big 2-8 and I turned the big 2-6. Crazy huh! On Cam's birthday I made some sugar cookies (our favorite treat) and bought some little candies so I could spell out happy birthday. Well, Cam loves those candies and so he ate half of the words before I could put them on the cookies. So, I just put his name on them!






We had Thanksgiving over at a cousin's home. They live here in Oregon. It was so nice of them to invite us! They are so much fun!

Went home for Christmas! Missed our flights which would take a whole additional post to explain! It was pretty traumatic at that moment but luckily our prayers were answered and we found an extremely kind lady who helped us get a flight the next morning. We had a lot of fun! We have the best families! Pictures: Cam's cute niece on her new toy at his house and chilling at my family's house in the other.



Jan - now:

Went to the coast and took a little hike. We didn't go very far, but the view was awesome! The Oregon coast is amazing!




Easter! I made Cam decorate eggs. It was really nice to have conference over Easter. How much I need that uplift that conference brings! It truly blesses my life!



Went to a Blazers game! It was so fun! We had awesome seats too! Believe it or not, our home teacher gave us the tickets! What a guy huh?! He was going out of town and couldn't use them and so he just gave them to us! Thanks again Shawn!



Umm...I am having a baby! Just thought I should probably announce that so if you see me you won't be surprised. Here are two pictures. I am due in July. In the one I am 26 weeks; i think. The other I am 30 weeks. I put one of Cam's attempted belly in there too. I love the shirt tucked in! We are excited! Actually, I am getting a bit nervous to be honest! I know nothing about having or taking care of a child! I have always been pregnancy illiterate for one. For example, when people would tell me how many weeks they were I would have to try and do the math in my head (okay, if they are 28 weeks...there are about 4 weeks in a month...28 divided by four...). When anyone would mention terms such as uterus, trimester, etc., I would just pretend like I knew what they were talking about. Also, holding babies when they are really little scares me! They are so little! I won't even go into the other things that worry me! Does it come instinctively? Here's hoping!

The thing that really scares me is the responsibility of teaching them. What a huge responsibility! I hope and pray I can teach him well.





Cam just finished up his didactic year and is starting clinical rotations. Here is a cute picture of him at an elementary school. Their group got to go and educate the students on the effects of smoking. He is currently (just arrived today) in New Mexico for his first rotation (surgery). Crazy! I am still in Oregon at the moment. I miss him already! So does the kitty! He thought it might be good to have her here with me but she is driving me crazy! She loves Cam and is lost without him! She follows me everywhere! I feel lost without him too! He is a pretty amazing husband! He is renting a room in the bishop's home. They are an extremely generous family and we feel really blessed to have found that option. I think they are even going to feed Cam dinner (Which is more than he got here! He was usually the dinner maker!). We have been a little stressed with all these changes coming and decisions, but I can say that our Heavenly Father does hear our prayers and is mindful of us and our worries! I am so grateful to know that we all have a loving Father in Heaven and Savior. We feel very blessed!


Well, like I said I will try and make a come back. I can't make any promises, but I will try and be better than posting only every six months! Hope all of you are doing well! We miss you!

Updates

Hey! Creative title huh?! Thought I better finally update this thing!

Oregon has too many spiders!! I'm serious! I've never seen so many spiders in my life! Check out this beauty that was right outside our door (Cam almost pooped his pants)!

Enjoying the finer things in life (i.e. - cupcakes) These cupcakes were scrumptious! We drove into Portland one night to try these out (I have a problem!).

My parents came to visit for the weekend (a really short weekend it seemed)! We took them to the coast. Of course, had to stop and get some Tillamook ice cream (Wow! I have a sugar problem huh?) It was a bit (okay, we almost blew off the cliff!) windy! We had fun though! I'm so glad they came! We miss our families & friends so much!! Love ya!

Me eating a honey stick we got from the cheese factory. Like I said, sugar problem!

We also went to an air museum while we were there. Cam pretty much disappeared (as you can see from the picture that he was by himself, far away). Like a kid in a candy store. I fell down some stairs while we were there. Nice job huh? I looked pretty cool I think! I about pulled my arm out of socket. The guy behind us was really awkward and didn't know what to do. He walked past in a hurry and tried not to look at me. Luckily I only had a nice bruised arm to show for it. I am so graceful!!

Conference was amazing! I wish we had it more often! What a blessing to have a living prophet and apostles on the earth. Here are a few videos. How comforting to know that we have a Savior who loves all of us. The one video is a little older of President Hinckley, but I love it too!

Discoveries

So, since I have been up here in Oregon, I have made a few discoveries. Here are some things I have discovered:

1. I am extremely, utterly, pathetically, hopelessly, completely, (Okay, I'm sure you get it.), OUT of SHAPE! There is a little walking park across the street that Cam and I have been to a few times. We decided to go jogging over there the other day and Cam put his little Nike sensor in his shoe so we could see how far it was. We jog (Jog mind you, not ran) around once and I was spent! I was so exhausted! I turned to Cam and asked how far we had gone. He said, "About a third of a mile". What?? I couldn't believe it! I can't even jog a mile anymore! Sad. We also discovered some wild blackberries over there. We picked a lot, but didn't really eat very many (I'm not sure if I like them). They are riper now so I guess I should give them another try. Here is Cam enjoying them:

2. Even though it is 110 degrees in Beaverton, the Oregon Coast can be 40 degrees at the same time. We are only about 45 minutes from the coast too. We went with our friends from the ward over to Lincoln City. It had been seriously hot were we live and we thought the coast would be a little cooler. It was a lot cooler! I wasn't very prepared! I was freezing! Luckily Caitlin had a jacket she let me borrow. It was dang cold, and our silly husbands decided to get in the water. Boys. They don't really think things through! Here is a picture of their feet after they had played in the 20 degree water. It is probably 10 tens colder than it looks in the picture of Cam running:

3. There is no where to Camp in Oregon. Seriously. Cam and I tried to go camping and exploring this last weekend. We just wanted to drive over Friday night, camp-out in the truck, and then explore the coast line on Saturday. We just thought there would be some little area we could park, either in the trees, or on the beach. Nope. There are signs everywhere: "No Camping", "No parking", "No Driving on the beach", "No having fun of any kind". Okay, so I made up that last one. If you know me, I freak out about little things too. I didn't want to camp anywhere we weren't supposed to, so we drove all over trying to find somewhere to camp. We stayed in some new neighborhood that had some strange side road we parked down. Strange I know. Next time, we will be more prepared though. The coast was awesome though! I am pretty sure that you should all come visit and we can show you all the cool sights!! Here are some pictures:

These are all from Pacific City. It is awesome there! You can see all the Clams and Star Fish. It was really pretty, and the warmest beach we went to.

Newport was pretty crazy! There were tons of people! We saw some Sea Lions there and went to there Farmer's Market and got a yummy cookie and some bread.

We hiked up to a lighthouse too. I look like a weird bug. I didn't realize you could see my eyes through my glasses. Nice.

This made me laugh. Cam was watching some blowhole that we saw at one beach when the water almost got him!

Annual Update...

Okay, I know I am horrible at updating this. I am going to try and be better than every 4 months. This is what I am like with my journal (only worse). I've been such a slacker that I don't even have access to a lot of my friend links anymore because they went private and I didn't know! :( Oops! That is what I get I guess! So, let me give you the update on the last few months. We have had some happy things, some sad things, and some big changes in scenery.

So the happy and sad. We have a new nephew (Cooper, to Luke and Ashley) and a new niece (Leah to Joe and Trina)! They look pretty darn cute! I haven't seen either of them in person yet, but from pictures they are stinkin cute! Also, Cam and I have now been married three years now (crazy)! We have had some sad things on the Kay side of the family. It has made me extremely grateful for the knowledge that we can see our loved ones again after this life! However, the pain of missing those loved is still pretty hard.

We are also now living in Portland! Technically, Beaverton, but pretty close to Portland. We have went to a few places, so I will post some pictures (hopefully entice someone to come visit!). My parents and Cam's parents helped us move up here (which we are VERY grateful for)!! Our first night in our apartment, we had a flood! It was traumatizing! We went to fill up our car with gas (around 11:30 pm or so) and came back to a laundry room and kitchen full of water! I started freaking out (for those of you that don't know me well, I have some anxiety issues!)! The safety pressure valve was spitting out HOT water. I called my parents and they came over to help. We called the on-call maintenance person as well. The real hero here was the Sham Wow towel that my mom remembered we had! I'm serious! I think my dad would offer to be a spokesman for them! It really does the job! It was a long night! Cam and I had another episode before we went to sleep (1 am to 2 am). We filled and emptied containers until it drained out. We woke up at 5 and there was another flood. Cam thought we should pretend we hadn't seen it. I decided to just stay awake at that point. Lots of filling and emptying containers, and putting the sham wow to use. Come to find out, another water heater upstairs was the one with issues, and they had covered the drain in the laundry room with the flooring (nice). Pretty eventful first day. When Cam's parents came, we also had some excitement. We got stopped for about an hour coming back from Tillamook (there was a wreck). There were so many people out of their cars walking around. Cam's dad went and was talking to people to pass the time. It took forever, but we finally got going. Good times on our first week. Things have settled a little now (thank goodness!).

Coast and a shipwreck:





Here is a farmer's market in downtown Portland and the Columbia.



Rose Gardens, Japanese Garden, and the Pittock Mansion (I was too cheap to pay to go inside the mansion. Maybe someday we will and I will post those as well):






Our kitty made it here okay. She actually did really well on the drive! Here is a little kitty video montage. She is such a weirdo! Cam's favorite is the karate kick in the second video. Sorry about my annoying voice in the background. Proof that we need kids:

Pois é

Who would have thought.

Talking about America's top 10 unhappiest cities
These are places where the pain points from the recession are greatest.

Oregon

Look at me go! Two posts in a row! Hey, that rhythms! We took at trip to Oregon a few weeks ago so I thought I would post a few pictures of our trip. Cam had an interview at Pacific University for PA school so we decided to make a trip of it. We decided to drive, which wasn't too bad on the way out because we got to see all the scenery. We had a good time, other than Cam's break lights don't work and so I was freaking out the whole time thinking someone would run over us (seriously freaking out! I made him stick his arm out the window and do the sign that he was stopping!)! The ride home was another story. We made it though! We stayed in Tillamook (probably spelled wrong) and went to see the ocean. You can't go to Oregon and not see the ocean (Cam's thoughts). We also had some perfect ice cream that day! Then on Saturday Cam had his interview. It was going to last awhile, and I can't drive Cam's truck (I know, pathetic) so I decided to ride the trax type system to downtown Portland. I know! Me?! It was a little scary, but better than being bored! Here are some pictures:


The falls (I can't spell the name)






The school, but not where Cam's classes will be.

We went to the temple there too! It was so beautiful! That black blob is me. I'm not sure why Cam told me to stand there.


We just heard a little over a week ago that Cam got into that school! We are really excited (and terrified! Well, I'm a little scared!)! It is such a blessing! Our Heavenly Father knows where we need to be! We are moving pretty soon too! It is crazy! He starts the end of May! We are really going to miss everyone so much!! I wish everyone could go with us! This is an invite for anyone to come visit (if we find a place to live, okay, even if we don't). It will be a good adventure though and we are excited.