Guess what'll be here July 28th?!!!

So, it's official! I finally feel like it's safe to announce that...We're pregnant! :) Or, I guess just I am...Scott has been having a lot of sympathy pains though. ;) So far, everything's looking good. We heard the heart beat last week and I have to say, it was the coolest sound ever. The nurse worried me a bit, when she couldn't find it very quickly, but as soon as she did find it, it was music to my ears. :)
I've felt pretty good the last few weeks which is good and bad...I mean, it's good, cuz I haven't dealt with too much nausea, which I don't mind at all. On the other hand though, I haven't felt pregnant at all and have been driving Scott crazy with all my worries and wondering whether there really is a baby inside me?! He's such a good sport though, and so patient. He even humored me and went with me to buy another (our 5th) pregnancy test to confirm that we really were pregnant!
I am about 13 weeks along now and I really haven't gained that much weight, but tonight after eating a big dinner, I really did feel pregnant so we busted out the camera and took our first pregnant belly shots. :) I really don't know how much of that belly is food and how much is baby...:)
We're so excited for this new chapter in our lives. We are excited to become parents. As scary and overwhelming as it is also, I am totally up for it. Baby Bryson is due July 28th!

make like a Christmas tree, and get lost 2009

another year has passed us by, and with the closing of 2009 comes reviews and remembrances of the past year and resolutions for the year to come. amber has bestowed upon my shoulders the awesome, yet daunting task of recapping our wonderful holiday season, as well as very briefly looking back at the entire past year. i accept this great responsibility with honor, yet also with trepidation. i only hope i can do '09 the justice it deserves. i thank amber for the opportunity to serve. she is such a good delegater. :)

as we stated in a previous entry, we have been looking forward to this Christmas season since well before thanksgiving. Christmas has always been the best time of year. we loved the december ensign and the lessons we learned from it. Christmas is a thinning of the veil. it's a peek at what heaven could be like. it is an on-going remembrance of Christ and thus goodwill towards others naturally ensues. and the fact that presents are involved definitely doesn't hurt the joyous season. :) i have found that in my old age the most joy comes from the giving of presents though. it was definitely true this year. in my extreme ocdness and complete nerdiness, i had everything i wanted to get for amber exactly planned out shortly after halloween, and had it all bought in the few days following thanksgiving. this left me a long and tortuous month of trying not to convince amber to just open all her presents early. i'm just one of those people who should never buy presents early and should actually wait till the last minute.
the month was a good one though, full of Christmas movies, carols, going to find the perfect tree in the middle of a blizzard, hanging lights and decorating. all of our neighbors in our little apartment complex took off for the holidays, leaving the place all to ourselves, free to blast alvin and the chipmunks singing "Christmas don't be late", wailing along at the top of our lungs. Christmas eve unfortunately found us a little under the weather, both of us having spent some time in recent days bent over our porcelain throne. so we spent the evening alone, watched "it's a wonderful life", read luke chapter 2, then crashed early so that santa could pay us a visit. we awoke with childlike jubilation as we ran out to raid our stockings for candy and tear open our once beautifully wrapped presents. santa was good to us (i guess amber's merits over the past year earned me a place on the 'nice list' too), bringing us new dvd's, books, games, a hoody for scott, and an slr camera for amber (which she will use to take awesome football pictures of scott).
we then headed over to scott's brother's house for the bryson family gift exchange, where amber got a camera bag to go with her new camera and scott got new football gloves, and they both got a brand new wii! it was then off to amber's parents' house for a wonderful Christmas dinner, games, visiting and the mcclellan family gift exchange, where we got a new game invented and crafted completely by amber's brother daniel. after a long day of celebrating with family, we hurried home to play with some of our new toys, amber with her camera and me with the wii.
new year's eve found us in a slightly tough situation, us wanting to celebrate the moment with friends and a kiss at midnight, but amber having to work early in the morning. we headed up to our friends' the rasmussen's house, who were hosting a big party. we ate, played games and had a great time there til 10:30, then headed over to the maughan's place to quickly catch the ball drop, drink a little sparkling cider, and start the year off right with a kiss, before heading straight home to bed.
what a year 2009 has been. our first full year as husband and wife. crazy if you stop and think about it and the many wild adventures we took. we got to see my little brother get married, took a trip down to texas for a bryson reunion, attended the mcclellan reunion in colorado, traveled over to northern california for my grandma's 90th birthday, and saw 4 nieces and nephews born into the family. now a new year begins, full of endless opportunities. our resolutions have been set and we are ready to be better people.

the three musketeers - alexandre dumas

quick blog to end the year. positives - loved the action of the book. good, exciting story. negatives - way too much time spent on the financial worries of the musketeers. horrible morals of most of the musketeers, with the lone exception being athos, who rocks. in review, i have to say i enjoyed the book even more than i did dumas' other great work, the count of monte cristo. i know most critics may disagree, but the musketeers just had so much more excitement. anyways, happy new years!

dearest day of turkey and other stuff,

we must offer our apologies to you, monsieur thanksgiving. we have not treated you as you so richly deserve. in days of yore, you touched our hearts and we looked forward to you with eager anticipation. but this year, for some reason, our thoughts have raced past you and on to your holiday cousin, Christmas. we have unjustly treated you, our friend, and for that we are deeply sorry. we are sorry that we took no pictures of you this year, and thus this boring and bland blog. we are sorry that we almost didn't even blog about you at all. we know we haven't treated you right, but we hope you can forgive us. we'll change! please take us back!

in our defense, it hadn't seemed like the holiday season had begun yet. neither amber nor i had any change in our work schedules (the extra holiday pay will most definitely make us merry, but that's a whole two weeks away). also, my parents were going through a complete remodeling of their store down in texas, and it was hard not to stress long distance with them. and in addition to that, we were suffering through our own tragedy - our neighbors and friends, jake and katie maughan, were moving, leaving us for the company of dead people. could i possibly be any more boring that the conversation of a corpse is preferred to mine?! sad. we only jest. kinda. we are happy for our friends and their rent-free apartment located over a mortuary, but we are definitely sad to see them go.

well since i, scott, am the one writing about our thanksgiving adventures, i must bore you with what i consider one of the best and most essential parts of thanksgiving - turkey bowl football! the saturday before thanksgiving, the above mentioned jake maughan organized the second annual turkey tourney, an eight team, double elimination, flag football tournament. if you know me at all, you could expect a recap of every play of each and every game, but i'll spare you the agony and keep it brief - we won. we repeated as champions and once again took home the five foot tall trophy, a trophy once used to recognize the wonderful dancing prowess of a young girl, now meant to signify that we just rock.

now i hope you didn't misunderstand my rantings earlier and think we had a bad thanksgiving. while amber and i hardly felt we were in the holiday spirit, we definitely had a great day with food and family. the day started at amber's parents' house for a wonderful turkey dinner. we then played games and visited while more and more family trickled in for the festivities. from there it was over to my brother's house for dessert, more games, and more visiting. then home for a long night of trying not to explode from our overindulgence. a very, very good day. really our only complaint is that it was over much too quickly. the next day it was sadly back to business as usual.

senor thanksgiving, we are sorry how we treated you and we want you to know we love you, but you have to realize that Christmas is what the people pay to see. you're the appetizer, the undercard fight, barney rubble, the "ah ah ah...". Christmas is the entree, the main event, fred flintstone, the "...choooo!!!". there's nothing wrong with being who you are. you're still very special. you just have to accept it and be happy with your lot in life. now if you'll excuse me, i've got some lights to hang. :)

Jane Eyre

I finished another one of the "girly" books off of our 100 greatest books list. :) I've really enjoyed most of these classics and I'm kinda glad that having Scott not wanting to read the "girly" ones, has given me the opportunity to read them. I'd seen the movie Jane Eyre as a kid, and always thought it mysterious and interesting. The book was pretty mysterious too. I wondered whether it would end happily and it did, with kind of a weird twist at the end which always makes a book good. I've always thought it kinda funny how in the book they say how plain and ugly Jane is but when they make movies of the story, the actresses never look ugly to me. So the whole time while reading, I was picturing a pretty girl even though the description says otherwise. :) Anyway, loved the book! :)

the jungle book - rudyard kipling

yes, it's another boring book report. i'll keep it short and quick so don't worry. :)

i suppose it's been a while since i've watched disney's version of this story, but i know it wasn't quite like the book. instead of one, long story about our hero mowgli, the book was actually a collection of short, random stories, only half of which were about the boy raised by wolves. the other stories were random adventures of other jungle inhabitants. the only one of these stories that i recognized was the story of rikki-tikki-tavi, the mongoose, and his battle with the vipers of the garden.
like most stories that i first learned from cartoons, the book was much less childish than i was expecting. from a macho man's perspective, such as i obviously have, i liked it. it was kinda cool seeing mowgli wrestling with giant snakes, bringing about the death of a tiger, commanding the elephants to destroy a village, leading his wolves in a war with the red dogs, and the rest of his adventures with his friends baloo, bagheera, and kaa. not the most compelling and moving book by any means, but a fun read.

Scott's First Pumpkin Carving

So last Halloween we were a little "busy" with wedding plans and all and didn't have a lot of time to celebrate. This year we got to carve pumpkins. :) This was Scott's first experience carving pumpkins. I couldn't believe he'd never carved a pumpkin! So we kinda "cheated" and bought a book with patterns. I have to say though, I thought it was a lot more fun with a pattern, our pumpkin looked so good! :) We got together with some friends and started carving away. However, the first one took so long to do we had to do the second one another day. Here are some pictures though to document Scott's first pumpkin carving experience. :)

It was a little messier than he thought...


Putting on the pattern


Carving away...




Finished products



Being a little silly...


So on Halloween we actually spent celebrating our 1 year anniversary. Since our anniversary was on Sunday we went up to Salt Lake Saturday night, saw a movie and went out to eat and stayed in a nice hotel with a cool whirlpool tub. :) I can't believe it's been a full year since we got married. It kinda feels like the year flew by so quick but it also feels like we've always been together. And it's so amazing how I could love him so much when we got married and now a year later I love him even more than that.:)

Just a few pictures of the weekend...