Last night Cameron and I found a box at my parents' titled "childhood memories." We proceeded to find all sorts of funny things including my journals from elementary school. Though posting this demonstrates my less-than-kind nature as a child, it's too funny to not post: (original punctuation and spelling included)

Oct. 11, 1993
I HATE Adam Smith hes rood ugly and dumb and does not know what 12x12= is it's 144. He guested 164 and I asked him the next day he sad 154.

Oct. 18, 1993
Well to tell you the trouth I have a crush on Adam Smith.

Ha ha ha. It's weird to think I used to be a little kid and think that way. Too funny.

Baby Time!

I've been gone from the blogging world for a while. Brief summary of life lately--I passed my orals! And I took a fantastic cruise with my parents and Abby to the Mexican Riviera. It was so fun and was a much needed break. (The only downside was that Cameron couldn't come...I missed him terribly.) Anyway, I'll blog about that later, but for now I'm super excited about baby things! We just bought our crib/changing table today. I love them! We got them for a steal on ksl.


AND--I've had a really hard time finding bedding that I like. There's tons of cute girl bedding but I have a hard time finding boy stuff. I was super excited to find this really cute bedding at walmart.com for $65.


I'm so excited for this little guy to join us. I can hardly wait!

Schubert? Or Prokofiev?

A brief post to let everyone know we're still alive. (But barely. We've nearly been consumed by horrible amounts of studying.) Cameron's had a really busy couple of weeks of mid-terms. I've been studying like crazy for my orals that are THIS week! AH! Everyone say lots of prayers for me. My pregnancy brain is having a hard time keeping things straight. It will be very nice to be done with them. I have one more on March 17 but it's not nearly as scary or big. I'm just terrified they'll show me a Prokofiev Sonata and I'll identify it as something like Schubert. (Which, by the way, I did this past week.) If you don't speak music lingo, that's like mixing up Harry Potter and Pride & Prejudice. So let's hope that doesn't happen.

Things should wind down after that so I can focus a little more on getting ready for the baby. I also have a cruise to look forward to the first week of April. I'm going with my mom, dad, and Abby and am SO excited. (Though I will miss Cameron terribly, who will be too busy with school to join us.) And then: GRADUATION! I can't adequately describe how excited I am to be done with this scholastic phase of life and move on to motherhood. We're at 23 weeks now. I can't wait to meet our little guy. He's moving constantly, which is fun. My tummy is growing too. I'm still waiting to look identifiably pregnant and not just thick. The evidence:

A Late Christmas Post

We had a wonderful Christmas. I found things to enjoy about it even though I felt like poop most of the time. The good things: I won the annual Messick Family Gingerbread Man Contest! This is actually a HUGE deal. It's a super competitive ordeal. (My sister Sara was so mad she didn't win she wouldn't talk to anyone for an hour.) Cameron's standing actually improved this year as well. I think he went from 8th place to 7th place. He he.

Mine: Shrek


Cameron's: The main guy from True Grit (I can't think of his name right now.) He's trying to look mad he lost.


Everyone's: I think it's the best year yet.
Top to Bottom, Left to Right: Woody (Dad), Jack Sparrow (Rachel), Emperor Cuzco (Sara), Monopoly Man (also by Rachel), Christine the Bride (Mom), True Grit Man (Cameron), Shrek (Me), and Ariel (Abby).

Another great thing: We got the best Christmas present EVER! We got a brand new bed. It's a KING size bed and we now sleep about 1,000 times better. We only had an old full bed before, so this is a major improvement.

I didn't take enough pictures during the break. The only pictures I managed to take were on New Years Eve when the family was out to dinner. We had a super fun bowling game after too. Though I think I had the worst form of anyone in the whole alley, I still managed to get a few strikes. (Though the rest were gutter balls...)

A BOY!

I just realized I never posted our majorly exciting news...we found out we're having a BOY! Here's the sweet pictures of the little guy. My absolute favorite is the one of his teeny-tiny foot. Although it looks like he has 6 toes.


As far as the rest of life goes, it's pretty great. The best thing about life right now is that I actually keep my food down! WAHOO! Starting at week 17, I became a new women. I'm grateful for my new-found energy every moment of every day. It's come at a good time because my semester has turned out to be a bit busier than anticipated. I'm working a LOT. This is tough, but it's actually a good thing. I enjoy the work and it's a big blessing to have the extra income coming in. It's just tough to try to balance all the working with studying for my oral exams. They are officially scheduled: March 4 and 18. AH! I need to be studying about 6 hours a day and I'm currently doing about 2. Hopefully it'll all come together. I actually enjoy the studying...if I had to be studying something, I'm glad it's piano repertoire. It's fun to pull together everything I've learned the past few years and work on remembering it. I'm also finding all sorts of new pieces I'm obsessed with....like Chopin's 3rd Sonata. A-mazing. So--to summarize. Life is very busy, but is great.

A Year In Review

Well I've definitely fallen off the blogging wagon. I think it's mostly because I've become really bad at taking pictures of things and I feel like my posts have to have some pictures. Anyway--I thought I'd do a post reviewing the year so I have some kind of record of the year. The main 2010 events:

April: Our First Half Marathon
Cameron and I trained for and ran our first half marathon in April. It was SO fun to train for it together. We really gained a love for long distance running that has continued through the year and led us to some more races.


April/May: Thailand
We took the trip of a lifetime together and absolutely loved exploring Thailand together. We spent a few weeks going all over: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket, and Phi Phi. I can't believe I've never done a more detailed blog post about it..I need to before I forget everything!






June: Camping in Zion's
We had so much fun camping with one of Cameron's best friends Brendan Blake and his adorable girlfriend Lindsey. We LOVED all the hiking, relaxing, and getting to know each other better. What a beautiful place Zion's is.



June/July/August: California
Cameron had an internship for Ernst & Young in Palo Alto, CA during the summer. We loved our "summer of fun" (as we called it). We did super fun things every weekend and every night. I miss it all the time--especially since I spent most of my time relaxing by the pool. Our highlights included: visiting lots with Cameron's family, driving to Half Moon Bay for walks, trying new restaurants, Great America Theme Park, Monterey Bay/Carmel, playing frisbee at the park, wonderful San Francisco visits, visits from my family, and a whole bunch of other stuff.



August: Our 1 Year Anniversary!
We celebrated our 1st year of marriage up in Park City with a whole bunch of fun activities and a delicious dinner. ]

September: Top of Utah Marathon
I crazily decided to run the Top of Utah Marathon in September. It was such a good experience! It was tough tough tough, but I was happy because I (barely) made my goal of finishing under 4 hours...3:59 was my time. Ha ha.


October: Master's Recital
I had my last recital ever (hopefully) at the end of October and was SO pleased with how it all turned out. My senior recital of my bachelor's wasn't the best experience, so it was a huge success for this recital to go well and for me to actually enjoy it a little bit. It was a huge day: ran the Halloween Half in the morning, recital in the afternoon, and found out I was pregnant later that night. Whew!


October: Expecting our First! (November/December: Sick Time for Stephanie)
As just mentioned, we found out we're expecting our first on June 28! We couldn't be more excited and can't wait for this little one to join us. We're especially excited this new addition will join us before we move to California in the fall. It's been a rough couple of months being pretty sick, but it'll all be worth it. I'm grateful my recital was out of the way so I've had time to rest.


December: Christine Got Married!
My baby sister got married a couple of weeks ago. Crazy! It was a wonderful, beautiful day and I couldn't be more happy for her and for Ben. Isn't she a beautiful bride?


We're so grateful we've had such a wonderful year, full of so many successes and blessings. We're excited to see what 2011 brings. We've already decided to call it the "year of changes" because of everything coming up: both of us graduating in April with our Masters' (WAHOO!!!!), having a baby in June, moving to California in the fall, and Cameron starting a "real" job with Ernst & Young.

Announcing...expecting our first on June 28!

Though this might be a little anticlimactic (since apparently it was pretty obvious in my last post), we're THRILLED to be expecting our first little one, due June 28! We had our first doctor's appt. on Wednesday and now feel good about telling people. Our first appointment was awesome! Having an ultrasound and seeing the baby moving its little arms and legs and hearing its heartbeat was incredible. It's only 3 centimeters long! I still can't believe that it's growing in me. What a miracle that we can have children.

It was fun to have the doctor's appointment and actually see evidence of the child, because so far the pregnancy has been quite un-fun. We found out I was pregnant at the end of October (same day as the Halloween Half and my Graduate Recital...big day!) and I've been pretty sick from then on. However, the timing of everything has been a HUGE blessing. I literally started feeling sick the day of my recital and I've had lots of time to be sick now that that's over. If I would have started to be this sick before my recital, I would have had to postpone it. Anyway. I feel bad complaining because I know there are women who get far more sick than I have (like my mother who was constantly on IVs), but I'm pretty wimpy and it's been tough throwing up most days and feeling like I'm going to throw up ALL the time. I love love love food and I've hated eating so much bland food...rice, crackers, toast, and cereal are my main food groups. I want to be eating so healthy, but just the idea of broccoli leaves me running to the toilet. I'm tired of carrying around ziplock bags just in case of a throw up emergency in the car or while I'm teaching. I'm at 11 weeks now and I'm hoping this nausea leaves me in the next couple of weeks. Cross your fingers! I have to end with one blessing--the few days surrounding Thanksgiving were actually a miracle and I felt almost normal. It was nice to be able to enjoy some real food and to be able to enjoy Cameron's family up at the cabin we stayed at.

Anyway! Though, I'm sick of being sick, we couldn't be more excited and are so excited this little one will join us before we're off to California next fall. He/she will be the first grandchild on both sides of the family so there's a lot of excitement all around.