24 weeks

I know it's a little late seeing as how now I'm almost 27 weeks, but here is my 24 week picture. I was really starting to have a baby bump. Now 3 weeks later it's bigger...but I'm still tiny. No one would be able to guess that I'm 6 months pregnant by looking at me! I've decided that this is because I have a tall torso...giving the baby lots of room to grow up before she starts having to push out. :P I'll get another picture up soon of my current baby bump, but until then enjoy this one. :)

Really I'm 24 weeks in this one.

Also, keep voting for Circle of Support! We're moving up, but we need all the extra help we can get! www.refresheverything.com

November

We went to the Gilbert Temple groundbreaking ceremony on November 13th. Elder Claudio R. M. Costa of the Presidency of the Seventy presided. Him and his wife spoke. They are from Brazil and spoke with Brazilian accents. :) Listening to them speak brought back good memories! You see in the Winter semester of 2009 my roommate, Michele, was from Brazil. Hearing the Costa's speak took me back to the days of talking to Michele. My favorite was listening to her talk on the phone in Portuguese! Anyway, of course we took advantage of the opportunity to take pictures of the temple site! :)

Jon and I "breaking ground"

Jon and I in the middle of the temple grounds

Josh, Ben, and Eli "breaking ground"

Brandon and my mom "breaking the ground"

Before the ceremony started this police helicopter flew over the site. It was kind of fun to see, but different at the same time because it was a church setting.

All the people that showed up! All of the chairs were filled by the time the ceremony started!

The stage and all of the people.

All in all it was a wonderful experience! One that I will never forget and one that I will treasure always in my heart! I can't wait to start seeing the temple go up! Right now, as far as I can tell from driving past it every day, they're still moving a lot of dirt around. But progress is being made! We are getting a temple in Gilbert!

Circle of Support

I don't know who knows about my in-law's non-prophet organization called Circle of Support. Circle of Support is a non-profit organization that provides pediatric therapies for special needs children. The services provided include physical, speech, occupational, horse habilitation and now an intergraded pre-school. I am currently working with my brother-in-law, Jaron, through Circle of Support. Last month they were in the running to get a $250,000 grant from Pepsi. They ended up ranked 67th, but they needed to be in the top 2 to win. But we just found out that since we were in the top 100 we have one more month to get votes to win the grant. You can help out by voting once once a day for the entire month of December. Please help us and pass this on.

You can vote by going onto www.refresheverything.com when this page opens go to the very bottom of the page on the left corner and click on sign in. Type in your email address and then click the button that says "No I am new here." A new page will appear. Fill in the form with your information. When you get to the box that says prove that your not a robot, and if you can't see the letters clear enough, click on the refresh image that is to the right of the box and it will change the image, do this till you find one you can see clearly. Or you can sign in using facebook as well. The easiest way to find Circle of Support is by searching for it. Then all you need to do is click on the "vote for this idea" button. Make sure that the number of votes you have goes from 10 to 9. You can also vote every day through texting by texting the code 104020 to 73774. You'll get a confirmation text after you text in your vote. Please help us by voting and passing it on to all of your friends who are 18 or older. Also, you don't have to live in AZ to vote, it's a national contest, so get everyone you know to vote! :) Thanks in advance for your help!

It's a GIRL!!!

I know I'm really slow in getting this post up...but I've been busy. Last Wednesday, November 10th, we had an ultrasound appointment. :) The baby looks great! Growing quite well, the measurements told us that she weighed about 15 ounces! I really enjoyed watching as the technician went through all the anatomy to make sure everything was developing as it should. :) Yeah I know...I'm a nerd, I actually understood the majority of the things she was looking for. And we got to find out that we are indeed having a GIRL! :) Jon could hardly contain his excitement! It was fun. :) When the technician came to that part of the ultrasound it took me a second to see that it was indeed a girl, but I wanted Jon to say it. He was worried at first because he thought he was looking at boy parts...but she is all girl! We can hardly wait to welcome Veronika Ann Zuniga into the world! Just a few more months. :P So my favorite parts of the appointment were when they had me lift up my shirt so that the technician could do the ultrasound and then so the Dr. could measure me. The technician looks at me and says, "hey, I have the same underwear!" Then the Dr. mentioned something about being happy that we're an LDS couple. :) I love being a mormon!

I decided it's about time that I post some more pictures. I have a couple to post...can you see the difference in my belly? :)

20 weeks :)

21 weeks and going through Fat Man's Pass. Lol Jon was "worried" I was going to make it through. As you can see I had no problem, but I was touching both sides at the skinniest part. :P

Sick...BLAH!

Yeah, that's right I'm sick. :( I'm pretty sure it's just a cold, but with how miserable I've been you wouldn't be able to tell. Let me tell you, getting sick while pregnant is NOT fun at all! For many different reasons. First of all I don't want to take anything to help me be less miserable because I'm afraid I'd take the wrong thing and end up hurting the baby. Second all the extra blood flow and such makes my nose run even more than it would when I'm not pregnant. Therefore the intensity of my cold has been intensified by 10! YUCK! So moral of the story? Just don't get sick when you're pregnant. I'm pretty sure I didn't get any sleep the first night (Sunday night). I'm just glad that i didn't keep Jon awake all night with my tossing and turning.

The only upside I've seen in the past 2 days while being sick is that the baby's kicks and other movements are getting stronger. While I've sat around feeling pathetic the baby has tons of energy and is moving around quite a bit. My mom even got to feel the baby. :) It made me laugh cause when the baby kicked her hand moved too! I'm so excited for the baby to continue to grow!

On an even happier note...we get to find out TOMORROW what we're having!!! :) And more good news? The Dr's office called to confirm and told me that since I'm over 20 weeks pregnant I don't have to drink the 32 oz of water and hold it for an hour before the appointment! YAY! I was really anxious about that. My bladder is small enough as it is. Give me 32 oz of water and tell me I can't go to the bathroom until after my appointment? I'm going to tell you that you're crazy! :P

Adventures with Luke

Last week Luke and I decided to go get some fresh air. So we went to the park. :) Luke had a blast! I did too, but racing him to the end of the street did me in. Needless to say I was ready to go home for a nap before he was ready to leave. We took some pictures while we were there. Note to self: don't ask a 4 1/2 year old to take a picture of you.

Luke riding his bike. He's quite the little speedster!

Luke and I on the playground.

I asked Luke to take a picture of me and my tummy...he missed my head. :P

Yay! He got my head in the picture! :) Can you see my pregnant belly?

Halloween fun

Jon and I decided we wanted to have a Halloween party this year and get together with some fun couples. I only wish Natalee and Kyle were able to come too! And of course Jess and David. Utah is just a little too far away for a random invite to a party.

Here are some fun pictures from the night. (I put all of them up on facebook as well). We had pumpkin carving. We had candy, salsa, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin pie! So much fun!

Just carving pumpkins!

Cute little family :)

My gangsta husband

The nerd family! Aren't they cute?!

And of course Clark Kent and Lois Lane

The gangsta couple...Jon pulled it off much better than I did.

The brothers.

October

We finally remembered to take a picture yesterday! I wish we were able to get the huge piles of dirt that are just out of the right side of the picture. :) It's so much fun to drive by and see them working on the temple! Can you see my little belly growing? :P

Boy or Girl?!

We get to find out what we're having within the next two weeks! (No I haven't gotten my appointment set up, I need to get the number from my mother-in-law so I can do that.) We're so excited! Well...I am. Jon is still quite convinced that it's a girl and won't listen to me suggest otherwise. Oh how I love him!

So I wanted to get some input from you. What do you think we're having? A boy or a girl? I'm excited to hear what you have to say.

Other fun stuff, Jon and I decided to take a picture at the Gilbert temple site last month. Our goal is to get a picture every month to kind of document the progress. :) And while we're at it it will document our growing family as well. For the next 5 months you can watch my tummy grow and then after that our baby! Here's our picture from September. We're still working on remembering to take a picture for October.

Weekend fun

Have I ever mentioned how much I absolutely love General Conference?! It is absolutely amazing and I always welcome any chance I get to listen to the Prophet's voice and counsel. Now I have come away from a whole weekend of being spiritually fed!

I discovered something yesterday. I can no longer see my hips! Yes, that's right, my tummy has become so round that my hips no longer stick out! I am now 15 weeks pregnant. Well 15 weeks and 5 days. :) Here are some pictures to show you that I'm starting to show! I'm pretty excited!

This is a better picture of my pregnant tummy, but I look funny.

A view of how I see my tummy :)

So we will get to find out what we're having within 4 weeks! :) We're so excited! Well, I am. Jon is still completely convinced that we're having a girl. We've got names picked out though. :) Veronika Ann Zuniga if it's a girl. We'll call her Veja (said Veya) for short. If it's a boy we want to name him Joseph. But we're, well I'm having a hard time deciding on a middle name. We want to give our children family middle names. Here are our options for boys:

Jacob

Jonathan

Noel

David Lehi -or just David or Lehi

Hiram

Isac

Simon

Ammon Seth - or just Ammon or Seth

Caleb or Kaleb

Benjamin

Nathanael

Joshua

Chiam

Jaedon

Jaron

Terry

Briscoe

Cecil

Teancum

Justin

Brandon

Luke

Dirk

Charles

What do you think? What middle name goes well with Joseph Zuniga?

Lots of news...that's not so new

So...I decided to finally write another post! I know...it's about time! But hey in my defense those who I know do/have read my blog already know all of the events that have transpired between the end of May and now. For one, Jon and I got married! Sealed for all time and eternity in the Mesa Arizona temple on June 5, 2010! It was simply amazing! A beautiful, very hot (110...the hottest day so far in the summer), summer day! Sarah and Jessica came over to do my hair and take pictures of me getting ready to get married! :) Then my mom, dad, and I all got in the car and headed to the temple. We were going to pick up Jon, but he decided to meet us there. Which ended up being a good thing because he would have left our marriage license in the car and would have had to go a lot farther than the parking lot to find it. :P The ceremony was beautiful, and what made it even better was that Jon's Grandpa Cardon preformed it. :) After that my day kind of turns into a blur. We took pictures of course, had a luncheon, I packed for the honeymoon, Jon "started" packing (which consisted of realizing he didn't have any clean clothes and starting a load of laundry), then we headed to the church for the reception. It was beautiful! My grandma had done an amazing job with the flowers and thanks to a lot of help from those who came to set up the night before everything looked beautiful!

We spent our honeymoon in Wyoming and then slowly made our way back though Utah to Arizona. We stopped in Brigham City to visit with some of Jon's mission buddies. Made another stop in Provo to visit some friends. Then we went up to Lindon where we were fed an amazing dinner by the Heath's (Zuniga's family friends). Then we finally made it all the way home. However we had to stay at Jon's family's that night because we didn't exactly have the keys to our apartment yet. But that's where my birthday comes in! :) You see we got back on Saturday in the late afternoon/early evening, opened wedding presents then went to sleep. On Sunday we got hold of the Boyle's and were able to get the keys from them after church. Then we moved in! :) Wonderful birthday present!

Fast forward to mid July. I went up to Idaho with my mom and three of my little brothers for the Terry family reunion. This is where I became highly suspicious of being pregnant, however I didn't know "for sure" until after I took a pregnancy test when Jon and I were finally reunited. (Yes, I know I was brave for leaving my new husband for a whole week...I missed him terribly). That's when the real fun began. I wasn't sick, just tired and kinda weak in the mornings until I ate something. From Idaho we went to Wyoming for the Roberts' reunion, then Utah for Jon's mission companion's wedding. And then finally home!

I am now 15 weeks pregnant and getting so excited to have a little one of my own! I know I still have a long way to go, but March 23rd is 6 months away! :) Jon is completely convinced that we're having a little girl. I don't know what to think yet. I guess we'll find out in 5 weeks or so. :)

I think that's all for now... hopefully I won't be too incredibly slow at writing the next post. :)

So much to do and so little time!

So much has happened and so much still needs to get done! 10 days until the wedding and I'm so stinking excited! Last week was an incredibly busy week! My mom called the photographer to see if we could set up a time to take pictures at the temple before the wedding so that we don't have so many to take the day of. Well she set up a time...7 in the morning on Saturday! And I didn't have my veil, or my flowers, or Jon's ring! And Jon didn't have a tux, or his tie! Needless to say we spent a lot of time getting everything together so that it would all run smoothly. And it did! We got everything done and I can't wait to see how they turned out!

You'll probably laugh, but Jon and I are only halfway registered at Bed Bath and Beyond. You see when we went the first time we had to stop because I got sick to my stomach. Since then we haven't had an time whatsoever to go and finish registering. And now Jon will be working 12 hour days up until the wedding...so we may not have time (or the energy) to finish registering! Ahhhh!!!!
Did you know that there is a very small and limited selection of orange dresses? I want my bridesmaids to wear orange and boy was it an adventure to try and find orange dresses! My mom and I spent lots of time shopping just trying to find dresses that are orange! Well we had no luck...but we did find some amazing white dresses. And guess what we did! We bought them and decided to try to dye them orange. It worked! :) Now many hours, orange hands, and lots of water later I now have 4 orange bridesmaids dresses! Here are some pictures of the process:

Here is the dress in the dye bath. That's some orange water!

Here it is on it's first rinse. You're supposed to rinse it until the water is no longer orange...I can't say I've ever had that much patience. The water will be orange forever!

The dress. It's still wet and not done rinsing. It drys a lot lighter.

Yes, my hands did indeed turn orange as I stirred the dress in the dye bath to make sure it dyed evenly. You should see my nails...they're basically all orange!

Here's one of the finished dresses. They turned out pretty good :)

Last week was my bridal shower and I had a lot of fun! There were lots of people there that I really wanted to see! But not everybody could make it...I am still sad that Jess is in Utah and can't be here. At least she'll be here for the wedding. That's the most important part right?

Engagement Pictures

Cherie Mask took our engagement pictures for us on April 24th. We absolutely love all of them! So I decided to share some with you.

29 days and an update finally!

So I'm a little behind on updates. Haha OK...a lot behind. But can you blame me? I've been slightly preoccupied with my fiancé and planning a wedding. That's right! I'm getting married in 29 days (June 5, 2010) to the most amazing man ever, Jonathan Jacob Zuniga! So I think I owe you the whole story.

Hmmmm where to begin?! Well I guess we can start from my last post. We never officially started talking about marriage. It was more along the lines of I told him how I was feeling and that I got my answer that I am supposed to marry him without going into too much detail because I was afraid that I was completely off base. Well on March 20, 2010 Jon was dropping me off and we were saying goodnight at my doorstep when I told him that I love him a lot. He asked me just how much I love him and the first thing that came to mind was "I love you so much that I want to spend the rest of eternity with you!" But I couldn't say that! He had yet to really tell me anything relating to his feelings on the subject, so I skirted around my real answer and made something up. After a long hug (probably so that he could build up the courage) he got down on one knee and took both of my hands in his and asked me to marry him. Needless to say I was in complete shock! Here are some of the thoughts that shot through my mind in a couple of seconds: "Is this really happening?!" "Did he really just say what I think he said?" After I took a second to compose myself I realized that he needed an answer. And of course I said YES! After which he stood up to hug me and kiss me. Then he had to tell me that he was serious...to which I told him that I was as well. He told me that he loved me so much that he wanted to spend the rest of eternity with me, to which I agreed. It was only after all of this that he went and asked my dad for his blessing.

Since then life has been wonderful! We spend every moment that we can together and are getting excited to start our life together! June 5, 2010 is the day that I will become a Zuniga and be sealed to the man that I love for time and all eternity! I'm so excited to go through the temple as well! The Mesa Arizona temple has been my favorite temple for a long time and I can't wait to go through!

Missing her boy

Alright so I need to start updating my blog other times besides when Jon is gone... But I guess since I spend every spare moment with Jon the only time I really have to update my blog is when he's gone. I don't really know what to say...I have a hard time putting my personal feelings out there online for everyone to see...even though so far Lauren is the only one who even knows about my blog. I think it's only a matter of time before Jon and I start talking about marriage...he's brought it up in a round about way yesterday and today. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. :) Haha I love that! I love that by "waiting and seeing" i get to enjoy every moment with Jon! He is so wonderful! I love him so much! I would go into all the reasons why I love Jon so much, but I think I'd embarrass Lauren... :P

going crazy...

So basically I'm crazy...crazy in love with this boy named Jonathan Jacob Zuniga! I can't stop thinking about him and even though I saw him earlier today I'm going insane because I can't even talk to him because he's camping with the boys. I'm feeling pretty pathetic right about now seeing as how I went 25 months without seeing him and now I can't even go a couple of hours without even talking to him! What's up with that? I'm in love! That is basically the only explanation I have for this. Although I already knew just how much I loved him...I din't know how it would express itself in my daily life though.

He's Home!

So I haven't updated my blog in a while. Turns out that I got a job soon after my last post and have been incredibly busy with school and work since then. I'm now working for Stewart Maclay at East Valley Disaster Services. It's quite the interesting job. I mean who wouldn't love working with Mexican ladies all day every day? I really need to work on my Spanish so that I can communicate.
Other fun news...Jon is home! :) He got home almost two weeks ago and until Monday I had seen him every day since he got home! His family invited me to go to pick him up from the airport with him. That was a blast! :) I loved seeing him again! The only problem was that I wasn't sure how to act...if I should give him a hug or not (after he was released of course) because I didn't want to scare him. I guess I didn't have much to worry about. I had the week off of work last week (because they didn't have anything for me to do) and got to spend the majority of my week with Jon. :) It was wonderful! He held my hand and kissed me all in the same day! :) Haha I'm dating my best friend once again! How did I ever get so lucky?
Here are some fun pictures from the airport:

What have I done?

So I decided to start a blog seeing as how I love to read everyone else's. And what better time than now to start blogging since I'm not working or going to school. Yeah, I guess my life sounds pretty easy right about now. How I wish that was true! Since I got home just before Christmas my life has been pretty busy. After the holidays I started job hunting. It's been long and hard and I wish I was able to see the end of that road, but sadly I can't yet. I'm exhausted! I've spent a lot of my free time these last couple of weeks calling around and trying to connect with people that could possibly help me find a job and then going around and picking up applications, filling them out, and taking them back. Oh it's been a blast! On top of that I've been trying to figure out things with school. I want to be a nurse and so I'm trying to feel out all of my options and then decide which way to go. Starting on Monday I'll be taking a Nursing Assistant class that will be every Monday and Wednesday night with Saturday being our clinical day. This class is the key to me becoming a CNA and being able to start working in the hospitals, working closely with those who have achieved the goal I'm working towards. I'm hoping to be a little closer to having a job by the time my class starts. And on top of all of this I've been trying to help my mom as much as possible with Luke, especially since Grandma is staying with us for now and she's in the hospital.

Like I said, life has been crazy, but hey I love it. I can't even begin to express how grateful I am for all that I have in life. I have a family that loves me and supports me! And I'm able to be here so that my mom doesn't have to worry about things running smoothly at home while she is attending to her mother. I can't help but see the Lord's hand in my life, in every aspect of my life, and I can't help but be so incredibly grateful! I don't know what I would do without the gospel in my life!