We're Back

So sorry for the delay in posting. So much has gone on the last little while in our family and it was time for us to take a little break from something and it just happened that our blog was the one that took the break.

First ... We moved! Yep, we live back in Highland Utah. I will have to post pictures later when I actually take pictures of the outside of the house. We are just renting for the time being until we are a little more sure of our situation.

Adam has been working a lot but loves spending any extra time with his two boys! For a few weeks after moving he commuted back and forth from highland to Page (5 1/2 hours one way) and now finally is here permanently! He finished the resort in Southern Utah and is now on the City Creek project in Salt Lake city. He is building an 11 story tower and over Quality control. The job responsibilities are very different than what he was doing on the resort, and the commute isn't what you would call ideal, but he seems to be enjoying something new. This building will be finished sometime early next year. He is applying to University of Utah to work on an MBA starting next fall. We are waiting back to hear and hope our plan for him to continue working for Okland construction and go to school will work out.

Mandy is still adjusting the whole "two kid" thing. Two this close together in age has been challenging, but also has been really fun. She is still working for American Crafts designing class projects and samples, as well as working for Creating Keepsakes Magazine writing articles and contributing samples pages. Most of you are aware, but she has been struggling with some health issues. She has been diagnosed with a disease called NMO. So far the only effect has been the complete loss of eye site in her right eye. She is hoping nothing else will occur, but we are just living each day to it's fullest and trying to get through this trial the best we can.

Bryson is just becoming our little man. He was a Chef for Halloween and was known as our little "Pepe". Most 20 month old kids would squirm tear off a hat of any sort. Bryson is the exception. He LOVED the chef hat. He also loved trick-or-treating with his cousin Jace. He is finally starting to say a new word every day, and really expresses himself with excitement by saying WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA!!! That means there is either a truck or a dog. He is hysterical and has more personality in his little finger than Adam and Mandy combined! He got his first REAL salon hair cut and looks so handsome!

Chad is now almost 6 months! Can you believe how time flies? He has been such a happy baby and slept through the night at 8 weeks. He now plays with toys and loves to smile at Bryson when he isn't being attacked. We're waiting for him to roll over anytime. He was a lobster for Halloween and was the cutest lobster you have ever seen.

There is so much more that we have done in the past few months but thought we would just post the pictures for now. Hope you enjoy them and are doing well!
Bryson's first time riding a horse at the Utah State Fair
The Pumpkin Patch on Halloween
Playing at the park in Highland
Photos from arriving in Page with no kids, and leaving Page with two!
Packed and leaving our home
This was our last night in Page, playing games with our friends. We sure miss them a ton!

Adam's 30th Birthday

We had a great celebration for Adam's 30th Birthday. It was on June 1st and me and Bryson decided to throw him a surprise Birthday party. I am SO excited that it really ended up surprising him!

First, on my other blog you will see that I sent out a little invite ... and for those who could not attend the actual party, I had them write a card to Adam about a special memory or something they enjoy about Adam. I put together a little book of Adam's life ... also included on my other blog ... and gave it to him at the party. Thanks to everyone who helped out with that.

Here is how the day's events came together:
I woke up early and made the famous Douglass Family Texas sheet cake. Then Adam came into town, a rare occasion, to go to lunch with Bryson and I. We went to Slackers (Which is an INCREDIBLE burger joint in Page). Following lunch, Bryson and I ran errands, picking up 30 black balloons, getting birthday cakes, and dropping everything off at our friends' house so they could help me decorate for the party that night.

Adam's Parents and brother with his family came to Page from Kanab to celebrate with us. Adam just thought he was going to dinner. We went to Adam's FAVORITE restaurant, Fiesta Mexicana, and then back to our house ... where a babysitter was waiting. She put Bryson to bed and I blindfolded Adam. We headed to this GREAT pavilion that is located behind our church ... where our closest family friends and even two of Adam's co-workers were waiting. We enjoyed opening presents, and eating lots of cake and ice cream. What a great event!

Happy Birthday Adam ... I love you and don't know what my life would be without you! Here's to 30 years!

Photos

Our baby boy was born at 5:33 p.m. yesterday. He weighs 6 lbs. 12.5 oz. and is 20 in. long. We aren't 100% sure on a name but are leaning heavily toward Chad Powell Douglass. Mom and baby are both doing well. More to come...

When it rains it pours

It started raining last night and didn't stop until about lunch time. Mandy had some deadlines for work so Bryson and I went and took some photos. The water filled are condo complex parking lot, but fortunately went down about 2" prior to flooding some of the units. We need the rain because it's been pretty dry, but best of all it helps the lake levels come up.

This is an asphalt road...






This shut down the highway...

Critters

The critters are coming out again on the job site since it's warming up. Here's a couple of good snake photos. The first is a small rattle snake and the other's a LARGE gopher snake. I figured I better post this before Mandy gets home from YW and stops me.

Easter

Wow, we have had such a crazy couple of weeks!

First, Adam's brother Sean and our Sister-in-Law, Sara, came to Kanab. We just spent a week with them in Hawaii, so to our surprise, this was a pretty unexpected trip due to the death of Sara's grandfather. As most of you know, Adam and I met at IHOP, when Sara's father offered to buy my family's dinner if I would go out with Adam. Neither family was expecting to eat at IHOP that night. My family went there for my nephew Jacob's birthday (it was just where he wanted to go), and Sara's family asked grandpa (the one who passed) where he wanted to go for dinner. Grandpa Great mentioned he wanted pancakes, and so that is where they ended up. Adam and I truly believe had it not been for Jacob and Grandpa, neither family would have been there, and we would have never met. Grandpa will always hold a deep place in our heart, and we were honored to attend his serves in Kanab in-between the sessions of conference.

Conference weekend was spent with Adam's family, as mentioned above. Years ago, a BYU Bishop of mine challenged us to prayerfully consider questions we were having in our personal lives. Then ask the Lord to answer those questions through the speakers in conference. I am amazed how each conference each question I have is answered, and I am able to feel the love of the Lord answer those questions that are troubling me. What an amazing conference it was!

This past week I have been experiencing some troubles with my eye site. We are looking into getting some additional tests done to see why this is happening. We will keep you updated on the results. Please keep our family in your prayers.

Last but not least, we had a WONDERFUL Easter Weekend. We have traveled up to Orem to spend Easter with my family for the past couple of years, but because of going to Wicked this upcoming weekend with my family, we decided to spend the weekend home.

Saturday was the Page City Easter Egg hunt. It was really windy and cold, and Bryson was tired, so we were literally there for 15 minutes and left. He did get a few "empty" eggs though. How sad is that! Luckily the poor kid doesn't know that the eggs are supposed to filled with Candy yet. I personally think that Adam and I were more disappointed than Bryce!


Saturday night Adam and I had to attend the Stake Dance to chaperone. The theme was " a little bit of country and a little bit of rock n' roll". I was asked to teach the youth some country dancing. I will tell you what, watching me doing the Cotton-eye Joe 8 months pregnant was entertainment in and of itself. We got home at about 1:00 am and were exhausted! On Easter morning I had to be to ward council at 7:00 am, Adam had to get Bryce ready by himself. I taught a combined lesson in YW/YM ... then sang in sacrament meeting. Needless to say, I was SO tired when I got home.

After church and Bryson's nap, we gave Bryson his Easter basket. Since he doesn't really eat candy yet, we got him some bubbles, a kite, and a little fuzzy duck. He just loved them! He was much happier than on Saturday, so we enjoyed the beautiful weather outside and did our own egg hunt and showed Bryson how to blow bubbles and hunt for eggs!

We also made our own traditional Easter dinner including Funeral Potatoes, Ham, and some fresh fruit. We enjoyed watching a few movies together and relaxing. Right before the sun went down, we took advantage of the cool breeze and went to the park to fly Bryson's new kite. We sure enjoyed the day and hope you enjoy the fun pictures we took.

We head up to Orem tomorrow and will be sure to update you on our fun weekend events!

Hawaii

Adam and I got the opportunity through some friends/family to go to Hawaii for a week. It was a spur of the moment vacation, especially because it was getting close to my last days of traveling pregnant, but we decided to go. (I am currently 29 weeks!)

We drove to Utah on Friday the 20th and stayed with my parents for a few days. It was a perfect amount of time for Bryson to become reacquainted with grandma and grandpa before we left him for a week.

On Sunday morning we were packing up to leave for the airport and got a call that our flight got canceled and the flight that they put us on was for the next day! ARE YOU KIDDING ME! AN ENTIRE DAY ... That wasn't going to fly with me. So after getting hung up on 2 times by Delta Supervisors, I finally got somewhere and about an hour later we were headed for the airport to catch our flight. Isn't it sad that you have to be firm to get your way sometimes! I sure hate it.

We flew to Kona, on the Big Island of Hawaii, and rented a silver Mustang convertible. Hey if you're going to do a trip to Hawaii, you might as well do it right! We stayed at the Hilton Wikoloa Village Resort. IT WAS UNREAL!!! We had a little get-together that evening with Adam's brother Sean and his in-laws ... then off to sleep. We both woke up at 4:30 am ... our time 7:30 am ... but managed to sleep a little longer and start our tropical vacation! (The first picture above is our view from our balcony.)

Rather than bore you all with a bunch of details that you probably don't care about, I will give you a little list of things we did:
Took a trip to Costco to get food for breakfasts and lunch (food at the resort was WAY expensive).
Visited a different beach every day that was near the resort
Toured the island and saw an active volcano as well as a black sand beach
Swam & Kayaked in the resort lagoon that was open to the ocean with sea turtles and eels.
Adam snorkeled every day including two excursions. One at night to swim with the Mantas and another during the day in the middle of the ocean ... which ended up being better whale watching than snorkeling
I visited a local cafe for Breakfast one morning with my sister-in-law Sara while Adam went snorkling. All I can say is Hawaiian Sweet Bread french toast with coconut syrup! It changed my life!
We had a few good laughs at Mandy's horrible sunscreen job ... (lets just say that my feet looked like I had a disease!)
Got $1 ice cream cones each afternoon at the ice cream social. Ummm Macadamia Nut Ice Cream!
Paid $17 each for a hamburger at the resort ... yeah ... now you know why we went to Costco!
Walked what seemed like 10 miles each day because we were too impatient to take the tram around the resort
Attended an incredible Luau
Enjoyed one last vacation before our new little guy comes. It was SUCH a blast!