For those of you who don't know...

There is a little Shiddle on the way!   We found out I was pregnant in August, it was a BIG surprise.  Isn't this birth control thing supposed to work?  Finding out was a bit of an adjustment to our life plan, but now we are ecstatic!  I am currently about half way through the pregnancy and everything is going well. 

We went to have our gender ultrasound yesterday and it was a disaster!  First off, I am planning on having the baby at this fabulous birthcenter run by midwives who all have excellent bedside manner and they know me and my husband by name.  The center is a restored Victorian mansion which is more like a B&B than anything else.  Anyway, so I we went to get an ultrasound at their back up doctor's office.  The office is very poorly run and serves mainly a low income/ uninsured population and they typically have people wait for hours to be seen.  We were no exception, and as we waited I became increasingly excited and anxious to find out the gender and see if everything was okay with the baby.  After the first hour the Dr. came out and said he would be back in a few minutes that he was going to get pizza for his staff.  About 20 minutes later he arrived back with the pizza and proceeded to eat the pizza in a break room with his staff for the next 45 minutes.  Oh, I forgot to mention that the entire time we were waiting we were the only patients in the waiting area and I never saw anyone leave the clinic after being seen.  Anyway, about two hours after our scheduled appoint the Dr. finally came in for the ultrasound and I was SO excited to see our baby and find out the gender.  So, he puts the gooey stuff on my belly and starts the ultrasound.  After about 15 seconds he says "your baby is breech and we will not be able to find out the gender today."  I was shocked.  He showed us the profile and then the arm and leg and abruptly ended the ultrasound after less than 2 minutes.   I could not believe it.  Isn't this supposed to be longer?  Aren't they supposed to give us other information about how the baby is developing and whether everything looks normal?  So, here we are, shocked and they shoo us out the door and we left without saying anything.  I got so angry in the car and then the tears came.   The anticipation I felt leading up to the ultrasound was intense and the let down from the experience was so great that I was upset for hours.

Anyway, we decided to call the birthcenter and talk to one of the midwives about the experience.  She was so nice and understanding, she referred us to another clinic and is trying to get us an appointment ASAP.  So, thankfully we will not have to return to this clinic and we will find out the baby's gender soon. Which I will post as soon as we find out.  I think I just needed to vent about the situation.  It's amazing how helpful that is sometimes.  

I want to wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS!  David and I are writing a Christmas greeting, which we may or may not send out until tomorrow.  But if you don't hear from us we wish you the happiest Christmas.  I am so grateful for my knowledge and testimony of Jesus Christ at this time of year.  I hope your thoughts and hearts turn to the true reason for the season this year.  Love to you all. 

What a horrible blogger I am....

So, I really haven't gotten this blogging thing down... apparently you are supposed to write somthing right?   So, I wrote a blog for this months ago but somehow it never made it out of the draft phase.  I guess perhaps I should renew my efforts to become the blogger I know I can be.  So, first off, here is the previous message that for some reason never made it onto the blog...

This summer has been a complete whirlwind of adventures.  First, we packed up the car (a 4 cylinder sedan) and the tiniest U-haul trailer you have ever seen (after selling all of the furniture we own) and headed out to Baton Rouge, LA for summer jobs.  At first, Louisiana seemed just a sweltering arm-pit in the South complete with red-necks with confederate flags plastered all over their pick-ups, nasty fried everything (even veggies), and ENORMOUS insects.  Then, I started to notice how friendly people were.  Let's face it, in the west if you smile and say hi to someone, they give you a weird look and may move further away from you on the sidewalk.  In LA, good 'ole Southern hospitality is alive and well.  Also, I started to realize that LA has the most interesting cultural melting pot anywhere I have been in the USA.  The French influence is HUGE there, people are speaking French in the middle of the grocery store.  French Creole is the craziest sounding accent, it sounds like Paris with A LOT of twang and Southern drawl. People kept asking me "Are you YANKEE?" and I just had to laugh... I said no, I am from Utah.

One of the best things about LA is the food.  After navigating away from all the fried catfish (which I did try, definitely not a mistake I will make again) and move toward some gumbo, jambalya, and hushpuppies you are one happy diner.  The best about the food in LA is the beignets.  French for "little doughnut", they are the most fabulous doughnut you will ever have.  They are more like a scone (but the dough is different) that is completely covered with powdered sugar.  One of my weirdest restaurant experiences happened at Swamp Daddy's in Alexandria.  They had all you can eat crawfish and they would bring out these HUGE trash can lids heaping with crawfish.  Watching a family at the next table just gulping down these nasty looking shrimp-like monsters made me almost run for the loo.  Then, after all was consumed they brought out another trash can lid for each person, definitely an adventure!

Finally, after a summer of adventures we moved to our new home here in Gainesville, FL.  When we first drove into town I thought, “This is it?”  For any of you that are from the Utah area, Gainesville can be equated to the city of Provo, but imagine Provo in the middle of nowhere with an hour and a half drive (at least) to the nearest metropolis and beach.  The best thing about Gainesville is we live right in the middle of Jacksonville, Tampa, and Orlando.  Our proximity to so many areas with some major attractions has definitely made residing in Gainesville more tolerable.   The BEST thing about living here is we are only an hour and half drive to visit my brother Ben and his family in Orlando!  They moved into Florida about a month after we did and it has been amazing to have family so close.  We are just loving seeing them and bumming around in their home for the weekend soaking in what we have to look forward to with parenthood with their adorable and entertaining children. 

the shiddles...

This is it... I am finally a blogger. I resisted, but to no avail! Since moving over 2,000 miles from our families and friends it was time to finally join the blogging community.

The name of our blog actually is a hilarious story. I have always jokingly told my family members that I wasn't going to change my last name after I married. I knew this would cause some type of uproar and I wanted to push their buttons (my brothers especially). So, finally when I first brought home David (my now husband) to meet the family, my brothers soon "warned" him about my feminist tendencies and aversion to changing my name. Then they starting coming up with "new" last names for us combining both of our last names. Remember, at this point David and I were only dating and had no plans of getting married.... don't you love brothers? Finally after what seemed like an hour of discussion, my brother Chris says "I know... THE SHIDDLES!" So thus we were christened...

At the time, I thought "If David can tolerate my crazy brothers he may be just the man I am looking for..." One thing I can say, brothers are good at separating the weak ones from the strong!