Christmas Celebrations

This year the rotation brought us to the Barneck's in Bountiful on Christmas Eve and the Bushman's in Payson on Christmas Day. My mom was SO nice and met me at Troy's work in Draper so I could spend the morning In Bountiful while Troy worked. He got off around noon and then met us in B-town. My mom and I spent the morning preparing gifts and food, it was really fun.

We spent Christmas Eve dinner with my mom's family. We ate delicious lasagna (the traditional meal for that side of the family) and played bingo with all the other grandchildren. Yes, I am the oldest grandchild on that side so Bingo is a big deal. We play for roles of quarters, nickels and dimes. Troy and I won $42 collectively and were thrilled to have free laundry money, hooray! That night we opened a few presents with my parents and to our great surprise and delight we opened a crib! It was actually money to buy a crib, when we purchase I will post an actual photo ;) We were so excited. I even teared up a little bit. This was an unexpected blessing, our little guy will officially not have to sleep in a drawer! Overall we had a wonderful day with our Bountiful peeps.

We ventured back to Provo that evening to sleep. That was fun because we got to have our own little Christmas morning together and exchanged gifts. Christmas breakfast was spent in Payson with all our family there. We had such a fun day visiting and playing.Troy's family got a Wii for Christmas this year so we spent a fair amount of time checking that out, it was great. Troy's mom made us the cutest baby quilt-- so fun! They also took us to Vegas for the bowl game as part of our gift the week before Christmas. I don't really have any pictures of that this year, the unfortunate loss dampened picture taking vigor. Even though the Cougs were unsuccessful, the trip was really fun.

Troy's work gave him "the day off" the day after Christmas, meaning they didn't have enough work for everyone so it was an unpaid day off... sort of unfortunate but the good thing was we were able to spend a nice long weekend together just kicking it at our house. Troy is so great and I loved being able to spend so much time with him without the worries of homework and tests. The Christmas season really is the best season.

Here we are Christmas morning about to leave our apartment to head to Payson, we look asleep because we almost are.

A. Our little Christmas tree and stockings-- the tree itself is a tad ghetto but we like it and are grateful to have one.
B. Troy opening his present from me-- a framed picture of Cougar stadium-- pretty good huh? :) I think he liked it. (He gave me a book of all the entries from his journal that mentioned me. SO cute, I loved it.)
C. Troy playing the Wii and applying lip balm at the same time, my husband is a man of many talents!

The Weddings!

You may have noticed I haven't posted anything for a while. There are lots of good reasons for this mainly end of semester projects, finals, coming down with a ridiculous cold, etc. Another reason there hasn't been a post in some time is because the Bushman family has had another pair of weddings. Yes, that's weddingS, meaning plural.

Troy's sister was married on December 11th in the Provo Temple and his brother was married on December 17th in the Salt Lake Temple. In case anyone needs help with the math, that's 6 days apart. I should mention this is not entirely out of the ordinary for the Bushman family. Troy and I were married on August 17th, 2007 and Troy's brother Landon and his cute wife Stephanie were married on August 24th, 2007. Basically we like to do things in pairs because we are such a close family ;) This trend even extends to births-- Stephanie & Landon are expecting a girl on April 7, 2009 and Troy and I are expecting a boy on April 21, 2009. Once again, it's no fun to venture out on a big life change on your own right?

Needless to say, it's been a little crazy at our house the last few weeks. Troy's poor mother has had just a tad too much on her plate. Here are some lovely pictures of the two very stylish and posh events!

Wedding #1 Ashley and Bryan Mecham
December 11, 2008

Here they are Bryan and Ashley (Troy's sister) Mecham, first signs of daylight as a married couple.

The pregnant lady lineup. From left to right Alison & Jill (Troy's cousins), Stephanie (sister-in-law) and me.
Troy and Landon felt left out, so we had to take a picture of them too.Bushman girls. Pretty much all of our pictures are a little awkward like this one. Left to right-- Stephanie, Christa (mother-in-law), Ashley (the bride), Suzanne (bride to be), Brooke, and Alexis (sister-in-law).The Bushman boys. Left to Right-- Troy, Landon, Matt, Mckay, Neil.Matt and Suz being excited about being next in line.

On to Wedding #2... Matt and Suzanne Bushman
I apologize if wedding shots get old quickly, but we're all about equal opportunity in the Bushman fam since we do things at the same time. I personally could look at wedding pictures all day. Here we go for round two--
December 17, 2008
Here is the classic Salt Lake Temple shot, absolutely lovely.All the siblings on the temple steps-- poor Suzanne is freezing to death as it was a high of 25 degrees on that day.Troy and I in our wedding clothes at the reception, which was held at the Memorial House in Salt Lake. My stomach is getting bigger all the time-- it probably grew in between the weddings ;)Pretty cake! I love wedding cakes, they're so fun.
Brooke, Suz, Matt and Troy Bushman. It' seems we're growing exponentially as of late and it's wonderful.

Temple Square with the Dallings

I entered us in the lottery to get Christmas Devotional tickets and won, lucky us! We invited Chrisy and Ryan Dalling to come along with us. Although we were all running late we made in into our seats in the nick of time and the devotional was wonderful. Afterwards we walked around to see the lights and took some fabulous photos. Brooke and Christy.

The boys decided it would be a great idea to play with the settings on the camera to try to get the temple to light up in the background. This one turned out pretty well... our camera isn't the greatest.
This one... not so much. I promise it is Troy and I even though it's too blurry to tell.

This shot the boys were determined to get and setting up for it took almost 10 minutes. Propping the camera up on a ledge helped, but we had to hold perfectly still.
After the LONG photo shoot we enjoyed some hot cocoa (care of the Dallings) by the reflecting pool.
And of course the boys wanted to try one more shot. I wasn't very good at holding still, hence the big red blur.

It was a very entertaining evening. We just love Ryan and Christy and are still amazed that our two good friends married each other-- what fantastic luck! (Actually not really luck, I prayed hard for that to happen :) All the same it makes for excellent double dates.

IT'S A BOY!

We'd like to formally announce that a little junior Troy is due for arrival on April 21, 2009. It's true, it's a boy! We had our ultrasound today and we couldn't be more excited about our little guy on the way.

Despite my spending an entire semester in labor and delivery rotations in nursing school I had never sat for a full blown ultrasound. I, of course, was fascinated by every little body part the ultrasonographer looked over. However, sometimes it doesn't pay to know more than the average person when it comes to medical knowledge. I could feel my stress level rise during the appointment since I knew all the disorders our little baby would have if something was missing (renal arteries, brain ventricles, heart valves, etc.) Despite my worries, I am happy to report that he is perfectly healthy and growing right on schedule. That is everything is on schedule except for his abdomen. Apparently the little guy's gut is about 2 weeks ahead of everything else meaning he may be pretty chubby, ha!

I posted some of the pictures we received from the appointment. They're a little blurry because he wouldn't hold still. He seemed a little annoyed that we were poking and proding at him since he was comfortable in his current position (hands and feet curled into his face, meaning the gender was a mystery for a little while). Luckily he cooperated and stretched out for a minute or two so we could discover he was, in fact, a he.

Here are his little feet. Troy is convinced he will be an amazing athlete.

And here are his arms, so cute! He wouldn't pull these away from his face so we weren't able to get a good look at him. (The picture at the top of the post is the only one we got of his profile and it's not the greatest... I guess I'll just have to be patient to see him in the flesh!)

This one is my favorite. You can't really tell but in the video he was yawning. So cute! I'm in love already.

Post Lavell-Funeral Transportation Methods

We were able to sell Troy's old car on KSL for $200. Pretty good for a car that doesn't run at all and that is a Mazda. (I vow right now to never purchase a Mazda again as long as I live... even though Troy purchased this one long before we met.)

Now that we are officially a one-car family. I ride the bus! I feel like I am going green, but really the decision to ride public transit came out of necessity rather than choice. Yesterday was my first full day to and from school via UTA. I'm happy to report that everything ran fairly smoothly except for the part when the bus died on the way home from school and I had to change buses. And then the part on the second bus when there was a small skirmish between a homeless man and the bus driver, but all ended well. Always something exciting happening on public transportation right? You've got to love it. Hooray for UTA, my new found friend :)

p.s. Although this picture may suggest I'll be riding the bus to Hill Air Force Base, I can assure you that is NOT the case.

And the application process continues...

Troy is wonderful. He did 4 secondary applications for medical school in the last week and a half. Which took A LOT of time and effort. He basically came home from work and wrote essays until bed time unless he was in church meetings. He is a trooper!

Applications to Kirksville, Missouri; Glendale, Arizona; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania are all in! We've paid the money and now we're just waiting... This is probably my favorite part of applying to medical school. Waiting. It's such a joy. For right now Troy's top choice is Tulsa, Oklahoma but I think Arizona sounds nice ;) Just kidding we'll obviously end up wherever we're meant to be. However, it would be kind of nice to end up at the same place as the Serafines. Wouldn't you agree, Stacy? We'll see how the next few weeks go. I'm hoping he'll get an interview in before Christmas. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated.

It's True, Lavell Died.

Sadly, troy's 1996 Mazda 626, which he affectionately named "Lavell Edwards" after the famous former BYU head football coach, died on October 20, 2008. Lavell's transmission malfunctioned on the way to work in Salt Lake. After a towing and a look-over by a transmission specialist it was decided that the Bushmans would not be reviving dear Lavell. So farewell to Troy's beloved car, we'll remember it always but our bank account will fare better without him. :)

A New Blog!

So we have finally jumped on the bandwagon. It's official Troy and I have a blog! This is all new to me, so it might be pretty ghetto at first. No matter how it looks at least you will all be informed about the happenings in lives of the Bushmans. Here it is, what's new at our house!