Pregnancy Update Continued.

When we got back to the US I did not want to start with a Dr in Montana where we were staying with my mom and then have to switch to a Dr in Idaho.    The last time I saw a Dr in China was at 16 weeks.  When we got to Idaho Falls and got settled a bit I tried looking around for a Dr here in Idaho Falls and it was just not working out with them.  So needless to say I am going to the same Dr in Rexburg that I had with both Kenya and Jasmin.  We like him a lot anyway!  So the my first appointment with him was I think at week 25.  We had an ultrasound and everything seems great.   At the ultrasound we had still not decided if we wanted to know the gender of the baby.  I really did not care and so I made Robert make the decision.  At the end of the ultrasound he told the Dr to go ahead and look.  This is the answer we got, "Well, it looks like it is a girl, but if you have a baby shower or buy anything keep the receipt."  So we took that as he really could not tell and mostly that he just did not see anything that looked like a boy.  Maybe he knew that we were unsure about finding out and so he really didn't care to take a better look.  So we are just saying we really don't know what it is going to be.   I was getting nervous because I was not feeling the baby as frequent or as consistent as I did with the other girls.  So that ultrasound really put me at lease.  And of course you would know it that within a week after that the baby would not stop moving for anything.  I have had regular check ups now with Dr Hopkin in Rexburg and a good smooth pregnancy.  Today I am 33weeks and 4 days and at my appointment everything is going good. 
Here are my other all thought about this pregnancy so far. 
Each pregnancy I have had has gotten a little bit more like a real pregnancy.  With Kenya nothing in my life changed!  Really not even my clothes size.  It was wonderful and I am so greatful! With Jasmin, I was a lot more tired in the first and last trimester than with Kenya.  Still I really did not feel pregnant, or what others talked about what being pregnant was like.  I had to wear maternity clothes but still no complications and an easy life.  Again, I am greatful for that!  With this baby I have felt "pregnant."  I was tired at first of course and still am.  I am having real pregnancy troubles.  Meaning that I have a hard time bending over sometime, I have strange aches and pains, if I lift something heavy I can feel it in my belly, I definitely had to start wearing maternity clothes, and there have been a few days where I over did it and then I paid for it for the next couple of days.  I am not complaining, just keep a record of my own pregnancy for the future.  I still consider myself extremely blessed with how easy things are for me!!  I contribute the increase of symptoms to my age.  Not that I am old, but as my body gets older it feels the strain or pregnancy more.  But I truly thank my Heavenly Father almost daily for the blessing of health and strength through pregnancy and always.  And here is to praying for just as easy as delivery and labor as the first 2. 

Our all American weekend.

Last weekend (Sept 6-7) we went and camped around Island Park and had a blast.  Our church hosted it and Friday night we had a chili cook off and a cookie bake off.  Dinner was yummy and we all had a great time.  While we were there there was a cow and calf moose hanging around the campground.  The girls and I got to see them quite well.  They walked right out into a clearing and we just stood and watched.  I was of course aware that the momma could be very dangerous because of her calf, but she seemed very comfortable so we just keep our distance and observed.  Kenya just loved been able to see something like that.  Both of the girls are animal lovers, but then again so are Robert and I.

Kenya eating her S'more.

Jasmin playing half asleep because it was way past her bedtime!

We slept uncomfortably on the ground in our tent.  The next morning we had a wonderful breakfast and then Robert and the girls got wet in the cold Buffalo Creek at the campground. 

It was beautiful to be in the trees and wilderness!

It was cold!

Robert just coming out of the water.

Then home we went.  For a late lunch we went out to a pizza buffet.  Then Saturday evening we went to a minor league baseball game in Idaho Falls.  I had won 2 tickets on facebook and so we just had to pay $5 for Kenya to get in.  While we were there the girls loved watching the Chukars mascot dance and have fun.  At one point the mascot went and hid and the first person to find him won a prize.  Robert and the girls found him and won a $10 gas card.  So really we made $5 going to the game.   It was fun spending time as a family with truly American activities to end our summer!

 

 

Catch up.

So, here is the story of this pregnancy so far with.
I found out I was pregnant in March because of the usual symptoms; I was tired and my cycle was late.  I took the test myself one day and then I wanted a fun way to tell my family.   So for Family Home Evening that night I put together these poems.

Robert's  
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Things have always been a little uneven

They soon will become more unbalanced

There will be a chance to bring some balance

Or maybe that chance for balance will tip the scale 

 Kenya's 

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A brother or sister what will it be

In mommy’s belly you will see

Jasmin's

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B-A-B-Y we will play

So of course I told Robert's his and then gave him some time to think about it.  I think he figured it out or the right answer at least had crossed his mind.  Then I read Kenya hers and the Jasmin hers.   It was fun and everyone got really excited about the new baby coming.  

A few weeks later I started to "spot" and I was not too worried because I know this can happen.  It lasted for longer than 2 weeks though.  I had heard of an American doctor in Wuhan who worked out of a Chinese hospital and I wanted to make an appointment because of the "spotting" was going on for long.  I was starting to get worried.  We went into the first appointment and whole cow it took forever!  I first met with the doctor (normal) then she wanted a urine and blood tests (normal) and an ultrasound.  So I went and did the test.  The way the system works there is the Dr orders things then you go and pay for what was order and then you go all over the hospital to different areas getting our orders filled.  You have to wait for your results and then delivery them back to the Dr yourself.  So off we went with no English speaking person.  I got the urine and blood samples done just fine.  Then went to the ultrasound.  Apparently I needed to have a full bladder to have the ultrasound and so they made me drink a bunch of water.  Then into the ultrasound I went.  They tole me that I none of the family could come into the ultrasound, but Kenya was a little upset at this and so the nurses just let her go in.  As they were preforming the ultrasound all they said in English and Chinese was "No."  What did this mean?  So I did not know if they were telling me that their was no baby that there was no, what.... So we walked the ultrasound paper back to the Dr and so said that they could not see anything because my bladder was not full enough.  A little relief came.  So they order a different way to ultrasound and I had to go back and pay for the difference of the ultrasound and then back to wait in line again for my turn in the ultrasound room.  Then I took the results back to the Dr.  Confirmed live baby 8 weeks old.  There was about 1 hour of just waiting to see what the ultrasound was going to bring.  She then calculated the conception date and the due date of the baby.  (This baby was made in Germany!  We have 3 babies all made on different continent of the world.  When Robert and I were looking into adoption we thought it would be fun to have all of children from different parts of the world.  Well, it seems this may be the case anyway.)  Due date Novemeber 3, 2013.  After our 3 hours in the hospital and 30 minute taxi ride to this specific hospital we treated ourselves to a Hawaiian/American restaurant that was not far from there.  It was so yummy and we made our way back there a few more time before we left Wuhan.  Then we had our long taxi ride home.   As long and drawn out as this may sound we were not surprised in the least bit about how long it took and such, that is just the way things are in China.  They take forever!!

So I went back to this Dr a couple of more times before returning to the States.  Our visits were much of the same, longer than they should have been and just a lot of waiting.  Everything with the baby seemed fine and we were good to go. 

More to be update at a later time.  

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A Visit From The Draper Side of the Family.

Sometime at the beginning of last week Robert's mom called us and asked if they could come visit.  We said of course!  It was nice to have a house big enough to have space to have guests whenever they want to come.  So then on Saturday last week Grandpa and Grandma Draper and Great-Grandma Williams and Muffin, GG Williams dog came to visit for a few days. 
It was great having them here.  We did not really do anything exciting, but we had family time so the girls could play with their grandparents. 
They came in late Saturday night and Sunday was a usual Sunday, church, naps, and then family time.  On Monday evening we went to the Idaho Falls Temple Visit Center to view the new art exhibit that portrayed so much of our beliefs.  It was beautiful and I think all enjoyed it.  I know that our girls liked the painting and asked questions about it.  After viewing the inside of the visitors center we let them go outside on the temple grounds and walk around.  The girls LOVE to go to the temple.  We try to take them to the temple grounds often to let them feel of the spirit there so they can recognize that this is one of the most sacred and special places to be.  At such a young age they both already know it makes them feel wonderful and they long to be there.  I hear several times a week form them that they want to go to the temple.  Kenya often asks about going inside and can't wait to be 12 so that she can go inside the temple.  Children truly can recognize truth and feel the love of our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ!
On Tuesday we went to the zoo.  We got to look at the animals and enjoyed the cooler morning.  It was fun to see the girls get so excited about all the animals because they love animals.  Their attention span was not quite the same as the adults on the trip so we saw many of the animals several time while Grandma and Grandpa Draper were able to take their time looking at the animals. 
The girls enjoyed dancing and putting on a show for them one day and enjoyed playing with them the other days.  One of the main attractions the girls enjoyed was Muffin.  Those girls love dogs and Great-Grandma was wonderful and let them pull Muffin around on a leash and man-handle her even if Muffin didn't like it.
Wednesday morning they packed up and left first thing in the morning.  Thank you so much for coming!

Baby # 3 on the way.

I guess I have never officially announced on our blog that we are expecting our 3rd baby on November 3, 2013 (or sometime around there).  So right now I am almost 27 weeks along and doing fine.  It looks like it is about time that I reopen the poll for voting because we again do not know the sex of the baby. Kenya has said since before I got pregnant that she wants a brother and this is her brother in my belly. 
I went to an American Dr. at a Chinese hospital 3 times while in Wuhan and well to say the least all of my experience there were Chinese.  That is to say that to get a prenatal check-up it was at least 3 hours each time.  I had an ultra sound at 8 weeks that confirmed pregnancy and that was a fiasco.  I will have to sit down and right out the story up until now for my pregnancy at a different time.  I am exhausted this evening about cleaning and still putting things away at our new house. 
I did announce it on facebook on April Fool's Day, but never on the blog.  So, there you go.   My baby is now officially in the blog world. 

PS We found an amazing and huge house on the west side of Idaho Falls and so far we are loving it! 

Back in Southeast Idaho agian.

So we drove all day on Sunday back to Idaho Falls.  Robert started work on Monday.  I have been house/apt hunting for over a month now and still have not found what is right.  We have found plenty of places, but nothing that seems to fit right and nothing that the Lord has told us to get yet.  I know he will provide the right place for us, I just wish I knew when and where!  It is really hard to get things done without an address like, get a drivers license, car insurance, registered a car, etc.
Hopefully soon, I will have pictures of a new place that we will be living in.  
We are so greatful to be a family with a job and no home rather than the other way around, that is having a home (place to live) and not job!

Just to get things going again!

Tonight Kenya and Jasmin rode the neighbors horse bare back holding onto nothing but the mane.  Kenya loved it! Jasmin was a little scared but tried it twice for a short ride.  I place Jasmin right in front of Kenya.  It was such a cute site.  I was I had a camera with me then to take a picture. 
Kenya also fell off of the horse.  That makes it the second time in her life falling off a horse.  Neither fall seemed to bother her much after just a few minutes. 

Right now we are in Libby, MT at my mom's house taking a little vacation after returning from China on June 11th.  Robert will start work at the same job he had before in Idaho Falls on the 8th of July.  We are excited for next week when more of my family will be coming to visit for the 4th of July.  Then off to Idaho we go.  Finding a place to live is challenging this time.  We have looked into buying a house instead of renting because it could be cheaper, but it just must not be the right time for us to buy.  So, here is praying that we find a place to live soon!  Let me know if you have an suggestions for places around the Idaho Falls area.

Thank you, Lois!

I want everyone to know that Lois is phenomenal! We counted our European vacation as our 14-year dating anniversary. Granted it was her turn, per tradition, to plan what we’d do to celebrate she planned and searched and researched the whole trip by her self! Yes, she asked me for my opinion on things from time to time, but ultimately she got all the tickets and everything taken care of, making this anniversary one to remember forever. I don’t know how I’m ever going to top this. I would totally hire her as a travel agent too! We paid the lowest prices we could for traveling with children and in the most comfortable way too. Even better, she followed promptings from the Holy Ghost to purchase tickets, hotel rooms, restaurants and so on! Obviously, that’s not all that makes her the greatestest, (extra e-s-t was intentional) woman ever, but I wanted to give Lois the credit she deserves! 

This is what forever families are all about!! We went to Europe with the main focus of our trip being to serve in the temple. Heavenly Father blessed us so much that we were able to go to the temple 3 times and one time we got to go together because there was someone willing and someone we could trust to watch our kids! The girls may be a little young to remember any of this in the future, but I tried to take lots of pics and vids to capture as much as I could so that they realized that because we first sought the kingdom of God that we were blessed with  an amazing trip and we did it all as a family.

I love you for time and all eternity, Lois! Thanks for some of the best memories I’ll ever have and for making this a very special anniversary.

Venice, Italy

At the last minute we decided to go to Venice for the day before our flight.  Really it didn't work out to well, but was well worth it.  We wanted to leave in the morning first thing but our girls were way too tired and Marzia had a Dr apt mid morning and would not be able to get us to the train station.  So then we were headed for a 12:50 trastain but did not make it in time.  So we ended up on a 1:50 train and got here about 3:30.  We then looked around for the B&B that we had looked into that morning and walked about at least 45 minutes.  Then were were blessed and saw a travel agency and went in to book a hotel.  We got all the info we needed to get around from the travel agent. We changed location and found a hotel close to the airport because our flight leaves tomorrow morning.  So we finally got to our hotel dropped stuff off and then headed by bus to Venice at about 5pm.  So much for a day in Venice.  But it was well worth it.  We simply went and walked around.  We marveled again at the building and art.  We ate an expensive ok tasting Italian dinner and walked some more.  Venice was by far our favorite PLACE in Italy even if were were only there for 3 hours.  However of course being with our friends was the most fun.

One of our first views of Venice.

Of course there were many shops selling Venetian masks.

Yeah, here, no cars.  Water is the way of transportation. 

 

Kenya neat the water.  Both of the girls loved that the city was in the water!

We actually only saw one private gondola on the water and there were 3 Asian men inside it. 

Kenya really wanted to take pictures here.

 

On our first water bus.  Yes, they have boats that work as buses in Venice.  NICE!

Jasmin and I enjoying the boat ride and looking with awe at this city!

These masks were more fancy and of course more expensive.  They were pretty awesome!

At dinner in Venice, Italy.  I cannot believe we were actually there. 

We walked around and took the water buses around.  Most of our pictures of are before the sun went down.  We did make it to San Marco square.

We got back to our wonderful hotel about 9:30 and our girls are fast asleep.  We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.  We fly home to Wuhan, China via Paris.  I hope all goes well.  I am sure it will.  These girls have been such troopers.  All we ask is one more day. 

Bologna, Italy

On Monday we went int Bologna with Cristiano, our friend whom we were staying with.  He was headed there for work and so we got free ride there.  We spend all day there and returned to his home in the evening with him.  Again we were just amazed at being in the presents of so many beautiful things and old things!!  We walked day Independence Ave which is a lot of shopping and then to the big square and tourist building and such.  We went into 3 churches and saw a lot of wonderful building and art.  We were there on Monday and all of the museums are closed on Mondays, bummer, but would the girls really enjoy those.

This was a bridge that we crossed over to start our journey in Bologna.

This is what was below the bridge.  Unfortunately there was not information about.  We assumed it was the really old bridge.

More art.  Jasmin is really into horses right now for of course we got a picture by it.

This was attached to the bridge we crossed.  I sure wish I knew what it was. I would have loved to know the history.

This was an entrance to some offices with a beautiful courtyard in the middle.

This picture is of where the first university was in Bologna.  I learned information about what this place was by listening into an English tour group going through. 

Many of the churches we saw through out of trip were Catholic churches of course because of the Roman Empire and influence.  The art work was wonderful!

St. Dominic Church

Apparently somewhere in the church there as a Michelangelo statue.  Nothing was labeled or at least not in English.

One of the many offering alters.

Yummy!  This is where we bought a snack. 

Doesn't this scream Italian!!

 The last tourist site we saw was the "Former Jewish Ghetto."   This was my one piece of WWII history that I got glimpse of.  It is still very much a ghetto.  I think this was the only museum in all of Bologna that was open.  We got to go in.  The museum was more of an overall Jewish history museum, but it did include a small amount of the WWII history.  Interesting.  As we were walking the streets I was able to ponder that this very spot is where the Nazi's (and others I learned) confined the Jews.  If I had more time and was not trying to appease 2 small children I could have gotten overwhelmed by the feels I felt as I thought about it.  What horror there must of have been on those very streets.  What horrible crimes against humanity must have been committed.  I know that the Italian did not follow all of the orders from the Nazi Party about Jews during the war so I am sure much worse happened else where, but I cannot imagine what went on in those streets and the feeling the Jews at that time must have felt. 

This is a picture of the tribute to the Jew from this area that died in the Holocaust.

Afterward we did a little shopping and had the BEST Italian meal.  It was the Italian food that people rave about.  (Really until this point we were wondering what all the rave was about!)

That night we went back to our friends house and I then cooked hamburgers and fried chicken for their oldest son's birthday party.  There was also so very yummy homemade Italian food.  We partied hard late into the night (like 11:00pm, but that is late for children who are use to going to bed at about 8:00pm).

Reno Centese, Italy

We were blessed to have friends in Italy to stay with.  We actually met these friends randomly in Wuhan, China.  They lived in the same giant apartment complex as we do.  We met them actually after we had only been in Wuhan for a couple of weeks.  We then began close friends.  It is wonderful and  our children play together.  They have 3 children and are expecting their 4th with a month.  Really we love them!! We really just wanted to hang out with them and see a little of Italy.  And that is just what we did.  For the first few days we ate at some restaurants and ran errands with them.  It was nice for the girls to have children to play with and just relax.   The first week we just went site seeing and really the girls didn't have a lot of time to just play.  They fed us good Italian food and we enjoyed excellent company.
Italy is not the most friendly place we have been.  Really.  There is not explanations of their building or site seeing places and I don't mean in English.  The Italian are clueless as to the history and details of things because they are just not posted anywhere.  That was frustrating for me.  I wanted to know how old things were what they were used for and so on.  Germany was wonderful for that!!  
On Saturday we went into Ferrara and say an Italian castle.  It had a mote and everything!  We were able to walk around and experience the culture.  We only spent a few hours there at sunset so the picture are scares and not very good.

This is one of the churches in Ferrara.

We had to get a picture of a pizza place.  This is very common to see.

Beautiful Italian streets of Ferrara

A Church in Ferrar

All the kids and me. 

Wonderful art on every building!

Approaching the castle as dusk.

The Estes Castle.

This castle even still has a moat around it.  COOL!

A cool looking torch as we entered in the square of the castle grounds.

This castle is famous for the Estes Cannon and we think these must be some of the cannon balls.  They were all over the grounds.

Here we are again posing on the cannon balls.

Jasmin conquered the stack.

We think this is a replica of one of the cannons.

So then on Sunday Marzia's very traditional Italian momma made tortellini.  From scratch.   She made the pasta, rolled it out, cut it and then stuffed it with an amazing filling of cheese and meat which she made from scratch.  She TRIED to teach us.  It is hard! 

Next to me is Marzia's mom and in the background our friends Marzia and Cristiano.

This is some beef that we treated ourselves too.  Yummy tender beef.  We do not see much of it in China.

We had a wonderful time with our friends!  We ate at a few local restaurants with them and the children PLAYED a lot!  Every night we were there we were up past 10:00pm having fun.  One thing that we learned about Italian is that they eat late.  It took our girls a couple days to adjust.  I mean they don't eat dinner until sometime after 8:00pm.  We usually eat around 5:30 and are going to bed at 8.  We had to do a lot of snacking.