She's Here!!

She's Here!!! We came into the hospital last night at around 5:00 p.m. Celeste was up all night with contractions and around 7:30 a.m. the Doctor arrived and ordered the epideral. Celeste absolutley LOVED the epideral. At 10:00 a.m. Celeste was dialated to about a 3 almost a 4 and by 11:00 a.m. she was at a 10. She started to push around 11:30 a.m. and by Noon we had our new addition to the family. Celeste did great with the whole process. I am so proud of her. I was able to cut the cord and our baby girl was finally here to see us. She has a bit of hair like an old man with a bald top and hair on the side. Its pretty dark hair which surprised us both. I think she looks more like Celeste, so obviously she is beautiful. She for sure has Celeste's tongue (snake like). She was 6 pounds 12 ounces and 20.25 inches long. We named her Brindi Rae. Rae is after my mother (JoRae) and my grandmother (NaRae) and Brindi is the name she can claim as her own. Welcome to the Lovell clan our precious daughter.

The top picture is several hours after the birth and the one above this paragraph is right after the birth. The other three are also back in the other room. She has been sleeping a lot and as you can tell Mom and Baby are pretty tuckered out after the whole ordeal. But they are both doing great. If the pictures are too small to see you can click on them and they will bring up a larger version.

TFID

Today, Joe accepted an offer to work as a Recreation Coordinator for the city of Twin Falls! We are really excited and anxious to settle down for a little bit! He starts the middle of June, so we have a busy few weeks ahead of us with the baby coming and the move! Slowly, but surely we are getting closer to family.... So here we come TWIN FALLS!!!!

Here come the In-laws!

We were so excited to have Joe's parents come for the weekend! They drove 12-13 hours just for his graduation. We had a blast having them here...hopefully they found some enjoyment too.
I was able to get most of Friday off so we headed up to Elk River to hike to some falls, but we were disappointed because the road was completely covered with snow so we couldn't even make it to the trail head and I was hoping maybe it would put me into labor so that Joe's parents could see her before they left, but oh well. We did find some very good huckleberry icecream though. We also got to walk around the U of I campus a little and see a part of their gardens that are just starting to get their flowers and green up. Saturday was of course the big Graduation day for Joe. Good thing Sylvan was around to take pictures! He got some great ones! After that we went to the luncheon for Joe's department. Saturday evening Joe's parents spoiled us with a Hell's Canyon boat ride up the snake river.
The prime rib and salmon were great. The best part for me was the 9 FOOT 2 INCH fish that a man caught. It looked like a shark to me...and I will not be swimming in that water...that's just a little to big for me. Anyway we went by just before 6 and the guy had just snagged it and when we came back by at about 7:30 he had just finished reeling it in a few minutes before. I would be SO tired, I can't imagine fighting a fish for that long...and everything is catch and release so he didn't get to keep that huge prize. We also saw some big horn sheep, deer, and a golden eagle with a fish. It was an exciting trip. We had a great weekend having them here. We were sad to see them go, but I bet they are excited to get back to their king size bed after 3 nights away.

Graduation

Hurrah for Graduation! Joe did it! He finished his Masters in Recreation and is SO happy that school is over... for now at least... who knows what the future might hold, but I want him to know how proud I am of him! Congratuations Babe, you amaze me!

Cinco de Mayo - The Big 22

This is the time of year that I do not mind telling people how old Celeste and I are because as of today and for the next 8 months we are only 5 years apart in age. That is right, my cute wife turned 22 today. After chasing her around the apartment for while with no luck of giving her 22 spankins I settled for making her a birthday cheesecake. Her work also gave her flowers and a brownie and she was showered with birthday cards from families and friends. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABE!

Outdoor Workshop

It is getting close to the end of the semester and my Major Professor wanted to do a culminating experience for all the students. We created an Outdoor Workshop which was a two-day campout where each of us created, led, followed, and played a bunch of recreational activities. Our deparment (HPERD) approved it and also funded the entire workshop. It was great. There were 20 of us that went. We had an opening and closing ceremonies and the other activities included: Frisbee Golf, Morse Code, GeoCaching, Extreme Crochet, Horseshoes, Orienteering, Flora/Mushroom Hike, Arts and Crafts, Stories, Tree Ball, Wiffle Ball, Skits, Biking, Paint Ball/Capture the Flag, and Canoeing. The semester is almost over and this was a great way to end my year of graduate school.

This is extreme crochet with two of my classmates. I took second.

We played Frisbee Golf through the whole area. Whoever won the hole would get to pick the next hole.

GeoCaching with Asmad. We cruised through the course and did the course faster than any other group. Too bad we didn't get a prize for that.

Dutch oven lasagna. I made a vegetable lasagna with white sauce. It was acutally pretty good for not having any meat.

Hanging out around the fire waiting for Dinner.

The Flora/Mushroom Hike. It was a little cold for Mushrooms but we did find some trillium.

You have to love playing Horseshoes if you go camping.

This was my Canoeing group. Out of the 8 canoes that went down the river, 4 of them tipped over. The water was freezing. Luckily my canoe was not one of the ones that tipped.

This is right before we played paintball. There is a ROTC guy in my class that was able to get us all the paint ball guns and paint balls for free along with our camoflage attire. I was ambushed and shot simultaneously in the ear and butt. What a way to be eliminated.