Sunburns and School...

Since my last post, we have brought back a family member, vacationed, and I took my first belly picture.

We moved! It's only about a half mile from our old house but it's secluded (we only have one neighbor), bigger (3 WHOLE BEDROOMS), and has a sweet back yard for the beasts! We are pretty much moved in and settled for now. I'm sure that will change in a couple of months.




The view from our new backyard.

With August came Elder Brown! Derek came home on the 9th and hasn't stopped moving since. He stepped off the plane after serving a 2 year mission in Virginia and shortly thereafter on the 12th he stepped back on a plane along with my Mom and Dad, Garrett, Bradford, and I. We were off to tour the east coast starting in New York and ending in Virginia. My parents have never been past Colorado and this would probably be the only time they would make it out to the east coast. So we dubbed Bradford our tour guide and when we stepped off the plane and JFK and didn't stop until the 19th.





We toured Liberty and Ellis Island and cruised up and down Times Square. The next morning we woke up to POURING RAIN! The rain poured all day and didn't stop just because the Browns were in town. We rode the subway out to Coney Island and unfortunately the entire pier was closed so we walked through the New York Aquarium and ate Nathan's Hot Dogs. If you have never had a Nathans hot dog you are missing out. They say it's the 100 year old grills that make them as good as they are but I think it's just the hot dog itself. So yummy and tasty in all of it's snappy goodness. Mmmmmmmm! The rest of that day, other than braving the weather, the broken down subways, and soggy shoes, we stopped at Ground Zero and see the Freedom Tower and the new memorials they are building. We then loaded up and headed down to Washington DC where we toured through the streets and saw the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, Lincoln Memorial, The White House, the Capitol Building, and walked through the Museum of Natural History. Then it was off to Virginia where we hit what I think was the world's BIGGEST outlet mall, roasted ourselves at Virginia Beach. After a flight cancellation we finally made it home, blisters and all.




Garrett was the worst vacation buddy. He pouted the whole trip about how he was mad he was "missing school" but I think it was more of his little friend who is a girl back home...





Bradford's lovely 2nd degree burns he brought home from Virginia Beach

Now we are back home, school has started and Bradford is in full swing with nursing school in Globe. He loves his teacher and is ROCKING all of his tests and quizzes. I am just completely and utterly happy that he is finally in school! I will sacrifice Bradford for a couple of days a week and countless hours of studying for him to be in school and be moving forward.

As for Baby Bigler, things are going great! I have taken my first "belly picture" with encouragement from friends. I see myself as a barrel on toothpicks and I feel like a beached whale sometimes. I think to myself that I have a while but in all reality I am less than 3 months away! I have a growing list of things that need to get done and I feel like I have NO TIME to do them. The nursery is slowly coming together piece by piece but it is very slowly. He is getting bigger and I am starting to get more and more uncomfortable. My scrubs are starting to get tighter and tighter. My feet are getting bigger and bigger! I don't have a single pair of shoes that fit due to the fact I have gone up a size since being pregnant. I am starting to get more moody and emotional. I cried like a baby when Bradford told me a story of a little dog on the side of the road on the reservation that was limping on three legs. It's pathetic! My standard attire at home is a pair of Bradford's basketball shorts and a t-shirt. Baby Bigler is a mover and a shaker and loves to tap dance on my bladder, but I still love him.

Other than that we have just been busy being busy. Until next time, farewell dear friends! Prepare yourself for the belly...

Half baked...

Today marks 20 weeks for me! Half way done and I'm feeling pretty good. I have no complaints but I have noticed that I can fall asleep the minute I become horizontal. I'm normally the one that can stay up and party until the wee hours of the morning. This past week we had our 20 week check up with my Dr. and found out we are having a....

BOY!!!

I am COMPLETELY EXCITED and Bradford is pretty stinking excited too. I already have like 4 boxes of baby boy clothes and accessories courtesy of my mom and Grandma but I'm not quite sure where we are going to put everything. Our little one bedroom house was already pretty full and now adding what is going to be the most spoiled child on the planet we are going to look like hoarders with only a pathway through our house.



From our most recent appointment this is the one photo she sent us home with. Not much of a profile picture but this is the one shot that proves that little guy in there is truly a little guy.

Aside from all the hustle and bustle of preparing for a baby we have found time to have some fun. There is a pond out in Pima about 20 minutes from our house called Cluff pond and we have gone out there a couple of times this summer to take the dogs out to run off some energy. Maggie isn't very fond of the water but amazingly I was out wading in the water and she came right out after me and tried to climb onto my shoulders. Braum however LOVES the water and would lay in it all day if we gave him the chance. The rest of the summer is spent gardening, working, cleaning, working, Bradford getting ready to start nursing school in August, and more working.








We are just enjoying the remainder of our time together as a just Bradford and Valerie before Baby Biggs makes an appearance in November/December-ish.

More happenings...

There is no reason to beat a dead horse but I must say this once again that I really need to get better at this. Let me start with a short story from where we left off...

Thanksgiving was spent with the Brown side of the family this year. Like a good photographer I took a whopping three pictures all weekend. The weekend was good fun and it was nice to eat to my hearts content, and let me tell you it was YUMMY!

Christmas time rolled around and we spent it with the Bigler side of the family. Christmas Eve we went to my in-laws to stay the night and had a Wii sword fighting contest where I swear I tore my rotator cuff. I couldn't move my right arm past my belly button without yelping. It took a good week to recover. It made me realize that my dream of becoming a professional fencer swirled on down the drain into oblivion.

All in all it was a good holiday season for us in the Bigler household, even if I have but two paragraphs to show for it.

As many of you know my life from about the end of October to mid-February is consumed by wrestling. As much as I gripe and moan I really do enjoy it. Yes, every weekend is spent on the road with a bunch of stinky teenage boys but they are the funniest group of teenage boys I have ever met. I enjoy watching Bradford coach those boys and set the on the right path, not just with wrestling but with life. The past two years there have been two boys on his team that have gotten baptized and one is on his mission. As much stress and voice-less days those boys cause me, they truly are examples to each other and to me.

Here I am blogging for the first time in 6 months and I have 800 things to say but not sure how to start. I had started a post on my struggles with infertility. It seemed like I spent more nights crying and clinging to Bradford over the lack of children in my life than I did happy. I was totally and completely happy for friends and family members but there was always a tiny twinge deep in the pit of my stomach longing for that, longing for the one thing we as women were placed on this Earth for. From the beginning of this world we were placed here with the potential for motherhood and when that opportunity evades us nothing can compare to the sense of loss you feel, the sense of loss I felt. Not very long ago I was reading a story in the Ensign titled "Faith and Infertility". Knowing I have my faith to cling to gives me some comfort in those moments of deep hardships and trials.

Here now it's Mothers Day and I not very long ago I was celebrating my "potential" motherhood, now today Bradford and I are completely happy to announce and I truly celebrating my first "real" Mothers Day!

We are completely excited and thrilled to be having our OWN baby! I am so excited but it still doesn't seem real to me. Having gone so long without it makes such good news seem unbelievable. I stare at my fridge everyday realizing that little peanut is mine and I thank my Heavenly Father everyday for the struggles and tears I went through to get to this point. I know I am prepared more so now than I ever have been to have this baby and to love and care for it more than my own life. Of course Bradford is pretty dang excited to but I have commandeered this blog so his happiness will be expressed through me. Along with my happiness comes my hopes and prayers for those who struggled just like me for something as special at this. I know the Lord has his timeline and in His time we all will be blessed.

So until next time...bon voyage! The next update will probably be closer the the end of May with my 12 week appointment. WOO! HOO!

Happenings...

I am really bad at this blogging gig. I am surprised that they don't kick people off who don't update their blogs after months.

4th of July was held and Bradford's parents house in Virden once again and it was filled good BBQ pit meat, firearms, and fireworks.

Before school started Troy and Whitney and their little girl Evie took a trip out to Bonita Creek to grill some burgers and enjoy the EXCELLENT weather we have been having. Our swimming idea was ruined by recent rains making the river look like hot chocolate there was so much mud and it was running at about 30 mph and I didn't feel like becoming a piece of cheese run over the cheese grader rocks.

We also were invited to attend a U of A football game by friends of ours Ryan and Jade. Ryan and I went to nursing school together so it seemed when we were able to hang out so was Ryan and Jade. Convenient. Ryan's dad has season tickets to the U of A football games and they are DIE HARD U of A fans. We went down that Saturday and shopped around a little and then went to the game. I have never been to a "professional" football game. When I say professional I mean a football game other than high school or my alumni EAC, so this was a whole new experience for me. I was not prepared for the amount of standing I was going to do. Pretty much the entire game we stood and cheered and yelled and boo'd. My knees were the size of cantaloupes by the time we left and I am sad to say the Brown bad luck curse proved real. U or A lost 27-29 but I am happy to say that the reffing was AWFUL and I know my lack of luck was not the only thing affecting the outcome of the game. All in all it was an AMAZINGLY fun weekend and it was nice to just get away even if it was just to Tucson.

This semester is the first semester in quite some time that not only one but two of us are out of school. Bradford finished his last set of classes over the summer and was getting his paper work together to apply for the nursing program. Thankfully he got everything in order and turned in his papers about 2 weeks ago and we are hoping for good news this month or hopefully by the end of November. We are saying lots of prayers and crossing our fingers. We have been able to attend the Temple here in the Gila Valley a couple of times and it's always a good feeling to be able to have calm and serene moment during all the rushing and running of our daily lives. To be able to sit and admire the beauty and soak in the peace you feel being there. It's hard to describe the sheer peace that the Temple holds for me. I am so thankful and feel so blessed that I am able to attend the temple and remember those covenants I made to my Heavenly Father. That is true serenity.

The week before Halloween a SPOOKTACULAR PARTY was held at the Bigler household. We had SEVERAL of our friends come over and the only requirement was that they must dress up. There was food, games, and of course FUN!!! The line-up included:

- Matt and Rhianna (I don't even know what these little creatures are called but I LOVED them!)

- Heather and Brandon (They switched careers for a night and were a correction officer and a nurse.)

- Troy and Whitney (Pancho Via and her trusty steed Troy!)

- Trevor and JanaRae (Hard rocker Brett Michaels and Oprah)

- Stefani and Guy (I just CAN'T get over Stef's face in this picture but they were the cutest old couple ever!)

- Tyler and Taylor (Teacher and disobedient student who received a pencil to the head.)

- Bradford and Val (Dog the Bounty Hunter and his SMOKING HOT wife Beth!)

- Jason and Alissa
(Fierce and fabulous pirates)

Thank you for being so patient with me when it comes to blogging. I was at a friends house and she was going over her blog friends and said, "we won't look at yours because you never update." I will admit, I'm AWFUL!!! I swear to it I will get better. The holidays are coming and I know there will be plenty of stories to tell. MUAHAHAHAHAHA! Stay tuned!!!

May

Let me start out with a little tale...

Once upon a time it was in the wee hours of the morning (2:06 AM to be exact). There was a B-E-A-UTIFUL princess and a handsome prince who were snuggled sleeping in their bed. There little pet doggie had to take a tinkle and jumped up on the bed to wake them up. The princess (who looks amazing for it being 2 o'clock in the morning) wakes up to take the sweet puppy outside. Upon opening the door to let the doggie out she sprinted outside and didn't even stop and leaped over the fence and out into the wide open world. The princess was afraid for her poor puppy so she put on her royal robes and stepped outside into the cool night air to retrieve her lost dog. She called and walked and called again and her sweet puppy was no where to be found. She climbed into her royal chariot to hunt for her lost friend. After searching for 30 minutes with no luck in retrieving her puppy she turned into the wicked witch of 2nd street and started calling and yelling for the BEAST to come home. Finally her luck would turn. She had trapped the aweful beast in a neighbors garden and with her laser pointer in one hand and a biscuit in the other she was sure the beast's capture was inevitable. The princess called and coaxed and begged the beast from HELL to come to her but with a blink of an eye the beast and lept over the bushes and was back on the run. With fire in her veins the princess stormed back into her castle and called for the prince to go and capture the beast. The prince awoke with a fright and assured the princess he would capture the beast and bring it home to be locked in the dungeon. Within 5 short minutes he had captured the beast and locked her in the dark and dreary kennel to spend the night. The time of capture was 3:15 in the morning. That afternoon the prince and princess set out to find a way to contain their beast. And this is what they found....

An electric fence. Not just any electric fence, an invisible fence. It can be buried in the ground so it is safe for people. The evil beast now wears a collar that has a little conductor on it that sends a little shock when the beast tries to get too close to the fence therefore preventing the beast from ever jumping it again. Now I am not a cold hearted person so I went ahead and shocked myself and Bradford to make sure we weren't turning her into fried chicken and it wasn't really anything more than a static electricity shock. But the problem of the fence jumping dog: SOLVED!!!

The beast cowering under the porch swing after being shocked two or three times. MUAHAHA! (Notice the little black box on her neck aka the solution to my problem)

On a happier note, Bradford and I were able to get together with the Kerby's for a night on the town and some sweet bowling. Unfortunately Taylor and I only beat the boys once ONLY because they acted like they couldn't bowl for the first game. Liars and cheats!

Despite the fact I swore I wasn't going to walk at graduation, the closer and closer it got to being time to graduate I got an itch. I wanted to have the experience and by-golly I was going to. So, I walked at EAC's graduation in May even after I had officially graduated in December. It was short and sweet and to the point.

Whitney, Dustynn, and I all sat by each other but when it came time to have our picture taken this FLK in front of us leaned in just enough to cover Whitney. You can barely see her waving hand behind his head. Stinking kid!

I called my parents a week before graduation to tell them I was going to walk. They reluctantly came down and supported me. Thanks mom and dad!

We are officially gardeners! We planted corn, watermelon, and tomatoes. This picture is from a while ago because we have already picked a couple of ears of corn and ate them and they were YUMMY!!! We haven't had that much luck with our watermelon. Everytime one starts to get bigger than a volleyball they crack open leaving all of its goodness out in the open to the elements. I hope we get one good one out of the bunch we have growing. Our tomato plants haven't faired so well either. They have bloomed like crazy but not a single tomato until today! I noticed one little green marble sized mater looking awefully delicious on the vine! MMMM MMMM!!!!

April...

A lot has been happening in the month of April. Mostly filled with get togethers and many trips to Ice King have a sweet, smooth ice cream cone on the warmer spring nights. As soon as the month started, the parties started.

On Friday, April 2nd Bradford was in HEAVEN! A couple of friends of ours Ryan and Jade were tempted in by Bradford and I to go to Globe to the casino for their all you can eat crab leg night. Jade and I aren't much in for seafood so we didn't get to enjoy it as much as Ryan and Bradford but they ate enough for the both of us and got our money's worth. The rest of the food at the buffet wasn't too great so I was craving a greasy burger about 10 minutes after the boys were done. We gambled away every last nickel, dime, and quarter left in our pockets because we are all so poor we couldnt afford more. HAHA! I think between the four of us we spent $20 and walked away with NOTHING! Not a habit I think I could ever catch on to. I am WAY too cheap. When we got home I realized how bad the casino smelled. I swear I developed COPD just from sniffing my clothes they were so smokey. YUCK!

Bradford turned 30 on April 13th and it's hard to believe that I am married to a 30 year old! We had a party/ BBQ on the Saturday before at our house. We invited a bunch of friends and just hung out. Being the amazing person I am I totally charged my camera battery before the event to capture this once in a lifetime opportunity but much to my avail I managed not to take a single picture of that night. All I can describe to you about that day is the weather was perfect and the food was good.

That next Tuesday was Bradford's actual birthday and we celebrated with his family at our house. It is nice to be able to get the whole family under one roof just to hang out and chat. Our nieces and nephew ran in and out all night and I did manage to snap a picture or two of them.

Mason wasn't very interested in paying any attention to me while Brailynn wanted all the attention. Lauren doesn't usually look so....strange...she wanted to show me her missing teeth.

The weekend of the 16th and 17th we took a trip down to Surprise to visit my side of the fam-dam-ly. My dad's birthday is the 16th so we went out to dinner and got on one anothers nerves for the weekend. Saturday was full of garage sale-ing and Garrett had a baseball game that evening. They got creamed but I was impressed to see he was THE best player on the team. And when I say the best player I mean he is the ONLY player that had touched a baseball or a bat before tryouts came around. It was ridiculous!

I had to post this picture of my mom. She HATES when I post scary/stupid/not wearing make-up pictures of her for the whole world to see. (Refer to Christmas post for a GREAT picture of her on Christmas morning) LOVE YOU MOM!

April 23rd was the first day of the open house for the Gila Valley Temple. What a special experience it was to be able to walk through the new temple in our valley and see all the hard work and details put into it. I have never been to an open house so it was special for me to be able to just walk through and stare at every last feature on the walls, the colors, and especially the GAZILLION shiny crystals hanging from the chandelier in the Celestial Room. AMAZING!!! We are so blessed to have a temple so close to us now and I am so so so very happy that we don't have to make a 3 hour trip anymore to receive those blessings. We can see the temple from right down our street!

The Gila Valley Temple

(sorry the picture isn't that great, I took it on my cell phone)

The Kenneth Bigler family reunion was on April 24th at Bradford's Aunt Sharon's house in Safford. Kenneth Bigler is Bradford's grandfather that passed away when Bradford was really young. Grandpa Bigler was married three times and has about 500 kids! Ok, not really that many but it seems like it. They all get together once a year to gab and eat. It was really fun and got some cute pictures of the kids.

Julia aka The Firecracker

Bradford's cousin Adam. We spent the summer after we got married with them in Connecticut.

Emma. I wish that Adam and Kayla would let me take her home with me. She is a doll.

My niece Lauren

Hannah held onto that Mountain Dew the whole way down the slide and didn't spill a drop. HAHA!

That night we took the older girls to Ice King (we like to get the addicted while they're still young). They were so funny and I was laughing so hard at some of the things they said. Oh to be that age again where you didn't have a care in the world other than the color your rainbow sno-cone makes when you mix it all together.

I have more to post but the hour is nigh and it's bedtime for old fart Val. Goodnight until next time. FAREWELL!!!