ITS A ...

 

The day has finally come and we are so excited! Not only did I have a hard time sleeping the night before because I was so excited, but two nights before I still had a hard time sleeping.

 

 

 

IT'S A GIRL!!!

 

We thought for sure it was going to be a boy because all the tests and the chinese calendar said it would be a boy.  But the thing that made us the most happy is knowing that she is healthy and everything is developing properly.  

We told our families over facetime by wearing pink leis

 

CAN'T WAIT TO MEET OUR BABY GIRL!

 

Toni and Braxton's Visit

Reunited at last!!  We knew it was going to be a good trip when we were waiting at the airport for Toni and Braxton to get off the plane, it was crowded and when we finally saw them in the distance, Braxton started screaming and fist pumping in the air.  We all started running towards each other for a big group hug, as the whole airport was staring at us.

We spent  a lot of time on the beach and snorkeling.  The boys started a new hobby on the trip..fishing!  Unfortantly they didn't catch anything, but they did hook a fish.  The fish was too big for our cheap Walmart fishing pole, and the line snapped.

 

 

We spent a day doing the Road to Hana.  It was such a beautiful ride.  Our first hike was through a bamboo forest, and that was creepy.  It was in the middle of a sunny day, but it was dark on the trail because the bamboo forest is so thick. 

The water falls were beautiful

 

Our next stop on the drive was Black Sands Beach in Waianapanapa State Park.  We had a nice picnic and then played on the beach until the clouds came and it started to rain.  Toni and I ran for cover in the car, but the boys weren't done playing so we waited in the car til they were done.

 



The cave at Black Sands Beach

 

We loved having Braxton and Toni in Maui with us.  They are wonderful friends.  We would all stay up late just talking and catching up. 

 

Kite flying

BBQ

Breakfast at The Gazebo

Snorkeling

 

Thanks Toni and Braxton for a wonderful time! We love you and miss you guys!



The First Trimester

I am so happy to be pregnant and to experience growing a human inside me.  With the blog I want to share this special time with friends and family, since we are so far from home.  I am also using the blog as a jounal to document this wonderful time in our life.  I don't want others to think that at times I am complaining, I just want to write about the good and the bad.
At 14 weeks on March 30, I was done with the first trimester and on to the second.  This pregnancy is actually going by really fast.  Each week I get an email saying the size, the development and information on the baby.  It is so intersting!
To be honest, I was excited to move on to the second trimester.  A little recap on the first 13 weeks of the pregnancy.  I was nauseous all the time, it didn't matter if it was morning, afternoon or night I was constantly sick.  I had to get up two times a night to pee. And I didn't have much energy, making it hard to work. I really cherished this time because it made me appreciate Braden so much because he was there to take care of me, he is the sweetest husband.  He was very understanding with everything, but I still felt bad because on our days off all I wanted to do was lay in bed.  He could have gone and hung out at the beach and snorkled, but he stayed home and took care of me instead. 
Although the first trimester was hard on my body, it was really good on our marriage! I am so thankful for Braden and cant wait for him to be a Dad!


Total weight gain: 2 pounds
Are you in Maternity clothes yet?: Nope.  But I did buy some maternity shorts, but I only wear them because they are super comfortable.
Stretch Marks?: Thankfully not yet.
Food Cravings?: Ice Cream!! Well.. I always crave ice cream, even before we were pregnant.  But I tell Braden that it is my pregnancy craving so he lets me get some at the store! :)
Anything making you queasy or sick?:  Sadly string cheese makes me sick and that sucks because I loved string cheese.
Happy or moody most of the time?: I should let Braden answer this one.  But I feel that I am happy most of the time.  Every once in a while I will get moody, but I try to have mind over matter.
Symptoms: Queasy, tired, and sore boobies.

 

14 weeks:  The end of the first trimeter

Then there were THREE

First comes love, then comes marriage.. then comes BABY in a baby carriage!!  We are so happy to announce that we are expecting our first baby!! We couldn't be happier!!
Before we got married, I was already baby hungry which wasn't the best timing because we were both 21 when we got married and still needed to find out what we needed to do in life.  I never tried to bring it up to Braden, but after a year of marriage I decided to have "the talk". So after the talk we prayed and fasted about it and no firm answer.  So a couple days before the April 2012 General Conference, we prayed to reciever our answer, during conference, if it was the right time for us to start trying.  The Sunday morning session started, and the first speaker was Elder Boyd K. Packer.  The title of his talk was And a Little Child shall lead them.  Two quotes that really stuck with me were, "The creation of life is a great responsibility for a married couple. It is the challenge of mortality to be a worthy and responsible parent." and "Husbands and wives should understand that their first calling—from which they will never be released—is to one another and then to their children." If that wasn't our answer, I didn't know what would be?  When he ended his talk, Braden and I were silent then looked at each other, with tears steaming down my face, we both had big smiles and knew the time was near.  We waited until we finished our internship in the Cayman Islands, and started trying in late August.  When we got the offer to manage a store in St. Augustine, that was a hard decision for us because I didn't want to have the baby while we were living far from family but we didn't want to miss out on this great opportunity.  So after talking with Del Sol and telling them our situation, they were very kind and cut our contract short so we could move back to Utah before the baby was born. So off to Flordia we went.

But things didn't turn out like we planned.  Month after month of getting negative pregnancy tests, I was getting pretty down and questioning alot of things "is something wrong with me" "will I ever be able to be a Mom" etc.  I feel terrible for those who take years to get pregnant or cant at all, my heart goes out to them.  Out of no where, we got a new offer to open a store in Maui and manage it.  Again, another hard decision to make but we weren't able to get pregnant and we didn't know how long it would take us so we accepted and went to Maui.  My parents were planning on coming and visiting us in March, but if we ended up getting pregnant and having the baby here, we wanted family to be here and with my Dads work schedule, I didn't know if they could come down more than once.  We were keeping it a secert from family that we were even trying, but we felt like it was time to tell our parents.  Braden's parents were in Maui on vaction with friends and we told them over dinner that we have been trying.  They were so happy for us and wished us the best. And then we told my parents so we could figure something out about when they would come visit.  Well, a week later I was late but I was afraid to take another pregnancy test because it might be another negative.  So I waited a few days and took a test.. I squeeked like a mouse and had the biggest grin on my face when I saw that POSITIVE sign on the pregnancy test!!! I went into our bedroom holding the test, crying ( and Braden thought, oh great.. another negative) then I said, We're Pregnant!!! He was so happy. It was a wonderful moment.  We started talking about when we should tell family.  We thought we would wait a couple weeks, but as the day went on the couple weeks turned to a week, then days, then tomorrow and then that night.  We were so excited that we couldn't keep it in.  It was hard to focus at work that day.  That night we were so exited to tell family.  We would have loved to tell them in person, but Facetime is the best we had.  Both of our parents had the same reaction, they are over joyed but shocked at first because we just told them a week before that we weren't pregnant.  Braden's sister, Alyssa, had the best reaction out of everyone.  It was hilarious.  When we told her, she froze then put her hands on her head and started jumping and running around the house, it was awesome! We only told our parents and siblings and then waited until after our first appointment to tell extended family and friends.

YAHOO!!

 

Baby Hirschi's first picture: Ultrasound at 6 weeks

8 week ultrasound- The baby is doing great and we were able to hear the heart beat at both 6 and 8 week appointments.

 

 

 5 weeks

 8 weeks

10 weeks

 

 CAN'T WAIT TO BE PARENTS!!

Valentines Day 2013

We had a wonderful Valentines Day!! We were lucky enough to have it off, so we spent the whole day hanging out with each other. 
We started our fun day off by going to the Aquarium.

Braden has a "small" obsession with fish and aquariums, so he was pretty much in heaven!

 

They had a huge shark tank and they let people dive in it, maybe that will be in the future for Braden. Me?.. no thanks!

 

There was a tunnel that went through the tanks, It was Awesome!

 

Braden just examining the very large string ray

 

We had a great time at the Aquarium! We are now proud owners of season passes, I'm sure we will visit it a lot.

 

We had dinner at Lahaina Pizza Co. It was so good.  And plus it was Thursday, we have to have pizza on Thursdays, its tradition.

 

Braden got me this Hershey Kisses necklace. I love it!!!

 

We hope everyone had a great Valentines Day, we sure did.



 



There is beauty all around

I can't get over the fact of how beautiful Maui is! The giant green mountains, the lava formations, the blue waters, the beautiful flowers and the daily rainbows.  On our days off, we try and spend as much time as we can outside enjoying our surroundings.

Kapalua Coastal Trail

He was a little too close to the ledge for my comfort

A little bit of whale watching while relaxing on the beach

Maui- The start of a new journey

After one layover in Portland, Oregon and 10 hours of traveling, we made it to Maui!!  The plane ride wasn't bad, but I was excited when the plane wheels landed in Hawaii so we could start our live here for a year.  Walking off the plane into the tropical winds and smell of fresh flowers, yeah.. we were home!  We went and got a rental car because we hadn't bought a car before we came because we wanted to wait until we got to Maui.  We had no idea where our apartment was but luckily we were able to get our landlords number so she could point us in the right direction.  We are so blessed and lucky with the apartment that we have.  It is about a 3 minute walk to work, a 2 minute walk to the beach and you can see the ocean from our bedroom window.  The apartment came fully furnished, all we needed were our clothes and food.
The night we arrived we walked over to the store to meet our interns and went right to work.  The store looks so amazing and we love our interns!

Sarah, Joy, Lexi, Braden, Jennica, Sara and Cole

Braden's parents, Lynn and Leslie, happened to have a trip planned to Maui with some friends before we knew we were going to move there. And they got there a few days after we did to stay for the week.  We had a great time, and they were so kind to let us tag along with them.  Here are some of our adventures...

 Road to Hana

Black Sand Beach

Climbed in the Banyan tree

And played in the waterfall!

And that was only one day off! We are excited to spend time exploring the island and making memories.  

Goodbye St. Augustine

It came to us as a big surprise that we would be cutting short our time in St. Augustine.  At the end of November, we got an email from corporate saying that they were very happy with the work we had done in St. Augustine, opening the store.  And that they had a dual store they are opening in Maui and are looking for a couple who knows both Del Sol and Cariloha, and asked if we are interested in relocating to Hawaii.  Our first reaction to the email was laughing, we couldn't believe that we could get an opportunity like this and still can't believe it.  After a couple days of thinking and praying about it, we gave them our decisions of relocating to Maui and started packing our bags once again. 

We were sad to be leaving St. Augustine because the ward was fantastic, we made some friends and we really liked our employees.  But also we were super excited to be living in Paradise, working less hours and having interns. 

This was our Christmas Eve activity, we walked around the town and across the famous Bride of Lions.

This is the statue right before the bridge, there is one on each side of the road. Like mother, like puppy son.. both our eyes are closed.

Driving from St. Augustine to Salt Lake... 2236 Miles.  Only having two days to do it in...Day 1 - 18 hours, Day 2 - 17 hours.  Being able to spend time with family... PRICELESS!

We had to mentally prepare ourselves for weeks to get ready for the drive.  We were also nervous about Dodger, because when we first drove to Florida, he was just a puppy and slept all the time.  We thought about giving him motion sickness medicine that would make him drowsy,  but we felt bad about drugging him.  He ended up being a great dog.  He just chilled on my lap most of the time.  Once we were getting closer to Utah the inside of our windows were frosting, but Dodger loved it  He would got to town licking the window.  I am usually against him licking the window cause it leaves weird marks but if it entertained him, I was all for it.

If he wasn't on my lap, he was just chilling in his kennel.

We had a great time with each other on the drive.  I told Braden that we would switch off driving so that we could take turns napping because it was going to be a long day and we didn't want either of us to get tired.  Well it was my turn to drive, and since our car was packed so full, the passenger seat was all the way forward and couldn't go back.  So Braden with his long legs couldn't fit and was very uncomfortable.  "Sadly" ;) he drove the whole way besides my 4 hour turn.  It was so fun having both of our parents tracking us. Every once in a while, I would get a text from my Dad telling me a story about the place we were about to pass or warming us about the weather coming up.  The best part about our drive was pulling into my parents driveway and being so surprised that our families were there to welcome us home!