Don't worry we haven't fallen off the face off the planet

I know it seems like it, but we haven't fallen off the face of the planet, I swear, time has just been flying by this summer! I guess I better start off with the most exciting news. The rumors are true; we’re having a BABY!! The newest McClenaghan will arrive the beginning of December and we can’t to meet the little guy! Yes you heard right, it’s a boy, we found out the other week and we certainly have a proud dad over here! Pregnancy has certainly been a unique experience, I’ve made it through the being sick phase, the “is she pregnant or is she just getting fat” phase, and now I’m on to heart burn, but don’t get me wrong it’s a great feeling to know that my little boy is growing inside of me. The ultrasound showed that he was pretty long, but let’s be honest that wasn’t much of a surprise.

Our little guy at 18 weeks.

One of Todd's proudest moments

And here is the much anticipated belly shot.  It's crazy how much I've popped out in the last couple weeks.

21 weeks

We started off our summer selling security systems up in Grande Prairie, Canada. Todd did really well selling, I didn’t fare quite as well, I blame it on being exhausted and pregnant all

 the time while we were there, but it makes me even more proud of how hard Todd worked. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of Grande Prairie, it is one the northern most cities in Alberta, just to get an idea of where we were this was the exit sign on the one highway that ran through the city.

It’s been fun to back in Canada for summer 

because we’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with family. 

I made my little sisters play models so that I could play with my new camera.

Because of my dads job we were able to go to  a Stampede BBQ with Steven Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada.

Todd’s sister got married last week, and all of his siblings were able to fly out with all their kids. There were thirty of us all living in one house; it was quite the party. The wedding was wonderful, and we were able to get some really great shots of the new couple.

We spent a few days camping with Todd family near Lake Huron, and had so much fun. We swam and hiked, and I think I ate my weight in roasted marshmallows.

We spent a day a place called the Grotto. I have never seen such clear water in all my life, it was beautiful. There was endless cliff jumping and exploring to be done. If you tell anyone who has ever been there before that you went, they want to know if you swam under the Grotto. It’s an underwater tunnel that runs from inside the cave out into the lake. You have to hold your breath for nearly a minute, while you’re swimming through the deep, freezing cold water. Todd has known about it since he was young but had never tried it (the stories of people dying are slightly intimidating!), so he and his brothers took the plunge. Thankfully they all made it out alive, but not necessarily scratch free. Todd clipped his head on a rock on his way out, it was a little messy but now he’ll have the scar to back up the story.

I can’t believe the summer is so close to being over, before we know it we’ll be back in sunny Phoenix, and back to the grind for Todd. We feel so lucky that we have been able to have such a great summer so far, and we still have some pretty exciting things still to come.

A quick recap...

I think the longer I put off blogging the harder it is to do.  It's been a while but we've had a lot of fun since I last blogged.  Todd had a week off school, it was so nice to have him all to myself for a week.  We started the break by camping with a few friends.  It was a lot of fun.  It is so relaxing to sit around the fire, I could stare at a fire for hours.

When we got back form camping we were able to go to our first Spring Training game.  It was a blast.   We sat on the grass and brought a picnic lunch, it was a little chilly but we still loved it.

 

Todd even caught a ball (well sorta!)

Todd's first week back at school we stayed with some really great kids while their parents were in Mexico.  We had a lot of fun with them, but there's a reason kids don't come 4 at a time!  

This past  Saturday Todd participated in the Tour de Cure; a 62 mile bike ride to raise money for diabetes.  He did amazing! He finished the race in great time.   I'm so proud of him!

A bunch of students and faculty all participated in the race together it was a really neat event.

Valentine's Day

On the Friday night before Valentine's day our friend Megan threw a stellar V-day party. We had such a nice time, it was fun to see everyone all dressed up, and the food was amazing. Megan, being the sweetheart that she is, pulled out all the stops, we had place cards, fun drinks and the lady's all took home roses, she even made a CD of every one's wedding song and had it playing in background. Thanks again Megan! There was this great fireplace where the party was, and a few couples had us take their pictures there, but of course we forgot to take ours, so use your imaginations!

On Saturday we had a pretty low key day, but it was nice. The young men had two basketball games and got two "W's", way to go coach! Todd had a bit of studying to do so he headed of to school and I started getting supper ready. We made heart shaped pizzas, watched the "Dunk Contest" and just hung out, it was a great Valentine's Day!


*Please forgive the hideousness of the picture, like I said it was a really low-key day.

So I thought I'd try my hand at craftiness one more time...I am not a sewer but I had so much fun making this apron, I definitely see some new hobby potential!

I couldn't let my new apron go to waste so I made my first ever batch of home-made bagels.  They were delish, and the apron was very effective!

I DID IT!

Well today was my much anticipated 1/2 marathon, and I am still alive to blog about it! To be honest it was so much fun. I was a little bit worried about the weather but it turned out to be a great morning. The hills in the race made it harder than I had thought it would be, but I still ended up with a pretty decent time, and finished 8th in my age division. I was counting on my iPod to get me through the tough moments but it was just my luck that it completely died at about the half way mark. Seven miles can be a long time to be left to your thoughts! I was so grateful to have Todd there, he missed out on a lot of study time but it meant so much to me to have him there. He was incredibly supportive, he seemed to be there at all the hard spots cheering me on and taking my picture. I couldn't have done it without him, he even got me flowers for when I finished.

Other than the race we've had a lot of fun the past couple of weeks. Todd was called into Young Men's as the Priest Quorum advisor as well as the Basketball Coach, and loves it. We have such a great group of young men in our ward, and Todd is having a blast with them. We were also able to go watch an ASU basketball game, friends of ours got tickets through work, and brought us along. It was awesome, the environment was so exciting, Todd and I both agreed that it would have been a lot of fun to play it that kind of atmosphere. It was so neat to have the Cardinals in the Superbowl this year, the whole city seemed to come alive, and it made watching the game on tv was a lot more exiting. We also got tickets to see the Suns play, from season ticket holders who couldn't go, the players looked huge from that close up!

One of the disadvantages of being students is that we have fewer opportunities to go on dates, Todd has so much studying to do and let's face it were cheap! So the other day Todd was going to come home for lunch like he does every so often but instead of just eating at home we'd go on a picnic. I had everything all ready when Todd came through the door freezing. Needless to say, we had a slight change of plans, and had to re-route our picnic to the living room floor.

I am not particularly crafty but I've always wanted to be. So I started a project... We still hadn't bought a coffee table, so I decided to address that situation. I found a table on craigslist for really cheap and bought whatever the guy at Home Depot told me to. It isn't perfect but works for us, and I'm pretty proud of my craftiness.

This the "before shot".


After a couple of hours I had only sanded this much, luckily I got my hands on an electric sander, Jen you're a life saver!


The "after shot"

8 MILES!!!!

When we first moved to Arizona I got the bright idea that I wanted to run a 1/2 marathon. A few girls in the ward were doing one and I figured it would be fun, unfortunately I have a motivation problem...I run out it incredibly quickly! As was the case with my desire to run the 1/2 marathon. Well my lovely husband didn't want me to loose faith on 1/2 marathon dreams so for Christmas he registered me, unfortunately that only left me with 5 weeks to learn how to run 13 miles (I hadn't ran in months!)

I had to start out not going very far, but today I ran 8 miles, and in pretty good time. To you big time runners 8 miles might not seems like a whole lot, but it is definitely the furthest I have ever ran. Now I just have to figure out to add on another 5, and I'll be set! The race is in three weeks, and with a longer run under my belt I'm getting more excited and a lot more confident that I will actually be able to finish it.

Christmas etc.

We've been having so much fun since I last blogged. Christmas is such a great time of year. I figured this year we would start sending out Christmas cards, we didn't get very many out because I made them so last minute, but I mostly wanted to do it so we could look back thirty Christmas' from now and see where were at. Just so that you can fully understand what a procrastinator I am, and how last minute these cards really were, I made them on a Monday morning, we took the picture that night (on the side of the highway might I add) and I flew back to Canada on Tuesday, with the cards in tow. So Merry 'belated' Christmas from the McClenaghans


They were having a lovely winter back home, mild temperature and light snow, that was until we showed up! We experienced cold to a whole new level. There were a few days where -40 was the high. It only made it worse that we have become so acclimated to Arizona, that we practically shiver if it gets below sixty. It was the worst for all the kids all they wanted to do was go play outside but there were only a few days were it was warm enough. This year we had two Christmas' on with Todd's family another with mine. On Christmas eve with Todd's family all the nieces and nephews acted out the nativity it was too cute. We woke up bright and early, as I'm sure most people did (at least those with kids at Christmas) and the morning began. It was nice to spend time with family just relaxing. The two youngest kids got sick over the holiday, but with the number of kids there and the lack of sleep we could have had an epidemic on our hands.


We spent the next week with my family up in Calgary. Lauren is still little enough that it really doesn't matter to her when Santa comes so had Christmas all over again. It was so fun to see her get excited about Christmas, she loved to play with the Nativity scene. Kiersten and I had bought a necklace for her to give mom , Lauren helped wrapped it, but we sure if she totally understood. But on Christmas morning before she saw the tree or even asked about presents she going off to mom about a necklace, my mom pretty confused, so Lauren took her downstairs unwrapped the present herself and said "See mom, I got you a necklace" Lauren had broken the necklace by time we started opening the rest of the presents but it was a cute moment. We were planning on heading out snowboarding near the end of our trip, but remember those two little ones who got sick at Christmas...Todd does. Turns out he picked up strep from them, I guess its good he got it before we came back down, but we really wanted to go snowboarding.


I know Christmas isn't about the presents but I have to brag a little about this one. How great is my husband and my mom! I can't believe I got a Bosch Mixer, I wanted one so badly, but with the way the crappy Canadian dollar was, I didn't think it would work. Man, was I surprised. I love it! I've already used it pretty much every day since I've been home!


We really lucked out when we got home, a guy in Todd's class had a bunch of extra tickets to the Fiesta bowl, so we got to go! I didn't really realize that it was such a big deal until we got there, it was so fun. The first three quarters were a little slow but by the fourth everyone in the crowd was on their feet it was such an exciting environment.

(I couldn't figure out how to rotate the picture so just turn your head!)




As much as we loved our little vacation and miss our families while we're down here. I was nice get home, stop living out our suitcases and sleep in our own bed.