Swine Flu?

On Thursday Brendan told me our next door neighbor had the swine flu and he wanted to move Hazel and I up to his parent's house for a few days. I told him we would be fine as long as we didn't come in contact with the neighbor. Later Thursday night while I was sleeping I started to get the chills. I had them for an hour and a half and could not get warm. Brendan tried to put lots of blankets on me, but my whole body was shaking. I had a fever of 102 and my body ached. Brendan was worried I had the swine flu and wanted to take me to the emergency room. He called the emergency room and asked if the baby could get the swine flu from me. Someone told him she could get it through my breast milk. This really concerned me because I needed to feed my baby. I called my mom (it was 4 a.m. in California so I'm sure she was a little concerned to hear the phone ringing) and asked about feeding Hazel. She said she had never heard of such a thing. Brendan called his mom and she called a nurse who said it was fine to breast feed, but I should cover my mouth so I didn't breathe on her. The rest of the night Brendan and Hazel slept in the living room. Whenever I needed to feed Hazel I washed my hands a put a face mask on and Brendan brought her to me. Then Brendan would take her back. It was terrible.

The next day Brendan took me to urgent care to have a flu test. I tested negative for both A and B, so he said it was viral. He gave me a prescription for something strong, but Tylenol works fine for me. I've never been to the doctor for the flu, but I was worried because Hazel is only three weeks old. I kind of felt dumb because I'm sure they get lots of people who have the flu and freak out and think it's the swine flu. I wouldn't have normally gone in but I needed peace of mind. I guess I only had the 24 hour flu because luckily I feel fine now.

Baby Blessing

Even though Hazel is only 2 weeks old we did her baby blessing on Sunday. It was the best time for all of our families to be here together. It was also Brendan's mom's 60th birthday. Brendan's sister flew in from Seattle with her two kids, and Brendan's brother flew in from Dallas. Both my parents came and out of all 11 kids in my family 8 of us were in town for the blessing. Brendan planned a fun weekend. On Friday everyone went kayaking down the Provo river. On Saturday we went up to Brendan's grandparent's cabin and had a big BBQ. The nieces and nephews had a great time. On Sunday after the blessing we had a BBQ up at Brendan's parent's house. It was a fun filled weekend.


Hazel Mae Rowland.

Up at the cabin Brendan took the nieces and nephews for a ride in the mule.


My mom and dad at the cabin.

Brendan's dad and brother cooking at the BBQ.

Our nieces and nephews after the blessing.

Brendan's mom with our nephew Montgomery.

My aunt Jolene, my mom, my sister Breeze, and I at the BBQ.

Brendan, Hazel, and I.

Brendan and Hazel.

Birth Story

Some people wanted to know how my birth went, so I'll briefly share. I took the day off of work on Thursday, May 28, because it was field day and I didn't want to be out in the hot sun. I also had a doctor's appointment because I was a week overdue. At my doctor's appointment they did a non stress test and then an ultra sound. Everything looked fine. They said I had plenty of amniotic fluid, in fact I had so much they said my baby was swimming. As they did my non stress test I was having a few small contractions. I was dilated to a 4 and was 70% effaced.

When I got home from my appointment I noticed I was having contractions every 5 minutes, but they weren't very strong. This was around 5 p.m. I called my instructional assistant and made sure she could sub for me at work the next day. I was kind of sad because it was the last day of school. I also called my doula and gave her the heads up that I was going into labor. I labored the whole night which made me exhausted. I tried to sleep between contractions, but it was only 5 minutes. At 5:15 a.m. I was laying in bed having a contraction when my water broke. I woke Brendan and we went to the hospital. I got to the hospital around 5:30 a.m. I was dilated between 6 and 7 cm and was 90% effaced when I arrived. I then had Hazel at 10:30 a.m.

I did everything naturally. The hardest part was pushing. I pushed for 50 minutes, and it seemed like forever. I was very pleased with how everything went. I really liked my midwife, and it was great to have Brendan and the doula helping me while I labored.

Baby Hazel!

Hazel Rowland was born on May 29 at 10:31 a.m. She weighed 7 lbs. 5 oz. and is 20.75 inches long. We haven't picked out a middle name yet. I will update more info about her birth and more pictures later.

Some Spring Break

This past week was my Spring break that I had been looking forward to for a long time. I didn't really do anything too exciting the whole week because I had a lot of organizing to do at home and errands to run. Brendan was busy with a huge paper for school that was due this week, but we were planning a fun date to SLC on Thursday. Brendan only had one class he needed to go to, so we were going to drive up early and get breakfast at Market Street Grill and I would drop Brendan off at his class. After his class we were going to do a temple session in the SLC temple and then go shopping and out to eat. I was hoping the weather would be nice, but a big storm came and brought some snow I wasn't looking forward to. Brendan and I woke up at 6 a.m. to get ready for our fun day. As I was in the bathroom getting ready, Brendan looked out our front window and had some bad news for me. It snowed so much that a huge tree next to our house was weighed down and broke crashing into my car and damaging it. My windshield was shattered, and there were some dents in the crossbar between the windshield and driver's window and dents in my side panel. Luckily, Brendan had parked his car in our back parking lot or his car would have had even more damage than mine. Brendan usually parks his car right behind mine and a bigger branch fell behind my car. Our neighbor's truck was parked next to mine and they had quite a few dents also.

Instead of heading up to SLC, we had to try and get the car taken care of. Brendan had called several times in the past year and a half to have the city come and trim the trees, but they were claiming the trees were BYU's. Both the city and BYU ended up coming to our house. They determined that the tree that hit our neighbor's car belonged to the city, and the tree that hit my car belonged to BYU. After lots of phone calls we were able to get permission from BYU to have my car covered under their insurance. So off went my car on a tow truck to be repaired.

So our day wasn't completely ruined. We ended up going to SLC, just seven hours later than we expected. We didn't end up doing a temple session, but we were able to see my sister, Whitney, at Temple Square where she is serving her mission.

My windshield from the inside.


The branches that hit my car look small, but they did $5600 in damages.


These are the other branches that fell down that would have hit Brendan's car.


My broken mirror.


Whitney's companion (she is from the Philippines), Whitney, and I at Temple Square.

Teacher Idol

This year was our 3rd Annual Teacher Idol at Noah Webster Academy. I didn't participate the first year, but last year I decided to really go all out and win. Some may remember my post about it last year and also my video clip. I did lip sync as Hannah Montana and really got into my character. I dressed up with a blond wig and had Brendan and some other people act as my band. Some younger kids even thought I was the real deal.

After winning last year's title, I had to win again this year. I didn't know how I was going to pull it off being almost 8 months pregnant. My friend and coworker, Tabitha, had the idea for Liz, Tabitha, and I to be the Jonas Brothers. I could cover my stomach with a guitar. Tabitha and Liz's husbands pretended to play the drums and bass. Brendan rapped as Big Rob in the middle of our song. We decided the atmosphere was really important so we turned out the lights and had a disco ball and handed out glow bracelets to students. The crowd was roaring. Sure enough we took the title once again!

Liz, Tabitha, and I after the show.

The Photo Shoot

Brendan took some pregnancy pictures of me. Only 7 more weeks to go!

Moab

I'm terrible at blogging. It always seems to take so much time, and people have been bugging me to post some new pictures. The trip we went on over Christmas break was to Paris, Vienna, and Rome. I didn't want to post anything until I finished the other two posts about Vienna and Rome, but I've decided to forget about it and move on.

Brendan and I went to Moab with his family last week. His sister was in town with her family from Seattle, and it was Brendan's spring break. I just took work off Wednesday and Thursday. It was my first time going to Moab, and it was really pretty. We went to Arches National Park and hiked to the delicate arch. The weather was perfect. It was around 75 degrees with a nice breeze. We stayed in some cabins at an RV and camping site.

On our way back home we stopped in Hiawatha, Utah. It was a small mining town located near Price, Utah. Brendan and his two siblings were born there, and he lived there until he was five years old. It became a ghost town, but four families live there now. A lot of buildings and houses were burned down, and what is left standing is really run down. Brendan's parents owned the grocery store and gas station there before they sold it and moved. It brought back a lot of memories for his family.

Here are just a few pictures. I will post some more later.



Brendan and I in front of the delicate arch, and I'm looking really pregnant. I would pass by people that were hiking that were taking a rest and they would tell me they could keep going if I could. I actually didn't think the hike was that hard.


Brendan and his brother, Christopher, went mountain biking. I brought my bike, but they went at 7 a.m. and that was too early for me. Sleeping in sounded better.



This is all of us together in front of one of the cabins we stayed in.



This is inside Arches National Park. We were hiking around taking pictures.



This is a picture of the jail in Hiawatha. They didn't use it when Brendan's parents lived there, but it was used in the early 1900's.


Here is Brendan inside the jail cell. When Brendan was a kid he locked some girl in one of the mine outhouses, and the sheriff decided to punish Brendan by putting him in the jail cell for a few hours.


Brendan and I are in front of the Hiawatha grocery store that Brendan's parents used to own. It still had their old cash register and a lot of stuff inside.

These pictures have been posted up here for about two weeks without any detail, so I thought I would finally post something. Brendan and I flew to Paris on Dec. 22 and were there until the 26. The weather was warm the first two days, so we were able to go all around the city and walk everywhere without being too cold. At night everything was lit up with Christmas lights, and there were lots of Christmas markets open. The last two days the weather was really cold, so we had to go in earlier in the evenings. We stayed in the Montmartre district in Paris. Many pennyless artists, including Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, and Picasso lived there in late 19th/early 20th century.

On the 25th it was obviously Christmas, but also Brendan's 27th birthday. We decided to go out and celebrate by enjoying some French cuisine. We were actually really disappointed with our pricey meal that didn't taste very good and left us still hungry. We did enjoy all of the creperies that were on every street corner. The jambon et fromage (ham and cheese) was our favorite.



This is one of the little huts at a Christmas market. They had lots of breads to choose from.





The Arc de Triomphe honors those who fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars . Underneath is the tomb of the unknown soldier from World War I.


We saw the famous Mona Lisa in the Louvre and of course many other works of art.










Brendan and I went to the evening Christmas mass in the Notre Dame cathedral. We didn't stay for very long. They didn't really seem to mind that everyone just came in and walked around and took pictures during their service.

Basketball and Wet Knee

BYU Basketball is funny. Every time they play a team that is kind of good, they play at the Jazz Arena in Salt Lake City. They do have the longest running home win streak in the Marriot Center in Provo. Perhaps they do not want to take the chance of losing at home. I guess it keeps them on the map?
Well anyway, Dana and I had tickets so we went to cheer them on (Yes, I (Brendan) still cheer for BYU sports, and anyway Utah Basketball is SORRY!)

We ran into Whitney, who works up in Salt Lake. Whitney is actually serving as a missionary at Temple Square. Sister Hollingsworth is not square though, and her well rounded personality and love of the gospel is really helping her serve many people as a missionary. She is very happy and working hard!