As promised...

...and because my mom told me to, here is what else has been happening with our little family in the past couple of months. First of all, in August we had a little addition...she's absolutely adorable and makes me so happy everyday. She was my birthday present from Ronnie - what do you think?


She is a Morkie (Maltese/Yorkie mix) and her name is Mercedes. When Ronnie brought her to me she weighed just over 1 pound and last time we took her to the vet she was about 4 pounds. She has the funniest personality (even though I'm pretty sure she likes Ronnie better than me). Here are some more pictures of my little Cedes...



and here is what she looks like now (just a few months later)...isn't she just a doll?


See, I told you she loves Ronnie, and it's no secret that he loves her too ;)


In September Ronnie and I went on a Caribbean Cruise for our anniversay (3 years baby!)...I just realized that all of the pictures are on Ronnie's work laptop, so I will write all about the cruise in a separate post. After the cruise we decided to stay for a couple of extra days in Orlando, so we went to Universal Studios...it was awesome! Here are some of the highlights.



We spent the whole day here...it was such a blast, I just LOVE amusement parks, they really bring out the kid in you!

I took this picture, just to remind Ronnie where he doesn't want to be!

I just love this guy...

While at Universal Studios we got to go to the new Harry Potter "world"...although I've never read the books or really watched the movies, I still thought that it was amazing how they included so much detail.



All in all it was a really fun day! Lots of memories and goofing off!



We had such a fun vacation - it was nice to take a couple of weeks off and just be together (although we were excited to get home to our puppy!)

Ok, ok...last but definitely NOT least we have a little announcement to make (although I'm sure the whole world knows by now). Ronnie and I are having our first little baby in February! I know, this seems like a really late announcement, but we decided to keep the whole thing a SECRET (I know, surprising for me!) until after we found out what we were having...not even our moms and dads knew. When I first took the test, this is how I told Ronnie...


although I don't think he "got it" at first, he was so excited! He always said that he wanted to be there if I ever took a pregnancy test, but I thought that this was a lot more fun! We decided that we wanted to keep this our little secret for a while and I'm so glad that we did, it was a little tricky trying to hide the bump when I started showing, but I made it through with only a few weird looks. I'm really disappointed that I haven't taken a lot of prego belly pictures, but here are a few...and if you look closly at the vacation pictures, I was about 18 weeks along at that point.
Here I am at 24 weeks...oh yeah, PS...we're having a BOY!!!!!!!!!!!

and at 26 weeks...

and 27 weeks...

at 28 weeks...

and FINALLY, here I am today at 30 weeks!

Wow, what a journey...everything has been good so far, I haven't had ANY morning sickness (thank you mom for your good genes) and every time I go to the doctor he tells me that he doesn't have anything to pick on me about. I just passed by glucose test and so I am thrilled that things have been so perfect. When we FINALLY told our parents, it was awesome. We invited all of Ronnie's family over for "Ronnie's birthday" and I made a cake and baked a little blue rattle into it. We were in the kitchen cutting the cake and were stratigically handing them out so that Ronnie's mom would be the one to get the surprise. Everyone was a little worried when I told them to watch out for the little prize, but they were soooo excited when they found out what it was! It ended up being perfect to have everyone there and to tell them all together. Ronnie even had an uncle in town from New Mexico, so it was really neat. The next day, we traveled to Soda Springs to tell my parents. If you remember last year for Christmas, the kids gave my mom and dad a rock...

we thought it would be fun for them to add the rocks as new grandkids were born. So we had this little guy made for them...

We told them that we had something for them in our trunk and we stood in the window watching for their reaction...they opened the trunk and my mom read...Baby Boy Thinnes! It didn't actually hit her until half way up the driveway that it said "boy" on it and she asked my dad..."do you think that they really know it's a boy, or are they just guessing?" my dad said..."well, I'm sure they know if they put it on the rock!" It was so fun, he will be their first grandson, although Logan and Rachelle are kinda thinking that's what they will have in May. It will be fun either way to have cousins so close in age. We are very excited for this next chapter in our lives, we are both anxious and nervous at the same time to see what the future holds, but have faith that everything will turn out the way it is supposed to. We are currently in the process of finishing our basement so that we can get the baby room all ready for when our little bundle arrives, in the meantime, I am just waiting "patiently" (everyone knows that's a lie!) for the day I can start painting and setting up for my little man.

Hello, my name is Lindsay...

Wow! I feel like I need to introduce myself! I'm still here, still alive and healthy (if you count living on fast food "healthy"...), but I'm just my normal busy self. Life has been interesting the past several months, tons of changes and tons of adventures. I don't know if I will EVER be able to remember everything, I definitely should have done this sooner! Beware to anyone who is short on time or interes, this will be a VERY long post. So, here it goes...
Seattle
A few months ago, Ronnie had a training in Seattle and I got to go! It was so fun (of coarse I wasn't the one in meetings all day). We went with Mark and Bridgette, the owners of the security company that Ronnie works for and they really spoiled us. When I go on vacation, I spend most of my time trying to keep us in a budget, so it was different when we showed up to the hotel and they had upgraded our hotel room! We had the Presidential Suite, complete with 2 bathrooms, a meeting area, living room, master suite, jacuzzi tub, wet bar etc.


Seattle was really cool, Bridgette and I went down to Pike Place Market while the boys were in class and saw some really cool little stands and shops...we even saw some guys tossing the fish around and singing! One night, they took us to eat at the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle and it was soooo cool, you feel like you are on top of the world! Not to mention, the seafood was AMAZING I had fresh crab legs...you just DON'T get that in Idaho.




Emmi's Graduation
I can't believe Emmi graduated! I'm still in shock by how fast time flies. Of coarse she was the valedictorian (not sure on spelling, obviously I wasn't the valedictorian). She gave an awesome speech and I was so proud of her. Here are some pics.

Apparently in Soda Springs, each graduate gives the Principal something as the go up to receive their diploma. Ususally it is something weird like a paper clip or penny or something. Well, these guys decided to steal all of my dad's ties (he has one for about every day of the school year) and give him those. It was really cute, and here he is!

Here are all of the kids and spouses.

While we were in Soda, we decided to tour a nearby ghost town called Chesterfield. I've always enjoyed finding places like this, it gives you an appreciation for how the people survived that many years ago.


Wow! We totally rocked the bonnets, now all we need to learn to do is churn butter.

Yikes! Scandalous!

Las Vegas

Ronnie had another training in Las Vegas and I got to go AGAIN! Traveling with his work is was different than traveling with mine...I go to cool places and never see the outside of the Convention Center, but when I go with Ronnie, it's like a total vacation! Like Seattle, we were totally spoiled...nice dinners, shows etc. We stayed at The Mandalay Bay and it was so nice, they have a lazy river and the girls went down and hung out by the pool while the boys were in class. We did end up going with them to a trade show one of the days...here they are with their safely dog friend...

We had a lot of fun doing all of the Las Vegas stuff...we went to the Bodies exhibit, we saw the Cirque Du Soleil called Mystere...AMAZING! I wish that we could have taken picture during the show, they did some awesome stuff. We also went to the wax museum which was really fun - we met up with some of our closest friends...here are just a few of them.

Britney...Hey! Eyes on me unless you want to lose them!

Bradley and I...it was so cute how he ditched Angie for me...

Shaq and I...

Ronnie & Babe...

As for everything else that happened...well, you know what they say :)

I think I'll stop here for now, I'm only about half way done, but figured it'd be better to post SOMETHING. I will post the rest in a day or two...

Mi casa es tu casa...

Behold, my beautiful home...looks welcoming, doesn't it? Well, I was VERY disturbed when my husband texted me today - letting me know that we had an unexpected visitor.
Apparently she ignored this warning...


...and took this "welcome" sign a little to literal...



And here it is...the first sign of spring around the Thinnes house...





a perfect little robin's nest - nestled at the top of our wreath. My reaction: Whew Sick! Get it the H!@# out of there immediately! As much as I hate to admit it, that little nest kinda creeps me out!