We're Pregnant!

So it is official! We are pregnant. 

Every story isn't perfect ... but it is the truth ...

FINDING OUT I'M PREGNANT


Fall is a really busy time for me at work. This was my 2nd enrollment season but first year of re-enrolllment for Obamacare for my Retail Center. I was working most days of the week and typically 10-14 hours a day. I was extremely exhausted and around the 17th of November I realized that "my friend" hadn't arrived yet and so I checked to see when that was supposed to happen, to only learn that I was late. I kind of doubted that I was pregnant since we had been trying for 2 years and so after a few days finally bought some pregnancy tests. I woke up at 5AM on Thursday, November 20th and took the test. When it said I was pregnant I put the test back in it's box and laid back in bed thinking for a while..

I went to work an hour later for a long day of meetings, one where I had to train a lot of people too and I was kind of in shock, not sure what to do. I debated if I should tell Omar right away. He gets so excited about things and isn't good at keeping secrets because of it.I knew it was still really early and a doctor hadn't confirmed the pregnancy so I didn't want everyone to know.

I was kind of going crazy at work so I called this girl, Sarah P., that works at the corporate office and was still around because it was later in the evening. I told her I just found that morning I was pregnant and she was the first one to know. She told me that I had to go home to Omar and tell him. I told her that I wanted to do something cute to tell him but wasn't really feeling it. My idea was to maybe put a sign on the dog's collar about being pregnant that he would find. Sarah told me to do whatever even if it was giving him a jar of Prego spaghetti sauce.

TELLING OMAR

I was feeling pretty down about the whole pregnancy thing --- total hormone craziness --- and didn't want to tell Omar until I was feeling better about it. Since Sarah from work pushed me to tell Omar --- when I got home about 8PM  I was sitting at the dinner table with Omar and he asked what was wrong and I just started crying and told him I wasn't sure if I should tell him. Then I just finally did. He didn't believe me. I told him I was being serious and then he said, "prove it." So I walked into the bathroom and showed him the pregnancy test. He of course was super excited.

TELLING MEGAN & EDDIE (Brother & Sister-in-Law)

Somehow a pinterest board entitled, "first baby" that I made "private" wasn't so private after all. Megan texted me asking me if I was pregnant and I asked why she would think that. She then said she saw my pinterest board. It was too early for anyone to really know so I basically responded that just because I have a pinterest board about kids doesn't mean I'm pregnant. Omar and I were itching to tell someone and so we called Megan & Eddie up. They were snowboarding for the first time and we told her that we were pregnant. Right then the service went out of the phone on the mountain. She called back and said she was screaming from excitement and that she knew that I was pregnant and told Eddie and that she knew I was lying to her about it. Since we weren't ready for any of the parents to know yet they had to talk to Jayden (our 6 year old nephew) about making sure he didn't accidentally leak that we were pregnant since he overheard the conversation.

TELLING KELLY & LINDSEY

I called Kelly and told her that she was going to finally become an aunt and then did the same thing to Lindsey when she came home from work.

TELLING MY PARENTS & MICHAEL

Every year for Thanksgiving we write in a book where each person who attends our Thanksgiving shares what they are thankful for that year. Our book has been going for many years and the pages have been full for quite some time. My mom has tried for years to locate a new memory book without success so we have added white pages to the old book so we could continue with our tradition. 

I was trying to decide how I wanted to tell my parents about our first child and their first grandchild. I told Kelly my idea was to buy mom a bouqet of blue and pink flowers as a Thanksgiving centerpeice and put inside it my positive pregnancy test. Kelly gave me the suggestion of writing it in the Thanksgiving book. I decided to search again to see if I could find a new Thanksgiving book. I found 2 of them after searching multiple ways. I bought both of them and had them shipped to my mom's house overnight. 

I was very diligent about having everyone sign the book that day. Then after Aunt Nancy and the boys left everyone was in the family room watching football and I told mom that we needed to read what everyone wrote in the book. This is what I wrote...

My dad was cleaning up in the kitchen and refused to come sit down. I recorded the whole thing. It was funny because Michael was like, "Are you recording this?" I responded, "No. I'm just playing with my phone." So the video quality was not perfect...but still a great keepsake. 

OMAR TELLS HIS PARENTS

The night after I told my parent's Omar left to go spend some time with a friend. When he came home Megan, my sister-in-law, texted me to tell me that Omar told his parents. I was like, "what?" She said that they had lost the boys for a while during the lighting of Temple Square and were sad about Omar's grandpa dying, so he wanted to cheer them up. Omar had walked into the house and hadn't said anything to me about it. I was pretty upset that he told them without me.

TELLING MY DAD'S SIDE OF THE FAMILY

Everyone got together virtually on my dad's side of the family to celebrate the life of my grandpa since he turned 90 years old on December 7th. Everyone had a chance to talk to grandpa through the internet and we had a whole slide presentation from family and grandpa's friends. I texted my mom through Omar's cell phone asking if we should share that we are pregnant. After our turn already took place my mom said to the family since she was the host of the online session that Omar wanted to share something else. He told the family that we are pregnant.

TELLING MY MOM'S SIDE OF THE FAMILY

My sister's and I threw a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom at my aunt's house. I decided that since most of my aunts and uncles would be present it would work well to tell them there. I wanted to tell them all together and I told them I have a picture I wanted to show them when my uncles were done with what they were doing. My Aunt Dianna (Marshall) was like, "you're pregnant aren't you?" She ruined the surprise but everyone was really excited. This is the first baby on the whole Wallis family side.

TELLING MY BOSS, CO-WORKERS, AND EMPLOYEES

I shared that we have an interesting statistic at my retail center where since our doors opened up in September 2013 we have had a baby every year. 2013 my employee Tanya had a baby and then in 2014 my employee LaToya had a baby. Now for 2015 we have to keep up the tradition and I am going to have a baby.

TELLING THE WORLD --- AT LEAST THE FACEBOOK WORLD

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4th Wedding Anniversary

Omar and I celebrated our 4th Wedding Anniversary on March 8. I had my first ever facial from a Groupon that I had, then I got a pedicure. Omar and I went to the Home & Patio Show to look at a potential new Master Closet for our next house project. Following the Show, we went to dinner at Omar's choice this year, Ruth's Chris Steak House. It was our first time ever going there. It was pretty good. I especially loved that they gave us that yummy desert. We had a great time together. I can't believe we have been married that long.

Solo weekend in Kissimmee

The KISS-IM-MEE 5K was my 2nd 5k race. It was throughout downtown Kissimmee and started at 7:30AM. It was neat seeing a lot of businesses I didn't know exist. Downtown truly has been changing for the better. The race itself wasn't as organized as the first race we did - the Matanzas 5k, but then again Matanzas 5k is one of the largest in the country. I don't have any cool stories like last time, but my dad did try to make a conscious effort to be at the finish line waiting for me. The funny thing is that he went to grab a bottle of water for me when I finished and while he was gone I crossed the finish line so he didn't get to cheer me on like he planned.

I was very happy with how I did, especially since I hadn't exercised no less ran at all for close to 2 months. It was a better time then my last 5k. I finished 22nd place for age category 18-29 with 40:28
My dad actually did well. He got 5th place for men age 60-69 he did it in 30:41. He amazes me with how much he can run, bike and just exercise! He has always been one to work out a lot.

After the 5k we went back home and got ready to go to the Osceola Art Walk which was at the Valencia Community College Campus a few minutes away from our house. My Aunt Nancy came with us, but she kind of made her way on her own talking to vendors a lot about wood pens. There was a lady that had some beautiful Florida Landscape oil paintings. One I thought looked perfect for my house. I still think about it, but I just don't know if I can bring myself to spend $1800 on a painting.

I went down to Kissimmee a few weeks ago to run a 5k with my dad. Omar didn't come with me this time. It was nice because he got to stay home and relax and do what he wanted. Something he rarely gets - without my list of "honey-do's". Plus, I got the benefit of my own agenda without visiting people he wanted us to see.

Following that we went to eat a Mexican restaurant that was actually pretty good. Later that night I went out with Naomi Gunnels to dinner at Pei Wei. Love that place! We then were going to go to the ice cream shop in downtown Kissimmee that makes the ice cream from liquid nitrogen but they close so early (doesn't make sense to me). We instead went over to Menchies and met my parents over there. Menchies is okay, but I much prefer Mochi. It was great catching up with Naomi. I love that I have some good true friends that we can not talk forever and just pick up from before.

Sunday was wonderful because I got to sleep in a little bit. I helped get dinner ready for after church. When I go home to my ward, the ward I had gone to for my whole life, I always feel like I am home. There are a lot of the same families there and I love them. I couldn't believe that Tanner Bohman, a kid I babysat for over 4 years had his Mission Homecoming talk. I really felt the spirit and I was so glad to hear some of his mission experiences. It seems people don't include things from their mission anymore in their homecoming talks, it makes no sense to me. I also got to hear my mom give her lesson in Relief Society. She is such a great teacher. Dinner we had Beef Burgoyne and my brother actually came over for few minutes before I had to leave to go back home. It was a nice weekend.

Trans-siberian orchestra

We went to the trans-siberian orchestra tonight. We took omar's cousin Carin with us from Guatemala. Omar had always wanted to go and this year we finally bought tickets. It was the most family friendly show I have ever been. I must say it was very refreshing to go to something with no foul language or really anything innappropriate. It is like a rock-n-roll concert with orchestra. Everything was centered around Christmas and the reason for the season. It actually got me feeling for the first time this whole season what the purpose of Christmas is! The lazer light show, pyrotenics and just their ingeniuty was amazing!!! I did chuckle many times because they introduced their dance choreographer as part of the orchestra. The reason that is funny is because I really only noticed that they swayed their long hair in huge rock circles. They are all known for their long hair in case you didn't know. There were some songs that sort of dragged out to me. Overall we had a good time.

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We're Debt FREEEEE!!!!

Omar and I are DEBT FREE!!! We have been working on this since we got married little by little. We have paid off over $36,000!!! So no we have not paid off the house yet, but all other consumer debt is gone. We paid off credit cards, student loan, our car, and more. We should get the title in the mail any day now, that was the last thing we paid off. This opens up a whole new world. Just not paying a car payment a month is huge for us. Now we can really work to save, save, save. Then starting plugging away on the house.

A lot of this was thanks to Dave Ramsey. We went to his Financial Peace University (FPU) when we first got married. His baby steps have helped us to keep organized.
Learn more about becoming debt free by going to www.daveramsey.com it can change your life too.

10 Year High School Reunion

THE DRAMA
My high school reunion was over Labor Day Weekend. There was quite a bit of drama regarding the planning of the event. Nowadays there aren't lists with contact information to reach out to all the class members, if there was most likely it would be so out of date it wouldn't matter. Everything was done by Facebook. If there was someone we knew who graduated with us that hadn't been invited we were to invite them. There were some people from our high school class that totally disagreed with how this was being handled and that everyone should receive invitations in the mail and it should be a formal event like a prom. A big debate ensued and it got pretty nasty on our Facebook page for the reunion. I didn't join in at all...and just thought how some people maybe haven't changed since high school.

FRIDAY NIGHT
I picked Omar up from the airport where he was getting back from a week long trip out there. He went smack dab into Hurricane Irene and was one of the last flights to get into New York. Omar was not excited about going to the reunion at all with me, but it was one of the deals that he had to go if he was to go to NY. We went to BJ's for the pizza buffet. When we got there, Jeremy Buxton was the only other one there. He was our Class President, I think all 4 years, and basically planned most of the reunion from being stationed all the way over in Hawaii, poor guy. It was about an hour before really anyone else came. We were expecting about 50-60 people and about 20 showed.

The OHS v. Ocoee football game was next. Omar never went to a game in high school which I think is plain crazy since he was ROTC and his brother also played. Omar was tired and so I took him to my parents house and I went to the game alone. I am glad I went alone because he would have been bored to death. I was able to visit with Mr. Carswell and Mrs. Ferguson. The school is completely different! It isn't quite finished yet, but I can just say "WOW" it is not the school that I went to. This actually looks like a school now - not a pit.

New School not open yet

vs. old school

Me and Mr. Carswell - it might be the last time I see him, he retires this year and will be moving out of state. He even remembered my name!

Marc Horne (and g-friend), Christine Bradford, Sara and Matt Sparks

After the game everyone went to 3 Sisters Easy, which is a popular bar in downtown Kissimmee. It didn't exist when we were in high school, but really nothing did in Downtown Kissimmee at that time. I wasn't going to go originally, but realized there would be a lot of people wouldn't go to anything else but the bar. It was a much bigger crowd there. I ended up spending most of my time outside with Christine Bradford, Christina Watson (new last name now though), Alaina Mayes (new last name now), Marc Horne, Jared Stewart, Sarah Summers and Matt (who are married now). I was one of the first people to leave about midnight - everyone else left when it closed at 2 AM. I couldn't stay awake any longer.

BBQ
The next day was the bbq at Elks Lodge. There was a ton of food. The turnout was pretty decent, but it was mainly all the same people.I did get to talk with Christy Gay, Nicole Collabella, Mark Ferguson, and some others. There were people that I wish had come to the reunion that didn't, I'm not sure why, especially since they live locally. Too bad.

Jeremy Buxton and I

OUTCOME
All in all, I am glad I went to the reunion. It was interesting how many people asked me about my brother. He did graduate the year before me and we had a lot of mutual friends, but we never spent time with them together - they were always separate friends. I think Michael kept in touch with more people from high school than I did, especially since he went to school in-state. Most people thought I was living somewhere out West still. We probably won't have one for another 10 years, and hopefully next time it might be with another class too since most of my close friends from high school graduated before and after me.

Jaguars Game

My friend Tiffany Copeland got tickets to go to the Jags vs Rams game on Thursday September 1st. We paid $10/each, thank you USO, and we sat in the Honor Rows seats. I thought that was pretty funny. I have sat in Honor Rows seats before with Big Brothers Big Sisters. This time at least, we didn't have someone monitoring bathroom breaks and it was not nearly as crowded. We parked the car in the same lot we normally do, near the historical society by the ball field. It isn't but a 10 minute walk probably to get to the stadium, but the parking went up since last I went there. I remember it being more like $10 to park, it was $20 this time. Bummer. Especially surprising with it being a pre-season game. Tiffany is pregnant and I thought they would let her bring her BPA free water bottle empty into the stadium. We walked all the way there and they wouldn't let her so we walked back to the car and then back to the game again. We missed the opening but that's no big deal. It is interesting how I don't think I even watched half of the game. It was so not entertaining. football really never is for me anyhow. We had a good time talking.

My 28th Birthday

My co-workers wife makes cake pops - they are so delicious!

Melissa and Allison

Meghan is a little baker and just finished throwing up the pizza

I can't believe I am 28 years old! My real birthday was this past Wednesday. I must say it was the saddest birthday ever because it was the height of my illness. I was to work a 10 hour day, but was going to have a good attitude about it by getting a bunch of freebies for my birthday. A lot of places give you free food and ice cream and I thought why not? I had the hardest time waking up that morning and went to work feeling so exhausted that I didn't think I was in my body. I made it through my scheduled appointments and about 2 pm (half way into it) I decided that I had to go home, I felt so horrible. I went and got a free sub and went home and forced myself to eat it. Everything was so painful. I slept for 4 hours woke up for an hour and a half and then went back to sleep for the night. I had plenty of birthday wishes but it was sad to be so sick. I think the illness from Miami was just catching up to me.

So I planned a little birthday get together with some girlfriends that live here in my ward last night (Saturday). I wanted it to be low key and small. We made our own pizzas and I asked everyone to bring their favorite topping. We had artichoke hearts, olives, bacon, onion, pepporoni, chicken, and some other yummies. We made 3 pizzas and had tons of leftovers. We also had watermelon, chips and dip, and of course cake pops and ice cream. I had a really nice time talking and playing Rockband. It was the first time a few of the girls had ever played it. I was so glad I didn't cancel it. Friday I found out that I didn't have mono like the doctor expected, which was a relief. I just didn't want to get anyone else sick. Here is to another year getting older.

The Last Shuttle Launch

Bryce and I waiting for the launch

Carl (Brandon's cousin), Bryce and I waiting for the launch - you can see some of the people who came hoping to catch a glance

I have seen the shuttle launch from the pad before, and of course growing up in Kissimmee I have seen it go off from home numerous times. The last launch was this past Friday. I actually had the day off. The weather has been very overcast and rainy the past week, which is what we need badly here - rain! My friend Brianna told me that she was planning to go to Michler's Beach (the closest beach to our house -15 minute drive) here in Ponte Vedra hoping to see the last launch. I decided to go too. We got there about 30 minutes before the launch was to happen and the clouds were heavy and black. The launch happened although there were a few moments were no one was sure if it would happen. Unfortunantly we were not able to see anything. It was amazing to see how many people were there to try to see it. I heard there were millions of people down at Port Canaveral. Although I didn't see anything, I am glad that I tried and will be able to remember where I was the last time a Shuttle was launched into space.

Michael Buble Concert

So I always wanted to go to Michael Buble's concert but could not bring myself to cough over the money. My girlfriend Erica bought tickets for her and her husband to go. He ended up getting deployed because of the oil spill and so she didn't want to go without him. Omar and I bought the tickets from her last minute. I'm glad we did. It was funny because we ended up sitting right next to one of the guys I graduated highschool with, Chase Hulon, and his recent bride. I hadn't seen him since graduation. What a small world.


Every girls dream...well he is actually taken, engaged to a girl from Argentina which is why he wears a ring on his finger (that is how they do it in Argentina)

The opening act for the concert was "Naturally 7" which are an incredible accapella group. We really enjoyed listening to them...

This was the DJ guy in the group...


the guy who did the drums was amazing...



The opening of the concert:


My favorite song by Michael Buble: "Home"

I love that Michael walked into the crowd and interacted with the people at the concert, he is a very real, down-to-earth guy.


Probably one of my favorite parts of the concert was the very end encore where he just stood and sung accepella with NO microphone. It was incredible and gave me goosebumps, he has a super powerful voice. I would for sure go to another concert of his.