Antelope Island and...a baby!!!

I know that most people know this by now, but we wanted to post that we are going to have a baby. Most likely it is going to be due at the end of December. We are finally going to the doctor this Thursday and we will get an actual due date then. We are excited!!!

Last week we decided to take a drive out to Antelope Island and walk around. We were only out of the car for about 45 seconds before we ran back to it. The bug swarms were terrible! You could see clouds of them as you drove by. Pretty disgusting!!!! We really wanted to see some buffalo, but failed. This sign was the closest we came to them.

We did, however, see antelope! I didn't think there were actually antelope on the island, but there are. (I knew there used to be antelope there, hence the name, but I thought they were all gone.)

Just driving...because we couldn't handle the bugs.

The Great Salt Lake

Memories of Alaska

Just so everyone knows, we are back in Utah. We did make it back and in one piece. I would never suggest to anyone to make that drive unless they absolutely have to!

Anyway...my best friend is leaving on a cruise for Alaska tomorrow. I am SUPER jealous!!! I told her that I'd post a few things from Alaska on our blog so she would get even more excited. So here are some memories of Alaska...or in Camarron's words..."The True Zion."

This is Thunder Mountain. You can't see the top because of the fog. Many days the fog is so bad you can't even see the mountain at all.

These are the most amazing animals on the planet! Yes...I am aware this is a painting, but it's still Alaska.

This is off a trail by where I used to live in Juneau. I love that there are waterfalls everywhere.

This is out at Auke Bay. Yes, that is the ocean.

Auke Bay at sunset.

Auke Bay during the day, right outside my apartment. Literally.

The Mendenhall Glacier.

And this is my husband...being my husband.

Camarron told me that I had to put fishing pictures on here.

Notice the sizes of our two fish...and who takes the cake for biggest fish!

However, my husband wins the award for "Having the most fun while fishing".

This is a better picture of the glacier. You can see more of the color.

This is Auke Bay from my apartment window. This was taken before they cut down several of those big pine trees.

Finally!!! We made it! Whahoo!

The last few days we have been working so hard at getting ready to leave tomorrow. Camarron has been studying like crazy for his last test so he can graduate and I have been trying to pack everything so we can get out of here. Today, everything has begun to pay off! Camarron graduated this morning at 11:00. He graduated as the only Distinguished Honor Graduate in his class. He scored 100% on his last test the put his final grade at a 96% and he reached his goal of becoming an honor grad. He also is the class leader, so it was really cool to watch him call his class to attention and lead them in their marching and dismiss them. Then we got to go and take pictures of the jets in the hanger that he worked in. It was a lot of fun.

At the beginning of graduation, Camarron was asked to read the explanation of the armaments badge that they all will now wear on their uniform.

This is Camarron actually graduating and receiving his certificate.

Shaking all of his instructors hands. (Or pounding fists because they are afraid they'll get the swine flu.)

This is when Cam was recognized as the Distinguished Honor Graduate. The Squadron Commander was the person that gives him the certificate. There was a little bit of confusion and the saluting was done wrong. :.) In this it looks like the commander is saluting Cam, and it should be the other way around. I laughed.

Here are some of the F-16 Fighting Falcons that Camarron was trained on and will be working on at Hill.

His dream is to sit in that cockpit and fly the F-16 (or any other way awesome aircraft). Now it is only a matter or time...and a heck of a lot of hard work. :.)

Cam and his final instructor SSgt. Stephan.

Me and my hot husband. Check out those stripes!

So I wish I had some cool pictures to go with this post, but I don't. This past week has been a little crazy. Camarron and I are so excited to be leaving in a few days and I am just hoping that we are able to get everything done that we need to in order to leave.
This past Sunday was a little crazy! Around 9:30 at night I began to have sharp pains on the lower right side of my back. The pain increase very rapidly and I immediately knew that I had kidney stones again. Of course it happened just after Camarron had to be back in his dorm for curfew, so he wasn't able to help me much. This sure drove him crazy. Luckily there is a sweet missionary couple who Cam called and asked to come over to my apartment and keep an eye on me. So they came over immediately. The pain wasn't going away and started to get worse so about 10:30 we went to the hospital. We were there until 5:30 a.m. the next morning. What a way to spend your evening right. :.) They gave me some medication for the pain the knocked me out, but that didn't even come until 4 a.m. So we just sat and waited and I tried not to think about the pain. I was grateful however, that all I had was kidney stones. One lady that came in had been bitten by a rattlesnake. I'm not sure what happened with that, but I was grateful it wasn't me.
My dear sweet husband was so worried about me that he stayed up until 3a.m. waiting for me to call him and tell him what the doctors said. He did fall asleep but I finally was able to call him at 5:30. He had just woken up to start getting ready to go to school. He had a quiz that day and I felt so bad that he hadn't gotten any sleep and I was worried that he wouldn't be able to pass his quiz. However, my husband is freakin' AWESOME! and he only missed half of one question. It was an oral quiz and his instructor would go around and keep asking everyone questions. Because Camarron kept answering everything right, he just said, "Franklin you can't have any more questions!" I was pretty proud of him. He takes his final exam on Wednesday, he graduates Thursday, and we take off Friday! We can't wait!

Easter!!!

We had a pretty fun Easter. We had to do things a little different this year because we are trying to accumulate as little as possible before we move back to Utah (which is in 2 weeks from Friday!!!) and I am trying my hardest to not eat sugar. So we just decided to dye eggs...and then eat them.

I had to make a crazy face for this one. Camarron never smiles when we take pictures, but this time he wanted to just smile. So right before he took the picture I pulled a face...I couldn't help it. Camarron was a little bugged our picture didn't turn out the way he wanted it to, but I got a good laugh out of it. We did take another one and I smiled pretty for him.


Notice how bright the eggs are! Our fingers turned that bright too. :.)

Cam was really excited when we got started...

And then he quickly lost interest.




However, about 2 hours later he was really excited again when he got to shell all the eggs and make dinner for us.


So all of our hard work ended up in the trash. Cam's dinner was super good though.



This was what the sky looked like standing outside our apartment Sunday evening. Another storm came, but not nearly as bad as the night before.

The day before Easter, Saturday, there was a terrible storm here in Wichita Falls. It was pouring rain and there was lightning and thunder like I had never experienced before. The thunder was so loud the it triggered the car alarms out in the parking lot. Camarron and I decided to drive out away from the lights of the city and take some pictures of the lightning. It was kind of hard with just my digital camera, but we tried. The weather has been kind of crazy lately, however, I have loved the rain!

We also had a really pretty full moon a couple of nights ago.

Camarron is just finishing up his certification and has one last test and then he graduates. We are so excited and cannot believe that we will be leaving so soon. It has been long awaited.

Yes...We are still here in Texas.

Things here are actually moving quite fast. We only have just over 3 weeks left before we head back to Utah. It is kind of a strange time here. A lot of our friends that we have made are finished and leaving Sheppard and new people are coming in. It's always hard to see friends leave, but soon it will be us leaving and we will be coming back to friends and family in Utah.

Don't ask me what Cam is doing. He never smiles normally in his pictures. :) This is a picture of Cam and I with one of our friends that just left, Shawn Fiagle.

Camarron is still excelling in school. He has 95% and is trying really hard to keep it that high so he can graduate as an Honor Graduate. Because he had the highest grade percentage in the class his instructor has assigned him to tutor some of the students that are struggling. Part of me was bugged about that because he doesn't get ot spend as much time with me in the evenings, but it is cool to see my husband do so well at something he never imagined he would be doing (meaning mechanics). We are very excited to get into the operational side of the Air Force and start working towards Cam getting into Officer Training School and eventually into pilot training.

A couple weeks ago I was going crazy here. I wanted to just get up and go somewhere else for the weekend. However, Camarron isn't allowed to go more than 25 miles away from the base unless he has special permission and a bunch of paperwork filled out. So we decided to go camping in our apartment. We made a fort and I bought camping snacks and we camped. It was fun.

This is during our construction of the fort. I'm just grateful I had enough blankets and sheets.

And this is Camarron's eye.

Also to update you a little bit, I am now enrolled and registered to go to school at Weber State University for the summer semster as soon as we get back to Utah. I am going to finish my art degree up there. I am going to be taking 18 credit hours, so I'll will be just as busy with things as Cam is once we get back.

Our Weekend...

We had a really fun weekend this past week. We were able to go to the Dallas Temple again with a group of airmen from the base. Honestly, I think the temple and the small area surrounding it is one of the only pretty places in Texas. After getting back from the temple we went straight to Chuch E Cheese's for our neighbor's little girl's birthday party. Her name is Adielle and she turned 2 yesterday. So we went to her party and watched her play. She is super cute! Ironically her dad (William Presgrove) was in the same mission as Joshua. We spend a lot of time with them since they live just a few apartments down from ours.

Also, on Sunday, we found out that Camarron's sister Sereneti had her first little baby. It was a girl and they named her Grace. We decided, since the sun finally decided to come out, that we would go for a walk on Sunday to the "Wichita Falls." It was nice to get out and just go for a walk.

Our little Lady Bug friend at the "Falls".