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A Proud Daddy!

The Birth of Kristen

Well...I did it! I conquered my biggest fear! I gave birth! :) Yes, it was definitely the most painful thing I have ever experienced...but it kind of feels good to know that I can do really hard things. My due date was January 8th. Well, when January 8th came and there was still no baby and I was feeling way too big, way too uncomfortable, and way too excited to meet little Kristen, I decided I would help the process out a little. So, I shopped...and I shopped...didn't really buy anything, but I kept shopping. It must have worked because at about 1 a.m. on the 9th I began active labor. I went into the hospital at about 10 a.m. with contractions starting every 2 minutes and lasting about a minute and a half, (I am talking about curling up in a ball and wanting to hold your breath type of contractions). About an hour after arriving in the patient room, they sent me home because I was not dilating fast enough (I was stuck at 3 cm). I was soooo mad! How could they send someone home in that much pain.

When I got home I had no idea what I was going to do with my self. The morphine shot did nothing but make me vomit. All I could do was pray that somehow Heavenly Father would bless me with the strength and knowledge to get through this (Bryndee I hope you are not reading this). At about 4p.m. I could not take it any more and so I went back to the hospital. This time I demanded to talk to the Dr. on the phone. When she called me, I literally begged her to not send me home. She said they would keep me for a while longer and see how I progressed. My prayers were answered because just as my hour was up, I had progressed just enough (now to a 3 1/2 cm) to stay. It was a good thing because an hour later, I was dilated to about a 6! Just when I thought I was going to die :) the epidural came at about 7 p.m. ... truly the best $200 I ever spent! Oh...it was heaven sent! The only negative side effect I noticed was the shaking. I shook/shivered uncontrollably for about a half an hour after Kristen was born. But it took away all of the pain during the rest of labor.

I began pushing at about 1:30 a.m. and we were progressing so fast that the nurse told me to stop. So I tried to stop but Kristen started coming on her own, (how appropriate for the first girl to be so helpful to her mommy)! Don't worry; the doctor arrived just in time to deliver the most beautiful healthy baby girl in the world (yes, I may be bias)! 8.1 lbs and 18 inches of pure innocence and beauty. When the Dr. handed her to me it was surreal. All of a sudden, all of the pain I had felt in getting this beautiful little girl to the earth was forgotten. I would do it over in a heart beat,(preferably not any time soon )! She is so amazing! Wow! I love being a mom! There is nothing like it in the whole world!

A bit of catch up...o,k,. a lot of catch up!

So, this is my first official blogging experience. Spencer has been telling me I should add to our blog since we started it a few years back but I have always felt guilty spending the time. Now I am wishing I had spent more time doing it...it really is a great way to stay connected with each other's lives while preserving memories. So here goes...


A bit of catch up...o.k., a lot of catch up!

Kristen's Birth Announcement

We are going to be blessing Kristen on March 29th in our sacrament meeting. Our church is in Springville, Utah at 1230 S 500 E. We would love to have anybody who would like to come. We will be having a little shindig after sacrament meeting, at our house (267 E 2200 S).

400 S in Springville is closed, so you will need to follow these directions to get to our church and house.

To get to the church:
Get off at Exit 260
If you are coming from the North, turn left.
Turn right at 1750 W (you can't go straight, as the road is closed)
Turn left at 1600 S
Turn right onto State Street (the light)
Turn left at Evergreen Drive
Turn left at 400 E.
Cross the highway and exit on 400E
Turn right into the parking lot just after the 30 mph speed limit sign.

Our New Baby Girl!

Kristen Stephanie Pope was born on January 10, 2009 at 2:41 am. She weighed 8 lbs 1 ounce, and was 21 1/2 inches long. We are so excited to have her as part of our family! Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

Adding to the Pope Family!

Stephanie and I found out that she was pregnant towards the end of May of this year. We were so excited! We were trying to have a baby and felt so blessed that Heavenly Father would send one of his children to us. Stephanie started to feel sick shortly after we found out and her sickness has not gone away yet. For both of our sakes I hope it goes away soon!

After talking to my sister Anna, we found out that we could figure out the gender of the baby sooner that I thought we could. We misunderstood that we needed to get a 4D ultrasound to determine the baby's gender. We ended up going to the Provo Towne Center Mall to find out, but they only could do 3D and 2D ultrasounds. That wouldn't deter Stephanie very long however. After we went the the hospital this last Saturday to see our brand new nephew (Kyler Steven), we headed to the the the mall off of 106th south to see if we could get an ultrasound there. They did 4D ultrasounds. The funny thing is that we found out that the best way to go was a 2D ultrasound; so we could have just gotten one in Provo. Here are a few of the pictures from that ultrasound.

This is the first picture we saw of our new baby!

It made us very happy to see that our baby had a straight spine!


We tried for about 20 minutes, but the baby would not show us its gender.

We had to go home without knowing whether we were having a boy or a girl. It was a little disappointing. We did decide to go back this last Tuesday to try to find out again. They told us at the Fetal Studio that if they couldn't determine it the first time, we could come back for free as many times as it took to determine the gender of the baby.

On Tuesday we were excited, even though we had to drive up to Sandy. When we got in the ultrasound room it looked like the baby was asleep and wasn't going to wake up. The attendant there told us to go get some sugar and then come back in about 20 minutes. It seemed like it did the trick. After our ice cream, the baby was moving a lot more.

Here is the first picture we saw of our little baby girl!
And another one showing that it truly is a girl!

When we first found out that Stephanie was pregnant we thought we were going to have a baby girl, but I had convinced myself that it might be a boy. We are very happy to be having a little baby girl. At this point, we think we will name her Kristen Stephanie, after he beautiful mother.

A New Job

Toward the beginning of the year I was talking with my boss at PS’SOFT and he told me that the company needed me to move to California. Now I love California, but I didn’t think we could afford to live in the Bay Area, and neither I nor Stephanie wanted to move away from so much family here in Utah. I told my boss that I was not willing to move to California, and he responded that I better start looking for new job.

I was a little scared of dealing with finding a new job, knowing I had to support my family and figure out how to pay the rent. I started looking for a new job. I applied for several on Monster.com. I got my job at PS’SOFT through Monster. One job stood out from the others. It was a position as Curriculum Developer at Symantec (the former Altiris). I applied for the position and didn’t think anything of it. A little while later I got an email requesting a phone interview. The phone interview went very well and I was excited about the possibilities. The job would be based out of Lindon, so it would be a very manageable commute.

I was asked by Symantec to come to an in-person interview with some of the people I would be working with. At the same time, the hiring manager who lived in California also set up a phone interview with me for a couple of days after the in-person interview. I thought this was really good news to have both interviews, and thought there was a good chance they wanted to offer me the job. The in-person interview went very well, and the phone interview did too. At the end of the phone interview with the hiring manager, he told me that they wanted to offer me a job. I was very happy. With-in a few days they sent me an official offer letter by email. It was for a lower salary than I wanted to accept, but it was still a good offer.

In talking to Stephanie about the offer I had received from Symantec, I decided that I needed to tell them what I wanted for a Salary. I did so, and the hiring manager told me he would see what he could do. I was amazed to see that they offered me exactly what I asked for. Sometimes, it seems, you need to ask for things to get them. I think that maybe we miss out on some blessings from our Heavenly Father because we neglect to ask for them.

The transition from PS’SOFT to Symantec was seamless. My last day at PS’SOFT was on February 29^th, and my first day at Symantec was on March 3^rd.

I am really enjoying my position at Symantec as a Principal Course Developer.

A New Car!!!

Stephanie and I were worried about facing the winter with the current cars that we had, so we started looking for a new car. Stephanie's Nissan Altima doesn't do very well in bad weather, and my Chevy Lumina had had some issues with the tires ever since we got it towed, and the towing company messed it up.

In shopping for a new car we wanted a SUV. We wanted something that would prepare us for having children. In looking at different options we came down to two choices, a Honda Pilot year 2003 for $13,500 or a Lexus RX300 year 2000 for 13,000. They both had about the same mileage (88,000) and we test drove both and weighed the pros and cons of each. We ended up deciding to purchase the Lexus.

One of our concerns in purchasing the Lexus was the stigma that would go with purchasing such a car. We are not the kind of people who try to flaunt what we have, but decided we can’t change the way people think.

We made our way up to Access Auto in Salt Lake City to make the purchase. We got before the finance guy and started going over the numbers. There was over $2000 in costs besides the base price of the car. This made us hesitate about the purchase. We left the dealership and called our auto insurance company (American Family Insurance, which we recommend), and asked them about some of the costs of purchasing the car. They told us they could get the insurance for cheaper. We would save about $300 if we went through them. We went back to purchase the car and were told by the finance guy that he would give it to us for $199. He came down $300 in the blink of an eye. In the end we were at the table reading the documents and noticed that the insurance that he told us was required was optional. We caught him in and outright lie!!! he agreed to remove it completely, but refused to remove another optional insurance. He actually got upset and walk out of the room. The salesman convinced him to remove it and complete the sale. We ended up saving $620 of things that they told us we had to have, but ended up being optional. We still ended up paying the $300 dealers fee, but all in all we felt like we got a pretty good deal.

Here are some pictures of our new car.

Our Puppies

Our puppies, Molly and Skip. Molly is 10 months old, and Skip is seven weeks old. She is a Cocker Spaniel - Shih Tzu mix, Skip is a pure-bred Maltese.

Welcome!!!

This is our first post! We thought this might be a good way to share a little bit of our lives with all of our friends and family.