WHY DENVER!

FEWF!  What a week!  Of course when I last left you I was praising my healed back and thinking that I was ready to do cartwheels all over the place…NOT!!!  I had NO idea what was ahead for me.

I woke up last Tuesday morning with back pain worse than I have ever had before!  As I went through my work day, I couldn’t concentrate and my neck and upper back got stiffer and stiffer.  I decided that I should take my doctors advice from a few weeks ago and get some chiropractic treatment.  When I called the office, they said they could see me in just a few hours and I JUMPED on the opportunity thinking that I would be pain free after seeing him.  Once again…NOT!

I came home from the chiropractor in worse shape than I started!  I was a mess!  I could not move without being in pain.  I came home and laid in bed for the rest of the night until Calen came home and introduced me to my new best friend…Icy Hot...Not Shaq haha!

If you have never tried this stuff before…it’s absolutely amazing!  It started to take some of the pain away and I was able to sleep through the night.  The next morning I woke up and felt MUCH better, but the chiropractor wanted me to go back in that day…NO WAY JOSE!  I was eventually convinced by my coworkers that the more I went, the more helpful it would be.  So I went, and now I am singing the chiropractor praise song.  Really people…if you are having back pain…I HIGHLY recommend it.  I am going to keep going even with the pain gone now.  Ok…that’s it for the random chiropractic shout out.

Now onto vacation!  We headed out to Kansas on Thursday afternoon and both Calen and I were over the moon excited to be headed out of the city.  We were looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend with the Lucas/Janzen family.

Amazingly, on our way to Kansas we had no major flight problems!  We got to our connections in time and even grabbed a bite to eat.  HOWEVER, it was the WORST turbulence into Denver and Garden City Calen and I have ever experienced. We both looked green getting off the plane.  But oh well…we had MADE IT!

Our first day at the farm was spent in the main downtown area of Johnson, KS.  It is about a 30 minute drive from the Lucas home and I have only been into town there once so I thought it would be fun to explore.  Lindsay, my sister in law decided to join us for the adventure and we had SUCH a good time.

This is us in front of the new thrift store in town.  Lynette has worked very hard on getting this place ready for customers and we were very proud of her work!

Next, we headed over to Emery Drug or “The Old Store” for an ice cream!  When I heard that an old soda bar shop in Johnson existed, I knew we HAD to go!  I had a root beer float and Lindsay and Calen got milkshakes.  YUM!  It was the perfect day for an ice cream.

 After our ice cream, we decided to take a walk and went to visit all of the different schools in Johnson.  Here is Lindsay and Calen at the elementary school where Lindsay teaches kindergarten!

 

This is the middle school that the boys attended!

 

And last but not least, the high school!

 

We had a great day exploring and it was fun to hear Calen tell stories about “dragging main street” back in the day.

The next day we decided to check up on everything going on around the farm.  There were new piggies and cows!!!  The pigs were SO adorable and small!  The cows were a little scared of us, so Calen decided to jump in with the cows and make them run toward me for a close up!  Haha!

 

Mostly we hung out around the house, relaxed, I finished a book, Calen played Mario Strikers (his favorite past time while visiting the farm), ate AMAZING food, and hung out with family.

On Easter Calen and I sang at church then came home and his Aunt Ann took some maternity pictures for us!!!  She is an up and coming photographer and so we thought we would have some fun.  Here is a teaser…SO CUTE!

My bump is still pretty small, but he is definitely in there!  Sandi was the winner of the weekend and felt the “big kick” from little Lucas and Lindsay got the little after shock kick.  He wasn’t much for performing though because they were the only two who got to feel him kick.  Sorry Grandma!

Another fun activity of Easter was the Easter Egg Hunt that Aunt Ann and Uncle Jeff put on for us!  It was hilarious seeing Calen, Carson, and Colby run around with little baskets in their hands looking for eggs!  It was a lot of fun!  Aunt Ann has pictures of the hunt, as I was too busy trying to find eggs myself!  I will try and post some later.

Sadly our time on the farm had to come to an end and we had to tackle dreaded DENVER.  For those of you who do not know, the Denver airport HATES me!  And no I am not exaggerating.  Every 1 out of 3 times I get stuck in Denver when I fly through there.  I am bad luck when it comes to flying and this time was no exception.  We got to the Garden City airport in Kansas with plenty of time to get on our flight into Denver.  When we got there we were informed that our flight was going to be delayed 40 minutes which meant we were going to miss our flight out of Denver into San Diego…shocking right.  SO, then we had two options.  Try and make a connecting flight to San Diego with only a 25 minute layover in Denver, or take a 9:00 flight out of Denver.  Now you see this gets more complicated, because Family Wagon had a show in San Diego that night and obviously Calen was supposed to be there.  If we took the 9:00 flight we would miss the concert.  SO we decided to take a risk and book tickets on the 7:00 flight out of Denver with only 25 minutes to get to our flight.

We landed in Denver and Calen took off running, hoping that he could catch the plane and just let them know that his pregnant wife was coming.  I was huffing and puffing as I fast walked my little butt through the airport with all of our luggage when I saw Calen walking back towards me…He had gotten to the terminal as the plane was backing away.  We missed our flight.

Defeated, we headed back to the Great Lakes customer service desk hoping to hop on that 9:00 flight into San Diego…No can do.  They told us that the next available flight in to San Diego was not until Tuesday (the next day) at 3:45pm!!!!!  WHAT!!!!  With all of the flights into San Diego and out of Denver per day we could not believe that that was our only option.  We needed to be at work the next day!  So we started looking into other less appealing options.  We asked if there was a flight into Orange County that night…and there was.  FEWF!  We figured that we could get into OC at 11PM that night, sleep over at my parents house, and catch the train out of Irvine the next morning at 7am.  This would get us home to San Diego at 9am.  Crazy right…Well, that’s what happened!

My mom picked us up from the airport at around 11pm (thanks Mom!  We love you!), we slept until 5:45am, took the train into San Diego, Elisha picked us up at 9am and took us home (thanks E! You are a lifesaver!) and we drove to work at 9:30am.

Let’s just say it has been a VERY long 24 hours but we still have a smile on our faces.

BUT, you know what the crazy thing is…It was worth it to be with family.  Calen and I both agree that even if this is what we had to do every time we went to visit family, we would never give it up.  We had a wonderful wonderful time and we love you all very much.  Thank you for all of the goofy moments, the times of sharing, and the presence of God that is so visible in each of your lives.

Next time we are in Kansas we will have a little man with us…is that crazy or what!!!  We can’t wait for each of you to meet him!  We know that he is going to be SO loved.

Love you all…whether you are in Kansas, Colorado, Italy, California, Oklahoma, Chicago, South Korea, or wherever you are in the world…we love you and we hope that you feel our love.

Kendall, Calen, and Little Man Lucas

I Knew This Day Would Come...

For those of you who have been to a Family Wagon concert, you know that sometimes they play in less than ideal environments where guitars are swinging along with heads and the fans are having WAY too much fun !  The stages can be small, and I knew from the beginning when I saw Gareth, Ryan, and Calen play (Bryan of course is up there too, but he is pretty safe behind that drum set!) that there would eventually be a trip to the ER.  So last Monday’s adventure did not come as a surprise to me.

The big event at Analog Bar in downtown San Diego last week was AMAZING!  The bar was cool, there were tons of people, and Family Wagon was doing their thing.  Unfortunately Analog is one of those non ideal locations that I was talking about earlier for a Family Wagon concert.  There was no stage, and it was a long narrow room and every fan was pushing to get to the front on the pack to rock out with the guys.  Literally!  I was amazed at the excitement in the room and how badly everyone wanted to be a part of it!  I was so proud.  As the band carried on, the excitement grew and the crowd surfing began!  That’s when I knew this was no longer a place for a pregnant lady!  Haha!  My good friend Bethany and I headed for a safe zone, and when we got back to where we could see the guys playing SOMETHING had obviously happened because there was now a blockade of security guards standing between the band and the crowd.  I figured the crowd had gotten a little rowdy and so security had stepped in…no big deal.

As soon as the concert was over I saw Calen head immediately outside and I thought he must just be hot so he went outside to cool off.  It wasn’t until Ryan’s girlfriend Vanessa came and told me Calen was bleeding that I knew anything was wrong at all!  I immediately headed outside to find Calen with a huge smile on his face and a bloody towel wrapped around his right foot!!!  I said WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU!  Apparently someone dropped their glass in all of the excitement of the concert and Calen, being the barefoot boy he is stepped on a large shard of glass with his bare foot and acquired a nice big gash.  Let me tell you, I have never seen so much blood in my life!

SO, Spencer, Calen, and I spent the next 4 hours (yes that is Midnight until 4am) in the ER getting his foot x-rayed, cleaned, and stitched up.  The end result was 5 stitches and a walking boot.  He is on day 7 of wearing the boot and will get to take it off and hopefully be healed in a few days.

Here is my brave man.

In other news!  Last weekend we had a great time getting together with PLNU alums for the San Diego Alumni Area Event at Petco Park for a Padres game.  Now, although the Padres lost not one, but TWO games this day, it was so fun to get together with good friends and just hang out.

 

And FINALLY, the baby report of the week!!!  Baby and I have been doing well this week.  My back pain has continued to bother me, but I treated myself to a pregnancy massage on Saturday and I think that working out some of the knots has really helped!  No back pain so far today!  I also met with a doctor who let me know that I should get my back adjusted.  He said that my back and shoulders are all out of alignment and that is probably what is giving me the extreme discomfort, so hopefully I will get a chance to get workin on that!

Baby is continuing to kick harder and harder and Calen is able to feel him more often.  We are hopin that he keeps kickin those little legs so that Grandma and Grandpa Lucas and family can feel him while we are in Kansas over Easter!

 

Here is my 23 week picture!  He is getting bigger and so am I!  Thankfully not too big though!  Thank you so much for your continued prayers and affirmations to Calen and me.  We are getting more and more excited with each day and I think we are getting ready to tackle the baby room!  I need to begin “nesting” I think!  Haha!  I’m sure Calen will love that! Prayer for this week would be for our safe travels to Kansas and back and just continued prayer for our preparation for this little one.

I pray that each of you would enjoy the time that you have during this time of Easter, and take the time to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for each of us, and how he is the Lord of ALL.  Let him guide your life in ALL areas and be filled with the knowledge that He loves us more than we could ever imagine.

We love you all!

Kendall, Calen, and Baby Lucas

IT'S A BOY!!!

Well for those of you who read our last post, you already knew that WE ARE HAVING A BOY!!!  But for those of you who are a bit slow...WE ARE HAVING A BOY!!!  Calen and I are so excited :-)

Right after finding out that we were having a little man joining the family, Lynette (my mother in law) and I went to go find our little guy some cute bedding!  For those of you who don't know, we have an incredible story of how we got a crib for baby Lucas.  To make a long story short, a close family friend put the word out that she knew a young couple who was expecting a baby (that would be US!) and that if anyone had anything to spare she would love to bring it to us.  So this mother of five I believe (or more) came up to our friend Trisha after bible study one day and let her know that she had a crib that she would love to give to us.  This family did not know us, had never heard of us before this moment, and yet was willing to give up, NOT JUST ANY CRIB, but a KENDALL Pottery Barn Crib!!!!

Nice right!!!  God has such a wonderful sense of humor!  ANYWAY, like I was saying, Lynette took me shopping to buy some extra cute bedding for this beautiful crib!  And let me tell you, we found THE cutest bedding of all time in my opinion :-)  Welcome to Lambie central!

Calen and I are both VERY excited about the lambies and we already have a puppet from my mom and dad to start off our collection :-)  We cant wait to continue decorating and turning our spare bedroom into a sweet little nursery.  Thank you again Loren and Lynette for starting us off SO nicely!

So now, onto more news :-)  As my sister Kelsy likes to say, baby Lucas made his stage debut on Sunday at her senior vocal recital.  Kelsy was AMAZING!  For those of you who were not able to see it, you should try and get a copy of the DVD.  She did a great job!  We are soooo proud of you sis!  Kelsy already loves baby Lucas and tried to brain wash him that she is the prettiest and the best auntie ever!

OK!  Now to the stuff you have probably been waiting for...ULTRASOUND PICTURES!!!  We had a great time at our ultrasound appointment and had a great technician who took lots of wonderful pictures for us.  Enjoy.

Baby's Leg

Baby's Hand

Baby's other hand with all his fingers!

Baby's Profile

Baby's Feet

Baby's Feet

Legs and....well you can see for yourself!

Baby's Leg

Last but not least, prayer requests for this week.  Unfortunately I have been dealing with bad acid reflux these last few days and I would LOVE prayer for that to go away!!!  It is crippling at work and I am hoping that my doctor can give me something to help with the constant pain.  On a positive note, baby Lucas is kicking away and I LOVE feeling him swimming around inside of me :-)  Calen is continuing in school and work, and we would also ask for prayers as we speak with our bosses and HR department in the upcoming weeks about the future for us.  ALSO, Calen's band Family Wagon has a BIG show this coming Monday, April 11th at Analog in Downtown San Diego.  If any of you are in the area, we would LOVE to see you there.  Click on the link below for more information or give us a call or email.  It should be a lot of fun.

Family Wagon at Analog

Ok...that's the Lucas update for now.  Hope each of you are doing well and that God is blessing you where you are today.

Love,

Calen, Kendall, and Baby