July 4th Madness

Eric and I went to Meadow for the small town festivities for the 4th of July. This was my first time back in over three years and this was Eric's first time to experience the small town fun. The night we got home, my mom's side of the family was over at the house and we had a fun dinner, snow cones, and an outdoor movie on my dad's blow up movie screen. It was a lot of fun. My mom loves having family over and being a great entertainer. The morning of July 4th rolled in and the boys ( Derek, Eric, Dad, and Grandpa) went golfing EARLY. While the men were gone, the women (me, Amb, and Mom) got ready for the day and headed to Fillmore for the Parade. We met up with the Tuttle fam there and watched the lamest parade Fillmore has had (at least the ones I remember). Joni, Ambi, and Me had a picture taken and Joni now has brown hair not blonde. She looks good either way. The one good part of it was my Uncle Steve on the Beckstrand's side danced with some friends from his ward. He is really good and should continue with dance!! Then we went back home to Meadow to meet up with the men and then headed back to Fillmore to the Iverson's house for the traditional Beckstrand family BBQ. Uncle Steve makes the BEST turkey steaks. It was so good to catch up with everyone. After that, we headed back to Meadow to relax and wait til dark to head back to Fillmore for the most amazing fireworks show ever! Eric and I posed for a quick picture. He loved how all the people just lay out blankets and chairs on the baseball fields and the fireworks are lit right above you. I told him that ash will fall down and hit people and one year it burned a hole in my blanket. He laughed when we watched as ash fell and hit the people around us. At the very end, the last firework just let everyone have it. Ash fell like rain and it hit us and everyone else. Eric loved it! He can't wait til next year. Now it is on to the 24th and we will have a post for that.

A Brief Update

Well, life has been so great since graduation. I am now almost five months pregnant and Eric and I find out what the sex of the baby is on August 8th. Eric has so much faith that he has taught me a thing or two about it. I have had times when it has been hard to have faith with me but Eric always tells me it will work out the way it should. And for some reason he is always right in that department. So, I have to stick with him and his faith and my faith that we are having a boy. Tate is ready to be in our family. We are so excited! We do miss being in Connecticut every so often. My career as a dental hygienist is going well. I love the office I work at and the team members there. I stay busy and I am starting to work on my personal digital scrapbook on my spare time and I can't wait to start reading the last book in the Twilight series. Eric is doing great. He is working so hard for the both of us (soon to be three) and is dealing with school at the same time. I help him out as much as I can. I am very proud of him and the dedication and faith he has. We went to Meadow for the Fourth of July and had such a good time. I will make a post soon and discuss our weekend there. So far I think that is pretty much all the updates I can think we have gone through.

Your Vote Counts (not really)

We all know that my baby has a ginormous head, but we don't know what "it" is yet. We want you to vote on whether you think we are having a boy or a girl in the poll on the top right. Let us know in the comments why you thought we are having a boy or girl. We should find out in a few weeks what we are having and we'll let you all know.

Since I know that we are having a boy, we already have a name for him. I've had this name in mind for almost 7 years now, so I'll be happy when I'll finally be able to name my little boy. His name will be Tate Eric Elggren. We have a few names in mind for a girl, but haven't decided on anything definite. If we have a girl first, that's ok. This will be the name of our little boy regardless.

And just to give you a bit of extra information to help out in the voting process, I have had three dreams about Tate. After all, I'm the one giving the deciding chromie so I should know, right?

Happy Birthday Dude!

Today is my mom's birthday. She is 51. I'll have to confirm that and then ask if it is ok if I announce on my blog how old she is. We certainly are grateful for everything she has done. She's been an awesome mom. We've done a good job at driving her crazy and giving her gray hair. You can't see it in the picture, but I'm sure she has had her hair stylist remove it. I know my little boy (or girl) will love you as a grandma. We hope you enjoy your Wii. We hope to enjoy that with you soon. Happy Birthday mom! We love you!

My kid has a head!

Ashley had her second doctor's appointment with her new doctor yesterday. He was kind of crazy. We like that. We were a little nervous going in because of what the doctor lady said to us in Connecticut. When we went to the doctor for the first time in CT, they did some highly technical mathematic calculations to find out how far along Ashley was. After they told us Ash was six weeks along, they took us in to get an ultrasound. It was pretty cool to hear the heart beat that early. According to the ultrasound tech, she said Ash was about five weeks and two days and that the heartbeat was 90 beats per second which was on the low side of normal. They said they usually don't do an ultrasound until you're six weeks along. I figured that it was only low because she was only 5 weeks and a couple of days along. The next day, Ashley gets three phone calls throughout the day from the doctor's office telling her that she needs to get another ultrasound on May 20th to check the viability of the baby. They were aware that we would be moving, but we needed to get into the doctor as soon as we could. After Ashley looked up the word "viability" to find out what it meant, she started to freak out. I had to reassure her that everything would be ok. And it was.

After we got a second opinion from our Utah doc, we found out that the heart was beating at 170 beats per minute. He said it was more than perfect. I don't think we'll go back to that doctor in Connecticut. We also had another ultrasound done. This was my kind of ultrasound mostly because the picture was shown on a 42-inch plasma TV. This time my baby went from just a heart on a stick to a semi-baby looking thing with a giant head. If you look closely at the white dot on the picture, you can clearly see that we are having a boy. Ashley keeps trying to tell me that we won't find out for another 8 weeks. 8 more weeks and the truth will be confirmed. I'll have to create a poll and have everyone guess whether we are having a boy or a girl. I promise I'll be honest and only vote once. I've been guilty of voting more than once on a poll. I think it was 17 times for brunette on Ashley's blond or brunette poll.....

Mommy is going to be hurting if that head gets any bigger

Passing relieves Stress

I have been so stressed out lately waiting to hear back from my Dental Hygiene Boards. The stress is over. I have Passed my boards!!! I am officially done and now have RDH added to the end of my name. Ha ha. How fun is that. I just want to tell everyone thank you for the love, prays, and support given to me. Thank you to Eric for everything. He put a lot into these last two years to help let me achieve my dream. I love him so much. Now we have a big week ahead of us. Moving into an apartment in Pleasant Grove, finding jobs (this is a must), and now having the adventure of awaiting to be parents. I am very excited to start this new chapter of our lives. We both have a lot of family and friends out there to help us when needed and we are there to help them also.

Happy Mother's Day Ashley!

That's my little guy in between the two white dots.

The past few weeks have been pretty crazy. We are getting ready to move to Utah in a couple of days, Ash graduated yesterday from dental hygiene school and now we're having a baby. We found out that Ashley was pregnant a couple of weeks ago and had been holding out to tell anyone until this last Friday when both our families were in town for graduation. She is six weeks along and her due date is set for December 30th. I'm so excited to be a dad and to see Ash become a mom. She will be an awesome mother. We have had great parents to take after and learn from, so I know we'll do just fine.


Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and especially to our own. We couldn't have made it this far without you. Thanks for all you've done and all the toys, clothes, and candy you will buy for our kids. Feel free to spoil them.

Congrats and Happy Mother's Day Ashley! I love you!