My Third Nephew has Arrived!!

(Kristine and Alex Booth at the hospital this morning, I believe...)

Kristine had her baby boy this morning at 4:51 a.m. Robert Alexander Booth is 8 lbs. 5 oz., 20 inches long, and doing very well. Just look at his cute old man face! :D

I just talked to Kristine a few minutes ago and she sounded very tired but very happy. I can only imagine how surreal it is holding a baby in your arms and knowing that you're its mother. I am so excited/happy for her and Alex, and I can't wait to see the little guy mid-October when we go down to Utah for Niklas' follow-up appointment. (Excited/happy is really an understatement for me. I keep having to hold back tears because I'm so happy and touched. I blame the stupid birth control pills....partially.) More pics sure to come in the future of little Robert. :)

Jinxed

So after Niklas had had his surgery almost two weeks ago, the doctors told us that there was always a chance that there could be another electrical pathway that could become "active" once the other extra one was destroyed...and it looks like Niklas fits into that lucky category.

Last night after he had barely gone to bed, Niklas' heart went into another episode. It was a horrible disappointment for both of us, but there is always hope. He's going to call the doctor today and see when they can get him in again for a second surgery. I'm just wondering how many of these buggy pathways he has in his heart... : /

Anyway, I figured I must have jinxed the situation with my post yesterday talking about the success of the surgery. Guess I should keep my mouth shut!

I Plead Being Busy...Yeah.

I'm sitting in the Taylor building on BYU-I's campus waiting for Niklas to get out of his bishopric meeting, so I figured instead of enlightening my mind through scripture study, I should finally give a little update of how we've been. ;) I'm not very good at blogging---I know, THAT thought never crossed your mind, did it?

A lot has been going on in our lives recently, but it's finally coming to a more relaxed pace. Sorta.

I ran a half-marathon (Top of Utah) in Logan, Utah on August 29th, and it was a blast! A half is 13.1 miles, and the actual race was much more fun than the 3-month training. I ran it with my former running companion from WA, and it was fun to chat while we began the race. (The chatting stopped about half-way through---it started getting hard for me.) The funny thing is she was nervous the night before that she hadn't trained enough, etc. But during the actual race, she was the one encouraging me to speed it up a bit by her pacing! :) We ended up running it faster than what we had trained at, and I was thrilled about that. It was a great accomplishment for me and I want to run it again next year. But probably never a full marathon---my knees can only take so much.

A few days later after my race, Niklas had a surgery done on his heart to fix his Wolfe-Parkinson-White Syndrome, which is basically having an extra electrical pathway in the heart that throws off the normal electrical cycle at times, causing rapid palpitations---at any time. There was always a chance that Niklas' heart would act up while he worked out or even when just sitting or laying down. It was problematic, and I think held him back from being more active, etc. Plus, there was a very rare chance that he could die suddenly from the arrhythmia; and I'd rather NOT be a widow any time soon, or later for that matter! So we scheduled a catheter ablation (burning basically) at the U of U hospital and the surgery was a success. They were able to find the area of the extra pathway causing the problem and obliterate it through burning. You can imagine our relief, especially Niklas'. :) I feel very blessed that he was able to get this surgery done and that he won't have to worry about his heart causing issues anymore.

Niklas is doing very well and is mostly recovered. He still has some nasty bruising on a leg where they put a couple catheters in, but other than that he feels great. During the surgery and after we stayed with my sister Kristine in Provo, and it was great to see and Alex right before their little boy comes. I am so excited!!! She is due September 20th and she is so ready to be done with the pregnancy. More often than not Kristine has told me, "Just wait until it's YOU...!" And then I find myself hoping that I won't be hit with the sickness curse that she suffered...but time will tell. (No, I am not pregnant, and won't be for a while yet.)

I've also started an online Master of Science in Accounting through Liberty University, and began classes August 24th. Each course is 8 weeks long, and I'm hoping to be graduated by May 2011. I just had this sudden desire to continue my education recently, so I went for it. So now I head to work, come home and work on my class. It's actually a baptist university...so that's been interesting. I'm a total black sheep, but I'm okay with that since it was more affordable. But it's opening up my eyes to how others my interpret the Bible. Maybe I'll share some of the case studies on here sometime...

Also, Niklas started fall classes this last week, plus got offered a job at Kohls in Idaho Falls and will be starting that this week. I am so happy about the extra income! So all in all we will both be in the same boat with working and attending school. Which equals busy, busy, busy.

That's all I have for now, but here are some old pics of Niklas and I back from October 2008. I was taking pics of us in our kitchen.

I think I was trying to get the timed shots set up in this pic.

This one cracks me up. I guess it's because you can't see my full face and Niklas looks less than thrilled with the up close shot.

This last pic of Niklas is him sporting the intensive Morning Hair. I mean, it takes a full 8-9 hours for this look.