Happy Independence Day!

Happy Fourth of July! 

Yesterday my family drove in from Santa Cruz, CA. They were kind enough to make the 12 hour drive with a bunch of stuff for our little girl, like a sweet rocking chair and a co-sleeper! And the added benefit, we get to celebrate the 4th together. Usually we like to be lounging on the coast, spending time with Danny's family in Carlsbad, but it didn't work out this year. So the 110 degree weather will have to do! I am so glad to have my family with us as we BBQ, watch some fireworks, and celebrate the Liberty we have as Americans. It is a precious liberty that we have to honor and respect. We can't take it for granted because people, for hundreds of years, have fought for this freedom and it is our duty to hold it sacred.

Enjoy your celebrations! Be safe!

#oertlefamilyvaca: Big Bear Lake, CA

Last night Danny and I returned to our very warm abode after a great family vacation. While vacation was everything it should be, there is just something so nice about returning to your own home and your own space. I am realizing more and more that I have really adjusted to my home here in Tempe. I love it. I love pulling into our neighborhood, seeing our home in the distance, and hearing the sound of the key unlock the front door as I re-enter our little sanctuary of family life. Anyway...back to the great vacation!

We left on Saturday morning and drove the 5 or so hours to the San Bernadino Mts., eventually arriving at the cute little city of Big Bear Lake, CA. Danny and I arrived before the rest of his family, so we walked a long the lake a bit and grabbed a coffee. Once his parents arrived, we went to the house. From the outside, it looked awesome! It was very cabin-like and looked like it would be spacious. As we spent more time in the house, we began to realize it had some major shortcomings, the main one being an ant infestation. And I mean infestation. Ants in beds, ants all over the kitchen, ants on the couches. So Danny's dad, after some major arm wrestling with the rental agency, was able to get a new accommodation. And let me tell you...IT WAS AWESOME. To give you a taste, here was our view for the last few days:

We were up pretty high and had the most beautiful view of the lake. Since that was the best part of the house, there was a huge deck with plenty of lounge chairs. We spent a good amount of time out there just reading and talking and spending some good quality time together. And in the evenings, this view lent us wonderful sunsets! 

We had some good celebrations up there, too. Father's Day was on Sunday and my 25th birthday was the following day. I had already given Danny his gift before we left...you can't exactly bring a gas grill wrapped and ready to give, so I opted to let him have it before. 

For my birthday, we happened to choose that day to rent a boat and take it out on the lake. Even though I couldn't do any of the major activities like cliff jumping and tubing, it was still great to just spend a few hours on the lake with the family. It was fun to see our little nieces (4 and 2) conquer the tube with out a second thought and to see Danny goofing off with his sister Carrie when it was his turn! 

It was a little windy! 

Stella chowin' on some oranges and giving us a funny smile! 

Norah behind the wheel!

The man I love! 

 One of my favorite parts of the whole vacation was seeing Danny play with his nieces. He is going to be the best dad to our little love. He is so gentle and loving, fun and goofy, all while being such a man. I love him and I can't wait to see him thrive in his fatherhood! Here he is playing with Norah...helping her float in the doorway.

Magic!

Before heading out yesterday, we stopped at one of Big Bear's tourist attractions: Alpine Slide. It is basically a huge luge that you slide down. I couldn't go for obvious reasons, but it was still fun to see the family come down the mountain with a little speed and huge smiles! Even the little girls got to go!

Alpine Slide

Danny going up the ski lift and coming in (top left to right)
Candyce coming in with Norah and Smitty coming in with Stella (bottom left to right)

The drive home wasn't too bad, but it is always a little sad leaving family vacations for reality. This morning Danny woke up early and left for work and I am back to home projects. In fact, I should be leaving to head up to Restoration Hardware and West Elm! Time to conquer the AZ heat!

Let me brag...about my sister

I have been blessed with a wonderful family. It is full of great people who love life and one another. There are no shortages of talent, conversation, confrontation, and love. My parents have done a remarkable job shaping us into unique individuals, helping us to see the many gifts God has bestowed up on us. My sister Mary is my older sister by two years. The gifts and talents Mary fosters involve art and history. Not quite together, though they definitely influence one another. Here, I hope to brag about Mary the Historian.

Mary perserved in academia. It didn't necessarily come easy to her, but she did not lose hope or ever give up, and she has come far! Mary graduated high school, joined a missionary program for a year, and moved back home. She lived at home, attending Cabrillo Junior College and then California State University Monterey Bay, completing college after a rigorous 7 years. She persevered and I was so proud of her. But she didn't stop there; rather than searching for an OK job in Santa Cruz, Mary ventured into graduate school. She attends CSU Fullerton where she studies public history with an emphasis in oral history. What does this mean? This means my sister digs through the trenches of museums to find the truth about what happened. She wants to look at the primary sources and put the puzzle together herself. She wants to talk to the people, listen to their stories, and find out their truths. Not only does Mary want to do this, she does do it and she is extremely gifted in her ability to convey the stories of others. She has a compassion for their lives and their circumstances and she sees with a wholeness that I find historians often miss. 

I had the opportunity this last year to help Mary through her first year of graduate school by editing her papers. It gave me a unique opportunity to see into Mary's mind and the way she thinks and it made me appreciate the challenges of her program. This summer I also had the opportunity to see Mary's history come to life in an exhibit. We went to the Oakland Museum of California, an awesome, very tactile museum, where Mary's work was on display. She and her colleagues studied the effects of the recession in Southern California. They interviewed people, received first hand accounts, and had to creatively design an exhibit that showed this part of California's history. It was so awesome to see Mary's work and to see her name "in lights" so to speak. 

Here are a few pictures of the exhibit! 

These magazine covers capture the lifestyle of OC. The names of the historians are on the back. 

Can you see it? Her name in lights! She focused on the educational effects of the recession.

This corner discussed the foreclosure. There was a door with a notice of foreclosure taped to the front and a mailbox with letters written from people asking for loan forgiveness on their homes. 

This corner discussed education and the different propositions made that affected students and professors. 

This discussed how the OC culture still thrived, but only under the guise of extreme debt.

The historian herself! 

Home Sweet Home

For the last two weeks, I have been in Santa Cruz, California visiting my immediate family. I always look forward to coming home and being refreshed by the beauty of Northern California. I looked forward to this trip for weeks, constantly texting my little brother about all the awesome things we would do and the delicious things we would eat! (I am pregnant, after all, and the food in Santa Cruz is so fresh and good. It is A MILLION times better than anything you can find in Phoenix!) The trip, however, was drastically different than all of my other trips home. It is hard to articulate why, but I know one of the main reasons: Santa Cruz is no longer my home. It is weird to say that or type it because I love California and I love home, but now I have my own home. I have a husband and a baby on the way and it broke my heart to be apart from him for two weeks. I always missed him before, but this was a whole new level of missing. He is my home. So cheesy, but so true.

The trip was also jam-packed with activity. I flew in on a Saturday afternoon, had a baby shower that evening, went to this awesome town pancake breakfast Sunday morning, drove to Modesto (two hours or so away) for my nephew's 1st birthday, had a few days to breath, attended my brother Joe's Baccaulaurete Mass on Thursday, prepped for a graduation party on Friday which included a run into Costco and picking up a precious package, my sister Mary, from the airport in San Jose, a graduation and HUGE party on Saturday, and then a few relatively low-key days at the end, though we did take one trip to Oakland to see Mary's history exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California. See. BUUUUUSY. It was just go-go-go. Usually my trips consist of morning Mass followed by coffee with my mom at a near-by coffee shop: Pacific Coffee Roasting Company. They include a few walks in my favorite forest: Nicene Marks. We enjoy a number of low-key but awesome family dinners. This trip lacked almost all of those entirely, with the exception of a few things I squeezed in the last two days home. And honestly, I was getting a little down about it. I was bummed. On top of that, I had terrible allergies which turned into a chest cold.

As I reflected on the whole week, I realized there were so many good things about this trip. Even though it was hard in some aspects, I really enjoyed my time in a different way. I was here to experience some great and important things. While Santa Cruz is no longer my home sweet home, it will always be my home away from home.

Here are some things I loved about being home:
1. Lunch in Aptos with my sweet baby brother, Joe.

 2. My lovely baby shower with these sweet women who I am so blessed to know and have in my life.

 3. This delicious pancake breakfast under the redwoods.

This guys pancake making skills were an art. So yummy, made fresh to order with eggs, bacon and hashbrowns.

 4. Morning walks with views like this alongside our handsome dog, Odie.

You don't just see llamas on the side of the road in Tempe.

5. Seeing my baby bro graduate from high school! He's the last one of the family!

 5. My sassy little niece, Siobhan! Every morning she would snuggle with me. And who doesn't love this look?

Here she is looking for a gopher (in a beautiful dress, nonetheless). "Don't worry guys, he'll be up in a minute!"

6. Going to Penny Ice Creamery in Capitola with my niece, Shiyah. (Didn't capture that one!)

7. Watching my nephew Aedan play a mean game of T-ball!

8. Our trip up to the Oakland Museum of California to see an exhibit my sister put together with her fellow graduate students. (Followed by lunch at the delicious Chop Bar!)

9. A great, big family dinner on my last night to celebrate the birthdays of Maeve, Mary, and myself. It was so nice to laugh and be together as one big group!

Not the best image, but a great moment. Aunties and Maevers blowing out our birthday candles! 

Maeve is my look-alike. We'll see if our little looks like me or Daddy! 

10. A quick coffee update with our friends, the Fowler's, who moved up north from Tempe after they got married last October.

There were many more little sweet moments, but these are just the first 10 that come to mind! We have to always choose to see the good in this short life of ours. There will be plenty of not-so-good mixed in, but if we choose to focus on the small blessings, life will be so much sweeter and we will see how abundantly blessed we are!

Little Lady or Tough Guy?

A week ago today, Danny and I went to the doctor's office for our routine 20 week ultrasound. I have to admit that I was a little nervous for the appointment. I knew we were going to find out the gender of our little love, but I also knew that it was going to be a window into what was going on inside of me. As excited as I was, I was also nervous to see. I guess I just wanted to know for sure that our little baby was healthy.

Our appointment was early in the morning, so after eating some breakfast and drinking a few full glasses of water, we headed over the doctor's office. By the time we got there, I was really ready for the ultrasound, full bladder and all. Luckily, our little baby cooperated right away and the first thing we did was find out whether this little person is a boy or a girl! The ultrasound tech created an arrow on the screen and pointed to the genitals and asked: "So, what do you think you have?" I was thinking to myself, "Well, I've never seen an ultrasound, but that looks like a girl to me." (I really thought it was a girl for most of the pregnancy, but I also didn't want to get set on one or the other, as I obviously would be ecstatic about either gender.) The other thought I had was, "I don't want to say whether I think it is a boy or a girl because if I say girl and it is a boy, I will feel like I just insulted my son." Luckily, Danny was bold enough to speak up and said, "I think we have a girl!" The tech confirmed and I let out a scream. I have realized over the course of a few exciting events that I don't cry when I get excited...I scream. So I am pretty sure the whole office knew we were having a girl!

After that, we went through a routine check-up, looking at her fingers and toes, her heart, and other major organs. I am happy to say that she looks very happy and healthy. She is so cute! Here are some photos so you can see what I mean:

Her sweet little profile.

Her teensy feet. I am obsessed with them! 

Don't you agree? Isn't she the cutest little thing you every did see? I know I am biased, but I really think she is. I can't wait to see all those features in real life. It is going to be so interesting to see who she looks like since Danny and I are very opposite in our coloring. (He is a handsome blue-eyed blond and I am an olive-skinned brunette with brown eyes!) Maybe she'll be a blend, but I have a feeling she's going to favor one over the other, as most babies do.

After the ultrasound, we ran into BuyBuyBaby and took some photos to create a quick announcement. We wanted to tell the family right away and all at once, so we decided to do a mass text (like we did for our announcement). We just chose one boy outfit and one girl outfit, took photos with them, put them together using Picollage (an app on my iPhone that I use for all the pregnancy photos), and created a little photo message. Nothing fancy but cute enough. 

Boy or girl???

GIRL!!!

Immediately our phones exploded with joy and love for our little girl! Everyone is so excited to have another niece, cousin, or granddaughter, and I am so excited to be the mama of a sweet girl!

Mother's Day

Today is my first Mother's Day. We had a long weekend celebrating the marriage of two close friends, so I am pretty tired. After sleeping in as late as possible, we went to 10:30 Mass and then out to breakfast at Wildflower, a restaurant by our house. It is a bread company, and so they give mothers a free loaf of bread as a gift. (I think I am going to use ours to make bread pudding!) Upon receiving the loaf, Danny told her that this was my first mother's day. She responded joyfully, "Mine too!" She looked really young and I noticed she wasn't married. She started asking me questions about how far along I am and when I started showing. She also said she hadn't heard the heartbeat yet and she seemed really excited to hear it. I couldn't help but feel for this girl. She was working on Mother's Day, her first one, she was pregnant and seemingly without a husband, but she remained so joyful! She was such a beautiful girl. I felt really compelled to go to a little store in the same shopping center and buy her a gift. After breakfast we went to the store and bought her a little gift. I went back into Wildflower and found her. It felt a little weird and I almost wanted to turn around and just change my mind, but I had already bought it and I felt like it was important. So I gave her the gift, said "Happy Mother's Day!" She was so excited. Her name, I found out, was Marisa and she was so grateful. More than anything, I was so grateful! I was so happy that I didn't chicken out, and that I didn't let that awkward feeling keep from showing charity.

Week-by-Week: 9-12

It's pretty trendy these days to track your pregnancy by month with photos and share them with the world. For whatever reason, I usually try to moderately avoid trends. I usually fail in avoiding because I eventually see the good in the trend. People love it for a reason, right? Well, anyway, I knew I wasn't even going to try to avoid this trend! I really wanted to track my pregnancy for both the baby's sake and for mine. Instead of doing month by month, I decided to do week by week. I also add what I am craving, since usually there is something. Oddly enough, the last two weeks I have not really been craving anything in particular...maybe it was a first trimester thing primarily. We'll see! Anyhow, we are the photos so far!

You can see a little bit of a pop from 9-10. Those pancakes might have helped! I literally craved pancakes all week long. And not just any pancakes, but Gwenyth Paltrow's Buttermilk Pancakes. So. Good. The first thing I did when I got off of work on Friday night was go to the store and buy all the ingredients. You have to make the batter the night before and let it rest. The good news is that Saturday morning is made instantly better by delicious pancakes without any real prep or clean up! I was one happy pregnant lady! Don't worry, though, I didn't eat all those by myself (not that I wouldn't have), but I had my husband who was happy to help me make a dent. 

For some reason, I don't have a Week 11 photo, but here is Week 12: 

That photo is taken in Carlsbad, Ca, where my husband's family lives. For whatever reason, hot chocolate was doing the job! I literally got one whenever we went out to eat that weekend, which was more than enough! 

More photos to come soon! 

Announcing the News

I realize that I am now almost five months pregnant with our little bundle, but I want to backtrack a few months and go through how we shared the wonderful news with our family and friends. The morning we found out, Danny was super sick with a 102 fever and was pretty delirious. He was adamant about not telling the family that day because he wanted to be more energetic and show the joy he really felt deep down inside. That really just wasn't possible that day, so we waited until the following day. Of course, this was so hard for me! Number 1, I am a Flynn by nature so keeping a secret isn't the easiest thing for me to do, and number 2, I am a mama and I wanted the whole world to know. Surprisingly, I did really well keeping it a secret. I even talked to John and Kelly later that morning and the topic of babies came up; I didn't even flinch. I didn't let out any clue that we had a little gift preparing inside of me. As far as being so excited to tell the whole world, I occupied myself by coming up with a way to tell the world. We decided that we would tell the family in three rounds: first, we would gather the family on Sunday for breakfast at Wildflower and tell all our local family together. Danny got to share the news, which was fitting since our local family is his immediate family. Everyone was so excited, and it was just a great time. (Turns out a colleague of mine was there, so she found out, too!) After telling Danny's family, we sent a mass text message to my family and then to Danny's. It was super cute and came in three rounds.

We waited a few seconds in between sending the second and third piece, so people had some time to put it together on their own. Auntie Mimi (my sister, Mary) sent this in return: 

It's a good thing we weren't lying, otherwise we would have been BAD! (She thought is was a joke because my wonderful husband once joked about us being pregnant...on THANSKGIVING! So, she had every reason to doubt the truth behind the claim.)

We were only four weeks pregnant at this point, so I wanted to wait to actually tell the whole world, but it was really hard for me. My family always asked when it would be on Facebook, but I really wanted to wait just in case. In hindsight and for the next baby, I think I will tell earlier. Why not have as much of the world praying for and rejoicing in this new little life? Anyway, when it did come time to telling the Facebook world our news, we posted the video of our ultrasound with the title of "Music to a Mama's Ears":

I'm not sure if that will play or not, but I did my best! :)

We were flooded with lots of joyful responses and love! It was so nice to finally let everyone know and to openly share my joy with the world!