A race and a BABY!

Well, a lot has sure been going on around here! Some good news about us is spreading very quickly...

We're expecting! 

Baby Winn is due 3/3/2014. I am 13 1/2 weeks along... so close to the 2nd trimester! We could not be more excited for our little bundle of joy to join the fam. 

I have been very tired and fairly sick over the past 3 months, so I'm hoping all of that starts to fade soon. Other than that, I have had a great pregnancy so far! Thank you everyone for all of your support, we are very blessed to have such great friends and family to support us. 

A special shout out to my partner in crime... Matt has been absolutely amazing and understanding as I deal with all the pleasant and not-so-pleasant changes of being pregnant. He is such a wonderful husband and will be the best father. I am so lucky to have married such a patient man! 

Here is a cute (at least I think it's cute!) pic from my latest ultrasound... it's a view of the top of the baby's head and two hands. I just thought it was the most adorable thing ever so my midwife took a couple of pictures for me :) Little hands!!

Last weekend, we went up north to Vancouver with my parents to run the Lulu lemon half marathon! I use the word run loosely, as it means "run as much as you can but walk a lot" for a pregnant lady like me. But Matt and my dad actually ran and did great! I tried to train for the race and I was doing a good job until I hit about the 7th week of pregnancy and I just became too tired to run very much. But, it was a fun race, my mom was a good sport and hung out with me the whole time, and the course was beautiful! I would really love to go back and run it again sometime when I can actually run the whole thing! 

Here are some pictures from that fun and exhausting weekend!

Also, yay for my awesome parents... today is their 25th Anniversary! I am so glad I've got their example of marriage that always made me believe in true love. I love you guys!!

Have a wonderful labor day weekend! 

Escaping

Hola amigos! I am back from a 3-month-long hiatus... mostly because life was pretty ho-hum, same old same old until this happened: our big vacation of the year! 

I've been on my last summer break from school since June, and I have been enjoying every minute of it. Being able to take time off of work and relax with my sweetheart and some great friends was just what the doctor ordered!

We went on a Caribbean cruise with our friends, Jim and Natalie Cannon. (Jim and Matt were mission companions and they are bromance soulmates!) Because of both of our last names, we dubbed out official trip hashtag as #cannwinn2014. WAHOOO!

We left out of Cape Canaveral in Florida and visited Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. We had a blast on the ship and off the ship... it's always a great day when the sun is shining, the ocean is turquoise and there's a water slide right outside of your room!

(hairy chest competition runner up right here ^)

And now, let the picture overload commence. I had my camera but Jim and Matt brought their go pro cameras and got some UH-MAZING and fun shots, so I'm going to share some of those too. Plus they're perfect for selfies!

Grand Turk: we hopped on ATVs and rode around the island, saw a lighthouse, waved at a lot of donkeys and played at a gorgeous beach. This place was not touristy and reminded me a lot of San Salvador, Bahamas (where I've been before for a coral reef research trip). 

obligatory cruise ship pic

Natalie leaving Jim in the dust!

 

San Juan, Puerto Rico: This place was beautiful! We all thought it was like being dropped off in an old, Carribbean version of Seattle... busy and full of life! 

(Jim and I are very biased with our love of Seattle)

We walked around the old San Juan and wandered through cathedrals, fortresses, alleyways that looked like rainforests and beautiful colored buildings. It was so fun! 

St. Thomas: We went on a snorkeling excursion for the morning while we were in St. Thomas, and it was a blast! We saw some turtles, rays and LOTS of fish. I love snorkeling! There was so, so much fire coral (my research buddies know what I'm talking about... nasty stuff) but luckily non of us got "burned." We then walked to town and ate at a little local Caribbean place. 

 The "turts"

 St. Maarten: This was an interesting stop... we made our own perfume! We took a mini-tour of the island with a great tour guide and ended up at a perfume shop/lab. We all got to smell hundreds of scents and concoct our own original perfume or cologne. Super original and we have a pretty unique keepsake!

  

  

 Some other fun things...

Matt was particularly outgoing on the cruise ship! He went up to get hypnotized and participated in the hairy chest competition - he got 2nd place! It is so fun and hilarious to watch him put himself out there! (insert cry-laughing emoji here.)

So that covers the first 9 days of our trip... we stopped at HARRY POTTER WORLD before we left Florida, but I will have to blog that another time. It was positively magical, I assure you. But you're probably sick of reading this/looking at pictures of us for now. 

I hope you are enjoying the rest of our quickly-fading summer! Bye for now :)

Celebrating marriage!

Hello, hello. Hope this finds you all well :)

Between school and work, we are trying to fit in some fun - as always! We celebrated our 2nd Anniversary on March 10th! My, how time flies. It seriously feels like just a few months ago that we were sealed in the Seattle temple and the whirlwind of our wedding day happened... but at the same time, I can hardly imagine my life without Matt. I am so incredibly grateful for Matt and our marriage. It has been really fun to watch almost all of my friends fall in love, get engaged and tie the knot over the past few years. To think that I've now become someone who is asked for newlywed/marital advice is so hard for me to believe, but that has happened quite a few times! 

It is so amazing that I have such a strong, faithful man in my life everyday, forever. He puts up with me when I'm selfish, tired, moody, clingy, sassy or otherwise hard to live with. I really got lucky with this one and I look back on my life in gratitude to Heavenly Father for guiding me in my dating years so that I would end up in the arms of my most perfect soulmate. No one can bring out more passion in me than Matt - whether it's laughing, excitement, crying, or love. He is the BEST! 

Okay, sorry for the sappiness... cheers to marriage and many, many more years of love, laughter, growth, fights, make-ups and adventure! 

To celebrate, we spent a nice weekend at a little french-themed B&B called L'Auberge in Woodinville. We had a great time, and even got breakfast in bed! The food was to die for... our hostess was seriously the best cook ever. 

Matt's almost-finished breakfast (3rd course). We spent some time writing in a "couple's journal" that Mallory bought for us. A fun way to remember our weekend!

Nothin' better than some Martinelli's and fresh flowers on your nightstand. 

My food. Almost gone as well... I couldn't stop eating for a picture earlier, it was too good. 

The lovely bowl we found in our room. This has kind of a funny story behind it...As we checked in, the hostess told Matt, "I really hope you guys brought some champagne, or at least some wine, for dinner!" When we told her we don't drink wine, her chin hit the floor. "AT ALL?! I've never met anyone that doesn't drink wine at all!"

Guess she's never met a mormon! Haha we told her we were LDS, and she didn't really know what that meant. When we said mormon, she goes, "Oh, like Mitt Romney? Okay." She wasn't nearly as friendly to us after that, but it's okay. We found it quite humorous that she was so off-put that we choose not to drink wine! And then we found this dish in our room and our new favorite saying is, "A dinner without wine is like a day without sunshine!" :)

Speaking of marriage... my sister is getting married THIS SATURDAY! I am so, so, soooooo happy for Mall and Tyler! I will take lots of pics and post about that soon!

Otherwise, I have been thoroughly enjoying my spring break (woohoo, two quarters down!) and gearing up to start my third and final quarter this year of my DNP program! That is so good to say. 

Hope you all have a great weekend! 

Yay for birthdays!

The beginning of the year is an exciting time around these parts... we've got two birthdays back to back! We started the festivities out with our traditional Spaghetti Factory dinner for family birthdays.

My 23rd birthday was on January 4th. It was a fun day filled with ice cream cake, family time and my company winter party. 

I am a little bit sad that I can no longer sing Taylor Swift's "twenty-two," with as much enthusiasm, but I am very excited about the year that lies ahead!

On January 12th, Miss Whitney turned 10! 

It is so crazy that our red-headed spunky angel is getting so old! She is truly a miracle and watching her blow out her 10-year-old candles is somewhat emotional for me. I think about how lucky we are as a family to have been blessed with her spirit for this long and to get to watch her grow up. I think of all of my precious kiddos from the cancer unit in SLC, some who are still living and some who were called back to heaven, with love. Cancer sucks... but it sure helps us remember what is precious in life. 

For Whit's birthday, she and Lizzie (perks of being a sis!) got their ears pierced! It was a fun outing and they both survived with new sparkly things in their ears :)

Oh, and... HOW BOUT THEM HAWKS!!!! Love my team!!! (Blue Friday at work)

We go on working and schooling and trying to fit in some play time... hopefully you all have seamlessly begun post-holiday "normal life" again! Have a happy week!

2013 in review!

Hello, blogosphere! I have been MIA for a while, mostly due to family events, work and catching up on sleep whenever I can! But here I am, and 2013 is already over. I can't believe it!

New Year's has never been a favorite holiday of mine, mostly because I have a hard time staying awake past 10:30 on most nights. I like setting goals on a normal basis, so new year's resolutions don't have too much weight with me. But I love the fact that the new year prompts me to reflect on my past year in gratitude and to identify lessons along the way. Also, Matt proposed to me on New Year's Eve two years ago, so that makes it a lot more special :)

Matt and I have been so blessed this year. 

Here is our 2013 in review... mostly in pictures because those are the best! 

Matt thrived and I survived in the brutal SLC winter! It is so beautiful, but makes me grateful again for my rainy Seattle winters.

We sent off our favorite sister missionary to Toronto, CA.

Matt and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary with some snowboarding and a weekend away. 

I got into UW, the grad school of my dreams! Matt graduated from BYU with his Bachelor's in Exercise Science. Woo hoo!!

We "partied hard" with friends and did lots of camping during our last month living in Utah. I graduated with my Bachelor's in Nursing from the U of U. 

We camped some more at Matt's family property and left the first place we called home together for good. We moved to Seattle to begin our job and house hunt!

We made a quick trip back to Utah for my grandfather's funeral. We were lucky enough to also spend a lot of time with Matt's family! We miss them!!

Our little Lizzie got baptized, marking the end of an era in the Hutchings family! She's getting so old! *tear*

September was a busy month... we moved into an old, dilapidated farm house. We fixed it up and called it home, enchanted by the beauty of the fields and coyotes that came with it. I started my first quarter at the UW and we got to go to Coeur D'Alene and watch Andy play football. 

We both (finally) had jobs in October! Matt started working as a Personal Trainer at the Pro Sports Club and I started working as an RN at Pediatric Associates. We both love our jobs and are so blessed to have work. My best friend Lauren also got married (back in September) but I got to finally see her at her open house here in Seattle!!!

We spent a fantastic Thanksgiving with my family and counted our blessings many times. Also, kept up the tradition of the Turkey Trot! (we also moved out of aforementioned farmhouse, into a townhome in Bothell. We love our new place!)

We went to Matt's swanky work Christmas party where we both won some prizes - yay for Roulette! We got to spend more time with my fam for Christmas and my sister Mallory got ENGAGED! We are so excited for Tyler and Mall and can't wait to welcome him into our family officially!

Have a happy new year and a fun, safe night! Bring on 2014!!