Goodbye Santa Monica 3rd Ward

We have had a lot of excitement and change as this year has closed out including my realease from the Young Single Adult Ward Bishopric. Caroline and I have been Santa Monica Silver Monkey's for over three years. We owe a lot to the Santa Monica Third Ward. It is where we re-met, dated, broke-up, courted, were engaged, were married, and almost had our first baby. We have been through a lot and have grown in the gospel since joining its ranks. We are very sad to leave and hope that all of our friend from the ward will still talk to us and at least pretend to like us. Once a Silver Monkey, always a Silver Monkey. To all of the singles still members of SM3, get married and come join us.

The Blasers' Came to Los Angeles

We had the time of our lives hosting Sherm, Juliette, and Katelyn this past week. They came to escape the winter wonderland of Boise, ID and share the beautiful weather with us here in Los Angeles. Here are a few of our highlights:

Sherm, Katelyn, Juliette, & Brian on the School Bus Ride
at Knott's Berry Farm

(*this one was a doosy)

Katelyn on the Airplanes

(*she didn't understand that to lift off of the ground you had to pull back on the stick so she was the lone flyer who crop dusted the whole time)

Katelyn and Sherm Trucking Together

Brian, Caroline, Katelyn, Juliette, and Sherm on the Santa Monica Pier
(*just after we took this photo a seagull attacked Sherm for the rest of his cheese burger by swooping in and biting his cheesburger hand. We wished Cutter was there to take care of the seagulls.)

Doctor Visit #2

So, I (Brian) was really pumped to go to the second baby doctor visit so we could see the baby again. In theory the baby is big enough that you can possibly find out the gender. We got in the doctors office and Dr Amersi busted out a heart monitor with a speaker and we were able to hear our babies little heart beating at about 180 beats per minutes.

"Any questions?" Dr Amersi asked.

"Yeah, can we see the baby on a sonogram?" I asked.

"No", she said, "you only get three on your insurance plan."

In my mind I was thinking, "What kind of lame idiot created this insurance plan. It takes like two minutes and should cost like maybe $10.00 at the most." And then I said, "okay we will wait FOUR MORE WEEKS."

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas to all,

And to all a good night!

Merry Christmas from the Bishopric

Left to Right: Lloyd (Reindeer #2), Brian (Elf #1), Bishop Eastland (Santa), Mike (Elf #2), Jeff (Santa's Helper), Peter (Reindeer #1)

1st Anniversary

Our 1st Anniversary snuck up on us without us realizing it. Since most of you out there weren't able to make it to our crazy HUGE party we have included a few photos of the excitement.

*p.s. we plan on reusing the candle on our cake in about 18 months. How fun is that?

Christmas Cheer!

This is our second, "first Christmas" since we have been married but this time we actually have our heads on straight...enough at least that we have been able to bring a little Christmas Cheer to our home. We hung some stocking on the bookcase...I hope Santa is tall because we hung them on the top shelf. And below is a picture of Caroline modeling our first Christmas tree. (look like a familiar photo?)

Happy Birthday Dad!

Randall Adair Merrell

Our First Doctor's Visit

What a Great Experience. I guess we weren't sure what to expect, seeing as how we were referred to an unknown doctor at an unknown hospital, but it was great. Our Doctor's name is Shamsah. With a name so foreign who knew what to expect. She turned out to be great. She is of Indian decent but is from Africa and seems to be in her early to mid 30s. She was very competent, very nice, and a mother herself. After all of the girl stuff she performed the first ultrasound.

Drum Roll Please!!!

There is a baby inside. Caroline almost fell off of the bed she was so excited. In no time flat there was the image of a beautiful, teeny, tiny baby with it's little arms and legs. Some people were hoping for two little ones inside but there is only one. Before we could gather ourselves together Shamsah was rattling off stats and pointing to the heart beating and the spine and some other stuff that surrounds the baby that I am sure is really important but not as cool. We thought the baby was going to look like a Kumquat (that's what they compare it to online) but not so, my friends, not so. It looks just like a baby. Big head, normal body, arms and legs with joints and tiny fingers and toes, healthly heart, spine, and of course the embilical cord.
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The baby was moving its body, little arms, and legs and was very, very active. Shamsah kept says, "what a healthy and active baby" over and over again. She was very impressed with how healthy the mother and baby are and how much the baby was moving. Then it happened. No joke! And Caroline will stand as my witness. The little showboat did a back flip right before our eyes. I think it's a Beus thing because "daddy" has never been able to do backflips.

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Shamsah's equipment estimated that the baby is 4.8 cm in length, that Caroline is 11 weeks and 4 days into her pregnancy, and that the estimated due date is 25 June 2009. She also recommended eating toast (Caroline's favorite) and an Omega 3 supplement for Mom/Baby and for Dad. I guess she could tell that Dad's mental acuteness was lacking in luster a bit. Our next appointment is 30 December 2008

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What a fun experience! We are going to be Mommy and Daddy.

A few more details...

Sorry for not giving any details in the last post. I was in such agony over Brian posting that picture of me (which he has made me promise not to remove) that he gave up before writing any more. I am due towards the end of June which makes me a little over 10 weeks along. I don't think I would be showing at all yet, except that I eat constantly to try to curb the nausea. But who knows... people have been predicting that we are going to have the largest baby in the history of the world because we are both so big... 33 inches. 22 lbls. Thank you, everyone. That doesn't scare me at all. Not one bit.