ALASTAIR + LALEINIA

This weekend sure was a lot of fun! My sister-in-law, Jess, threw us a couple’s baby shower, so we spent a lot of time with friends and family this weekend. We had a nice lunch, chatted about Hoarders (our recent binge-watch), decorated some onesies, and played games. Jess did a really great job in preparing this for us! It was also nice to have my brothers here to spend some quality family time! Our family time typically consists of a lot of laughter and late nights. I’m definitely sleep deprived, but I guess that’s just something I’ll have to get used to now that this baby is coming! We are at the final stretch of this pregnancy. Within this month, Baby McKee will be here! I am beyond excited for the arrival of this baby, especially to finally know what the gender is. I think it’s total crap when women say they “know” what the gender of their baby is, like they have some “mother’s intuition,” because I honestly have no idea what this baby is going to be! Boy or girl, I don...

We spent the majority of this weekend getting ready for the baby! Saturday was expensive, we bought just about everything that the little baby will need, and then moved the apartment around. We've been cleaning and organizing and doing whatever we think that the baby will need to be healthy and happy! Lain is still looking fantastic, and the pregnancy is going really well. To prove it, we went over to the Einstein wall in Provo for our week 33 picture.

I can't believe it is 2015! Last year just flew by. I'm definitely looking forward to this year, especially for the baby to come. I went to bed very late and got up really early to go snowboarding at Sundance with Marcus. I got a snowboard and all of the gear from Laleinia for Christmas. Today was my third time riding my board already! Marc and I were on the slopes for about 5 hours, and I felt like we were the only ones there for the first one or two! It was a great day to be at Sundance! Now, if I am being really honest, I am going through a bit of a crisis! Each year, around new years, I start thinking of what Laleinia and I can do in the coming twelve months. We make ourselves a kind of bucket list for the year, and then throughout the year we try and do all of the things that we planned on doing. This year, I've been trying to think of what we can put on our list, but I get stuck. I am realizing that my life is changing dramatically, because we have a baby on the ...

I love the outdoors, and I love adventure. I tried skiing for the first (and only) time last year, and I loved it. Since Qualtrics has corporate passes to Sundance, and since I had some days off that I needed to take, I dropped Laleinia off at work, and headed off to the mountains! It took a little while to get the hang of skiing again, but I was determined to do one of the blue square runs, more difficult than the green. Having the corporate pass was great because I got to skip the lines! As soon as I got to the bottom of the run, I got right on the lift, and was on my way back to the top! I got to chat with loads of people on the lifts, which was fun. My main goal was to get down on of the blue runs without falling. It took me probably ten attempts, but I was able to do it in the end! I had some pretty good falls, skis and poles going everywhere. Even my goggles flew off on one of them! I was skiing for the best part of eight hours, which I know is going to make me reall...

Now we are towards the tail end of pregnancy, we have been taking photos every week to track the growth of the baby. This week, we headed down American Fork canyon to Tibble Fork Reservoir. As of yet, Utah hasn't had much snow at all, but we were able to find a bit in the mountains. Being Christmas card season, there were loads of couples and families taking pictures, but it was a lot of fun. We definitely recommend a trip up to Tibble Fork, so beautiful, and it was only thirty minutes from our house! (I'm only posting this because I love the photo so much!)

Here is a quick recap of our trip to Iceland! Enjoy.

Today was the day that I was looking forward to. This whole trip was for a babymoon, to relax, but it was more adventurous than anything. But today, we were going to officially relax! We arrived at the Blue Lagoon around 10 a.m. and headed straight for the changing rooms. Once we got into our bathing suits, we went straight into the water. There was no reason to hang out in the chilly air because the water was so warm and inviting! We waded in the water for hours, slathering on mud masks and sipping on smoothies. Throughout the whole lagoon, there are boxes filled with silica mud where you can slather it onto your whole body. We definitely partook and it really did make your skin feel fantastic. (We’ve been back for two days now and Alastair just mentioned that my legs felt really smooth. Thank you, Blue Lagoon!) We also did an algae mask, which really made my face feel great! They also had this waterfall that you can stand under and let it massage your back. That felt real...

Iceland day three: Alastair's day. A few months ago it was a picture of a south coast town named Vík that made me really excited about Iceland. Upon further study of things to do in Iceland, the most exciting seemed to be Jökulsárlón, a glacier lagoon about four and a half hours from Reykjavík. Day three was the all-important day for both places to be experienced. We headed out early, about 7am, and by the time the sun came up at around 9:30, we were already in Vík. We took some pictures of a beautiful church and the "trolls" in the ocean, but headed off quickly because we wanted to be at the glacier lagoon earlier. We planned on coming back to Vík later on. The drive to Jökulsárlón was long, but very beautiful. We passed through lava fields, mountains, glaciers, waterfalls, even the famous Eyjafjallajökull volcano from the Secret Life of Walter Mitty movie. We passed through patches of light rain, heavy rain, fog, and sunshine, and finally arrive...

Iceland day two: Laleinia's choice. Oddly enough, Lain loves all things geology. Rock formations, plate tectonics, erosion, you name it, she loves it. So the plan for day two was to do the Golden Circle. We got up before the sunrise (about 9:30 a.m.) and headed out in our rental car. Our first stop was an unanticipated (benefit of a rental car vs. tour buses) stop by a field full of horses. There are so many horses in Iceland, and they're smaller and furrier than their British and American counterparts. My goal was to jump on one and see what would happen, so I jumped the fence with some bread. All of a sudden, there were about 30 horses nipping and kicking each other and blocking me in! I got out and we took some photos. No riding, I'm afraid. Next up was Þingvellir, the site of parliament since 930 AD, and the scene of the separating tectonic plates on the mid-Atlantic ridge. It was pretty cool to see nature in action. Laleinia was in her eleme...

One thing that we are pretty determined to continue once we have our baby is traveling. Most people think that this wont happen. Well, we shall see. Anyways, to get off on the right foot, we decided to head on over to Iceland for our "babymoon." For those of you who don't know what that is, google defines it as "a relaxing or romantic holiday taken by parents-to-be before their baby is born." This also fits with one of our goals for the year, which was to go on a trip just to relax. So we headed out to Reykjavik, Iceland, in the middle of November. As we were flying through the night somewhere between Canada and Greenland, Alastair suddenly realized that his window was facing the North, and that we were close enough to the North Pole that we should be able to see the Northern Lights. Sure enough, there they were, the Northern Lights! All green and moving around, we spent some time looking at them from 39,000 feet! Kind of surreal, and we are hoping to se...