Mayan- a birth day

Mayan- thank you for being my easiest pregnancy and coming easily and healthily into this world and our family- much appreciated. :) We all love you so much already and are so excited that you are part of our forever family!

The day before Mayan was born, I was feeling a little sick to my stomach so I stayed home from church and had a 3 hour nap (first give away). After church, we all just hung out, reading "The Friend" and listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Then we went to our friends, the Jagers for dinner, I had a few strong contractions while I was there, however inconsistent but mainly we just enjoyed the company of good friends. As soon as we got home though, it was a different story, I started to have more and more consistent contractions, so I took a bath while Brannon got the kids to bed and did the dishes. Brannon told the kids we'd be going to the hospital but they still went to bed like champs, then he moved them to the Nielsens to spend the rest of the night.

When we arrived at the hospital they immediately put us into a room because I had to get my Strep B antibiotics started. I was dialated to a 5 and since I had to be hooked to an IV anyways, I opted to have my epidural started. We settled in and things went on without a hitch. I think about an hour after being there I was dialated 8cm. Then the waiting game began, as they couldn't break my water until after 4 hours of antibiotics, so I'm pretty sure I waited 4 hours at a 10, Brannon and I took naps, laughed and ate ice chips. Finally the waiting was over and Dr. Bujor broke my water, 1 contraction later she crowned. Between contractions, Mayan's head bobbed up and down, the doctor asked if I was doing that- NO! That was all Mayan, she was so excited to come out that she was pushing her feet against my ribs. 2 more contractions and she was out!

Mayan Lina Rodriguez Orton born Monday,August 22, 2011- 8 lbs 2 oz (thank goodness she was 11 days early!) and 21 inches long.
Sweet little angel, fresh from heaven. She cried and cried (probably upset for having us delay her arrival). Since then she's been a perfect baby, of course she's not sleeping through the night but I can still dream can't I?

1st picture with her proud Papa.
Mayan loves to sleep with her hands curled up by her face, she doesn't scratch, and she is a very consolable child.
Her first visitors were Angie and Kelci, followed by a steady stream of lovely friends bearing treats (my friends know, I like treats! ;) (My mom's flight wasn't until Wednesday).
Belize and Rio anxiously waiting to hold "the precious".

Rio became a big brother . . .
and Belize is relishing her role as big BIG sister!

We only stayed one night and then headed home with a tiny carseat, and picked up some dirty kids on the way.

Baby Mayan

Surprised to see her mom. Shauna will do a better job with this post when she gets home.


The room was a little cold and she didnt like it
Mayan screamed and screamed.
This is post labor, feeling much better.
Shauna Pre Delivery (she had an eye droop from the anesthesia), she might make me take this one down.
The not so little lady herself.

Belly pics

Yes, we did the pictures. We used it as an FHE activity.




Impromptu action shots






Before I knew it, Brannon was taking off his shirt for the quintessential weird couple pic- what a joker! Poor Mayan-haha.

My friend spotted this wood, dora sticker covered dollhouse on the side of the road, I took it home, sanded it, primed and painted and -voila! Selling it on craigslist.

I wouldn't be living the LA experience if I didn't put my kid up to being in some commercial-haha. My friend is a talent agent and Belize booked her first (maybe last cause it was a lot of driving) job. This was her "costume". If she ends up being in the final cut for the commercial I will post it around Thanksgiving time. I asked her what her favorite part was and she said, "being on a real stage", but when asked if she'd like to do it again she said, "yes but only if it could be shorter".


Chezie, Brighton and the kids had to kid-test the durability of the dollhouse.
Just some sunday shots.

Mt. Whitney the Mountaineer's Route by Brannon

I guess this post is mostly for the very few of my friends and family that actually follow this blog. I apologize in advance because there are no pictures of kids in this entire post. However, the next post we do should include the new addition to the family and that is something to look forward to.

I decided to do the mountaineer's route to summit Mt Whitney last week and found it to be a little more technical than I had anticipated but overall, the hike went really well. I went with a few friends from work who had climbed it before but not too many miles into the hike I had to go the rest of the way alone. They were not quite going fast enough to make it up and down in one day and I had to be on call the next day (they were planning on staying the night).

This first picture is of lower Boy Scout lake that is just above the portion of the hike know as the ledges. It is a group of ledges that winds up the side of the mountain, a difficult trail to follow in the dark and we lost it several times. Quite a bit of time was lost on trail finding up those ledges to the lake. We ended up on the wrong side of the lake and started up the saddle on the opposite side of where we should have been and had to bush wack our way back to the trail.
Above lower Boy Scout lake was this water way that came down from Upper Boy Scout lake. This was a very nice part of the hike because the trail just wound around the little water falls every where. It was very scenic.

I wish I would have taken a picture of upper Boy Scout lake but I didn't. I left the main group at upper Boy Scout and went alone from there on out. This picture was taken in the valley above upper Boy Scout lake facing the mountain. The two peaks on the left are known as the needles and the bigger peak on the right is Mt. Whitney. At this point I was wondering how I was supposed to summit the mountain because it was not clear at the time. I knew that I had to stay right and try to get up to the notch that took you around the back of the summit. I just continued to walk in hopes that I would see some other people on the same route.
This was taken in that same valley from before, still no clear route to the top.
I did finally see some people who had camped at Iceberg Lake the night before that were heading to the summit and we headed to the notch together. We had a few wrong turns and had to do some serious down climbing but it worked out just fine.
Yes! Made it to the top of the notch and I was most of the way there at this point. There was just one more technical climb and another 3-400 feet to the top.
This is looking down at the last climb to the summit. It doesnt look to bad, but when you are not sure where you are going it complicates things a little bit. Also, if you look in the middle of this picture towards the bottom of this cut there is a 10-12 foot wall that you need to climb to get up to this boulder field and scramble to the top. Unfortunately there was still ice on the wall on this climb that had to be avoided any way that you could and still make your way to the top. At the bottom of this is a small ledge and then another 800-1000 foot drop, so dont fall here.
Finally, after that last climb the summit comes into view. It is a nice flat area with a lot of comfortable boulders to sit on and take a rest. I started hiking at about 230am and reached the summit at about 1030am. It was longer than I had hoped but the trail finding killed me, next time it will be much faster. The whole thing took about 12-13hours of hiking.
Belize and Rio always want to come with me, but since they cant Belize likes me to take a figurine for her and one for Rio with me. She says it is so I wont forget them while I am hiking and it is pretty cute.

This is one last view of the top. The rest of my group did not end up being able to summit. One of the fell and hurt his leg and a couple people in their group needed some rope assist to get down. They didn't get off the mountain until early Sunday morning. It was a fun experience and I am looking forward to doing this stuff with the kids when they are a little older.