Kristen and Erik

Christmas Traditions

2011-12-19T12:02:00.000-08:00

As Christmas gets closer it is easy to get caught up in all the hoopla and business that is the Christmas season. We often forget about the real reason for the season, the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I have noticed that I too have been guilty of focusing on the wrong part of this holiday and have wanted to change that. Last night Erik and I had a family home evening where we read a story by C.S. Lewis that talks about the silly traditions of x-mas versus celebrating Christmas. Some of the stressful traditions including buying gifts for everyone at the value you think they will give you, regardless if you can afford it or not, sending out tons of Christmas cards to everyone in your address book regardless if you have talked to them in years or not, tons of holiday parties, and all the other business that takes up all of our time so we have none left to focus on what really matters about Christmas, Christ. Our Savior is the healer of all mankind, his birth, life and death made it possible for all of us to live again with our heavenly father and make right the things we could not otherwise. He descended below all things and because of this he knows how to succor his people and to help us through whatever trial we are going through. He is the only one who understands the pain we feel, and the only one who can take it away. He taught us how to live more perfectly, and how to be truly happy. His teachings help us to live a joyous and fruitful life full of meaning. It is his spirit that brings us peace in a world full of confusion. It is because of him that we can find meaning and joy. I am so grateful for a Savior who loves us, and I am grateful for a chance to celebrate his birth and life this holiday season. Erik and I decided that we wanted to focus more on Christ, and create Christmas traditions that will help us teach Eli and our future children about the Savior during this season. His birth is central to all mankind and the most important event in history. We want them to understand the importance of learning about and focusing on this, So we brainstormed a few traditions that we are going to implement, some this year and the rest next. Here they are in no particular order. 1. Read Christ Centered stories the week leading up to Christmas, and a Christ centered scriptural thought every day from Thanksgiving to Christmas. 2. Buy a Christmas movie at Deseret Book every year that focuses on the Savior or his teachings. 3. Set up our manger scene in stages over the course of a week and read about each part that we set up with our children. Ie the wise men and who they were, etc. 4. Pick a gift to give to Christ every year. 5. Attend the Temple at least once during the Christmas season. Well that is a good start anyway. I am sure we will add more as the years go on. If any of our friends reading this blog have any good suggestions about Christ centered traditions, feel free to leave them in the comment section of this post.

Happy Birthday Heather!

2011-12-15T12:25:00.000-08:00

Heather is my sweet sweet sister who is turning 30 today. I made a few digital scrapbook pages of our witches night out for a birthday present. I hope you enjoy them Heather. You are the greatest sister a girl could ask for. I love you! On your 30th birthday I wanted to write 30 things I love about you. Here they are in no particular order. 1. You have a heart of gold.2. You are so easy to forgive when others have offended you. 3. So creative4. Easy going5. Always thinking of others6. The sweet notes you post on my facebook page7. You have a great sense of humor8. You are compassionate and kind.9. You make great birthday cards. I always love getting them. 10. You often give me random thoughtful gifts. 11. You are a great Nintendo player. Especially bugs bunny's birthday blowout. 12. You are great with the computer. I know I can always find you online. 13. You are fun to go to concerts with.14. You are a great aunt to Eli. He loves his aunt Heather!15. You can think of music lyrics for every occasion. You are a music-a-holic. 16. I can always count on you for the latest entertainment update.17. You once gave me $5 for my birthday. It was the only money you had and you had been saving it for a long time to buy something nice for yourself with. It meant a lot to me. 18. You have a great CD collection19. You are fun to hang out with. 20. You help me with Eli when I need it. 21. You are always a friend to those who need one. 22. You are outgoing and happy. 23. You always say nice things about others. 24. You cheer me up when I feel sad. 25. You know how to keep a conversation going. 26. You are always interested in how I am doing. 27. You love animals and enjoy volunteering at the animal shelter.28. You are very crafty and make great jewelry. I still have the bracelets you made me. 29. You are beautiful and look so cute when you get dressed up. 30. You are the greatest sister on the face of the planet! I am super lucky to have you in my life. I love you!

17 weeks

2011-11-21T19:16:00.001-08:00

16 Weeks

2011-10-19T21:56:00.001-07:00

Eli Weeks 14 and 15

2011-10-06T21:12:00.001-07:00

Eli Weeks 12 and 13

2011-10-06T21:09:00.000-07:00

Here are the pictures for 12 and 13 weeks. the 12 and 13 week layouts are together right now, but I am going to separate them. They obviously don't look right side to side since the 13 week hiking layout is way different from the 12 week layout. But here they are

Stay Tuned...

2011-10-06T00:10:00.001-07:00

More posts are coming in the next couple of days. Eli is 21 weeks old now so I have 10 or so more posts to catch everyone up.

Eli 11 Weeks

2011-10-05T17:13:00.001-07:00

Eli 10 weeks

2011-10-05T17:08:00.000-07:00

Eli and I had a playdate with Clarice and Sophia and went swimming at our condo complex. It was so fun and Eli looked so cute in his new swimsuit. Here are the pictures and scrapbook page I made.

Eli at the drive in with dad and Alex. We went to see Captain America with Alex and his family .

Mom and Eli

Eli Week 9

2011-10-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

This week Eli and I went on a hike with my friend Candace and her baby Evie who live in one of the Condo's upstairs. We went up part of the Mt. Timpanogos Trail and it was beautiful. Eli loves the baby carrier cause it feels like he is curled up in my womb when he is in it. He fell asleep the minute I put him in it.

Eli's favorite Toys: His bouncer and swingThe swing has been a life saver because when we can't comfort him, we put him in the swing and he calms down. We are trying to get him to sleep longer at night and the swing really helps. Dad will put Eli in the swing and let it rock him to sleep. He will then sleep next to it to make sure he can help Eli when he wakes up. He doesn't love his bouncer nearly as much as the swing.

This week Lark and I got together to make Eli a carseat canopy to protect him from the outside world and help him to stay asleep when we are out in public. Lark pretty much did all of it since I haven't sewed in a really long time. She did a fantastic job! It ended up taking us till 3am to finish so we were pretty tired. We ended up getting more complicated than we needed to on the connectors, but it turned out really nice.

Eli week 8

2011-10-05T16:28:00.000-07:00

Here are the pictures from Eli's baby blessing and getting ready for it a few days before at Grandma and Grandpa Cambridges. The blessing was a huge success and had a large turnout. All of our friends and family came from far and wide. It was so fun to see everyone.

Eli Week 7 4th of July and Tummy Time

2011-10-05T16:06:00.000-07:00

Eli Week 6

2011-10-05T15:54:00.000-07:00

Eli hanging out with Dad

Eli's visit to Grandpa and Grandma Cambridge's. We hung out at the house and then went to enjoy a nice Sunday evening at the Lone Peak Pond. It is a very beautiful place where you can fish and they have a parkway that goes along it that you can rollerblade, walk, or bike on. It is a very fun place. Eli slept the whole time we were there though.

Eli Week 6 Playdates

2011-10-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

Eli's first playdate. My friend April is a professional photographer and took pictures of all the babies at the swing dancing mommies play date. All the swing dancing moms get together once a month and have a play date with all the kids. It is super fun to see all the babies together. There were four mom's that got together this month April with her baby Eli, Rachel with baby Gordon, Clarice with baby Sophia, and me with Eli. While the babies were laying on the blanket together Gordon kept trying to hold both of the baby Eli's hands. It was so adorable. Here are the pictures, they turned out super cute.

Before the Playdate I got together with my best friend from Childhood Natalie (Peters) Darger and another childhood friend Cara (Adair) Bradley and their kids. Natalie was moving to Texas the next week so we wanted to have one last get together. Natalie was sweet and brought Eli a scentsy lamb stuffed animal that smells really good. It was as big as Eli. Here are the pictures from the get together.w

Eli Week 5

2011-10-05T15:24:00.000-07:00

Eli's first father's day with his dad. As you can see Erik loves to play video games so for his present, Eli played video games with his dad.

Here is Eli hanging out with Grandma Johnson

Here is Eli getting a bath and pampered during Grandma Johnson's visit.

Eli week 4

2011-10-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

Eli Week 3

2011-10-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

Eli's first Gibby gathering and first week at church.

Eli with Mom and Great Grandpa Gibby

Eli with Jennica and Dave

Eli with Dad and Grandpa CambridgeEli's first day at church

Eli watching his first E3 video game super conference with Dad

Eli Week 2

2011-10-05T14:59:00.000-07:00

Here is Eli getting his first bath and hanging out with Dad. As you can see, Erik is a great father and is super involved with Eli. Eli loves his daddy and they have a very special bond. This is one of the reasons I love Erik so much.

Eli Week 1 getting to know the family

2011-10-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

Eli is getting to know his family this week as everyone has come over to visit. Here are the pictures with Grandma and Grandpa Cambridge. They just love him to pieces.

Here are pictures with Grandma Johnson

Here are the pics of Eli bonding with his mommy and other pictures.

Eli Week 1 Newborn Pictures

2011-10-05T14:34:00.000-07:00

Here are Eli's Newborn Pictures done by Chrissi Ross Photography. We decided that we wanted to capture his first moments of life. We though these pictures turned out absolutely adorable. They were done about 9 days after he was born. Here they are in all their cute little glory.

Update

2011-10-05T14:30:00.001-07:00

so after reading some one else's blog, I realized there are sites that turn your blog entries into a book. I thought it was a fantastic way to keep a journal so I have decided to be better about blogging for that reason. I am going to post some of the latest with Eli to catch you all up to date. So prepare for a lot of blog entries:)

4th of July Scrapbook Pages

2011-07-25T22:02:00.001-07:00

Every year Erik and I get together with the Septon's for our annual 4th of July BBQ. Erik and Alex Septon are best friends so their families have been friends for years. I lived with the Septon's for a summer so I have gotten to know them quite well. So when it comes to holidays, getting together is a must. This was Eli's first ever get together with Septon's so it was eventful for him. Here are the scrapbook pages from our BBQ.

Scrapbook pages of sweet Eli

2011-07-02T00:37:00.000-07:00

So it has been a while since I have posted. The first month after having the baby I was in survival mode. Eli is sure cute and the biggest blessing ever, but he is a lot of work. He is finally sleeping longer at night and I am getting more sleep. Today I got to do a lot of scrapbooking and get caught up. Eli was super cute and wanted to be held, so he sat on my lap most of the day while I scrapbooked. The rest of the time he wanted me to just hold him in my arms and rock him while he slept. That was a precious moment that I will never forget. He is the sweetest baby ever! I am so lucky to be his mother. I am going to post some of the scrapbook pages I have done of him and our adventures the last seven weeks. Here they are for your enjoyment.

Baby Eli's Birth

2011-05-18T21:37:00.000-07:00

Life doesn't always go as planned and neither does having a baby. Eli isn't due for another few days, but Eli decided he wanted to come earlier than scheduled. I was able to hold him off for 3 weeks after the first pre-term labor incident by following strict bedrest, but on May 11, 2011 he decided he couldn't wait any longer and made his entrance into the world. He was born at 6:48pm weighing 6lbs 14oz and was 19 inches long.

The journey all started about 11pm the night before. I was just settling down for the night and started having a lot of cramps and pelvic pain. I didn't think anything of them, because I had been going in and out of labor every few days for the last 3 weeks. I decided to wait and see how things progressed before I went to he hopsital. I don't have normal contractions like everyone else, so I wasn't sure if I was actually in labor. Well I didn't sleep all night, and the pain got worse. About 5am it started to get really intense and I finally agreed to let Erik take me to the hospital. The closer to the hospital we got the more apparent it was that I was in labor.

Right when we got to the hospital, my water started to break. They checked me out and started to monitor me. They didn't believe I was in labor when I arrived, but I was 100% sure I was. After a half hour I was still dialated to a 3 and they were going to send me home. I told them that I was pretty sure my water broke and that they should check. I was right, it had broke so they admitted me. They dili dallied around and I finally got my epidural about an hour and a half later. Contractions are not pleasant, so it felt like an eternity waiting for my epidural. They are the worst thing I have ever experienced! After the epidural, My family and Erik's family showed up and hung out with Erik and I while I continued to dialate. I was happy as a clam cause I couldn't feel a thing so we had a great few hours visiting. IT was the best I had felt since I got pregnant and I was loving life at this point.

Once it was time to push,I kicked them all out and started the hard part. I pushed for almost 3 hours and the baby wasn't coming out. It turns out he was turned slightly sideways and couldn't get past my pelvic bone. The nurse called the doctor who came right in and assessed the situation. They did an ultrasound and he was definitely turned. The doctor couldn't get him turned back the right way and told me he had to either try forceps or rush me in for a c-section. He told me if the forceps didn't work then I was going to have to have a c-section immediately since It had been 13 hours since my water broke. This was because the risk of infection was too high at that point. They cleared a path to rush me to the O.R. and had it all prepped. By then the room was filled with about 12 medical professionals. Erik and I were pretty scared at this point. The doctor tried the forceps and after a lot of yanking he managed to get Eli out. His face is all bruised because he was pulled out so quickly. I was so grateful I didn't have to have a c-section though. They handed Eli to Erik and let him hold him after they got him cleaned up.

It took the doctor 45 minutes to stitch up all my lacerations so I had to wait to hold ELi till they were done. It was hard, cause I really wanted to hold my baby. When I finally got to hold him it was so surreal. He was so sweet and tiny. I was exhausted, but glad that Eli was safely here and in my arms. I spent the next two days in the hospital recovering. Erik and I roomed in with the baby and got to spend a lot of time bonding with him. I was pretty ripped up from the forceps and in a lot of pain, so Erik did most of the caring for him, so they got really close. When I felt good enough to sit up and hold him, I would have Erik hand him to me and I would cuddle with him.

The second day they took Eli to the NICU because his bilirubin levels were too high. When I would go to the NICU to feed him, I felt very blessed. He looked very healthy compared to the other babies that were there. After a day in the NICU they discharged us home with a photo therapy light bed for Eli. We had to keep Eli under there for about 4 days until his bilirubin levels came down. I was so grateful they let us take him home instead of keeping him in the NICU.

Since he has been off the lights, he has been really healthy and is gaining weight every day. Ever since we have been home, we have been enjoying our sweet little angel. He is the most adorable baby ever and melts my heart, every time I look at him. I am on the road to recovery and now enjoying life as a new mom. Here are the pictures from the birth.

I just want to mention on a side note, don't ever deliver at Timpanogos Hospital. Overall I had a very bad experience. I didn't see a doctor the first 12 hours at the hospital and one didn't show up till I had been pushing for almost 3 hours and things had turned bad. The nurses were not very supportive of my breastfeeding Eli, and I had to wait 3 hours between pain pills on 2 separate occasions. By the time they got them to me I was in agony and a sobbing mess. We had a bad experience with the pediatrician on call, and the discharge nurse was a complete jerk. I could go on and on, but I will leave it at that.

Bed Rest Birthday Party

2011-05-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

My birthday was a couple of weeks ago on the 3rd of May. Since I was on bed rest my family decided to throw me a surprise party around my bed. It was the first party that I didn't even need to get out of bed for.
My mom came over that day to help me out with stuff. She was sweet and cleaned the whole house for me, made a delicious Chili dinner for the party, and hung out with me. The family all showed up around 7:30pm. My brother Matt even took a bus all the way from Taylorsville out to my house in Lehi to be there. We had ice cream cake, my mom's homemade gourmet dinner, and they all got me lots of nice gifts. I got lots of fun stuff for the baby and my dad gave me $100 to spend on something for myself. I really have such a great family. Here are the pictures.

Bedrest and Going Crazy

2011-05-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

Since I went into pre-term labor 2 and a half weeks ago, I have been on bedrest. Let me tell you it has been an interesting adventure. It is so hard to lay in bed all the time when you don't feel tired or sick. Poor Erik has had to be my warden and yell at me to get back in bed a million times when I try to do things like take a cup out to the sink, or bend over and pick something up I dropped. It is hard to not do things when I feel physically capable. Thank goodness he cares enough to keep me in line. Of course I have learned the hard way more than once when Erik couldn't catch me in time, that it is a slippery slope I travel.

The first night I was home I just carried a couple items back and forth down the hall and ended up having to go back to the hospital within 4 hours. I have since made at least 3 other visits from doing something that I thought was no big deal. Some of those things have included bending over to put something in a bag, sitting up for too long at the computer, getting dressed, etc. So yeah....this bedrest thing is tough. You feel great one minute and then do something miniscule and the next thing you know you feel like you are going to die.

I have had some rough days the last week. I am just about ready to get this baby out of me. I love him and want to keep him safe, but at the same time I am so sick of feeling like a beached whale and having contractions every day. Thanks to my trusty magic pills(nifediphine) I have been able to stop the contractions though and am still pregnant. It is hard to feel like you are heading into labor all the time though, because it is really uncomfortable and painful. I know that this little baby inside of me is going to be worth it though. I can't wait to meet him.

The upside of bed rest is that I have had a lot of time to bond with my baby without having to worry about the hustle and bustle of daily life. It was hard to end my job so abruptly, but the moments I have had with Eli are worth it. I have gotten to feel his cute little personality and learn more of his sleep and wake patterns. I have also had time to read 3 books on subjects like breastfeeding, hypnobirthing techniques, and sleep helps for new babies. This information will be invaluable in helping me know what to do with him once he is born and make the transition easier. I wouldn't have had time otherwise since I was working full time.

Eli is so spunky. He is going to be my little ball of energy. Despite what we have gone through he is still super healthy and none of this has seemed to phase him. He has a strong heartbeat every time they monitor him, and he is constantly kicking the monitors off my stomach so they have to readjust them every ten minutes. This is comforting to me because it means he has good reflexes and he can react to what he perceives as noxious stimuli. He also loves to move to music that has a good beat. Every time I put on something dancy he will start moving around, and sometimes kicks to the beat. He is so going to be a dancer:) I love this little baby and can't wait to meet him and get to know him.

pre-term almost delivery saga

2011-04-23T18:25:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in a while and since I am on bed rest I thought I would take the chance to catch up a bit before my time runs out. Wednesday I went into pre-term labor while I was at work and almost ended up having Eli 6 and a half weeks early. It was the scariest day ever.

It all started over the weekend looking back on things. I started feeling all this pressure on my pelvis and assumed it was just the baby dropping since that is supposed to happen about this time. I probably over did at my scrap book retreat since I was alone and carrying all my own bags and stuff. My feet swelled up to double the size at my scrap book retreat also. Monday was a whole day of stress and family drama so that added to things. Monday night I decided to go to water aerobics since I was no longer sick(I had the swine flu and then bronchitis this whole last month). I didn't feel the best during water aerobics and took it super easy. I couldn't sleep that night and felt horrible. I just attributed it to being in my 3rd trimester and shook it off. Tuesday was such a struggle to get through work. I was so tired and didn't feel good. Tuesday night I couldn't sleep at all again and was so miserable I sobbed half the night. About 4am I had such bad back pain I got on my back massager, but after about 10 seconds I knew it wasn't musculoskeletal pain but I still didn't put two and two together. I got about twenty minutes of sleep and went to work wed morning just feeling horrible. I thought if I could just get through the day and take a nap then things would be fine. About an hour into work I could barely stand up straight. My co-workers made me call my doctor and he sent me to the hospital. I was still in denial that I was in labor till I was about 2 minutes from the hospital. Then it became apparent that the pain I was feeling were contractions.

As soon as I was admitted, they checked me and I was dialated to a two. They gave me 3 shots to try and stop the labor. They kept telling me that I may end up having my baby that day. They didn't feel certain they could stop it. They gave me a steroid shot to help my babies lungs develop in case he came. It scared me so bad cause I was only 33.5 weeks along. I still had another 6 and a half weeks to go. I kept telling the nurse that I wasn't ready yet. I hadn't taken my hypno birthing classes and didn't know what to do. I didn't want my baby to be in the NICU. Erik and his dad gave me a blessing which was a great comfort. It took a few hours but they were able to stop the labor. They gave me a fetal fibronectin test and I was positive which means I will most likely deliver in the next two weeks. I am hoping they are wrong. They kept me in the hospital till Thursday night and then sent me home on bed rest.

I was home about 4 hours before I had to go back due to more contractions. They gave me some nifedipine to stop them and kept me for a few hours and then when I was fine they sent me home. They forgot to send me home with a prescription of that when I discharged the first time. So they sent me home with the prescription the second time. The doctor told me he was hoping to buy me a few more days. He was the 4th doctor to tell me something like that. That did not make me feel comforted. I was home most of the day Friday and then the hospital called me and made me come back to be monitored again. I was looking ok so I have been home on bed rest ever since. I am just trying to hang in there and outlive the doctors expectations. I think If I am really good and don't do anything I can last another 3 weeks. The labor pains were so horrible, it is motivation for me to be good and put that misery off as long as possible. I have never experienced anything that terrible before in my life.

So that is the saga of the last few days. To be honest I am so scared right now. I am not ready to be a mom just yet, and I don't want my baby to early. I was prepared to be a mom in another month. Wasn't quite ready for it right now. The reality of being a parent is really starting to set in. My life is completely changing. It will be ok though. God will get me through this. He apparently has a different plan than I did. Little Eli apparently wants me to be his mom a few weeks sooner than I planned. I am sure as soon as I see my little miracle all the fear will turn to joy.

Through all this Eli has been a trooper. He is so spunky. He kept kicking the moniters on my stomach out of place in the hospital so they had to readjust them every 10 minutes. Despite all that was happening to my body in the last few days, nothing seemed to phase him. His heartbeat was strong and he has just been moving around like crazy. He is sure going to be a big ball of energy.

Winnie the Pooh Baby Shower

2011-04-05T18:46:00.000-07:00

I had my first baby shower about a week and a half ago and it was so fun. Erik's aunts and mother-in-law threw me a Winnie the Pooh themed baby shower to match my nursery. All the women from Erik's side of the family came and we had such a good time. The decorations were super cute and the atmosphere was so festive. We got to eat great food, and play baby shower jeopardy. Erik's cousins made the game and it was really cleverly done. It ended up getting crazy, since Erik's family likes to get loud and have fun. If one of the aunts didn't like a question, they would veto it and make one up on the spot. Then all the other aunts would argue whether or not it was a good question and then make up another question. Then that question would get challenged. It would continue on like this for 5 minutes till we went back to the original question. So it took a while to get through the game. It was so funny and entertaining though. We laughed a lot! After the game I opened all my presents. Everyone was so generous and brought really great gifts. Eli got tons and tons of cute cute cloths. He will be the best dressed baby ever. Thanks everyone!

Here are some of the pictures from the event. There aren't that many since my camera ran out of battery. My mother in law took a ton with her camera though so I will post them as soon as I get them.

Here are the party favors we handed out. My aunt Lora made them and she did such a good job.

I loved this table. These are all the stuffed animals that are going to go in Eli's nursery.

This isn't the best lighting for this picture, but you can see the beehive cakes and other cute decorations.

Here is all the fun food and the cute beehive drink dispenser.

General Conference

2011-04-03T11:30:00.000-07:00

Every 6 months the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hosts a semi-annual general conference www.lds.org where all members of the church gather to hear the words of our leaders and prophet. It is 2 days of being uplifted, edified, and reminded why we live our faith and how to live it better. I always feel very inspired after conference.

The last couple of times conference has come and gone and I feel like I did not take full advantage of it. I just casually grazed from the words and did not make it a priority to really take time to sit down and absorb everything that was being said. I slept through half of the talks and never got around to reading all of them after. So this conference I decided things were going to be different. I was going to make it my highest priority. I wanted to get a lot more out of it than I had last couple of times.

In order to do this, I decided to get a good nights rest so that I wouldn't be tired while I listened. I decided to prepare spiritually before hand. I came with a few questions that I wanted to receive answers to, and printed out a couple of conference packets that I found here. I combined them to make the perfect conference packet for me. Thanks to those who put these together. They are awesome!

http://downloads.sugardoodle.net/YouthConfPacket_baw.pdf

http://theredheadedhostess.com/?p=1549

I feel like this conference has been one of the most meaningful for me. I feel like I have learned so much and received all the answers to the questions that I have had and more. Filling out the packet and taking such diligent notes has made me pay a lot closer attention to what was being said and helped me learn so much more than I ever have during a conference. It is true what they say. The amount of effort you put into something is what you will get out of it. I decided I was going to approach this as seriously as I did with my studies in graduate school or a continuing education conference for my profession. I looked at conference as a spiritual continuing education weekend. Because of that, I have really gotten tons more out of it.

The two questions I came seeking answers to were:
1-How can I live the gospel of Jesus Christ better and make it a more integral part of my life? How can I be more intrinsically motivated to follow Christ?
2-How can I prepare for my baby and what do I need to do to be a good mother to him?

There seemed to be pieces of information and personal revelation with each talk that culminated in the answers that I received. It was line upon line and precept upon precept as elder Bednar talked about. It came one piece of information at a time till I had an abundance of it. It all started with Elder Dallin H. Oaks talk about our Desires. He stated that our desires dictate our priorities, and our priorities dictate our choices and actions. He talked about how our desire is the springboard for what we do. He talked about lots of examples of righteous desires in the scriptures including Enos, and king Lamoni's father who said that he would give away all his sins to know God. It helped me see that if I change my desires, it will change everything else that I do. Then Elder Ballard's talk came next and he talked about focusing on the smaller things that will bring us closer to God. That it is the culmination of the small things that bring the great nuggets of gold. These small things include charity and practicing it at home first, the importance of constant service to others(it is how the savior lived his life), listening to the promptings of the holy ghost, and all the other small things like daily prayer and scripture study.

With each talk I learned more principles including: how to keep the sabbath day holy and use it to renew myself spiritually, how to serve others, Temple attendance, forgiving others, keeping my covenants and honoring them, etc. The list goes on. I realized that if I do all these things, it will help me to be more committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and become someone with a Christ centered life. Becoming Christ centered will help me know how to be a good mother to my baby. If Christ is the center of my life, He will be the center of little Eli's life also. That is the best way I can help my baby. President Monson spoke about the importance of Temples and his message was very powerful. he said that each Temple is a testimony that life beyond the grave is real. This is where eternal families are formed. I am going to follow his council and put a picture of the Temple in Eli's room so that from the time he is born, he knows how important they are and where to set his focus.

There is one more session of Conference left and still more nuggets of gold for me to find, but I couldn't wait to write my thoughts on what a powerful experience this conference has been. I know my Savior Lives and that he loves me, and that Heavenly Father does hear and answer prayers. Personal revelation is real and available to all who honestly seek the Lord. I love General Conference!

As an afterthought to this blog entry: Next conference I have plans to make it even better. Next time I am also going to try and incorporate a few of the suggestions from this conference traditions packet in order to make conference a special weekend for my family as well as myself, so Eli learns to love conference from a very early age.
http://visitingteaching.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/visiting-teaching-ldsconf-traditions.pdf

Baby Eli's 3D ultrasound pictures

2011-03-30T19:39:00.000-07:00

So I thought I would take a few minutes to post some pictures and blog my thoughts about my pregnancy. As we speak, Eli is as active as can be moving around and kicking. I love to feel him move and am really enjoying getting to know his little personality. I think he is either going to be a little ninja since he kicks so much, or a triathlete like his mama. I would like to think he is in my tummy working on his flip turns for a faster swim. Whatever he ends up being, he is going to be very active. I can already tell. He does not slow down. It took them 45 minutes to get a shot of his face during the ultrasound, cause he would not stop moving.

I am super excited to meet him and can't wait. The ultra sound pictures have given me glimpse of his cute little face and now the anticipation is killing me. I was at Babies R Us today registering for my baby shower and looked at pictures of the newborns on the diaper packages, and just wanted him to be here already so I could hold him. I am so excited to look into his sweet little face and hold him close to me. He is going to be such a great blessing to our family.

Erik is going to be such a great dad. He keeps talking about all the things he is going to do when Eli gets here. He is really excited for the day Eli is old enough to play video games with him. haha I don't like to play video games, so he will finally have someone to participate with him. I watch Erik with his nephews and he is so cute with them. He knows just what game will be perfect for their developmental level. Turns out he has a bunch of fun educational games in his collection that teach kids important basic skills such as colors and what mixing colors will do. Parker played the paint the world game for 2 hours and loved it! Erik is also really cute with the kids in nursery. The kids and parents all love him. He has so much fun playing with them, and I can't wait for him to play with Eli. Eli is going to be very lucky to have him as a dad. Anyway...enough of my rambling, here are the pictures!

Lark's Birthday Party

2011-03-23T21:51:00.000-07:00

It was Erik's mom's birthday a couple of weeks ago and my family and I had a celebration with Erik's family to commemorate this festive occasion. Friday night Erik and I took Lark out to dinner at the Olive Garden. Saturday we all went to a movie and then had some cake and ice cream back at Erik's parents. Here are the pictures from the weekends events.

New Scrap Book Pages

2011-02-21T21:10:00.000-08:00

So I have been working on the family history project and made some new pages for my brother's responses about why he loves sports. Erik has helped me learn some great tricks in photoshop, so I am pretty proud of these pages. Here they are!

Very proud of this page. Did it all on my own without any help from Erik.

This layout looks great,except it just needs a picture of Matt at a Jazz game. I am waiting for him to email me one. After I add that, the page will be complete.

Baby Nursery and Valentines Day!

2011-02-13T16:16:00.000-08:00

This valentines weekend has been a great one so far. We decided to get our baby furniture yesterday. I found my dream furniture set at Costco for a great deal. It is so beautiful and the color that I wanted. The quality is amazing so it will last a long time. It seemed like the best bang for our buck. The crib is a 4 in one convertible crib. It has options to turn into a toddler bed, daybed, or into a full size bed later on. We got a beautiful changing table/dresser to go with it.

It was a miracle that we got this set really. It was like it was meant to be. I have had my eye on the crib for a few weeks but didn't get it yet, cause I wanted to do my research. I looked around at a lot of different cribs and finally decided this is the one I wanted. We went back to get it, but they were all gone. They had one changing table/dresser left and it was a floor model so it was discounted. We decided we should at least get that since it was a really good deal. So we went and got Erik's dad, since he had an SUV to help us haul it. When we arrived, it was gone. I was really sad since I had my heart was set on it. We went to target and picked up my second option for the crib. I wasn't impressed with the changing table and dresser that went with it. They were expensive and didn't look very nice, so I just got the crib.

I was at home when Erik called me and told me that his mom had called all the costco's and found another changing table in Sandy. So Erik and his parents dashed down there. While they were there, Erik found the dream crib and all it's boxes loaded up on a cart and ready to go. It was crazy to see it, since they told us that there were none left in the whole valley. He waited around and no one came to claim it. So after 15 minutes he decided he was taking it. He loaded the last changing table onto the cart and they hauled it home. Erik's parents were very generous and donated a nice sum towards the purchase. We are very grateful for their generosity. We took the target crib back since we hadn't opened the box yet. It was like everything was meant to be.

Here are the preliminary pics. We don't have the room quite organized yet, and still need to get the mattress and bedding for the nursery. Erik is not in any of the photos since he is a goober and refused to get any where near the camera.

Here is a picture of the nursery set we are going to get. I have my heart set on a Winnie the Pooh themed nursery.

Since I love Valentines Day, here is a picture of some of my house decor. The mailbox on the top is Erik's. Every day since February first I have put a valentine in the box to let him know why he is special to me. It has been a fun thing to do.

Here is a photo I snuck of Erik while he wasn't looking. He was cleaning and putting back together our new car seat/baby carrier we got from his best friend Alex.

Fondant Fun

2011-02-06T21:25:00.000-08:00

As most of you know Erik and I love new challenges and projects. Erik has been watching the Cake Boss on the food network and picking up tips on how to make cool cakes. This show has inspired us to start creating. Erik's Mom and Aunts are throwing me a baby shower with all of Erik's relatives. It is coming up at the end of March and we thought it was the perfect occasion to work on our cake skills. Since I am having a Winnie the Pooh theme we decided to make a beehive cake and cupcakes. Here is the picture that inspired me. http://simplysweetsaz.blogspot.com/2009/03/yellow-green-and-brown-bee-themed-baby.html

We needed to learn how to make fondant to make the beehive, so we thought we better get practicing. We had a few troubles at the start. First the fondant was too sticky and kept breaking apart. After much difficulty, we had to modify the recipe. Then the steam from the dishwasher made the kitchen too hot, so the fondant kept melting. Then the fondant was too sticky. We finally got it to to work. We weren't trying to be fancy. We just wanted to see if we could get the fondant on the cake. Here are the results of our first attempt. It was encouraging. With a steamer it would actually look half decent.

Family History Project.

2011-01-27T19:14:00.000-08:00

I was reading from the institute family history manual about the importance of gathering info about your family and it made me think about my immediate family. Recently I got a book of family history that my Rammell relatives put together. In it are stories and histories and testimonies from everyone from my great great great grandfather Charles Holling Rammell down to the current generation. It was really neat to read about everyone and get to know my family members. I was sad because so many of my relatives decided not to participate.

I instantly had this idea that it would be fun to make a book about my immediate family so we could get to know each other better and those who came after us could really get to know about us and our lives. I have decided to email my brother, sister and parents a weekly topic with a few questions for them to answer. I am going to put them all together into the book towards the end of the year and give it to them for Christmas. None of them every read my blog so they won't know I am doing this. All they know is that I am working on a secret project. This weeks topic is about Job and career choice. I asked my family why they chose the career fields they work in and what lead them to that point. I thought I would blog my response here.

Occupational Therapy and why it was the job choice for me.

Ever since I was little I always knew I wanted a job that involved helping people. For a long time I wanted to be a veterinarian because I loved animals and thought it would be fun to help them. As I got older and realized all the biology and schooling involved I changed my mind.

When I first got into college I decided that I wanted to go into nursing since it involved helping people. I started taking all the pre-requisite classes to get into the nursing program. Shortly after that I started working at IHC as a Certified Nurses Assistant. I loved that job because I always felt like I was providing a service for people and spending my time helping others. I didn't mind working on Sundays because I felt like the people I worked with needed help with their basic daily tasks such as getting showered and dressed and fed if I didn't do it, no one else would. I loved that I got to connect with my patients on a deeper level through helping and serving them. I enjoyed getting to know their history and life stories especially since I worked with so many elderly patients. I started having a lot of physical challenges with my knees from some running injuries but even though I would wake up in a lot of pain, I still loved going to my job because of the difference I felt that it made. It eventually got to be too much though so I ended up quiting. At this time I decided that I didn't really want to pursue nursing anymore.

During my IHC job I got my first exposure to occupational therapy. The first patient I ever worked with suffered a traumatic brain injury and required 24 hour supervision for the first few months to prevent another fatal fall. She was the most wonderful lady named Karen. I stayed with her from 7am-5pm every day for an entire summer. While I was there, I would see her occupational therapist come and work with her and do things like help her to be able to balance her checkbook, cook, bathe, and other life skills that she could previously do before her fall. The occupational therapists goals were to help her become independent with these skills again. It was neat to see how the therapist could use an activity like baking a cake to work on kitchen safety, dynamic balance, organizational skills, problem solving, following directions, etc. It was fun to see how much Karen improved and became more independent. I asked the occupational therapist all about what it took to become an OT and when she said it was a masters degree I immediately put it out of my realm of possibilities.

After my CNA job, I worked for a couple of years supervising mentally disabled adults at their apartments while I worked on my bachelors degree at the U. I helped them with basic life skills, took them grocery shopping, helped them with their bills, took them on outings, etc. I really enjoyed it. During this time period I had a friend from institute who was in the occupational therapy program who reminded me about this career. I became really interested it, and looked more into it and decided it would be the job for me. I would get to help people who had suffered accident or illness that made them reliant on other people to do basic daily activities such dressing, bathing, cooking a simple meal, and leisure interests become independent again. It appealed to me more than nursing because instead of helping people each day, I could help someone to learn how to help themselves so they didn't need to rely on me or anyone else. I looked at it like the analogy of give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. I realized that this is why occupational therapy fit me better than nursing.

I started working as a rehabilitation aide assisting occupational therapists and I was hooked. I reflected back and realized that my job experience the past few years related to occupational therapy, so I decided to apply for the program. I was almost done with my bachelors degree so a masters degree now seemed in the realm of possibilities. It turns out I already had most of my pre-requisites done since I was previously a nursing major and the anatomy, physiology, and other course requirements were similar. I finished the last pre-requisites along with my other coursework for my sociology degree. I graduated with my bachelors degree in Aug of 2005 and started my masters program 2 weeks later. After 3 long years of hard work I graduated from the occupational therapy program. I have now been working out in the field for 2 and a half years and LOVE my job! I am working with the population I originally fell in love with as a CNA, the elderly. So that is how I came to become an occupational therapist.

Christmas Break Ginger Bread House Fun.

2011-01-23T14:51:00.001-08:00

Since I am sick and have some time to blog, I thought I would catch up. For Christmas we went to Colorado to visit Erik's sister and her family. We went with Erik's parents and his brother Cody. On Christmas day we decided to make ginger bread houses and it was a lot of fun. Erik and Cody of course decided to do something super complicated, so they made a ginger bread tree house. Erik never does anything simple. I was skeptical it was going to turn out good, but it ended up being the awesomest ginger bread house I have ever seen.

Erik's mom had this awesome way to make ginger bread glue melting granulated sugar. It holds like a rock so it made the ginger bread tree house feasable. She also had this awesome frosting that was way better. so I think our ginger bread houses turned out really well. I decided to go with a more simple house not quite as awesome, but still turned out pretty alright. Here are the pictures from that night.

Catching Up. Utah vs. BYU game

2011-01-23T12:11:00.001-08:00

I am finally getting around to posting the pictures from the Utah BYU game. As you all know, my brother and I are avid ute fans and have season tickets in the MUSS. We have had them every year since 2003. We were sitting on the 20th row, and it was a glorious view to watch Utah take down BYU. The last field goal attempt was a nail biter, but of course the kick was blocked and we won. Everyone stormed the field including us, and it was soo much fun. 17-16 woot woot. All the BYU fans may say we should have lost, but the reality is if we should have lost we would have, but we didn't. Anyway, it was a super fun game to watch. Here are the pictures from all the fun.

The Ultrasound results are in. We are having a ........

2011-01-22T15:44:00.000-08:00

So Erik and I cheated and went to fetal photos last month and had an ultrasound. We were too excited to wait till they 20 week ultrasound to find out what we were having. At our ultrasound we found out that we are having a baby boy!!! Deep down I knew this thanks to mother's intuition, but it was great to be able to see it for sure. Erik was surprised that I was right, I think cause deep down he really wanted a little girl, but a mother knows.

This week we went for our official 20 week ultrasound and had it re-confirmed that we are having a baby boy. So now it is official official. We also got to see how healthy he is developing so it was very comforting. His heart is developed well with all 4 chambers intact and pumping the blood well. His brain is developed nicely,he has all of his vertebrae, and his kidneys function well. Everything looked healthy. It is such a relief because with the wild card of genetics, so many things can go wrong during the development.

We have decided to name him Eli. Erik wanted to name our first boy Eli because that was the name of the boy on his senior animation project called the pajama gladiator. It was a cute 3 minute animation short about a little boy that fights aliens with his blanket. It won a student emmy because it was so good. We are excited to show it to him when he is little and tell him, "Look, it's you!"

So We are excited to welcome Eli into the world sometime around June 4th. Now you all know:)

laying on his arm at 15 weeks

His cute little arm at 15 weeks

It's a boy!

Baby profile at 20 weeks. Isn't he sweet?

Pregnancy Challenges.

2011-01-22T14:01:00.000-08:00

I want to remind myself how blessed I am and that I am very lucky because pregnancy has been a very hard journey that no one could have prepared me for. Some women will tell you that being pregnant is the best experience ever. This is generally not true for most women. Although it is a great blessing to be pregnant, it isn't easy. Between feeling sick to your stomach and tired all the time, pregnancy insomnia, the changing hormones, and the change of your body appearance (not for the better), it is all quite the adjustment.

Right now I am feeling the feelings that every pregnant woman goes through. I am feeling very fat and unattractive. Thanks to pregnancy hormones you tend to break out a lot, your hair goes limp, and you get fat everywhere! Even your earlobes start to look fat! I know this will pass and that this a normal part of pregnancy. It just isn't very easy on a woman's self esteem, especially living in a society so focused on beauty.

Because I have been feeling this way, I have spent the last two days looking at blogs and you tube video's on how to do hair and makeup in order to try and find some way to feel beautiful again. For some reason just watching these have helped me to feel better. I feel like at least I have a few ideas on how to spruce up my appearance and make myself feel prettier. I can't control all the things that are happening to my body, but at least I can use a little makeup and hair gel to make the canvas I have been given right now to look a little nicer. It makes me feel like I have control over something.

I have also recommitted myself to eating healthier and watching my intake. They tell you that you need only 300 extra calories a day when you are pregnant. That is a basically 1 cookie or 1 slice of pizza. I can't control that fact that I am going to gain weight because that is a natural part of pregnancy, but I can control what I put in my body and minimize the damage. I want to give my baby healthier more nutrient dense food to help him develop better anyway. So by trying to eat healthy and nutritious, eat several small meals a day, and make sure I am only eating what my body needs this will help me and the baby to be happier and healthier. It will also make the post pregnancy recovery and weight loss a lot easier.

I also want to exercise as much as my body will allow. I plan to swim 2-3 times a week with my triathlon group and do water aerobics and yoga on the other days. I realize that due to all the energy that it takes to create another life this will not always be possible. Pregnancy fatigue makes regular exercise difficult. So If I make it to the pool a couple of times a week and make it to 1 yoga class I will be happy. But my goal will be to exercise every day. I know if I make this a goal, I will at least make it to the gym a 3 times a week. It worked this week anyway, and I felt so much better.

Although pregnancy creates feelings of unattractiveness, just blogging and making a plan about the things I can control makes me feel better. Although the challenges of being pregnant have been hard, they are teaching me how to overcome adversity and look for the positive things I can do. Not to mention, I get a sweet little baby boy out of all of this in the end.

Halloween Baby Announcement.

2010-11-07T15:34:00.000-08:00

To make our baby announcement official, Erik and I sported these great costumes Halloween weekend to tell the world the exciting news that we are pregnant! We are so excited to welcome a new little baby into our home next June. The due date is June 4th. The internet told me the baby was due June 4th, and then a couple weeks later so did the doctor. The internet knows everything. We got to hear the heartbeat on Wed, so yeah! We are really having a baby.

Thanksgiving Point Pumpkin Festival

2010-11-07T15:16:00.001-08:00

Erik and I went on a double date with some friends of ours from church Shaina and Mike Burgoyne. We went to the Cornbelly's maze and pumpkin festival at Thanksgiving Point. It was a lot of fun and there was so much to do. We all had a great time. Here are the pictures from the evening.

The Great Pumpkin Affair

2010-11-07T15:03:00.001-08:00

So every year, my best friend Sadie and I get together during the month of October and have our great pumpkin carving affair. We carve pumpkins all night, and roast pumpkin seeds, make pumpkin cookies, and watch a movie. It is so much fun. Sadie carved a cool haunted house, her husband Cory carved a fishbowl, I carved a bat, and Erik carved pixilated super mario. Why am I not surprised Erik chose pixilated Super Mario to carve. As complex as it was he Somehow he pulled it off. As always he was finished way before the rest of us and whining how slow we were. Thats my hubby. haha Here are pictures from the event.

The Dirty Dash

2010-11-07T14:50:00.001-08:00

So Erik and I did the Dirty Dash at the end of Sept. www.thedirtydash.com It was a 6 mile run in the mud complete with obstacles, slides, and plenty of hoses being sprayed at you. Everyone dressed up in outrageous costumes too. It was sooo much fun! It seemed kinda hard when I did it though, and couldn't figure out why. Turns out I was 2 weeks pregnant and didn't know it. haha here are the pictures of all our fun.

The really cold showers we hosed off in after. Brrrrr

The Mudpit

Erik and I after the race

Erik before the race

Our pig costumes

This little piggy is ready to get dirty

Lake Powell Tri Pictures

2010-11-07T14:39:00.001-08:00

I have decided it will be easiest to post the pictures from the last few months in categories. So each post will contain a theme. This post is all the pics from the Lake Powell Tri. Did this 9 weeks pregnant, very proud cause it was hard.

Pregnancy and other news

2010-11-07T14:08:00.001-08:00

So it has been forever since I have been on here. I was talking to my boss the other day about blogging and the benefits. I was reminded why I started my blog. To capture my memories and thoughts, so I would have a journal of my life up to this point. So I am going to be better about updating it.

Sooo much has happened in the last 6 months. I have completed 5 triathlons this season,was made the head of the OT department at Aspen Ridge, had my first level II student, Erik got a promotion and finished up the Toy Story 3 game, and we found out we are expecting a baby. I will go ahead and give you a few more details.

As you all know, I have made a goal to do six triathlons this year. I have completed 5 so far, and will be doing one more on Nov. 20th. I have completed the Daybreak tri, Scofield Tri, Battle at Midway, Yuba Lake tri, and Lake Powell Tri. They were all sprint distance. I was signed up to do the olympic distance for Lake Powell, but found out I was expecting, so I downgraded to the sprint for safety reasons. I was 9 weeks pregnant when I did this race, so I am proud I was able to do it. Especially considering I threw up an hour before the race (the joys of pregnancy). Erik has been wonderful during all of this. He has been my pit crew, camped in 40 degree weather, stood for 2 hours in sunshine and rain to support me. I love you honey! You are wonderful. I couldn't completed my goals without you.

In May I was made head of the OT department at my work and had my first student. It made my summer busy but fun. I learned a lot and had so much fun having a student. He is all grown up now as he has passed his boards and become licensed. My first student has left the nest. haha

In May Erik received a very nice promotion. It was a huge blessing to us financially, and well earned. In June he wrapped up the Toy Story 3 project and it hit stores a couple weeks later. The game has surpassed projected sales by a large amount, and is still selling like hot cakes. I am so proud of him, especially because his levels are the funnest in the game. It has received great reviews, so if you are looking for something fun for your kid to play, I would recommend this.

In early Oct. we found out we were expecting a baby next June. We are so happy about it. The pregnancy is going well so far. I got to hear the heartbeat on Wed. It was life changing. I am still having a hard time believing that I am actually going to be a mother. It is going to be the greatest experience I have ever had, so I have been told. anyway, that's the latest. I will post pictures in another post.

Daybreak Triathlon

2010-06-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

Things have been very busy lately, since I was recently made head of the OT department(will save this for another post). So I am a little late with these. These are from the Daybreak Triathlon on May 29th. I am now getting ready for the Scoffield Tri on July 17th. I have a ton of other pictures to upload from our adventures the last couple of months that I will post soon.

30th birthday party

2010-05-02T21:13:00.000-07:00

So I am turning 30 in less than 2 hours. I figure I might as well embrace it. I am excited though, because It means I get to have a party. I love parties and will look for any excuse to have one. I am having a joint party with Julie and Grant,two dear friends of mine from the swing scene that I have known for years. It is at the swing dance venue that Erik and I help run. Erik is in charge of all the fun. He has lots of stuff planned that he won't tell me about. It will be a very entertaining evening for everyone. Some of our friends from Denver are coming out that weekend and performing a show case routine at the party. It is going to be so awesome. They are amazing dancers, so I am happy they are performing. So anyway...if you are reading this, you are my friend. So that means your invited. If you don't know how to dance, don't worry there are lessons. If you don't want to dance, there are plenty of comfy couches to sit on and socialize as well as food and treats. See you on Saturday:)

Downtown Stomp Lindy Hop Moving Party a Huge Success!

2010-04-21T20:20:00.000-07:00

So Erik and I were in charge of the big re-location party of the Lindy Hop venue we help run. It was a ton of work, but it was a huge success! We had over 100 people come, with performances by the Advanced BYU swing team, a Jack and Jill Lead Follow Contest, and lots of swing dancing! It was amazing. We had 28 people enter the contest, and we broke even by 9:30pm, and everyone stayed till midnight. Erik and I couldn't have asked for a better night. All our hard work was worth it. Here are the pictures from the event. We can't wait for next week.

Downtown Stomp Moving Party!

2010-03-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

Erik and I are helping run The Downtown Stomp swing dance venue with two other couples. We are moving to a new place on April 9, 2010 and having a huge party to celebrate I am excited for this because the last week we were in charge, I planned a huge goodbye party for our friend Michelle, who is moving to Virginia. We had almost 100 people come. It was amazing! We had crazy contests, lots of dancing, and so much fun! All the dancers were out. For our party on April 9 we are having food, music by Shane and Sage who are amazing DJ's an open Jack and Jill contest, and more fun. I am expecting to get just as many people to come out. My goal is to make it the happening place to be for all the swing dancer's again. Here is the flier Erik made for the event.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SADIE!

2010-02-25T16:14:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Sadie! I would like to take this time to reminisce about our friendship and post a few pictures from our adventures together. It has been about 11 years since we met in our Genealogy class at the SLCC institute. It is hard to believe we have known each other for that long. Since we met, we have been though many adventures together and had lots of fun. We have taken college classes together, roomed together, been on the missionary committee together, gone camping, rock climbing, to soccer games, parties, and many other things. I have enjoyed all our adventures. You have been such a great influence on me, and such a great friend. I really admire everything about you. Since you are turning 31 I though I would make a list of 31 things I like about you(This list is not all inclusive by any means.)

1. You are very Christlike.
2. You are very outgoing and friendly and live life to the fullest.
3. You are a good mother.
4. You changed so many lives when you were the chair of the missionary committee.
5. You are a great cook.
6. You genuinely care about people, and it shows.
7. You have a great sense of style and can look good in anything.
8. You are always looking to learn new skills.
9. You have really good insights about life and a healthy attitude
10.You always do a good job at whatever you do.
11. You are great at living the gospel and making other people want to live it.
12. You are a great digital scrap booker.
13. You are very athletic
14. You are well read.
15. You were always a great student
16. You are great at serving others.
17. You have great ideas for fun activities.
18. You are good at listening to the spirit.
19. You are very health conscious and always eating healthy and exercising.
20. You are always taking the time to learn new skills.
21. You are a great wife to Corey.
22. You were there for me when I went through the Temple and got married.
23. You are always interested in what is going on in other people's lives.
24. You are very concious of the environment and what is healthy
25. You are great with finances and saving.
26. I can always call you whenever I need anything!
27. You are fun to go camping, rock climbing and canoing with.
28. You have awesome wilderness skills (not to downplay your bowstaffing skills).
29. You were a great recreational therapist and put your whole heart into your pt.s
30. You put so much effort into your young women's calling.
31. You are pretty much the prettiest, smartest, bestest friend ever.

Here are some pictures from our adventures.

The day we went rock climbing in draper. I believe this climb was called bloody impact.

Our Great Pumpkin Carving Affair

At my wedding

Sadie and Corey at my wedding Luncheon. I love this picture of them.

Sadie, Corey, and Riley on the beach. Sadie was a few months pregnant with Issac at this point.

Swimming in the Lake when we went canoing.

When we went canoing. It was soo much fun.

Hanging out with you right before Erik and I got married.

Valentines Day

2010-02-14T21:40:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to say happy valentines day to my sweet husband Erik. Thank you for loving me so much and being so amazing. Here is a valentine I made for you. I love you!

Love,

Your Wifey

Ganglion Cyst Surgery

2010-02-14T19:34:00.000-08:00

I had my wrist surgery a couple of weeks ago and it went rather well. At first I wanted to be awake for it, cause I am a nerd like that and find this stuff interesting. Then I realized that I am not that brave, and decided to be put under. I tried to talk the doctor into recording it, but they don't do that. So he agreed to take pictures with his camera phone and send them to my husband. So, poor Erik got a status update on my surgery, every time they took a picture. He isn't fond of the anatomy stuff like I am, so I don't think it was the most pleasant experience for him. I am grateful he loved me enough to be a good sport though. Here are the pictures from my surgery. All of my therapy colleagues thought the pictures were cool, so If this kind of thing grosses you out you may not want to read on.

As far as progress since the surgery, I have gotten a lot of range of motion back in my wrist. I currently have about 60 degrees of wrist extension and about 30 more degrees to go. My wrist flexion still sucks, but in the last 5 days since I got my bandages off, I have gotten back 45 degrees. I still have 45 more degrees to go, so it is still a work in progress. I am glad that I work in a therapy clinic though, cause I can borrow another therapist to range me or do my scar massage. I can also use the modalities such as heat and ultra sound. I have also used a heavy 8 lb weight and rested it on my hand to force my wrist into extension. It is working so far. We will see how much more range I can get in the next week or too. Here are the pics from the surgery.

This is the cyst after it was removed. It explains why my wrist hurt so much.

Here they are removing the cyst.

Here you can see my extensor tendon

Prepping my hand for surgery

Digital scrapbooking

2010-02-09T20:27:00.000-08:00

I have recently got into digital scrapbooking, and by recently, I mean yesterday. Sadie and I have been having family home evening together on Monday nights since our husbands have been at work. Last nights topic was journaling/geneology. Sadie taught me all the basics about digital scrapbooking and Adobe photoshop. There are so many neat things that you can do with photoshop, I was amazed. Sadie has done some great pages and projects and has got me excited about creating my own.

Here is my first page that I have done. Please don't be too critical, there is still sooo much that I don't know. I think it turned out pretty okay though.

Ganglion Cyst Surgery and No TRI training:(

2010-01-20T15:22:00.000-08:00

As most of you who know me know I have a ganglion cyst on the back of my wrist. You all know about it, because I haven't stopped whinning about it for the last month. Any time I go into wrist extension, it hurts like you wouldn't believe. I can't open jars, do pushups or dips, squeeze the breaks on my road bike, etc. Now the pain wakes me up when I am sleeping, so I have to sleep with a resting hand splint on. So, I have decided, after 8 long years, it is just time to be done with it and get it over with. I am going to have the dreaded thing cut out.

I went in for my surgical consult today, and I am scheduled for surgery next Tuesday. While we were scheduling my surgery, I found out that I will not be able to do my tri training for 6 weeks. This is so that the surgical sight doesn't get infected. No sweating or swimming. Baaaaahhh! This is a major bummer, but what can I do. The cyst is getting in the way of my training in a enormous way, so it is better to do it early in the season rather than closer to my triathlons

I already know I won't be the most complient patient as I am already trying to think of ways around the no training thing. The therapist in me also wants to do my own rehab. I have already looked up my post surgical rehab protocols and have already started planning my rehab program. I know I should just go to a therapy clinic like a normal person, but I kinda just want to do it myself or have one of my co-workers do it and save the $$$.

Since, I am a nerd and like this stuff, here is a video of the surgery I am going to have done.

Erik's late hours and My Triathlon Training

2010-01-18T22:52:00.001-08:00

As most of you know I have been blogging a lot about my triathlon training lately. This is because I have had a lot more time to myself. Erik has been having to work really late hours for the last two months, and I am usually in bed by the time he even gets home. So, I have plenty of time to myself in the evenings and on the weekends. Last week he had to work Saturday and Sunday too. I decided that since he is gone all the time, I might as well do something productive. So I am training like a maniac right now. I miss my husband, and hope someday his work will let him see his wife. I honestly feel like a widow. It is midnight, and Erik is stil gone. Oh well, nothing I can do about it, so I will stop whining.

So my training for tonight was kinda crazy. I got to the pool and my coach told me to do a 600m to warm up. I thought to myself, I usually just do that for my work out. He is crazy go nuts. So I did my 600m warmup, then I had to do six more 75 meter finger trip drag drills, then a couple 100 m build intervals, and then 3 200's. This is about the point where I finished. I was exhausted. The sad thing is I only made it halfway through the workout my coach had planned.

It turns out we swim about 3300m per workout. which is a little over 2 miles for those of you who don't know swim terms. I made it about a mile. My goal is in the next month to be able to finish the whole workout my coach has planned. So anyway, that is life for us lately.

New Triathlon Season and Team Fastlane

2010-01-04T19:55:00.000-08:00

It is January and time to get ready for a new triathlon season. I have joined a triathlon team called Team Fastlane. I had originally planned on doing 3 triathlons this year, 2 olympic distance and one half Ironman in Oct., but after I got off the phone with my new coach, he had talked me into doing 6. He originally wanted me to do 2 a month from May to October, but I thought that was intense. So, I talked him into letting me do one a month. I still think that is crazy, but not as nuts as two a month. We will see how it goes. I have been training all winter though, so I don't think it is an unrealistic goal. It will just push me a lot.

So this is what my season is shaping up to look like so far. My first triathlon will be the SGTRI (olympic distance), followed by Scofield in July (olympic distance), Battle at Midway in August(olympic distance), SOMA in Oct. (half ironman). I am still figuring out what races I will be doing in June and Sept.

I would like to document my experiences and thoughts about this whole adventure as the season goes on, so I am going to start a seperate blog for anyone who wants to follow my training. I will be blogging about products I recommend, advice I have for new triathletes, and things I learn a long the way. The address is http://kristenstriadventures.blogspot.com

My New bike trainer Erik bought me for Christmas. I don't know how he hid this from me, but I was totally suprised when I opened it. It is awesome! I love it!

New Years and Dancing!

2010-01-02T02:49:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, Erik and I love to dance. This is after all how we met. We haven't been doing much dancing the last year though for some reason. We did what we swore we would never do, become like the other swing dancers who got married, and then disappeared. This New Years Eve we decided we wanted to go dancing again, so we went to the Urban Dance Studios swing dance weekend hosted by our friends. The night included Lindy, West Coast, and blues so it made it more diverse. I was asked to DJ both nights along with some other swing dj's, so I thought why not! I love to dance, and I love to DJ. We had soooooo much fun. All the dancers throughout Utah showed up, so it ended up being quite the party. It renewed our love for dancing, so we are going to be going a lot more now. I have been asked to DJ at the down town stomp next weekend, and will be djing at the MAC in a few weeks. I am also djing tomorrow night at the Westie night in Pleasent Grove. So my career as a swing DJ is really starting to get going also. Erik and I will also be helping run the Downtown Stomp lindy venue with some other dancers. So just like that, we are deeply imersed in the dance scene again! Here is a video and some pictures from the last two nights.

Erik and I doing some West Coast swing

The crowd dancing to my djing

Dancing with Bryson
Erik dancing with Amy
Erik dancing again:)

Black Friday

2009-12-07T19:47:00.000-08:00

So life gets so busy that I find it hard to take time to blog. So I am finally getting around to blogging about Thanksgiving and black Friday. Since I haven't uploaded my Thanksgiving pictures yet, I will blog about black Friday.

Ever since I met Erik, I have learned what it is like to experience Black Friday on a yearly basis. I had never even been to black Friday before that. All the relatives pick their sales and camp out to get good deals. That's what the Gibby's(Erik's mom's side) thrive on anyway, getting a good deal, and sales. Black Friday was insane madness. Like always, there were millions of people, waiting in line, in freezing temperatures, to get really great deals.

Erik's mom Lark, and I went to the mod bod sale at the old Office Max on University Parkway. When we got there, it looked like the end of the line was all the way back at the Toys R Us. There were people in tents, and it was obvious that they had been there for a day or two. We thought that the line was insane for a mod bod sale. So we asked about the line, and found out that we were in the Toys R Us line. It turns out there were several lines for all the stores in the complex. So we finally got in the right line, and waited. People kept coming and eventually lines started to merge into each other. We were all piled on top of each other. It was insane!

At 11pm they started letting people in to the Mod Bod sale. The line was moving towards the door, and all of a sudden, people started running! It turned into mass chaos. I was almost trampled and smashed into a couple of doors. It was crazy. Once we got inside there was plenty of room though, so we went crazy. We ran and grabbed what ever we could find and then sorted through our piles in a corner later, when we couldn't carry anymore. After 2 hours we had what we wanted. We came away with a pretty good haul.

The next morning I went to the Sexy Modest black Friday sale. There wasn't really a line, but the store was full of women! The first 150 people to walk through the door got to reach into a stocking and draw a coupon or gift certificate. I drew a 10% off coupon. I was hoping to get one of the $50 gift certificates, but I guess 10% off was better than nothing. I ended up buying two pairs of jeans and a couple of sweaters. Here are all the pictures from the craziness.

Getting ready to leave for Black Friday

Lark waiting in line

Me waiting in Line

The view of the lines from behind us.

The view of the lines ahead of us.

My spoils. A couple sweaters, 2 pair of jeans, 5 shirts, two tank tops, and a swimming suit. Some of the stuff is for me, and some of them are Christmas presents.

Erik's brother Cody, and the cousins Jennica, Race, and Graden camping out at Best Buy. They were there for two days and were at the front of the line. They scored all of the good deals. They bought everything on Race's credit card, and then turned around and sold it on e-bay and made a big profit. Such a good idea! Erik's side of the family are such entrepreneurs. I love black Friday! It is one of the funnest parts of Thanksgiving.

Halloween Fun!

2009-11-02T21:11:00.001-08:00

This year I decided to be a pirate for Halloween after I found the most awesome pirate costume. I spent all month putting it together and modifying it to make it not slutty like it was intended to be by it's designers. I think it turned out rather well. Erik decided to be an Animator for Halloween, or in other words he was lame sauce and didn't dress up. Here are the pictures from the Halloween dance at the Downtown Stomp. We had lot's of fun. There was a crazy Jack and Jill and a costume contest. I was a close second in both. Erik danced rather well too. We actually got to dance together in one round of the jack and jill. We had fun stabbing other competitors with my sword, and Erik tried to take my head off a few times, till I made him walk the plank. haha I love Halloween dances. They are the funnest!

If ye don't like my costume, I will make ye walk the plank Arrrrr!!!!

Erik's Computer Animator Costume....

Displaying my costume for the costume contest. I took second place. You can't really beat a pregnant nun and a catholic priest. Especially when the nun is really pregnant.

The expecting couple. Haha

Getting ready to pillage and plunder some villages! Arrrrrr

Emily and John getting their dance on at the beginning of the night.

Two of my favorite dancers Sydney and Aly!

My New Job!

2009-10-08T02:53:00.001-07:00

I just got hired at the new Aspen Ridge transitional rehabilitation facility in Orem as one of thier occupational therapists. It is a 24 bed facility meant for people who are transitioning from the hospital home and just need a few weeks to a month of rehabilitation. I am excited because it is super nice, and the patient's will be higher level, and won't be so hard to transfer in and out of wheelchairs. They will all make good progress and be able to go home. I will see mostly ortho patients who have had hip or knee replacements, pelvic fractures, arm and shoulder fractures, hip fractures, etc. I will get to work with an OT I did my clinicals with who is super amazing andso much fun. I start on the 20th of October. I am so excited! Here are some pictures of the place I will be working:)

The Rehab Gym! Isn't it nice:)

This is what the patient's rooms will look like. They are all private rooms with their own bathroom and shower. If this doesn't attract good clientele, I don't know what will.

This is much nicer than the dinning room my patients eat in at the skilled nursing facility I am currently at. It is set up to have a more restaurant feel. The patient's get to choose from a menu and everything.

Pretty nice ehhh! It is way more elegant than your typical skilled nursing facility. It will be such a great place to work. I know my patients will be getting first rate care, because they have hired an amazing staff. I am also excited because I also will get to do a little bit of home health on the side and follow a few of my patients home. It is nice because each visit (which is usually only a half hour to hour) pays double my hourly wage in the clinic. So it will help me pay off my loans quicker and save for a rainy day. So that is my new job. Pretty exciting eehhhh

My new job means we are moving to Lehi so we will be halfway between mine and Erik's work. We are moving in to a new 3 bed 2 bath ground floor condo that is so nice! I will post some pictures as soon as we get moved in, and blog about the move. So anyway that is my new job.

General Conference

2009-10-04T20:30:00.001-07:00

So Erik and I really enjoyed general conference this weekend. It was amazing! There were so many good talks that it was hard to pick one that we liked the most.

One of the talks that really impressed me was President Monson's talk about service. I thought it was amazing that when asked what he wanted for his Birthday, he responded by saying that he wanted the members to do an act of service for some one in need. It was amazing to me how many people responded with so many kind deeds. It was nice to hear about all the service people did for each other. Christ spent most of his days ministering to others in need, and it reminded me that I need to spend more of my time serving. The times I have been the most happy in my life was when I was serving others.

President Monsen is such a great example of the words he spoke. He has spent his whole life helping the needy, the widowed, and those who are sick. It turns out that he has a route of nursing homes he visits on Sundays throughout the year. Every 6 months he comes to the skilled nursing facility I work at, and visits all the residents and attends the Sunday meeting. The next day in therapy all the patients are buzzing about President Monson's visit, and how he talked to them, and shook their hand. They cherish it so much, especially since they are all having such a hard time in their lives. President Monson is truly an example of the Master.

Another talk that Erik and I really liked was Elder Todd Christopherson's talk about having a moral society. I liked the example he gave with the housing market and the dishonesty that put it in the state that it is in. I thought it was interesting and true when he said that more laws wouldn't help us nearly as much as having a society with moral standards, because people would always find a way to circumvent laws. You can't create a law for every situation. It is nice to hear how important moral values such as honesty, integrity, and chastity are since we tend to live in a society that tries to minimize their importance and altogether discount them.

We also liked Elder Holland's talk about the Book of Mormon. He was so bold in declaring the truthfulness of the book of Mormon, that there was no way you couldn't know how he stood on that matter. It made me want to have more courage and be as bold as he is in testifying about the truthfulness of the gospel and book of Mormon. I often time worry too much about what other people think. I have a new goal to be bold like Elder Holland in declaring what I believe.

Anyway those were some of the highlights of our favorites. There were so many good talks, we can't wait for them to come out in print so we can read them.

Bear Lake Triathlon

2009-09-30T22:58:00.001-07:00

So I am a slacker and haven't had time to blog. So much has happened in the last month. I got a new job in Orem, finished my tri, and am now we are moving to Lehi. The Tri went rather well, and I had no injuries. I finished in an hour and 52 minutes and 3 seconds. Erik was there the whole way and was such a great support. Now we are getting ready for the Lake Powell Tri in two weeks. Here are some pics from the Bear Lake triathlon for your enjoyment.

Triathlon Training and the added benefits.

2009-09-08T16:01:00.001-07:00

As most of you know, I have been training for a triathlon pretty much all summer. P90X has been put on hold until the off season since it is very time consuming. I will be participating in two Tri's this year, one this weekend at Bear Lake, and one team tri Oct. 17th at Lake Powell with Erik. They will both be sprint distances, and I am very excited about them. It has been a lot of hard work, and I have been worn out, but so worth it. Erik has been so supportive with all my training and the seemingly billions of dollars it costs to get all the gear for one these things. He has also been running in order to prepare for his portion of the Lake Powell Tri. He hates running, so that is some serious dedication.

I am a little worried about the Tri this weekend since I did a 32 mile bike ride out to the Great Salt Lake last Friday and had some problems. My calf cramped up around mile 22 and I had to get off my bike and stretch for a half hour in order to make it the last 10 miles back. Even then, I could only bike back at a measly 13 miles an hour without causing another cramp episode. Ever since then, the calves have been in overdrive. I have done everything I can think of to fix them including: heat, massage, potassium pills, vitamin E, pills, banannas, electrolyte pills, etc. Kim was nice enough to work on them for me at work today to get them back to normal. Tomorrow we are going to hook them up to e-stim and fatigue the muscles so we can get the rest of the knots out. I am hoping that helps, because I have invested way too much money into the tri to not be able to do it. I basically loose $400 this weekend if I don't partipate, so I am pretty motivated to get my calves back to normal. They are getting better though, so I have high hopes still.

The training has been great for my back though. The swimming has improved my back muscles so much that I don't get any sciatic pain anymore and I can lift heavy things a lot easier. I can actually sit through all 3 hours of church. It is nice to not have the pain anymore. I think I will be a triathlete for life. Here are a few pictures from my training.

Cooling down at the end of a workout in California.

After a 14 mile bike ride with Erik and his Dad in American Fork

After an open water swim clinic at Blackridge resevoir. It really helped to get an idea of what mass chaos would erupt on race day. We had to practice swimming over and under each other and stuff like that. It was very helpful.

The great thing about Tri training is you lose a lot of weight and have to go shopping. I lost 2 clothing sizes and am now a size 3 jeans and a size small shirt for the first time in like 5 years. It was nice to have an excuse to visit girl heaven (the mall).

Our new car and why D Dalley Mazda sucks.

2009-07-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

Erik and I decided we wanted a Mazda 6 after doing a bunch of research, so we went down to D Dalley Mazda in Murray. DON'T EVER GO THERE! They will take you to the cleaners financially, and they are rude! The salesman showed us some cars in our general price range, and we went out and test drove a 2003 Mazda 6. The engine didn't sound super perfect, it had 86,000 miles on it, and I wasn't completely in love with it. We asked him how much the car was and conveniently it happened to be $9800, the same price we told him a private seller we were looking at was selling his Mazda 6 for (even though his was newer and had lower miles). Erik said he didn't care about the sale price, he wanted to know what the total take home price was after taxes and fees. So the sales guy came back with his boss and they told us it was $11600, almost $2000 more than the original price they gave us. We weren't stupid and knew that taxing and licensing only costs $800, so we told them we couldn't do that. They asked us "So what was the most you wanted to spend on a car?" Erik said "Our budget is $10, 000. We won't spend any more than that." So they told us "you are going to have to find another car then." Erik said "That's fine." The manager was taken back and said "you do understand you are going to have to find a different car, if you won't accept this price." Erik said " Yes, that's fine." So the manager and sales guy were really miffed but said they would take us out to look at some other cars. We got out to the lot and the salesman said he had some Hundai Accents we could look at. I told him no Hundai accents because they were Hundai's lowest line and very unreliable (I had done my research). So he got really angry and said he didn't have anything else for us and just walked off and left us standing there. So we thought they were jerks and decided to never buy from them and to look with private sellers instead.

So I called the guy on craigs list with the Mazda 6 I had been looking at online, we went and test drove it, it was perfect. The guy was super anal about his cars, so the leather was in perfect condition, and so was everything else about the car. It ran perfectly and had no problems. It looked a million time better than any of the ones they showed us at the dealership, and he dropped his price to $9200 So we bought it. They were super nice and drove the car down to us, filled it up with a full tank of gas, and told us everything we needed to know about the car. They were fantastic. It was a much better experience.

So here are pictures of the New Mazda 6S we bought from the add off of craigs list. They do not do this car justice, so I will take some better ones soon when I get a chance.

Here it is from the front. It has a moon roof on the top that is hard to see in this picture.

We think it looks really nice with the suspension drop and low profile tires. It also accelerates very fast since it has a V6 engine. It also has duel exhaust which makes the engine really quiet.

As you can see it has black leather interior, it has radio controls on the steering wheel, it has heated seats as well as a 6 disk front load CD changer. My favorite part is that it has BOSE speakers, so the sound is amazing. The car even has tweeters, so the sound is separated very nicely. It also has climate controls with the AC. All you have to do is set the temperature of the cabin and it will keep it there.

So that is our new car. It is perfect! the only thing it didn't have was an Ipod jack, so yesterday we went to have one installed. Apparently Mazda 6's are a pain when it comes to Ipod jacks. We went around to all the audio places and none of them could install one, and said we needed to go the dealership. As much as we didn't want to, we went over to D Dalley Mazda to get it done. When we got out of the car, Erik asked me "Where is the parts and service section?" The same sales guy we delt with before had just walked outside and heard Erik's question. He yelled at us from accross the lot. "Parts and Services are closed. They closed at 3pm. You are out of luck" He had a very rude tone, and made it quite clear he wanted us to leave. He would only shout at us from the door, and wouldn't come over to talk to us. We were very offended and got in our car and left. We think he was bitter because we rolled up in a car that was much nicer than any of the ones he showed us, and because he didn't make a sale with us. Regardless, it was horrible customer service, and we are writting a letter of complaint to the dealership regarding all of our experiences with them. So we went to Best buy and they were able to install something that would work. So now we can listen to our Ipods in our new car:) Yeah! So you can suck it D Dalley Mazda! You will never get a penny of our money ever!

The nightmares getting your car totaled and why Geico sucks.

2009-07-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

So it has been a really long time since I wrote on the blog. Things have been crazy at work, and I have not really had the energy to blog until now since I have had the caseload of 3 therapists. So here is a recap of the last month.
Erik's car got totaled about a month ago while driving down South Temple. Some guy suddenly turned left into oncoming traffic and Erik had no time to hit the brake, and hit him head on. So Erik's front end was completely smashed up. Part of it went into the cabin on the passengers sided. It was bad! I was so grateful Erik wasn't hurt after I arrived on the scene of the accident and saw his car. Thank you guardian angels!

So this last month we have spent our time battling with the insurance company of the guy who hit us. Don't EVER use Gieco they are horrible. The agent never called Erik back and he had to leave lots of messages. He went on vacation without extending Erik's rental car even though they had not made us an offer yet. We were supposed to be able to keep the rental car till they made an offer. So Erik called his supervisor, and he was also out of town for the weekend at a retreat. The girl talking to Erik said "I'm sorry there is nothing I can do, you are going to have to return the car." Erik was very upset about this and said "This is rediculous. I have to give the car back because your agent forgot to do his job? It was your guy that hit me and now I am out of a car." He argued with the girl long enough till she told him he could just keep the rental car and she would take care of it. When Erik finally did get a hold of the guy, he lied and said he had tried to call Erik and couldn't get a hold of him. The agent said "I left you a message." Erik asked him "What number did you call?" He gave Erik a number that was one diget off. Erik called the number just to see, and the voice mail said "Hi! This is Ashley, leave a message." So obviously the guy was lying. It was also interesting that magically they were able to call me to let me know Erik needed to return the rental car, but couldn't call my number when they "couldn't" get a hold of Erik. So yeah the guy was full of crap.

To make things worse when they finally made us an offer after 3 weeks, They offered us $2700 for his 97 Honda Accord when LOW blue book was $3500. Not to mention Erik and his friend Alex had just installed a new transmission themselves. So we thought their offer was ridiculous and would not accept it. So they came back and offered us $3000. Erik did a bunch of research and sent it to them. They made up some lame reason why that didn't apply to Erik's car and refused to pay us more. We would have continued to battle them, but were tired of all of it and needed the money to get a new car. So we took the offer so we could purchase a specific car we wanted before it was not available anymore. So yeah never go with Gieco. They are horrible. I will post how we bought our new car in the next post.

The P90X...Can You Bring It?

2009-05-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

So some of you may have heard of this insane workout program authored by the infamous Tony Horton. Well, Erik and I have decided to do it. For those of you who have no idea what the P90X is, well the only way I can describe it is pure fitness insanity. It is 90 days of super intense workouts that last between 50 minutes and an hour and a half. It is not your average pansy workout video. Just when you don't think you can do another pull up, Tony says let's do 10 more. Then it's back to triangle pushups, and then back to the pullup bar then back to chair pushups, etc. This is definitely not for the faint of heart. You need to be in very good shape and working out every day already to make it through this series.

Erik and I work out pretty regularly. Erik runs for an hour every day, and I do a lot of intense cardio classes at the gym as well as my triathlon training, so we feel up to the challenge.
When I first checked into this I thought, get extremely fit in 90 days? Is it possible? So I did my homework and read about on blogs of other swing dancers and swing dance insturctors who do this workout, and they all swear by it. So I decided to order it and find out for myself. Well my friends the answer to that question came last night after the first day of P90X. Yes, it is possible to get extremely fit in 90 days! It will kick your @$$. I am already seeing results.

Erik and I just finished day two of the P90X. We are still sore from yesterdays back and chest workout, and the Ab ripper X. Today we did Plyometrics X and wow, all I have to say, is that is one intense workout. I already feel more agile though, even though I am so sore. If you want to get in shape for ski season, Plyometric X is a good workout for that. After an intense hour of jumping around and doing a lot of agility excercises, I am worn out. I had to do the workout modified a bit though because of my hernitated disk, but I still got a good workout. Before that we also biked up city creek canyon for a couple of miles so that added to the fatigue. Tomorrow it is arms and ab ripper x. So I am trying to mentally prepare, because I am still sore in my arms and shoulders from the back and chest workout.

Erik and I have decided to follow the diet that comes with the program. Everyone who I have talked to that didn't do the diet, didn't get nearly as good results as far as appearence. So we have decided to give it a try. I must say, I have never seen a more healthy looking grocery cart. It was full of basically all vegetables, fruits and fat free products. The recipies and menue choices are actually pretty good. It isn't disgusting tasteless food like I thought it would be. So I am willing to try it. I have got nothing to lose....but a lot of fat. So here goes nothin.

I will do a weekly update of our progress so you can see how our 90 days of workout hell are going. It will also make Erik and I be accountable, and not wuss out. So Tony Horton, you can suck it, cause we are bringing it!

Erik trying to keep me from taking a picture of him during our plyometrics workout.

I can't remember the name of this exercise. We just keptjumping and switching to the opposite side. I was amazed at how much we could still do after our bikeride. I didn't think we would last the whole workout.
Rosita my awesome new roadbike. I am so addicted to riding now, I am going to have to do P90X and my bike training. I can't choose between the two.

The Chronicles of Baelzebub....

2009-05-22T16:42:00.001-07:00

Working in the rehab department of a skilled nursing facility has it's funny moments. Last Thursday, I saw one of the physical therapists (Jeff) talking to this sweet looking 85 year old patient, while she was painting a picture. He asked her "Aren't you going to sign your masterpiece?" She replied "What should I sign it?" He responded "How about Cruela, or Baelzebub, or if you want to use symbols, how about a pitch fork?" I just started laughing to myself, and thought "She couldn't really be that honory." I looked over two minutes later, and she was painting a red pitchfork at the bottom of her picture.

The next day I was running a cooking group with a few of my patients, and this sweet patient we now fondly refer to as "Baelzebub" was ordering everyone around. She told me to put a plastic bag around the sugar before I put it away, because she thought it was leaking. I told her it wasn't leaking, and proceeded to put the sugar away. She then yelled "It's a good thing your not in my kitchen. I'm going to come over there and beat the shit out of you!" I was kind of suprised, and taken back. I then started laughing really hard, because this sweet looking grandma hunched over in her wheelchair had just threatened to "beat the shit out of me." I was not the only one laughing.

When I asked her to stir the brownies, she barked "Go get me a spatula!" I said "There is one in the bowl." She shouted "That's not a spatula, that's a spoon. Are you deaf? Go get me a spatula, and hurry up!" I told her rather indignently she could just stir it with her pitchfork. She just looked at me. So I opened the kitchen drawer and handed her the spatula. As soon as I handed it to her, she said "It's about time you got over here!" All the other patient's started laughing. She then started to order around one of the physical therapists walking by. She handed him a bowl, and told him to go wash it. He told her he wasn't even a part of the cooking group. she said "I don't care, just do it! " Chelsea told "Baelzebub" to stop being so bossy and mean. Then Jeff (her PT) said while laughing "She can't help it. She has to be bossy. It is hard running that kingdom of fire and brimstone!" she responded "Yeah it is! I need a forked tongue the way these guys are monkeying around." I couldn't stop laughing after that. I thought Jeff was exaggerating about how honory she was, but he wasn't kidding!

Later that day, Jeff was working with her and put a hot pack on her shoulder in preparation for stretching. She started complaining that she didn't want heat, so Jeff told her "I'm just trying to simulate your home environment." She laughed and said in her crackly little old lady voice "Oh ok." I tried to hold back the laughter. A few minutes later he asked her to throw the Nerf ball with him. She firmly said "No!" Jeff asked her "why not? We need to do this." She said "I don't care! I think your full of shit!" All the patients and staff around started laughing. Jeff then said "come on, just do it." She said again "No, You're full of shit!" More laughter erupted. He threw the ball at her, and she wouldn't catch it. She let it hit the ground and just kicked it back at him. I saw this go on for a couple of minutes. Finally he ended up taking her back to her room.

Since then, I have seen them banter on like this in other therapy sessions. I must say, I am always amused when she is down in the gym. It is moments like these that make life entertaining. The staff members are still teasing me about being threatened by a 85 year old lady in a wheelchair. I can't wait to see what happens next week.

The Spine Update

2009-05-06T22:25:00.000-07:00

As I have promised, I will keep you up to date on the progress of my back rehab. So far so good. The spinal decompression therapy has been helping a lot. It has made my pain go from unbearable, to pretty much non existent. I can now sleep through the night, and I don't have pain radiating down my leg anymore, and my leg doesn't go numb now. I have had a few hiccups along the way that have set me back, but the set backs have been nothing compared to previously. For example, I tripped over the standing frame at work and landed on the tile floor with a lot of force. I came down pretty hard on my right side, and had some pretty bad bruises on my leg. I could tell I jarred my back, but even with that hard of a fall, I only had minor discomfort. I had zero sciatic pain! When I went on Monday and had the decompression therapy, the discomfort went away. I still have to be careful, and have to avoid activities that would jar my back while it is still healing. But there have been drastic improvements since I started. So far so good. Yeah for spinal decompression therapy!

Ice Cream Fun

2009-04-23T13:57:00.001-07:00

As some of you know, Erik and I work in the Salt Lake Temple on Friday nights for a few hours. One of the girls that works with us is getting married in two weeks, so we all decided to go out after our shift and celebrate. Here are the pictures from Ice cream last Friday.

Erik and I getting Cozy while waiting for our food

It was a big bannana split. It sure was tasty!

All the Ladies I work in the babtistry with. They are all such sweethearts.

Erik, the most wonderful and patient husband ever.

2009-04-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to tell the world how wonderful Erik is. He really takes good care of me and I am lucky to have him. He has had to endure a lot lately, as I have been kind of grumpy about some of the trials life has given me.

The last month has been kind of rough for me. My back started acting up again, and for the first time in like a year I have had trouble sleeping through the night because of the pain. I have been kind of grumpy, since having pain shoot down your leg, and then having your leg go numb isn't the funnest, and kind of hard to ignore. It also made me realize I am going to have to put my triathlon on hold, which is kind of a let down, since I have been training so hard for it. I also got a nasty sinus infection that lasted about a week and a half. Well when that went away, my back pain got worse. Well my back pain finally resolved itself Saturday night, and I woke up sick Sunday morning with a different strain of sinus garbage, I caught from a friend. Well, needless to say, I have been really miffed about being sick again, and having to miss more work. I have felt like the universe just wants to watch me suffer this month.

Erik has been a real sport through all of this. He doesn't complain, he will go out at all hours of the night to get medications for me, he holds me and lets me cry when I am discouraged about my back, and then makes feel better and helps me to look at the positive side of things. He drove all the way down to Provo by himself to get the rubber band ball we accidentally left at his parents house. Why did he do that you may ask, because for some reason it is the perfect density, and only thing that can seem to get my muscles to relax when my disk is bothering me (my foam roller doesn't quite work as well anymore). He has done the majority of the housework, since I haven't felt very well, and hasn't complained about it. He makes me laugh all the time with his funny sense of humor. He has made me dinner a lot lately, scheduled my MRI and gotten off work early to take me. He has been willing to shell out whatever money it takes to get my back better (which has been a lot). He makes me feel loved and appreciated, by all his acts of kindness. Anything I ask him, he will do for me. He is fun to talk to about life, and I can talk to him for hours and often do. He is good at solving problems, and making everything better, no matter who's problems they are. He gives really good advice, and I have learned the value of listening to it, because he always ends up being right. He is a really hard worker and a good provider, protector, husband, and my best friend.He has so many talents, I could go on and on.

I just wanted to let you know Erik, that I love you, and appreciate all you do. It is not hard to know you love me. You show me every minute of every day. Thank you!

Love,
Your Wifey

Erik at his favorite place in the whole world, The Wally-Mart

Spine Update

2009-04-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

I am very excited to share that I have found a solution that will fix my back permanently, and it doesn't involve surgery. So I have decided to do a weekly post about the progress of my back called "The Spine Update". I am a big huge nerd I know. But I love learning about the human body and it's abnormalities so just can't help myself.

For any who don't know, I herniated a disk in my back about 2 years ago as a result of previous car accidents. For those of you who like specifics it is between L5 and S1 and pinching the S1 nerve root, which innervates all my hip extensors and hamstrings as well as other muscles. It has caused me great problems, and often causes a lot of pain. Sometimes the pain is very debilitating.

Being in the field of rehab, I have worked very hard to "fix myself" and avoid the death sentence called back surgery. I have a core routine that I do to take the pressure off my back, I worked with a personal trainer for a year, to get my muscles strong enough to take most of the load and take the pressure off my back I stretch my quads and hamstrings and hip extensors diligently in order to get rid of my anterior pelvic tilt which puts more pressure on my disk, I use a foam roller for myofascial release of the muscles, I have gotten massages, etc. I even started training for a triathlon when I started feeling strong enough. Well everything was starting to go well and I hadn't had any symptoms for about 5 months and I was able to tolerate two hours of intense cardio classes a night. I was stoked, cause I thought I was better. But then about a month ago I did a trail run with my triathlon group. Dumbest idea ever! It jarred my back and now my disk is consistently acting up again.

Well luckily for me, my institute of Religion professor also happens to be a chiropractor. He is a very brilliant man and is good at whatever he does. He found out about my back and told me about this non surgical spinal decompression therapy that will heal my disk back to 95% of it's original strength. http://www.americanspinal.com/ He referred me to his son, since seeing students is a conflict of interest.

It turns out I have no curve in my cervical or lumbar spine along with the herniated disk. My chiropractor and I are working to put the curve back in my spine through spinal molding and exercises along with the spinal decompression therapy for my disk. So it should be better permanently within 6 months or so. Yeah! It is already feeling better after just a few sessions.

Here are the pictures of my spine currently. I am happy to report that my disk looks a lot better than on my MRI two years ago, but it still has issues.

Here you can see an L bend in my spine instead of a natural curve. This puts way more pressure on my disk between L5 and S1. You can also see the white circles. Those are the nucleus pulposis or the jelly filled nucleus in my disk. As you can see, the disk right at the L bend doesnt have one, as it has spilled out through the outer fibrous layer called the anulous fibrosis. You can see where the blackened disk is spilling out into my spinal column and pinching my nerve. That is the disk that is herniated.

Here, you can also see how my facet joints are locked and the the spinous processes of my vertebrae around the L bend are jammed into each other. This expains why it has hurt to sit for more than 10 minutes, during last month. The spinal decompression therapy is helping unjam them.

This is what a healthy spine is supposed to look like. you can see the natural curvature that evenly distributes force and pressure, the disks encased and having equal thickness, and the spinous processes evenly spread out.

FYI: My chiropractor is really good! He uses evidenced based research to support his treatments, he measures progress through reliable methods such as x-rays and MRI's etc, and really knows his stuff. I have grilled him extensively, made him show me research articles etc, since I am not going to trust just anyone. He is helping me a lot, so if you need a good chiropractor I would go see Dr. Michael Frogley www.chiropractichealthrehab.com

Our New Living Room

2009-03-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, we redid our living room. It all started when Erik brought home a new Cherry Wood credensa to replace our $30 Wal-Mart T.V. stand. I was perfectly happy with our mismatched furniture, until he brought that home. It looked so elegant, and suddenly all of the rest of the furniture looked ghetto next to it. So then we bought a new DVD cabinet to hide our dvd's, and then we bought a rug, and then suddenly we decided we wanted new couches, and then new tables, and it just kept going. We spent our whole tax return on our living room, but it was well worth it. Here are the pictures of the finished product.

Duck, Duck, Oops......

2009-03-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

I am blogging this Story for Sadie as she requested. I have a good sense of humor and can laugh at myself, so I will share with you something entertaining that happened on my way home from the gym.

I just finished working out tonight, and got in my car to go home. The gym parking lot was full, so I had to park in front of Fairmont park. I got into my car, and was drinking my protein shake, when I noticed a bunch of ducks on the lawn. I noticed two mallard ducks in particular chasing another female duck. I thought they were trying to beating up the duck, because it was running away, obviously distressed. It looked like they were trying to kill it, and since I have a soft spot for animals, I thought I should intervene. So I darted out of my car, and across the lawn to chase the ducks down. When I approached, they would run away, but they wouldn't stop chasing the female duck. When they caught hold of the duck, more ducks would descend, so I thought they were going to kill it. Well after about two or three times of trying to chase the ducks away from the poor female duck, I started to realize there might be a reason, she wasn't trying as hard as I thought she should to get away. I looked over, and across the park, I noticed another set of Mallard ducks chasing another female duck, and then I put two and two together. I wasn't saving the female duck from death, I had interupted their little orgy. I felt pretty stupid, and I felt even stupider, when I noticed two or three people sitting in their cars, watching me chase around the mating ducks. So I went back to my car, and tried not to make eye contact with the people sitting in the car next to me, and drove home. It is obvious, I used all my ogygen during my workout, and there wasn't enough left for my brain afterwords. It seems so obvious now what was happening. Haha So yeah, that was my blond moment for the day. You may now proceed to laugh. Erik sure did.

Just thought this would complete the visual. Haha

Harlem Nights 2009

2009-02-22T15:51:00.000-08:00

Harlem Nights is a big swing weekend that the USU swing club has in Logan every year in February. It is 2 nights of dancing, a day of workshops, and the infamous Hellzapopin' competition where the cash prize is $1000. Erik and I decided to go since we are swing dancers, and we go wherever there is swing dancing.

This year, I decided at the last minute, that I wanted to compete. For some reason, it hadn't occurred to me that I actually could. I figured I didn't have anyone to compete with since all my partners had moved away, so I hadn't worried about it, until someone called me out on the swing forum. So I scrambled to find a partner. I asked Wyatt, and he took about a week to decide, and then on Thursday night, decided he was too busy to go. So I asked Allan Ambrose. His wife is like my husband, they hate to compete, so I thought it was a perfect fit. Besides, Allan and I have competed every year together in the polygamy lindy contest at ULX anyway (and won) We dance well together.

So we got together and practiced during the Friday night dance, and during the day on Saturday. We were at a major disadvantage, because every one else that was competing in the advanced round, had been practicing for weeks. But hey, the cash prize was $1000, so what was there to lose. So we practiced some high flying ariels, and put together some sweet moves. Unfortunatly, I was so tired from dancing the night before, going to the late night dance, all the workshops, and practicing all the ariels for the competition, I was really really tired when the competition started. I wasn't sure I was going to make it through. My fatigue is obviously reflected in my dancing, so the videos won't show me at my best. We didn't end up getting to do most of the ariels that we practiced, and we didn't end up winning, but we learned a lot about competing. I am glad I did it, because I learned a lot about myself, what do do next year, and where I am at in my dancing.

Even thought we didn't win, It was a lot of fun to do the competition. It was a good motivator to do awesome next year, now that I have found a partner. Allan and I have decided to do more competitions together, and have found a couple that are amazing at Ariels to get together with, and help us perfect them. We are going to practice our dancing every week, and take home the prize next year hopefully. I am glad that I have such a supportive husband who lets me do all of this. He is fantastic. Unfortunately, he was sick most of the weekend, so he spent a lot of time in the hotel playing video games. But he did come to the Saturday night dance and film us. So here are all the videos from the Saturday night dance with me and all my dancing friends throwing it down.

Thanksgiving fun!

2009-01-25T09:57:00.001-08:00

So I am a slacker and am just barely getting around to blogging all that happened during the holidays. For Thanksgiving, we all traveled to my in-laws new house that they just built To make things less complicated we did a combined Thanksgiving. My whole family came, and April's husband Paul's whole family came too. This way we didn't have to run back and forth and eat multiple dinners. It was really fun. I think the pictures will say it all:)

Cutting up the potatos for the mashed potatoes. Lark kept making me cut more potatoes so we had a lot of mashed potatoes!

Erik

Erik's Dad cutting up the Turkey:)

Erik, and the Bells playing with Parker and Emmit

Paul and his brother dog piling Parker:)

Almost everyone but me and Heather. I was taking all the pictures:)

Parker and Emmit showing off the Thanksgiving Turkey they helped make. We all got a 3 feathers and had to write what we were thankful for and put them on the Turkey.

My mom and brother Matt

My sister Heather:)

Paul horsing around with his kids and brother

April (Erik's sister) , April's husband Paul, Parker and Emmit, and Paul's brother.

Matt, Paul's dad, and Paul getting some of my mom's pie while she makes the whip cream

Your pies were delicious mom!

Erik's mom Lark and I in line at the modbe sale during black Friday. We were crazy I know!

Lark going through our pile and deciding what we want to buy. You had to just grab whatever you saw and sort through it later cause the crowds were so crazy! There were a lot of pushy women at this sale.

Cream of Cougar Soup

2008-11-23T00:25:00.000-08:00

So I must say it was fantastic to see the Utes destroy BYU tonight and secure our BCS bid. I would like to give a shout out to the BYU quarterback Max Hall for throwing 5 interceptions. He definitly deserves the MVP for helping Utah this game. I also really appreciated the nine penalties that BYU received during the game. Especially all the 15 yard penalties. Those really helped us out too! Way to put the pressure on the Cougs, Utah! You definitly earned your BCS bid. All I have to say to the BYU fans who say we got lucky during some of the games this season, I think the 48-24 proved that we had way more than luck on our side. No worries though, we will still share some of our BCS spoils with you and the other teams in the conference. Go Utes!

I will post pictures from the festivities during the game tomorrow, since I am really tired. All that celebrating has worn me out. Congratulations Utah!

So here are the pictures I promised finally! I am a slacker...

Me, Aaron and Bryan cheering for the U. They are family friends that my family and I have known since I was little:) We all got our Bachelors and Masters degree's from the U. Go Utes!

Aaron excitingly watching the game and updating his facebook status. Haha

Erik hates football so he brought his psp haha

Bryan enjoying the game

My dad watching the game. The only picture I could get of him.

Erik being a good sport. He was the only Cougar fan there.

Utes 48 BYU 24 Nuff said:)

Ski Season, Here We Come!

2008-11-07T23:20:00.000-08:00

After seeing the latest Warren Miller movie, Children of Winter, we were really excited for ski season, so we had to go to the ski swap tonight in Park City and get some gear. We went with our friends Tim and Sarah who are major skiers. They both have 5 pairs of ski's, and know a lot about ski's and boards, so it was nice to have their expert advice when picking out our gear. When we got there, we had to wait in line for half an hour, and pay $8 to get in. I couldn't believe I had to wait in line and pay money to be able to buy stuff. It was totally worth it though, cause we got some really sweet deals. I had such a fantastic time getting all my gear. It was such an awesome way to spend a Friday night. Erik and I can't wait to take our new ski's and board up on the mountain and try them out. Here are the pictures from all the fun.

Waiting in line to get into the ski swap. It is crazy that you have to wait a half an hour in line and pay $8 to buy stuff at the ski swap.

Picking out boots to go with my snowboard

Erik picking out a new helmet

Erik has decided on his new helmet and ski's.

I feel like I should be patrolling the death star. It would be a fabulous helmet if I was a storm trooper.

The helmet I decided to buy

Sarah and I modeling our new gloves

My new board, gloves and helmet. I am so excited! I have been waiting a really long time to be able to buy a snowboard.

Erik modeling his bank robbery ski mask. He decided this one wasn't going to cut it since the cops would still be able to see his face.

Our spoils! We are so excited for the new ski and boarding season! This is the aftermath of the Warren Miller movie.

Halloween Festivities

2008-11-02T20:39:00.000-08:00

Halloween this year was spent in a true Kristen and Erik fashion, at a swing dance. The Golden Skillet swing venue was having their annual Halloween dance, complete with costume contest and Jack and Jill lead and follow contest. So we naturally could not miss it. Last year we dressed up as disco people and it was awesome, but this year we had a little more trouble with the costumes. Erik was going to go as Homestar runner, but when he tried to spray paint the white star on the shirt, he had the wrong kind of paint, so it didn't work out. I was going to go as Minnie Mouse, but the zipper broke on my Minnie dress right before the dance. So I couldn't go as Minnie. We were going to try and sew me into the costume but then thought about what would happen if the stitching broke in the middle of dancing. So we vetoed that idea. I decided to use my old stand by cat costume. It is nice to always have one of those. Erik unfortunately didn't have a standby, so he he wore normal cloths and said he was a game developer. We had a great time though and really enjoyed the dance and all the festivities.

Here are the pictures from the nights events.

Erik and I dancing our first dance of the night.

Snuggling up to Erik like a cuddly cat would

Dancing with Wolverine

Doing the Charlston

Still dancing with Wyatt, it was a long song.

Coming out of a cool spin. Our friend Tim went a little crazy with the camera and took a lot of pictures during my dance with Wyatt.

Erik and I dancing again!

Our friends who run the swing venue "thing one" and "thing two" with Michelle. She is the best DJ ever!

Virgil and Emily, our friends who recently got married.

Sarah and I chillin after the Jack and Jill contest.

Tim and Sarah our outdoorsy friends.
We are going to the ski swap with them next Friday
in Park city.

Tim, Whitney, Julie, Thomas, and Erik after the dance.
This picture turned out very well visually.

Tag: My 8's

2008-10-31T17:17:00.000-07:00

So I was tagged by Marissa about 2 weeks ago, and I finally got around to doing this. Here are some of my 8's.

Eight TV shows I like to watch:

Heroes
Lost
The Office
Scrubs
Dancing with the Stars
Smallville
Friends
Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Eight restaurants I like to eat at:

The Cheesecake factory
P.F. Chang's
Olive Garden
Applebee's
Chili's
California Pizza Kitchen
Noodles and Co
Caputo’s Deli

Eight things that happened today:

Went to work
Got yelled at by honory patients
Treated a few patients that were in a good mood
Ate 3 bites of my lunch and got sick again
Took my medication
Had a good treatment session with my last patient and was able to chart progress.
Bought my husband some personal training sessions
Took a nap since I was up all night regretting lunch yesterday.

Eight things I am looking forward to:

Discharging my honory patient
When eating no longer makes me sick
Going to the Halloween dance at the Skillet.
Being able to train with my triathlon group again
A weekend away from honory patients who yell at anyone who is trying to help them.
Giving my husband a big kiss
The new Harry Potter movie next summer
My trip to SoCal in December

Eight things on my wish list:

A brand new Honda Accord
Cloths, cloths, and more cloths
A roadbike
Matching furniture in the living room
A Computer Charting System at work
A new stomach
Rock climbing gear
To be on a national swing dance team.

Eight People I Tag:

Sadie
Tammy S.
Becka T.
April B.
Tricia S.
Shellese G.
Nicole R.
Wendy J.

The Great Pumpkin Affair

2008-10-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday night Erik and I went over to our friends Sadie and Corey's, for some pumpkin carving fun. We carved pumpkins, made pumpkin cookies, baked pumpkin seeds, and watched Monster House. It was very fun!

I was the slowest one when it came to the carving. I was too busy running my mouth. Sadie and Corey had carved all three of their pumpkins before I was even finished with mine. Sadie even made pumpkin cookies and cooked pumpkin seeds in between. So yeah, I am slow. It was sure fun though. I made a pac man pumpkin while everyone else made scary faces. We spent lots of time trying to perfectly place our pumpkins for the optimal photo. Erik spent a lot of time bossing Corey around, and I had to remind him to play well with others. LOL As far as the treats go, the pumpkin cookies turned out rather tasty, and so did the pumpkin seeds. Kudo's to Sadie!

Here are the photo's from our pumpkerific evening!

Erik going to town with his pumpkin

Sadie looking a little too happy with that knife!

Corey is the happiest pumpkin carver I have ever seen.

Starting surgery on my pumpkin

Erik giving his pumpkin a facial with windex. He likes his stuff to look pretty, and didn't want any marker showing.

Our pumpkins in all of their glory!

Finally a diagnosis

2008-10-29T21:19:00.001-07:00

So I went to the GI specialist and found out the results of my procedures. It turns out that I have major acid reflux. I started coughing up blood last week, and then all my food started to come back up after I ate, so that pretty much confirmed it. As far as the pain in my side when I eat, they said I have irritable bowl syndrome. This is the cop-out diagnosis that doctors give you when they don't know what is wrong. I am not sure I buy it, since I neither have had diarrhea or been constipated. Just pain around my descending colon sometimes when I eat. He said that that certain foods will cause my colon to spasm. The trigger foods that cause the pain seem to fit with those of acid reflux and irritable bowl. So who knows. I may have IBS, or maybe I don't. All I know is that I still get pain in my side sometimes when I eat, but it is getting better. I am able to eat a lot more now these days, and can now sustain enough calories to start working out again and train for my triathlon. So hopefully the acid reflux medication will help, and I will continue to get better. Well that is the latest update!

Warren Miller 's Children of Winter

2008-10-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday Erik and I went to see the new Warren Miller Ski Movie. Ok so I have to say that it was incredible! I really want to buy it, when it comes out! We had a great time! We went with our friends Rod, Holly, and Rod's family. We went out to dinner at a Restaurant called The Naked Fish beforehand. It used to be called Mikado's. They had the best Terriaky stake I have ever had. After dinner, we went over to Abravenal Hall with all the other Ski and Snowboarding fanatics to watch the premier of the film. It was incredible. I really enjoyed the Utah segment. You don't get powder like that anywhere else. The rest of the movie was fantastic as well. It was hard to pick a favorite segment. Some of those skiers and boarders are crazy. All the flips and crazy jumps they did, I can see how people die making this movie. After the film, I was so excited about snowboarding season, I went out and bought a new coat. Anyway, here are the pictures from the night!

Erik after the movie with his program/awesome ski magazine.

Erik and I waiting in anticipation for the movie to start.

Rod and Holly

Rock Climbing with Sadie and Corey

2008-10-29T20:25:00.000-07:00

I am kind of lazy and just getting around to blogging all the pictures in my camera. So here is an activity clear back from August. Erik and I went rock climbing with our friends Sadie and Corey at a popular rock climbing site in Draper. We got there early in the morning to avoid the crowd, since most rock climbers are lazy and don't like to get up early.

The spot we went to was rather shady and nice to start our morning with. All the climbs were named by a dentist so it was entertaining to read the names of each of the climbs. They had funny names like bloody impact, root canal, and names of other dental procedures. It was kind of entertaining. The climbs were mostly 5.7's and 5.8's. There was one 5.10 and one 5.11. I was only brave enough to do climbs up to a 5.8 since it was my first time outdoor climbing. Sadie only did up to a 5.8 since she was 4 months pregnant and didn't want to risk injuring her baby. Erik and Corey were very adventurous though and climbed a 5.11. They almost died a couple of times. Corey almost dropped onto a rather pointy rock. Erik caught him just in time lucky for him. That would have been rather painful! Erik almost had a near death experience of his own. haha, silly men!

It was a rather fun adventure. Sadie and Corey are great rock climbers, and it was nice to have them along to show us the ropes. Erik did a lot of climbing at the quarry back in the day, but had never done any lead climbing, so it was nice to have Corey along. We will be going with them more often hopefully.

Here are the pictures from our adventures. We only have pictures of Sadie and Corey since our camera ran out of batteries before we could get any more pictures.

Sadie making her way up bloody impact

More Sadie

Corey belaying us so we didn't plummet to our death. Corey was the most adventurous one as he did all the lead climbing during our trip.

Looking at the positive side of life....

2008-10-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

Well after my endoscopy today, the GI specialist is pretty sure that the problem is in my Colon, so I have to get a Colonoscopy on Thursday. So I still don't know what is wrong with me. I could have ulcerative colitis, diverticulitis, Crohn's disease, a tumor, or a number of other things. Instead of being frustrated, I have decided that I am going to not worry about it and count all the blessings I have. Here are a few of my blessings....

1. My husband Erik! He is the biggest blessing in my life. I am very lucky to have him as my husband. It would take me forever to list all the reasons I love him. All I know is that I look forward to seeing him every minute of every day.

2. My education. Getting my masters degree as opened more doors than I could ever imagine. I have a job which I absolutely love, great patients whom I love working with, a nice paycheck, great colleagues, and being able to go to bed at night knowing I have made a positive difference in someone's life. If God hadn't helped me get into graduate school, and provided me the tools to be successful, I wouldn't be where I am.

3. My back is healed. With help from God and the knowledge from what I learned in school, and working in rehab, I was able to figure out how to get my back better with exercise, and avoid surgery. I still have a herniated disk, but I have able to get my muscles strong enough that I don't even notice it anymore. I am able to perform difficult patient transfers now, without feeling any strain in my back. I have also been able to return to strenuous outdoor activities that I previously enjoyed. Thank you God!

4. Air purifiers. Since Erik bought the Air purifier this afternoon, I have stopped sneezing, and having to blow my nose. Allergies are tough, but they are no match for the air purifier!

5. Great In-laws. A lot of people don't get a long with their in-laws, but mine are fantastic. They are like having a second set of parents. I love to spend time with them. My mother-in Law Lark has a great fashion sense as well as an internal compass that points to sales. She is the reason I have so many cute shirts. She always goes to sales, finds a pile of cute cloths, buys them, brings them home, makes me try them on, pick out the ones I want, and she then takes the rest back. Now that is just cool!

6. The smell of Captain Crunch. My husband loves cereal, and every time he has a bowl of captain crunch, I get to smell it's sweet aroma.

7. The Colbert Report. It makes me laugh! Who wouldn't enjoy watching South Carolina's favorite son with his hilarious political satire? Without him I would never know what truthiness, or wikiality is.

8. Swing dancing. This hobby has kept my sanity throughout the years. It is the thing I love to do most, and the reason I met my husband, as he is also a swing dancer.

9. Great friends. It is having great friends that help me when I am down, and make me laugh. That itself makes life worthwhile.

10. Great family. I love my family, and they help me a lot. I especially am grateful for my little sister who teaches me about kindness and unconditional love.

11. The greatest blessing of all that I have is that God lives, and Jesus Christ is my Savior. The knowledge of Christ's teachings through reading his scriptures has helped me to be happier than I could have ever imagined. To be able to turn to Christ to bear up my burdens and lighten my load is the greatest gift I could ever have. It is this knowledge that has helped me through this trial, more than anything else could right now.

Well anyway, I could keep going, but I need to get up for work. I feel better now anyway.

The mouse that lives in my stomach....

2008-10-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

So, since my emergency room visit, things have gone downhill. Pretty much anytime I eat, I get really sick. After I eat, I have to plan five or so hours to recover, and regret my meal choice. So I am pretty motivated not to eat much, unless I get really hungry. My meal choices have slimmed down quite a bit. Basically anything that tastes good will make me sick, so any food that I actually like is off the list. My diet now consists of plain noodles, crackers, chicken noodle soup, bread, and protein shakes. These are the only things I have found that do not majorly upset my tummy, and sometimes even these foods aren't safe. Since I eat a lot less, I have lost 6 pounds in 5 days. It has been a real treat, let me tell you. So tomorrow I get to get an endoscopy and find out what is wrong.

The GI specialist thinks that it is probably an ulcer, but also thinks something might be wrong with my descending colon as well, since I have a great deal of pain there also. I think it is an ulcer honestly, since it feels like a mouse just lives in the corner of my stomach and just is chewing away at the side. I have fondly named him Pinkey. He seems to love to come out during meal time and get a treat for himself. As much as I love Pinkey, it is time for him to find a new home. So hopefully they will give me some medicine tomorrow that will "encourage" Pinkey to find a new host.

I would like to give a shout out to my husband. Poor Erik has spent so much time at the store trying to find food I might possibly be able to eat. That has been a tough job, since my stomach is a very picky customer. He is such a good sport. He deserves a medal! He has bent over backwards to help me feel better. I am so lucky to have him as a husband. You know you married a good guy when he will drive to the gas station at 3am to try to find something to calm your stomach 2 nights in a row.

Hopefully, the test results tomorrow will end all the Drama, and Erik and I can get back to life as usual. I miss food, and I miss my triathlon training group!