Color Festival

A couple weeks ago we met up with some friends and drove down to Spanish Fork for the Hare Krishna Festival of Colors. We tried not to inhale too much color dust, but I'm not sure how successful we were.

This is Grace and AJ, our lovely friends who convinced us to go. Grace and I have been friends since my freshman year when we both got in to a singing group on campus. We got married a month apart from each other, and crossed our fingers that our husbands would be friends, and ta-da! They get along magnificently. We absolutely LOVE hanging out with them. 

It was a miracle my hair was clean for church the next day. 

Absences

I've been kind of absent from the internet the past few months. I mean, not really absent because we know how much I love to read my blogs, and Facebook stalk, but I've been more of the silent observer type, liking a status here, posting a pro-vaccine article there, sort of participator. And I haven't even blogged about Christmas, which was INCREDIBLE in case you're wondering, and I have about a billion pictures to post and stories to write, but I just haven't yet. Partly because I'm in my last semester of nursing school and working two to three 12-hour shifts a week, and partly because I've been avoiding this blog. This blog is where I keep track of eventful things in our lives, and frankly I haven't wanted to document those eventful things so publicly. But I need to have this stuff written down somewhere, and I am reeeeeaaaaaal bad at journals so here it is.

Christmas Eve we were in Colorado with my whole entire family. It was amazing, and full of Christmas happiness, and I was supposed to start my period the next day. We'd been trying for two months, and made sure to pack a pregnancy test or two because I was definitely NOT waiting until we got home a week later to find out. And even though I wasn't supposed to start until tomorrow, Dallas just couldn't wait any longer, and convinced me to take it. It was positive. I jumped up and down and squealed quietly so no one would hear and kept saying, this isn't happening, this isn't real, OH MY GOODNESS I'M PREGNANT. Like a million times. So everything's all hunky-dory, and I tell my mom and she gets all teary eyed, and I do too, and it's the best Christmas ever. The year before on Christmas I remember crying to Dallas because I wanted to start our family but knew we couldn't yet, and he promised me that by next Christmas I would pregnant, and I was. Apparently he's really good at keeping promises.

The next couple weeks went by, I was bursting at the seams with news, but had decided not to tell anyone, which kind of turned into neglecting the blog as a whole, because who wants to hear about Christmas when I had a pregnancy to announce. But, I had surgery on my uterus last summer(I have a post to publish on that somewhere but...you know) so I wasn't sure if this pregnancy would stick, and didn't want to deal with that mess if we lost the baby. I can't explain to you how excited I was. I was picking out cribs, finding patterns to make a diaper bag, all that good stuff. I started to feel nauseous at about 6 weeks, and had to eat every two hours or I was a wreck, and I took that as a good sign. My hormone levels were high enough to make me sick, so that's a good sign right? I never threw up or anything, and it was never enough to make my mornings miserable, but it was there, so I was still pregnant.

I called the doctor I wanted to see (she'd done her residency at the hospital where I had my surgery, so she probably knew my surgeon), and her office said they didn't want to see me until 10-12 weeks. That surprised me, because most people I know went in at 8 weeks. The more I thought about it the more nervous it made me. I told them I had this weird uterus thing going on, but they didn't change the appointment. Which, after a few days, was fine with me. I'd taken a maternity class, I knew there was nothing they could do if I started to miscarry before 12 weeks, so I took a deep breath, and just prayed for the best.

I was 8 weeks along when I started bleeding. My appointment was 3 weeks away. At first I didn't worry that much, because some spotting in pregnancy was normal. I called the on-call doctor (it was a weekend of course), and she said to take it easy, and come in on Monday. I spotted for two days, and it then started to go away. By then I was feeling a little cooped up so Dallas and I went on a walk. And that's when the cramping started. And when I got back, the bleeding hadn't stopped, it had gotten worse. By that time it was Sunday, and I knew there was no one I could see except in the Emergency room, and this wasn't an emergency yet. I kept trying to have faith and kept saying "I'm sure there are women that have bled much more than this and kept their baby" over and over in my head. We went to church and pulled my bishop aside to tell him what was going on, and asked if we could get a blessing. We stepped into his office and he gave me a wonderful blessing, but it was so incredibly vague and I just wanted him to tell me the baby was alright, but he didn't. I left pretty much certain that I had miscarried.

The next day we tried to get an appointment with the doctor, but she was really busy. This whole time my cramps were getting worse and my hope that everything was okay was quickly waning. Oh, and Dallas was supposed to leave to go to Virginia for a week that night, so there was that too. The nurse I talked to, who was amazing by the way, ordered some labs for me, and told me to go to the Provo hospital to get them done. By the time we got to the hospital, I could hardly walk, and couldn't answer the questions the registrar was asking me. At that point, I couldn't take it anymore, and instead of doing those labs, I just went over to the Emergency room. They did an ultrasound, and there was no heartbeat. I can't say that I was surprised. The baby only measured at about 6 weeks, and I was sure I was 8 weeks pregnant. Luckily they had given me lots of pain meds, so the news just kind of washed over me. I didn't cry, and I truly felt ok with it (that was the morphine speaking). I passed pretty much everything at the hospital, and I felt like my pain was under control, so when they discharged me I was happy to go. Dallas had to catch a flight at midnight, so we drove over to my cousin's house, where I was going to stay for the week. Before he left he told me that if I wanted him to, he would cancel his business trip and stay with me. But I told him I was fine, and that this trip was important, so he could go. He left reluctantly, but promised he would be back as soon as he could. Of course, that was the week they had that huge storm on the East Coast and he was stuck there until Friday.

So there I was. Not pregnant anymore and husband-less. It was not pretty. I only really broke down once or twice that week, both over FaceTime with Dallas. Luckily I have an amazing cousin who just let me lounge around, and who has three adorable children to distract me. Dallas came back at the end of the week, and we tried to get back into our routine. Which mostly worked.

There it is. The reason I've been absent. The hardest thing that's ever happened to me. The most pain I've ever been in, emotionally and physically. I've told a lot of people about what happened, and I'm grateful to all of them for listening to my story. It helps me to talk about it. I'm not worried about never getting pregnant again, or losing another baby. I've had some pretty incredible priesthood blessings that promise me I will bear children, and I'm looking forward to that. But I'm still sad. Sometimes at night I'll just cry, or a certain song will come on the radio and hit just the right spot and it's waterworks all over the car. Or sometimes it's a lesson in Relief Society, the week after everything happened, about trials, and you end up sobbing in the middle of the lesson when the Relief Society president stands up and shares that sometimes you just need more weight, more hardships, for things to go the way they need to. Around our house these days our motto is, it's ok to be sad, but everything is going to work out. And it is going to. I have no doubt about that.

The day I used my KitchenAid

I was feeling ambitious one day last week. Not in a I'm-going-to-get-so-much-school-done way, because we all know I still have half of an online class to finish and only about 3 weeks to do it in, but more in a I-bet-I-could-totally-cook/bake-that way. It started when I was browsing Pinterest and saw my friend had pinned this recipe for bread bowls. And it's chilly outside so my brain automatically went to soup, and how good would that taste on a chilly day like today? AMAZING. Plus I had some cheddar cheese soup that was begging to be used, and a whole thing of frozen broccoli that we weren't going to eat any time soon, and thus it began.

Since I'm the laziest of lazies, I disregarded most all the recipes I found online for a cheesy broccoli soup (they all called for fancy things like cream, and shredded cheddar cheese--like that was going to happen), and only paid any attention to the one that used a crock pot. So I threw in some chicken, that package of broccoli (it was actually half empty, though I don't know how that happened...), two cans of cheddar cheese soup, two cans of water, two chicken bouillon cubes and some garlic spice mix I picked up at WINCO. Let's just say my house smelled like heaven for the next 3 hours.

The recipe I used for the bread bowls was from the Six Sisters, but then I realized it was just a rolls recipe, and I totally could have used my mother's award winning Angel Rolls recipe...so next time. But the recipe specifically said to use a stand mixer and so I got to break out the KitchenAid, which I might add, I haven't done since we got it as a wedding present. Now don't worry Aunt Sue, the mixer has been used plenty of times by Dallas, just not me. So this was monumental guys. And you know what? Making bread in that thing was almost easier than making bread in the bread maker. That dough hook is awesome. I just poured the flour into the yeasty mixture and 5 minutes later I had THE PERFECT dough.

So after the bowls were cooked and shaped into actual bowls, and the chicken was chopped into bite size pieces, and the soup blended smooth, I was pretty dang proud of myself. Dallas would have been too, except that I finished everything like an hour before he got home. But when he did get home, we feasted on the fruits of my labors. We both only finished about half the bread bowl before we were stuffed, which I consider to be a victory since it is a struggle to feed that man enough.

Lazy Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli Soup
Makes 6 cups

2 cans Cheddar Cheese soup
2 cans water
At least half a package frozen broccoli
2 chicken bouillon cubes
Garlic powder
2 lbs frozen chicken

Throw it all in the crock pot. Don't even mix it together(unless you want to, cause that would be fine).  Cook on high for 3 hours. After 3ish hours, or when it starts to smell really good and the chicken is cooked through, take the chicken out and chop it into bite size pieces. Pour the rest of the mixture into a blender (you might have to do this in two batches), and pulse until you get a desired consistency. Add the bite size chicken back in. Pour it all into some bowls (bread or otherwise) and enjoy!

Shopping and Modeling

My sister and her family came into town for General Conference, and I was lucky enough to get to spend some time with them while our husbands went to Priesthood Session! We walked across the street from Temple Square to a shopping mall (like all the rest of the LDS women in Salt Lake...) and got some dinner and spent a few hours shopping. 

A's "chilly" pose at our outdoor table

After we had two tired girls, and me and my sister were shopping burnt out we tried to take my car and drive home...when I realized that Dallas had the parking reciept to get out of the parking garage. Since I didn't want to pay the $20 maximum fee, we found somewhere to hang out. Turns out Macy's has awesome "lounges" by their bathrooms (Tiff knew this from when she was breastfeeding apparently), and so we hung out there until Priesthood was done. The following is the "photo shoot" that J, A and I had to keep ourselves occupied

I definitely see a future for these girls in modeling ;)

Mario Gains Truck Status

A few weeks ago, Dallas got a call from one of his employers (the one that pays him to fix stuff in student apartments) that he needed to move the couches out of two of his apartments. Now, Dallas and I had been fixing things in these apartments for the past 2 weeks, so I KNEW the couches weren't that bad. I convinced Dallas to ask really nicely if maybe we could take one set of the couches because he was just going to take them to DI anyways? The employer said yes, and I was ECSTATIC. Our couches were so saggy, had rips in them and were this very outdated green pattern, so they needed to go. Our awesome friends agreed to come help (thanks so much Kaitlyn and Eddie!!), but we couldn't find a truck to put the couches in, so this is what we came up with:

Notice how the back door is WIDE open?

We got some good looks driving down the streets of Provo. I think I even saw someone take a picture. 

That's because the love seat was sticking half out...

Mario was a champ and carted three sets of couches to DI, and one set to our house. Dallas did a stellar job roping the couches down, even if I was a little skeptical. Every time I told him to slow down or turn wider this is the face I got...

Ok maybe this was the face when I refused to stop playing with the camera by taking pictures of him...but still :)

That One Time We Found a Secret Beach

In August, Dallas and I traveled BACK to Oregon and got to spend an afternoon at the beach! We went to Cape Kiwanda, and climbed the HUGE sand dune (not without much complaining from me...it's super steep!).  

We usually just look around and then run back down the sand dune, but Dallas decided we should go exploring down the back of the sand dune, and my mother was all for it (weird) so exploring we went.

You can tell Dallas had the camera here...

And who'd a thunk it, but it was BEAUTIFUL down there! This is what we found after precariously scooting down a rocky slope.

Gorgeous right? You can't see this little inlet clearly from the dune, so even though I've climbed this same sand dune probably five or six times I had NO idea this gem existed :)

This is what I call the Moses picture

 While Dad and Dallas decided to be adventurous, Mom and I were quite content to just sit and watch :)

If you look closely, you can see Dallas over on the left side of the picture...can you believe how huge those rocks are?

Dallas kept threatening to jump that crevice, and almost gave me a heart attack in the process...

My favorite shot. Minus the nasty bird poop that was everywhere. 

 We LOVE the Oregon coast, and are so glad we got to hangout with my family one last time before summer ended.

Life according to Instagram: Round Two

So I promise we haven't fallen off the face of the earth. We're just going through a little thing we like to call senior-year-of-nursing-school-and-husband-working-two-jobs. It consists of 8 pm bedtimes, 4 am wake up calls and separate dinner times (boo). But the good news is we are having the time of our lives. So here are a few things we've been up to according to my instagram.

In August Dallas and I made yet another trip to Portland. More on that to come later, but the important part is that Dallas is awesome and signed up for text alerts if our flight got delayed or anything. And thank goodness he did. As we pulled up into the airport, we got a text that our flight was delayed for THREE WHOLE HOURS. So kept on driving and ended up at the mall and all of the sudden Chick-fil-a was calling our names and I had a huge lemonade in my hand. It was lovely, and made the delay bearable.

This is google hangout. And it saved us this summer. I had to be separated to Dallas for WAY too long this summer, and WAY too many times, so we have logged many many hours on here. And Dallas is funny. Sometimes.

Dallas convinced me this summer that we NEEDED all sports passes for this year. I obliged, and this is what we got for our first game. A torrential downpour. These clouds rolled in after 3 hours of waiting in line for our awesome seat in the beautiful sunshine. At first I figured "oh fun just a little Utah rain shower, it'll be over in 5 minutes". Ten minutes later we were soaked to the bone, and FREEZING. I would have stuck it out, but then the lightening started, and since I am terrified of lightening we booked it down those slippery bleachers (I only almost fell twice) and took shelter under the stadium. At this point I was getting colder by the second, and Dallas did not want to deal with a chilly wife for an entire football game. So he rode his bike home (remember, it was sunny when we left for the game),  got the car and came back for me and a few other soaked friends I had found under the stadium. We went home, changed and then made our way back to the stadium. The good news is that by the time the game started the rain had slowed down to a soft drizzle, and we had a great time. But don't ask me if we won. I can't remember.

Because of our crazy lives, sometimes trivial things like dishes get neglected. This was taken on a certain Saturday where we (Dallas) decided enough was enough, and asked me to help him get a start on it. I was really helpful.

And finally, this past weekend we got to watch General Conference (found online here). It was a lovely weekend, filled with family and good feelings and great food. Have I mentioned how much I love my church? So many messages this weekend that I felt were meant for me, and could not have come at a better time.

So that's what we've been up to for the past month-ish, plus some other things like welcoming a new nephew into the world, Dallas getting a second job, and practicing my baby whisperer skills. We are definitely living the good life.