Summer - Denver Edition.

I'm back! Finally!

Here's my excuse: Our summer was way too fun and busy to spend time blogging, so I got behind. Then this last semester for Jonny was a doozy. Apparently getting 2 Masters degrees at the same time can be kinda hard? Who knew! He needed the computer 100% of the time, either at school, or at home doing homework. We got an ipad so I had internet access, but couldn't blog on it without the pictures I needed.

Good enough excuse? Well, probably not, but here I am. 

Our summer was a lot of fun. Jonny interned with TIC, and Sophie and I split up our time between Utah and Colorado (we went back and forth a few times).

We LOVED Denver. If we could choose anywhere to live, it would be our #1 choice. We lived just south of Denver, in the beautiful city of Greenwood Village. Our hotel was right off of the main street, so we were close to everything. Living in a hotel was certainly an interesting experience. We made our child sleep in the bathroom, which I'm sure she really loved. We didn't have a bedroom, so we put Soph's pack n play in the bathroom every night so we could shut the door. Then before we went to bed, so we could use the bathroom, we would have to pick her up, break down the pack n play, and set it back up in the kitchen (it wouldn't fit through the door, otherwise). This was the 1 thing I do NOT miss about the summer!

Our "kitchen" was a little sink, countertop, fridge, a couple of cabinets, and a 2-burner stove. Surprisingly, even though we didn't have an oven, we had a dishwasher! It was actually a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed it.

About a mile away from us was this lovely park that Soph and I spent countless hours at...

The park had lots of geese, which Soph loved to chase around. On the first day Jonny went to the park with us, he got a little present on his head...

I am seriously smiling right now just thinking of that park and how much fun we had there.

About 5 minutes down the road from us was a brand new splash pad. It actually had tons of stuff there, but the splash pad was what Sophie loved the most. We spent even more time here than the other park.

Lucky for us, our good friends from here in Logan also interned at TIC, so we got to spend time with them while we were there. Kendall and I have become great friends, and Sophie and Maren have as well. 

One day we took the girls to the Children's Museum in downtown Denver, and I think they loved it.

Right by the Children's Museum was an aquarium, and Jonny and I took Soph there one day. She loves animals, so it was awesome.

One of the things I loved most about CO was that there was so much to do. Within just a few miles of our hotel were so many shops, restaurants, and parks. Then with just a short drive to downtown there was a ton more. It was the perfect place. 

As I mentioned (a looong time ago!) we got to stay with Jeff and Julia, from my side of the family, when we first got there. We decided to go to church with them in Aurora all summer, because we'd be house-sitting for a family in their ward for a month anyways. 

We loved the ward and felt so welcome. Unfortunately, our time there was the few months before Sophie was old enough for nursery, so we spent a lot of time chasing after her in the halls and trying to rock her to sleep. Ha! Nursery should start at 14 months, NOT 18. It would've made my life much easier :)

Eventually it was time for us to leave our little hotel room and move into the house (Jonny actually made the move while I was in Utah). It was so nice to go from one little room to having a whole house, a giant kitchen (with an oven!!), and a huge yard to play in. Sophie appreciated it the most, I think :)

She spent almost all of the time we were at the house out on the back porch...

She loved picking up rocks and organizing them on the benches.

As part of our duties for house-sitting, we got to take care of the garden. We harvested quite a few veggies! Somehow, 1 zucchini hid from us in the very back and grew into this beast...

We were so grateful for the Pack family, and that they let us stay at their house. It was a huge blessing!

I'm not sure where that picture of Sophie was taken, but it reminded me of her Grandpa Lords :)

And while Jonny promises me that he worked very hard during the summer, somehow he found himself in a situation where he needed to where pink butt-less chaps... Hmmm...

Sorry, that post was long. And boring. But at least it's done!

payback.

Well hello Alli. I'm back and ready for attack. To responding to your blog I've got my own little army too. And we are armed. So take that.  

Yeah you feel that silly string

Pretty tough.

Oh yeah getting you good, Maybe we should get the prego lady in the background too?

EAT IT.. so just quit. because we all know who will win. THIS GIRL.

Amen.

WW3: Part 2

Dear Lexi,

I hope girls camp was worth it....

cause this is what happened while you were away.

Yep, that's your room.

I decided to redecorate.

Let this be a warning.

You should just give up now.

Because I will win.

I always do.

And this time, I brought in reinforcements.

So it looks like it's 3 against 1.

The odds are most definitely NOT in your favor.

Recently, I had a very unfortunate experience - I lost my baby. It seems like most people don't want to talk about miscarriages and they are very hush-hush about it. I'm not really sure why I'm blogging about it. Maybe to make me feel better, or maybe just because I think people need to be more open about it.

I have some family/friends who struggle with infertility and are very open about it. I really appreciate the fact that they let others in on what's going on. It helps me understand better (and lets me be more aware so I can keep them in my prayers). Miscarriages are very common, yet most people never talk about it.

So I decided to talk about mine.

I felt ready for a second child when Sophie was about a month old. Crazy, right? Well, it wasn't the right time (clearly) so we waited. Once we felt ready, we tried for quite some time before I got pregnant. It took much longer this time around than it did with Sophie. So needless to say, I was thrilled by the time that positive test came around!

We told our families, and even made cute little scrapbook-type things to announce it to our parents. It didn't even cross my mind that something could go wrong. But when the nausea never came I got nervous. Sure enough, the signs of miscarriage eventually hit. I pretty much spent the next 2 days crying :( That Sunday night I called a family friend who is an OB/GYN and he said to fly to Utah right away to get checked out - there were some concerns, and we needed to make sure it was a normal miscarriage. Actually, at that point there was even a tiny chance that I would still have a normal pregnancy, which I, unfortunately, had my hopes up for.

The flights Monday morning were twice as expensive as Sunday night, so we booked a super last minute flight for that night. I ate dinner, packed in a hurry, and left for the airport! It was super stressful and crazy. My flight left at 9:30 pm, so I was hoping Soph would fall asleep.

Well, just my luck, my flight was delayed 2 hours. Sophie was to the point where she was so tired that she was completely wired, and running around squealing like a madwoman. At around 10:45, I decided to make a last bathroom stop. On my way out, I... felt something. I went back to the bathroom. And that's when I lost my baby. I can't really describe how that felt - crying in an airport bathroom, feeling so alone, and trying to keep Sophie in line. I just so desperately wanted someone to be there with me.

I pulled myself together and went back to the gate. By that time, Sophie started to crash, and I rocked her to sleep while the plane started boarding. It was so strange to be around all of the same people again, but I felt so different. I kept thinking: "if you only knew what I just went through!"

The flight was uncomfortable, to say the least. And I was physically and emotionally exhausted. When I got to baggage claim and saw my dad, I almost burst into tears again, this time out of relief. It was so good to have him there. This whole ordeal was made so much worse because I was tired, nervous, extremely hormonal, and alone. So seeing my dad immediately took away my loneliness and nerves.

Looking back on it now, I see how much help I had. The Lord was truly taking care of me. I don't know how else I could've managed to get 2 bags and a barely-asleep toddler on the plane, all while fighting back tears. And I know exactly why my flight was delayed 2 hours. If it hadn't been, I would've lost the baby on the plane, and I don't even want to think about what that would have been like. And I know that I wasn't alone in that airport bathroom - I was certainly being watched over.

Because I miscarried, the Dr. didn't need to see me for a week, so I went in the next Monday (go figure). The nurses were so nice, but having to relive it all made it so much worse. Miscarriages are so much harder than I ever imagined they would be. But I know that everything happens for a reason. We have to wait a bit to try again, but it will happen when it's supposed to.

Oh yeah, and I got pulled over an hour after the appointment and got a ticket. It was my first time getting pulled over, so I was a wreck! Haha.. it was not my day.

Hopefully this wasn't too depressing. It feels good to write it all down.
Now, Soph and I are just enjoying our time with family and loving life :)

WW3: Challenge Accepted.

As some of you might know, my sister, Lexi, is an oddball. Need proof? See here.

Well, she decided to start her own blog, so she doesn't have to take over mine. Find her blog here. 

The world may never know what compelled her to start a "blog war" with me (or what a blog war even is), but what the world does know is that it was a mistake. A big one.

Might I just warn you Lexi, when you play with fire, you are going to get burned.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Because you have no idea what I'm capable of.

Or how far I'm willing to go.

You better watch out, Lex. I've got my game face on too.

So, go on. Make your move.

I dare you.

The last few months...

The problem with putting off blogging is that the longer you wait, the more you have to blog about. This just makes me want to put it off even longer. So I'll do my best to sum up the past few months!


Sophie finally built up the courage to sit in her ball pit!

She is the cutest little thing, and we just love her so much :)

We've really been enjoying our summer so far, and Sophie loves to be outside. She loves to collect rocks and dandelions.

This was in front of our apartment in Logan, it was the perfect place for her to play...

And all that playtime calls for some gooood naps!

This girl sure knows how to get in trouble. For example, getting her head stuck in bar stools....

and dumping over boxes of cereal....

And throwing clothes in the tub while I'm showering, flinging food everywhere, emptying the contents of my cupboards, digging through the trash, unrolling entire rolls of toilet paper, and all sorts of other goodies for me to enjoy :) She also took up a lovely hobby of licking the bottoms of people's shoes. Yes, unfortunately you read that correctly. My daughter licks shoes. We had to hide all of the shoes from her so she wouldn't lick them. Gross, right?!

It's a good thing she's cute!

Speaking of cute, she loves to read her books. It's adorable. She pulls them all out and goes through them on by one. Sometimes she likes to be gangsta while she reads her Bible stories...

In March, Jonny got to spend 2 weeks in Europe for a school trip. He spent a week in London, England and a week in Hanover, Germany. Needless to say, I was a little jealous.

Out of all the pictures he took, he was only in about 3% of them (he likes to take pictures of buildings and scenery - aka, the boring stuff :) These are some of the only ones we have of him!

He loved the food in Germany, and even though he was only there for a short time, he gained 9 lbs while he was there! I was shocked. But, then he showed me a picture of one of his meals, and it made a little more sense...

That's a meter long bratwurst, and yes, he ate the whole thing!

This was the first year we really celebrated Easter, and it was a lot of fun. I love being on the "parent" side of holidays - planning fun surprises for your kids is the best! 

We were with Jonny's parents for Easter, and woke up to a delicious breakfast and a cute little Easter basket for Soph!

I raided the dollar spot at target to fill her basket, which also came from the dollar spot :) She got bath crayons, bubbles, and a rose that can be bent and molded into shapes. She usually doesn't like the presents I get her, but she loved it! Surprisingly, that weird rose is one of her favorite toys now!

We decided to have an Easter egg hunt after breakfast. The Easter bunny "hid" the eggs all over the backyard (in other words, laid them out in plain view). Sophie liked to pick the eggs up, just like she picks up her rocks.

But also just like her rocks, she did NOT want to let them go, so putting them in the basket didn't seem like an option!

When we tried to take them out of her hands to show her that she could pick up new ones, she did what she does best, and ran away with her tongue hanging out :)

She eventually put 1 or 2 eggs in the basket, but that was it. At least she had fun!

We rushed home afterwards, because we had to speak at church, but I think it was a pretty awesome Easter for her!

As I mentioned in my previous post, our move to Denver was definitely last minute. Jonny was in the middle of finals, so I packed every single box by myself! Jonny snuck a picture of me and Soph taking a break and reading some magazines. I thought it was so cute that she was copying me :)

With a lot of help from some very kind friends, we were able to get all of our junk into a storage unit. Well, almost all. The rest of it is in the apt of our friends who lived above us. They are absolute life savers, and they helped us out so much!

While getting all of this ready, we were trying to find a place to live. We decided not to bring any furniture, and just buy a sofa sleeper off of craigslist when we got there. We eventually found an apt, but it ended up not working out, so we are currently at an extended-stay hotel. When we got to Denver we stayed with my dad's cousin, Jeff, and his family. They were unbelievably nice, and took us in, fed us, and made us feel so welcome.

We went to church with them on Sunday and met a family who asked us to house sit for them for a month, so we'll stay at the hotel for 2 months, then house sit. It all seemed to work out nicely! We are so lucky to have friends and family who help us out so much, because we definitely could not have done all of this without all of them.

Here is Jonny, about to leave for his first day of work. He is so darn handsome :)

He is loving it so far, and is really enjoying the break from school. 

 The Friday before Mother's Day, Jonny came home from work with an orchid and a book. He said one of the ladies he works with was thinking of me, and went out and bought it for me on her lunch break. How sweet!

My gift from Jonny this year was AMAZING! He surprised me with tickets to Wicked! I was beyond excited. We handed Sophie off to some friends and spent the evening in downtown Denver. We had dinner at a cute little italian restaurant with romantic lighting :) Then we went to the show, which I thought was fantastic. I probably should've watched the Wizard of Oz first though! I've never seen it, so I was a little confused, but luckily Jonny was there to fill in the gaps (I was totally thrown off by the wizard - I couldn't believe all this time I never knew he didn't even have powers!) 

And that concludes this post. Finally.

If you made it through all of that, congratulations.