Summer - Utah Edition

As mentioned before, Soph and I spent our time traveling between Utah and Colorado. So here is the recap of the Utah portion. I hardly took any pictures, so almost all of these were borrowed from others :)

We spent some time with Jonny's parents, and these pictures were taken by Kory at a picnic we went on...

Naturally, Soph was collecting rocks.

I absolutely love this next shot. It's one of my all-time favorite Sophie pictures. It makes her eyes look green!

We also spent plenty of time with my side of the family. There is a reservoir near my parents house, which we visited a few times. Here she is feeding the fish with her cousin...

The first time we went she just walked straight in the water, clothes and all!

While in Utah, Soph fell in love with playing Cut the Rope with Grandma..

One of my favorite parts of the trip was my parents' garden. They had so many raspberries. One day I went out and picked all of these...

And turned it into this:

Yum! I can't wait til I have my own garden one day!

While perusing pinterest, I found this cute idea of putting glowsticks in the bathtub and turning off the lights.

It spooked her a little, so we had to keep the door cracked open, but she loved it!

The most memorable part of the summer was our trip to Yellowstone. All of my siblings (minus Drew and Chels) were able to come, and it was a blast! 

My parents bought the kiddos these matching shirts. This is in front of Old Faithful...

Brooklyn wasn't too happy about sitting next to Jackson :)

Soph had no interest in the geyser. She didn't even crack a smile. But she squealed, giggled, and clapped when I handed her a bowl of ice cream. It was probably the highlight of the trip for her.

Another highlight was the epic silly string fight!

Poor Grandpa. All the kiddos ganged up on him...

But they made up for it with snuggles and ice cream :)

We had quite the adventure one afternoon. I'm not sure how it all began, but I know how it ended:

With some very muddy (but happy) kids!

They all splashed outside in the muddy puddles until they were all nice and drenched :)

Once we got them all cleaned up (or kinda cleaned up - you can still see some mud in Soph's ear) we built a fire and played with sparklers. 

One of the days we took a raft ride! It was really neat, even though my child was way overtired and grumpy. Thank goodness for Aaron and Katie who rocked her to sleep for me :) 

It was a fantastic trip - thanks Mom and Dad!

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.