3 years ago today!

I was doing this:




Today I'm sitting in my unmentionables blogging while my little one watches Surfs Up and Brad toils away at grad school. If I had my wedding dress here in VA I think I'd put it on and prance around a little bit.

So what have we done?

We read the entire Old Testament for couple scripture study!

That's right! What a great way to celebrate 3 years! It was great to learn more about all the ancient prophets and the lifestyle back then. It was challenging at times, but we did it and it didn't take 5 years (that was our worse case scenario). Personal scripture study is good, but doing it with my husband has been a lot of fun. I think we'll always remember doing this. I hope we always remember how much we laughed, fell asleep, talked, and learned together. I think we're going to start the New Testament so that we can read the entire Bible together.

I love being married to Brad. He really is more than I could have ever possibly deserved or wished for in a husband! Here's to another year of playing, wishing, scheming, surviving, parenting, cooking, cleaning, laughing, and creating!

I'm Back!

We got a big old huge ancient monitor at the Mercy House Thrift store today for 7 bucks! They were having a half off day and there were zillions of people there, but we made it out alive and for cheaper than we had ever hoped! A new fancy flat screen monitor is 100 dollars, that's why I said I thought I was going to be off line for a while. But I'm back and thrilled to death! Now on to those posts I talked about!!

p.s. I don't know if I mentioned before how crazy people are about thrift stores here. We have 5 within 10 miles and they compete! People drive up in nice cars and fancy clothes, I guess most of those people are antique shopping, or bidding rather as each store has a silent auction going at all times. Anyhow, I love it because it is totally normal to shop at the thrift stores and to brag about the stuff you find in everyday conversation with just about anyone here. Growing up, thrift store shopping was nothing to be proud of unless it was Halloween and you were finding crazy clothes for your costume, I quite like it now!

Thanks and BYE... for a while

Thanks for all the kind words. I think time will help us all feel better. We're just keeping busy.

I want to post about the new look Brad gave our piano while I was gone, my new to me colorful chairs we just painted, Kaci mastering swim stuff, and my upcoming and now postponed virtual piano recital...

BUT our computer is not functioning. Brad accidentally broke the screen on our laptop. So, we are down and out of the internet world til we figure something out. I think we're just gonna buy a monitor to plug the laptop into... I think that will be our cheapest option. I'm posting from the library right now.

It just might kill me to not have the internet for while. I guess we'll make our 1950's lifestyle complete without the internet!

Eternal Perspective

I believe a person has two parts, the physical body and the spirit that lives in it. I think most people believe this as I always hear people say things about a person's soul. I also believe that a spirit or soul is an eternal entity, that it exists before life on this earth and that it will continue to exist afterwards. Brad shares this belief.

I also believe that when I pray to God, He hears and answers my prayers in a very real way. I've worked on communicating with God my whole life. I pray very diligently and I listen very carefully for His response to my prayers. Brad also shares this belief.

Beliefs are wonderful things, they bring deeper meaning to life. These past few weeks, these particular beliefs have brought a lot of meaning into our lives.

Brad and I have fervently prayed since October of 08 about when to add another child to our family. In January we started asking if the time was right. In April we got a green flag and both felt very strongly that God was sending us someone very special. In May I conceived.

While I was in Arizona, I miscarried. I feel like it was a huge blessing to be around so much family and friends, people to love me and spend time with me and to play with Kaci. I was hardly myself for the visit. The pain, emotional and physical, felt paralyzing. I tried to smile and talk, but I just wasn't myself. I'm sorry everyone, but thanks for sticking with me despite my negative, sad attitude.

Coming back to VA and facing Brad and making it all official with a negative test and trip to the doctor proved to be harder than I imagined. I think I held onto hope that I was wrong too long. Brad took it all in much better, but it was really hard for him. He was really excited and had been so patient waiting for God to answer our prayers. He feels a tremendous amount of loss, but has found some comfort in prayer and scripture study.

I have not. I find it very difficult to process all of this. I also have a bit more healing to do according to the doctor today, and my emotions are no where near as stable with all the ups and downs with the hormones. Talking about it so much with the doctor was harder than I expected it to be. I felt a little silly to be so sad about such a short pregnancy when I know girls who have been though much harder miscarriages. I felt silly for having teary eyes as the doctor talked about it being what's best in the long run because something was wrong. I feel so many emotions that crying is baffling because I can't identify what exactly I'm crying about. The good thing about the doctor visit is that I feel like I got closure today and as my body heals I hope my emotions will too.

Surely, it's all going to be fine, God takes care of us all, even the very littlest ones. I just thought I should share our experience so that when we are not pregnant for a while, we don't get those comments about spacing kids, needing another cousin and putting another one in the oven and what not. It'll be a while now, with having to wait and then not knowing where we'll be a year from now because of Brad's schooling.

I do this blog because I am so far from all of you, my family and friends. I could never call everyone and tell everyone individually, that would be way too hard for me. Neither of us can really talk about it with out getting emotional. So we'd rather not make this a subject of conversation in future conversations like Sunday phone calls and such, thanks for understanding and being there for us. Thanks for reading our blog and being apart of our lives virtually. It means a lot to us. If you feel this is impersonal, please know that I make my blog as personal as possible to keep you all as close to us as possible.

Cierra, you're absolutely right!

Cierra commented that a mexican chinese food place deserves its own post, and you know what, she's absolutely right!


Chino Bandido is amazing! I first experienced it as a Senior in high school with my team mate Mark Cleveland. He took me there after one of our pole vault sessions at Paradise Valley College with Todd's Sky Camp. He wanted to repay me for driving us across town every week.

For your first visit, they have a corner where they let you sample most of the menu items. I tried a variety of meats and all the different rices and beans. They have like 6 different ways they make rice. I fell in love with their spicey, refried black beans. Their meals come with a huge, moist snickerdoodle cookie.

I always get the same thing: 7 & 11, white rice, black beans, lemonade, and of course the cookie. I usually eat my cookie before my meal is ready. It is the only place I order a drink instead of water. I think the lemonade just balances out all the tantalizing flavors in the meal. 7 is the jade red chicken (slightly spicey) 11 is the teriyaki chicken (slightly sweet).

I love this place. I eat there every time I visit Phoenix. It's on 19th Ave and Greenway. I just read on their website (yeah I don't know how a hole in the wall place gets a website) that they have a NEW location in CHANDLER!! Hear that Krys, you can eat it on either side of town now! Next time I come, we'll have to check it out!

There ya have it Cierra. If we're ever in Phoenix at the same time, I'll take you there! Our kids could eat for free. Kaci got a free drink, oookie, and rice bowl gratis!

Arizona Trip

I love visiting Arizona. This visit included lots of fun stuff... but I didn't take very many pictures, guess I was enjoying myself too much. We threw a little birthday bash for Kaci, we went to Sunsplash (the water-park I've been going to since I was Kaci's age), I ate at Chino Bandido's (a mexican chinese place, it's amazing!) I visited my parents in Prescott, I spent hours and hours by the pool, and we just spent time with FAMILY! What a great trip.


I took this picture because it exemplified what we did for days while I was recovering. I was so happy to have my mom to take care of me. Sorry to be such bums, but I loved taking a break from doing all the cooking and cleaning!

We did play a lot too. Kaci loves to play soccer and Grandma showed her how to fly a kite.

If only we could spend hours in grandma's backyard every day! Kaci loved it there, had a lot of fun!

Mr. & Mrs. Rivery

June 13th! It's official, one of my best friends is married! It was so fun to go to her wedding. I'm so glad I got to go. Now I just need to move to AZ, so I can hang out with a married friend :(

Her husband Isaac is adorable. He never stopped smiling. I love this picture of them. You can just feel the joy! What an awesome couple.


It was a bummer I wasn't able to be one of her brides maids(I'll post about that later), but I still got to go behind the scenes before the wedding to see Kim in all her glory. She was such a gorgeous Bride. Super happy and love struck.

What a dazzling dress! I didn't know they made dresses for such skinny skinny people, but they do.

The reception was such a blast. She and Isaac met salsa dancing, so they're first dance was a salsa number! They both are amazing dancers, it was so fun to watch. Kaci came with me to the reception and LOVED dancing. We danced and danced and danced. Kaci may forever associate dancing with Kim When Kaci saw the pictures above as I was blogging she said "dance!". We had so much fun, I love fun receptions. What a memorable day!

Just life...

It rains like crazy here. Every 2-3 days we get 2-3 days of rain.


When it isn't raining, we go out and do fun things... like go hiking and make fires to roast stuff.

I love eating stuff off dirty sticks you find out in the woods. Brings such satisfaction and joy to my soul. It's my official duty to find roaster sticks. It's also my official duty to keep Brad from burning them!

We let Kaci play outside all day long. She loves to throw rocks in the water. What kid doesn't?

When it's raining, I mostly torture Kaci. Not intentionally. I tried to make her a dress up dress... I had no pattern just my imagination... obviously. She hated it and will never ever wear it again. Ah well. At least I tried to be a fun mom.

Between torture sessions, we sleep. Thank goodness Kaci takes a nap regularly. With nothing to really do, I sleep too.

a WORK of art

Brad has always wanted to paint a picture bigger than him. He finally got to do it. We decided to paint a mural the size of one of Kaci's walls. My mom used to paint big murals all the time, but ultimately they always got painted over. Painting on canvas insures that won't happen! We chose a desert scene, Arizona desert to be specific. It took a lot of work, but it's done and Kaci's room looks all the better for it. We took pictures along the way, so here's what it looked like in stages...









I think the finished piece exceeded my expectations. We had a lot of fun. We still have tons of canvas... what should we paint next???