It's kind of crazy that I've been gone for six years now, but Phoenix is still 'home'. I'm not sure if it will always be like that for me. Kind of makes sense because I've lived kind of nomadically since I left home, never staying in one apartment for very long. Raleigh, I think, I could definitely call home someday... if we stayed. But more than likely we won't be, which is sad, because I'm really liking the city, love our ward, and love being close to family. Although, we do have the potential to stay in Raleigh for 3ish more years; Tucker just needs to decide if he wants to get his PhD. I'd be fine if he decided that. I'll be fine if he decides he's done with school, as well.
Anyways.
I'm home in Phoenix till Wednesday. Been here since this past Tuesday. I haven't really done much, just mostly hung out at home with my parents and Nettie. That was kind of the main point in coming anyways, so that they could see her again while she's still smallish. Jenna was able to come home for the weekend, which was awesome. It's crazy how much we like each other now, considering all the fighting and disliking we did when we were younger. I was sad to see her leave tonight; had to concentrate really hard on not crying in the airport (but she failed, both when she got here and when she left). We must figure out a way to live close to each other someday.
We had a nice day yesterday filled with family. Got to see my oldest brother and his family (and his kids are so big now it's crazy!), and my Uncle Ron and Aunt Pam. The day was super fun, and apparently exhausting because I fell asleep at like 7:30.
The home ward was great (as usual), though there are so many people that I don't recognize in it now. It's kind of strange being a "grown-up" in the ward. I remember being a kid, watching all the teenagers leave for college, then get married and start coming back to visit with their kids. Now I'm doing that..... weird.
Nettie has been pretty good on this trip. Not gonna lie, I was like super stressed to fly with her. She's normally not a big fan of sitting (while being held) for long periods of time, and that's basically all I can do on the flights. But we survived. The first flight people were super helpful. I was in the last group to board the plane and had a diaper bag and backpack with me plus Nettie, so when I got to my row to sit down, I looked at my seat and then at my bags and must have looked frazzled or something cause a bunch of people sitting near me asked to help me out. I'm so glad there are decent and nice people in the world. Couldn't have made this trip without strangers offering assistance along the way. Also glad that the older lady I sat next to on the flight didn't care when spit up rolled off of me and onto her. And glad that she and the guy sitting on my other side didn't complain when Nettie pooped with an hour left in the flight (this poop ended up as a blow-out too.... yeah....). Second flight Nettie just slept the whole time, so it went much more smoothly, all in all, than I pictured it going. Now we just have to make it home to Raleigh, and I'm sure I'll stress over that trip until it's over.
And tonight I was able to get together with a few of my high school friends (as well as some of their new friends). It's awesome that no matter how long I'm gone for I can just come back and basically pick up where I left off with them. Pretty sure I'll be able to call them my friends for my whole life, which is great, cause they're all awesome people. I wish that I could come home more often to visit, but I'm glad that I can always see them on the few times that I do come home.
But yes. My trip has been good thus far. I've been really bad at taking pictures so far, but I always am. I'll just steal pictures from my mom and Jenna eventually.
Showing posts with label Adventure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adventure. Show all posts
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Miracles
I'm not quite sure where to start this post. The subject matter for it is fairly emotional not only for me, but for the whole Smith clan. I guess I'll start by saying that this weekend we blessed Nettie. All but one of her Smith (and Williams) uncles were here, and both of her Grandpa's were here as well. It was a truly sweet experience, highlighted by the fact that her Uncle Scott was still here to participate in the event.
Thursday evening, Tucker and I were getting ready to head up to Shad and Katie's house to play some D&D. Right after 6pm (I think), Tucker got a call from his mom. I didn't really think about it, or pay much attention to what he was saying on the phone because she calls fairly regularly, and I assumed she was just asking about something for the upcoming weekend when the whole family would be here in Raleigh. When Tucker got off the phone, he said that Scott had been in an accident (a motorcycle accident) and they couldn't get ahold of Stephanie to let her know. The hospital chaplain had called Lois instead, hoping that she would be able to reach Stephanie. All they had told her was that they thought that Scott was ok. Not the most reassuring statement, as ok could mean a lot of things.
The next few minutes, Tucker tried to get ahold of Stephanie, calling her cell and her work, but couldn't get through. But shortly after all this trying, he got a call from her instead, asking him to come to the hospital with her. So of course he said yes. I called Katie to let her know that if we made it to the game that night, it would be late (seeing as we didn't know how Scott was doing). Tucker left with Stephanie and promised that he would call soon to let me know what was going on.
About an hour later, Tucker called and told me that Scott was relatively ok. We found out that his accident had happened while Scott was driving home from a job interview on the 440... that's right, he crashed his motorcycle while driving on the freeway. So immediately, I thought that he must have been hurt pretty bad, but his list of injuries was a concussion, a broken collarbone, and some road rash on his hands and knees. Extremely good considering the circumstances. Tucker stayed at the hospital with Steph until about midnight.
The next day Tucker went to school a little late, explaining to one of his labmates that he had been at the hospital late with his brother. When he got to school, he explained his injuries to them and then told them where the accident had happened. More than one of them had driven by (and got caught behind the traffic) of Scott's accident, and they even expressed to Tucker that they were amazed that Scott was even alive from how bad it had looked.
From what we can piece together, Scott somehow lost control of the bike (whether he was hit, or blew a tire, or just lost control isn't really known) and was thrown into the median (just a concrete barrier separating the two sides of the freeway). His bike hit the median as well, but bounced back out into traffic, where it hit one car, and was then caught under another car. The bike (supposedly) exploded, and the car that it was trapped under, burned and melted with it.
While this accident was certainly bad and will leave Scott a gimp for a little while, he was extremely lucky. If Scott had bounced back out into traffic like the bike, he would have been killed. And really, it's amazing that he wasn't killed or more seriously injured just by being thrown from a bike going 70 mph. Even more amazing is that Scott was discharged from the hospital the evening after the accident.
Lois joked today that she was happy Scott decided to time his accident with this weekend since they were going to be up here anyways for the blessing. I think that we all realize just how close we came to loosing Scott, and even though this was a happy weekend, there was a definite feel of gratitude underlying everything. The family simply would not have been the same without Scott, and I know that Nettie was glad that he was able to be in the circle to help bless her on Sunday.
All in all, a very memorable Fourth of July weekend for the Smiths.
Thursday evening, Tucker and I were getting ready to head up to Shad and Katie's house to play some D&D. Right after 6pm (I think), Tucker got a call from his mom. I didn't really think about it, or pay much attention to what he was saying on the phone because she calls fairly regularly, and I assumed she was just asking about something for the upcoming weekend when the whole family would be here in Raleigh. When Tucker got off the phone, he said that Scott had been in an accident (a motorcycle accident) and they couldn't get ahold of Stephanie to let her know. The hospital chaplain had called Lois instead, hoping that she would be able to reach Stephanie. All they had told her was that they thought that Scott was ok. Not the most reassuring statement, as ok could mean a lot of things.
The next few minutes, Tucker tried to get ahold of Stephanie, calling her cell and her work, but couldn't get through. But shortly after all this trying, he got a call from her instead, asking him to come to the hospital with her. So of course he said yes. I called Katie to let her know that if we made it to the game that night, it would be late (seeing as we didn't know how Scott was doing). Tucker left with Stephanie and promised that he would call soon to let me know what was going on.
About an hour later, Tucker called and told me that Scott was relatively ok. We found out that his accident had happened while Scott was driving home from a job interview on the 440... that's right, he crashed his motorcycle while driving on the freeway. So immediately, I thought that he must have been hurt pretty bad, but his list of injuries was a concussion, a broken collarbone, and some road rash on his hands and knees. Extremely good considering the circumstances. Tucker stayed at the hospital with Steph until about midnight.
The next day Tucker went to school a little late, explaining to one of his labmates that he had been at the hospital late with his brother. When he got to school, he explained his injuries to them and then told them where the accident had happened. More than one of them had driven by (and got caught behind the traffic) of Scott's accident, and they even expressed to Tucker that they were amazed that Scott was even alive from how bad it had looked.
From what we can piece together, Scott somehow lost control of the bike (whether he was hit, or blew a tire, or just lost control isn't really known) and was thrown into the median (just a concrete barrier separating the two sides of the freeway). His bike hit the median as well, but bounced back out into traffic, where it hit one car, and was then caught under another car. The bike (supposedly) exploded, and the car that it was trapped under, burned and melted with it.
While this accident was certainly bad and will leave Scott a gimp for a little while, he was extremely lucky. If Scott had bounced back out into traffic like the bike, he would have been killed. And really, it's amazing that he wasn't killed or more seriously injured just by being thrown from a bike going 70 mph. Even more amazing is that Scott was discharged from the hospital the evening after the accident.
Lois joked today that she was happy Scott decided to time his accident with this weekend since they were going to be up here anyways for the blessing. I think that we all realize just how close we came to loosing Scott, and even though this was a happy weekend, there was a definite feel of gratitude underlying everything. The family simply would not have been the same without Scott, and I know that Nettie was glad that he was able to be in the circle to help bless her on Sunday.
All in all, a very memorable Fourth of July weekend for the Smiths.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Little Miss Nettie Smith
So I got a surprising 9 hours of sleep last night (total, not in a row) and Nettie is asleep once again. Figured I'd at least try to start this post. Kind of hard to believe that we've had Nettie for almost a week now. She's fit so perfectly into our lives, and to risk sounding cliche, it's like she's was always here. Anyways... on with the story.
Our induction was scheduled for Sunday (June 5th) at 830pm. On the instruction sheet that they gave me at my final doctor's appointment, it told us to call the hospital an hour before the set time to make sure that there was a bed available for me. Neither Tucker or I thought this would be a problem because the two times that we'd been up at the hospital before (once for our tour, the second to be monitored for a little while) it had been fairly slow in the Labor and Delivery area. We called anyways, and the girl I talked to asked if they could call us back because she needed to find out about availability from someone who was on break when we called. That was fine with me.
We finished collecting our stuff and headed down to the car at 8 even though we still hadn't been called back. I decided to call again as I walked to the dumpster to throw away some trash and while Tucker pulled the car around. I spoke with the person that had been on break and (go figure) they didn't have any room for me. Talk about a major disappointment. She said that we would probably have to go in the next morning instead, but asked how late we were willing to go in that night, just in case something opened up. I told her that it didn't really matter since we had been planning on being up the whole night anyways.
So, we went and got some hamburgers from Burger King (we had already started driving by the time I finished talking with the woman), which we probably wouldn't have normally done, but I hadn't eaten since noon-ish per my instructions, the nurse told me to go ahead and eat since they didn't know when I was going to be called in, and we didn't have any food in our apartment (sort of, nothing to make a meal out of at least). Back at home, we decided to watch a little tv before I went to bed, but between 930 and 10 the nurse called and asked if we could come in at 1130 that night instead. Um, duh.
When we got to the hospital, we had to check in at the emergency room because patient registration (where we would have gone during the daytime) was closed for construction. Checked in, and made our way up to L&D. When we got to the desk there, a nurse took us back to our room and started to ask all the normal questions. By the time I had gotten changed and stuff signed it was close to midnight, and they needed to check my 'progress' to see if they would start me on pitocin or a balloon thingy (honestly can't remember the name of it) that they would put in my cervix to help me get started dilating. I was only about 1cm, which wasn't much of an improvement from when they had checked me on Tuesday. So in went the balloon. They said that I should start feeling a little crampy (which I did), and so they would give me a pill to help me sleep. I agreed to take the pill, thinking it would take like half an hour tops to get the dang thing, but didn't end up getting it until after 230ish am.
The next morning my new nurse woke me up at 6 to take a shower and to check to see if the balloon would come out easily (meaning that I had dilated to at least 3cm). The balloon definitely came out, and I was between a 3 and a 4, completed effaced. They got all my IVs started right around 645am and so now all we had to do was wait.
Around 1130am, they came to check me again and decided to break my water. In doing this, we found out that little Nettie had already pooped for the first time because there was some staining to the fluid. The only difference this really made was that they would have to check her briefly before allowing me to hold her right after she was born. No big deal. Up until this point though, I hadn't been uncomfortable or feeling any sort of pain, like, at all. I remember thinking how easy being in labor was. Little did I know that as soon as my water was broken, things would change. I started to actually feel the contractions, and to me it seemed like they were coming like 3 minutes apart (I never actually timed them out though). My parents and Jenna had arrived at the hospital by this point too, and whenever I started to have a contraction, my dad would let me squeeze his hand. I went like this for about 15 minutes before I decided to call the nurse back in to tell her to start getting me ready to have an epidural.
So they started me on another bag of fluids that I had to drain before they would even call the doctor down. They finally called him down around 1pm and by 105pm they had the IV in my back and the medicine going. Ah, sweet relief! I felt great again. I dozed off and on for awhile (pretty sure that my family left to go do something else when they came to do the epidural), and they didn't really feel the need to check my progress for a few hours. Around 440pm, though, the nurse came in and told me that she was going to turn the pitocin off because Nettie's heartbeat was starting to look a little bit questionable. Nothing to worry about, but it was starting to look like it could become irregular. They also gave me an oxygen mask to wear to see if that helped at all.
While the nurse was in the room turning off the one IV, I mentioned to her that I would sometimes feel pressure like I had to go to the bathroom. So she called a doctor in to check me (and like 5 people came along, apparently they had all been at a delivery next door and decided to come; a couple of them were 'student' doctors though, so they were just observing). They checked me, and lo and behold, I was completely dilated! They had me try pushing a couple times (which I don't know if I was doing right cause all I could really feel was that pressure), and then they decided to let me sit for about another half hour before doing more pushing so that I didn't have to push for like an hour and so that Nettie could descend a little more on her own.
I didn't really care that I would have to wait a little bit longer, but it was exciting that stuff was actually going to start happening soon. My Dad left the room and we waited for about 15 minutes before I decided that the pressure (which was starting to strengthen and was really hard to ignore) was great enough that I had to call the nurse back in. I definitely felt the need to push now. So she sat down on the bed with me around 520pm, I'm sure thinking that we would probably be pushing for awhile because she didn't bother to call the doctor yet.
We started pushing. It took me a couple of contractions to figure out exactly what to do because of the epidural, but about fifteen minutes later, the nurse got up to call the doctor. We kept pushing, and I could definitely feel something coming out of me. In just a few more pushes, Nettie's head was about half way out of me and my nurse told me not to push anymore. I remember thinking that she was ridiculously stupid. How the heck was I supposed to hold off on pushing when the baby was basically coming out of me on my own? I kept telling her, "I need to push, I can't stop, I need to push," but she kind of ignored me. I really couldn't stop myself from pushing though; it was physically impossible.
The doctor arrived just in time to wash her hands real quick and watch as Nettie came out into the nurse's hands (way to go, Doc) at 538pm. Tucker cut the cord (I think), they checked her out, and then I was holding her. My perfect, sweet, little baby. She was here, and I couldn't have cared less that they were starting to stitch me up (I had a 3rd degree perennial tear because Nettie came so quickly).
In total, I pushed for about 20 minutes. Apparently that's quick. I'm just pro at pushing I guess, haha! Both Jenna and my mom were able to be in the room with us as well when Nettie was born, which I think is kind special.
Now as far as naming her goes.... During the time that my family had been gone that afternoon, Tucker and I looked at the list of names that we liked and narrowed it down to three. My favorite: Eleanor Janet. Tucker's favorite: Emmeline Lynette. And then a completely out of the blue name that we hadn't really discussed before: Lynette Meryl. Tucker suggested it, saying that he thought it would make a pretty first name as well as a pretty middle name. I actually kind of like it. We both agree that if that name was used, we would not be calling her Lynn for short. And we decided to pair Meryl with it (my little sister's middle name) because unfortunately, Lynette Janet didn't quite flow well enough for us. At this point, we didn't decide for sure on a name because we both still wanted to see her first. But I think that my mind was sort of already set on Lynette, and as soon as she came out, I was certain that that was her name.
Little Nettie weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 20 1/4 inches long. When she popped out of me, she inhaled quicker than the nurse could suction out her mouth and nose (remember the meconium staining in my water), but she was screaming so well right after they checked her that they weren't concerned about that at all.
We got the chance to try breastfeeding while they were stitching me up, and Nettie latched on perfectly (and has ever since). About an hour or so (I think, not really sure) after Nettie was born, my family all got to come back to the room to see her. Lois and Stephanie had arrived as well and were able to see her. When they came in, I asked if Tucker had told them her name yet (because he had been the one to go out and get them). He hadn't. So I told them, and immediately started to cry when I said her middle name and looked at Jenna (I'm kind of a softy). I'm pretty sure that we caught Lois off guard with our name choice though (Lynette is her middle name), and the next morning when she came to visit I remember her asking if we like Meryl Lynette better, haha! Lynette is definitely her name though.
The rest of the hospital stay was pretty easy though. I was never really in any pain or discomfort from my stitches (still aren't actually), and so I never had to take anything stronger than Ibuprofen. Poor Tucker though, due to lack of sleep the first couple nights that we were in the hospital, started to feel really crappy and got a sinus infection sort of thing. Because of this, and the fact that Nettie did not like sleeping in the little tub they had in our room for her, I got a total of about 6 hours of sleep for the 3 nights/days that we were there. Though, that hasn't really bothered me much either.
Also, holy crap, I am a milk making machine! I know this is gross/tmi, but the second that I take my bra off to nurse or take a shower, I'm seriously dripping all over everything. Kind of annoying. But I shouldn't complain really, because Nettie has already passed her birth weight, and according to the lactation consult I talked to this morning, she's done it a week faster than most solely breastfed babies. Go us!
Mostly she's just the best baby in the world. She's adorable, and she sleeps really really good. Lately (meaning the past two days) she's gone for 4-5 hour stretches before waking up, which is very nice for me and Tucker because we both seem to have gotten a head cold. We also got some newborn pictures taken of Nettie (courtesy of my mother-in-law and two awesome sisters-in-law), so hopefully those will get edited soon so that I can show them off to everyone :).
But yeah. Be jealous of my uber cute baby :D
Our induction was scheduled for Sunday (June 5th) at 830pm. On the instruction sheet that they gave me at my final doctor's appointment, it told us to call the hospital an hour before the set time to make sure that there was a bed available for me. Neither Tucker or I thought this would be a problem because the two times that we'd been up at the hospital before (once for our tour, the second to be monitored for a little while) it had been fairly slow in the Labor and Delivery area. We called anyways, and the girl I talked to asked if they could call us back because she needed to find out about availability from someone who was on break when we called. That was fine with me.
We finished collecting our stuff and headed down to the car at 8 even though we still hadn't been called back. I decided to call again as I walked to the dumpster to throw away some trash and while Tucker pulled the car around. I spoke with the person that had been on break and (go figure) they didn't have any room for me. Talk about a major disappointment. She said that we would probably have to go in the next morning instead, but asked how late we were willing to go in that night, just in case something opened up. I told her that it didn't really matter since we had been planning on being up the whole night anyways.
So, we went and got some hamburgers from Burger King (we had already started driving by the time I finished talking with the woman), which we probably wouldn't have normally done, but I hadn't eaten since noon-ish per my instructions, the nurse told me to go ahead and eat since they didn't know when I was going to be called in, and we didn't have any food in our apartment (sort of, nothing to make a meal out of at least). Back at home, we decided to watch a little tv before I went to bed, but between 930 and 10 the nurse called and asked if we could come in at 1130 that night instead. Um, duh.
When we got to the hospital, we had to check in at the emergency room because patient registration (where we would have gone during the daytime) was closed for construction. Checked in, and made our way up to L&D. When we got to the desk there, a nurse took us back to our room and started to ask all the normal questions. By the time I had gotten changed and stuff signed it was close to midnight, and they needed to check my 'progress' to see if they would start me on pitocin or a balloon thingy (honestly can't remember the name of it) that they would put in my cervix to help me get started dilating. I was only about 1cm, which wasn't much of an improvement from when they had checked me on Tuesday. So in went the balloon. They said that I should start feeling a little crampy (which I did), and so they would give me a pill to help me sleep. I agreed to take the pill, thinking it would take like half an hour tops to get the dang thing, but didn't end up getting it until after 230ish am.
The next morning my new nurse woke me up at 6 to take a shower and to check to see if the balloon would come out easily (meaning that I had dilated to at least 3cm). The balloon definitely came out, and I was between a 3 and a 4, completed effaced. They got all my IVs started right around 645am and so now all we had to do was wait.
Around 1130am, they came to check me again and decided to break my water. In doing this, we found out that little Nettie had already pooped for the first time because there was some staining to the fluid. The only difference this really made was that they would have to check her briefly before allowing me to hold her right after she was born. No big deal. Up until this point though, I hadn't been uncomfortable or feeling any sort of pain, like, at all. I remember thinking how easy being in labor was. Little did I know that as soon as my water was broken, things would change. I started to actually feel the contractions, and to me it seemed like they were coming like 3 minutes apart (I never actually timed them out though). My parents and Jenna had arrived at the hospital by this point too, and whenever I started to have a contraction, my dad would let me squeeze his hand. I went like this for about 15 minutes before I decided to call the nurse back in to tell her to start getting me ready to have an epidural.
So they started me on another bag of fluids that I had to drain before they would even call the doctor down. They finally called him down around 1pm and by 105pm they had the IV in my back and the medicine going. Ah, sweet relief! I felt great again. I dozed off and on for awhile (pretty sure that my family left to go do something else when they came to do the epidural), and they didn't really feel the need to check my progress for a few hours. Around 440pm, though, the nurse came in and told me that she was going to turn the pitocin off because Nettie's heartbeat was starting to look a little bit questionable. Nothing to worry about, but it was starting to look like it could become irregular. They also gave me an oxygen mask to wear to see if that helped at all.
While the nurse was in the room turning off the one IV, I mentioned to her that I would sometimes feel pressure like I had to go to the bathroom. So she called a doctor in to check me (and like 5 people came along, apparently they had all been at a delivery next door and decided to come; a couple of them were 'student' doctors though, so they were just observing). They checked me, and lo and behold, I was completely dilated! They had me try pushing a couple times (which I don't know if I was doing right cause all I could really feel was that pressure), and then they decided to let me sit for about another half hour before doing more pushing so that I didn't have to push for like an hour and so that Nettie could descend a little more on her own.
I didn't really care that I would have to wait a little bit longer, but it was exciting that stuff was actually going to start happening soon. My Dad left the room and we waited for about 15 minutes before I decided that the pressure (which was starting to strengthen and was really hard to ignore) was great enough that I had to call the nurse back in. I definitely felt the need to push now. So she sat down on the bed with me around 520pm, I'm sure thinking that we would probably be pushing for awhile because she didn't bother to call the doctor yet.
We started pushing. It took me a couple of contractions to figure out exactly what to do because of the epidural, but about fifteen minutes later, the nurse got up to call the doctor. We kept pushing, and I could definitely feel something coming out of me. In just a few more pushes, Nettie's head was about half way out of me and my nurse told me not to push anymore. I remember thinking that she was ridiculously stupid. How the heck was I supposed to hold off on pushing when the baby was basically coming out of me on my own? I kept telling her, "I need to push, I can't stop, I need to push," but she kind of ignored me. I really couldn't stop myself from pushing though; it was physically impossible.
The doctor arrived just in time to wash her hands real quick and watch as Nettie came out into the nurse's hands (way to go, Doc) at 538pm. Tucker cut the cord (I think), they checked her out, and then I was holding her. My perfect, sweet, little baby. She was here, and I couldn't have cared less that they were starting to stitch me up (I had a 3rd degree perennial tear because Nettie came so quickly).
In total, I pushed for about 20 minutes. Apparently that's quick. I'm just pro at pushing I guess, haha! Both Jenna and my mom were able to be in the room with us as well when Nettie was born, which I think is kind special.
Now as far as naming her goes.... During the time that my family had been gone that afternoon, Tucker and I looked at the list of names that we liked and narrowed it down to three. My favorite: Eleanor Janet. Tucker's favorite: Emmeline Lynette. And then a completely out of the blue name that we hadn't really discussed before: Lynette Meryl. Tucker suggested it, saying that he thought it would make a pretty first name as well as a pretty middle name. I actually kind of like it. We both agree that if that name was used, we would not be calling her Lynn for short. And we decided to pair Meryl with it (my little sister's middle name) because unfortunately, Lynette Janet didn't quite flow well enough for us. At this point, we didn't decide for sure on a name because we both still wanted to see her first. But I think that my mind was sort of already set on Lynette, and as soon as she came out, I was certain that that was her name.
Little Nettie weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 20 1/4 inches long. When she popped out of me, she inhaled quicker than the nurse could suction out her mouth and nose (remember the meconium staining in my water), but she was screaming so well right after they checked her that they weren't concerned about that at all.
We got the chance to try breastfeeding while they were stitching me up, and Nettie latched on perfectly (and has ever since). About an hour or so (I think, not really sure) after Nettie was born, my family all got to come back to the room to see her. Lois and Stephanie had arrived as well and were able to see her. When they came in, I asked if Tucker had told them her name yet (because he had been the one to go out and get them). He hadn't. So I told them, and immediately started to cry when I said her middle name and looked at Jenna (I'm kind of a softy). I'm pretty sure that we caught Lois off guard with our name choice though (Lynette is her middle name), and the next morning when she came to visit I remember her asking if we like Meryl Lynette better, haha! Lynette is definitely her name though.
The rest of the hospital stay was pretty easy though. I was never really in any pain or discomfort from my stitches (still aren't actually), and so I never had to take anything stronger than Ibuprofen. Poor Tucker though, due to lack of sleep the first couple nights that we were in the hospital, started to feel really crappy and got a sinus infection sort of thing. Because of this, and the fact that Nettie did not like sleeping in the little tub they had in our room for her, I got a total of about 6 hours of sleep for the 3 nights/days that we were there. Though, that hasn't really bothered me much either.
Also, holy crap, I am a milk making machine! I know this is gross/tmi, but the second that I take my bra off to nurse or take a shower, I'm seriously dripping all over everything. Kind of annoying. But I shouldn't complain really, because Nettie has already passed her birth weight, and according to the lactation consult I talked to this morning, she's done it a week faster than most solely breastfed babies. Go us!
Mostly she's just the best baby in the world. She's adorable, and she sleeps really really good. Lately (meaning the past two days) she's gone for 4-5 hour stretches before waking up, which is very nice for me and Tucker because we both seem to have gotten a head cold. We also got some newborn pictures taken of Nettie (courtesy of my mother-in-law and two awesome sisters-in-law), so hopefully those will get edited soon so that I can show them off to everyone :).
Saturday, May 7, 2011
A lovely Saturday
Yesterday while I was waiting for our laundry to finish up in the dryers I drove around our neighborhood a little bit to figure out exactly where the parks were near us (so that I can go there in a couple months with Baby and take walks). I decided that instead of doing basically nothing today (Saturday), I would bribe Tucker to go on a walk with me at a trail near our apartment by first going on a picnic. Now, for most people, a picnic is probably not really much of a bribe, but to Tucker, picnic = KFC. I guess that's the only time that he ever really had it as a kid--and as an adult, as well, I suppose.
Back before we were married, we tried to have a KFC picnic once at Rock Canyon Park (I think that's what it's called... the park behind the Provo Temple), but it was totally crashed by bees, and I'm pretty sure I made Tucker pack everything up and we ate at his apartment. Bee free's the way to be!
Anywho, the weather was perfect, the area was beautiful, and there weren't any bees! Most excellent picnic. I even remembered to take some pictures while we were there.
Back before we were married, we tried to have a KFC picnic once at Rock Canyon Park (I think that's what it's called... the park behind the Provo Temple), but it was totally crashed by bees, and I'm pretty sure I made Tucker pack everything up and we ate at his apartment. Bee free's the way to be!
Anywho, the weather was perfect, the area was beautiful, and there weren't any bees! Most excellent picnic. I even remembered to take some pictures while we were there.
The delicious spread.
The colossal 'jug' of lemonade.
Aw, so cute!
Yeah.........
And I thought the lemonade container was colossal, haha!
Our picnic spot. See?! Totally beautiful.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Crazy Ridiculous Storm
Yeah, the title pretty much sums it up.
The storm only last about 20 minutes total, or at least that's how long it took to move through Raleigh. But I tell you what, it was insane.
We were out and about starting at about noon. First stop was Babies R Us to do our registry (again), and this wasn't too bad. Tucker seemed to really enjoy looking at all the baby girl clothes, which is both funny and cute. He even said that doing the registry made him more excited (this would be one of the very few times that he has vocalized this). After the registry, we headed across Capital Blvd. to a used book store just to look around. I don't know what it is about used book stores, but we love them. After hanging around there for a little while, we decided we would go get some lunch, and conveniently, there was a Golden Corral right next door. Happy day!
It was when we left that we noticed how windy it was. We knew that there was supposed to be a storm today, so I turned on the radio when we got into the car and one of the local news stations had 'taken over' the music station. When we started listening to it, they were listing counties that were currently under a tornado watch. This didn't mean much to either of us, because unless we're looking at a map, we don't know where anything is in relation to Raleigh. Anyways, we got home and got on the internet to try and look at what was going on (we lost our free cable this week sadly). This was when the power started to flicker on and off. Not a good sign. Not super concerning, but not a good sign.
It was kind of annoying though, because we were now cut off from any updated information about the storm. I made a comment about how it would be nice to have a normal radio right now so that we could at least hear updates. This was when Tucker remembered the 72-hour emergency kit that his parents had given us for Christmas one year. He was pretty sure that it had a hand-crank powered radio in it. So I dug around for a little while in the closet and found the kit, and sure enough, there was a radio in it. Woohoo!
Tucker cranked it up and we started listening to the storm updates. The weather guys were saying that there was now a tornado warning for Wake county (our county). Everything that they were saying was about a tornado that was on the ground and moving north-east; towards us. This is when I started to get a little nervous. They kept talking about how people near downtown Raleigh needed to get to a safe place immediately because they were in the track of the tornado. We live only a few miles from downtown. Yeah. So we decided that we would head over to the Target near out house because it would be safer than our second story apartment. I put a few things together in my backpack (72 hour kit, phone charger, 2 water bottles, our important documents folder (thanks for that idea Mom), and a couple jackets).
By the time we had this stuff together and had both gone to the bathroom, the rain was coming down in buckets and the wind was ridiculously strong. We decided it wouldn't be any safer for us to head out now than it would be to just hunker down at home, so we moved to our little hallway and closed all the doors leading into it. I'm sure it would have been quite funny to see, but at the time, with the news casters being all negative and stuff, it was kind of scary. I took a couple pictures of us sitting there in the dark, but they turned out horrible, so they've been deleted.
Anyways, they started to report damage throughout downtown and moving our direction. They started to mention streets that were only about a mile away from us, but from everything they were saying, we decided that the real danger was off to our east, if only just barely. A few minutes passed and the radio reported that the tornado was now up in the area that we had been in for our outing earlier (yikes), so we came out of our hiding place. The rain was still coming down, but the wind had died down a little bit.
In the end, our power was off for about 3 hours, and when we could get back onto the internet, we looked up the news website to look at pictures of what had happened. Yeah, it was pretty bad. If you care to look, the website is wral.com. There was some pretty serious damage.Not sure if anyone was hurt or killed, I couldn't find anything that talked about that EDIT :: Just checked the website this morning. There are 10 confirmed deaths, but as many as 24 could be dead. Very grateful that this missed us., but regardless, it was a crazy-ridiculous storm.
The storm only last about 20 minutes total, or at least that's how long it took to move through Raleigh. But I tell you what, it was insane.
We were out and about starting at about noon. First stop was Babies R Us to do our registry (again), and this wasn't too bad. Tucker seemed to really enjoy looking at all the baby girl clothes, which is both funny and cute. He even said that doing the registry made him more excited (this would be one of the very few times that he has vocalized this). After the registry, we headed across Capital Blvd. to a used book store just to look around. I don't know what it is about used book stores, but we love them. After hanging around there for a little while, we decided we would go get some lunch, and conveniently, there was a Golden Corral right next door. Happy day!
It was when we left that we noticed how windy it was. We knew that there was supposed to be a storm today, so I turned on the radio when we got into the car and one of the local news stations had 'taken over' the music station. When we started listening to it, they were listing counties that were currently under a tornado watch. This didn't mean much to either of us, because unless we're looking at a map, we don't know where anything is in relation to Raleigh. Anyways, we got home and got on the internet to try and look at what was going on (we lost our free cable this week sadly). This was when the power started to flicker on and off. Not a good sign. Not super concerning, but not a good sign.
It was kind of annoying though, because we were now cut off from any updated information about the storm. I made a comment about how it would be nice to have a normal radio right now so that we could at least hear updates. This was when Tucker remembered the 72-hour emergency kit that his parents had given us for Christmas one year. He was pretty sure that it had a hand-crank powered radio in it. So I dug around for a little while in the closet and found the kit, and sure enough, there was a radio in it. Woohoo!
Tucker cranked it up and we started listening to the storm updates. The weather guys were saying that there was now a tornado warning for Wake county (our county). Everything that they were saying was about a tornado that was on the ground and moving north-east; towards us. This is when I started to get a little nervous. They kept talking about how people near downtown Raleigh needed to get to a safe place immediately because they were in the track of the tornado. We live only a few miles from downtown. Yeah. So we decided that we would head over to the Target near out house because it would be safer than our second story apartment. I put a few things together in my backpack (72 hour kit, phone charger, 2 water bottles, our important documents folder (thanks for that idea Mom), and a couple jackets).
By the time we had this stuff together and had both gone to the bathroom, the rain was coming down in buckets and the wind was ridiculously strong. We decided it wouldn't be any safer for us to head out now than it would be to just hunker down at home, so we moved to our little hallway and closed all the doors leading into it. I'm sure it would have been quite funny to see, but at the time, with the news casters being all negative and stuff, it was kind of scary. I took a couple pictures of us sitting there in the dark, but they turned out horrible, so they've been deleted.
Anyways, they started to report damage throughout downtown and moving our direction. They started to mention streets that were only about a mile away from us, but from everything they were saying, we decided that the real danger was off to our east, if only just barely. A few minutes passed and the radio reported that the tornado was now up in the area that we had been in for our outing earlier (yikes), so we came out of our hiding place. The rain was still coming down, but the wind had died down a little bit.
In the end, our power was off for about 3 hours, and when we could get back onto the internet, we looked up the news website to look at pictures of what had happened. Yeah, it was pretty bad. If you care to look, the website is wral.com. There was some pretty serious damage.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Birthdays and Car Trouble
Things I consider accomplishments right now:
- I pee less than 3 times during the night.
- I eat a meal without ending up with something dribbled on my stomach.
- I don't fall asleep until 9pm.
- I can bend over to pick something up.
- I actually do my hair and/or makeup (though this one has always been something I struggled with).
That's all that I can think of right now. I'm sure as these last 8 weeks tick down I'll come up with more to add to the list, but for now (seeing as I just woke up) it's good enough.
This past week was our birthdays (mine was the 25th and Tucker's was the 30th). They were alright I guess... or well, mine was pretty good. We had some pizza and wings for dinner, and both my parents and Jenna got "presents" for me. My parents got me one of those edible arrangements, which was absolutely delicious. And Jenna decided that I needed more food and ordered me some fancy cupcakes from a little shop near campus. And here, I'll even post pictures (look at me feeling slightly motivated).
Tucker's birthday was...... not quite normal. The day before his birthday was packed full. We both had to be at campus at 8am; me for work, Tucker to get ready for his committee meeting later that day. Tucker mentioned that he was starting to feel a little sick when we got to school. There wasn't much of anything that we could do for him then though, because I had to work until noon and he would be busy until 5. On top of working for both of us that day, we had our first 'childbirth' class that night from 6-8. So super packed full day.
When I got off at noon, I went and did a little bit of shopping for the lab because the next day (Tucker's birthday) they would be having paninis for lab lunch. It was about 1:30 when I was finally heading home. When I turned on the car, the heat gauge thingy automatically went all the way up to the top like the car was over heating. It kind of confused me, so I turned of the car and let it sit for a second, then turned it back on and it was normal. So I drove home. I didn't want to tell Tucker about this yet because I knew it would stress him out and he wouldn't be able to focus on his committee meeting (which is a fairly big deal). So I stayed home for a few hours, then on my way to pick him up, the temperature gauge shot up to the top again. Luckily I was only about a minute from the school, so I turned the heater on full blast, rolled down the windows and drove the rest of the way to school.
I guess I should mention that about a month ago, we had the same problem with the car 'over heating' and had it in to be looked at. They told us that the problem was a cracked cap on the radiator (or at least I think that's what it was) and it only cost us $20 to fix. When Tucker came out and got in the car, I finally told him what the car was doing (and he was really appreciative that I hadn't told him before because he would have been worrying all through his meeting; I know him so well), so we decided rather than have the car towed like we did last time this happened, we would just drive it to the shop we had gone to before because it wasn't that far away from campus. We dropped the car off, and then were trying to get ahold of the rental car agency so that we would have a way to get home and then back down to the shop to get the car the next day when it was fixed, but no one was answering. So on a whim, we decided to try riding the bus home. Tucker used to ride the bus all the time when we lived at our old place, but he hadn't yet tried it at our new apartment. Yay for adventures! However, he called one of his friends while we were on the first bus back up to campus and asked him for a ride home. Needless to say, we didn't make it to our first childbirth class.
Tucker's birthday dawned and he was feeling more sick than the previous day, and it was rainy outside, and he was going to have to ride the bus to school if he wanted to go, so he decided to just take the day off and stay home (yay!). I made him breakfast in bed and we kind of just took the rest of the day easy. Around mid-day the car place called and told us the news. Basically they were needing to replace some stuff to do with the cooling system and also a couple things dealing with the oil were leaking and needed to be replaced (obviously I don't remember exactly what the stuff was, I don't pay much attention to car stuff). It was going to be a grand total of about $550 to fix everything. Um... ouch. But we told them to go ahead and fix everything, they said the car would be ready by the end of the day.
Now normally, it wouldn't be a super big deal to get to this place in a short amount of time... but we didn't have access to a car and Tucker didn't want to impose on his friend again for a ride. So we decided that when the time came for us to pick up the car, we would just take a taxi (wahoo! never ridden in a taxi before). This was more stressful than I initially thought it would be because they didn't call us to tell us the car was done till about 50 mins before the place was supposed to close. We called the cab place to ask for a taxi and were told that it would be about 15 minutes till they could get someone to us. This was still ok; plenty of time to get to the shop. Wrong.
The cab didn't get to our apartment until 20 minutes before the shop was supposed to close. It was going to take us about 20 minutes to get there. And that's if the traffic stays good (we have to take the freeway). Luckily, we arrived a few minutes before they closed. I got the special job of paying the taxi guy, which we didn't think was going to be a big deal cause their website said that they took credit cards. When I asked the guy if this was true, he shook his head no. Awesome. Normally we would have been screwed, but I just happened to have about $40 in cash on me, which, really, is amazing that I did, cause neither of us ever carry cash. I was that day, however, because I had been planning on going to get our registration renewed that week and needed cash to do that. So, we were able to pay the taxi guy.
We paid for the car stuff and then decided to go to a chinese buffet place for Tucker's birthday dinner. Normally this would be ok with me, but I was starting to get a headache, and for some reason I was feeling kind of nauseous, but I didn't want to ruin one good thing that Tucker would have on his birthday, so I didn't say anything and we went. I ended up eating a cup of soup, 2 mini-sugar-covered biscuits, and a couple slices of fruit. But Tucker enjoyed it, and that was all that mattered that day. I feel really bad that his day wasn't all that great, but we get to play D&D this week and I also got him a D&D book for his birthday, so hopefully this will make up for the crappy day at least a little bit.
So long as we don't have any more problems with our car overheating, I think we'll be happy. It's just kind of annoying.
Have a doctor's appointment this coming Monday (32 weeks along!!!) so I'll try and get an update posted here sometime next week.
- I pee less than 3 times during the night.
- I eat a meal without ending up with something dribbled on my stomach.
- I don't fall asleep until 9pm.
- I can bend over to pick something up.
- I actually do my hair and/or makeup (though this one has always been something I struggled with).
That's all that I can think of right now. I'm sure as these last 8 weeks tick down I'll come up with more to add to the list, but for now (seeing as I just woke up) it's good enough.
This past week was our birthdays (mine was the 25th and Tucker's was the 30th). They were alright I guess... or well, mine was pretty good. We had some pizza and wings for dinner, and both my parents and Jenna got "presents" for me. My parents got me one of those edible arrangements, which was absolutely delicious. And Jenna decided that I needed more food and ordered me some fancy cupcakes from a little shop near campus. And here, I'll even post pictures (look at me feeling slightly motivated).
Tucker's birthday was...... not quite normal. The day before his birthday was packed full. We both had to be at campus at 8am; me for work, Tucker to get ready for his committee meeting later that day. Tucker mentioned that he was starting to feel a little sick when we got to school. There wasn't much of anything that we could do for him then though, because I had to work until noon and he would be busy until 5. On top of working for both of us that day, we had our first 'childbirth' class that night from 6-8. So super packed full day.
When I got off at noon, I went and did a little bit of shopping for the lab because the next day (Tucker's birthday) they would be having paninis for lab lunch. It was about 1:30 when I was finally heading home. When I turned on the car, the heat gauge thingy automatically went all the way up to the top like the car was over heating. It kind of confused me, so I turned of the car and let it sit for a second, then turned it back on and it was normal. So I drove home. I didn't want to tell Tucker about this yet because I knew it would stress him out and he wouldn't be able to focus on his committee meeting (which is a fairly big deal). So I stayed home for a few hours, then on my way to pick him up, the temperature gauge shot up to the top again. Luckily I was only about a minute from the school, so I turned the heater on full blast, rolled down the windows and drove the rest of the way to school.
I guess I should mention that about a month ago, we had the same problem with the car 'over heating' and had it in to be looked at. They told us that the problem was a cracked cap on the radiator (or at least I think that's what it was) and it only cost us $20 to fix. When Tucker came out and got in the car, I finally told him what the car was doing (and he was really appreciative that I hadn't told him before because he would have been worrying all through his meeting; I know him so well), so we decided rather than have the car towed like we did last time this happened, we would just drive it to the shop we had gone to before because it wasn't that far away from campus. We dropped the car off, and then were trying to get ahold of the rental car agency so that we would have a way to get home and then back down to the shop to get the car the next day when it was fixed, but no one was answering. So on a whim, we decided to try riding the bus home. Tucker used to ride the bus all the time when we lived at our old place, but he hadn't yet tried it at our new apartment. Yay for adventures! However, he called one of his friends while we were on the first bus back up to campus and asked him for a ride home. Needless to say, we didn't make it to our first childbirth class.
Tucker's birthday dawned and he was feeling more sick than the previous day, and it was rainy outside, and he was going to have to ride the bus to school if he wanted to go, so he decided to just take the day off and stay home (yay!). I made him breakfast in bed and we kind of just took the rest of the day easy. Around mid-day the car place called and told us the news. Basically they were needing to replace some stuff to do with the cooling system and also a couple things dealing with the oil were leaking and needed to be replaced (obviously I don't remember exactly what the stuff was, I don't pay much attention to car stuff). It was going to be a grand total of about $550 to fix everything. Um... ouch. But we told them to go ahead and fix everything, they said the car would be ready by the end of the day.
Now normally, it wouldn't be a super big deal to get to this place in a short amount of time... but we didn't have access to a car and Tucker didn't want to impose on his friend again for a ride. So we decided that when the time came for us to pick up the car, we would just take a taxi (wahoo! never ridden in a taxi before). This was more stressful than I initially thought it would be because they didn't call us to tell us the car was done till about 50 mins before the place was supposed to close. We called the cab place to ask for a taxi and were told that it would be about 15 minutes till they could get someone to us. This was still ok; plenty of time to get to the shop. Wrong.
The cab didn't get to our apartment until 20 minutes before the shop was supposed to close. It was going to take us about 20 minutes to get there. And that's if the traffic stays good (we have to take the freeway). Luckily, we arrived a few minutes before they closed. I got the special job of paying the taxi guy, which we didn't think was going to be a big deal cause their website said that they took credit cards. When I asked the guy if this was true, he shook his head no. Awesome. Normally we would have been screwed, but I just happened to have about $40 in cash on me, which, really, is amazing that I did, cause neither of us ever carry cash. I was that day, however, because I had been planning on going to get our registration renewed that week and needed cash to do that. So, we were able to pay the taxi guy.
We paid for the car stuff and then decided to go to a chinese buffet place for Tucker's birthday dinner. Normally this would be ok with me, but I was starting to get a headache, and for some reason I was feeling kind of nauseous, but I didn't want to ruin one good thing that Tucker would have on his birthday, so I didn't say anything and we went. I ended up eating a cup of soup, 2 mini-sugar-covered biscuits, and a couple slices of fruit. But Tucker enjoyed it, and that was all that mattered that day. I feel really bad that his day wasn't all that great, but we get to play D&D this week and I also got him a D&D book for his birthday, so hopefully this will make up for the crappy day at least a little bit.
So long as we don't have any more problems with our car overheating, I think we'll be happy. It's just kind of annoying.
Have a doctor's appointment this coming Monday (32 weeks along!!!) so I'll try and get an update posted here sometime next week.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
And so it begins...
School's winding down, and as of today, Tucker and I only have 2 weeks left in Utah. 2 WEEKS!! It's so crazy to think that we aren't going to be coming back here after Christmas. And not gonna lie, with all the snow we got this past weekend, and with all the snow that's supposed to come this next week, I'm super excited to leave.
I've finally started going through stuff and sort of packing this week. I posted ads on a couple sites for all the furniture that we want to sell/get rid of before we leave, and we've already sold 3 of the 5 things we posted. Kind of crazy how fast it happened. But it's a relief knowing I don't have to worry about those things anymore. Packing, however, is another story. That's what I'm stressing over. I just can't see all the stuff we want to take actually fitting into our car. So if anyone has advice about moving long, long distances, I'm open.
I've finally started going through stuff and sort of packing this week. I posted ads on a couple sites for all the furniture that we want to sell/get rid of before we leave, and we've already sold 3 of the 5 things we posted. Kind of crazy how fast it happened. But it's a relief knowing I don't have to worry about those things anymore. Packing, however, is another story. That's what I'm stressing over. I just can't see all the stuff we want to take actually fitting into our car. So if anyone has advice about moving long, long distances, I'm open.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Thanksgiving in Phoenix
So after some 'subtle' prodding from a certain sister-in-law (*coughKATIEcough* :) ), I've collected some pictures from my sister's facebook to post here from our Thanksgiving this year. It was sooooo nice to be able to go home, especially because it seems like it's been forever since I've been there. And the great part about this Thanksgiving was we were able to bring home Sam, Scott, and Stephanie with us! So while one half of the Smith family was having a great time in Spartanburg, the other half was in Phoenix celebrating with the Perry family.
The dinner was excellent, and the grand total for people we had over to eat including us was 17. Needless to say, things were a little crowded, but it was super fun. Scott brought along his Wii, so lots of Smash Brothers and Mario Kart were played. Aside from that, I took Tucker, Scott, Sam, and Stef on a driving tour of the greater Phoenix area. Basically we drove downtown and then went to Scottsdale Fashion Square (a huge, rich people mall). We walked around for a bit, and while the boys were getting a Kobe beef hotdog, Stephanie and I went to a couple stores to look at stuff, and both really liked Anthropologie. Super cute store. We also went to see the Mesa Temple lights one night, but I don't have any pictures from that, Stephanie does, however.
So that's it. Thanksgiving break was awesome, aside from the ten hour drives there and back, but they were worth it. Guess we'll be seeing you guys (East Coast Smiths) soon!!
The dinner was excellent, and the grand total for people we had over to eat including us was 17. Needless to say, things were a little crowded, but it was super fun. Scott brought along his Wii, so lots of Smash Brothers and Mario Kart were played. Aside from that, I took Tucker, Scott, Sam, and Stef on a driving tour of the greater Phoenix area. Basically we drove downtown and then went to Scottsdale Fashion Square (a huge, rich people mall). We walked around for a bit, and while the boys were getting a Kobe beef hotdog, Stephanie and I went to a couple stores to look at stuff, and both really liked Anthropologie. Super cute store. We also went to see the Mesa Temple lights one night, but I don't have any pictures from that, Stephanie does, however.
So that's it. Thanksgiving break was awesome, aside from the ten hour drives there and back, but they were worth it. Guess we'll be seeing you guys (East Coast Smiths) soon!!
Monday, August 10, 2009
Okey-dokey
So two and half months, give or take a few days, is quite enough of a break from posting on here. I'll stop being a slacker and start doing this again. On to the recap of the summer....
It's been fairly eventful, to say the least. In June, we made a trip out to the Carolina's to have a Smith family reunion. Sam came home from his mission, and then we all went to Lake Lure to stay in a lake house for a few days. While there we white-water rafted, water skied, played in the lake, and had an awesome time. It sucked having to go home, but it was fun while it lasted. We even got a decent family picture!!
The weekend of July 11th, we were able to go down to Phoenix for a few days. The reason for the trip: my grandma was going through the temple for the first time and was going to be sealed to my Papa and my mom. Needless to say, I really wanted to be there for it. It was an amazing experience, and I'm so proud of Grammy for making the decision to get her endowment. Even though she's a stubborn old lady, we love her tons.
Other than that, we've... or at least I've had lots of fun hanging out with my sister. We've gone to a wedding, hung out with friends, and spent time with family. Tucker is going out of town this week to go to his dairy competition (cross your fingers for him, the check we would get if they win would be really nice to have), and I'm going to stay here and be lonely for a few days. Good thing I work so much or I would be really bored. Next week we get to head out to North Carolina again for Scott and Stephanie's wedding (YAY!); it'll be a fun weekend to spend with the family.
And one last update... Tucker will be graduating in December, and hopefully will be getting an internship with the church at Welfare Square in the winter. Then next summer, we'll probably be moving away from Utah, whether it's for an internship in Michigan or Missouri, or if Tucker gets accepted to NC State and can start working there. We really hope that Tucker gets accepted there so that he can start his masters there. It would be awesome to be near family.
That's it for now. I'll try to be better about this again.
It's been fairly eventful, to say the least. In June, we made a trip out to the Carolina's to have a Smith family reunion. Sam came home from his mission, and then we all went to Lake Lure to stay in a lake house for a few days. While there we white-water rafted, water skied, played in the lake, and had an awesome time. It sucked having to go home, but it was fun while it lasted. We even got a decent family picture!!
The weekend of July 11th, we were able to go down to Phoenix for a few days. The reason for the trip: my grandma was going through the temple for the first time and was going to be sealed to my Papa and my mom. Needless to say, I really wanted to be there for it. It was an amazing experience, and I'm so proud of Grammy for making the decision to get her endowment. Even though she's a stubborn old lady, we love her tons.
Other than that, we've... or at least I've had lots of fun hanging out with my sister. We've gone to a wedding, hung out with friends, and spent time with family. Tucker is going out of town this week to go to his dairy competition (cross your fingers for him, the check we would get if they win would be really nice to have), and I'm going to stay here and be lonely for a few days. Good thing I work so much or I would be really bored. Next week we get to head out to North Carolina again for Scott and Stephanie's wedding (YAY!); it'll be a fun weekend to spend with the family.
And one last update... Tucker will be graduating in December, and hopefully will be getting an internship with the church at Welfare Square in the winter. Then next summer, we'll probably be moving away from Utah, whether it's for an internship in Michigan or Missouri, or if Tucker gets accepted to NC State and can start working there. We really hope that Tucker gets accepted there so that he can start his masters there. It would be awesome to be near family.
That's it for now. I'll try to be better about this again.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
A Fairly Bad Week
Why is it that Monday's always have to have some problem associated with them? Cause, man alive, it sucks having to deal with them sometimes. And they're even worse when it makes the rest of the week bad. And yes, in case you haven't already guessed, this is another of those ranting posts.
Monday morning, I slept through my first class because I had a test in the class later that day and didn't see the need to go and get all confused with new information..... and I just wanted to sleep in. So I got to take Tucker to school before I headed to take my test. We didn't notice anything wrong with the car before I dropped off Tucker, but as soon as I was leaving BYU, I started hearing a whiny, siren-ish sounding noise coming from the engine whenever I was accelerating. Obviously, I knew this wasn't a good thing, so I called Tucker to let him know that it was being weird, and then continued on my merry way.
Yeah, well... just as I was getting up the hill in between Provo and Orem on University Parkway (at the light just before University Mall), I tried accelerating and all that happened was the engine revved. Basically it felt like the car was in neutral, except for the fact that it was in drive. So, lucky for me, I was coming up to an entrance to the mall parking lot, so I turned in with the little momentum I had left and managed to get to a safe spot to stop. I called Tucker and tried driving the car again to see if it would actually work, and it did just about half the time, but the rest of the time it felt like trying to drive in neutral. So I called AAA and they got a tow truck dispatched to tow me to a mechanic. And, I don't know about all the rest of you guys, but I've never really had a car break down on me before, and so I was really stressing, and to add to the stress, I couldn't get ahold of anyone to come get me, and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to go take my test... so pretty much I was on the verge of tears while I was talking to the AAA lady. Then when my brother called me back, I totally just started crying. I do that sometimes.
Well, the tow truck guy came and picked me up (and by the way, it was probably the most awkward car ride of my life), and we got the car to the mechanic's, and to add onto the problem of my car not working, the poor tow truck guy accidentally cracked our oil pan, and so now that had to be replaced too (we didn't have to pay for it though). So yeah, I managed to borrow Jenna and Jeff's car so that I could get to school, and the mechanic guy said that he would call us later that day to tell us what was going on. But we didn't get a phone call. Which made me even more worried.
Tuesday morning we found out the news. Our torque converter in our transmission was broken and would need to be replaced. The estimate was $1500-$2000. Yeah. We definitely didn't have the money to fix it, but Tucker's parents generously offered to cover it for us. We are SUPER grateful. They've helped us so much since we've gotten married, it's not even funny. There's like no way that we'll ever be able to repay them.. at least not for like 8 years.
So yeah, that's my story about that. I won't unload about my tests in anatomy that I have coming up in the next couple weeks. Needless to say, the month of March kind of sucks thus far. Maybe after spring break is done with it will get better.
Monday morning, I slept through my first class because I had a test in the class later that day and didn't see the need to go and get all confused with new information..... and I just wanted to sleep in. So I got to take Tucker to school before I headed to take my test. We didn't notice anything wrong with the car before I dropped off Tucker, but as soon as I was leaving BYU, I started hearing a whiny, siren-ish sounding noise coming from the engine whenever I was accelerating. Obviously, I knew this wasn't a good thing, so I called Tucker to let him know that it was being weird, and then continued on my merry way.
Yeah, well... just as I was getting up the hill in between Provo and Orem on University Parkway (at the light just before University Mall), I tried accelerating and all that happened was the engine revved. Basically it felt like the car was in neutral, except for the fact that it was in drive. So, lucky for me, I was coming up to an entrance to the mall parking lot, so I turned in with the little momentum I had left and managed to get to a safe spot to stop. I called Tucker and tried driving the car again to see if it would actually work, and it did just about half the time, but the rest of the time it felt like trying to drive in neutral. So I called AAA and they got a tow truck dispatched to tow me to a mechanic. And, I don't know about all the rest of you guys, but I've never really had a car break down on me before, and so I was really stressing, and to add to the stress, I couldn't get ahold of anyone to come get me, and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to go take my test... so pretty much I was on the verge of tears while I was talking to the AAA lady. Then when my brother called me back, I totally just started crying. I do that sometimes.
Well, the tow truck guy came and picked me up (and by the way, it was probably the most awkward car ride of my life), and we got the car to the mechanic's, and to add onto the problem of my car not working, the poor tow truck guy accidentally cracked our oil pan, and so now that had to be replaced too (we didn't have to pay for it though). So yeah, I managed to borrow Jenna and Jeff's car so that I could get to school, and the mechanic guy said that he would call us later that day to tell us what was going on. But we didn't get a phone call. Which made me even more worried.
Tuesday morning we found out the news. Our torque converter in our transmission was broken and would need to be replaced. The estimate was $1500-$2000. Yeah. We definitely didn't have the money to fix it, but Tucker's parents generously offered to cover it for us. We are SUPER grateful. They've helped us so much since we've gotten married, it's not even funny. There's like no way that we'll ever be able to repay them.. at least not for like 8 years.
So yeah, that's my story about that. I won't unload about my tests in anatomy that I have coming up in the next couple weeks. Needless to say, the month of March kind of sucks thus far. Maybe after spring break is done with it will get better.
Monday, November 17, 2008
First Anniversary
That's right! We made it through our first year without killing each other! Actually, our first year has been relatively smooth and quite fun. I don't think that we've ever "fought" about anything, which is weird according to some people I've talked to because to them their first year of marriage was the hardest. Tucker and I don't really fight... we occasionally get annoyed with each other, but not to the point that we'll say something mean to one another.
I'm not sure if I've done this in a previous post, but I feel like I should recap how our relationship formed. It all started when my brother, Jeff, moved up here to BYU after his mission to continue his education. He moved into an apartment in Campus Plaza that had an opening, which was nice because it was in walking distance of where I lived so that I could visit him. The first time that I met Tucker was when he and Jeff took me and my roommate Erin to the grocery store. Oddly enough, this wasn't the best first impression ever; it has to do with bagged salad and my roommate taking offense... really silly when looked at in retrospect, but whatevs.
At the start of the semester (Jan. 07), I spent a lot of time, like seriously a lot of time, at my brother's apartment because I was having problems with a couple of my roommates and just didn't want to go home to see them. So generally I would go to my brother's apartment everyday when I was done with class and I would leave at midnight to go home. The first few visits to Jeff's apartment were spent visiting with him, catching up and all since it had been two years since I'd seen him, but slowly that evolved into me playing cards with Jeff's roommates, including Tucker. Little did I know, but playing cards everyday and chatting with the boys at the apartment had endeared my to Tucker and he developed a "crush" on me. We used to talk on instant messanger all the time, just for funsies, while Tucker was at work, and it was over instant messanger that Tucker asked me out the first time. I thought, and still do think, that this was hilarious. I mean, who does that?
Our first date was to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, and I don't think it was that great of a first date. The activity was fun, but the conversation could have been better... mostly on my part. I think I spent like half of the time complaining about the boy that I had dated the previous semester.... saying I was bitter would be a good description of that. We even talked about how Tucker's grandpa thought that dinosaur bones were from other planets or something like that. The second part of that date was us watching 'The Grudge', and I just remember thinking that Tucker was sitting awfully close during that movie, haha!
Now, you have to understand that at this point in my "life" I didn't really want to have a boyfriend, mostly because of my bad experience the previous semester with a dumb boy, so I was really hoping that Tucker wouldn't ask me out again. But Tucker was a persistant little devil, and he got my phone number from my brother to ask me to go to a basketball game with him and his friend (now my friend as well, Scott Matheson). I won't lie, I was kind of a jerk on this date.... basically I ignored Tucker the entire time. My excuse was that I didn't want a boyfriend right now, but man... I was a jerk.
Now before I had gone on this date with Tucker, he and a couple of his friends had been planning a group date and Tucker had been planning on asking me to go on this date with him. After my "silent treatment" to him, he didn't really want to ask me out again because he wasn't wanting to waste time on someone that didn't want to date him, but he decided to ask me anyways just to find out if I wanted to go on another date with him... he asked me over instant messanger again (haha!).
After the basketball game date, I did a little thinking, realized that I wasn't giving Tucker a chance, and decided that I needed to be nicer to him, so when he asked me out again, I happily agreed to go on the date. This date went well, and I even gave Tucker the opportunity to hold my hand, which he didn't take advantage of. But from this point on, things were good for us. Our first kiss was on our Valentine's date, and the rest of the semester was "perfect", and we decided to stay dating while we were separated during the summer.
This was probably the hardest thing that I've ever had to do; I don't know about Tucker, but leaving to go home to Phoenix for the summer sucked. Don't get me wrong, I loved being home with my family, but things just weren't the same; I missed Tucker. We talked every night on the phone and ran up our phone bills with texts, but this just wasn't all that great. After a few weeks of being apart Tucker came down to Phoenix and totally surprised me. We saw each other a few more times through out the summer, I even went out to North Carolina to meet Tucker's family (totally fun trip even though I got sick half way through it). It was on this trip in June that I told Tucker that if he asked me, I would marry him. Everything was downhill from here. We set our date, I bought my dress, and starting planning things all before Tucker had officially proposed.
The proposal was a total surprise to me; it happened about twenty minutes before I had to leave Provo to go to the airport to go back to Phoenix, but it was perfect and I wouldn't have had it any other way.
November 16th, 2007, we were married in the Washington DC temple, and our life has been great ever since. We're looking forward to the rest of our lives together, and the rest of forever as well. Thanks to all those who have supported us along the way and helped us out. We love you all!
I'm not sure if I've done this in a previous post, but I feel like I should recap how our relationship formed. It all started when my brother, Jeff, moved up here to BYU after his mission to continue his education. He moved into an apartment in Campus Plaza that had an opening, which was nice because it was in walking distance of where I lived so that I could visit him. The first time that I met Tucker was when he and Jeff took me and my roommate Erin to the grocery store. Oddly enough, this wasn't the best first impression ever; it has to do with bagged salad and my roommate taking offense... really silly when looked at in retrospect, but whatevs.
At the start of the semester (Jan. 07), I spent a lot of time, like seriously a lot of time, at my brother's apartment because I was having problems with a couple of my roommates and just didn't want to go home to see them. So generally I would go to my brother's apartment everyday when I was done with class and I would leave at midnight to go home. The first few visits to Jeff's apartment were spent visiting with him, catching up and all since it had been two years since I'd seen him, but slowly that evolved into me playing cards with Jeff's roommates, including Tucker. Little did I know, but playing cards everyday and chatting with the boys at the apartment had endeared my to Tucker and he developed a "crush" on me. We used to talk on instant messanger all the time, just for funsies, while Tucker was at work, and it was over instant messanger that Tucker asked me out the first time. I thought, and still do think, that this was hilarious. I mean, who does that?
Our first date was to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, and I don't think it was that great of a first date. The activity was fun, but the conversation could have been better... mostly on my part. I think I spent like half of the time complaining about the boy that I had dated the previous semester.... saying I was bitter would be a good description of that. We even talked about how Tucker's grandpa thought that dinosaur bones were from other planets or something like that. The second part of that date was us watching 'The Grudge', and I just remember thinking that Tucker was sitting awfully close during that movie, haha!
Now, you have to understand that at this point in my "life" I didn't really want to have a boyfriend, mostly because of my bad experience the previous semester with a dumb boy, so I was really hoping that Tucker wouldn't ask me out again. But Tucker was a persistant little devil, and he got my phone number from my brother to ask me to go to a basketball game with him and his friend (now my friend as well, Scott Matheson). I won't lie, I was kind of a jerk on this date.... basically I ignored Tucker the entire time. My excuse was that I didn't want a boyfriend right now, but man... I was a jerk.
Now before I had gone on this date with Tucker, he and a couple of his friends had been planning a group date and Tucker had been planning on asking me to go on this date with him. After my "silent treatment" to him, he didn't really want to ask me out again because he wasn't wanting to waste time on someone that didn't want to date him, but he decided to ask me anyways just to find out if I wanted to go on another date with him... he asked me over instant messanger again (haha!).
After the basketball game date, I did a little thinking, realized that I wasn't giving Tucker a chance, and decided that I needed to be nicer to him, so when he asked me out again, I happily agreed to go on the date. This date went well, and I even gave Tucker the opportunity to hold my hand, which he didn't take advantage of. But from this point on, things were good for us. Our first kiss was on our Valentine's date, and the rest of the semester was "perfect", and we decided to stay dating while we were separated during the summer.
This was probably the hardest thing that I've ever had to do; I don't know about Tucker, but leaving to go home to Phoenix for the summer sucked. Don't get me wrong, I loved being home with my family, but things just weren't the same; I missed Tucker. We talked every night on the phone and ran up our phone bills with texts, but this just wasn't all that great. After a few weeks of being apart Tucker came down to Phoenix and totally surprised me. We saw each other a few more times through out the summer, I even went out to North Carolina to meet Tucker's family (totally fun trip even though I got sick half way through it). It was on this trip in June that I told Tucker that if he asked me, I would marry him. Everything was downhill from here. We set our date, I bought my dress, and starting planning things all before Tucker had officially proposed.
The proposal was a total surprise to me; it happened about twenty minutes before I had to leave Provo to go to the airport to go back to Phoenix, but it was perfect and I wouldn't have had it any other way.
November 16th, 2007, we were married in the Washington DC temple, and our life has been great ever since. We're looking forward to the rest of our lives together, and the rest of forever as well. Thanks to all those who have supported us along the way and helped us out. We love you all!
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