Life is a Grain of Sand

Life is short, but love is long. Thank goodness. This past week my Cody was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Well, the MRI shows indications that are "highly suspicious" for MS. Tomorrow is the lumbar puncture or spinal tap, and that will confirm everybody's suspicions I'm sure. It has been a series of miracles that has brought us to this point. ---My class, studying the symptoms, types and treatments of this autoimmune disease right after his symptoms reappear---symptoms he's had for at least the past year, probably longer. Magically meeting a neurologist at my work who gets Cody in for a cancelled appointment slot the next day, though he's booked out for a month....

I feel great appreciation for the nursing program, for my teachers. It has blessed my life already. Although I feel the Lord has known about Cody's MS, he has slowly prepared me for it. But it still broke my heart to look at the pictures of his brain {the fascinating organ that makes Cody's body function and makes him my Cody} and see the lesions there. I cried and cried.

I was a wreck, but Cody has been so amazingly faithful and strong. He compensates for me in every way. Already though, this has brought me amazing perspective and love and gratitude. I already feel closer to Cody {something I never thought possible} and such a great appreciation for the knowledge that we will be always together. And I realized that the time we are together that we battle multiple sclerosis will only be like a single grain of sand on an endless beach of timeless bliss that we're together. The rest of forever he will be perfectly Cody. I'm so grateful for our Savior for that. I'm grateful for our sweet families who have supported us through it all, teaching us and loving us. My mom reminded me that the gift of healing is already secured for everyone---Christ conquered the grave, and so will we all! She said it is the spiritual healing that we must secure for ourselves----it will never just be given to us.

I feel blessed that Multiple Sclerosis is not an inoperable brian tumor, it is not Lou Gehrig's or paralysis from an accident. We still have lots of time in this temporary life for me to beat him in Skip Bo, give him bad hair cuts in our kitchen, and burn all his dinners. In it all, I'm happy, I'm excited for what we can have as as result of working through something hard together. Quite an adventure! Already I found there is a 3 mile walk for MS in Salt Lake @ the Gateway by the National Society of Multiple Sclerosis---it's on our 1st anniversary of all days-- I'm going to rally a team and we're going to have awesome t-shirts!! :) I LOVE CODY, FOREVER!!

i heart treats

I loved traditional treat making day part one!! Mom turned her place into a party house for the occasion (and Jane's birthday)!! We made puffed rice hearts, valentine balls, and italian sodas.

the party house

puffed rice treats

We used all sorts of candies--pink strawberry milkshake whoppers, pink chocolate kisses, conversation hearts, cinnamon lips...pretty much anything from the valentine bulk spot at WinCo. BUT! my personal favorite, the Reese's hearts.

We put all the candy in bowls and jars on the table....the kids come a runnin to "help," works like a charm, every year.

They assemble them so fast! I didn't even have time to tie on all the cute ribbons...

My mom has quite the collection of Valentine ribbons...my favorite one says "truly madly deeply in love" all the way around it. It is the most relaxing thing to sit and tie cute ribbons on cute things...ahhh.

No gathering is a party without italian sodas. They are my absolute favorite thing. We make them so often!

I can't wait for part 2: valentine sugar cookies

little things

Cody has so many little things about him that make me just smile, laugh and love him more and more!
here's a few little things I've loved lately

*cody hides the floss (brand: REACH) wayyy up high so I have to "reach" for it

*cody remembers to feed the birds every morning

*cody tells me i'm pretty with no makeup on

*cody has a cute bed-head

*cody likes to kiss me after we pray together

*cody gets me a straw for my drink even when i don't ask, he knows i love straws

*cody opens the door for me everywhere

*cody drags me to the gym with him--he knows i'll thank him for it later

*cody runs to the store with me at 10pm just so we can have coconut for strawberry pina coladas

*cody lets me listen to my favorite song on repeat forever

*cody brings me those cinnamon mint things from cafe rio

*cody eats my kettle-corn even when its burned bad

he does something new i love everyday, i wish i had enough time to discover them all
oh, i do.
forever.
yes.

MJ-- my sista foreva

MaryJane is my only sister; today is her birthday! With 4 brothers, we stick together. She's 10 years younger than me, she's a little angel that came into my life on February 7th 2000.

she loves pink
she knows where all the chocolate stashes are
she is sweeter than sugar
she can beat anyone in a game of mancala
she is oh so crafty
she can make amazing cupcakes
she is as flexible as....silly putty?
she is the fastest little runner
she can text faster/better than I can
she plays the piano
she is my sister forever.

she stole my heart

sharing ear buds in the morning

Disneyland

cutie

Best Friends

laughing together on my wedding day

I treasure her

Partyin' at the reception

Kick off February!

I can hardly wait for valentine's day! I've been making all the necessary preparations. I borrowed valentine's molds to make homemade suckers and I gathered supplies to make some decorations. Let the creative juices flow...

Yesterday Cody and I sat and reminisced about Valentine's day last year. We were engaged and oh so flipped over eachother. We still laugh about how cheesy we must have looked/acted...me wearing pink and somehow he ended up wearing his purply shirt that same day. Oh well. My roommate Rach and his roommate Chad (who are now happily married... yahoo) celebrated the day with us. Rach and I spent the entire afternoon at our apartment cooking a meal that was suppose to be AMAZING. We made some delicious pasta I had never had before, salad, and breadsticks and set up for some kick-butt chocolate fondue.

The breadsticks were my job. I wanted to make them heart-shaped...awww. Yeast breads have never been very good to me... so they ended up being rock hard skinny little things. The boys were great sports about it. Rach's pasta was amazing! Luckily, any mistakes I made in the main dish were forgotten by dessert.  We had quite the spread of fruits, candies, cheesecake bites, etc. We were all pretty sick by the end.

Cody surprised me and bought me my most desired pair of Miss Me jeans. They are still my favorite. 

To kick start the month of LOVE, Cody and I went to the gym. Even Gold's has the love bug. The gym was showing Kate & Leopold! I was so excited... so now, I'm makin' a list of all the movies I want to watch with Cody. Valentine's is the perfect excuse for me to make him watch these with me. 

Fair skin is IN!

Hmmm yesterday I had an itch for summer and sunshine. I do like Winter, I like all the seasons, but sometimes this happens in January/February. So, to try to smother those thoughts, I recalled all the lessons I've learned about sun & skin. Currently, I work as a Medical Assistant at a Dermatology office. I love this job! But holy cow, I see a lot of FRIED skin. Luckily, early on in my life, I learned my skin didn't tan very well. My skin did have cycles all right. It could go from white, red, peel, white, red, peel, etc. I decided I'd just avoid the red and peel part and just stay white forever!

I learned this lesson again on my Honeymoon at the Bahamas. I think probably everyone in the history of the world knows all the stories of my honeymoon, because they are viral. It was a honeymoon to remember. Somehow, my SPF 50 got left on the Cruise ship, when we got to the beach, it felt soooo good and I never felt that sting of sunshine on my skin that I usually do in Utah that tells me it's time for more sunscreen. Several hours later, we were fried. And I mean fried, CRISPY! We spent the rest of our time at the bahamas jumping from shade to shade and we spent more money on Aloe vera than we did on anything else during the whole cruise. We laugh looking back, but then, I cried looking at Cody's back. And I cried looking at my FACE! It blistered up bad and I was wrinkly and scary looking...people would look at us and cringe everywhere we went.

Look at our unprotected fair skin...at the gorgeous beach...we had a blast!

This is on the uphill part...when we were back home...took so long for his back to heal!

Indications of 2nd degree burns...Cody had a huge blister that popped on his shirt. I had to peel his shirt off his open burned skin. 

This is me...the sunscreen Nazi. 

Now that I've been hired at a Derm office, all I hear from people is "I wish I stayed out of the sun" and "Stay out of the sun" as they have surgery to have cancer removed. Here are the top 10 lessons I've learned since working here, really lessons for myself that I hope I always remember.

1. Tanning beds=evil.
2. Virgin Olive Oil is the only thing found to reverse some of the radiation damage after a sunburn. I'd be careful putting it on your face though...because it could cause you to break out.
3. Face Moisturizer is the best eye makeup remover...ever. I'll never use that other greasy stuff again
4. Don't get pedicures or manicures...do them yourself...the infections we see from those places is disgusting.
5. Learn to love your face. Let yourself age gracefully. You can spend SO much money on Botox and fillers.
6. Get your moles looked at.
7. Clothes are the best sunscreen
8. Tan skin now=wrinkles and brown spots later (well at least for my skin type)
9. You don't need to exfoliate your face...it can cause problems...your skin does that on it's own.
10. If you have a scratch, or an incision, or wound. Keep plain old vaseline and a bandaid on it. It can keep it from scarring. If you let it dry out and scab over, expect a worse scar.

Muckluck Music Madness

I have the funnest family-in law EVER! Cody's dad, who I call K-dub, plans themed events each month that are so much fun! January 2011: Muckluck music madness (MMM)...if you don't know what mucklucks are--you are missin' out! They are mountain man slippers, for civilized people like us. So, for MMM event, we were each surprised with out own pair of mucklucks! (Before, only K-dub had a pair, and we were all envious). To get your pair though, you had to find it in the house, and if you found a pair, you had to unscramble the name on the front to see if it was yours, if not, put it back for them to find it. Me and Justein, we were the last ones to find out mucklucks.

Cody and I were in charge of the game for this activity. Since we knew it was named after mucklucks (and mucklucks are like socks) we came up with a funny sock-music game. Object of the game: have more socks on your one foot than your parter by the time the music ends. It's not so simple when you're blindfolded and have to wear giant snow-gloves. It's a MMM tournament! So funny...

Only missing K-dub & Vicky in this pic! 

Muckluck Family--each Muckluck unique!

My adorable sisters-in law, Aubs & Rocky w/ their mucklucks..ow ow

Racing Alicia & Jordan to win the Muckluck Music Madness tournament!

Go Cody Go!! You gotta use your mouth!

Ty & Justein 

This is us, being silly with our mucklucks

Scrub In Baby!

3rd semester in Nursing school: Med/Surg rotation! After watching too many episodes of ER/OR dramas, I'm way excited to be on the floor rotating through same day surgery and the Operating Room. To prepare me for my first clinicals in the hospital, the program requires what they call "front loading" labs. These are mandatory labs that are 4 hours long. Missing any labs, especially front loaders, is not an option. They're actually pretty fun. Fridays 7:45-12 noon. First one, scrub in! Surgical Asepsis, it's actually really hard to get in all that gear in a sterile manner.

Surgical Asepsis Lab--I'm 3rd to the right--in the blue

Front loading lab #1 part II included: IV therapy: drink lots of fluids so your veins will be nice and plump, and eat a good breakfast. Watch the instructor, practice on Mr. arm, then pick your favorite class mate and poke around until you get blood return--what a happy day if you did because you only get one try. I didn't. I was bummed, no blood return for me. So I knew I'd have to go it to open lab, or try again in clinical rotation at the hospital on some lucky pre-op patient :) 

This is just for labs on Fridays. Thursday is clinical day 6 to about 3:30 in the hospital. Wednesday is Nursing Research and Scholary Inquiry, Tuesdays is Care of Adults with Acute and Chronic Illnesses, then Pharmacology. Mondays---no classes---but tons of prep assignments. Thank goodness for Mondays!!

All my books I use almost on a daily basis. Cody likes it
when they're all lined up like this instead of sprawled across
the desk- It just doesn't make sense to him that I would
possibly really need 10+ books open at one time. 

Me, I miss pathophysiology this semester, luckily Pharm includes some of that. I think I need a bookshelf for all my books--I use all of them--really, I do. Someday, in my house, I'm going to have gorgeous floor to ceiling bookshelves with all my favorite books, all organized like. 

Up To Date...

I'm always looking for ways to pour out my soul into cyberspace, so I thought having a blog might be a good idea for me. Actually, I thought a blog would be a faster, easier, and funner way to record the happenings of our little existence togetha. So since I haven't recorded hardly anything since I even met Cody...here's the up to date. We live in a cute lil white house we call Home Base, or HB for short. I love this lil place and I just wish it was ours for keeps so that I could paint the walls, etc. So here it is...ya this picture seems to be more of someone's red truck...but I'm convinced the pic is better a little further back so you don't see the orange permanent marker art on the house exterior.

cute....eh?

This is the family room, it's nice a big...but simple :) And our TV that we LOVE that our friends gave us...it's a FAT screen TV...it fits right in, it's wider than it is anything else.

And this bed has the best memory foam you've ever slept on/in. There are so many windows (which I love, except I don't love the blinds) but it was quite the project lining them with plastic for the conserve heat movement we had after the first temperature drop this year.

And I love our kitchen :) This is just our kitchen table. The cabinets are the best.

And so this is where we live. And if I had the money there are so many things I would do to it. But I love living here with Cody! We're so lucky!