Only in the Mission Field....

Today we had the awesome opportunity to witness a baptism in Lake Erie, unbelievable and something you would only find in the mission field. We are friends with the Kevesdy family and their son Keegan, who is now 8, was baptized today and to make it even cooler, their older son Jack who turned 16 last week baptized him. It was supposed to be at the church like normal but the font was not draining properly, so hey, why not move it to the lake. Crazy but so amazing. It was so cool to walk down and see all of these people gathered by the water to witness such a special ordinance.

It is things like this that just strengthen my testimony. I love being here in Ohio and being a part of things like this. I love being a part of the Lord's true church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I love what moving out of our comfort zone in Utah has done for Andy and I and our little family, I love my ward family, I love the opportunity's that I have to serve others everyday because of the gospel, and I love my savior for doing what he did for me.

Porter's First Soccer Game....

Today was P-man's first game and it was awesome!! He was so funny at first, when they blew the whistle, he just stood there, Andy and I were shocked. After a few minutes he got into the game, but you could tell that he was out of his comfort zone. Porter liked to stay out of the crowd, but did great when he had the ball. We are so excited to see what this season of soccer has in store.

An ICU story....

Andy brought home this certificate yesterday for "Outstanding Patient Communications" and he told me not to put it on the blog but I just had to, I am so proud of him and the doctor that he is becoming.

Andy is currently working in the ICU and surprisingly he enjoys it and as he says, he is killing off a lot of people. He tells me all of the time that there are so many people there that should be dead and often the families are not ready to let go. The story: a lady was admitted from the nursing home and she arrived at the hospital intubated and her chart had the words FULL CODE in big bold letters which mean that you do everything to save their life. A few hours later the woman's daughter called the hospital and asked to speak to the doctor taking care of her mother and she got Andy. Andy said that she was just furious and yelling and about 15 seconds later he told that she needed to just stop and listen closely to what he was going to tell her. So Andy proceeded to tell her that she arrived with FULL CODE on the chart. The daughter was upset because the mother was supposed to be a DNR, but here she is in the ICU on life support. After talking with the daughter, Andy and her came up with a plan that the mother would remain intubated until the daughter was able to get there and then they would remove the tube and wait for her to die.

The next day when Andy got to the hospital the mother (the patient) was awake and alert. As the day went on she became even more alert and Andy felt confident that if he took the tube out that she would live. So Andy called the daughter and told her how things had changed and she agreed to let Andy take the tube out.

The mother has now fully recovered and she is back in the nursing home -alive!

The daughter contacted Dr. Anonymous, the medical staff director, aka the doctor of all doctors, and told him about Andy and how well he treated them, etc. I think that means so much. I mean how many times do you say that you were happy with your medical care or customer service but never let anyone know that they were doing a good job. Because of this I am making a pact with myself that the next time I have good service or medical care I will let the person in charge know.

I am just so proud of Andy. He is doing such a good job with his residency. I do not know how he does all that he does and now to top it all off he has to study for Step 3 of the medical boards that he is taking next month.

To Andy: I am sorry for posting this, but I love you "and want to announce publicly" how much you mean to me. Keep doing what you are doing hon, you are amazing.

Feelin' the Love....

I feel so lucky to have people in my life who really care about me and in the past few months I have had two specific things happen to me that I just have to share.

Experience #1

P.S. I Love You

A couple of months ago our good friends Devin and Andrea that we met here in Cleveland decided that it was time for them to go back home to Arizona and we were so sad for them to leave. I personally was devastated because we were so close and our kids loved each other and played so well together. I cried like a baby when they pulled out of our driveway, and I think I was minorly depressed for the rest of the day because they were gone. (On a side note....Andy and I have met some amazing people on our journey and having to say goodbye to people gets a little old and I get a little tired of loving more people and then having to leave them or have them leave us, but I would not trade it for the world.) That night when Andy got home he handed me a present with a card. I opened the gift and it was the movie P.S. I Love You, it was from Andrea. The card was so sweet and let me know that for the next little while I would be receiving a gift and card from her everyday. I couldn't believe it, I mean she had to have this all planned before she left and she gave it all to Andy to give to me each morning.

Not everything was a gift, some were directions of things for me to do, like call certain people or go somewhere, basically taking me out of my comfort zone because it was good for me. I did everything she asked and I am so glad did. One of the things she told me to do was set up an exercise blog, she knows how much I struggle with my weight and want to exercise, so because of her I finally did it.

Andrea doing that for me meant the world and made me feel so special. It showed me that you were really listening to me when we talked. It amazes me how many times I can have a conversation with people in our families about stuff and they forget or ask us over and over again and I wonder if people are really listening.

A big thing with me is giving someone a gift that is very personal. I try hard to listen to what people say they like or things they wish they had and I try to get that for them for their b-day, mothers day, whatever the occasion. Andrea did that for me especially when she gave me her can opener that I had mentioned I liked (it really is the coolest can opener ever). There is so much more to that story and things that she did for me but I will leave it at that.

So thank you again Andrea for doing what you did for me, it means so much, you were there for me in so many ways, and p.s. I love you.

Experience #2

Secret Admirer Friend

On Saturday evening the kids and I were outside playing and cleaning out the van when Porter realized that we had not yet gotten the mail and went over to check if we had anything. In the mail was a package from my mom (thanks mom, the kids were nuts about everything!!!) and a yellow envelope for me. I never get mail, so I was shocked. Inside was a card and a bracelet and I have no idea who it is from. The card just said that I was a good mom and friend (thank you for that compliment) and they thought I could use some cheer. I have no idea who sent it (Andy knows and is refusing to tell.)

I want to say thank you to whoever sent the bracelet and the sweet note. I did need a little cheer with Andy working so much, he is now working day 16 in a row, 3 more to go, and then he has 2 days off!!

I feel so lucky for all of the friends and family in my life who support me and the kids and who let us know you love us. I know that I could not make it through this journey without all of you. So yeah, right now I am feeln' the love.

Thank you Andrea and My Secret Admirer Friend.

A crazy Easter weekend....

I will start with Easter and work my way back. Easter was weird, Andy was working so I was feeling kind of alone, we had no plans with anyone for Easter dinner which was totally weird, not like us at all. I was missing friends and family like crazy.

The morning started out great, the Easter bunny left us a note saying that he would come that night when our dad was home, so the kids understood why the Easter bunny didn't leave them a basket that morning. For some reason I think the kids feel Easter is like Christmas. We got ready to go and visit Andy at the hospital, which is very rare (we have only been there 2 times in the while 10 months he has worked there), so the kids were so excited about that. After the hospital we headed straight to church.

Thank you to my friend Emily who made the flowers for the girls, they were perfect!

After we came home from church the kids and I played Animal Crossing because it was Bunny Day and there were eggs hidden all over the town, it was fun. Then soon after Andy came home and we ate a thrown together dinner and after we ate the "EB" came!!





I love their surprised and excited faces here, sooo cute!

Porter totally missed the eggs that he was standing on top of and then Carlee came right in to sweep them up...On Saturday we had a great PARTY here at our house. Anne put it all together, we just supplied the location. Everyone brought food and eggs and the kids had a blast.

I made these cake pops that I found on Bakerella, they are sooo cute and very tasty!

Lauralee and I, I could not have made them without her help, thanks!!

I love this picture of Sadie coming down the climbing wall and she has no idea that she is landing on her sister Claire, they are the cutest girls.

Clearly there was a lot of playing action, swords, swings, and screams.

Porter was the first one to finish his lunch and to get a cake pop, of course he chose the sparkly blue one.

Mitchell and his awesome curls.

The men (minus Andy =( ) ....it was their job to hide the eggs.

Sweet baby Moses, he is so sweet and was so cute to watch when it was time to look for eggs, I think he was more into walking on the grass.

Ellie with her cake pop.

On Friday night I hosted the Young Women sleepover, it was awesome, a little crazy, but still a ton of fun. I love working with the girls, they are all so special and unique. We played DDR, read scriptures for the BOM challenge, ate tons of food, did face masks, made friendship bracelets, watched Bedtime Stories, and laughed, it was great.

So as you can see, I had a very busy weekend, but it was very fun and entertaining. It makes me so grateful for this journey that Andy and I are on right now. We have been to some amazing places and met some amazing people that are so important to me. It is so awesome to know that we still have so much of our journey to venture on... this is only the beginning.

By the light of the moon....

Last night when I was walking out of the church I could not believe how amazing the moon was. It was so bright and had the weird orange tint around it. As soon as I got home I got my camera and the kids (who should have been in bed) and we went outside to take a few shots.

Being outside at night made me excited for the summer time and laying on the grass looking up at the stars, fireflies, fires in the backyard, and smores! It also brought back many memories of when Andy and I were dating and we would just lay out on the grass under a blanket and talk for hours.

Last night also had me wondering if the moon looked like this everywhere or if it was just us because of the clouds or something. I was thinking about the movie An American Tale, you know with Fivel, and the song he sings with his little mouse sister Somewhere Out There, I love that song. I was having a "somewhere out there moment" wondering what all of my family and friends were doing and if someone else saw the same moon.

Making Eater Eggs......(A title by Carlee)

Yesterday afternoon we colored

Easter Eggs!!!

Yeah, the kids were so excited and could hardly wait. I remember that as a kid too, it was so fun and exciting. But for me, just like yesterday, all of my creativity comes at the end when there are no more eggs left. Anyway, here are the happenings....

Andy made it home just in time (Porter was having a hard time waiting for him)

Porter was in heaven with his Spiderman egg kit that my mom sent him last year. It had special egg tattoos that are now on his body as well as his eggs.

I love all of the colors on the paper towel, the kids were so good about not mixing their colors.

Carlee and her favorite pink egg, she wants to give it to Grandpa John and Grandma Judy our next door neighbors.

Tessa loves bowls, it is so fun to hear her talk in to them. Lately she has been putting things on her head.

This picture of Tessa makes me laugh just looking at it. We gave her a couple of Easter eggs to play with and she just loved it. She was making that arrrrrrr face and squeezing them as hard as she could, it was so funny. (The pics are a little blurry from my laughing so hard.)

I had no idea she was strong enough to do that, look at the damage. I love it, we have a baby Hulk in the family.

A message to my family and friends. (I miss and love you all and wish that we were close to family this time of year to have someone to celebrate with, not to mention that Andy will be working all weekend.)

The finished product. I love Andy's tri-colored egg (see, I was too distracted with all of the fun to remember to do that, I'm telling ya', every year, I forget, maybe next year.)

A new ride....

Last week Porter got a new scooter for being such a good sport during his dentist appointment (that's a whole different story, still too upsetting to discuss) and today it was finally nice enough for us to go out and play with it!!

We also had Porter's 5 year physical today to get ready for Kindergarten, yes I am freaking out about that. He weighed 44 pounds (75%) and he is 45 inches tall (90%). He is growing and getting sooo big tooo fast.