11/1/13: Happy November!!

It's been a busy week around here at the Rackham household, and it's a miracle because I took pictures of almost everything, so I'll just jump right in!

Last Friday night our ward had their annual Fall Festival and Dave and I had to go.  It was a chili cookoff and we signed up for cornbread to make sure we'd be obligated to attend.  It was super cute and really fun!

Loved these cute costumes!

Amazing Iron Man home-made!!

Now, please allow me to explain why we absolutely had to go:  At the time of last year's Fall Festival Dave and I had been married for just 2 months and we didn't fully understand yet how important celebrating holidays was to me.  (Read: we had no idea that ditching the Fall Festival and forgoing normal Halloween traditions would result in uncontrollable sobbing by me later that night...)

So one of the biggest things I've learned about myself since being married is that holiday traditions are kind of a big deal to me.  (HUGE understatement.)  Unfortunately, Dave isn't nostalgic or sentimental about many things, and least of all holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, etc.  But I'm incredibly nostalgic about holidays, and when they come around I want nothing more than to be with family, eat good food, sing Christmas carols, carve pumpkins, do fireworks, and whatever else the holiday tradition dictates.

We've slowly indoctrinated Dave into the excessive celebrations that come with marrying into the Penrod family and it's been getting easier and easier for him as time goes by.  I actually think Dave might start to be nostalgic about some things pretty soon here!

So, in the spirit of holiday traditions, we went to a full on pumpkin patch to pick our pumpkins this year because I cried last year after just picking them out at Walmart.  And you know what?  I'm not even embarrassed about crying either, because picking out pumpkins from a pumpkin patch is so much more fun and it's something I want to do with our kids, too!

Heaviest pumpkin ever!!

Is this not the most perfectly shaped pumpkin
you've ever seen?!

So after finding the perfect pumpkins, we carved them with Russ and Annie on Monday night.  We usually go all out with the pumpkin carving in my family, but everyone was a little pressed for time and energy so both couples just did one pumpkin each.  Dave and I found an awesome mockingjay pin stencil for our pumpkin in the spirit of the new Hunger Games movie coming out soon!  It looks way better in the picture than it did in real life, but we'll pretend it was a success ;)

This was such a hit with our primary kids who
trick-or-treated to us, haha.  They love
Hunger Games!!

So this week was Dave's week to have a date and he wanted to go fishing (of course...).  I knew I wouldn't want to go come Saturday morning, so we invited one of the guys from my cohort, Micah, to come with us.  He likes to fish, but he's never had anyone to teach him how to fly fish.  We were nymphing which is a little different than the classic dry-fly fishing, but it was so much fun!!  It took a lot out of me and I completely crashed that night and felt like I was sick with something, but we caught like 8 fish!  

Overall, the trip was a success because I think we got Micah hooked (pun intended?).  He says he's a lot more motivated to make money now so he can buy some of his own gear.  And I actually really enjoyed it.  I thought it was super fun and I caught 4 of the fish, one 14 incher!  I'd go back out with Dave again because this was way better than any fly-fishing I've done before.  He was basically on cloud 9 that night because his wife enjoyed fly fishing with him!  He was filled with hope for a bright future ;)

Please disregard the crazy eyes, but look at that fish!!  

So those were the fun things that we did this week, and now onto the not-so-fun things about the week.  ...I had a nerve-block done on Tuesday up in Salt Lake.  It was basically an hour-long procedure where I lied down in a CT scanner and a couple of doctors stuck needles in my back and probed around to find the right nerves and injected a few things in hopes of shutting off the nerve temporarily.  

It wasn't as bad as I had thought it was going to be, but it was still really draining.  I blacked out in the middle of the procedure when they hit the nerve which they said was a first, haha.  Something about having needles stuck in me and moving around for an hour solid was just too much for me to handle.  

We were really hoping once they injected the anesthetic the pain would go away, but it didn't help.  I was definitely numb all along the nerve, but it didn't touch my regular pain :/  I was really heartbroken about it because I was hoping so badly that this would solve everything.  (naive optimism, in hindsight)  So now we aren't really sure what to do.  We're going to be a little more aggressive about attacking the endometriosis we think might be causing the pain, but we'll just have to do some more trial and error to see what works.  

School was tough this week because of the procedure.  I was just feeling overwhelmed, sad, hopeless, exhausted, and everything that sometimes comes with chronic pain.  But I have an amazingly supportive husband helping me through this and my entire cohort has been so thoughtful this week with asking me if I'm alright, how everything went, if they can do anything to help me, etc.  They've been sort of like angels.  So today I'm feeling more optimistic and hopeful that there's still a chance we could figure this all out.  

Tonight we're having my cohort over for a get-together with delicious fall treats and the classic Penrod artichoke dip!!  (Sometimes I think we like to host people just so we can have an excuse to make artichoke dip all the time...is that bad?)

We're excited, and hopefully I won't forget to take pictures!  Thanks for reading!

10/25/13 Just Truckin'...

Sorry I missed blogging last week, I was in Portland with BYU at the AAMFT conference they sent us to.  And I've been playing catch up all week after getting close to no sleep, expending way more energy than I'm used to, and blowing off my homework at the conference.  But now I'm in class, and predictably, I'm less-than-interested in the lecture today, so I can finally catch up on the blog!

Pre-hike excitement/hesitations.

The view from the top!

So we left off with quite the cliffhanger about whether or not I'd be able to achieve my 5-year goal to hike the Y during homecoming week with the lights on it.  And guess what?  I DID IT!!!  Dave didn't let me get out of it when I complained that I was too tired to do it, and I'm so glad he pushed me.  The actual hike wasn't all that great of course, because the Y isn't too great of a hike to begin with, but once we got to the top, we were like the only ones there and it was so beautiful to see Provo at night :)

So that was my date I picked for last weekend and then we threw it back to our dating days and got hot chocolate at 7-eleven (best hot chocolate in the world!) and came home and watched one of our 7 shows we record every week.  Is that ridiculous??  In a matter of 2 weeks, 7 of our favorite shows started new seasons and literally every single show is on Thursday nights.  Glad we have a DVR!

So then that next Sunday the choir performed and it was fun!  We were missing about half of our regulars because it was Fall Break for our school districts, but I just really enjoy conducting and it was fun to have more people than usual up there.  The best part about performing was that now we get to start working on our Christmas program!!  Yay :)

At the start of the week, I went back to my doctor since my pain's been getting worse.  He spent some more time going over all my case notes from the past few years and doing more tests and things.  He actually thinks it might not just be endometriosis because the really acute pain isn't very typical for endo pain.  He thinks it might have to do with a trapped or irritated nerve.

Now, after doing my own research a few months ago, this is what I suggested to my previous doctors because it's really consistent with ALL of my symptoms, but I got nay-sayed and decided to just go ahead with the surgery anyway.  I am grateful I did the surgery because it was great to have a diagnosis and to minimize the general pain, but we think that by taking away some of the broad pain, this specific lower left pain has become more poignant because there's nothing to detract from it anymore.

I'll be going in on Tuesday for a nerve-block injection which will hopefully help with the pain symptoms, and if it works, it'll be diagnostic as well.  If it minimizes the pain we'll know this has more to do with the nerves than endometriosis and then from there we'll make a decision about our next step in treatment.  I'm anxious because I don't do well with needles at all (understatement of the century...), and especially not painful needles, which these nerve-blocks tend to be.  I think Dave's going to take some time off to come with me to Salt Lake when I get it done, and I just hope I'll be functional right afterwards because I don't really have time to slow down with life right now.

This is off google, but it literally looked like this...amazing!!

On Thursday of last week, I drove to Portland in a BYU van with 4 other people from my cohort and it was a blast, but a loooong drive.  Needless to say, we all know each other much better now, haha.  I think I'll do a whole separate post on Portland because it was really really great, but there's so much to say about it, and lots of pictures I want to put up :).  I don't think we could've gone at a more beautiful time.  The fall colors were just stunning!!

So that'll be another post, but I'll talk about what Dave did while I was gone.  It was my Dad's 50th birthday present to fly up to Utah and go fishing for a weekend in Wyoming with his sons.  Dave was stoked obviously because he loves fishing.  They got a guide and had the best day of fly fishing of their lives!  They caught fish that were basically 2 feet long and altogether I think they caught about 35 fish or something.  It was so fun to see Dave and my Dad so excited, carefree, and happy to be out doing what they love :)

He looks soo happy :)  And he had a bigger salmon too, but I think this fish
is prettier...so that's the one that made the cut, haha.

Jeremy, Russ, and Dave...brrr!

Grinning from ear to ear!

And the man of the hour with his beautiful brown!!  (p.s. Don't miss his Mickey Mouse hat.)

So the trip was a great success, even though it was freezing cold, they told me.  Dave and I were grateful to be back together on Sunday night to kind of reconnect after being apart for a few days.  After catching up, we both buckled down and got to work catching up.  So this week has been a little bit crazy with too much homework and class time on top of being tired from our weekends.

I still absolutely love my program though.  Still can't wait to see clients!  And I'm getting closer to being able to I think.  Not because I think I'm ready as a therapist, but because I'm almost done with all the assignments that need to be done before I can be cleared to see clients.  It's been fun to start going to therapy for myself as part of the program.  Things I never even knew I needed help with I'm getting help with, it's been great!

I'm about to start exposure therapy to combat my arachnophobia and then eventually my phobia of needles too.  We're hoping if I can eliminate the fear of spiders I can eliminate the nightmares about them.  Wish me luck!  I get anxious and short of breath just thinking about it, but I'm ready to be done freaking out about bees, spiders, and needles.  I hope it works!

So overall, we're happy, healthy, and just truckin' through life right now.  Hopefully I'll get my post about Portland up soon before I forget everything :)  I'll keep you posted!  (pun intended...Dave would be proud...)

10/11/13 It's October Already??

Sorry I missed last week, my class was cancelled.  Is that terrible?  I only blog when this class meets...Oh well.  I feel okay about it :)  So the past two weeks...I'm trying to remember what happened.

Well, I can't remember all the specifics, but I realized I haven't written about UVMCO yet!  So the Utah Valley Millennial Choir Organization is a choir that meets every Thursday night in Provo for about 3 hours with about 250 of us in the adult choir.  My younger sisters did OCMCO (Orange County version) a few years ago and the quality of the music and singing was absolutely incredible.  I was so excited to hear that they were coming to Utah this year.

I think this is their Arizona Concert or something...

It costs $50 to participate, but it has been so so so worth it.  I've never participated in an actual professional choir so this was a really different experience for me.  I had to audition, and the music is super difficult.  We have to have it all memorized and there are like 10 pieces (mostly Handel's "Messiah" and other Christmas pieces).  I've learned so much about being an effective choir director and a better singer in general.  It's a lot of effort because sitting that long at the end of the day is close to torture for me, but the music and the Spirit I feel when I'm singing with everyone is just transcendent sometimes.  I love it!  Our concert is in Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake on December 3rd.

I met with my mentor--Dr. Larson--last week to nail down my thesis and it was awesome!  I think it was like an hour long meeting and we got my thesis way more specific and I have my proposal outlined already.  I'm ready to start my Lit. Review which is really the hardest part of your thesis so I'm hoping to be about 75% done before Christmas this year.  This is amazing because most people don't have their proposal until this time of their second year.  I'm hoping to get everything done as fast as possible in my program in case I need to get pregnant in my second year for health reasons.  I'm setting myself up for a slightly easier second year hopefully.  Wish me luck!

So Dave and I have implemented a new thing in our marriage.  We decided that we don't have enough leisure activities that we like to do together--mostly because his are all pretty active and I'm usually in pain and don't want to go out and do something very active, but he gets stir crazy just watching movies every weekend.  So we decided we'd work on this by having each of us get every other weekend to pick the activity we want to do and the other person has to do their best to be willing to do it with them.

So the first week of this was Dave's turn and he wanted to go to this year's Reel Rock Festival.  Basically, that's a DVD they play in a theater with all the awesome climbing stories from that last year.  It was actually our first date 2 years ago, so it was kinda fun to do it again this year.  Dave was really excited and had a blast getting to see all his climbing friends and getting inspired to get in shape for this year's ice-climbing season.

Can you tell he's thinking, "Please stop embarrassing
me...people can see this and we're already late!!"?

This weekend is my week to choose and it's really not fair because what I want to do is hike the Y which is totally active!  My weeks are supposed to be the ones where we stay home and relax, right?  But it's homecoming week, and they light up the Y on the mountain for homecoming week at BYU.  I've been trying for 5 years now to hike the Y while the lights are up on it, and hopefully tonight I can muster up the energy to do that.  I'll let you know how it goes.

So we had General Conference this week as well and it was so great because there was a lot about families, hope, and my favorite I think was someone who said that we needed to return to the simple, basic truths of the gospel and not try to intellectualize them to fit into today's philosophies.  I think I'm guilty of doing this a lot when I read the scriptures and it sometimes gets in the way of letting the spirit just influence me.  

We had a breakfast at Annie and Russ' for conference on Saturday and it was so fun.  All the in-laws were missing except for Russ, which was kind of fun because it was so different.  Breakfast was delicious, (see below) and it was fun to be at Annie and Russ' for a change!

The next day (Sunday), we had Lauren from my cohort over because her husband is traveling for work so she's been all alone in her house for 2 weeks.   Emma came over as well because she was just going to watch conference alone in her apartment.  We had Eggs Benedict and it was delicious!  My hollandaise sauce didn't curdle which was a miracle because every time we have company over I ruin it, haha.  It was fun to have Lauren and Emma over.  

I got a new iPhone because mine had spots in the camera...they just replaced my old one for me which was great.  It was looking a little worn (read: damaged from being dropped daily), so now I have a conveniently new shiny one again! On my way back I got to stop by Christi's and surprise Tori and Riley.  They were so excited to see me, they almost couldn't believe I was there because I met them at the Library.  It was so cute to read Riley books and then hang out with them at their house for a bit before I had class.  Those girls are little rays of sunshine in my life right now :).

Okay, now for an update on the mundane--school and pain.  School is going fantastically well.  I don't feel overwhelmed with the readings and homework because my cohort has split up all the readings and we all do summaries to help make things a little easier.  I'm usually done with my homework by the weekend, so my week nights are left open to observe sessions of therapy at the clinic and work on my thesis or research.  I'm already done with my observation hours that need to be done before I can see clients!!  Yay!

I am so so so excited to start seeing clients!  I'm nervous, of course, but I'm sure the best way for me to get better is to start doing it so I wish we would start right now, but we have about a month and a half left before we start seeing them.

I'm loving the things I'm learning, I feel like this program is already making me a better wife, friend, visiting teacher, and sister already.

Pain hasn't been so great lately.  My night terrors have gotten worse (possible because of the medication), and the pain is getting worse or staying stagnant.  Definitely not getting better.  I may go meet with my doctor again because he was hoping to see more improvement by now.  It's hard to be in pain all the time, but there's not much to do right now except ignore it and just do my best to get as much work done as fast as I can right now in case it gets worse or I have to get pregnant.  (Getting pregnant is a pretty solid treatment for endometriosis because it suppresses it and causes it to disappear for the most part)  I worry that it might not just be endometriosis, but I'm not sure really what I think it is right now.  I'm just confused and struggling with it right now.

Dave is having fun doing some things on the side right now with Russ and Jeremy working on a new site that they're all jazzed about.  They all meet on Thursdays at our house while I'm at choir and usually stay until about 11 or midnight.  It's fun to see him love working on something so much and watch him become a faster and better coder.

So that's pretty much it right now for us!  Next week is going to be fun because I'm going to a conference in Portland that BYU is sending us to, and Dave is going for a weekend fishing trip at the Green River with my Dad for my Dad's birthday.  Looking forward to that!

9/27/13: Oh hey, Winter...its okay, nobody likes Fall anyway...

Well, it seems that I've found the class I'm going to use to blog during every week--Research and Methods!  I just took the undergraduate version of this class 2 months ago and it seriously feels like I'm taking the exact same class again.  Same lectures, same expectations, and nothing much more complicated yet.

So, lucky for you, you'll get a blog every week probably this semester :)  Not-so-luckily for you, though, I don't have anything exciting to talk about (like I ever do...), but I'm bored so I'm going to write anyway.

This week in our lives a lot of things happened:

- This isn't really exclusive to our lives, but Provo has decided it's time to be winter.  It's literally about 40-50 degrees and cloudy/rainy every day and I'm loving it :)  (Of course, I have a garage to park in...)

- Emma got her mission call to Nashville, Tennessee, English Speaking, leaving January 15th!!  I have a very love/hate relationship with missions, so I'm extremely sad to see her go, but she's going to be an amazing missionary, I know it.

- We had everyone over for a back to school breakfast on Saturday morning.  It was great, and we are getting better at delegating so we don't get stuck paying for and cooking everything on our own.  Derrick and Rachel, Jim and Christi, Jeremy and Sierra, Annie and Russ, Emma, and Scott (Dave's brother) were all able to make with which was nothing short of a miracle.  It was nice to catch up and have a relaxing breakfast with everyone.

- We watched the BYU Utah game that night with Annie and Russ and we were pretty upset at how terrible it was.  Mostly because we stayed up so late for it and it ended up not being worth it.

- Choir started at a new time this week!  I just got called as the choir director for our ward and released as music chair (Is it bad that I'm happy about this?) and I decided to change the time from 4:15-5:15 pm to 9:00-10:00 am.  I know neither of these times are stellar, but I think 9:00 is more doable for the families with kids in our ward (i.e. EVERYONE).  So I made a bunch of calls the night before begging people to come, and so many people showed up!  We had like 25, which is about 5x as many people as normal.  Hopefully I didn't scare them away and they'll keep coming back.

Side note:  I just absolutely love conducting choirs.  It's exhilarating and feels transcendent for me sometimes.  Even though we're no Motab, something about hearing a choir who's really polished and beautiful express their testimony by believing the words they're singing really inspires me.  I love it!!

-We had Bailey and Travis over for dinner on Sunday evening.  Travis and I were best friends freshmen year, and Bailey waited for him on his mission so we've stayed in touch over the years as well.  It was nice to catch up with them, and I think I inspired Bailey to start applying for the MFT program.  (She's a Psych undergrad) It'd be so awesome if she got in and we could be in the program together next year!

-Wow..all that was just the weekend...

-During the week, I went to the doctor because I'm still in pain and he asked me to come in to kind of reevaluate things.  He did an ultrasound and we were finally able to very specifically figure out why I'm still in pain.  It turns out that it's my ovary.  It's not the muscles or tissues around it, it's not adhesions or scar tissue.  I just have a painful ovary.  The pain is continuous and spontaneous which is frustrating, but that happens with endometriosis sometimes.  We didn't see any endo on my ovary during the surgery, which we were happy about because of fertility, but it certainly seems like there is some microscopic endo on my left ovary right now causing me pain.  I'm already taking the right hormone meds that should shrink the existing endo so we just need to give it some more time to see if it will help in the next month or so.

I was just happy that when he touched my ovary he could reproduce my exact chronic pain.  No one's been able to figure out what exactly is causing it before now.  Now that we feel more confident about what we are specifically treating, both my doctor and I are more comfortable with pain management medicines in the meantime.  He gave me a new, slightly less effective (and therefore, less addicting) drug than hydrocodone to use when I need it.  (Tylenol and Ibuprofen don't help at all)  I used it this week, and the next day I was completely pain free!

This felt like a complete miracle because it's been so long that I haven't felt any pain at all...I had so much more energy and I was happier and completely able to be productive all day long with no nap!  I just use that medicine as needed right now, but I'm going to ask my doctor if maybe it would be a more effective way to treat the pain continuously since it was so effective after just one pill.  Wish me luck!

The pain's back today, so I'm pretty sad about that, but I know this is how it goes; Good days and bad days--I'm just grateful I'm starting to have some good ones :).

- I don't want people to think that I define myself by the pain, because I'm trying really hard not to.  I don't want to live as a sick person for the rest of my life.  But it is my reality right now, and I can't really change that.  I'm at the doctor's office almost weekly because I haven't given up trying to figure this all out and I'm really reallyyy hoping to be healthy by the time I start seeing clients (in a month or so).  For right now, we're hopeful about having a good day this week.  Hopefully it was a taste of good things to come.  We're definitely praying for it!

- Let's talk about Dave for once, yeah?  He is really really loving his internship.  He's getting paid, which is always nice, but mostly he just loves the research he's doing, and he really feels like this is what he wants to do with his life.  It's all about how to help online classes be as effective for students as personal tutoring is.  He's also made tons of time to get out and go fishing this week.  And today he's going fishing with my Dad for the second half of the day after work.  I think they're crazy because it's 48 degrees and rainy!!  But fishermen are a special kind of people, I guess.

In other news, on top of thinking I have diabetes, my cohort probably thinks Dave abuses me now because I showed up to class on Tuesday with a huge blue and purple gash on the side of my cheek by my eye.  It looks like a bruise, but it's just a bad burn from my curling iron.  Hopefully it heals soon because it's really hurting and I don't want a scar on my face!

Please excuse the selfie, and keep in mind
this is covered with makeup.

Also...I eat chocolate chip Eggo waffles and In-N-Out like nobody's business all of a sudden.  And I'm not even sorry about it.




So that was our week over here.  Nothing too exciting, but school is going great for both of us, and after a few major minor freak-outs about whether or not I'm cut out to be a therapist, I am more excited than ever to see clients and start practicing the skills we're learning in school.  And tomorrow my sister receives her endowments and I can't wait to be there with her for such a special experience :)

Happy days here at the Rackham household!

Back to School Struggles...

I've had so many thoughts swimming around my head the last few weeks since Dave and I went back to school this Fall.  I usually do some kind of "back-to-school" post on here because I love school!  I love learning, and I will happily admit that I'm a total dork when it comes to reading and classes. This year, though, the start of school was a bit rocky for me.

I've been struggling with this chronic pelvic pain that feels like it's gotten worse since the surgery for about a month and a half now.  (It's been almost 18 months with the regular pain, but this last month has been particularly difficult)  What I guess didn't realize or appreciate was that over the summer I had the ability to lie down on the couch or take a nap whenever the pain got to be too much to handle.  I was never forced to sit anywhere for longer than an hour or so.  Even at church, I was standing up and down because I was conducting the music, and I could take breaks in between the hours.

On the first day of school, we had two 2.5 hour blocks of class and I just couldn't do it.  I went home and seriously thought I was going to have to postpone doing the master's program until I got this pain figured out.  I physically and mentally could not be present in the classroom because the pain was just constantly vying for my attention.  I was hoping that going back to school would be enough of a distraction to take my mind off the pain, but it almost had the opposite effect.  Because I'm usually very engaged in my classes, I was frustrated with myself that I couldn't give school 100% because of this pain.

The next day, I had physical therapy (which I've been going to for a loooong time working on all the secondary muscular issues from the pain) and I told my physical therapist whom I love that I was pretty discouraged about my ability to do my program and succeed.  She wanted me to be patient and give some new chronic pain meds time to work, but in the meantime she gave me this amazing device that's basically magic!!

It's called a TENS unit and if you've ever had physical therapy where they use stimulation machines on you, you'll know what it is.  It's basically a portable stim machine and it has saved my life!  It sends signals to my brain that overtake the pain signals my brain is trying to receive.  So instead of feeling pain non-stop, I feel these electrical waves that sort of feel like a light massage.  It's just a temporary band-aid for the pain because it won't resolve anything, but I can put it on during class and I'm a whole new person.  I'm much nicer, can pay attention longer, and I'm not in as much pain!!

I've absolutely loved the TENS unit, and there's a free trial with the physical therapy clinic so so far it's free.  Hopefully the pain will be gone once the free month is up...haha.  I'm trying not to think about that right now.  It's a little strange to walk around with this little gadget clipped to my pocket--I'm pretty sure my cohort all thought I had diabetes for the first week or so--but it's so so worth it.

So since the TENS has entered my life, my program has been doable, but it's still a little rough.  I love what I'm learning, and I love observing therapy sessions.  I really like my cohort (the other 11 students in my year) and have already made some good friends.  But I still struggle with all my classes being 2.5 hours long.  That's a loooong time for me to stay seated.  I feel like I'm having a hard time being empathetic towards people, listening fully to others, and accepting that some people need to ask a lot of questions in class to fully understand the concepts.

 ^^If I'm being honest, this is how I feel when it's a bad day for the pain...I'm working on it?^^

I sort of cope with this pain by just trying to keep moving.  I want to go go go, get things done, and never really sit with nothing to do.  So when class starts to get repetitive or someone needs help with a concept that I already understand, my immediate thoughts are pretty negative and I'm working really hard on being patient--not letting this pain change the person that I am.  I want to be nice, understanding, empathetic, and patient, but I think it's going to be a bigger struggle in the program than I realized.

Sorry this is a pretty "woe-is-me" post, but I just needed an outlet today about the pain.  Congrats if you made it all the way to the end!

August 2013...

Things we did this August to commemorate Summer's end and our 1st year of marriage:

1.  Dave's long-time friend and best man at our wedding, Tim, came to visit and he and Dave went on a small backpacking trip up to the Uintas to camp and fish.  They hiked in a float tube and a pump with no shame!  Caught a few fish, but mostly just loved soaking in the beauty of nature and their time away from real life.  Tim's in a PhD program at Georgia Tech so it's good for him to get a break once in a while.  It was a blast to have him here with us and we can't wait 'til next year's adventure!

2.  Celebrated Annie, Jeremy, and Tim's August birthdays at our house with three different cakes!

3.  Annie and I went to 7 peaks with the Highams and had a blast swimming with these cute girls.

4.  Got together with Dave's grandparents Rackham (who live pretty far from us) and his Rackham side of the family for a great dinner together one weekend.

5.  Went on a double date with the McKee's to Texas Roadhouse which we've been trying to plan for MONTHS so it was nothing short of a miracle that it actually happened!  We love Maddy and Jordan and are sure glad they moved in the ward when we did.  It's nice to have another couple in the same place in life as us.

6.   Celebrated our 1 year anniversary by spending the weekend in Park City and then coming home on Saturday to meet Caleb James, the newest member of the Higham (and Penrod) family!!  He was born on our wedding anniversary!!

7.  Bought a used '97 Ford F150 from our friends the Olsens because Dave's car is about to die and they were incredibly generous with us and made it affordable.  I think Dave's in love.

8.  Finally finished painting the rest of our house (all the bedrooms are done!) in time for our new carpet to come!  Our house finally feels clean because the nasty old carpet is gone!  And I must say it is beautiful :).

9.  Helped move Jeremy and Sierra to a new apartment, helped move Annie and Russ to a new apartment, and had people help us move all of our furniture in and out of the house for the carpet to come.  And helped Emma move all of her stuff and some new furniture into her apartment.  It was a crazy couple of weeks of physical labor.

10.  Hosted Corinne and Emma (my younger sisters) at our house as Emma moved into my old apartment on Condo Row for her last semester here at BYU before her mission!!

11.   Had my old roommate from sophomore year in said apartment^^, Rachel, come stay with us at the same time while she was visiting her boyfriend Noah who's at Law School up here right now.  She had to stay on the inflatable mattress because my sisters had the bedroom which was sad, but hopefully there will be many more visits and she can use the real bed next time!

12. Said goodbye to everyone as my Mom, Dad, Emma, Corinne, and Rachel all left today to head back to California and started mentally preparing ourselves for school to start all over again.

It's been a great month full of family, friends, sunshine, and all things that make life beautiful.  And even with all the craziness, we feel pretty refreshed after summer break and ready to head back to school!  Wish us luck!

Grammar Nazi...

I swear, if I read one more post on the internet where someone uses "your" and "you're" incorrectly I'm going to scream.  YOUR is possessive!!  YOU'RE is a contraction of YOU ARE!  How hard is that?  And you're already on the internet, just google it before you subject us all to having to stop to reread your sentences because our brains can't process it with the incorrect your/you're in it...

On second thought...maybe I'm just a little bit crazy sometimes?  

Regardless...people should stop messing this up.