Winter semester has finally come to a close. Malone is happy to enjoy a week off of school and will be starting his LAST semester next week. This semester came with it's share of challenges for Malone and I. But we are excited to start anew this semester. At the end of last semester Malone had trouble with a big paper for his class. The teacher gave him a failing grade on it, which would have failed him in the entire class. If Malone didn't pass this class, he would not have graduated next semester. After 24 hours of prayers, it turned out the teacher was nice enough to work with Malone and he was able to fix his paper and turn it in for a grade. Malone was able to pass his class. What a huge blessing that was!
Malone and I have also been blessed to find some used furniture to replace our couch and chair we've had forever. The new couch and loveseat as well as a glider rocker (for the nursery) are all beige microfiber and cost us about $400 total. And we had some friends of ours sell us some of their furniture since they were moving out of the country next week. We got two bookshelves, three lamps, some decorations, a framed painting, and a long pretty mirror for about $130. It's fun to see our house look put together and nice! The couches are really comfortable too. I had to clean them up a bit when we got them (the lady we got them from had kids and a dog), but they look pretty good now. They still kind of smell like someone else's house, but it's going away.
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| Kayto knows he's not allowed on the furniture, but he's pushing his boundaries here! |
Malone and I have finally decided to start our family! As of today I am 12 weeks pregnant. We found out about 4 weeks ago. I am due October 20th, which I am excited about. I think we were both in shock for about a week, even though we were planning on this pregnancy. It's just crazy that it's happening now. I have been lucky with this pregnancy so far, I haven't had any problems really. I've had the normal breast tenderness, tired a lot, and some nausea, but other than that no problems at all.
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| what?!! |
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| First ultrasound |
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| 12 Weeks |
Malone and I have been so very blessed that it seems like when any little bump in the road comes along it feels like a big deal. Sounds dramatic doesn't it? I guess we're spoiled. I knew when 2013 came around that this was going to be a year of "change". There will be some big changes this year in our family. Malone will be graduating in July, after which Malone will hopefully find a job which means we'll eventually be moving, which could be the first time I've ever lived more than 15 minutes from my home I grew up in. I'll have to quit my jobs, one of which I've had for nearly 6 years. We'll have to sell or rent out our house too. And so far, each of the things I've mentioned are also things we are struggling with.
Malone is trying to figure out a school schedule so that he can graduate this semester. Two of the four classes he needs are overlapping so he's had to make some adjustments to his grad plan, which requires approval. BYU-I is all about making their students jump through hoops. And we're hoping his schedule will work out so he can work too. As for Malone finding work after he graduates, we haven't found anything yet. But we're still waiting and praying something works out.
I've been struggling with work for a few different reasons. While I am grateful to have work, I really work alot. I don't really have a life outside of it. While I do like everyone I work with, I am struggling to find patience with some. It has required me to adjust and change my way of dealing with things and learn to communicate better, which isn't necessarily a bad thing I suppose. But it is exhausting and frustrating sometimes.
As for our house, long story short, the new townhouses they're building around us are selling for alot less than we owe on our house, which sucks. So when we go to sell our house, we'll have to sell it for much less than what we owe on it or rent it out for a while. We haven't decided what to do yet.
I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. I'm not. I'm just stating the facts. And the fact is, these "trials" are just a little bump in the long run. On the upside, since we've started worrying about all these "troubles", it has brought us closer together. We've been more regular about reading scriptures and having family prayer together. I find that we are working together more on coming up with resolutions to our problems. And we are excited to begin a new chapter to our lives together. Whatever comes our way I feel confident that we will be able to handle it together. I am thankful that we have good parents and siblings who are good examples of how a marriage should be. And I'm thankful that Malone and I were raised in the church so that we can enjoy the blessings we recieve from being a part of it. And through the trials we are having, I can see how Heavenly Father is so aware of us and is guiding us. I know that when we reach the other end and look back at this time in our lives, we'll see how Heavenly Father brought us closer together and how he blessed us in ways we may not have even realized. I know that we just need to continue to be faithful and obedient and everything will turn out right in the end.
Malone started back up in school the second week of September. Since school has started, Malone has had to once again balance his time more with schoolwork, his job, and spending time with me and our little pups. With careful consideration and countless hours of frustration, we've figured out a Grad Plan and we're hoping to get him graduated by July 2013. He'll have to go year round to finally get done, which will require him getting on Fast Grad. Fast Grad allows students to take classes full time all year around as opposed to just 2 semesters a year. Recently, Malone has struggled trying to get the school to accept his Grad Plan and let him be on fast track because he's over on his credits. At BYU-I they're all about squeezing as many students in as possible and then pushing them out as soon as possible. They are very strict about how many credits you accumulate and once you get to a certain amount, (which is 120 I think) they practically force you to graduate. They'll give you about 20 more credits leniency, but Malone will be 6 credits over that when he graduates. So the school was having a cow about it of course. Sometimes the way BYU-I handles things frustrates us both, but we manage. Even though it was a pain figuring all that out, Malone was accepted for Fast Grad!! Yay!! The only problem now is trying to help Malone figure out a schedule with his classes he needs to graduate. Next semester is going to be a problem because many of the classes he needs gets in the way of his work schedule. Right now we're not sure how he's going to be able to do both. The whole reason Malone has been working 30 hours a week is because we get our health insurance through his job, which has been a huge blessing since Malone has met our deductible with his knee surgery this year. We'll be losing part of our income and our health insurance if he doesn't work. Not to mention, the grant Malone got this year was tiny (it didn't even cover tuition), we aren't sure how we're going to pay for Malone's last two semesters of school.
Then, just a week ago, I was asked to work more hours for my Broulims job. I was able to stop working at Mobley's on Wednesdays and work at the accounting office instead (which is good because Broulim's pays more and they give raises!). I was excited because not only does that help a little with our income, but it's one step closer to me being eligable for benefits, which would allow Malone to either work less hours or quit completely. I have to have an average of 30 hours for 12 weeks in order to qualify and I'll be about 24 with just the accounting and about 3.5 hours average doing posters. Not quite enough right now, but there's potential. I just need one more day during the week doing accounting and that'll be enough. We'll just have to see how things pan out and hope for the best.
The weekend of my birthday Malone and I planned a little camping trip just the two of us! Friday night (Aug. 17th ) we borrowed my parent's trailer and drove up to Island Park. We pulled into a spot with lots of trees and it was very private! We realized after we got settled in that when we came into the camp site we had bumped the bottom of the trailor on a little hill coming in. There was a little damage, and we both felt so bad! We didn't realize that the trailor tilted that low with the hitch on our truck. The hitch is usually fitted for my parents suburban, which sits lower than our truck. Anyway, the next day we headed out to see Yellowstone Park. I have only been to Old Faithful and have never seen the rest of the park. We spent the day visiting Yellowtone Grand Canyon and Mammoth Hot Springs. After visiting the park, we hurried over to Playmill to see "The Drowsy Chaperone". I love visiting the playmill. The play was hilarious and Malone and I both had a great time! Sunday Malone and I watched a movie and hung out most of the morning. Then we went and spent the day with Malone's parents at the range in West Yellowstone. We had dinner, visited, played games, and had birthday brownies and ice cream. I asked Malone's stepdad Eric if he'd let me shoot one of the guns at te range. So, I ended up shooting an uzzi machine gun! It was a little scary at first, but I was surprised how easily managable it was! I had a blast! Malone got to shoot too. Eventually Malone and I left so we could pack up camp. We had planned on meeting my family at Broulim's cabin in Island Park for a little "family reunion". Unfortunately we were unable to pull the trailer out of the campsite due to the hill we hit on the way in. So my dad had to come up with the suburban to pull it out.
That night we made it to the cabin around 9 or 10. Everyone sang happy birthday and we had birthday cinnamon rolls. Yummy! Everyone in my family was able to come and we had such fun together. The Broulim's cabin was huge and beautiful! There's 11 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms and a theater room! We had lots of stuff to do like ping pong, canoing, 4wheeling, riding in the razors, and air hockey. At night a bunch of us would play Sardines (hide and seek). It was so much fun and we were all up so late every night. Chris and I brought our guitars and he showed me a few chords and we played alot. I've had a guitar forever, but never really learned how to play. I only know a few chords. It's on my bucket list to learn. Malone and I canoed and rode the razors during the few days we were there. One day AJ had put together a big "Minute to Win It" game. We all split into teams and played games for a couple hours. The kids had a good time, and we all had a good laugh. I'm pretty sure mom and dad got plenty of videos. It was a fun three days. By day three Malone and I had been gone about 5 days and were ready to go home. I missed our dogs! We had left them at a friends house while we were off on our little vacation. They had a good time running around the yard while we were gone.
The next day was our 4 year anniversary. Since we had taken all that time off for the reunion, we didn't get to go anywhere like we had originally planned. So that night after work we just went to dinner at Olive Garden. Hopefully we can get some time off for our 5 year anniversary next year; that is if no one schedules a reunion that week (which has happened for the last like 3 years in a row).
