Wednesday, November 2, 2011

It's a blue jelly bean!

Well Ladies and Gentle-folk, the time finally came! We went to Fetal Foto at the referral of my dear sister-in-law, Ashley, because I couldn't wait longer to find out if the little jelly bean inside me was a blue one or a pink one! I just needed to know for my sanity... Or something.

Well, we headed to the studio and didn't have a wait at all once we got there. I filled out a paper and they took us right in. He started calling it a "he" right off the bat and I didn't know if that was just habit or if he was really that good at finding out. Anyway, he said the profile looked a lot like Casey's. At first he wasn't moving around much in there so the doctor kind poked around a little bit and he finally announced officially it was a boy. Once he poked around a but, the litte guy started to move. He reached down a couple of times and grabbed his little feet. He steered out his hand and we saw all five fingers and all five toes of his foot :D After that he kicked around a bit and I just layer there on the table and cried, watching our little blue jelly bean move around and stretch and kick. It's such an unreal feeling.

Casey was really giddy and giggly after we got done which was so cute to me :D I loved seeing his excitement. I think it finally made it real for him to see that little person for the first time up there on the screen. We feel so blessed and so lucky and we're so excited to meet our little guy! We need to start thinking of boy names now!

Here's a picture of our little blue jelly bean!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Farewell to Champ

Well friends, I just wanted to take the time to pay tribute to my dear friend Champ that has served me well over these past several years.


Champ has brought great joy and happiness into my life. I met Champ on June 1, 2006. It was the day after I graduated high school and the day before I left home to move to Utah, my first car I've ever owned. Although he may look a little (or a lot) worn down on the outside, he's got a heart of gold. Even though he's an '88 Accord, he's only got 199,000 miles to his name, so he's got a lot more life left in him. When he started costing me lots of money each year when it came time to get new registration tags, my love and devotion started to dwindle a bit. People would say "It's better than making a car payment" but I had my doubts. Luckily Grandpa and Uncle Jeff where there to help doctor Champ up when he was feeling sick... or broken, which saved a lot of money.
Once Casey and I got married and started thinking about how we'll be making some trips to Montana and how we'll eventually have kids and need something bigger than Champ, we started thinking about selling my good ol' pal. We looked for a while and hadn't found anything that suited our fancy...




...Until now.






Ladies and Gents, we'd like to introduce you to our new friend...


[insert new name here]


This new addition to our family does not yet have a name but I'm sure he or she will eventually (suggestions are welcome). It's a 2006 Nissan Altima and we have only had it since yesterday bit we sure do love it! It's nice and roomy without feeling like we're driving a boat. Although I will miss Champ greatly, and I will always cherish our time together, it was time to upgrade. I know that Champ will make some young kid very happy... probably someone who knows about cars, or wants to know about cars, and has lots of extra time to do mechanical-type work...

On a side note, I started doing "Biggest Loser 30-day Jump Start" program and I'm already down 4 lbs. Yahoo!

Happy Sunshiny Days, and I hope everyone is happy and healthy!

xoxo
Love to all


Friday, April 15, 2011

Blessings from Above

With all of my recent medical issues, we have gained quite a large amount of medical bills. $30,595.44 to be exact. We received a bill a couple weeks ago asking for $5000 of it right now, and then we got another one a week or 2 later asking for the rest of it to be paid in full. We have been trying to work with the Financial Assistance people there at the hospital to see what our options are, but the bills just kept on a-comin'.

Well we got another letter from them today.

I was nervous to open it.

When I saw it was a letter instead of a bill I got even more nervous.



The letter read something to the effect of:

Dear Alex,
We have reviewed your financial standings and are happy to let you know we have adjusted your account by $30,445.44, leaving a remaining balance of $150 to be paid.

And then it went on to say that they hope that one day when we are in better financial standings that we will make a donation to the program so that they can continue to give people the help they need.

We have been trying to figure out what we're going to do with such a huge amount of debt so early on in our marriage, and how we'll take care of it, and it's been pretty stressful. I feel like these things are God's way of reminding me that He is in control, that He will NEVER let us down, and that He is ALWAYS there, watching and protecting and taking an earnest interest in our lives and our well being. It's like He's giving me a big hug and saying, "I'm always here. Everything is going to work out fine, just have faith in me."

I'm so thankful for the blessings that come from this Gospel. For the love and comfort and peace that comes from doing what's right, and living lives that make the Lord proud. I know I've got a long ways to go, but times like these make me feel like I'm doing something right!

Love to all
xoxo

Thursday, March 31, 2011

I'm seeing faces!!

 I have been doing this thing the past couple of years where I have been noticing cute little "faces" from just normal, everyday objects. They make me happy, so I decided I'm going to start taking pictures of them and sharing them with you all!

So here are today's for your enjoyment:


Electrical Socket



The metal plate on a stapler


One of my old roomate's hair clip and contacts on our bathroom counter




Love to all
xoxo

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Our Trip to the Aquarium!

One day, Casey and I had the morning off, and we decided to go to here to an aquarium we had seen in Sandy once when we were driving around. We weren't sure what to expect, and we didn't really want to get our hopes up in case it was lame. We were both very pleasantly surprised by what we found inside! I wish I had brought my other camera, but my phone pictures will just have to do for now! Sorry that some of them are so dark.

This little guy kept swimming back and forth, and he would smash his cheek up against the glass as he swam. He just looked so happy!



This one was really shiny and glowy and fun



This lobster was HUGE! He was probably a good 1.5 to 2 feet long. His claws were so big that he appeared to be stuck in the corner of the tank!



This little thing was awesome! You can see the little glowing spots that look like eyes but there is a little ball on top that was glowing too and looked really awesome, but my camera just couldn't caputre the awesomeness.




These guys were fun neat. They look very old and very wise to me... even though Casey laughed at me when I told him that.


These ones were awesome because they are dark and their tank was dark but they had this really pretty orange shimmer all over them! I don't know if you can see his face, but they all seemed to be very angry fish.



They had a really cool set up for this eel, with this meter that would tell you when he was electrocuting something. It would show you how intense it was, and if it was strong enough, you could actually hear it!



This was a cute little stingray just sitting in a corner by herself (I decided it's a "she" because those polka dots are just too cute to be on a boy!)



This guy looked like one of those Asian men with the long mustaches. He was silly :]







These cute little guys were making us laugh but they wouldn't jump in the water! I waited and waited, so I could get a better picture of them, but they just kept tricking me.



This fella was just chillin' on a log, with his back end floating around in the water!







They had some really awesome jelly fish tanks, with really neat lighting, and the jelly fish were glowing all sorts of neat shades, but my camera just couldn't pick it up very well. The other tank was cooler, but it was way to dark to see anything in the picture... shucks!


They also had a really neat tank that was only up to the middle of my thighs and it had stingrays in it that you could touch as they swam passed! It was so cool! They also let you feed them if you buy the food. We were there right before feeding time, so the stingrays were all antsy, wanting to be fed, so they kept swimming up the side of the tank, almost like they were trying to escape, but they would poke up past the edge of the tank by probably 6 inches or so! They were friendly little buggers!

There was a little girl standing by me at the shark tank, and she turned to me, and in her little voice (and not being able to say her "r"s she asked me "do you weally believe in shawks?" I couldn't even answer, I just laughed because she was so cute!

We had a lot of fun, and it was overall a neat little place. A lot of the fun though was seeing all the reactions of the kids around us, so I think next time we'll have to take nieces and nephews or something!

Hope everyone is happy and healthy!

Love to all
xoxo

Monday, February 28, 2011

Our latest activities

Let me tell you our latest story. You may have heard it already... but maybe not, so I'll tell you anyway:

A few weeks ago, I started having a pain in my hip. I thought it was just a sore muscle so I thought nothing of it. As the days went on, though it just kept getting worse. On Tuesday of the following week, I ha had a terrible night, not sleeping at all. I cried most of the night. Well, that next morning, Casey called and made an appointment at a Chiropractor, and they got me in right away. Once we got there though, all of a sudden my left leg started to swell up really bad and it started to be really painful. The Chiropractor got very concerned, as did Casey and I, and he sent us to the Emergency Room. Once we got there, they did an ultra sound on my leg. After that we waited an hour or so and they came up to my room to let us know that I had a blood clot in my leg that went from below my knee all the way up to at least my hip (they couldn't see beyond that point without doing a surgery). They said that at my hip it was almost completely cut off, which is why my leg was swelling, none of the blood or fluid was going back up to my heart.

They gave me the option of either doing surgery which included: Going directly into the vein through the back of my knee, putting balloons at the beginning and end of the clot to keep it from breaking off and moving, and then injecting a very strong medicine into the vein to break up the clot. After that they would let it sit for a bit, and then put a wire in my vein which would pulsate, kind of like a whisk, and break up the clot completely. After that, they would suck it all out. They would also put in a filter at the top of the clot to make sure that if another clot were to form, it wouldn't be able to go to my heart of lung or brain. I would be on blood thinners for 6 months to make it less likely that another clot would form.

My other option was to  just be on blood thinners for a while and wait for my body to absorb the clot back into itself. They said that usually takes around 6 months, and that there was no guarantee as to whether or not the clot would break off and potentially kill me. Also they had no way of knowing how far up the clot actually went without doing the surgery.

We decided surgery was best, because the other way was just sounding too dangerous, and there was too much risk of something bad happening while we waited for the clot to be absorbed. I had the surgery, stayed overnight in the ICU and had another surgery the next day. Once I was feeling up to it, Casey took me home, and for the next 5 days, he had to give me blood thinner shots in my stomach 2 times a day. It was miserable! After that I am now just taking a pill once a day for 6 months, so it's a much easier way of thinning out that blood!

I went in for my follow up surgery on Friday. They were going to take the filter out, because they checked, and no more clot had formed in my leg. Well... when they went in, they went in through my neck and went down to the filter. There is a hook on the top of the filter, so they were supposed to be able to go down and hook a string on there, put a catheder over the top (to close the filter up so it can move) and then just pull in out through my neck. Once they got inside, and down to the filter, they discovered that my clot had been so big that the filter had to be put in tilted slightly to the side, so the hook was resting against a small bit of clot that was left on the wall of my vein. Over the past few weeks, it sunk into the clot and it's now stuck there. They tried all sorts of things to pull it out but to no avail. It's part of me now! Fun times.

I'm doing much better and I'm finally back at work and such, which is really nice. Casey was amazing through the whole thing, by my side every step of the way. We also had tons of awesome people bringing us meals and things which we are SO grateful for! We have been really blessed and watched over through this whole experience and for that we are also very grateful!

Love to all!
xoxo

(p.s. sorry if this post is all over the place, I kind of took bits and pieces from different places so I hope it all makes sense!)

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

He got a job!!



Well, ladies and gentleman, he did it!
Casey Robert Kleinman got a call yesterday around 1:30 with a job offer!
He will now be an employee of Solase Massage and Oxygen Bar
on University Parkway in Orem.

He took his MBLx test last Saturday and passed,
so now he just needs to get the paperwork and everything done
and taken up to Salt Lake to get his
actual license.

He has been super busy with school and doing
swim lessons and massages for one of his loyal clients.
He also was asked to give the lesson in Elders Quorum this Sunday.
He says he's having growing pains from all of the
growing up he's been doing lately, but I think he's awesome
and he's doing a great job, and I know he's working so hard to ensure that
our family has great opportunities.

I love him dearly. He's my best friend and my favorite person in the world!
I just wanted you guys to know how awesome he's doing :]

Love to all
xoxo





Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Pictures are in!!


Alright everyone, they're finally here! Pictures are in and I love them all so very much! I didn't want to post a million pictures so I went through and picked out some of my fave's :] Enjoy!

 
The whole lot of us


And the night begins...


The cake


The eating of the cake... we were gentle


His look of innocence... 


Big kiss!


The throw...


...and the catch


The garter


...being removed


The flick...


..and the catch


Father-Daughter dance


Mother-Son dance


Our first dance


Love him :]


People joined in...


..and then we all danced...


...and danced...


...and danced some more.


Look at her go!


So much dancing


And then we escaped for a breather, and we got caught.



The dip. We practiced a lot.



After the temple



Big thanks to Karen and Emily for setting us up on a blind date :]



He's helping me off the wall.








Carrying me across the snowy terrain... what a guy!













This one took a couple tries but I think it's a keeper.


Another dip... it's a good thing we practiced so much!