Every little girl dreams of the day she will become a mother, and every newly married couple dreams of the day they will hold their first child in their arms. For some, those dreams are shattered when they face the challenges of infertility. There is nothing harder then to hear you have infertility and may never get pregnant. What is even harder to hear is that someone else is pregnant; while you are happy for them you can’t help but wonder why it can’t be you. People will try to offer support and words of encouragement, but if they have never experienced infertility they don’t know how it truly feels. It makes it harder to hear someone say “You’ll have a baby when it’s meant to happen,” or “Stop trying so hard and you’ll become pregnant,” as if it’s that easy. Let me tell you, month after month of no positive pregnancy tests really takes a toll on you emotionally.

I’ve struggled for a few months with whether or not I was going to post this, simply because we weren’t ready to tell people and also because in the back of our mind, we just knew that it would happen and there would be no point in telling everyone.

Well it hasn’t happened and it is a very real reality in our life right now.

Jonathan and I have been trying to extend our family for about a year and a half now (surprise!).

And as a small disclaimer, here comes a lot of information that you probably wished you never knew about me. I’m sorry, but it’s a part of the process so get over it.

Anyway, I have always had sporadic cycles and my doctor said it wouldn’t be a big deal until I was trying to get pregnant, so we never did anything about it. I went in to see my doctor for my annual visit, about 9 months after we had started trying, and she did some blood work to see if anything was abnormal. Voila, there’s my problem! I had increased prolactin levels from a prolactinoma on my pituitary gland (a small benign tumor). The tumor doesn’t really cause a problem until you are trying to get pregnant and then you can’t because you don’t ovulate. Now, here comes the technical part… Prolactin is one of many hormones produced by the pituitary gland. It is primarily responsible for milk production during lactation. With increased prolactin, there is an increase in the hypothalamic hormone dopamine which tells the pituitary to stop releasing prolactin. In some cases the dopamine can’t reach the pituitary gland (like from a tumor). When that happens, there’s no signal to suppress the secretion of prolactin, and the pituitary continues to release it. When prolactin levels rise, the hypothalamus manufactures and releases more dopamine in an effort to stop prolactin production. This increase in dopamine has other effects. In particular, it suppresses the production of the hormones that promote release of FSH and LH. This in turn, leads to a drop in LH and FSH, causing low estrogen levels and therefore no ovulation.

Now that wasn’t too bad was it…still with me?

So we discovered I had a pituitary tumor and my doctor started me on a miracle drug to “shrink” the tumor and bring my prolactin levels back to normal. Well within two months, the tumor had shrunk and my levels were back to normal, YEAH! But we still haven’t been able to get pregnant. My doctor thought that’s all it would take but it didn’t. I have been to many office visits with her, tests, blood work, you name it and she can’t explain why now… it’s basically just unexplained infertility.

Everyday woman get pregnant, it’s what our bodies were designed to do, but for some reason my body is broken in that department. There are many different treatment options available each with their own side effects. I am still on the medication to keep my prolactin levels low but I have now started a fertility drug that will hopefully help as well. There are many undesirable side effects from the medication that I would love to live without but I’m willing to do anything, within reason, to have a baby. So over the next few months I will have many more visits with my doctor and many more blood tests.

Now granted, I said I would do anything within reason to have a baby because Jonathan and I have talked about it and we will only go so far to try to get pregnant. We can’t justify spending thousands of dollars on treatments that still only give us a “maybe” chance of getting pregnant. We would rather spend that money on adopting a child that is in need of a family but we will cross that road if and when we get there. Either way we would like to adopt a child at some point in the future, but that’s another story for another time.

So basically what it boils down to is this, after months and months of disappointment and heart ache we need some prayers… prayer for strength, patience and understanding. Personally speaking, it’s taking a toll on me emotionally and physically, because of side effects of the drugs.

As a final thought, I know everyone will want to call, e-mail and ask us if we’re pregnant yet or how things are going (we get that enough of that as it is – without anyone knowing all this background ). We appreciate all the thoughts and prayers and know you mean the best when you ask, but if you’ll promise not to bombard us with questions, we’ll do our best to keep you posted and let you know if anything changes.

I will never give up the hope of becoming a parent, whether it’s our own or through adoption, one day it will happen!

My memorial day weekend started early….it was Thursday at about 2:00 when I went home sick from work. I was just work out and could feel a sinus infection brewing…I’ve done good, a whole 4 months without a sinus infection, Wahoo! I guess I broke my streak this week because on Sunday morning I woke up with full fledged sinusitis. Needles to say we didn’t do much of anything Sunday, I pretty much just layed on the couch all day. Despite feeling horrible Jonathan and I did manage to have a good weekend. Saturday we headed to Terrell for my nephew’s soccer tournament and then back home for small group at our house.

Our small group was just that, small. It was just me, Jonathan and Preslsey, so we headed to Home Depot to get some stuff to plant a small garden. Jonathan got some jalapenos, cucumbers and tomatoes and I got some potted flowers to put in the back yard.

Monday Jonathan and I went and had brunch at Ihop…I know, we go all out! Then headed to Ft. Worth to the botanical gardens for a while. We had a great time at the gardens and of course took some photos. It wouldn’t be a day in the life of laurie and jonathan if we didn’t take pictures.

And that was the extent of our weekend, not extravagant but it was perfect for us!

Okay, so it’s been a while and we have been extremely busy around here! As I type this, I’m trying to remember what all we’ve done since I last posted and for the life of me, I can’t even remember back that far! April is the month for birthdays in our family. We have, my mother in law, mine, my moms, and my niece, so needless to say we have had some celebrations. My niece, Brooklyn, turned 5 this year! That’s crazy, I remember the day she was born like it was yesterday.

Jonathan and I, along with Tracy and Keri and Aaron Lehmann hosted “Fresha Peppa” cafe for Brian and Heather Treadaway and had a blast doing so!

This is “tiny” -Jonathan and “Fredrique” -Aaron. Keri was the chef, I was the paparazzi and Tracy was the local bar fly…fun times in deed. I think Brian and Heather had a good time, I hope so anyway!

The last two weeks of April I was out of town for work. I had an investigators meeting for some research trials we are doing. I was in Orlando, Fl first and was able to go over to Universal Theme park for a while….the park itself was closed but we were able to walk around and then eat some dinner at Hard Rock Cafe.

The next week I went to Atlanta, Ga….not as much fun there! We flew in on the 28th, had meetings all day and then had meetings the next morning and flew out that afternoon. We waited on the tarmac for about 2 hours before we could leave Atlanta due to bad weather in Dallas. Then when we were close to Dallas, we had to circle around a few times because there were so many planes trying to land at DFW from delays. We eventually made it back home about 5 or 6 hours later.

Jonathan and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary and unfortunately I was in Atlanta on the 28th while Jonathan was back in Dallas! Not the way we thought we would spend our anniversary, but life goes on. Friday night we went to Outback Steakhouse for a delicious dinner and then Saturday we were going to go spend the day in Ft Worth but because of the rain we decided to shoot for next weekend instead.

So that’s been our life for about the last month….hopefully it will be a little less crazy around here for a while!

Yesterday Jonathan and I completed the 2009 20 mile Tour Dallas bike ride. Granted 20 miles isn’t a long distance for a cyclist, but for two people who have never done a bike race before, it’s a pretty good distance. I also think 20 miles was a good distance for someone who broke her back only 9 months ago…and 2 miles into the ride I was feeling it, my back and neck were tightening up and hurting but I pulled through it and finished all 20 miles. Today on the other hand, i am feeling it more…but nothing I can’t live with. Anyway, we had a fun time…one of our friends, Todd joined us and he actually did the 30 mile ride, he is an experienced rider and has done like 100 mile races before, so 30 was nothing for him. We started off at city hall in Downtown Dallas and rode across the trinity river and back, then through downtown, down swiss avenue, through Lakewood, to White rock lake and back to city hall. The whole time my gears kept shifting on their own, they wouldn’t stay locked in one gear and of course the one gear they stayed in was the hardest gear! It wasn’t too bad, just annoying and kind of hard going up hills – ha. After the ride we took my bike to the bike shop to get looked at and they said the gear shift was broken. They fixed it and viola, it shifts fine now. We are thinking of doing a 40 mile ride next weekend in Lancaster, but we’ll see

My nephew, Jake, started playing soccer this year. He had his first game this past Tuesday, which was his dad’s (my brother) birthday. So we all went out to watch Jake play his first game and then went to dinner for Brad’s Birthday. Before the game the team did the whole, hands in and on 3 yell “Cobras”:

Jake did a great job of chasing the ball and even made a goal!!

He had a chance to play goalie as well and did a good job of keeping the ball out of their goal.

I can’t wait to go to another game!

Today we paid off our last credit card!!! We have been hitting the debt hard since last June/July. We have to thank Uncle Sam for holding our money for us over the last year and we decided to do the responsible thing and put our 2008 tax refund towards paying off our debt….Even though we both would soooo much rather go on a nice trip with that money, we would rather get out from under debt. So our credit card debt is ALL GONE!! Now all we have left are Medical bills and parental debt. But now that we don’t have to make a huge credit card payment, we can add that to what we were paying each month on my medical bills and knock them out soon. Other than our house and cars, we should be debt free in the next 10 months or so!

I have been at my new job for about 3 months and still absolutely LOVE it!! My co-workers are wonderful and the doctor I work for is amazing. It is completely different from what I have been doing and I have learned a tremendous amount since starting there. This was the best move for my career and there are possibilities that have opened up for me that I would have never had at Children’s. I’m writing a paper or abstract on a procedure we do in our office and I’m hoping to get it published. I just found out this week that I’m also going to be involved in two research studies in the next several months, for which I have to go to Atlanta and somewhere else (not sure of the location yet) for training in April.

I thought making the switch from pediatrics to adults would be hard for me, but it really hasn’t been that bad, I actually like working with the adults, and I’ve had a few kiddos come in to see me so I still get some pediatric patients.

I am so glad that I made the switch from Children’s to Baylor because it was just what I needed, I actually don’t dread getting up in the morning to go to work!

They even let me play with needles!! Well not really play with them, more like poke people with them-wuaaahahahah

Wow, it’s been a while since I posted anything on this here blog! We have been busy the last month or so and I realize I haven’t kept anyone updated on what all we have been up to. I’m not going to lie…when I do have a chance to sit down and update the blog, I just don’t want to! We went on our cruise the first week of February and had a great time!

Our first stop was in Progresso, Mexico and we enjoyed visiting the Mayan Ruins. Jonathan probably enjoyed it more than me, but it was neat to see.

The next day we went to Cozumel and had a chance to ride some segways along beach. we were supposed to go snorkeling but it was way too windy so we were unable to. We were pretty bummed but maybe some other time we will be able to go snorkeling.

After the segway tour we walked around the port a while and had lunch at Three Amigos in Cozumel.

Last weekend we celebrated Jonathan’s 30th birthday at Kobe Steaks, sorry I didn’t get many pics…

Then on Tuesday, which was Jonathan’s actual birthday we went to Red Robin for a delicious burger.

I started going to the Bible study at my old church in Dallas with Jen on Wednesday nights and love it. I have missed having an actual women’s Bible study and simply just needed it. So I called Jen up because I knew she was going to the one at Northwest Bible and luckily a new study was starting this month so I was able to start it. So every Wednesday after work I get to see Jen and then go to a Bible study–it’s great!! We catch up on what’s going on in our lives and helps me get through the week. I’ve missed getting to see her and spend time with her as often as we used to…I guess that’s what happens when you live that far apart and both have busy lives. But, I’m thankful for the times we do get to spend together.

We have started getting ready for spring around our house. Last week we pulled up some bushes and planted two rose bushes in the front and today we added more mulch to the flower beds and I put out the weed killer…and in a few weeks it’ll be time for the fertilizer.

The last week has been kind of stressful for me health wise but we're hoping it all gets better soon and I'll keep you posted on it. In the mean time, here's a picture of my handsome hubs I took last night showing off his new shirt and hat I got him for his birthday! PS, he looks really good in his new hat!! But I'm not biased or anything ;)

Well, in Texas, it’s more of an ice day. Our office closed today so I get the whole day off, but Jonathan has to go in at 1200. I got out this morning and thought there was no way for me to get my car out of our garage without sliding off the driveway, it was nothing but ice. Luckily my boss called and said, stay home, have a fun snow day! None of our patients would show up anyway. I’ve been up for a while and have already taken a shower, got dressed, fixed my hair, make up and all that entails. I just looked down and it’s only 830!! I feel like it should be like 1200 or 100, I may have to take a nap. Of course, I couldn’t go without taking some pictures of our “snow day”, so here are some of the photos I took:

The hubs truck this morning..a little iced over!

Our flower bed which needs a face lift this spring.

Our backyard

Hopefully ya’ll didn’t have to get out this morning, so stay home, enjoy your “snow day” and stay warm!

The hubs and I joined the Landry Center at Baylor last week because we both want to get back into shape/lose weight. We get a killer discount to the because I’m an employee of Baylor so we took advantage of it. After not being able to do pretty much of anything for the last 8 months after breaking my back, I was ready to start working out again. Granted, I still can’t lift weights yet, I am able to do cardio and swim!. I have always wanted to do swimming as a means of exercise, just never had a pool to. We swam for the first time on Saturday and boy was I tired. It also showed me how out of shape I am!!! Geeze, one length of the pool (an olympic sized pool) and I was out of breath and my heart was about to pound out of my chest. I swam a total of 4 laps (8 lengths of the pool) which is about 200 meters. Today I swam 13 laps which is about 475 meters, then I soaked in the hot tub for about 3 minutes (it was too hot) and then sat in the sauna for a little while….again, too hot so I had to get out. I’m not relaxed and feel good about working out! We’ll see if we keep this up. It’s only about 2 blocks from my office so I can go workout in the mornings if I want before work, which I plan on doing on Fridays. I’ll let you know in a month if we’re still going!

Day 117 alternate, originally uploaded by Laurie B!.

“Once we surrender our mind to GOD completely, HE will take care of us in every way.” ~ Sri Sathya Sai Baba quotes

This morning Brian challenged us to face our Giants so we can follow God completely. He talked about 5 giants that we each face, I’m sure at one point or another I could easily say I have or will face all 5. The giants were: fully surrender, intentional relationships, caring for others, personal responsibility and leadership.

My biggest giant is Fully surrendering to Christ. At the end of the service we were able to go up to the stage and pick up a stone to signify our “giant” as a reminder for us. Hopefully over the next year I’ll be able to work on my giant.

I said it last year and I’ll say it again…I don’t like to make New Year’s resolutions because I never keep them. But I do like to make goals. To me, a resolution is something that you want to change about yourself or somthing like that, and a goal is something that you want to achieve. I’d rather set goals and strive to achieve something new in the new year. Maybe it’s just me and maybe there really isn’t a difference, either way, here are some of my 2009 goals.

here are my goals expanded on:
1. I want to complete a bike race (cycling…and assuming my heart will handle it)
2. maybe ride in the “hotter than hell” bike race in wichita falls, Tx (it’s 100 miles long so I’d better get working.)
3. I really want to get back in shape…not to lose weight just to get physically fit again, and so I can do #2. Breaking your back and not being able to do much of anything physically demanding for several months makes you kinda lazy, and squishy for that matter–ha!
4. I need to finish reading the books I have from last year that never I finished
5. I really want to finish paying off our consumer debt (we’ve paid half of it off in the last 6 months–wahoo!!)
6. Have good health this year and stay out of the hospital (not that I really have full control over it though)
7. Get back into the routine of doing devotionals
8. Actually finish my Project 365 this year…you can follow it on my flickr stream. It’s a project where you take a self portrait of some sort for 365 days..the goal is to improve your photography techniques and help you learn lighting.

And that’s all I have, I’m sure I’ll think of a few more but that’s it for now. What are some of your goals for the new year?

I can’t believe it’s already 2009 – It seams like 2008 just flew by! A lot happened this past year, some not so good and some really good. If you told me at the beginning of 2008 that I would go through 2 surgeries, have 5 CT scans, take a visit to the Baylor ER and change jobs, I would have laughed in your face. But a new year brings new challenges, whether you want them or not! So lets take a look at 2008 shall we!

The year started out great we had been in our new house for a few months and had fun as we started to paint and do landscaping around the yard. We pretty much finished doing things to the house (for now) but will eventually do more to the yard when spring rolls around. Here is just a little of what we have done so far…

In March Jonathan and I took a trip to Memphis, TN just for fun. We had a great time visiting Graceland, the Gibson factory, walking down Beale St. and eating some delicious Memphis BBQ. Here is a video of the highlights from our trip…

On April 28, Jonathan and I celebrated our one year anniversary! We stayed a night in downtown Dallas and then went to the arboretum for the day.

In May I graduated, again!

I finally finished my bachelor’s degree after finishing my associates degree in 2002. I took a couple of years off inbetween my associates and going back to finish my bachelor’s but with hard work and determination, I finished it and it won’t necessarily get me more money or anything, it will give me more opportunities in my career field and in a way get a better paying job! I will be able to teach if I choose to and also I can continue on to get a master’s degree if I want…which I may eventually. I would love to get a masters in exercise physiology but we’ll see where God takes me on that one!

The week after I graduated I had sinus surgery. I had a severe deviated septum that wouldn’t allow me to get rid of a sinus infection I had for almost 6 months. So the fixed it, I got a new nose…well not really, but I can breathe better…

that’s attractive huh?

The following month (June) my best friend, Jen, got married and I was a bridesmaid in her wedding. We had a lot of fun at the wedding and all the events leading up to it…

Two days after Jen and Jed got married I had a little accident…so we’ll call it. To make a long story short and one you can read here, I had a wonderful 14 hour stay in the Baylor ER and ended up with a sprained neck and 4 broken vertebrae in my back….
I have had a long road to recovery and had many visits to the neurosurgeon and a lot of CT’s. I had a final visit to the neurosurgeon last month and he said it was healing, not completely healed yet, but healing for sure. So yeah! I still have pain if I do certain things or move certain ways but for the most part I feel pretty good.

Then September rolled around and time for another surgery…bet you didn’t see that coming-HA. I have had two procedures on my heart in the last 5 years and I started having some problems again so my cardiologist thought it would be best to go back in and check everything, just to make sure everything was good to go. So I have another heart cath and everything checked out ok…we just adjusted my medication and we’re back in business.

In November I decided, for many reasons, it was time for a change so I resigned from my position at Children’s Medical Center and accepted one at Baylor Univ. Medical Center in Dallas. It was tough leaving some of my friends behind, but it was time to move on! For the most part, I liked the time I spent working at CMC and will cherish the friendships I made while I was there.

But since I have made the move to Baylor, I can honestly say it was the best decision I’ve made in a while and a good move for my career. I love the people I work with and love what I do at Baylor. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for me in the next year or so with my career.

In November, Jonathan and I also went to a marriage retreat at Sky Ranch with our church. We had a blast doing the ropes course, flying down the zip line and getting to know more couples at our church. Tim and Kara were able to go with us and we hope to do it again next year.

To finish off the year, we celebrated the holidays with family and friends and you can read all about that in another post! We have done so many fun things this year, it’s hard to sit down and write them all out, there were many things we did like go to the rangers game, state fair of Texas, Waxahachie’s hot air balloon festival, and I could go on forever, but I won’t…

…so here’s to a great 2009, filled with many more memories and new opportunities!

ARE OVER!! Not that I’m happy about that but life can finally calm down now and get back to normal. What did we do for the holidays you ask…well, here is a look at what all we did the last few weeks/months. Over the last month I have taken several family photos. There were the Treadaways, our pastor and his family…

…And then Jalyn, our friends Josh and Shalyn’s baby…

…then there were the Nash’s. Gracelyn, who is 2, didn’t really want any part of taking photos so it made for a difficult day, along with my camera that was acting up…that’s a whole other story…

We went with a group of our friends from church to see Bethlehem Revisited in Waxahachie…

Our holiday festivities with family started on Dec 21 when we held our annual Turner-Medlin Family Christmas/Jake’s Birthday party. We all went to the Medlin’s and had some yummy chili and all the “kids” (we’re too old to be called kids) did a white elephant gift exchange and then Jake opened up his birthday presents. Jake turned 8 this year and I can’t believe he’s getting so old. I remember the day he was born…anyway, we had fun time together and couldn’t wait to do it all over again on New Years Day, when we celebrate my dad and Bob’s birthday…more on that later in the post.

On the 23rd we had all of Jonathan’s family over to our house for dinner and games. We all had a great time and always look forward to seeing everyone. (to see any of these collages bigger, simply click on it and viola)

Christmas Eve we went to our parents church for a candlelight service and then back to my parents house for dinner. After dinner we headed over to my aunts house to spend some time with her and my cousins and their kids. Had a good time seeing all of them and about 10:00pm my cousin’s son, Bryce, announced that “there was good news and bad news…the good news is that santa is in Texas, the bad news is that santa is in Texas and I’m not in bed!” So with that we all headed home.

Christmas morning Jonathan and I opened gifts at our house, well some of them…I made Jonathan go on a scavenger hunt for his gift. He started out at our house and then headed to the park which sent him to our pastors house where they slipped the present in their mailbox for me. I think he enjoyed it but maybe not as much as his present which was two tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert.

After that we went to my padres house for Christmas with my familia and ate a great lunch and opened gifts. And as always, we let the kids go first which only takes about 10 minutes total because they rip through them all at warp speed. After lunch and presents we decided to play a game of family feud…that was a lot of fun, except my dad kept forgetting the rules! My niece got a doll house and my nephew got a new Wii so they were both preoccupied with those the majority of the afternoon and that was a gift to all of us!!! That’s the only way we were able to play family feud.
Later that afternoon we headed over to Jonathan’s parents and hung out there a while. Tim and Kara got rock band for the wii so we played that for a while and then Jonathan’s dad made a great ham for dinner so we ate and opened some gifts. Over all, we had a wonderful Christmas and are blessed by our family and friends that spent it with us!

Then for about a week our lives were back to semi normalcy…I went back to work but Jonathan had the week off. New Years Eve we spent over at Richard and Amber’s house playing games and eating some yummy mexican food. Then for the countdown to bring in the new year we lit some sparklers–that’s always fun!

And finally, Welcome 2009! We have entered into yet another new year. We slept in new years day because lets face it, we were up late partying the night before!! You know us, we’re such the partiers-HA! Then later that afternoon my family and the Medlins came over to our house and we grilled some fajitas and celebrated our dad’s birthdays! Honestly I can’t remember how old they both are–somewhere in the early 60’s! yikes, sorry guys, I love you, but that’s old!

We always have fun getting together but don’t do it as often as I would like. The Medlin’s have always been a second family to us, Bob and Vicki were like our “other parents” and Ty and Tami were like siblings growing up. It’s so much fun now that we are all grown up and adults…We’ve all grown up together and shared special occasions together as we each get married, have kids and watch each of us, or them, become parents for the first time…it’s been fun!! A great way to start a new year. I’ve been told that how you spend your New Year’s Day sets the stage for that year…we’re off to a great start!

Because we had so much fun on New Year’s Day, you get two collages.

Tonight Jonathan and I went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert for his Christmas gift and had a blast. This is my 5 year to go to the concert and I have loved every year. It’s a Christmas tradition that I had and then when Jonathan and I started dating we decided to make it our tradition. We are going on a cruise in February so we decided that we just wouldn’t be able to spring for tickets to TSO this year and the cruise. We were both bummed about not getting to go, Jonathan was pretty bummed so I decided to surprise him with tickets for Christmas. He tried many times to get me to agree to get tickets and it was hard to tell him “No, I just don’t think we can this year” when I had already bought 2 tickets. Anyway, we went to the concert and love it! The camera police are usually out making sure you don’t take any pictures of the concert but I was able to sneak some with my camera phone–gotta love them! So here are some illegal pictures from the TSO concert:


After the concert we met Jen and Jed for dinner at Patrizio’s in Highland Park Village….let me tell you, they have some amazing italian food! I’ve been there before and have always wanted to take Jonathan so I figured why not now! We had a good time with Jen and Jed and then decided to get some Italian Gelato at Paciugo’s to go with our Italian food.

And that concludes our holiday festivities! I hope everyone had a good time with their family and friends over the holidays and here’s to a wonderful new year!

GAME RULES:

1. Put your music player on shuffle (ALL MUSIC).
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. Tag 10 friends who might enjoy doing the game as well as the person you got the game from.

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OK” YOU SAY:
Miles To Go

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Dreamer–no lie, that’s the title

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
satisfaction

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Drive Away

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
The Chain

WHAT IS 2 + 2?
Midnight Bottle

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Harder To Breathe

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
White Dove Fly High

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Party People

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
123 Like A Bird I sing

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Low

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Ready, Set, Don’t Go–Yes A Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus song

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
She’s In Love With The Boy

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Butterflies

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Until You

WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Right Now

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Lost

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Get Your Back Off The Wall

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
X Girlfriend

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Clothes

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Labels Of Love

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Without A Sound

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Fever

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Borrowed Home

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Time Of Your Life

Ok, I don’t have 10 friends who blog or whatever so I tag….um, Shari again-HA and Amber

Amber tagged me so now I guess it’s my turn to list 7 things about me. So here goes:

1. It’s no surprise–I love photography, taking it, looking at it, anything about it. I love learning new ways to improve my skills.

2. I’m in a group on Flickr where you take a self portrait of some sort every day for 365 days. It makes you think about photography techniques and you end up learning and improving your photography. It’s tough, but I’m having fun.

3. I am dying to go to the UK…London, Scotland, Ireland. Maybe one day the hubs and I will make it there…and then maybe we’ll get to visit our mates Thomas and Olly who live in Scotland.

4. I love the feel of digging my feet in the sand on the beach.

5. I have a fear of deep waters, that’s why I like the beach, not the ocean…I don’t know why, I’ve never had a traumatic experience with it, I just don’t like it. It freaks me out! Just looking at the ocean on google maps kinda makes me hyperventilate!

6. I would love to do a triathlon one day but I hate running, so maybe I’ll just do a bike race instead.

7. I love making my house feel like a home! That includes, painting it, putting up decorations or even just rearranging the furniture to make it flow. It’s my home and where I can be me, a safe place, I want it to feel like it’s mine!

Now I tag Shari…..

I was cleaning out a big box we had in our guest room closet yesterday and found a bunch of old letters, cards and what not from high school. It was fun reading them and reliving the memories of trips to Mexico, Honduras, Colorado and other places, along with some of my former youth leaders who became good friends. There were two women that I absolutely loved, Alison and Annie. I found some letters they had written me while in high school and it just reminded me how much they helped form who I am. They were mentors for me in my high school years and helped me grow as a Christan woman. I haven’t talked to either of them in years and would love to see them.

It got me thinking how much I miss having people like these two in my life. I don’t have a “mentor” or a woman in my life now that has a role like Alison or Annie did years ago. I think it’s good to have someone in your life that not necessarily leads you but is a mentor of some sort and you can look up to or help you become a better person/Christian. I look at Jonathan and he has that person in Brian, our pastor and friend. Brian has played a major role in jonathan’s life and probably more than either of them will admit!

Oh the memories, I also found an old notebook that Jen and I passed back and forth in high shcool so it was fun reading some of those notes. I’ll have to let her read them too.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around casa de Blundell. Last weekend Jonathan and I put up the Christmas lights, the tree and all the decorations inside.

Of course I couldn’t reach the top of the tree so Jonathan had to put the star up.

I’m always afraid Jonathan will fall off the roof when he’s putting up the Christmas lights so I have to stay our there to “supervise”, and while I’m standing there, why not take pictures…

There are always some of our decorations that I love to put out and I’m always tempted to keep them out all year long, but couldn’t get away with it. This is one of my favorite decorations–it’s a candle holder, if you take the top off the candle is inside.

Then there is my favorite ornament…it says “Youngest Child (mom’s favorite)

But my favorite part of Christmas is being with family and making more memories. This year we are having Jonathan’s family over for the Blundell/Knotts family Christmas on the 23rd, we’re excited about that. Just 24 more days until Christmas, are you ready?

A little over six years ago I started my career as a respiratory therapist at Children’s Medical Center and a week and a 1/2 ago I gave them my resignation. I learned a heck of a lot while working at CMC and worked with some of the sickest kids. I started working on the general care floors and then worked my way to the ER and Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. After about 4 years I moved to the pulmonary lab where I mainly did diagnostics and less therapeutics. I made some wonderful friends while at CMC and will never forget them.

But all good things must come to an end and while the last year or so for me at my job has brought many frustrations and anger at times, I am happy to close the door on my life at CMC. By doing so, it only starts a new chapter in my life that I am extremely excited about. I am starting my new job at the Martha Foster Lung Center at Baylor Hospital in Dallas on Monday and can’t wait. I will still be dong diagnostics but I’ll also be more involved with the whole care of the patient instead of just diagnostic testing.

Lets rewind a few months shall we. I was offered a job at El Centro college as the lab coordinator for the nursing and allied health schools back in march and I would have loved it but because of insurance reasons I couldn’t take it. Back in September I applied for this position at Baylor and was offered it. But I turned it down. But at the beginning of November I noticed that the position was still available on their website and I had thought about it more and I did regret turning it down and had rethought some things and decided that Baylor is where I should be so I called the manager and asked her if I could be reconsidered for the position. She said they were interviewing so once they were done she would let me know. Luckily, she offered it to me again!! I knew that if God had held this job open for me and it was offered to me AGAIN, then it must be where I’m supposed to be. I was a little worried because of my back and heart and my insurance not covering my past November 30 but all my worries were taken care of. I had follow up appointments with my cardiologist and neurosurgeon (along with another catscan) the last week of November and they both said I was doing ok. We have adjusted my cardiac meds and he said i’m good and don’t need to be seen again (Unless I need to) until March. My neurosurgeon said my broken vertebrae are healing, not healed completely yet, healing and I don’t need to see him again unless something comes up! So yeah, I don’t have to worry anymore. My new insurance with Baylor will kick in on Monday so just as long as I don’t get sick between now and then we’re all good.

So needless to say, God answers prayers and watches over us, even if we don’t feel it. I heard a saying once that has always stuck with me…”When God is silent, He is not still”. Even though we may not be aware He is doing things in our life, He is!

Jonathan posted his list of what he was thankful for so now it’s my turn.

I’m thankful for:
* My wonderful Husband who does more for me than he will ever know and loves me for me.
* My family who also loves me for me
* The ability to love and serve our God without having to risk my life for doing it.
* My doggy who brings me great joy, just as much as she annoys me.
* Electricity (our power just went out)
* My friends, who mean the world to me and life wouldn’t be the same without them.
* Our house that keeps us warm in the winter, cold in the summer and dry in the rain.
* Our cars that get us around wherever we want to go
* My health – even though it hasn’t been the best, it can always be worse.
* The fact that anytime I want ice cream I can just go to our freezer and get it…or the store.
* My camera, so I can keep memories that will be with me for a lifetime.
* Life!

and many, many more things!!

What are you thankful for?