Repented Blogger

I know I haven't blogged in a very long time. I send out my deepest apologies to everyone. Shane and I have been very busy. I guess I should recap what we have been up to in last little while. September brought on Wendy's serge to get healthy. I decided to join my husband in getting a Gastric By Pass surgery as well. It happened on September 25th. I am coming up on my 3 month appointment and I have currently lost 50 pounds. I am going to go out on a huge limb here and show you my pre surgery pictures followed by a current picture of me. I do this only because I am very happy with the success that I have been having.
You are probably asking, "Why does she look like she is standing lop-sided?" Well, I have a herniated disc in my back. My sciatic nerve is killing me, and It makes it so I couldn't stand up straight or walk straight. However, with the loss of 50 pounds I am starting to walk a little bit more normally.
This picture was taken while Shane and I were visiting some friends of ours over Thanksgiving in Seattle, Washington, but I will talk about that more in a little bit. I holding on to the door handle because I was in some pain at this point, and didn't want to stand like I am in the picture above. So, I decided to lean on the door handle and have it look like I was "Striking a Pose" I know, I am a dork!
Moving on to October. Shane decided that he wanted to torture me for my birthday. He along with some very awesome friends of ours, threw me a Surprise Birthday Party. I was having extreme issues of turning 30! I wasn't going to be able to eat anything yummy for my birthday because of the surgery, so I was a little sad about not being able to indulge myself with my traditional Cheesecake, and I was mostly depressed about being 30!!!! People who are 30 life in their own homes, and have children. I have NEITHER!!! So yes, I was not happy. One of the friends who threw the party, is a very talented woman with a camera. She set up a place where families could have their pictures taken. This is a picture of Shane and I at my party.
I have lost some weight since this picture, this is only reason I am sharing this with you. The party was a success and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I was glad that it was over and I appreciated everyone who put a lot of work into it.
November- Shane and I were able to go to Washington state to see some friends. The family we stayed with had a baby while we were up there so it was great to see their new addition to their family. Here is a picture of me holding the baby in the Hospital

We stayed at Ft. Lewis and it was interesting to stay on a army base. Shane enjoyed himself immensely and he was like a kid at Disneyland. I also got to see a friend of mine that I met in Massachusetts while I was up there. Shane had never met them so I was happy to finally introduce him to them. I didn't get to spend a lot of time with them for that I was sad about. Here is a picture of Shane holding the baby as well.
We were able to enjoy Thanksgiving in Washington as well. We enjoyed ourselves a lot and found it hard to say goodbye when it came time to come home. We enjoyed getting away.
December- It's been a busy month so far. Shane and I are finishing up another term of school. It's been challenging at times, but we have been enjoying learning. I went to my 3 month appointment and have lost a total of 52 pounds. I hope to continue loosing. It feels good to be in smaller clothes. That about sums up our past couple of months. We wish everyone a joyous Holiday Season.

Upcoming Events

Our summer is coming to to a close. We've had some great summer fun and we've got to see a lot of family and friends. We are now approaching the end of summer and with that brings forth some good and scary events. The huge one is Shane having his back fusion. One week from today, Shane will enter Utah Valley Regional Medical Center for his back surgery. We are glad that it's finally here and that we will begin the healing process. I am a little nervous having him go under the knife. We feel confident in the surgeon and know that he is good hands. He will have a rough six week recovery at first, but we are very confident that he will make a great recovery. It will still take him 6 months to fully recover and he will then be able to go back to work. His Neurosurgeon did tell him that he has to find another line of work. He will not be able to return to Smiths, but he will need to find a less physically demanding job. This means he gets to find a desk job. He has mixed emotions over this. Shane is finds joy in doing physical labor especially when it comes to running with an ambulance crew. He was told those days are now over, and he will have to hang up his EMT hat. Shane did not take this news well, but does understand that it's for the best.

As for me, I am looking at some upcoming events too. I am meeting with the Bariatrics Surgeon tomorrow morning. I will most likely be setting the date for my Gastric By Pass Surgery for sometime in late September early October. I feel good about joining my husband in this surgery. I feel that it is the only way we are going to have the pitter-patter of little feet in our home. I am somewhat apprehensive of this surgery, but after several coversations with Shane and a good friend of mine, I feel a little more confident every day.
Sorry we don' t have any pictures to share right now, but will submit some when we have some to add.

Reunions in July

Shane and I had two family reunions in July. The first one was with Shane's side. We went up to Flaming Gorge. His family has some property up there. If any of you have been to Flaming Gorge and went to the visitor Center there presentation they do about the dam and the surrounding areas. They mention the "Swett Family Ranch" Shane's family homesteaded it back in the early 1900's. It was then sold to the state where they made it a historical site. The reunion was on the property and Shane took some pictures of the original house that still remains there. Here are some pictures of inside the house.




After that reunion we had my side's family reunion. This one was held down by Fish Lake. My mom's maiden name is Mackley and we had all of her siblings (minus one) come. It was nice to see so many of them we had not been able to see for a very long time. We had four days of laughing and catching up. on the last night of the reunion we had what we called a "Variety Show" each family was responsible for putting on a skit. So we reached deep inside our selves and pulled out our Thespian talent and put together a pretty awesome variety show. I was able to bribe my husband to partcipate in the show. We put a hoola skirt and a coconut bra on Shane, my brother Scott and my brother-in-law Jeremy. We lip sinked the song " A hundred and One pounds of Fun" song from the play/movie "South Pacific" here are a couple of pictures of the event.

We got some pretty good laughs out of that. We also had some other people perform. We had the grand kids do a song called "When I have brand new hair-do" they were dressed up in curlers and had mirrors. Half way through the song we had the boys come out with signs... Just look at the picture, you get the idea.
Everyone thought it was pretty funny. Here is the crowd that were participating in watching
Shane really got into the spirit of camping. So in preparation for the reunion Shane bought us some lights that go on top our head because he knows how many times I have to get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. Well we were wearing ours and my cousins thought we looked HILARIOUS! here is the picture of Shane and I sporting our headlights if you will.
The last picture I want to share. Is a picture of my mom and her siblings. The oldest sibling is missing. Her husband is struggling with poor health. We missed them so much, but here is the picture of the siblings that came.
My mom is the one on the left in the purple shirt. She is the youngest out of her siblings. going from youngest to oldest is Mom (Mary) then Irene is in the Wheelchair, Bill in the back and Jeanette on the right.
We had such a fun reunion and can not wait until the next reunion in summer of 2011.

Pine Valley and St. George

A friend of mine has a cabin in Pine Valley, Utah. She asked me if I wanted to spend a week up there with her and get away for a little bit. I immediately said I did. I however, could not leave my husband for a whole week. I guess I am just one of those woman who still have separation anxiety. I convinced my friend that it would be beneficial to have Shane come with us. She agreed and we were off to Pine Valley. This picture is a distant view of her cabin. Here are some more pictures.

It's pretty much your basic looking cabin. 3 bedrooms, two bathrooms and it's just the cutest little thing ever. We had an amazing time getting back to nature. At the cabin there is absolutely no cell service, Internet, Cable Television, or Radio. We were completely shut off from the world around us. It was quite shocking to get back into town and find out that a bunch of celebrities had passed away. We left the cabin on Sunday and started to come down the mountain when we noticed that we had a flat tire. We were able to make it to the ranger station, and they were able to use an air compressor for our tire. We started again on our journey and then started to smell something burning. We pulled over and Shane lifted the hood of the Van. We noticed that the radiator was very low in water. So we pulled all of our water bottles from the car and put them into the radiator. We were able to get to safely get to St. George where my friends cousin lived. Her cousins husband is a diesel mechanic. He looked at the van and it turns out that it was the engine. It had blown head gasgets, and exhaust coming out of the engine. They told her it was no longer safe to drive, and the repairs would be more then to just junk it. I am now in St. George wondering how I am going to get home. We thought of renting a vehicle. St. George is out of any minivans, or SUV's. It was ridiculous. We thought me might have to call in the National Guard to rescue us, or just issue a state of emergency. Okay, that won't happen, but it if you've ever been in a situation like this you would know how we feel. My friends husband is coming down to pick us up.

Okay, here are some random pictures that Shane took of our time in Pine Valley.

Updates

Sorry it's been a while since our last post. We've been having some good and bad days. The good days have been full of family and friends. The bad days have been due to sickness and bad backs. Speaking of bad backs, Shane found out that he is going to need back surgery. He has a tentative surgery date of August 19th. He does have an appointment with his Neurosurgeon on July 7th. He can at that time decide to move the surgery date up.
We are looking forward to July. We have two family reunions back to back. First we will travel to Flaming Gorge, Utah where we will be with Shane's family for the Seyersdahl Family Reunion. Then immediately after that reunion we will head to Fish Lake, where we will enjoy the Mackley Family Reunion. We are excited to see both of our families.

Shane and I purchased a tent because we will need it for the Seyersdahl family reunion. We took our tent to Idaho this past weekend and tried it out in Shane's parents backyard. We found out that it is definitely water proof. It's been raining a lot and we know that it can withstand the weather conditions. We had a great time visiting Shane's family. I am going to be leaving Shane for a week starting this upcoming Monday. I am going with a friend to her cabin in Pine Valley, Utah. I know it's the first time I will have been away from Shane for that long. I promise to take some pictures and post them for my next post.

Updated Pictures of Shane

These are the most updated pictures of Shane. He's doing very well and continues to loose weight. We have an appointment with his Spinal Intervention Doctor on Tuesday. He also has an appointment with his Neurologist on May 14th. So we are hoping that back surgery will continue to be absent from our future.

Baby Shower Fun!!!

This last Saturday we had a baby shower for my youngest sister Katie. It went really well and the preparations for this shower were a little stressful, but when it came down to it, it was well worth it. The cake is a diaper cake made by our very own talented Alisha and Mom. They worked very hard on this shower, and it paid off in the end.

One of the games we played was to stick a paper plate on your head and to draw a baby on it. I personally like our sister-in-law, Jills expression. She was such a good sport in the process. However, it was someone else who won the drawing. :o)

As with every baby shower, it's customary for the "Grandma" to make the guest of honor miserable with the bow around the belly. Katie was not to thrilled to do this, but she was a good sport as well. However, it didn't stop me from taking a picture of her torture.

The best part of the shower is when we received a surprise visit from our sister, Amanda, who lives in Colorado. She was very sneaky and did not inform anyone she was coming. We were very shocked and happy to have her there. This picture is of Ava and Hayley who are roughly the same age. Two cousins who found out they liked each other right off. they couldn't go five minutes without giving each other a hug.