Goodbye Military Life, Hello Civilian Life

So about a year ago, last April...maybe it was May I can't remember. Anyway my husband was receiving a medal and we were on our way to the ceremony. I was meeting my husband at the front gate of the base and he said to me. So I just got a call and I've been turned down for my re enlistment package. I seriously thought he was kidding, I got after him for it not being funny. Unfortunetly it was not a joke. We had about 3 months to figure out what we were going to do for a job. We were angry. They were supposed to give us about 9 months notice not 3, they technically weren't supposed to turn him down because he still hadn't been able to be looked at for a promotion. He should have had a chance to be looked at before being denied re enlistment. We had been in the Marine Corps for 10 years and just like that we were done. We miss military life everyday!

  So we moved back home with my parents while Wayne looked for a new job. Fortunately he was able to get a job with Union Pacific Railroad. Luckily they love to hire former military. He started his training in October and just finished in March. The kids and I lived with my parents while Wayne did his training. Wayne and I went house hunting a few times unsuccessfully in the Brighton Colorado area. The housing market is SO competitive there that by the time we decided we wanted to put a bit in it would already be gone! So we saw a cute house for sale on the internet in the Greeley Colorado area and we loved it from the pictures so we put a bid in before we even looked at it! CRAZY I know, but we were afraid by the time Wayne would get a chance to go down it would be gone. But we got the House! The kids and I moved up February 1st and we are loving the new house and the kids have adjusted to school here and are loving it.
 This is our first home we've owned in the 12 ½ years we've been married!!

More Races in Hawaii

Well after our very first obstacle race we just kept going. My first race was the Warrior Dash with Wayne. That was so much fun! After that I did the Surf and Turf, Wayne was on mission so I ran that one alone. I was sick when I ran that one. It was 2 miles on the beach and then the last mile was pretty much all up hill. It was fun though. The next race was our fist ever Spartan race in Hawaii! After that was the Run or Dye which Wayne was on mission so I ran with my 3 kiddos. Matthew and Peyton LOVED it, Mason screamed anytime he got dye on him. Matthew ran the entire 5K and Peyton ran all but the last half mile! They did great!! We finished the year with the 10K turkey trot on base. I finally got to run with my husband again!
  The next year I ran the Warrior Dash again. Wayne was gone again for that one so I dragged my bestie with me. Thanks for going with me Taylor!! After that Wayne and I ran the fist ever (in Hawaii) Spartan Stadium Race! That was again insane! It was up and down, up and down ect. ect. ect. running over bleachers, up thousands steps and back down. Top to bottom of the aloha stadium. Dragging buckets of water, pulling tires, throwing spears. It was fun. Until I tripped the last 5 minuets of the race! I fell forward and my knee went backwards. It was so painful. The medics didn't want me to finish the race! Yeah right like I was going to quit. I was going to crawl the rest of the race if I had to! I was so mad at them. Finally they wrapped my knee and I hopped through the rest of the race. The kids also ran a Jr Spartan race again and Mason got to run his first Jr Spartan race. They had a blast! Thanks Taylor and Grant for going with us and wrangling all the kids while we ran.

Spartan Race & Jr Spartan Race

Well here are a few pictures from the first ever in Hawaii Spartan race (I ran 3 weeks after surgery) and From Matthew and Peyton's First Jr Spartan race. This was the first ever Spartan race in Hawaii at Kualoa Ranch. It was one tough race, a few people were taken to the hospital by ambulance for breaking a leg or arm.

The kids had a blast...well...Matt did anyway. Peyton was so excited to run this race and run through the mud. Until she got there and saw how muddy I was. She didn't realize she was going to have to actually get mud on her, or crawl through mud, or get mud on her shoe OR big gasp....touch the mud!! I had to carry her through the mud and she was so mad because I touched her with my very muddy fingers and carried her through the mud so she wouldn't get it on her shoes. Other than that she loved the race! Matt loved the race that he ran it a couple times.

             
                                                         Before the race!

                                                       After the race!!

2013 Family Photos

These photos were taken last summer while we were home visiting Utah. Thank you to my friend Brandie for taking them!

  

Well It's About Time.

Well it's been just over a year. Since we lost our little guy. I still have some really hard days but most days are good now. People always say "well at least you already have three beautiful children" or "well it just wasn't meant to be, at least you know you can have more". Yes, yes I have three amazing kids that I love more than anything. But I loved this lil guy just as much as the others. I felt him moving around and got to see him in the ultrasounds. He was such a wiggle worm. I got to hear his heart beat. People always say things thinking it will make you feel better when all it does is piss you off and make you angrier, sadder....lonelier and maybe just a bit darker inside. But you put on a smile and just nod. Nobody really sees how much you cry, or maybe because I HATE showing emotion in front of people I've just learned to hide it.
  I was home last summer to help my mom. Wayne was gone on mission again for the Marines so the kids and I came out. I had a few appointments here in Utah a Circle of Life. Things were looking really good, baby was healthy and growing. Then Wayne surprised us and came to Utah a week early so he could be at our Dr's appointment to find out the sex of the baby. The kids all really wanted to be there. They wanted to see the baby that was in mommas belly! We decided to let them come, they all had their guess on if it was a boy or girl. Matt said boy, Peyton said girl and she told Mason he thought it was a girl. I knew it was a boy...about when Mason was 6 months old I just had this feeling he was just waiting for his little brother.
So we got to the Dr and got all settled in and the Dr came in. She started the ultrasound and the baby came into view and right away I did not see him moving like he always was and I didn't see the flickering of his heart beating. I looked and Wayne and mouthed "there's no heart beat" I started crying and then that's when the Dr said she was so sorry but that she couldn't find a heart beat on him. We were just to the 17 weeks. He had passed away at just 12 weeks, most likely right after my last ultrasound since he hadn't changed in size much. We weren't able to find out for sure his sex but we just know in our hearts it was a boy. Since we were supposed to be flying back home to Hawaii in 3 days they decided to do a D&C the next day so that I wouldn't miscarry on the plane. The next day also happened to be Matthew's 6th Birthday. Luckily My brother and his family were in town visiting and took all the kids. Matthew had a great birthday with his uncle, aunt and all his cousins.
  We went in to the hospital the day after our appointment. It was the longest wait. The nurses kept coming in to tell us it would be awhile longer because the Dr was delivering a baby and all these babies just decided they couldn't wait anymore. I kept wishing they would just say that he was busy with another patient and he would be awhile longer. I didn't need to hear about all these people having there babies when I was losing mine.
  Finally they came in and gave me something to help calm me before going into the operating room. I've had it before and it sure knocks you out before your even out of your room! But this time I woke up a little bit as I was being wheeled into the operating room. I just slightly remember telling them I didn't want to see any of the operating tools they were about to use and a nurse covering them back up for me. That's it, I woke up crying and my nurse sitting next to me crying.  I was finally wheeled back to my room and awhile later I was able to go home. We had promised Matt fireworks for his birthday. So once we got home it was late enough to do cake, ice cream, presents and fireworks. It was so hard to sit and pretend to be happy when I just wanted to go up and hid in my bed. It all happened so fast, getting an ultrasound done and the next morning a D&C that I didn't have time to process it all until a few days later. It was all over in a day, my baby was there and then gone and I just didn't have time to process it until it was already over. That was really hard. 
  Because of the surgery we had to change our flight to the next week. I spent the next week in bed sleeping, crying and cuddling my kids. When we got home I spent a few months in a dark place. I stayed in pj's and the kids lived on cereal. My husband left on mission again so it was me dealing with this on my own with three kids. But I had a great ward who brought us meals and kept trying to get us to go to play group. I did do a Spartan Race 3 weeks after my surgery but kinda felt like I didn't really "earn" my medal because I had to be care full and so I skipped a few obstacle....maybe 8 out of who knows how many! After that I went back into my dark place. FINALLY one day I decided to go on a hike with our play group and I met a great friend that day!! I'm so thankful that I went that day and met her, otherwise I don't know how much longer I would have stayed in that dark place. I know someday I will see him again, but I miss him so much and it's hard to not wonder what would have been. Like now he would be 1 this coming January. What would his personality be like, what color eyes would he have brown or blue, blond hair or brown, shy and quiet like his oldest brother, or crazy like his other one, maybe silly and sweet like his sister....I'll never know...
 And we have since then lost another babe and two months later lost twins. We've gone from easily getting pregnant to losing 3 to not even being able to get pregnant. This is a hard challenge and I have a feeling a long road ahead of us before we will be blessed with another babe....if we are blessed with another babe.

Halloween

We spent Halloween in Utah this last year! It's funny because we thought oh this will be fun in a "normal" neighborhood, they'll get more candy and have fun seeing friends and family. Yeah we went around 1 block at my parents neighborhood and they were done! It was cold for them and the houses were spaced far apart compared to military housing that has 2-4 houses connected together. So in the amount of time it took us to go around  the one block which is actually a very LONG block we could have gone that same distance here on base and got 5 times the amount of candy. Not that they would eat that much...they didn't even eat half of what they got in UT. They just like knocking on the door for the candy...but in military housing there's a lot more of going up to a bowl on a porch to pick out a piece of candy because usually one of the spouses is deployed therefore you have nobody to pass out the candy if your taking your kids around. I had to do a bowl on the porch last year because Wayne was on mission and would have been on mission this year if we hadn't had to come home to UT. And he will probably miss it again next year as well and that's ok we take lots of pictures and video for him. :)
And this year I made Peyton's Batgirl costume. After looking at the $50 dollar one at walmart i decided that was to ugly for that much money and I could do better. I also hated the boys batman costume and just bought some sweats and black pants for Matt and some batman gear to wear over his costume...but I keep getting reminded about the belt I forgot....like right now at this very moment I'm being told that I still forgot his belt.

Batgirl, Robin and Batman. We had a blast this year!!

For everyone wondering where I got the cool pink Batman mask....from a pink spray can and a can of pink glitter blast! Because yes people thought I really bought a pink one somewhere and were in complete shock that i made her costume. The Pink Batgirl was the talk of the fall festival here on base. We had a ton of people asking about her costume and how I made the gauntlets for her.

Crazy Life and Three Birthdays!!

Wow it's been way to long since my last post!! Matthew is now 5!! He had a Batman birthday this year and then started school a few days later!
Matthew is now old enough for sports here on base. So he played soccer this year and started football but then we had a family emergency and had to go home. He LOVES football though, he likes soccer but not as much as football.

Matt is a HUGE Batman fan and wanted a Batman cake for his birthday. I was glad the new Batman movie was coming out because HotWheel came out with there limited edition Batman Wall tracks. So I got that and a couple new cars for Matt for his birthday. I also love that the tracks go on the walls and not the floor!!
                                      

The night before school we read The Night Before Kindergarten....well we read it every night a week before school started because he was SO excited for school.

We didn't get a picture on the first day so we got a second day of school pic.

Matt wasn't happy when he found out his team was the Dolphins until I said but Matt that's your school mascot and grandmas school mascot. So now he was happy to be a dolphin like his grandma!

 Peyton is 3 now and had a huge princess cake i made her. It was her first Brithday back home in Utah with all our family and she was spoiled!! She is also quite the dancer girl so I am looking at signing her up for hula while we are still here on the island.

Peyton got two cakes this year. I made on and then I had the ever so talented Lillylicious make the big cupcake one for her photos. And not only did it look fantastic but it was " A very yummy pinkalicious cake"

Sharing her cake with Pinkalicious!

Peyton in her lil Audrey Hepburn dress I made for her photos...she LOVES that dress!

Mason is already 18 months old...it's gone by so fast that I didn't realize he was that old already! I was telling people he will be 16 months old next week....yeah no. He was turning 18 months old the next week. What happened to months 16 & 17?! He is also OBSESSED with anything fish! He see a fish and he starts screaming "ish ish ish ISH!!" We were at the commissary the other day and he saw a fish on the wall and started screaming fish as loud as he could and clapping his hands. So this year his christmas consisted of anything Finding Nemo that I could find. He is going to have a fish overload!!

We spent the end of october and November in Utah. My mom got a bad infection in her leg and we almost lost her. She then almost lost her leg. But she is getting better, she has a long road ahead of her.
 Wayne's unite flew us all home to be with my mom. Wayne stayed for a couple weeks then took Mason and Peyton back to Hawaii with him and I kept Matt with me and had him going to school there.
Matt and I got back last week and yesterday we spent the day at Bellows beach. The kids were all excited to be back at the beach!!
                   
I can't belive how fast Mason's first year went!! It seemed to take F..O..R..E..V..E..R.. to get to Matt's first birthday and Peytons went slow but faster and Mason...well he's 19 months now!!

   Again a Fabulous cake by the talented Lillylicious!! I wanted a Hungry Caterpillar cake to go with his Hungry caterpillar newborn photo! Love they way they both have turned out!!