Lexington

As I stated a few months ago we ended up losing our two little boys Ate' and Phalanx to Parvo. Since losing them I have REALLY struggled with it. Everyday I have thought of little else. I really had no idea how attached I was to my little Linxy.

Our neighbors across the street recently (March 22nd) had puppies and for the most part I refused to go over there to see them because I knew my heart would just end up breaking even more.

One of Eric's friends has been staying with us and a few weeks ago I went out into the living room to find him on the couch with a little puppy. At first I was very apprehensive about having another puppy around because I was very afraid that Parvo was going to rear its ugly head and once again take a loved one from me...However I very quickly opened my heart and that is how Lexington came to join our family.

I would like to officially welcome Lexington (Lexie Lou) into our family...

With graduation season being in full swing it has got me really thinking about my life and where I am at. It is hard for me to believe that 15 years ago I was getting ready to graduate from Provo High School and set out to make something of my life.

During my senior year of high school I had life all figured out (just like most seniors do)... I was going to go to UVU (since my parents insisted we had no money for me to go anywhere else) and get a degree in Education. From the time I was able to start reading I knew that being a teacher was my calling. I spent my summer vacations "teaching" my younger brother, sister and neighbors school. I had plans to inspire the minds of our youth and make a difference in the world. I felt fortunate enough to receive a PTA scholarship for my first semester and life couldn't be better. Not only did I have school all figured out but life in general as well. I had big plans to marry my high school sweetheart and live happily ever after with our adorable family....

But of course... Life has a way of messing up even the best laid out plans!

Fast forward to the end of my second semester (I ended up wanting to be an overachiever and started at UVU the same month that I graduated high school). I felt like my life was spiraling out of control. I was completely bored with my Elementary Education classes and started not taking attending class seriously. I was also having major issues with my boyfriend. After I graduated from high school he became a totally different person and things got pretty bad. Finally during finals week we broke up... So much for my little "happy ending".

Spring semester came around and I decided that maybe working on generals would be a smart choice for me. One of the classes I ended up taking was a class that counted for either Elementary Education or Psychology. I found myself fascinated with what we talked about and wanted to learn more. I finally found a subject that challenged me. For the next few semesters I kinda wet my feet some with Psychology (while working on getting my generals out of the way) and liked what I saw. Not to mention that it really helped me with the ex boyfriend that didn't want me but didn't want to let me go either... And finally after a long roller coaster relationship I found myself moving on from my original dream.

January 2003 came rolling around and I was loving life. I had been completely single for a little while and my best friend and I set our schedules up to be the same. What could be better than having every class with your best friend??? We were going to live the semester up and just have fun... Enter Sean... or as I like to call him... MY BIGGEST MISTAKE! I first noticed him on the first day of school. He wasn't hard to miss seeing that he was one of only 3 boys in one of our classes. I let it roll off my shoulder though and went on with my life. About a month into the semester Brenna wasn't able to go to class one Friday because she was feeling really sick so I ended up heading over to class early. Sean happened to get there around the same time and began talking to me. We ended up talking for quite a while and I walked away with a date for the next night. To make a long story short after that date we were inseparable for the next little while. We got engaged and ended up getting married at the end of the semester.... Like I said earlier... BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE!

For the next 2 years I struggled with what I really wanted to do with my life. Every semester I went back and forth, back and forth... Do I work on my teaching degree or stick with the whole Behavioral Science thing. I finally went with the Behavioral Science thing because it would be the easiest degree for me to get(and Sean was insistant that I hurry through school so that we could get away from family, friends, etc).... In the Spring of 2005 I ended up graduating with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Behavioral Science with an emphasis in Social Work. Yay me!

Within a year of graduating my life was at an all time low. My marriage of  3 years was basically beyond repair (we won't get into all the horrible details of it) and my dad suddenly passed away. I was super depressed and really struggling! After my divorce was finalized I started counseling and while I found that my counselor was not helpful whatsoever I found that my education really was. I slowly was able to pick myself up (with help of family, friends, etc.) and start feeling better. Yes I still have days where I struggle but I am thankful for my degree even though I quickly realized it was not what I wanted to do professionally.

Fast forward a few years (I think during the Spring of 2008 or 2009) I had a random dream about going back to school and working on my Education degree. In this dream I was going to school at SUU (Southern Utah University) and I woke up excited. I knew nothing of the campus but knew this was where I wanted to go. I dragged my sister Whitney down there for a tour and instantly fell in love with the campus. A few months later on our way down to Vegas for a concert we stopped in there again and took our sister Cori around and showed her everything... (I instantly bonded with the Bell Tower)...

 Of course life once again went on and my dream was soon forgotten... I stayed working at UVU and eventually met Eric, got married, moved back East, moved back to Utah... and that was when everything hit me once again. We had been living in a camper trailer in my mom's side yard for about 4 months and every place we went to look into moving to fell through. I was getting discouraged and randomly one night I started talking to Eric about making a random move to Cedar City, Utah and looking into school. He went along with my crazy idea and within a few weeks we were able to find a place to live, get admitted for school and start the Summer semester.

Here I am a year later and I am so thankful that I did come down to school here. During that summer I took a Western Civilization class where I was introduced to Ancient Greek history. We unfortunately were only able to brush the top of it but I was hooked. During the fall semester I was able to take the Ancient Greek history class and I knew without a doubt that this was the thing I was supposed to find. This fall I am looking forward to taking Ancient Greek as a language and learning all I can about this amazing civilization.

While my life has definitely taken some interesting twists and turns over the past 15 years since graduating from high school I finally feel like I am on the right path and ready to move forward with the life I have always wanted to have. I am extremely grateful to my husband who is along for the ride!

With all the things that have happened to us over the past few weeks I have really started to struggle with my life. I have been talking about it some with my mom and she has been encouraging me to find the positive things in my life and be grateful for them... so mom, here it goes...

1. I am thankful that I have a husband that challenges me everyday. I will admit that some of these challenges end up becoming struggles, however I need a relationship where I am challenged. So thank you Eric!                     

2. I am thankful for an amazing mother who I know is always there for me and supports me in all my decisions. She has been my rock through all the ups and downs I have had in life.

3. I am thankful for my amazing siblings. My sisters and brother are my best friends and I love that I am able to talk with them (even the one who lives in Australia) on a daily basis if needed... and there are plenty of times that I talk with them daily, even if it is just random stuff.

4. I am thankful for the example my nephew Rykert is for me. Rykert was diagnosed a few years ago with DMD (Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy). He has such a positive outlook on life. We have asked him multiple times about being sick... his response is usually something like... "I am not sick, I am happy!" I LOVE that little boy more than anything!

5. I am also thankful for the rest of my nephews (Asher, Tavin and Ladd) and my niece (Lilly) and for the joy that they bring into my life. I have not been able to have kids yet but I have loved the opportunity I have had to be in their lives and to watch them grow up.

6. I am thankful for the Dunton family and for the love and acceptance I have felt from them since Eric and I got married almost 4 years ago. Eric and I rushed into everything and I was not able to meet his family until we had been married for about 5 1/2 months and moved to Maine however from the moment I met them I felt accepted.

7. I am extremely grateful for my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am thankful for the principles I was taught from a very young age and for the morals it has given me. I may have been struggling with getting myself to church over the last little while due to some personal reasons but I still have a strong testimony.

8. I am thankful for the opportunity I had to go through the temple on my 25th birthday and for the blessings I have received since then. I love the fact that the temple brings families together and I know that I will be with mine forever and that gives me comfort, especially during this time of grief. It also gives me great joy to know that I will see my dad again one day. Hopefully this year will be the year that Eric and I will go through the temple and get sealed.

9. I am grateful for my 2 girls Bostyn Tea and Salem. I can't picture my life without these two. I love waking up in the morning to get "Mamma Morning Kisses" from them. They keep me on my toes and show me such love and devotion on a daily basis. I am also thankful for the time I was able to spend loving my Ate' Baby Boy and my Linxy Binxy Baby Boy Boo (Phalanx). Even though it was such a short time (about 12-13 weeks) they made a huge impression on me and will not be forgotten. I am also thankful for the time we spent with Love Bug. She was so loving and will be missed.

10. I am thankful that we have a roof over our head, even though the place that we are living in has all kinds of issues.

11. I am thankful for the help that we have received on numerous occasions from Eric's grandma and his mom.

12. I am thankful for the opportunity I currently have to be pursuing my passion in History. I am loving being back in school and taking classes that have me completely fascinated. I feel like I am learning all kinds of new things daily from these classes.

I am sure I could come up with a bunch more things... but I figure this is a decent start....

Sometimes Life is Not Fair!

Over the past two weeks I have definitely figured out that sometimes life is not fair.

We had decided that we were going to plan our holidays a little different this year. Ammon's older kids were going to be coming up from Arizona on the 27th and spending the rest of the Christmas break up north with him. We figured we might as well go up on the 27th and stay with them.

So we left our place on the 27th and ended up bringing Lilly and two of the puppies went with us since their new homes were up there. For the most part the vacation was pretty good. I LOVED spending time with my family, however while we were up there sickness started going around. Thankfully it didn't hit us.

We were hit up with taking the kids home and figured why not. Our plan was to leave on the 2nd and drive to our place and then leave on the 3rd to take them the rest of the way home. We got home on the 2nd and everything was looking alright for the most part. We were having an issue with our hot water working but figured maybe it would take a little time. We woke up on the 3rd and discovered our yard to be covered in ice thanks to the water pipe bursting overnight. We called the maintenance man and he came over and shut our water off completely since he was going out of town for the weekend. We figured that it wasn't that big of a deal since we were leaving for the weekend anyway to take the kids home.

We loaded up our friend Jimmy's truck and noticed that one of his tires was having issues and ended up not being able to leave when we wanted to. I have never heard the kids tantrum like they did. They just wanted their mom and to go home. I started to get really frustrated as well because I was starting to feel sick and I really didn't need them screaming in the back of the truck. We finally got them to calm down and fall asleep for the night.

The next morning we started our journey and brought along our remaining puppies and Jimmy's puppy as well. It was the LONGEST day of my life. I sat inbetween the two kids and had Lilly yelling in my ear (which seemed to be going in and out of being clogged up) at Eric and Eric going back at her. We finally arrived in the Phoenix area later that night.

We got up the next morning and spent a majority of the day exploring the Wickenburg/Congress area, which is where Eric really wants us to move to. I will admit that it was a very nice area and I LOVED how warm it was. We finally got back home around 1:00 on Tuesday morning and found out that the maintenance man had yet to come over to fix our pipes.

Fast forward a few days and he finally gets the pipe fixed! Hallelujah! I can finally take a shower at home and hopefully get over this horrible flu/bronchitis crap I have gotten. The maintenance man leaves and I go to turn the water on in the shower to find out that the water is coming out of the shower head. What in the world is going on with this place???? Eric ended up having to fix things because we were tired of waiting for the maintenance man to come back... Now we also have a toilet that isn't working right, our sink in our bathroom now leaks and somehow the pipe for our kitchen sink is clogged.... The joys of living here!

On Wednesday (the 7th) we started to notice that our puppy Ate' wasn't feeling good. He started to throw up and was having issues with diarrhea. We called the vet and explained what was going on and were given some ideas to try. By Saturday things weren't getting any better and his diarrhea had started to turn bloody looking. We started to freak out about it all but our vet was gone for the weekend. On Sunday afternoon we were finally able to find a vet who was "on call" and he suggested we try giving him some Pepto to see if that helped his stomach. Unfortunately he was worse than we thought and at 6:30 pm on January 11th Ate' took his last breath and passed away. Eric and I were both devastated; not to mention Salem watching her baby pass away. However the other 2 puppies seemed to be doing fine so we were thankful for that.

We woke up Tuesday morning to Love Bug (the puppy we were trying to find a home for) throwing up like crazy. We hoped it was a fluke and had nothing to do with whatever had killed Ate'. She started to get a little better so we were hopeful that it was just something she ate. Wednesday night it started all over again and was getting worse and worse. We made an appointment with the local Animal Hospital on Thursday morning and took both Love Bug and Phalanx there. We got Love Bug tested and she tested positive to Parvo. We were heartbroken, however, it was nice to know what had happened to Ate'. We decided to leave both puppies at the hospital overnight so that they could get their iv's up and running. We went back on Friday afternoon at about 3 pm to pick them up. The vet pulled us aside and let us know that the female (Love Bug) didn't make it and had just passed away within the last 30 minutes. We were able to bring my baby boy Phalanx home with his iv and had to play the waiting game, hoping his body would be able to fight off the horrible Parvo. I figured he had a decent chance at beating this since he had just barely started to show any symptoms. Unfortunately at around 1:35 Saturday morning he went into a coma and passed away. It was so heart breaking to lose our puppies in such a short period of time (Sunday night thru Saturday morning) however the list goes on....

A neighbor of ours who had one of Salem's puppies ended up losing his girl on Saturday afternoon to Parvo. Our friend Jimmy also ended up losing his boy to Parvo this morning. We have ended up losing 5 of the 10 puppies that Salem had all within a weeks time.

I am so grateful for the love and support we have felt during this really hard week we have just had. These puppies have become just like our own children. I am so thankful that my dad was there to welcome our little boys to the other side. It gives me great comfort to know that he will be there to watch over them for us!