Update Extravaganza

Or, How We Graduated, Moved Across the Country, and Became Real People 

So I've been a Slacker Blogger lately, but that doesn't mean our lives are boring. Actually, we've been doing some particularly interesting things in the last few weeks.

Greg earned his undergrad degree in Finance from BYU. Which means we are both Educated People now. Weird.

Ain't he handsome though? 

I tried to think of a clever way to segue into these other graduation pictures but I couldn't do it, so here is a dump: 

I call this one "Some Guy's Head" 

Family was in town: 

Graduation Selfie. Look how cool I am that I just used that word.

Graduation feels good. For all 3 and 1/2 years of our marriage we've been in school. Come to think of it, I'm still in school, but not "real" school, ya know? Anyway, over these years we've had long nights studying and tests and projects and papers and two internships where we've moved cross country and lots of part time jobs and some full time jobs and some budgeting and lots of praying and a couple of miracles and some experiences that have made me hurt so much I thought I would just break. As difficult as these years have been, they have also been good years. I will look back at them and remember how in Provo I met the best man I know and one night I kissed him as I sat on a red bench in the snow and things from there got harder and harder but better and better. After three and a half years of being married and in school, we have aged so much but we are still just trying to do our best. I am so proud of my husband and I am so glad we have had these years together. They have been the hardest years of my life, but I don't think I would change them, and I mean that.

I only cried a little bit at graduation. Just a little. 

Things don't end after graduation. As the student speaker patiently reminded us in her rather trite remarks, commencement means "beginning." So a few days after Greg's graduation, the moving company arrived. 

I didn't touch one thing during moving day. Not a dang thing (I walked to the Provo Library and worked on my last master's class paper). One perk of working for Johnson and Johnson is that they paid for some dudes to pack us up and ship us out. We flew to Florida the next morning. 

Here is us after our cleaning check, locked out of our apartment: 

Goodbye, apartment. We love you, but we won't miss you. 

So the last little while Greg and I have been hanging out in our empty apartment in Jacksonville waiting for our stuff to arrive DOING NOTHING. Greg's job starts soon but in the meantime we have been doing a whole lot of laying around. The lack of important things to do was blissful for a while, but in all honesty, I've been starting to get a tad bit bored. Mostly we watch HGTV and go to Dick's and Costco. 

Seriously. We went to Costco twice yesterday. 

After our stuff gets here (tomorrow!) we should have a little more freedom to do some funner things. We'll see what kind of mischief we can get into. 

As of right now, this is the view outside my apartment: 

I will never get used to how green it is here. So lovely. I was meant to live in a green tangle right on the ocean, I think. 

The hardest thing about leaving Provo: I have two children buried there. I hope people continue to visit them. I have seen these little boys do miracles. If you live close to Utah Valley and you need to feel some peace, stop by. I have felt so calm about everything since we left. It's a blessing. Life is short and eternity is real. I'm a mom no matter where I go. 

The best thing about leaving Provo: New adventures. 

A Race, A Desk

Well, Greg did it! Last Saturday he ran his first half marathon. It was a pretty small race in Herriman. The course was very hilly--actually all uphill from miles 7-12. But even though it was hard, Greg had a blast and came in around his goal time. And I had a blast watching him and cheering him on.

It's occurred to me lately that maybe I don't brag enough about Greg on this blog. GREG IS COOL. A few months back I had to start working at 7 in the morning. Since we only have the one car, this meant that Greg had to stop driving to our old stake center to play basketball with the dudes. No biggie. He just decided he would work hard at running and obviously he's just rocked it. There is no one I know who has taught me how to just try and be optimistic like Greg. He's quietly hopeful, a happy guy. I'm so proud of the good job he has that allows us to go have an adventure on the East Coast, and the way he has always looked for the best and found a way to be positive about everything. It's not something that I'm naturally good at, but his attitude has been a huge blessing for us in the past year. I would be a very different person if it weren't for him.  

Something else Greg has been working on... He took a furniture and industrial design class this semester that he's been wanting to do for awhile now. He built this beautiful desk! He's pret-tay happy about it. And he should be. It's dark walnut and the wood is beautiful. I was helping him finish getting a coat of Danish Oil on it yesterday and I'm so excited to have something so gorgeous in my house that Greg made. 

I just have a really wonderful guy. Even though I was young and knew nothing and was kind of scared I'm so glad that four years ago I decided I would marry him.

March 17th

Today is a day I've been thinking about for a long time. Today was my due date with Austin and Daniel.

We picked out all the flowers ourselves. Roses and daisies and two sunflowers. Even though I think they're pretty, somehow it just doesn't seem like enough.

March 17. It meant so much to me.

I'm not even sure what I want to say except for I really needed to make sure that I acknowledged this day. In some ways, the time has just flown by since that day in early October when I first held them. In some ways, I can't believe it's been so long. To me, it doesn't highlight so much the fact of how little they were when they came--how early it was. It more highlights the fact of how real they were so quickly. I hope that makes sense.

I have felt so broken-hearted today. Sometimes the enormity of this burden seems a little too hard to bear. Sometimes the enormity of what I have lost almost terrifies me.

But I don't think in those terms very often, because Austin and Daniel were always meant to come to our family in a specific way. I was never meant to raise them here, and that's okay. So in reality, I have lost nothing. I have gained everything. I am the mother of children who are walking now with God. What else could I possibly ask for?

Today Greg and I knelt in the Provo Cemetery and talked. We talked about how grateful we are that we have a friend who visits our sons sometimes and leaves gifts for them--just because she realizes how special they are. We talked about how it felt to be with them when they were born. We talked about their lovely baby smell.We talked about how we will raise them one day, how Greg will get to play catch with them, and I will get to watch all of my boys together.

I think sometimes I will even have the opportunity to finish carrying them.

In some ways I have nothing else to say and in some ways I have one thousand things I'd like to say. I wonder if tomorrow will be even harder than today because it will be after they were supposed to be born, after they were supposed to be safe with us, after I was supposed to be keeping them. I wonder if I will keep feeling silly that in November and December, I asked Heavenly Father over and over to help me get pregnant again quickly, so I wouldn't have to go through this day feeling so empty.

A lot of these things don't really matter. What matters is that Greg and I are okay, because we know that our children will always be ours. They are so real to us. When I am old and I finally wake to a brighter sun, I know who it will be that I see first, and I already love them.

I don't know if this is inappropriate, but whoever happens to read this, I have a favor to ask. Please say a small prayer for my extended family. There is someone I know who is struggling with extremely difficult things when it comes to stillbirth. I wish so badly that I could fix it for her, but I can't. Please pray that she and her husband will have the strength and comfort that they need. Asking this of you is the best I can do for them.

I know that Heavenly Father takes care of us, and I know our families really can always be together. I know that we are truly capable of doing whatever it is that God asks us to do, even when we don't think we are. I know that His plan for us is good.

My little family has taught me more than I ever could have learned otherwise. When you think of my sons, I hope you don't think of how things can sometimes be difficult. I hope you think of how things are sometimes much more beautiful than we ever could have imagined.

Love, Heather, Greg, Austin, and Danny

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Today Greg and I accomplished one of the goals we made in January by running in the Rex Lee Run at BYU.  Woot woot!

Heather's 5k Time: 31:46 

Heather's Place in her Age Group: 45th

I was pretty happy with this. This is a PR for me! Also, it's BUSY trying to work full time and do a Master's Degree, so I was kinda worried because I didn't feel like I really prepared. Even though this isn't like a stellar time, I was pretty proud of myself just for doing it! And hey, it's a good time for me, so whatev. It feels freakin' awesome to accomplish hard goals. This is how I feel: GO ME. 

Next time, I can focus on getting a better time :)

Greg's 10k Time: 50:36

Greg's Place is his Age Group: 6th 

Greg's goal was to get in the low 50 minutes, so he crushed that! And he was SUPER close to getting a medal! Greg has liked this running thing so much that he's signed up for his first half-marathon in April. I'm so proud of him and also I think he's attractive when he runs. 

One of my favorite things about the race was watching little kids run with their parents. Seriously, I was beaten by a couple of five-year-olds who were BOOKIN' it. It just was really fun to watch parents keep their kids motivated while they were running and to see families pull together for a cause. 

And who is this adorable baby girl in the pink sweatsuit who came sprinting around the track about 10 minutes after me and finished the race all by herself?

Who knows, but it was just one of the things that made this race today so fun. 

I think I will definitely do this again! 

Hard Isn't Bad

So I have some questions for ya.
Get ready to think and also to type.

First, a little background:

Around Christmastime this past year I went home to Mesa. I was still a pretty broken-hearted person. To be perfectly honest, it took me three months to start feeling fairly normal again—not the same, but more normal. While in Arizona I spent an hour or two with Greg in the home of Jenny, my Denton mom and also a very good friend. Something she said struck a chord with me, and I’ve thought about it often since then.

“Hard isn’t bad.  It’s just hard.” 

I believe this with all of my heart. Difficult things are not inherently terrible things. In fact, I would think it’s totally accurate to say that our greatest difficulties have the potential to encompass and engender our greatest blessings, our greatest triumphs, and even our greatest happinesses (and yes, I just made happiness a plural).
This is what Neal A. Maxwell said about challenges: “If, indeed, the things allotted to each of us have been divinely customized according to our ability and capacity, then for us to seek to wrench ourselves free of our schooling circumstances could be to tear ourselves away from carefully matched opportunities. To rant and to rail could be to go against divine wisdom, wisdom in which we may have once concurred before we came here. God knew beforehand each of our coefficients for coping and contributing and has so ordered our lives.”

I hope I’m not the only one who had to read this like seventeen times before I understood it. Thanks to the lovely Christine for sharing this quote with me, I love it.

I like what he says about concurring—agreeing with God. Can you picture yourself in the time before you came here, sitting down with a Father and saying “Yes, I will try to do that. Yes, if that’s what you need me to do, I will do it.” I’ve felt strongly before that this has happened to me, but I’ve never heard anybody else actually endorse this mindset.

Let’s be honest about all of this, though. Even though Hard isn’t Bad…it is Hard. All of us will probably wish that we didn’t have to go through our Hard things.

But we do have to go through them. So where does that leave us? I’m not exactly sure, but all of these musings on Hard have left me with some questions. Questions I’m really interested to see your answers to, even very tentative answers. One of the reasons I’m interested in people’s perspectives on this is because I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately about infertility and miscarriage, and I’m trying to clarify what some of my themes are.

Get your thinking cap on, people.
Here are some things I’ve been wondering:

• If hard isn’t bad, do you ever associate Hard with being inherently good?

• Just because hard isn’t bad, does that make it “better” than something that’s easy?

• If you have a situation where you can pick to do the easy thing or pick to do the hard thing, which do you pick? Why is that your inclination to pick that?

• What do you think God expects us to pick? Do you think He ever allows us to choose? Why or why not?

• Is it noble or at least note-worthy to pick to do the hard thing, or is it more noble or note-worthy to try to understand how the thing that you are doing is not as hard as you originally thought?

• Christ said “Take my yoke upon you…For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” I always thought this meant that if we strengthened our faith, even our most challenging trials could become easier, and even “easy” to bear. Does God give us hard things so that we can learn to handle those things like they are easy? Or are some things always going to be hard? What exactly is the definition of “easy” in this scripture?

• Can love be hard? Is it supposed to be hard?  Is it supposed to be easy?

• Is hope hard? Is it supposed to be hard? Is it supposed to be easy?

• If our trials are “divinely customized” and “carefully matched” to us, do you think sometimes God gives us trials, on purpose, that are the hardest for us to bear? Or the easiest for us to bear?

The more I think about these things, the more I wonder if there are ever any solid answers. That being said, I do believe that our lives are going to be measured in large part by the deliberate choices we make when we are confronted with “Hard.”

So now, let me know your thoughts. I’ve never written this blog in order to generate a lot of comments. Sure, comments are nice. Some things people have related to me on this little blog have changed my perspective, or made me feel loved, or helped me to cope. And I really like that, and I appreciate it. But I’ve never been really super concerned with comments, if that makes sense.

Today, I’m asking for comments.  I really want to hear what everyone thinks.

Seriously. I’m talking to you.

Thanks. Peace and Word.

The Fam is Famous

Greg and I had a really great President's Day weekend. We spent a good portion of it at a cabin in Island Park, Idaho, with his parents and sisters, watching the Olympics and generally being lazy. This is Island Park in the winter, in case you are curious:

Then on Tuesday we found ourselves in Rexburg listening to BYU-I devotional.

Not just any devotional, mind you. Greg's dad Steve had been asked to give the devotional. He is the Career Service Coordinator and also in a Stake Presidency in a singles ward on campus. He spoke about the need for organized religion and the blessing it is to have order when it comes to spiritual things. His lecture was really thought-provoking, and also beautifully delivered. If you want to listen to it, you can go here to get the MP3 version. Also it is being broadcast on BYU TV on Sunday, March 2, at 2 I believe.

I thought that we would just be sitting in the crowd listening, but they actually had our family sit on the stand. Those lights are BRIGHT, people.

Most of the time, though, I was sitting in the darkness listening to Steve's thoughts. And I'm glad it was dark. I had a neat experience that I feel like I should share.

Lately I've been feeling out of whack. I'm busy enough that I'm reasonably happy. At the end of January, we found out that I don't have to be tested for cancer and my ovaries are no longer dangerously enlarged--so, you know, that's good. I guess I can't quite articulate how I've been feeling. I think I am a little unsure of myself and what comes next. It's been hard because I don't know how to blog or talk to people about it. I got a book in the mail that describes it best. The book is called Tear Soup and I have no idea who sent it to me, but thank you. The book says that most people around you will be able to tolerate your grief for about one month, and then they will expect you to be "over" it. While Greg and I have had so many incredible people supporting us, I have felt a little bit like maybe I should stop talking about it. I've blogged about it a few times, but I've always taken the posts down because I'm afraid no one wants to hear about it anymore. But it definitely isn't over for us. And sometimes I think that even though time has healed us so much, there are things that are just compounded now. We've been told that I'm healthy enough to try and get pregnant again, but I can't shake the feeling that it's all just incredibly pointless. And also--I'm so frightened of being pregnant again. Every day will be scary. And then I wonder if wanting another child is somehow not fair to those two little children I already have.

So I guess I'm just a tiny bit lost.

But I was sitting there on the stand, and I was thinking of my sons. I was remembering how it felt to be with them. Thinking that they will never be counted and not often remembered by anyone else, but they will always mean to much to me.

And as I sat there, I felt a tiny bit of peace. Not a big feeling, just a little one. But it was enough. I thought, Heather, you are in the right spot. You're doing the right things. Aren't you glad that any distress in your life is caused by this incredible blessing? Aren't you glad that the things that cause you worry don't have anything to do with things you are doing wrong? You're doing okay.

So I sat there in the dark on the stage and held Greg's hand and just kind of cried a little and felt a tiny bit better.

I always wanted this blog to be a place people could turn to so that they know they're not alone. I always wanted do document the things Greg and I have been through, not because our experience is inherently note-worthy, but rather so that maybe someone somewhere can have a better idea of what it's like. I guess what I'm trying to say now is that even in the difficult moments, God is aware of us. There might be days when you think "This would be a really good day for God to fix all my problems." And He may not do it, but you can still survive, and even be happy.

The biggest events in our lives don't happen, and then are over. They become a part of us. I think it is up to us to decide what parts of us they will become, and when everything is said and done, who we want to be.

Dinner FAIL

So, to preface this, I'll begin by saying that I really like to cook.  I don't know if I'm a great cook, but hey, I LIKE it, and that's got to count for something, right?

No matter how much you like to cook, sometimes things just take a turn for the worse.  Or, in this case, maybe like seven turns for the worse.

Greg and I were dinking around this afternoon after we were done with homework, trying to decide what to have for dinner.

Me: Greg, just pick something! I'll make whatever you want.

Greg: I don't care.  Make whatever YOU want.

Me: Okay, we're having baked potatoes.

Greg: (Silence).  I don't WANT that.

After about 45 minutes of this, I started flipping through a cookbook.  Because some people get inspiration from cookbooks, you know? And maybe I could be one of those people.

And then I saw it.  The perfect recipe.  Fettuccine alla Carbonara. Basically white sauce with bacon in it. Hey, that's my favorite pasta at Pizza Pie Cafe!  And I even have all the ingredients!  Let's do it!

On weekends, Greg so obligingly helps with dinner (sometimes).  His chore today: cook the bacon.  Usually he's very good at cooking bacon.  Because he really likes bacon.

That was the first FAIL.

Me:  So...how did this happen?

Greg: I have no idea.  One second, it was fine.  The next second...dead.

Well, you can't blame Greg.  Because I didn't do much better.

The recipe said you had to time cooking the noodles with finishing the sauce, so that you could just pour the sauce immediately over noodles.  I didn't have fettuccine on hand, but I can use garden spirals, right? Yeah, all pasta tastes the same. So I was doing great...had my pasta almost cooked, got the sauce on the stove. The recipe said DO NOT BOIL the sauce, which was made of milk and eggs.  I've made a few cream pies before--enough to know there was a danger of cooking the eggs too fast and getting little cooked egg pieces and stuff like that.  So, hey, I've cooked cream pie.  How hard can this be? So I very obediently sat there gently stirring my sauce over medium heat.  It was supposed to take six minutes until the sauce coated the spoon.

But after like three minutes, the sauce started boiling. What the heck?  Stop that!  What do you do if you don't go the full six minutes?? Is this sauce "coating a metal spoon"? What does that even mean, anyway?!? And my pasta isn't done yet!!

The sauce ended up looking like this.  I'm not sure the picture does it justice:

Yucky and curdled. Basically chunky milk with a bad egg smell.

I have no idea how it tasted, because neither Greg or I had the courage to eat it.

Good thing I have some of this on hand:

I threw in the torched bacon for good measure.  Because bacon is bacon, you know?

Bad idea.

This picture doesn't do it justice either, but it was weird.  Charcoal bacon in red sauce is weird.

Greg's running commentary at dinner: Are we going to end up at Chick-fil-A?  What are these squirelly chunks in here?  Is that the bacon?  Did you put in the bacon? It looks like it's covered in...blood. That's what it is, covered in blood.  Can we please go to Wendy's?  I'm still going to be hungry after this.  No offense, babe, but this is probably the worst meal you've ever cooked the whole time I've been married to you.

Yeah.  He said that. I'm going to take that to mean that most of the meals I cook are DE-LISH.

Good thing I've learned to laugh at myself because that's what I was doing.  Laughing, and NOT EATING.

Greg: Hey.  You know what?  The corn is good.

Yes, I CAN warm up corn from a can, people.

Thank you, thank you.  No applause, please.