Free time?!

(I hate it when the Internet Explorer quits and I lose everything I've just typed, I lose all ambition and don't want to do anymore blogging!)

So, in my past weeks of "house arrest" I have been trying to find things to do. I've cleaned the house, I've mopped the floor, I've done the dishes, I've done laundry, I've watched movies, and I've even played Nintendo. Recently, tho, these tasks have become mundane and boring. So, in trying to find new things to do, I started going at all the boxes containing my jewlery and makeup. All are in seperate boxes because I moved to Utah, then to the apartment, and then finally to the house. So I got to tossing out lone earrings, broken necklaces, unused bracelets, and the like, when I came across the jewlery I wore for the wedding! I was so excited that I found it all, and I didn't want to lose any of it again. I wanted to display it and put it somewhere that losing it wasn't possible. I came up with the idea of a shadowbox! So, I got one of my bridal pictures, and some of the ribbon from the wedding, and all my jewlery and stuck it in this shadowbox. Mark says it looks great, I say it looks like I got lazy and just pinned all this jewlery up next to a photo. But oh well, it's on the wall and that's where it's staying because it was such a pain to get up on the wall, I didn't even take it down to get a decent picutre of it!

Also, in my wanderings of the house, I found Mark's box of stuff from his room. I found all the little funny crap I made him when we were dating. Like the picture frame that I scrapbooked and all of our photostrips from the photo booths. So I hung the scrapbooke picture frame on the wall, and even hung the little Love You saying I got at Seagull Book, so here is also a picture of that. Once we get the wedding photos, I'll put one in the upper left hand corner, and one in the bottom left hand corner (it'll look more even that way!)

love always, bry and mark <3

haircut!!!

I got a new haircut! I've tried to change it up a few times a few months ago, but it never turned out right, and I was never totally in love with the hair cut. So I finally broke down and went to a hair salon other than Fantastic Sam's. So I brought a whole bunch of pictures of what I kind of wanted, and the hair stylist had a lot of fun cutting my hair. I, more or less, just wanted to get my hair cut in a new style, new fashion, I wanted something new, and I got something completely new, and I LOVE IT!!! So here are before and after pictures. And then, one of me and Mark! :) Yay for new things, and for feeling great after something so small as a haircut, or a new shirt. It really is amazing how something like a haircut can change a lot. I feel really good.

love always, bry and mark <3

post surgery

Yayyayayayayay! I'm feeling good! Anyways, to fill everybody in, I went in for open heart surgery on February 3rd. That was a Tuesday. That Saturday, I went home. The doctor's said everything was looking good, and I could go home. We were all kind of nervous about my coming home so soon, but it all worked out in the end. Everything started getting easier and better. So anyways, I will tell you of the surgery. I went in for open heart because the dcotor's saw a 20 mm hole in between my baffles (little tunnels for my blood that the doctor's created when I was 2, in the first surgery, to correct to defect I was born with). When the doctor's went in for this surgery, the discovered the cardiac cathiterization was incorrect, the hole wasn't 20 mm, it was 3 inches. All the work that had been done in the previous surgery was undone, the doctor's have no idea when the damage started or even how. But the open heart surgery suddenly went from prevenative/precautionary to life saving. So instead of using the gor-tex to patch up the hole in my heart, the doctor's used inert animal paracardium. They took a part of an animal heart and sewed it into my heart to fix everything. But - everything is fine. I am doing great. things are so good! I went to church yesterday even! I didn't teach my class of 5 year olds, but I still went to church. We just look at everything and see a big blessing. What if I had been pregnant? And they discovered the 20 mm hole that turned out to be a 3 inch gap? We're very grateful that didn't happen, and that everything happened the way it did. Thank you all for everything, for all of your prayers and fasting. We love you all!! Take care - love always, bry and mark!

Painting and prep

We painted!!! Yayayay! Here are the before pictures:

And here are our after pictures:

We painted one wall in the living room a light forest green color. So the wall in the living room matches the chairs I bought at a garage sale a year ago. (These chairs are so comfy, but they are a psychadelic green/orange paisley/flowers on a black background. $20 for the two, yeah...) And we painted a wall in the office/spare room a light orange color (apricot charm, I believe). I love both my newly painted walls! It makes the rooms seem bigger, which is pretty awesome in our tiny house. I've started to hang up my pictures and get everything where I want it, which is good, since we've been here for 2 months.

I've been trying to keep busy, if I sit around too much, then my mind starts to wander to the surgery and I start to exaggerate things. So, I painted, I started writing out everything and then typing it into a blog, I've been cleaning (always), I've been working on my Thank You's, I've been arranging things, I've been rearranging things, I've been starting to scrapbook things, I've been hanging out with girls from church, and I've been trying to get things ready. Work's been good, i've just been tying everything off, which would be a whole lot easier if they guys wanted to help me out, but they don't.

Everyone's been real helpful and real nice. Things with the surgery are going according to plan, and Februaru 3rd is creeping up soon. But everyone's asking how they can help, and if we need anything. The only thing I'm worried about right now, is if the laundry is clean, and what's for dinner. Things have been going great.

We love and miss you all, and I'm thinking about you. Take care, love always,

bry & mark

holidays...with style

so for the holidays this year, mark and I were all over the place. For Thanksgiving we went to Utah. And then for Christmas we also went to Utah, both times it was so much fun to see his family. We got the brothers all sling shots and a box of paint balls to share, I'm pretty sure welts are still healing. But we got TONS of boardgames, which is what we asked for: we had some friends over for dinner and realized we had NO board games at all- unless you count Cootie, which I do not. So, we went to Utah for Christmas, and then went back to Denver for a few days because we both used up our vacation for the wedding (there was so much I wanted to do in 2008 but couldn't because I took all my vacation for the 2 week wedding...) and then on the 30th, we flew out to wisconsin for new years with my family. Well we started to fly to the wisco but only made it to Minneapolis because we missed our connection flight to Green Bay. So we stayed at a hotel by the Mall of America with no luggage, just my carry on bag which had books, headphones, my iPod, and gum. So good morning! My contacts are welded to my eyeballs and I'm wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday, and let me warn you- I was nervous yesterday and EVERYBODY could see it (the girl hates flying!!) So, yeah- but how else to end a jam packed year than with another adventure? The hotel we're staying at: the directions to the room went like this: turn right, walk about a mile, go around the pool, turn right and you're there! But the hotel is themed funny: native American style, from the pattern on the walls to the carpet to the creepy wall art. Oh and I figured the last person in our room left the window open. Nope, the windows typically freeze on the inside of the hotel when it's 2 degrees outside, right? Yay, welcome to the Midwest Mark, enjoy being frozen. But we're glad we're here together and we can share our adventures, for now and always.

Anyways, we finally made to Wisconsin. And had almost 5 whole days with the entire family!! Wahoo- we took family pictures on the 2nd, and I'll get those up as soon as I get them :) but it was the first time in almost 3 years that all 6 kids have been together, and we added another brother to the mix. I thought it was really amazing how well Mark fit in with the family, telling jokes, and poking fun. He was even picking on Scott! And Dad made his famous Sundae Dessert for the girl's birthday, she turned 22 on the 3rd! Holy cow!! Some days I feel really old, and some days, I feel way too young to be where I am.

We both enjoyed being back East, and had a lot of fun. But we're also glad that we're done traveling so we can finish unpacking (the girl only has 2 boxes left until there are NO MORE boxes in the spare room!), and make sure everything is clean and where we want it to be before family starts showing up. For those that don't know, the girl is going to have open heart surgery in February, to help with oxygen flow and to hopefully fix the headaches. It's nothing to really worry about, there will be plenty of family here for us, and the sisters from the ward will be here for me, and the brothers are always ready to take Mark and play football or go shoot things, so I'm not worried about that. But, the surgery means, 9 or so weeks off work (YAY!!) but that also means 9 or so weeks of sitting around the house, not being able to drive. But the Wii should be very useful, and the girl got crafty, so maybe she'll make something....

Anyways, Happy New Years, Happy 2009!! We hope everyone had an amazing holiday (with how many of our friends got engaged, we KNOW it was a good one ;)!!! ) We love you all!

Take care and love always, <3>

moving and being in motion

So, we moved. Yeah, again. (Pretty sure this is time # 5 since Mark has known me, that I have moved.) But we moved from the horrible apartments to a 2 bedroom house. It's way nice, and way cute, and I LOVE IT!! We moved everything over the week of Thanksgiving (could we add anything more to that week?!) The reason we moved is 1) I don't think I want to take the stairs after the surgery 2) where would the mother's stay? and 3) apartments really are terrible. so for $30 more a month, we opted for the house, where our neighbors are far away, and there is a fence between us and their dog. We moved in last Monday, (or the Monday before Turkey Day) and already our next door neighbors brought over homemade cookies. We hung our Christmas lights up and put up our tree last week.

Things at work have been good for both of us. Mark's job is going good, he's had lots of work to keep him busy. And the girl has been finishing up lots of her jobs, just keeping busy.

We're both excited to go home to Utah for Christmas, it'll be good to see Mark's family again! Mark is excited to visit Wisconsin for New Year's with the girl's family. But before all of that happens, December 19th will be 6 months for me and Mark, and we're both way excited for that. These 6 months have gone by so darn fast. But we've loved it, it really has been alot of fun.

Oh, before I forget, I'm posting picture of the house for everybody to see. There aren't alot of pictures of the inside, we're still unpacking. :) Take care everybody, we love you!!

<3>

Halloween

Hello!! So the past month has been crazy crazy!! But it's Halloween in few days and I LOVE HALLOWEEN!! I love dressing up in costumes, I love trick-or-treating, I love carving pumpkins. Friday night was our church's "Trunk-or-treating" where the kids go around to the cars in the parkinng lot, and get candy. It's pretty fun. At church back home, everybody dressed up, kids, adults, teens, everybody. So I was way excited because me and Mark had our costumes picked out (I was a Rock Star again, and Mark was my securty guard.) He had his SECURITY shirt, some fake tattoo sleeves, and his aviator glasses. I put pink and orange color spray in my hair, wore my leggins with a mini skirt, my big black boots, a short sleeve shirt over a long sleeve shirt, and a tie. It was way fun. But we were pretty much the only adults to dress up in costumes, there were 3 others that did. Soooo... yeah....that once again made me realize just how young me and Mark really are. We went and bought pumpkins yesterday to carve them today. It was way fun, we carved them into jack-o-lanterns, Mark's pumpkin is laughing at mine, mine looks like it's dead but still smirking. So we carved them and then I baked the pumpkin seeds. Mark had never had homemade roasted pumkin seeds. I think he's hooked on them. :) We put our jack-o-lanterns out on the patio, and we're going to light them tonight.

So lately, I have been going to a series of doctor's appointments. First to figure out why I'm getting migraines for days, weeks, months on end. But the primary care physician has all these weird ideas, change my diet, change my sleeping pattern, go see an eye doctor, try all kinds of medications, but none of that worked, so I went to a chiropractor, and my headaches eased up instantly. But on the list of the PCP's THINGS TO DO was go see a cardiologist. In talking to the cardiologist, they did their own series of tests, EKG, bubble study, 24-hour ekg monitor, cardiac MRI, and on Wednesday the 29th I go in for a cardiac catheterization. I've had one before, I'm not that worried about it, it's not a surgery, it's a procedure just like an xray or getting blood drawn are a procedure. Things are going good, and we're both confident in the doctors and confident that the results from the catheterzation will help figure out my headaches.

We got a hair clippers yesterday, and today I cut Mark's hair for the first time. I have never cut hair before, so I was a little nervous. He said if I screwed up too bad, he would just wear a hat. I wasn't sure how it was supposed to look, I took a couple big chunks out... Either way, he's happy with how it looks, so I couldn't have done it that bad, right? He says I'm a full-fledged wife now, and I am so glad it's only taken me 4 months to be full-fledged.

Mark likes his job, he has his own work vehicle he drives home each night and drives to his appointments out in boulder. It's nice that he gets his own work vehicle. He gets a work phone, a work PDA, a work GPS device, so now he knows where he's going. Work for me has been work. They just keep piling it on, and the thing is, I still get it done. I went to Omaha, Nebraska this past Tuesday for 2 job-site visits. That was... interesting.

And yesterday, I went against all my holiday morals, and bought Chirstmas decorations. It's not even Halloween yet!! I bought a tree-topper, some ornaments, and some lights, so we now have stuff to decorate our fisrt tree. The only reason I bought the stuff now is because each item was $6.00 or less, and the closer it gets to Christmas the sooner that stuff will disappear. So I figured it was a "buy now or forever hold your peace" so yeah, I bought Chirstmas decorations. But stuff only for the tree, and stuff we're going to keep around for a long while.

Anyways, we want everybody to know that we love you and are thinking of you, and we hope you all have a very Spooky Halloween!! Love always, bry and mark!! <3