Random pictures we haven't blogged about yet

The Coribantics - Preston's ultimate frisbee team - after their championship game. Unfortunately, they ended up taking 2nd place, but they were in the highest division, so that's still way awesome!

Another picture of the bantics, but goofy style.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

My family at our cabin on new year's eve. Preston and I are trying to spell 2009 with our hands ... I don't know how good it turned out. What do you think?

Little Sadie

Sadie chewing her chew stick

She cocks her head a lot ... it's so cute!

This is on Christmas when I first saw her.

Who needs soap and water?

Christmas Break

After a much needed break, we're back at school for our last semester! It's been a week now, and classes look like they'll be pretty good. I think this semester will be more busy than last semester for me, which I didn't know was possible. But, this semester I have my same job at the internship office that I go to 20 hours a week, the same internship at the Division of Child and Family Services that I go to for 16 hours a week and 3 MORE credits than I had last semester (total of 16.5). That's after I dropped a class because I thought it would be a little too much. There were so many classes that I wanted to take for my last semester that I never got around to! Turns out I'm only taking two "for fun" classes - harp ensemble and intermediate guitar. It'll be fun. And interesting.

But, I don't really want to talk too much about school just yet. I'd much rather bask in my memories of Christmas break where there was no school, no work, no internship, and lots of yummy food, skiing and family time! Preston and I spent our entire break staying with my family or his family. We spent quite a bit of time up at my family's cabin too and enjoyed 3 awesome days on the ski slopes. Even without Christmas, the break was so great! But, Christmas made it even better!

It's fun being married because it's like you get 3 Christmases ... one with each other, one with my family and one with Preston's family :) Pretty great! Anyway, we got a lot of wonderful presents from all three of our Christmases. First, my family's Christmas ... We got a sewing machine, some clothes, new Wii games and remotes, some food storage supplies, new luggage and an ab machine (to work off all our Christmas sweets!).

Preston's family's Christmas was also great! We got some books that we asked for, lots of cereal, a popcorn popper, a breadmaker, some shoes, the Enchanted movie that I really wanted :), a few board games (of course!), and a box of goodies that we love! Preston got a really amazing hand-carved wooden statue of Moroni.

And now for what I'd have to say is the best Christmas ... our own. I got Preston a new suit for teaching seminary, a white shirt, a couple ties, new sunday shoes, black socks (his are all starting to get holes and he re-wears them since he needs a pair every day and only had 3 ... needless to say, the black socks were a must!), a book about teaching youth, some treats for his stocking and a really nice back massager (that was the big one). He got me a gift card for scrapbooking supplies, some pajama pants, a couple of shirts, chapstick, an expansion for one of my favorite board games (Thurn & Taxis ... SO FUN!) and I think there may have been something else too. But, his big gift for me was the best gift of all ... a puppy!!! She is so cute! And, yes, I still think that after having her for a couple weeks! She's a little border collie about 2 1/2 months old. I named her Sadie and she has been a really good puppy. She has lots of energy and loves to play. I don't think she likes her food very much so we'll have to find a new brand. She loves the snow! She could probably play outside all day long if we had a fence. She likes to lick off the dishes in the dirty dishwasher. She also unfortunately likes to chew chords ... not a good thing. But, she is so smart (sometimes TOO smart) and if we bring her a chew toy when she's chewing something she shouldn't, she'll be happy chewing that instead and usually doesn't have a problem chewing something bad for a while. The only problem is that she just finished her chew stick a couple days ago so now she's getting into the chords and stuff. She HATES being left in her kennel while we're at school, but we're not really sure what else to do with her. We may have to elicit the help of a neighbor or something. Either way, it's fun having some puppy magic in our home :)

Sad day in the Brown home

Well, we found out on Monday that our little baby brown never developed passed 8 weeks and thus had no heartbeat. We actually went in on an emergency visit because I had been having contraction and bleeding over the weekend (really not a good sign ... and really not comfortable to say the least). Anyway, for some reason, my body had held onto the child and tried to save it all this time when it was already pretty much done growing the first time we went to the doctor. That's the obvious sad news. The good news is that the pain is over! The miscarriage was finally completed yesterday evening and I was able to play games with some of our friends and sleep just fine last night with no contractions to wake me. So nice.

It's interesting to look back and think of the little signs that there were that maybe things weren't working out. Some of them are weird, but true. For instance, I had several baby dreams before we knew I was pregnant and for about a week after finding out. The dreams stopped about the time that the baby stopped developing. I also could tell a change in my body from the beginning and even though I was still fatigued and always hungry after the baby "died," I didn't feel my body keep changing or growing. Preston and I were also blessed because neither of us felt like it was real. We were of course very excited ... especially when we first found out ... but that faded away about the same time the fetus stopped developing and we never felt that it was real after that, so we weren't too attached. It's interesting to see how things work out.

It may sound cold and uncaring, but I think that we're pretty much over it ... as much as you can be. We'll always remember and it will probably keep bringing tears to my eyes. But, we had processed the idea over the weekend when the problems first arose and, although neither of us bluntly admitted it, we both thought that we would get bad news from the doctor. We talked about how Heavenly Father is in control and ultimately everything would be fine no matter how the pregnancy turned out. Of course we still hoped for good news :) But, I'm so grateful to my Heavenly Father for the amazing comfort he's given me in my times of sorrow. He knows and understands everything I'm going through and I know it. In our "family" scripture study we've been reading the D&C and over the weekend and last night we read sections 121 and 122 (written to Joseph Smith while he was in Liberty jail and wondering how long the Lord would allow them to suffer). It was very applicable and I know that the Lord could name all the significant things that have happened in my life that have been a challenge, but the message would be the same ... all these things will be for MY good! I know it. So, yes, I have cried and mourned in my own way, but now we're both back at work and turning the page to a new chapter of life. We know the miscarriage wasn't our fault and that it really might be better in the long run. I mean, it was miscarried for a reason ... it would have had major physical problems had my body allowed it to keep growing. So, I'll count my blessings and hope that we can still be parents soon. In fact, judging by how quickly we got pregnant last time (pretty much within a week of trying!) we probably won't even have to tell everybody the bad news ... we'll just change the due date and no one will even know :) hehe.

I also realized how many great friends Preston and I have. I ran into Liz in the Wilk right after hearing the news and had a breakdown, but she was there to comfort me :) We had some neighbors (the Wongs) bring dinner on Monday; some other neighbors (Holly & Jeff) bring flowers, cookies and a cute card yesterday and tonight we're getting dinner from my visiting teachers! Everyone is just so nice!! So thank you for your thoughtfulness, support and prayers! We can feel all the love from our friends and family and knowing that we have so many people who care about us helps us be able to be so resilient.

Thanks again to all of you for being a support to us! We always know we have people to turn to in times of need and that's a great feeling!

Catch Up

Wow, I haven't posted in a really long time. Well, I'll just try to give a brief update of how Preston and I are doing. This is the last week of school, so we've been trying to get all our last big projects and papers done and next week we get to take all our tests :)

On November 22nd, Liz and I threw a baby shower for Ka and we were happy to find that it was a success!! We had a lot of people show up and we were able to put together all the food and games. They may have been lame games, but they were fun.

Later that day was the big U vs Y game, which we all know how that turned out. We drove up to Preston's house for a football party with a bunch of his family and friends. Half of us were routing for the Y and half were for the U, so it made for a pretty entertaining group. But since we were going to be with so many rival routers, we had to show our team spirit and decided to take some blue jello. The jello was a good idea, but writing "BYU" with whipped cream before we made the drive was anything but a good idea. Liz was with us and took a video of it as we were driving, so hope you think it's as funny as we did.

Jello at the beginning of the car ride

Jello dancing in the car

The final product

So sad ...

Thanksgiving was great! I didn't take any pictures for some reason, but we stayed at Preston's parent's house and spent a lot of time with his family. Julianna, Dan and Mikayla were here from Washington, so it was fun to spend time with them. And of course, we spent some time with my family also :) But, dinner at Preston's was great! Mom tried a new way of cooking the turkey and it turned out divine! Since she cooked the Turkey without stuffing she had to make stuffing separately and experiment. That one didn't turn out quite as good as the turkey and we all decided it was the stuffing that made us all get way more full about half an hour after we finished eating. The day after Thanksgiving we got to help put the tree up and start listening to Christmas music! It was so nice to have a break from school and work and sleep in!

Preston and I have put our tree up and decorated outside. We're still trying to find time to pull everything else up and decorate the tree, but it's a work in progress. I had my harp concert last saturday too and it went really well. Probably one of my favorite concerts in my whole BYU career. My group played Solfeggietto and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. The best part was that we all wore tape on our noses when we walked out for Rudolph and after a dramatic beginning to the song, we stuck red noses on and started the melody :) It was so much fun!

Well that's all for now, but hopefully you'll be hearing from us again soon!

The Big Game

I have recently been losing all faith in the Y's football team because they play so inconsistently! But, last week's game gave me hope for the big rivalry game this weekend! This is always my favorite game of the season by far! And I think it's going to be a GREAT game! Both teams play fairly inconsistently; the U struggles most with offense, but is great with defense, and the Y struggles with defense, but is great with offense. Both teams usually come out on top, so it will be especially interesting! I don't think I could honestly tell you who I think will win ... I'm hoping the cougars of course, but I just don't know. The U may have the home game advantage, but that didn't stop us last time we played there. So to all you U fans, good luck and may the best team win!

Epiphany

So, I realized yesterday that this is our last full week of school before a much needed Thanksgiving break! That alone was enough to make me so happy and excited to give this week my all. But, it got better. It hit me that after we get back there are only 2 MORE WEEKS of school before finals ... Wow! Can you believe the semester is almost over? Just when I was feeling like I don't know how much more school I can take, I had the most amazing epiphany that I don't have to take much more!! YAY!!