Trip TO South Dakota

So June turned out to be a very busy month for us! The month included a 5500 mile trek circling the country, so here goes!

We actually had a celebration of a very important birthday party for Hannah at the Jacksonville Community Center at the pool. That morning we actually had a nice breakfast too.

We were excited to see family and friends and I cannot believe that Hannah is already 9! Her favorite outfit from her birthday, and probably her favorite gift was the new outfit:

That evening we went to bed for a few hours, and then like we always do, we went on a road trip starting EARLY in the morning.

St Louis Arch

The first part of the drive went really well. About 8 hours into the trip we landed in St. Louis where we decided go ahead and go up the arch.

So up we went. This was my first opportunity with my pacemaker to be patted down instead of going through the security check (since the machine they use could mess my with my pacemaker). The first part of the trip up was to enter into a small pod. If you are claustrophobic, this is not the visit for you!

Hannah struggled at first because she is not a fan of closed areas, nor is she a fan of heights, so when we got to the top, it was a little difficult at first to get her to look down on the scene.

We did manage to get her to emerge from the pod long enough to a family picture though:

Liberty Jail

From here, we left the area and headed up north to South Dakota. However, we had to make a few stops along the way! So next stop: Liberty Jail!

For those of you who are not familiar with this location, on December 1, 1838, the Prophet Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, and other brethren were taken from Richmond, Missouri, where they had been incarcerated in a log home, to the jail in Liberty, Missouri. There they would remain for more than four months, awaiting trial on false charges arising from the persecution of the Saints in Missouri. During this time, Church members were being driven from their homes in Missouri by their persecutors, causing tremendous suffering. The trials of the Saints were a source of great anxiety to the Prophet and his companions during their long imprisonment. He worried to the point that he pled with the Lord in prayer, almost in frustration as it were, for the Saints and the sufferings they had endured, even though he himself was imprisoned. In his own words, Joseph asked,


"O God! where art Thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth Thy hiding place? How long shall Thy hand be stayed, and Thine eye, yea Thy pure eye, behold from the eternal heavens, the wrongs of Thy people, and of Thy servants, and Thy ear be penetrated with their cries?"


The response is one of the most powerful responses that really puts things into perspective when it comes to any of us going through trials, tribulation, or persecution for standing up for the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lord in reply said,

5 If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils among false brethren; if thou art in perils among robbers; if thou art in perils by land or by sea;

 6 If thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee; if they tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters; and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from the bosom of thy wife, and of thine offspring, and thine elder son, although but six years of age, shall cling to thy garments, and shall say, My father, my father, why can’t you stay with us? O, my father, what are the men going to do with you? and if then he shall be thrust from thee by the sword, and thou be dragged to prison, and thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb;

 7 And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.

 8 The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?  (Section 122)

Great question coming from He who gave His life that we all might live

Winter Quarters

Soon after the visit to Liberty Jail we headed north some more and decided to make an unplanned pit stop in Winter Quarters Nebraska. 

I was not as familiar with Winter Quarters when we first arrived. It appears to have been one of the main stops before traveling across the plains where the pioneers trekked to Utah. The persecution got so bad, that the Saints basically were forced to leave the country (keep in mind during this time frame, Utah was not a state nor was it an area that was part of the Union, so the saints literally left the country to escape the persecution that came with believing in a Restoration of the Gospel, a modern day prophet and apostles, and a new book of scripture given by the Lord to testify of the truthfulness of the Bible, fulfilling many prophecies as given by prophets of old. Overall, a great visit!

After leaving, we headed north for the last part of the road trip to South Dakota. We were so excited to see Grams!  Several years ago, I promised Grams that one of these days I would take her "granddaughter" to visit her in South Dakota, so when we started planning this trip back in January I decided to make it a priority to make a pit stop to see Grams and spend some time with her. Little did I realize there was much to do in South Dakota, BUT that will have to be for another post!

2012 - The Beginning

 (Before you read this post, be sure you are sitting down because it is pretty long and covers 6 months)

So as many of you know, Alicia has now entered to wonderful world of nursing. As a result, she is busier than ever with clinicals, so our blog has suffered accordingly. Since she started nursing school, I have been able to take over a lot of duties, and so I figured I may as well as take over some of the blog writing in the meantime, since we have already heard from several people that they want an update! So this is my attempt to update you on a few things. I will start with my health issues (which are ongoing) and since most of our friends and family have been wondering or are not 100% clear as to what is going on. From there I will include another post later on about our summer travels. I may get some of the timing wrong as a lot has happened, so bear with me! By the way, I have to take a moment to say that I am so proud of my wife for getting into nursing school. Here is the fun picture of the class of 60 folks or so!

Steve's Health

January started some interesting months of health issues that scared a lot of us. Starting in December, I started having some stomach and intestine issues that turned out to not be something too serious, and after having received some medicine to take care of it, things seemed to be on the up and up towards the end of January. Then gradually, I started having some weird things happening. From dizzy spells, to chills, it started getting worse. Alicia described it on Facebook as Steve "feels like he has been hit by a MAC truck. I am not one to go to emergency room if I can help it, but there were moments where we thought at first, maybe I was having problems with my appendix. Since this could have been life threatening, I decided to make the trip. 

February

After going in, it took several weeks to determine that my main issue was my gall bladder. The gall bladder area was hurting a lot, and I was also getting chest pains. So by the beginning of February, the decision was made to remove my gall bladder (and I am sure that many of you probably saw the infamous YouTube video of the funny colonoscopy after my surgery was complete since as of this moment it has 800 views in the last 6 months). I was also suffering from a hernia at the time, so the surgery took care of both the gall bladder and the hernia. So that should have made everything better, right?

The next day Whitney Houston passed away. That was the first concert my wife went to when she was younger with her mother in Oakland CA, so it was indeed a fond memory for my wife. I was really drugged up at the time, but I think she even watched the Bodyguard on TV, but you may have to verify that with her. I can't remember too much, I just know she was gone and my wife talked to me about it. 

A few days later, Alicia was proud to go out and buy her own roses the day AFTER Valentine's day (since I was not capable of doing this on my own). See how good I was?

The month of February proved to be extremely trying for me and also the family. After getting my gall bladder removed, within days of the surgery I began to have some problems breathing. To the point where the pressure was so strong that I was waking up at night because I would stop breathing altogether. This resulted in several additional visits to the emergency room, where we were told time and time again that there was nothing wrong with me. Then the burning began. I really feel for people who have acid reflux or GERD or another form of burning when you eat foods because this escalated to a point that I could physically not eat. Within 2 months I lost 45 pounds (which probably was a good thing, but it was mostly muscle, and was not a healthy way to lose it). I actually missed church 8 weeks in a row. While in the emergency room at the end of February, they said my enzyme levels were high, so on the surface, the concern was that I was having a heart attack. But again, after testing, they decided it was not my heart at all, and sent me to a GI doctor instead to check back on my intestines and stomach. Lack of sleep can take it's toll too. The burning also made it hard to sleep, so sleeping on the chair in the living room was a common thing for 2 months. I know Alicia said that my lack of sleep caused some crazy things. I think one time I was being chased by a shark in the hallway. I made lunches for the girls in the middle of the night. I also freaked out once because the girls were missing, and they were actually already at school at the time. Talk about crazy.

I was really sad too because one of the kids in my Sunday School class got married at the end of February, something that I wanted to attend for a long time (since we were planning on it) but I am grateful that the Bishop and his wife were at least able to take my girls to the wedding. They look great don't they?

March

March madness was well on it's way, and for me it was going to be a different kind of madness. It started off great and I felt like I was recovering until about midway through the month. The girls had some gym meets where they won some medals, and for Ruby this was the first meet ever, so it was great to see them have so much success. Luckily it was a home meet, so we did not have to travel all that much.

Ruby also got first place on bars

College Kids

On  March 11th, I was able to go to church for the first time in 2 months, and our driveway was blocked! The college band kids next door like to party and for the most part, they are actually pretty quiet, so it is usually not a big deal. But they do have a tendency to park their cars in front of driveway. Since this was the third or fourth time, we finally just called the cops. I felt bad for him too because when the cops got there, not only was the owner not even there, they gave him several hours to come get it, but no one could get a hold of him and they ended up towing it. We ended up driving on the grass through our yard to get to church. Oh what a morning that was!

Gymnastics - BYU vs. Auburn

Alicia really scored in March. She got us some tickets months ago to go to the Gymnastics meet for BYU vs. Auburn. This was very exciting. We also soon discovered that our good friends the Denninghoff's (he was our Bishop in Birmingham when our son passed away) were going to be in town because their daughter Sarah was in the swimming tournament. YAY!

Alicia also found out that Auburn does something really cool: VIP Tiger of the meet. So to explain, for the meet, Auburn selects a young fan and has them take a video recorder and the young fan gets to walk around with the gym girls at their various rotations to video tape them. Then Auburn creates a video from the footage. This idea is pretty awesome, so we were excited to learn that Hannah was selected to be the VIP Tiger for the weekend. We just had one problem: we were going there to root for BYU. OH NO!

So Alicia got us dolled up in Auburn gear (as I was the one selected to go down on the floor with Hannah for her VIP moment:

Now, this was the first time I had ever done something like this, so it was exciting for Hannah since she is such a fan of gymnastics. And I also realize that we were there to cheer for BYU more than anything, but I was a little disenchanted with the Auburn gymnasts who were there. For the entire meet, NONE of the gymnasts acknowledged that Hannah was even there. There was one girl who said hi who was cleaning things up and was not even dressed in a leotard, but not once did an Auburn gymnast come up and say hi to Hannah. There was no thank you for coming. There were no high fives, etc. There was a point in the meet where the Auburn girls passed by a bunch of fans that were standing on the floor and a lot of the gymnasts ran by and gave them five and said hey and such. But again, no one even paid attention to Hannah there. I was hoping to get some pictures too, but like I said, there was really no opportunity to, since none of them said anything to us. 

Now I realize that a lot of students were at Spring Break that week, so there were very few people there taking care of things. The guy that walked us around was great and helpful. It just seemed to me that if you were a VIP Tiger of the meet, wouldn't it make sense that the gymnasts for Auburn would at least come say hi to us, and maybe get a picture or something? 

By the end of the meet I was so disenchanted by the experience, that I decided to say hi to one of the BYU gymnasts and coaches walking by, and even though we were all geared up in Auburn paraphernalia, not only did they say hi, but soon after the meet was over, many of them came out of the locker room to take pictures with our girls. 

Megan Bain was awesome. She was up in the stands because she was hurt, and came down specifically to take a picture with our girls that she later posted to her Facebook page. A BIG THANK YOU to the BYU gymnasts who made Hannah's day much better since none of the Auburn gymnasts even said hi. 

We were sad BYU lost. Auburn was definitely better that day, and they really did pretty awesome. I just hope someone helps Auburn know that their VIP Tiger idea is pretty awesome, they may want to make sure the Auburn gymnasts are at least aware of the program. 

NCAA Division 1 Swimming and Diving Championships 2012

The next was a lot of fun as we headed to watch the swimming championships. 

While we were watching, Hannah noticed one of the swimmers practicing was wearing a BYU cap. The only BYU swimmer (Hailey Campbell) was not only there in the water, but her dad was literally standing right next us, so when she came up afterwards to see her dad before the championships started, we got a picture with the girls.

Even more exciting, the coaches saw us afterwards and someone reached down in their bag and found some BYU swim caps and gave it to the girls. Aren't they cute?

Best of all, the day ended with us going to see the Denninghoff's. They had an awesome idea to rent a house for the week they were there for the championships, and it was great to visit with some old friends. When our son passed away, as our Bishop, his counsel and support was something that had a lasting impact on our lives (especially since we were just in our first year of marriage and lost our first child). So we were very very grateful to spend some time with them. Alicia also got a picture with Sarah, which was very special. Alicia was Sarah's Sunday School teacher in primary when we were all in Birmingham, so they have a special bond:

And finally, before we get back to the health issues, Katy had her first dentist visit for a cleaning where we discovered she has no cavities:

The Health Saga Continues

After about 2 weeks of fairly good health, there began a series of visits back and forth between heart doctors and GI doctors to try and determine what was wrong. My heart doctor kept saying I was too young and too healthy to have heart issues, so I went back to my GI doctor to get an EGD (where they go down into your stomach to look for ulcers and such). All results were negative. No cancer, no ulcers, nothing. 

So back to the heart doctor who finally decided to set me up with one of those halter monitors where they attach a machine to your heart that you carry around for 24 hours. During that time, any time I would experience pain, or eat, or do anything, I had to keep a pretty meticulous journal. It was on a Friday that I turned it in to the office. The lady told me that they would probably end up touching base with me on Monday and set up a visit for the following week. To my dismay, I got a call within about 20 minutes and they said they needed to see me on Monday without delay. It was pretty scary. I was already feeling low on energy, low on motivation, and the medications they were putting me on were not helping either. The last time I spoke to a cardiologist about something serious, it was not good news about my son, so this was not something I was looking forward to, and it kept me nervous all weekend.

Monday came and the doctor sat me down to let me know that things were pretty normal, except for one thing: my heart rate was down to about 35 at times, and on average was only hitting between 42-45. Now, for those of you who are not aware, most heart rates are between 60-90 beats a minute. So if you put your fingers on your neck on your left side and then count your beats for one minute, more than likely you will fall into the 60-90 category. The dizzy spells, the nausea, the lack of energy, etc were mainly because my heart was functioning at 1/2 to 1/3 of normal activity. During this month I had 2 "heart attack" type moments, but they would not classify them as heart attacks because it did not appear that blood was stopped up. Instead, my blood flow was just going at a trickle, at best. So it wasn't that I was not getting oxygen filled blood to the rest of my body, it's just that it was not pumping fast enough for my body to keep up with normal activity. Including some normal activity like eating, walking, moving around, etc. 

The term was called brady cardia, but before we would talk about options of a pacemaker, the cardiologist wanted to set up a heart cath where they go in and make sure that there are no blockages. Basically the goal was this: during the cath, if they found blockages, they would need to put in some stints. My cardiologist told me that he was willing to put in a total of 2 stints, but if it went beyond the 2 stints in count, they would perform open heart surgery. It was going to be about a week before they could perform the potential operation, so I just had to be patient and wait it out. The main issue was that the burning pain in my stomach was as severe as it could be, and I started getting really dizzy again. As a result, within 48 hours I was back in the emergency room, and the next day the doctor decided to go ahead and perform the cath. 

Just like the EGD, NOTHING. No blocks. No cancer. Nothing that appeared to be life threatening. So that was that. I went home, with no answers again. The doctor set up an appointment for me to go to Birmingham in 4 weeks to take a look at my low heart rate, but only after getting a follow up with my GI doctor again. 

House Fire

So before dipping into April, we did have a moment of excitement towards the end of March with a house fire. 

Now as you can see from the photo, it was NOT our house that caught fire, but the college house across the street (not the neighbors that park cars in front of our house). These neighbors were fairly rowdy and had some interesting noisy parties. To say the least, no one was hurt. It was just an electrical thing that started the fire, and they all ended up moving out, so no more noisy parties!  YAY!

April

Conference is always a great time of year. I enjoy listening to the words of the Prophet and Apostles to learn, grow, recommit myself, and learn of ways I can do better. This year's conference had a special meaning for me because of the humility I have been learning having gone through all these health problems. I saved a lot of my memories of conference for my journal, but it was good to hear. We even got a family picture at church the following week:

I am grateful for faith and love from others. One of the biggest things I have learned having gone through all these issues is that prayers are felt by the one being prayed for. There were moments late at night as I was suffering in pain, with exhaustion, and almost no hope, that I could almost hear voices offering up their prayers on my behalf. There is a reason why one of the most often quoted trios in the scriptures are that of faith, hope and charity. Hope I think is often overlooked, at least it was in my mind. There is something about hope that truly makes it easier to move forward and fight to live. Never in my life have I ever felt so bereft of hope that I would gladly have given up my life just to be relieved of the physical pain I was going through. I also felt by this time that I had put Alicia and the family through so much, that it would probably have been better that I moved on so that they could carry on without the burden of taking care of me or taking me yet again the emergency room. Hope touched my heart one evening. 

We had a family home evening and I put Hannah in charge of the lesson so that she could pass off one of her tasks for church. For the lesson she decided to have us watch the short Living Scriptures video on Moses. During the video, when Moses flees from Egypt after killing an Egyptian, he runs into Jethro. Jethro teaches him about the gospel and the Priesthood, and eventually Moses would be called as a prophet to accomplish one of the greatest stories of deliverance by the Lord in scripture. As we watched this, I could not help but think that Jethro was a father-in-law to Moses. It was so important that Jethro take the time to teach Moses about the Priesthood that eventually led to his own personal testimony that led to a man who may not have been 100% prepared to be a prophet, but nevertheless was called. I find it interesting that those called as Prophets are often those that the world would consider uneducated, unpopular, and almost unable to fulfill such a calling. As I looked at my girls sitting in front of me watching this, I had this overwhelming thought that one day, I would be a father-in-law to 3 young men, and that like Jethro, I need to fight to live so that in case I need to be a good example as a father-in-law to these young men, I could do my best to be prepared for such an event in the future. Hope softened my heart in a way that only the Spirit can provide, and I was grateful to my 8-year old for the lesson taught.

April 11th soon arrived, and once again another EGD was done only to find yet again that there is nothing wrong with my stomach or esophagus, and I was even evaluated for a psych analysis to make sure that I was not insane. I loved those questions, such as "Are you afraid to eat?" Thank goodness I am not insane after all. It's official!

Ruby had a great birthday party this year, and we were grateful she had several friends come this time (last year no one showed, but we did have family there, so we were grateful for that!)

Finally April ended with the girls going to Atlanta for the gymnastics tournament to root for University of Utah gymnasts.

The last thing we did was not only eat at the Superior Grill (where I used to work years ago) but we did meet with the doctor in Birmingham as planned, and it was decided that it was time to go ahead and move forward with getting a pacemaker to get my heart back in order. 

May

It's kind of hard to forget what day you get a pacemaker when the whole day everyone on Facebook is wishing you a Happy "May the 4th be with you"

The surgery went well, and sure enough after getting it put in, I was really feeling better and had energy again.

About 2 weeks after surgery, I started having the stomach issues again, as well as the burning. I do have some things that I have been able to control better, but I am still dealing with some of the stomach issues. I am grateful for acidophilus because it seems to have stopped the burning in my stomach altogether, which I almost prefer rather than having to take acid reflux medicine, since my GI doc keeps telling me that there is no sign of acid reflux in my system. 

Next post will be about our family trip to Utah this year, but I though I should at least update you on the last 6 months! Hope you enjoyed it!

My End of The Year going ons....

I guess that over the last few months I have really lacked in writing for my blog. It used to be something that I would do every few weeks and now. Well you guys have seen how long it has been since I have wrote. Sorry about that. I am sure that all of you blog stalkers have missed the updates of the goings on with all us Smith's, but I haven't heard many complaints so I am sure that there are not many people who are actually reading this anyway. It's mainly for ME anyway. It's my own selfish attempt at a journal. It's just more interactive than writing on paper and everyone in the world can read it. It really takes on the meaning of an open book right??

So here is what we have been up to in the last few months.

September went without much going on after Ben's Birthday. We did get him some really cute flowers for the top of his headstone this year. Katy went with me on his birthday to put them there. It was fun to visit him and Nutmeg. The photo is thanks to Katy. Not bad for my 4 year old.

Then it was to the last of the count down for our family cruise with the Grandma! The middle of October was just not coming fast enough for all off us but before we knew it Cruise day was here! We had a short drive to Mobile to pick up Grandma and hop on the Elation!

Here is the view from our room on the morning of our cruise :-)

Waiting for our shuttle to get to the port.

And then we were sailed away from Mobile and found ourselves in Cozumel!!

After another short night on the boat, we found ourselves in Isla Roatan. My most favorite place in the whole world! It was so fun seeing the monkeys and birds. We went to the orphanage to visit with the kids and just had some fun!

Sorry there are no pictures of Hannah with the birds. She wasn't too keen on visiting with that kind of stuff, so we just let her be and were just plain happy that she was with us!

Before we knew it we were off to Belize for our last stop of the week. We were going to go see the Ruins. Something that I have always wanted to do and I was so excited for the opportunity to go see a different set this time with my Mom and kids. It really made the Book of Mormon come alive for our kids. I hope that one day, I will get the opportunity to go back for a week or two and just go around and see the ruins!

Of course we have to end with Hannah and her handstand in Belize! They do them everywhere and anywhere!

Our cruise ended and it was time to tell Grandma good-bye until the next time we see her :-( It was good to get home and before I knew it the days had faded to Halloween. The night was great! Poor Katy had a bag malfunction and lost all her candy while we were out. It was nice to not have so much candy around the house, but man I felt bad for her. Nope. No pictures of Hannah again. She is in this crazy don't take any pictures of me mode right now. Katy had 3 or 4 costumes this year, but that day she ended up as Hannah. She wanted to be her big sister! How cute is that?!?!

So now onto November. It just speeds up from here! Katy tried sushi, a trip to Atlanta, Thanksgiving, decorating, haircuts, and more!

The girls decorated the tree all by themselves this year. This is what they did while we were outside putting up the lights for the house. I am so proud of them!

Hannah's new hair cut. She just wanted her hair cut while we were at the mall and well that is what we got. I can't believe how big she is already!

Ruby's first Thanksgiving lunch at Kitty Stone

And now onto December. We have had something to do almost every day this month so far and it just keeps getting more and more crazy as the days have gone on this month. Steve started bugging me about still having Halloween music on the blog and now that it is almost Christmas it is finally changed. Maybe I will leave it up for a little into the new year. The kids have kept us really busy this month.
Hannah had her state gymnastic meet the first weekend of the month. She placed 7th all around and got 3rd on vault!!! I was so proud of her. She got 5th on bars and had the best meet that she could have had.

Ruby has had us at Christmas programs and dance programs and parties all through the month.

Katy has had us at more parties, programs, and dance stuff too.

I can't keep up with everything that these little people have me going to, but I am so thankful that I am able to attend everything that I need to be at.

Steve has had his birthday this month and we had to go to Katy's Christmas program that night, but we were able to go out to dinner to celebrate before her program. Katy could not keep a secret of what we got Steve for his triple combo present (birthday/anniversary/christmas) so he found out that he was getting a new drill with lots of "umph" as he calls it. I sure hope that he loves it! But he still is getting a really cool present under the tree :-)

Here are a few pictures of what we have been up to this month so far....

Steve had his little "procedure" this month. Of course on the day of my final, so it was a very stressful day for me, but he did awesome!

Yep, look at those big bangs for the PE dance show!

Isn't Hannah rockin' it out?!?!?

Ruby and her BFF at school! Aren't they so cute!

Ruby lost her first tooth while Aunt Emily was here for a jewelry party at the house.

Her new smile :-)

Katy playing dress up with all of Aunt Emily's stuff! Oh I am so worried already!

Katy with her teacher at her Christmas show. She is an official pre-school dropout as of yesterday. She just needed a little bit of extra time at home with us.

Ruby after her dance program! Posing that perfect dance pose for the camera!

Hannah looking great after the show! She did amazing!

This is my favorite picture of the night! Katy was so cute and there is Ru in the back pouting!!

The BEST news of the month came on Monday, December 12th. Totally out of the blue and it's big news for me. I got a call from Mr. Hoffland about nursing school. See I found out that I didn't get into nursing school a few months ago, so I was wondering why he was even calling me. I left the office with a number to another nursing program and a good luck. Well after of what seemed like an eternity, he offered me a spot in this new nursing class! I got into nursing school and if my life wasn't busy already it went into hyperdrive as of that moment! I have already been to CPR class, gotten a physical, filled out lots of paperwork, reserved my books, and so much more in just a few days. I will be graduating with my class and a BSN in April 2014. I can't wait for this adventure to finally get started. Please pray for my husband and family during this adventure of mine for the next 2 1/2 years. We are all going to need it!

Well there is the end of our year in a short entry. I PROMISE to get Christmas pictures up on Sunday afternoon. Until then.....