..tApE..

We have discovered that Tyke is deathly afraid of tape. We decided to video tape it for all you to enjoy.. so enjoy!

..hApPy bIrThDaY 2009..

Well... hApPy nEw YeArS!! I know I have been a slacker at updating this so, I figured I would do a big one right now. I found a job, it is part time as a waitress at a retirement home which is okay it is a job but I don't love it. I started working the week before Christmas, so my life was a tad insane. Christmas eve was nice, we saw Cody's family and opened presents and had dinner and played games with my family. Christmas morning we woke up to a snow storm. Not a surprise seeing how we live in Utah but it was a ton of it.


Tyke was so excited about Christmas eve, can you tell?

We opened gifts, I loved especially watching Cody's face. Every Christmas Cody always asks me questions in regards to his gifts before Christmas morning and figures all of them out before Christmas morning. So this year I was determined to not say a word and let him be surprised, I payed close attention to things he wanted, did all my shopping and didn't share a word of what I had got. Cody looked like a four year old on Christmas morning when he opened his gifts. My favorite one was I got him a skateboard from one of our friends companies, Mural Boards. He had mentioned it only once, and was shocked when he opened it up.

After all the presents, we had a big breakfast and sat around and chatted. We then spent about 2 hours playing Guitar Hero ( My younger brother got this for christmas). We decided to go down to see Cody's family again, and spent some time talking with them and playing some Wii games. It was nice to see them all. Christmas was a fun one.

New Years was right around the corner and came as fast as speed racer, maybe cause I worked every day up until then. We spent the night doing the "Tanner Family Olympics". Every year on New Years eve, we do various games. This year included : Airplane races, ball toss, wind - up car races, Guitar Hero battles and a round of Mad Gab and Scattergories. The clock struck Midnight and we ran out side and shot off fireworks and Cody blew his airhorn.


Cody preparing for his airplane throw..


.. Yes that was cody's throw, he hit me..


My ball toss, I sucked it up..


Our first new years picture..



All in all it was great holiday season. We have been busy preparing for school since then, and working long hours. The past twenty four hours it has been a extreme snow storm. We have had 18-24 inches of snow in the last 24 hours and it is still snowing. Tyke is in love with chasing snowballs out in the yard. The snow comes up to his shoulders and he practically goes "diving" to catch those snowballs.


Tyke in the "snow cave" of the pine trees..


Tyke chasing snowballs..

What a great start to a great year. We hope to all that you had a great holiday season and are counting the blessings you have. Happy Holidays!

..aRt sTudEnT + nEw YoRk = eXcItEmEnT!

Well, we made it to December. I figured another update it is order that and I have some good news to share with all of you.

We finished up November with a great bang, not much else happened. We just kept plugging along. We reached the last week of classes last week. Cody worked hard almost every night to finish up his classes in time. His stuff was all due last Thursday. So he finished up all classes. I have another week, just finals. I only have 2 tests and 3 projects due but it could be so much worse.

Last Wednesday night, Cody took a break to take me on a date. We ran some errands and spent some time together. While we were out and about I got a phone call. I didn't recognize the number so I ignored it figuring if it was important that person would leave me a message. Well sure enough they did.

About a month ago I applied to a trip sponsored by the Art department at UVU. They only accept 16 students a spring to go to New York City for a week to check out museums and do some sight seeing. I thought I would just try it out and if I didn't get it then okay, I would just find another time to go and see those places. I hadn't heard a word for over a month when I got that message on my phone. It was the head of the photography department calling me, telling me I was one of the lucky 16 students accepted into the trip. I was so excited, I screamed so loud I scared Cody half to death while he was driving. I couldn't help but do my happy dance when we got out of the car. I have been stoked ever since.



So, In March 2009 I will be going to New York for a week. I get to go to museums like the Met and the Guggenheim. What a trip! The only downer is I have to share a room with 3 other girls, and we only have 2 queen size beds. It is going to be a little cramped but I am so excited to see all these things!!

Other than that exciting news we are doing great. Tyke is in love with the snow, other than the cold. He loves running through the grass picking up mouthfuls of snow as he runs by. He has been keeping us busy. He is a sleeper all day because it is freezing and he stays inside, but when night time comes around he is as hyper as can be with all the energy in the world. He is the funnest dog though.

Well... we hope all is good with you, hopefully we will have some fun wintery pictures and some Christmas ones (we are planning on going to temple square and seeing the lights)soon!

..Merry Christmas..

..hOLiDaYs..

Well it has been almost a month and I felt like a update was in order. I haven't really written because there hasn't been too much going on. But I guess I will take the time to tell you what has happened in our life.

October ended with a bang, I love Halloween it has to be my favorite holiday around. I got all into it this year and decided that I had to deck out the house. It took 3 days but it was a stellar success. I had a graveyard, with 24 graves, two drunken skeletons playing cards, a ghoul who jumped up from a rock, a mummy in a coffin and a giant spider. I loved it. I spent the night handing out candy to the neighbor kids and making some of my now favorite brownies.

November started off, with nothing new. I still haven't found a job and still not sure why not. I have been really dedicated to doing my school work so I have something positive to focus on. I feel like I am making leaps and bounds in my art work which is good for me, I felt like I wasn't cut out to do art. Cody has been working every weekend - Friday through Monday- at the airport. So the days he is home I am in school. But it works out okay. He is being such a wonderful supporter of this whole ordeal that I have been trying hard to learn how to deal with. What a wonderful husband do I have.

We celebrated our 3rd year anniversary. I have loved everyday of the past three years. It has certainly been the best. I tease him frequently that I can't believe I have been stuck with him that long but I sure have loved it. It was also Cody's 25th birthday that day. I just laughed and told him he was old. He has now reached a quarter of a century and I am still young. He celebrated it by working. I felt bad but he got off early and got great presents. Happy Birthday Cody, Love You!



A mere 4 days later we celebrated my Dad's 50th birthday. Talk about old. We spent the day finding ways to remind him how old he was. It started with a coffin on the kitchen table first thing in the morning. We all dressed in black, and got him presents for old people. Including brochures for power chairs and hearing aids. It was a great day and he took it with such grace. Happy Birthday Dad!



The next day was thanksgiving. We spent the night before cooking up some stuff and the next day setting the table and doing the rest of prepartations. We had the pleasure of being joined by my grandparents from Brigham City and also our neighbors from Australia, the Bears. It was so fun to share the holiday with them. I loved it.

So November hasn't been too bad for us. We are getting into finals weeks, yuck.. but only three more weeks and it will all be over.

..HAPPY HOLIDAYS..

sUnNy sAn fRaNciScO..

Well, I can certainly say I am glad my husband got a job at Skywest. After 14 days of working there his benefits kicked in. We decided since it was fall break for me at school and he was working 4 ten hour shifts and got the weekend off, we would leave and go to San Francisco.

So last weekend we flew to San Francisco. It was a blast and an adventure that was worth a million words. So I thought I would share some of this and of course pictures with all of you.

Last thursday night I met Cody at the airport with plans of boarding a direct flight to San Francisco. Well, while you are flying as an employee you are strictly standby. So if the plane is full you aren't getting on. So we waited at the gate and watched as the passengers loaded. We didn't make the cut. So we decided to find a person to help us find one that could get us there. We found this sweet lady named Malia. She spent a good hour with us searching all the flights that went to San Francisco that night or the next morning. We found one that went to Fresno and had connection to San Francisco the next morning. We decided to take it. We got on the plane and sat in front of a few employees including a pilot. Cody chatted with them the whole time. After a bit we found out that they could help us. One told us to just rent a car and drive to San Francisco seeing how it was only 2 1/2 hours away. So we decided after arriving and checking out hotel rates that our best bet was to drive. So we rented a car. We got a sweet Chevy Colbalt coupe. It was white and had leather and a sunroof. And the best part...it had texas license plates.


Cody with the rental car, at 11pm..


The sweet texas license plates..

We drove for a few hours, crossed alot of terrain, chatted about everything and crossed the bay bridge into San Francisco. Now we didn't have a map but we had Cody's iphone. It has google maps with GPS and could pin point our location. At this point it was 2 in the morning. We exited the freeway and started following the directions to our hotel. Well I entered the address wrong and we ended up in a worse than compton area with bums galore surrounding the car. I couldn't help but to just laugh. We were both so tired. So we ended up calling the hotel for directions. After arriving, parking the car and checking in it was 2:58am (California Time). It was the longest day. We both crashed.

The next day we spent the whole day just playing in San Francisco. We went to the Golden Gate Bridge, walked on a nice beach, went to fisherman's wharf, did some shopping, hit up the sourdough bread company and my favorite.. Ghiradelli Chocolate. It was a blast. We had so much fun. We rode the cable cars and learned the BART trains there and got around to everywhere we wanted to go. We ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, which was on the 8th floor in Macy's department store. After dinner, we decided to just walk the 8 blocks to our hotel. On the way we ran into about a billion bums asking for our food ( we had a piece of cheesecake ). It was a bit scary but Cody held onto me tight and put me on the otherside of the street, he was sweetheart.


Cody and Me at Baker Beach..


Cody at his favorite store at Fisherman's Wharf, the Lefties store..


Cody with a bum we saw at Fisherman's Wharf..



Cody wrestling with the giant bread alligator, watch out babe!..


Chocolate, yum!


The beautiful sunset at the wharf..



The next morning we got up and walked to the BART and went to the airport. We got on the first flight out of San Francisco and were back in Salt Lake City by 1pm. It was a short but great trip. I loved it and I am looking forward to many more trips.


.. Oh don't worry, tyke was glad we were home can you tell?

tHe nEvErEnDiNg sToRy..

Well like the title says.. it is neverending. So here is another step in my saga.

I didn't think that my times could get much worse. I thought that finding out I had a life altering injury would be enough for the moment. But it seems that when trials come, they come in numbers. I am not sure why but I do think that I am supposed to be learning something from all this.

Last monday I had an "urgent" meeting at work. I cut the last ten minutes of my class and rushed to work with great haste. As I arrived at my bosses office, he told me we would be meeting with the CEO that day. I got a tad nervous, either something good or something bad was coming down the drain. So... We went. I sat for about five minutes when I realized that it was a turn for the bad. After about 20 minutes of them giving me every excuse that they could, It sunk in.. I had been laid off. Yep, I lost my job. I am currently unemployed and will be insurance-less starting November first.

I didn't think it could get much worse, but it did. The next day, all red eyed and tired from a sleepless night I went and endured an hour long EMG. It was an hour of being shocked and tasered to test out my nerve responses. It was painful and very exhausting. At the end of the hour, I was so sore and still had a class. I limped to school and sat through another hour of classes and went home. The next day I returned to hear my results. Turns out that I have nerve damage on both sides of my body in the lower limbs. I lose feeling from time to time in my legs. I was told that I needed to attend "Back School" which I start Wednesday, to help me learn how to get myself aligned. I was also told I can have children, but will have to wear a pregnancy brace and will have to have a c-section with every child. It is a struggle and overwhelming. I hope this Back School will help me be in a better condition and place.

So with all this bad news, I started looking for jobs and have been spending time with tyke and thinking about life. I hope one day I will figure it out. I started taking walks with Tyke and Cody on a trail behind out house. I have found a great photographic release there, I am hoping it will release some feelings. So... took me long enough, here are some photos!


.. Tyke and his new favorite place, cuddling in his Cave of Covers..


.. Tyke and Cody on the trail..


.. Tyke and Me on the trail..


.. Tyke being "Mountain Puppy"..


.. Tyke in the bushes..

Well.. until next time..

dEnAiL iSn'T jUsT a rIvEr iN eGyPt..

Alright, So as promised, I decided to blog since I had seen my other doctor on Tuesday. I went to a physiologist. I was kind of nervous, I had called this doctor for pain management. The plan was to get a nerve block put in place to help me make it until December when I see the neurologist. I wasn't sure what I was in store for.

I arrived and sat in the waiting room for 45 minutes. I was so frustrated but I couldn't leave because I needed to have my pain assessed. So I sat with Cody there. When I made it into the room, the appointment itself took 30 minutes. It was so long but very educational. After being twisted, poked, contorted, and prodded I learned alot about my body. I discovered that my spine has more issues than just the two herniated disks. Most normal people have a natural "C" curve in the upper portion of the spine and their tailbone points downward off the spine. My spine however, instead of curving naturally on the top doesn't it goes straight also my tail bone doesn't point downward it is parallel to the floor. Also I learned I have weak ankles and my right calf is larger than my left. I am not sure what all this means, but I will learn more. I am having a special nerve test called an EMG in two weeks to test my nerve functions in my legs. This should tell me more about how my body is working with this issue.

The doctors appointment wasn't all too bad.. He gave me new medications that help deal with the pain better than my asprin did. Also he told me what kind of exercies I can do without hurting myself. I hadn't been to the gym in 3 weeks and I am starting to feel slow and not healthy. So he was able to help me learn some.

Things are looking good for me, I am hoping that surgery is the last option and that I can solve this problem or learn to manage it before surgery is necessary.

I am almost positive I just entered another cycle of denial (it isn't just a river in Egypt) trying to work through this is going to be interesting..

Well that is all I have to report for now...