The Climb

Earlier I was in the van and heard the song "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus. While she is not one of my favorite people to listen to, I have heard that song before and it always makes me cry. It is literally a song about my life. I have been encouraged to listen to it by others many times, and they're right. I am aware that I have a hard time seeing the positive a lot of the time. I hope that all of my family and friends understand that I really do try to see life in a more positive light. It's just very hard for me sometimes. 

There is a line in the song that says..."There's always going to be another mountain, I'm gonna want to make it move." A person is always going to want to try and move mountains to have the life that they hope to have. I don't think that we have any idea how hard that is and forget that there is going to be another mountain right behind it. I think it's a hard thing to learn. I am happy in my marriage and with my family. I know it sounds like an excuse, but it has been very hard to learn how to "enjoy" the journey and the trials in my life. I love my mother and I think she is a wonderful person and a great example of a hard working, God fearing woman who loves her family, but all I learned in my childhood was to get upset and hide when something happened. That it pretty much was the end of the world when things didn't work out. I was the next child born after the horrific experience of losing a child.  I'm not putting down the way I was taught because I have no place to say what is right or wrong and how I would handle the situation they had. I just know that it has been a hard thing to learn as an adult. Now I realize that I am 38 years old and have been married for almost 22 of those years, but it has only been in the last 5 years that I have been given any ideas on how to cope with trials and things. The scary thing is that during the last 5 years my family and I have had HUGE, unbelievable, non-stop trials. It is quite a hard thing to learn by trial and error, and while trying to learn and get through these things, my body has literally started to break down. It's not only me either, Dan has had numerous surgeries and injuries and employment issues, etc. Kyler has become extremely sick a couple of times and had to face some realities that he can't understand, because they exist. Megan has gone through some horrible things, and Jake and Aubree have had some fairly major issues as well. It's very hard when each member of a family are having their own personal crisis' that they are trying to deal with and it puts extreme pressure on the family to hold things together. How does one hold a family together when they can't keep them self together. Anyway, we're doing our best to figure it out, we're just not always successful with what we do. We are trying.

Over the weekend some things happened that were very hard. Things were said and done that were not meant to hurt anyone, but did. I hope that Dan and my kids know that I love them and that there are some things I still don't know how to control or do. I sometimes don't know what I have said or done until after the fact. I hope that they know this and understand that I love them and would not intentionally do anything to hurt them. I would hope they will try to be understanding and patient with me. Life is not what they see on TV, I am real and have real feelings that I need to be cared for and loved and respected. 

Anyway, I hope that "The Climb" becomes a little less hard soon, but am trying to learn to enjoy it. Please bear with me and pray for me as I know you have done before. 

~Christy

As the Days Fly By

I can't believe that it has been over a month since Christmas. It's a week into February! 

2011 has started out pretty well. There have definitely been hiccups in the system, but for the most part it has been pretty good so far. 

Dan has worked at his job with the state for almost 6 years. He has applied for promotions and other jobs steadily during this time. Well, during the first part of January he applied and interviewed for a Senior Agent position on his current team and he got it! Finally he was starting to move up instead of straight across in his job. Although, the moving around gave him some good, much needed experience that likely gave him the boost to get this position. We are very excited about this and it will be a good thing for our family. Right now he has to do both his new and old job until they decide to replace him, so he is super busy and learning a lot. He has done quite a lot of photography in the past couple of months and has 2 weddings coming up. He does a good job, just has a different style than many out there. 

I've been doing OK. I started finding ways to get back to the pool because I think it helps me in so many ways physically and emotionally that I decided one day that it was something I had to do. 2 weeks ago I broke my baby toe and 2 bones in my foot by just taking off my sock and catching my toe in the cuff of my pants. This made me decide to have my bone density checked and it looks as if I have some pretty old bones. While this sounds terrible, I have been told that this may be part of the cause for some of the things that have been going on for the past 5 years, that it has just seemed to get worse lately. I will most likely be taking some pretty good supplements soon, but that is a fine price for me to pay to finally have some peace of mind. My dog is getting old and is not well. I worry every morning about waking up to find him no longer with us. He's only like 8 years old, but is sick. I worry about him a lot. The cat is just his normal Diva self. He wants to play with the dog, but the dog wants no part of it. I love my pets.

Kyler has had an interesting month. He got to spend 5 days in Las Vegas and some other places. He seemed to have fun, but also has a hard time knowing how to make it all the way from start to finish of these things without having something weird happen. Oh well. He broke up with his girlfriend not wanting to be in a place he wasn't ready for yet, which we admire, but she was a very good thing for him so we are sort of sad, and so is she. His tick has returned and he's been having some not so good affects of his sickness, but we are switching things up and I think he;s improving a little each day. He's actually doing pretty good for a 17 year old boy with the problems and issues he has to live and deal with. 

Megan is learning the ins and outs of high school. She has a real struggle with math, but is working at it and doing pretty well for the most part. She's a pretty happy girl for the most part. She received her Patriarchal Blessing last Sunday. I have been encouraging this for a while in the hopes that it might give my kids some direction in their lives. 

Aubree is doing pretty well in most things with her life. She is having a struggle as well with some of her grades, but continues to work on it. She also received her Patriarchal Blessing last Sunday and has really embraced it. Makes me happy that she seems to understand what it really means. 

Jake is just Jake. He misses football. He gets bored A LOT! He's doing well in school. Not a lot going on with him. 

Our family is doing it's best to move ahead from the many things we have been dealing with over the last while. We know we're not perfect and that there are many things we can improve on, but we do love each other and will make it through one way or the other. 

~Christy