Bell's Palsy and Learning Through Life's Trials

Bells Palsy. Ever heard of it? Cuz I got it! I woke up Saturday morning with it.

According to Webmd.com "Bell's palsy is a paralysis or weakness of the muscles on one side of your face. damage to the facial nerve that controls muscles on one side of the face causes that side of your face to droop. The nerve damage may also affect your sense of taste and how you make tears and saliva. This condition comes on suddenly, often overnight, and usually gets better on its own within a few weeks." For the rest of the article click here.

This can last a few weeks to a few months. Apparently life was going a bit to smoothly and God just had to throw us a few trails to help us grow. "The trials of this life will ultimately lead to joy if we patiently trust in God's plan and discover how to use adversity to grow stronger." ~Larry Richman~ I found that quote here if you would like to read the whole devotional given at BYU-I in 2007. Its good to know God will help you through anything. I know that this doesn't sound like a huge deal to a lot of people and compared to others trials I'd take this instead of a lot of things that could happen. I'm going to keep my head up and try to learn what I need to learn from this experience. I love the Lord and the gospel so much! If any one has any questions about what I believe and the teaching of the LDS faith you can check out http://www.lds.org/, http://www.mormonchannel.org/, or http://www.mormon.org/. Also you can always ask me, I'd be happy to answer questions :)

Here are some pics of me and all the funny faces I make now :P Straight face (you can hardly tell)

closed smile

Teeth smile

Pirate face

Pouty face

Trying to close my eyes

Eventful Day

Yesterday was really eventful.

I got an MRI on my ankle for my surgery

Our Escort broke down in Provo

The old apple tree in the back yard blew down

No big deal, hoping the car wont be to much to fix. Have a feeling this next month will be an expensive one for us. :S Thank heaven for savings! On the bright side Kyle got a promotion at work and a great raise! Oh and today he won a used computer, ya its older, but hey we could use a desktop for home. :)

Fathers Day Weekend

Fathers day weekend was so busy, but so much fun! We got to go to 2 different family reunions. One with Kyle's family up at Palisades and the other was with my family in Nephi Canyon where the old KOA is. We had a blast! We got to try out our new tent we just bought. The weather cooperated with us for most of the time. It rained a little at Palisades, but not much that it stopped us from having fun. We had a bit of trouble with our air mattress. We have 2 twin mattresses, one of which doesn't stay inflated very well. So we turned them sideways and slept on both. We had Kyle's parents pick us up a queen at Walmart in Ephraim on their way up and guess what happened!? It deflated that night too! Cursed defective mattress! The next day we packed up and headed to my families reunion stopping at Walmart to exchange the mattress. Luckily it worked great! It was fun to be at the old KOA again, it has been so long since we've camped there! It warmed up enough for us all to go swimming for a bit! It was fun to be outside with everyone having a blast! That night was awful sleeping conditions, well for me anyway! The mattress did stay up, so that's a plus. But it rained and blew so hard I couldn't hardly sleep all night!!! We'll just say it was a very sleep deprived weekend for me. Despite the sleepless nights we had a wonderful time with both families! I wish we had the chance to go camping with family more, I just love it!

I wish I had used my camera while we were up there, I hate going somewhere and not taking any pics. I would have used my phone, but it died early on. I think I got a pic of a pretty sunset the first night, but that's it.

Memorial Day Weekend!

Memorial Day weekend was really busy for us. We had a ton of fun though! The weekend started off with pedicures with Julie and Carlye. It was so much fun, it was my first time getting one, and it was awesome! I got a cute orange polish. Julie and Carlye both got pink. Then we went to the Cocoa Bean and had some yummy cup cakes! Kyle and I were asked to speak in church so after pedicures I went home and worked on my talk for a long time. Kyle then took me out to Tuchanos to use my birthday certificate. It was so so good :)

We both woke up Sunday feeling terrible, it was so not a good time to be sick. Luckily we made it through our talks alright, but we didn't stay for the rest of church. Kyle and I spope about the Book of Mormon being another testament of Jesus Christ. As much as I whined about speaking, it was really good for me. I learned a lot. It really is true how when you have to teach or speak you really do learn more then anyone.

Memorial Day was nice, I went to the service at the cemetary with mom, dad and Craig. It was nice. The weather even stayed pretty good while we were there. Later that day we had a family picnic at my mom's church and played games. We usually have a family softball game, but the weather just wasn't letting us this year. Here are a few pics from the weekend :)

Kaitlin's Graduation!

My cute sister-in-law Kaitlin graduated from high school! Here are a few of her senior pics I had fun editing. Congrats Kaitie!! I can't wait to see where your next adventure will take you!

21 Baby!!!

I'm 21, ya its pretty cool.

My birthday was this past Saturday May 14th! I love birthdays! I had an awesome birthday weekend. Judy came and picked Kyle and me up in the morning and we headed up to Salt Lake to the Orson Gygi store. I was so excited! For anyone who doesn't know, I love to cook! Orson Gygi is a way cool cooking/kitchen supply store. Kyle and his mom chipped in and gave me some money to spend on anything I wanted in the store! I got an awesome pizza stone, pasta attachment for my kitchen aid, a sushi mat, an awesome Italian cookbook, and some various other kitchen utensils! I was so excited and we all had a ton of fun!

We went for lunch at Tony Caputos in SLC. It was pretty good, but the really cool thing they have there is an Italian market. Kyle was so in love! He bought some Parmesan that had been aged for 5 years... cost way to much haha! We also got some speck (a prosciutto ham) very good. It'll be fun to use those with the fun things I got earlier.

Kyle also took me to get my nails done, I haven't had them done since our wedding. They are way cute too! I love them :) Later that evening we went up to a wedding in Alpine for one of our friends. It was so nice, we were so happy to see them get married :)

Last Thursday I got to go celebrate a triple birthday with a couple of my friends. My friends Taylor and Brandy both have birthdays around mine. We've been celebrating together for years! So we decided to go out to dinner this year at Red Robin. It was so much fun! It was nice to have a girls night just for us!

Kyle's 23rd Birthday!!

These are some of the pics from our trip to Moab/Castle Valley. Hope you enjoy!

Our drive from Moab to the house we stayed at was so beautiful! It was right on the Colorado River almost the whole way!

It snowed on us while we were at Arches! It got so cold!

Isn't my hubby cute?! This is breakfast/lunch at Denny's

Polenta cakes kyle and i made for dinner one night. We found some pre-made stuff at the local grocery store. We bought a ragu and put Gouda cheese in it as well. Very good!

The shower was pretty sweet. The tile had a fun Arches theme to it!

The next two pictures are of the view from the balcony.

So pretty!

Kyle and I in Arches.

Kyle and I stopped for a min to take a picture by the Colorado River.

We had such a fun trip! Ya it was cold, and rainy and even snowed on us a bit, but it was a good time to relax and forget the rest of the world for a while!