All That Matters

General conference weekend changed my perspective on life.

I would primarily attribute my reflection to the 184th Semiannual General Conference. It made me feel so uplifted and strengthened in my faith, just after a couple of sessions. The general authorities have so many wonderful truths to teach us and clarify. I don't know if it's just because I was more prepared for the messages this time around, or if the issues I've been dealing with are common to many Latter-Day Saints, thus conference talks addressing them. Probably a nice mix of both.

Second, Andrew and Sterling were in Denver for that whole weekend, so I was at home by myself with plenty of time to ponder on my life and the direction that I am headed. Andrew's grandma Sally passed away on Sept. 27, and we attended her funeral on Thursday Oct. 2. I had to come back home before Andrew and Sterling because I had a mandatory school function. I didn't want to leave :(  I am so grateful for Andrew and how hard he works to keep our family afloat. We are by no means rich, but we are definitely richly blessed. The gospel of Jesus Christ has kept us happy through the rough times. We expect rough times ahead as well, many, and embrace the challenges that they entail. 

Third, it's been 5 years since Andrew and I were sealed for time and all eternity in the Draper Temple. It is unbelievable to me that time has passed us by as it has. It is such a funny thing. If I think about our marriage in terms of years, it's weird to me that we have been married this long. But if I think about it in terms of experiences over those years, I cannot remember what it was like without my eternal partner. We have been through so many rough and wonderful things together, and I can't imagine having those same events with anyone else by my side. It's impossible for me to try and describe my emotions through words because I'm not eloquent. I dearly love Andrew, and am so grateful for the great relationship we have grown to have together. 

Most of the time I am guilty of thinking selfishly and worrying more about what I'm doing or where I'm going than anyone else. However, I would not be the person I am today without the support and love I receive from my boys, and it makes me so sad to think that I haven't been returning the same love and support as I would like to now and going forward. Andrew would probably disagree with me because he's sweet, but the reality is that I've been focused on my future with school and work, and lost sight of what is truly important. Some days I'll come home from being gone all day (We're talking 6 AM-10 PM) so exhausted from the day, but sad that family is already sleeping and I don't get to talk to them until the morning. I'll go watch Sterling sleep and wonder what fun and exciting adventures and discoveries he had while I was typing myself away at work or listening to a lecture.

Life is so sweet. I hate to miss it. But it has seemed so necessary to do so until now. I just need to push through this last semester of school so we can move forward, and upward. I love my family so much and am excited for the great adventures we have ahead. My goal is to make sure Andrew never feels like he's missing out on life while he gets his education these next few years. The feeling of loss is so tangible, and you don't realize what's happening until the time has passed.  

We are so happy! We will be forever. So grateful for all our wonderful blessings :) 

We’ve been having such a ball over here! We’re very blessed with a beautiful house, great jobs, and the opportunity to raise Sterling. Andrew’s job has taken off at Scheels, he’s a specialty shop manager and takes care of the soccer/inline skates/skateboards. He manages the budgeting, inventory, and ordering for all the products in his area–pretty awesome. He was picked over people that have been working for Scheels for a year or more (he’s been there for 6 months), so when he was promoted, they felt that it was important to emphasize that he has earned the position through his hard work and sales. I wanted to brag a little. He’s just awesome.

Melinda and I are going to graduate with our Bachelor’s degrees at the same time next Spring! We’re cool like that. We didn’t even plan it! I’ll have an accounting degree finally. I’m interested in going into forensics accounting. Most companies that specialize in this kind of work have several types of work/cases asked of them, like bankruptcies, litigations, acquisitions, fraud, etc. There’s many other certifications that will help me to have the credentials I need, however, I can start interning at most of the firms now. I’m applying for two companies currently, one is right by our house, the other is downtown. I’m sure I’ll apply for plenty of internships in the next while. For accounting, recruiting time is in the fall of your senior year, which will be this fall for me. Usually you work part-time as an intern while you go to school, and if things go smoothly you’re hired on after you finish up with your CPA, which for me would be two years from now after one year of school at the University of Utah in their MAcc program. We’ll see how things go, but that’s my overall idea. 

Sterling says all sorts of crazy things, but some are at least decipherable now. He tries words if you ask him to. He loves to try all of the sounds around him: a few days ago he mimicked the sound of a car alarm (pew pew!) in the parking lot of Scheels and today he tried to sound like a flock of geese passing over our house. He loves to play with our ping pong paddle and ball on the back porch–I just bundle him up because it’s freezing!! I have discovered that he will sit in the drivers seat of the car and fake like he’s driving for well over an hour with no problem. He always has the windshield wipers on as his music and dances to their beat going back and forth! He’ll be eighteen months on March 3rd, but he seems older than that to me.

Climbing at Rockreation

That's our life in a nutshell!

Zion National Park

We got to spend a wonderful 3 days in Zion National Park at the end of June! Unfortunately, Sterling wasn't able to join us, but he will be able to soon. He got to spend the weekend with Grandma Riding, and loved every minute of it! 

 Day 1, we hiked the Narrows, from bottom to top, probably just a few miles up. We wanted to go from top to bottom, but all the spots were filled for the weekend! Bummer :(

Beautiful spring

The Narrows

Emily on a big boulder in the Narrows

We were able to get permits to do the Subway hike from top to bottom for this trip, so we did that on Day 2. It was absolutely amazing--one of the coolest canyoneering experiences that we've ever had. We have a new video camera that we brought with us and filmed the hike...and then we accidentally deleted the whole thing when we got home. It's was an epic fail. The good news? We are more likely to go do the Subway again (not that we weren't itching to do it  again anyways) so we can film it again!

The Subway's most popular section

This hike is so spectacular, we can't put it into words. This photo doesn't do it justice, and it's a really awesome photo. Anyways, if you ever want to go with us, just holler. We'll go in a heartbeat. 


Day 3, we hiked Angel's Landing--Not the sissy way. We went all the way to the top! It was a fantastic view of Zion park, and we got to see what hikes we want to do next time we go down :) We filmed this hike as well, and it was lost with the rest of the recordings. But again, photos don't do it justice, but this is still a good one.

All the way to the top of this photo...that's where we were! Follow the chains :)

Fabulous trip! Wish we could have spent more time here :)

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I can't believe it took my parents this long to
write on the blog again.

It's been about 3 months since we last blogged and, as always, a bunch has happened in the gap. Andrew has the summer off from school but is going back in fall to tentatively continue studying comparative literature and cultural studies at the University of Utah. Emily is also planning on returning to school this fall to continue her studies in business and accounting.




We've been doing a lot of work on our house including painting and remodeling the railing around our stairs (as you can see in this picture). The new paint looks great and thanks to Jesse, the new railing looks awesome!  We are currently borrowing a piano from Ashley and Brandon Bickham while they
don't have space for it, and it looks great in our home--
even if it is horribly out of tune. It is finally summer time and that means 2 things: First, yard work. We have a ton to do on our yard this year and Andrew has been spending a lot of time trying to move the dirt around to level it out. When they dug out the basement of our house years ago, they just left the dirt in the front yard. While they may have had a plan with the dirt later, for us it is just a mess! AND full of weeds. With the help of some family, we are making it look loads better. We are excited to show you the pictures when it is completely finished.

The second thing that summer time means is ROCK-CLIMBING!!! Earlier in the spring we left Sterling with mama and papa Smith and went on an awesome climbing trip. We spent a day in Maple canyon, near Ephraim, and did lots of lead climbing and top roping on the cool conglomerate rock. The next morning, we left to go to Joe's valley which is a couple hours east of Ephraim. For those who don't know anything about Joe's valley, it is pretty much a mecca for climbers in Utah and around the U.S. We spent two days there to boulder and it was a total blast! We cant wait to go back and try the problems we were unable to finish soon.

Where did all my blocks go?

Ahh duh duh duh!!

Sterling is super happy and healthy which makes us super happy! He is growing SO fast, it is hard to keep up with him. He is about to turn 9 months and seems to be about on schedule. We will find out for sure when we see Dr. Carter next week. He spends his time rolling around and trying to figure out how to crawl. His favorite things to do right now are play with his drumstick (which he bangs on everything including his parents) and blocks--keeping the blocks where he can reach them has been a struggle for him, as you can see in this pic.

Thanks everyone for all that you have done and continue to do for us! We appreciate all of you more than we can express :) Thank you.

February!

It's been 5 months since we've posted, 5 months since Sterling was born, and 3 months since we bought a house. Sterling is just under 20 lbs. with a couple of teeth popping out, Andrew is studying another semester of school, and I've gone back to work and gotten a promotion at Jamba Juice (woohoo!).

Our house is in Taylorsville, Utah where Emily grew up :) It's a cute little home with wood floors, colorful walls, and a cute nursery that Sterling's grandparents helped to create. We love it, and the neighborhood is quiet and quite perfect for our little family.

Sterling's cousins are turning 4 years and 1 year during February and March, which also marks his 6-month birthday as well! Wow, time flies. For 4-year old Ryker's birthday, we went up to Soldier's Hollow for tubing :) It was cold, but the hills were well-groomed and the automated lift was pretty fun (we did think it went a bit slow considering we could have probably walked up the hills faster). But, all in all it was a great afternoon and birthday activity. We're probably going to go again with friends early March.

We had a great couples retreat Valentine's Day weekend. We let my sister Melinda and her husband Rob babysit Sterling while we travelled up to Midway with some cousins and their friends to play games and enjoy each other's company :) We played fun dance games on the Wii, shopped at the Park City outlets, played some new card and board games, and also a little bit of Texas Hold 'Em. It was an awesome time, and a well-deserved vacation for Andrew and I.

Sterling talks a TON to himself, and makes lots of goos and gaas for us. He loves eating his carrots, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash. He hates tummy time, and loves pretending that he can walk. AND he has the most infectious smile I've ever seen! I've learned to make his baby food at home which saves a load of money, and isn't very difficult. We switched pediatricians recently to a friend of Andrew's family, Matt Carter--he's about a million times better than the last place we were going and we feel a lot more comfortable taking advice from him, which is important for first-time parents.

We don't blog enough, as you can see! But we'll try to be better. Thanks for reading!

The Story So Far

Each year for Labor Day Weekend, we go to Moab with the Smith side of the family. We left Thursday the 1st of Sept in the evening at about 7 or 8 o'clock and arrived around midnight. In the morning, it was mine and Emily's day to make all the food and plan the days activities, so we woke up early to start cutting up vegetables and meat for the omelettes and preparing other things for the breakfast and lunches that we packed for everyone. After that we left to go hiking for the day. 1st we hiked to Corona Arch, which was super cool but also super duper hot--we all stayed very well hydrated and saw the arch and returned to our cars in safety. After the dry and hot hike to the arch, we decided to go to a more cool and calm place so we went to Mill Creek North Fork, which after about a mile has a nice cool waterhole that you can swim in. Finally we got back to our condo for the night, and Emily and I barbecued hamburgers and hotdogs for everyone and cleaned up when we were all done eating. Then after talking and planning for the next day, Emily finally went to bed at around 10:30 or 11:00 and I soon followed after her. At about 12:30 A.M. Saturday morning Emily woke me up saying that she had been having contractions. I knew that contractions could mean that you were having a baby and I also knew that there were other contractions that didn't mean a whole lot and seeing as how emily wasn't due until the 29th of Sept. I assumed that they were the not important kind, but Em told (and proved) me otherwise. So, we started measuring how far apart the contractions were getting, and when they started getting down to about 6 minutes we decided to call our doctor, Doctor Curtis, to see what we should do. Unfortunately, Dr. Curtis was out of town, but we were able to talk to Dr. Merrill (who was great) and he told us that if they did get down to within five minutes that we would need to go to a hospital. Soon enough the contractions were within five minutes and we decided to go to the hospital there in Moab--we found a brand new facility had been built there earlier this year. We got there at probably 3 or 4 in the morning and the nurses there took great care of Emily and gathered all the information they needed before telling us that it was likely that Emily was indeed going into labor but that it wasn't sure at the same time (it made sense at the time...). They told us that we had some options; we could stay in the hospital in Moab and wait for the baby to come or the contractions to totally stop, we could leave the hospital and stay in Moab and hope that Em was only going through false labor, or we could head back to Salt Lake and go to a hospital there if the contractions continued and be closer to facilities and doctors that we knew and would probably need with a possible 36-week newborn. This was a kinda tense time for us, we were worried about all the normal things people worry about when they might be going into labor, but we were also worried about the earliness of the labor (we were expecting to have 4 more weeks until the baby would come), being far from home, and not having a NICU in the Moab hospital. Not to mention the long drive home and whether or not emily would go into labor on the way back to Salt Lake, possibly making everybody end their vacation early, and finding out that it was nothing but a false labor. So, it was a little bit stressful and tiring, but we decided that we were going to go back to Salt Lake. The nurses gave emily a couple of shots of terbutaline which slowed the contractions way down long enough for us to go to the condo at 6 in the morning saturday, pack the things we needed, and drive all the way back to Salt Lake (arriving at 10-11). When we finally got home, Emily tried to relax and take it easy and sleep while the contractions increased in strength and frequency. Emily, however, was unable to sleep even though she had hardly slept at all the two previous nights. Emily decided to take a bath to help her relax but when the bath was over the contractions were so frequent and strong that she was unable to dress herself. So, after helping her dress I told her that we were going to go to the hospital and we arrived there at about 3:00 in the afternoon on Saturday. I ran inside to get someone to wheelchair her to where she need to be while I parked the car. As I followed her in I passed the nurse who had pushed emily and she told me the room that she would be in--the other nurses there told me that Emily did not look like a "happy camper" and others who were talking about her (I imagined her yelling and screaming down the hall as she got carted to her room). All the nurses took really good care of Emily and made her feel comfortable and relatively relaxed, one of them came in to feel how far dilated Em was and said that she was probably going into real labor. In Moab she was at a 2, and now she was at a 4. When it was decided that she was really going into labor they brought in the anesthesiologist and gave Emily an epidural at which point she was FINALLY able to calm down and relax while I called the families and let everyone know what was happening. At about 8:00, Emily was completely dilated and effaced (I don't know what effaced mean) and the doctor told her that some times women have to push for up to three hours at this point. So with that, Emily began to push and within 20 minutes Sterling Roark Smith was born at 7 lbs and 3.3 oz and 20.5 ". Sterling's first APGAR test score was a 9 and his second was 8 because he was having a little bit of trouble getting some moisture out of his lungs. But, he was able to finally get it all out and has been healthy and happy ever since. Emily and I spent the rest of the night, the next day, and the next morning in the hospital while the doctors and nurses made sure that Sterling and his mom were healthy. At long last we were able to go home (still living at my parents while we wait for house issues to be resolved) and my mom and dad had cleaned and prepared our bedroom for the new arrival! And that is the story so far...