Hello September! Not to be rude but I'm really excited for October!

September is a month that will not soon be forgotten in our families memories.
It could have easily been titled 'The Month of Fundraisers' or in other words 'The Month of Almost NO Home Cooked Meals or Getting to Bed on Time or Pure Chaos with NO Sense of Normalcy!'
That's how it felt and as soon as the month started I was looking forward to October 1st with great anticipation.

It started off with me filling in at my old office with Dr. Scuderi. They needed the help, we needed the money plus I just love those people there and I missed the clients too. This was just the beginning of the busiest month of the year!

Over Labor Day weekend we planned to help Kim and James move the rest of their stuff down to St. George, watch James' first home game at Dixie State University and just enjoy a nice warm weekend away. Our plans changed when a wonderful human being offered to let us keep the admissions from a Payson Flea Market in order to further our Surrogacy Fundraising efforts. We couldn't pass up this gracious offer so we sent Brynlee down to the George early with Ty's family and we made our way down to Payson for the flea market.
We didn't have a clue of what we were doing but I love how it puts us out of our comfort zones, gives us a chance to do something new and to also be together.
Here was the set up, I made the sign and the jars are courtesy of Wendy Lawrence cause she has the coolest stuff.
 

Realizing I didn't take any pictures of us down in St. George, it will just have to suffice that it was DIVINE! I really needed the time to sleep, be in the water and the sun to soak up some Vitamin D. Plus I got to start and FINISH a book which I haven't done in such a long time and was in desperate need of doing. However, I read The Fault in Our Stars and only got choked up once. Somehow I must becoming heartless because everyone else I talked to said they BAWLED their faces off. It was still a good read and I'm proud I got a chance to actually finish a book.

The day we returned from St. George we had our first appointment with our fertility clinic with Janalee and Erik. It felt crazy to be starting the process but I will divulge those details at a later time in a different entry.

Our next adventure: (this part of the post is from our surrogacy blog)

If you can dream it, you can do it! 

"A dream is a wish your heart makes, when your fast asleep," sings a beautiful princess. Our dream of one day having another bouncing baby (or two) is a hillside away. With the many financial facets of Surrogacy we are wishing on a star and (metaphorically) rubbing our magic lamp. Over two years ago we made it a priority to pay off debt in order for us to afford this process. Now it's on to the humbling nature of asking for help. We have put together a Fundraising Yard Sale to help with the costs. If you are wanting to help us build our family but don't know how, this is the perfect way!
Check it out!

We had an overwhelmingly positive response.

I seriously don't know how we survived this. 

 

Just to give you an idea, we had enough donations that we filled an entire 2 car garage, plus almost another space that could be the equivalent of a 3rd car garage and people were still bringing stuff the night before and the day of! I spent a total of 31 hours at Chris and Gail's home starting at 1:00 on Friday. It was insane, to the point that Tisha and I were completely delirious by 11:00pm Friday night and couldn't stop laughing, especially after going through a bag of a complete strangers intimates!! 

These pictures do not do justice to the vastness of what was our Yard Sale. 

My feet hurt, I had a massive headache, Ty made me promise we would never do another yard sale again, plus it ended with a lovely bloody nose that came out of nowhere. There were so many people there and there's absolutely NO WAY we could've pulled this off without all their help! 

And yet there's more:

We did it again!!! 7 days later. 

 

 

I couldn't even fit everything all in one picture frame without having to walk a quarter of a mile away. It was a sight to behold. There was even more donated than what we had the week before. I felt terrible that day and was not looking forward to another day of being filthy dirty, sweaty, aching and sore. The show must go on and we did it and in the end it was entirely worth it. 

I can't explain how grateful I am for all those who sacrificed so much time to help us with this. We packed up all the remaining items at days end and took it to the DI. We had three truck/car loads plus 2 flat bed trailer loads and we packed another 5 ft high x 20 ft long trailer full and took it all to be donated. I'm sure Deseret Industries was tickled pink haha!

But the day wasn't over. Nope not for me anyways!

I got to help put together the 2005 BHS Graduating Class 10 Year High School Reunion!

It turned out awesome! 

I was tired, sunburned and just plain burned out but I didn't want to miss it! Ty came and ate with me, we played some pool then he left to get the kid and the dog to turn in for the night. I stayed to see it through to the end. I want to repeat my FB post from that evening:

"As I'm just finally sitting down from a day that included our last fundraiser yard sale and my 10 year high school reunion, I'm feeling extremely blessed to have such a full and abundant life. The yard sale was a success and we could not have accomplished such an enormous event without some amazingly selfless and caring souls. The reunion was also a huge success and reminded me of how cool people really are and how awesome it is to reconnect with old friends in person. You really can't hug a friend over Facebook and I got to hug and reminisce with the cream of the crop tonight. Huge shout out to everyone that made today such a special day!"

 

Ty Ty's birthday at Brayden and Alina's house.

All I got were a picture of Papa and Enzo snuggling and I stole the girlie picture from Britty.

 

Papa Thomas treated us to a night at the Aquarium complete with dinner. 

 

Our last weekend of the month had to be a special one and we decided to have a family date night. 

Dinner at Brick Oven and Color Me Mine. 

Ty did his usual Gnome, Brynlee enjoyed plastering a dog with an array of colors and I tested my skills on an intricate piece - an ice cream bowl destined to be a jewelry catcher. 

 

  

What a fun time we got to spend together just being us. 

Much to Ty's dismay I signed us up for a 5k in support of Britt for Minerettes. 

Neither of us were in any kind of shape to do this but we did it anyways. 

Brynlee wanted to do the fun run too so we let her. Luckily I ran with her, due to the fact she was coming down with a nasty cough and cold she tuckered out and wasn't breathing all that great so for the last half of the race (maybe it was more like a quarter of a mile of the 1 mile race) I carried her on my back. We don't quit and I wouldn't let her not finish because she was sick. 

  

 

The 5k ended up being almost 3.5 miles and Ty, of course, ran less than a 9 minute mile finishing at 30:57 which I just shake my head at! I, however, having run a total of maybe 10 times all year, huffed and puffed my way to the finish line at 40:06. My goal was to not stop and I was able to do that.
We were both very tired but it was worth it.

  

Before and after.

But guess what? My day wasn't close to being over. No, I got to go home, pack a lunch and head out to a hike with an amazing Laurel and great leaders. So add another 1.6 miles onto the total for the day to include a hike up to Cecret Lake. Beautiful little slice of heaven if I might add. 

 

Even after the hike was over I still had more to go. It was a beautiful day for Women's Conference and I can always count on my sister to pick up tickets for us to go downtown and watch it in person.
This conference blew me away.
The first speaker was Sister Wixom who spoke about birth and babies which immediately made me cry. More amazing topics and quotes:
President Uchtdorf - Forever is full of nows! Creepy stalker cats and Great Aunt Rose's story of overcoming life when it doesn't turn out how you planned.
God did not design us to be sad but to have joy.
Sister Reeves - When we get to heaven and find out that everything we went through in this mortal life is minimal compared to the blessings and glory we have been promised in the eternities we will ask ourselves, "That was it? That was all that was required of me to receive these blessings?" (in my own words).
And soooo many more....
We ended with some yummy sushi and I finally closed my eyes to sleep.

Amidst the yard sales, fundraisers, St George and other shenanigans, we also did family pictures, I took on more work (as stated previously) at my chripractors office, other church meetings, had to purchase a new tire, started volunteering once a week in Brynlee's class, teaching a combined YW lesson plus doing two leadership meetings, volunteered at the Book Fair, and we had our first Parent Teacher Conference as adults (weird!). The 3 to 4 weeks prior to the Yard Sales, we spent every spare moment picking up donations, loading and unloading, packing the vehicles to the brim and past their recommended safety measures I'm sure. Which meant Brynlee was rarely fed a decent dinner, we never got home on time for school nights and we were all exhausted and dirty.

The month ended with a fun YW's activity where one of my YW taught us all how to draw an eyeball. Perfect for Halloween and it was surprisingly relaxing.

The Fundraisers were all so helpful and helped us raise thousands of dollars toward our baby fund! 

It's humbling. I don't even know any other word to describe it. Nothing describes it sufficiently actually. Love. Just so much love. 

Hello October! You got here just in time.