Heart4Ash (Skwig)

Baby it is cold outside are the words that best describe this past week. When it gets snowy and cold, I get excited for the holidays. I love to see the frosted trees, everyone bundled up and the change of everything that surrounds us. It is beautiful even though sometimes I don't like it. Ever since moving to Boise I have said my morning prayers on Friday I did my usual and off to work I went. It was snowing and my windshield wiper was being a pill, so while I was driving I decided to roll down my window and flick my wiper in order for me to see better. As I was trying to see better I noticed that I was merging into a semi next to me. I quickly grabbed the wheel and corrected myself, I began swerving out of control. I was able to get my car back in control. Simply by me saying my morning prayers that morning and asking Heavenly Father to bless me to be alert and safe on the roads, I made it safely to work. I am so very grateful that anyone of us can bow our head and fol...

This past week has been a good week. We got snow here in Boise then frozen rain and more raining. Today is a beautiful day the sun is out and shining. Tonight we are suppose to get some more snow. With all this moisture we are receiving it has been tough to train Wrigley. Yesterday Steve dropped off Wrigley and I at our laundry mat that we do our laundry at and I was able to train him for a little bit. Wrigley does so well indoors, but outdoors is another story. There are so many distractions outside like squirrels, smells, cars and other dogs. He is getting it down, but still want to eat other dogs. We are able to get him in control easier from the training he got at Ty the dog guy. This past week I have been seeing which day it is for Light the World. My thoughts about each day have been good, but have I followed through with my thoughts ... No! I was thinking about what I do each in everyday of my week and thought I am being  like Jesus by treating my patients with charit...

This whole past week I was so excited to see my Wrigley. We went to pick him up on Friday in Salt Lake and he was just as excited to see us. Steve and I learned a whole lot of stuff that we were doing wrong. Two of the most important things that we both learn was first Wrigley is a dog not a human and second Wrigley will be as good as the weakest leader, so that means we are all a team. The language that the trainers at boot camp used to help Wrigley behave better is very clear and we are getting it down as each of us are critiquing each other. We are taking it in strides. We know that this transition stage we are going to make mistakes, but Wrigley is doing good which is making me smile.  Before heading down to Salt Lake to get Wrigley I had to go and check my liver function. My liver function has been a little bit lower, so they told me to stop taking my pravastatin medication which helps with my cholesterol and reduces the risk of heart attack and str...

I hope all y'all had a happy Thanksgiving and everyone had a fun time spending time with family. I sure did. We headed down to Salt Lake Wednesday afternoon. This year my thoughts about Thanksgiving was different. Ever since moving here to Boise and traveling to Caldwell for work each morning I have been listening to the Book of Mormon on my ride and before I head up I bow my head and say a little prayer. I have noticed a willingness and giving of myself to others around me more. I am incredibly grateful for the Savior and for his love for each in every one of us and for His emulating power. "If life gets too hard to stand, kneel." This quote was in my room as I was growing up and still has an impact on my to this day. Through the words of the scriptures I try to listen to each morning there are many examples of everyday life of trials and happiness, but if we all simply come unto  Christ, He is waiting there for each of us. It was fun being down in Salt Lake this weeke...

Another week without my man and our little W, but I made it and oh so happy that Steve is home. We are still missing our 4 legged kiddo though. :( We have gotten some updates on how well he is doing mingling with other dogs , which makes my heart happy. It is exciting for us to watch and see how his attitude towards other dogs is changing. We are looking forward to taking him places without worrying as much. Only 2 more week !  We have decided to get my eggs retrieved on January 3rd and our surrogate is going on a vacation in Febuary and then she will begin the process of tricking her body to carry a baby. :) There are other things that have to come together for example the legal stuff and more stuff, but it is crazy to think we are getting there. Our surrogate met with her attorney and everything went well. It is nuts all the different kinds of things that we can have our surrogate do during the pregnancy. We are going to meet up with our attorney and decide...

First week without my boys. I stayed busy, busy, busy so it wasn't that bad, but at night time it was little hard to fall asleep. I had a doctors appointment with one of my doctor's in Salt Lake and I got to meet the doctor here in Boise, his name is Dr. Chai. It is great that my heart transplant doctor's in Salt Lake communicate with Dr. Chai here. There are 13 other LVAD or transplant patients that Dr. Chai and his nurse practitioner's are in charge of here in Boise. Every time I have a doctors appointment here I know who I am going to be seeing and that is exactly what I wanted. This appointment was just a clinic visit and to meet Dr. Chai and his staff. My prograf  level was a little low, so they bumped me up. Now I am taking 3 mg of prograf  in the morning and 2 mg at night. I am going to retest my levels on Wednesday this coming week. My liver enzymes were slightly elevated, so they retested that and it went back down. I also discussed with my doctors about the...

This past week we had to make some decisions and with these decisions, there was a lot of back and forth. First decision, Wrigley has had some training with his aggression problem towards dogs. We have kept up on some of the items that we learned, but we have been slightly  leanient  with him. For the next 2 weeks Steve is going to be down in Salt Lake packing everything up, moving it into storage and doing yard work. We are praying that the buyer closes on our house right before Thanksgiving week. Since we have been slacking with Wrigley and laying down the law, we decided to send him to a training program in Salt Lake that helps with aggression for 3 weeks and Steve is going to be down in there too just in case. Today the boys left for Salt Lake and I am still here holding the fort. Coming to this conclusion of decisions wasn't easy because we had two different programs that worked with dogs, but the duration of each program was different. Before making the de...

 What a week it w as. St eve an d I ha d photos don e on Saturday evening in Salt Lake. Before th a t we were strug gl ing to try a nd f in d our outfit s like everyone does when trying to look there best in a pho to shot. After work on Friday we packed up and head to Salt Lake. We got to see my mom’s brother and his family who live in Monticello, Ut. It was great to be able to see and visit them. I was talking to my cousin abo ut ho w old she is getting and that she is making me feel old. She joked back and said that she never wants to get old. I replied and said, “too much re sp onsibility.” Growing older isn’t easy  and I am not even old. This past Tuesday it was my grandpa’s birthday. He has Parkinson’s disease and hates his walker. I wished him a Happy Birthday and he replied back and said, “I don’t know why you like talking to me.” Then I said, “because you are so much fun to talk to, if you were boring I would have called ya.” He is one funny 86 year old man...

Loving this fall weather that we are having with all the tree's changes. Soo beautiful!! I really enjoy this time of the year, because we are all ramping up for all the many holidays!! Beginning with one of my favorites Halloween! As Steve and I have been driving around different areas, we have seen some pretty amazing and scary Halloween decorations. One house has these mannequin heads on the porch that has axes, knives and pencils in them with oozing blood. This weekend my brother was in town with his girlfriend. We went to this Fall Festival, where there were pumpkin launchers. The pumpkin launchers were aimed at an old car in the middle of a field and by the end of the festival the car was demolished. There was live music, auctions, food trucks and local produce for sale. It was great seeing my brother and visiting with him and his girlfriend. We are still moving forward with our surrogate process. The legal side of it is almost done. We have found an attorney fo...

All my "New Year resolutions" have been checked off. This weekend I hike Mount Olympus with Genae . Being down in Boise for the past 3 weeks hasn't been the best to train because of the altitude. Boise altitude is basically half of Salt Lake and I felt it as we were hiking up. The trail was steep pretty much the whole way. As we were heading up the mountain we chatted about what was going on in our lives and asked how work was going. We also talked about how our minds are so much stronger than our bodies. If we have a determination to finish something we have started, no matter how long it will take us. We will get it done, only if our minds have decided. My body was tired, but my mind pushed me through. We climb 4,000 ft to get to the top and the views were amazing, the surroundings mountain tops were covered in snow. It was a great time and the weather couldn't have been any better. The fall colors on the trees were very pretty as we keep on climbing out of the bust...

I feel like there isn't enough light in the day to get everything I want to get done. I have struggled to get up in the morning because the sun has been sleeping in too, Booy... I am looking forward to daylight saving. With a full time job it is crazy how fast the week goes by. I can remember when I was young when my mom told me to wait a week. Back then a week was a century, but now it is nothing. I feel like I have expressed this once before in my blog. It is funny at certain times in our lives, how the value of time changes. It is important to take the moments in our days to take a step back and analyzing ourselves in how we are doing, every once in a while. For me every week I begin to think about what I am going to write in my blog post I start analyzing myself on my actions of the past week. Sometimes I feel like what I am doing isn't my best and sometimes I think to myself, "you have done your best," but let me be completely honest this isn't common. If I c...

Dang, this week flew by for me so quick. I feel like I closed my eyes for 10 seconds and BAM it was Friday. It is our second week in Boise and we are growing fonder and fonder of this fun town. Our tiny house sometimes gets a little bit boring, but there is plenty to do outside. We have been hiking in the foothills, taking strolls downtown and going on a lot of walks with Wrigley, due to our yard been very petite. On Saturday we ran in the Boise Meets World 5k. The run went along the greenbelt right next to the Snake River. We saw people surfing and boogie boarding in the river, a lot of people on bikes and others who were out enjoying the weather. My second week on the job was great. All of the people I work with are very nice; especially our front desk lady, she makes the best homemade caramel apples. I ate the whole apple in one sitting because the goodness was too good not to resist. We just finished up all the paperwork that our attorney needed from us, so tha...

First week in Boise had its up and down. I saw that Steve already filled you in on how hectic things were last week and how I was way more worried about my new job than being able to sit down and think about my past week so grateful I am for my better half. My new job is going alright, it is very laid back and we have some fun. I am going to continue to grow my knowledge with all the new opportunities with this job. We are all settled in our little house just have a couple more things to make it home for now. I came home after work on Wednesday and Steve had got everything moved in, he even put together our new couch/bed. Pretty awesome man I have. At the beginning of this week I was so stressed and every day all my stress has been relieved by his actions and him just being him. Steve always knows what I need to calm down and get back into the game of things. Thursday afternoon I get a text from Steve saying, "You got hot yoga at 7:15 tonight." I have never done hot yoga be...

Ashley has had too much on her plate this past weekend so I (husband) have decided to update you this week. Ashley and I have decided to take our adventure to Boise, ID. We have always loved Boise and knew someday we would try it out, but honestly didn't think it would be this soon. So this weekend we packed our bags and left our home in Salt Lake City. It may be foolish, but we decided to try the new crave these days.... TINY HOUSE LIVING. The best part about this type of living is we were able to pack everything we need, including our new couch-sleeper combo into both of our cars, no U-haul, no trailer just me in the Mini Cooper and Ashley, Wrigley in the Landcruiser. Driving to Boise on Saturday was pretty exciting and the scenery was beautiful. The plan was to get unpacked and settle before Ashley went to work on Monday. Let's just say that didn't happen, our shack (tiny house) won't be available until Wednesday. So we ended up driving all around Bois...

There are no words that could express this past week. I am mentally drained. Let me begin with my last day at work. It was kind of depressing to say bye to everyone that I have grown so close to in the past year, especially a few of my good friends. They threw my a going away party and we had a bake potato bar...Get it? I thought it was kind of funny. I wish the best for everyone there and I am so thankful for everyone. When I had to leave my badge with my manager I was thinking to myself, "This is it, I am done with this place. Are you sure about this? Yes you are because you have a full-time job in Boise waiting for you." Back and forth, back and forth and forth and forth. Through all of that I knew deep down I was moving forward. I felt weird as I was walking to my car that it would be last time I would be doing it. Change is hard, but in the end I feel that change is good.  Friday I had my allomap and echo with my doctors. My echo came back great, all my valves are doing...

Crazy times for us right now. Everything is up in the air with so many important decisions we are making. All in all we are excited for the new change. This past week at work I told one of the patients that I worked with that I was moving to Boise. She was sad to see me go, but happy too. I feel like I have treated all the patients I have seen with respect and I have shown them that I care for them in the best way I could. I am sad to go sometimes, but I keep remembering that change is good and I am going to love my new job. We have been trying to figure out what our plan is going to be, nothing is set in stone yet. The unknown kind of gives my belly a whirl of emotions running in and out. Most humans don't like change, especially uprooting everything and going to a place you have visited a few times. With this change we know and understand there is going to be challenges  and frustrations, but we know that with these things there is going to be  growing and ...

What a week it has been, a little stressed, excited and nervous. The reason why is because Steve, Wrigley and I are packing up and heading north to Boise Idaho. I accepted a full-time physical therapist assistant job up there. I am really excited to about it because my workload will increase and my knowledge will too. I will still be in orthopedics and in an outpatient facility which is awesome. I gave my 2 week notice to my boss at my job now, everyone there are excited for me and sad to see me go. My doctors go up to Boise each month to see outlying patients. The only thing that I still have to do in Utah is my annual testing. With the surrogacy process we have already asked if we could move and our attorney said yes, the surrogate has to be in Utah. I have already spoken with our surrogate mother and she is on board with us. We are still moving forward on the process with the legal part of it. After the legal side of it is done I will have to come back to Utah and get my eggs retri...

This past week was a wake up for our Wrigley. We had a dog trainer come over to our house and teach us how to break his habits of aggression towards other dogs and people. We learned how Wrigley communicates and when to give affections and praise and when not to. Now that we have the proper tools rather than the wrong ones. We are excited to help train Wrigley's behaviors into more friendly ones. This process is going to be long, but just like our surrogate process we are going to dive in and handle whatever is to come. With the surrogacy I have spoken to my parent's neighbor about being our attorney and she agreed to represent us.  This weekend we headed up to Boise. Steve and I have always liked the idea of Boise, so we went to go and checked out some places. We got these bikes at the hotel we were staying at for FREE and rode around downtown Boise. We had a blast riding around to all the places. On the way home, we stopped to see Idaho State women's soccer play. They be...

Can't believe that summer is almost over. Seasons come and seasons go just like how our moods change and how our lives change and grow each day. On Monday after work I asked Steve if he wanted to work on something in the back yard. We had these pavers to use and we decided that we wanted to put them in an area where the barbeque was. As we were out in the back yard, shoveling where we were going to put the wood board I thought this would be a fun activity to do together. Steve did not like the idea, in other word his mood wasn't the best. Sometimes at the beginning of something it is a struggle to get into the groove of it. During the week his mood changed everyday the project had a little bit more done and now we have a nice barbeque area to grill up some grub. At the beginning of anything our lives, it is difficult to really picture the ending. Each step towards the end picture is better than staying in the same spot. I am trying to stay optimistic about our surrogacy ...

In the middle of this past week I thought to myself, "Did you post on your blog last Sunday?" I hurried and check and I did not. I am so sorry, but like I have always said we are all human and forget things when life gets a little too busy and crazy. Last Sunday we were heading back from St George from visiting Steve's grandma. She had shoulder surgery and she is 93 years old. I know she is one wise, stubborn, loving and one sexy young lady. As we were down there she kept saying this surgery has taken all my energy. I tried to tell her that before the surgery, but she was all in. She is doing great for her young body and is still the best grandma in the west. On the way home a good friend invited us over to have shakes  with another family and then after saying yes to her my mom texted me and ask if we wanted to go over to eat dinner with them. So ... this is why it slipped my mind. Two weeks ago we went to see Dr. Snell a psyhchologist for our screening. I was nervous ...

I have scheduled to see a psychologist to check off one of the steps of surrogacy for Steve and I as well as our surrogate and her husband this next coming week. I have no clue what the psychologist is going to ask, but she sounds nice on the phone. I thought our surrogate and us had to have therapy for an entire year, separately, but the steps didn't say so. That would be way nice if we didn't have too, and less stressful. This weekend was a fun one. I decided to start playing golf, my very first game was in Moab over Memorial weekend. I think it's a lot of fun, even if you are sucking it real bad. We were down in Monticello visiting my mom's older brother and his family and we played Monitcello's golf course and that course is not for beginners let me tell you. First time around it rained on us. The next day we woke up and my mom, my cousin Tymbr and I ran a 5K in the morning which was beautiful run. We ran around Lloyd's lake and the temperature was spot...

This week on Wednesday our surrogate and I met with the surrogacy coordinators at the U of U. We went over all the steps of what Steve and I have to do and our surrogate and the medications we are going to be on. As well as a little bit about the verbiage like; IP stands for intended parents in other words Steve and I and GC/surrogate stands for gestation carrier or our amazing surrogate. She is the most giving person to give us 2 years of her own life. She has two little kiddos of herself that are 3 years old and 1 year one. I am so blessed that our paths have crossed. Sometimes I can't believe how the man above works. He amazes me everyday! The surrogate process is 12 steps and some of those steps are harder than the other ones, but we are just going to tackle each step at a time. The next step is to call a Psychologist and have her make sure that we all our mentally stable to be going through all this. The plan is to call this coming week and schedule an appointment for Steve an...

Well, all the puppy dogs ended up getting along alright. We had to watch Wrigley and make sure Chewy and him kept their distance. It was a fun weekend with Steve's mom Lisa here. Every night we all sat down and had this amazing dinner. On Thursday my good friend Jac and her husband Isaiah came down with their adorable baby girl and had dinner with us. Jac and I were college roommates when I was playing soccer at Idaho State. Jac and I were catching up on our lives and how crazy it is that we are all growing up and are at different phases of life. It felt so good to visit with both of them and what our plans for the future. That night as I was getting ready for bed, I felt so grateful for my friendship with both Jac and Isaiah. I am blessed that our paths crossed because they are some way rad people. Friday at work my boss and I were chatting about how great and marvelous the gospel is and how people handle trials in their daily lives. When I was first diagnosed with my hear...