Fun pictures

The family cleaned out mom's storage trailer a few weeks back. We found a ton of old family photos on my mother's side. I recently finished taking all the photos out of the albums to preserve them and also scanning some in for the family to enjoy. Here are some of my favorites!

Don't you love how my grandfather is looking at grandmother! So much love!Here they look like two goof balls...

I love how grandpa is looking at momma in this picture. Proud brand new father!

Cute photo of momma and Uncle Joe.

Photos of dad in the production of The King and I that he was in during College. Mom was in the orchestra of this production and this was around the time they started dating.

Well I have a ton more pictures but not enough time or space to put them all on. So enjoy!

Keeping Options Open

You never know where you are going to be in a month, in a few months, in a year from now. I like to keep my options open. I'd been hearing some rumors of possible sleep lab expansion to brentwood and rutherford county. Some of the girls I work with are considering leaving or transfering due to gas/driving distance or better pay at another lab. If the girls I work with leave, it would be very difficult for me to work with all these men and not my girls. With the thought of being pregnant and trying to get pregnant, my doctor was concerned with me working nights to begin with. So I have recently been considering going to days if the option was given to me.

Tonight I found myself in the tech room with Paul and no one else was around so I cornered him on the subject. I asked him if they were still looking at expansion and he said they were. I told him to keep me in mind for days and to know that I was interested. He was glad to hear that I was interested. Ben and I have discussed this issue and are not sure if this is what we want or what is best for us. I wanted to let him know that I was interested just in case after prayer and consideration that we find it is what we need to do. I have felt so strongly lately that it might be a good option, that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to talk to Paul.

A day position would require I work 5 days a week, which would almost necessitate needing daycare but that is ok if that is what the Lord wants for us. Also, I have read recently that shift workers sometimes have a difficult time getting pregnant and having babies...so maybe I need to come off nights since I do not rest well. Anyway...things to ponder and pray about...because this might also be a drop in pay to go to days. We'll see.

Hmm...oh well...time to try again

Well I called today to get the results from the second round of blood work. My hCG went from the 400s to 38...yeah I think its safe to say that I miscarried. :( Oh well. It has been such an emotional roller coaster that I have handled it very well today. I really had already dealt with all the sadness on Monday; so by today, I'm really ok. Today was a half day for my doctor so I didn't think he would call me. What we want now is to get some tests run to figure out why I keep miscarrying. So now I have to wait again on him to call me to discuss this. If he hasn't called me by Wednesday then I will call the office again. So Sunday its back to work and back to real life and time to deal with what I've been dealt. I still have a lot of questions and who knows when they'll be answered. I guess I'm learning patience. Ben and I are ready to be parents. It is now up to the Lord when that all happens though.

Updates

Friday's appointment went well. I will have more information the first of the week. They sent off my blood work to test the HCG levels. Once we know that, the dr will confirm everything for me. Until then he was hesitant to say much. But he DID schedule my first ultrasound for July 9! So there you go.

Here are some photos from our recent trip to the sounds game. We have fun even though it was BLAZING hot!

























Last but not least is Caitlin's Rally Cap!! Oh well...sounds lost anyway.

Unexpected Excitement

Life has a great way of catching you off guard. This past week I have had a strange pain that I started to notice when I laughed or sneezed. I really wondered why I was having this pain. It didn't make much sense to me. I asked Ben about it and he wasn't really sure since nothing else was wrong. I did a little research and let myself start to believe that I had a chance of being pregnant. I had a test lying around the house so Monday I thought I would take it just to see. To my surprise it was POSITIVE...I really couldn't believe it. Having had the pains in my abdomen, I called my dr but he said I was good and I have an appointment for Friday.

We had all intention of waiting to tell everyone just because of the previous history. Then today I decided to take a second test for my reassurance. I took a picture of it and sent it to Ben at work on his phone. Little did I know that Ben didn't have his phone with him and when he got the text Tony told him he had received a message. Ben was in the kitchen and told him to go ahead and look at it and tell him what it says...well that let the cat out of the bag. Since ben works with someone from church, we knew it would get out. He went ahead and told his sisters and called to tell me to tell family. For the last year we have had the prayer that we were ready but in God's time only did we want to have a child. We were tickled to death to hear that Bryan and Lisa were pregnant again...little did we know that we weren't far behind.

I will update more once I go to my appointment Friday. :) We are excited!

The End...

Tonight is my last night of work at Winchester. Ben and I are looking forward to our week off. Provided Ashley isn't working, we are planning to go to knoxville for an evening. I've been working so much on some genealogy to help mom and marilyn out. I swear....the Smith family goes back WAY too far. I have over 1100 names in my PAF now!! So now I have enough to keep me busy for a while.

Station 6

Well the city has finally got Station 6 out near Almaville ready to open. The changes will happen this week. Ben is being moved yet again to another station. He will be moving to Station 1 which is over by the Library. This is the station that has the Service Company which runs all the wreck calls. Ben is excited about this. He thinks his captain likes him quite a bit to put him on the service company so young in the department. Supposedly its a pretty well liked position and Ben is just excited to be on it. This station also happens to be Mike Cook's station, so Mike will be his Lieutenant.

We ran into mom at the Temple today. It was nice to do a session and run into family there as well. I met up with her tonight and went over some genealogy. So now I am going to try...key word try...to help her. I also want to start working on the Smith lines as well. We'll see how long I can stay motivated...Two more weeks of Winchester then I can be much more focused. :)