A post a Day for the month of May....

In an effort to revamp my blog and really get going again, I decided to take a cue from my bff, next door neighbor Alicia and do a post a day, for the rest of the month of May.  (In reality it will just be posting a lot more than the lately, usual....) The blog ~storyofmylifeblog.blogspot.com~ has different topics to write about each day....
so here I go!

Post #1  "the story of your life in 250 words or less" 

 

I was born on October 24th 1984 at American Fork Hospital.

I was my parents first born.  They named me Summer, after a little girl that I think my dad thought was cute.  They went on to use Autumn and Mckenzie Spring.... but Summer was their favorite!!!

Basically from the moment I was born I wanted a sister... sadly a boy came next,

but that didn't stop me from calling him Autumn.

6 more kids followed and I truly wanted a girl each time.  

My youngest brother was born the day after my 18th birthday,

rounding our family out with 4 boys and 4 girls.  

Growing up I always loved Dancing and for the most part I liked school.

Above all.... I really loved boys!

 I don't think that a moment went by that I wasn't life and death, in love with one boy or another. 

Lucky for me, the summer after my Junior year I met Scott while he was working at Subway.

I knew I wanted to marry him after only a few hangout ~ make out sessions :-)

Later that same year my baby sister Aspen passed away from Leukemia,

sparking my later career in nursing.

February 13th, 2002... that's right, the day be for Valentines Day, 

Scott left on his mission to Lansing Michigan.  major tears,,,,

I filled the next 2 years with graduating from high school and 

heading off to Weber State for College.

Scott and I were married in August of 2004, 6 months after his return.

I knew I wanted 2 things for sure,

to wait until I was 25 to have kids

and that I wanted all girls!!!!

It should have been no surprise when Dakota joined our family in November of 2005.

Bridger followed not too soon after in January of 2009.

Now we live in Highland and I feel like I am still trying to figure out how to be a good mom and wife, but I am so grateful for my life today and the road that got me here!

Spring Break

 We were super boring this year and stayed at home for Spring Break.

Scott was really busy with work and I had to work a few days too.  I was nervous that I was going to go crazy with all of the free time, but we filled the week with a lot of fun activities.

On the day that I worked, Dakota went to "Science Camp" and the Natural History Museum. 

He learned all about rocks and geology and informed me that it was the best day ever!

We immediately signed him up for a week during the summer!

Bridger spent the day with the Finlayson's and the lucky boy got to go to the Zoo!

When I got home from work, he talked non-stop about all the animals.

He especially loved the monkeys and the peacock!

 

 One day went with friends in our neighborhood to see a Lego Exhibit at the  Kimball Art Museum in Park City.  The pieces were unreal!!!! 
It is amazing what you can build with just legos....

After the museum, we all went out to Pizza on Main Street.  

Having 6 boys all together was a littler chaotic, 

but everyone seemed to have a fun time.

My favorite day of Spring Break was spent skiing!!!

Alicia, Connor, Dakota and I went up to the Canyons and enjoyed every minute of the warm weather (although the snow was not the best...)!

I was so impressed with Dakota's skiing ability.  He is getting so good!!!

I have never taken him without Scott and was a little bit nervous,

but the day turned out perfect!

These 2 were so cute together,

March Races,

Last month we went on 2 different trips,

for 2 different races....

1st we headed off to Moab where I did the Moab 1/2 Marathon 

with a group of girls in my ward.

I was really excited because we had been training hard and did a treadmill class that is supposed to help with speed.  I was ready for my fastest time ever....

but the rolling hills and flat ending prevented me from reaching my goal :-(

Now I just want to sign up for a nice down hill, canyon run.

The rest of the weekend was a blast!  We rented a condo with the Finlaysons.

We filled our time with lots of hiking and great restaurants!!!

 The next weekend we went to St. George for Tour Del Sol Bike Race.

It was a 2 day, 3 stage race...

and it was like nothing I had ever done before!!!!

The first stage was a time trial, 

which consisted of 12 miles going as fast as you can, no help from anyone.

When we pulled up, I seriously wanted to turn around and go home, I was so intimidated.  

There were teams of bikers warming up on trainers and everyone's' bikes were unreal.

I did okay on this stage, but immediately after wished I would have pushed harder,

plus I didn't place very well.

The 2nd stage is called a CRIT.
You basically just go around a big track in a group for 30 minutes.  

I only had one goal for this race.... Stay with the group and don't get dropped!!!!

Because you are on a track, everyone can see you,
and it is very obvious how you are doing.

I was so nervous to have Scott there.

It ended up going really well and I placed 6th!!!

I still have a lot to learn, 

because in every picture I look like I am in last place going around the turns....

The final day and stage of the race was a 40 mile road race.

I had ridden the course before and knew that there were a ton of hills, but I felt ready.

A couple miles in there was a big hill and at the top, my chain fell off!!!!

I was devastated. I felt like I would never be able to catch up to the group and the thought of doing 35 miles by myself made me want to cry :-(

I had no choice, but to fix my chain and then ride my butt off!!!

Thanks to pure adrenaline from the fear of being last, I was able to catch up to Alicia and we worked together the rest of the race and ended up finishing 5th and 6th!!!

 

The race was so much work, but I had so much fun!!!

I am so lucky to have moved next door to Alicia 

so she could introduce me to the awesome world of biking, 

and help me every step of the way!

Happy Birthday Aspen

 It is hard to believe that it has been 12 years since Aspen was born.

It makes me so sad to think of all that she would have been doing these past 12 years.

I wonder what she would look like and what her personality would be like....

 Can't wait for the day we get to see her again!!!

Happy Birthday Aspen!!!!

love, your oldest sis

Racquetball

 

Last night we took the boys to the Rec Center for a little racquetball fun!

They loved that you just got to be crazy and hit the ball all over the place.....

We had 2 balls going in our court, and surprisingly we had no injuries.  

It definitely will have to be a repeater for the Dunn Family!!!!

Probably T.M.I.

This might be too much information for some.....

 but somethings are just too funny and too ridiculous not to share!!!!

Last May Scott and I finally decided that we were ready to add another kid to our family.

So off to the OB I went to get my IUD removed.

(on a side note: There truly is no bigger fan of the IUD than me.  It is basically one of my best friends and I will probably take one to the grave.)

I had planned everything perfectly.... get pregnant in July, deliver in March. Obviously have a girl :-)

To my surprise, nothing happened.  Not only was I not getting pregnant (which is crazy, weird for me), I also wasn't even having a period.

After a couple months I talked to one of my OB's and he gave me a prescription for Progesterone.  "That will do the trick" he told me.  "Some people just need to give their period a jump start".  I did the full cycle of medicine and waited.  Still nothing!!!  At this point I started getting mad!!!  Now I was pushing in too a Summer time delivery.... YUCK!  I decided not to worry about it and just give my body time to get back to normal.

Through the next couple of months I went through about a hundred different emotions as everyone around me of course was getting pregnant.  I wasn't at all jealous that they were having babies.... I just couldn't figure out how every one could get pregnant so easy!  Then I just started feeling like maybe I wasn't going to have more kids (things are nice with 2 :-)  and as a bonus, I apparently would not be having a period anymore.  I started to convince myself that things weren't so bad....

But once the holidays were over I decided I really needed to address the problem.  I know a lot of people take awhile to get pregnant, but the bigger problem to me was my lack of period.  I talked to one of my doctors at work and asked if I should come in or if he just wanted to do something about it.  He said we would just do something and so he prescribed me a months worth of Estrogen followed by another round of Progesterone.  Following a  month of being super emotional and angry, and 5lbs later.... still nothing!

I then made the mistake of getting online and reading all of the blogs of women claiming they could not get pregnant following their use of the Mirena.  Of course because I have always been a big supporter, I would be the one sterilized by my IUD!

I called to make an appointment with my OB and was told they couldn't see me until almost April.  I reluctantly took the appt. Luckily I saw my doctor at work this week and he said he would just fit me in on his surgery day and do an ultra sound.... just to see what is going on in there :-)

So yesterday I went in and my doctor did an ultra sound.  He said that he could see something in my uterus and it was most likely calcification that can be totally normal.  He said he wanted to take a closer look and put in a speculum.  He got a funny look on his face.... not what you want to see when you are up in the stir ups :-)   Next thing I knew he pulled out my IUD!   There she was in all her glory, perfectly placed in my uterus!!!!

People have asked me if I was surprised, or mad?  Honestly I was so relieved!!!!  It all made perfect sense.  I do wish that I wouldn't have taken all of the medications, but I am choosing to look at the whole thing as being given the "gift of time".  I was able to do a ton of things that I would have never been able to do pregnant.  And we have some fun plans for this spring.  

I feel bad for the nurse practitioner, we were just chit chatting away and she must have just done the pap smear forgot to remove the IUD.....

Oh well, who knows when we will have another baby, but at least now we will have a fair shot!

Fun in the Snow

On Martin Luther King Day we took the boys up to Park City for some tubing fun with the Finlayson's.  The last time we went Bridger was only 2 and couldn't go on very many runs, so this time was so much fun.  The boys loved it and could have gone over and over.  The best was hooking a ton of tubes together and just letting loose.  It is almost scary how fast you can get going!