Plans Change

No matter how much time and preparation you put into them. Sometimes they change so drastically it's almost humorous how arrogant we are to think that we may be in control of our lives. Then there are those life altering changes where it seems as though the world stops and you can't breathe. Three years ago Carter was born on a Friday afternoon and our plans changed.
In one week our plans for the school semester and carefully crafted schedules became unimportant. The plans we had of a healthy baby boy being born in October were deemed extraordinarily incorrect. Our doctors noticed something wrong in an ultrasound when I was 20 weeks along, assuring us it would be easily fixed when he was born, which we were assured would happen in Rexburg, again extraordinarily incorrect.

We met with a neonatologist in Salt Lake City when I was 33 weeks along, it was a Friday. He informed us we would be delivering at the University of Utah hospital and our baby would be immediately transferred to Primary Children's Medical Center, for an exploratory surgery. He was hopeful that whatever was wrong could be fixed but told us to be prepared for a situation where it couldn't. We drove home that Tuesday with optimism, we didn't know exactly what would happen in the next month but we felt good.....then I started having contractions. By Thursday I made Casey take me to the hospital and for the next 10 weeks the world stopped turning.

Carter was perfect, we got to see him in an incubator, all hooked up to a million tubes for just a minute before they took him to Primary's. I got to hold him later that night and we prepared to get some answers the next day after his surgery. But you can never prepare for the answers we heard that day. Our little boy would never grow up, he wouldn't learn to walk or talk, drive a car, or have children of his own.

That night when the nurse woke me to take my vital signs, for a brief second I had forgotten everything and as I turned to face her everything flooded back. A physical weight of discouragement stopped me from moving and I wanted to go back to sleep and never wake up again, just stay in that dreamland where everything was ok and I didn't have to decide how my little boy was going to die.

But, we got up the next morning and every morning after that, exhausted but the discouragement soon disappeared. Family, friends and wonderful nurses rallied around us, offering prayers and blessings, lifting us up and helping us along. The simple truths that we have known all our lives became our daily sustenance. Carter would be able to grow up, and we would still be his parents because of the awesome power of the priesthood and temple ordinances. And today, three years later, those truths are still evident in our lives. Our home is filled with Carter's pictures and our memories continuously visited be his awesome experience. Our plans changed and I have been so blessed and so grateful that they did.

Carter Bradford Schanz

September 8, 2006 - November 17, 2006

Crunch

So here is our lovely car.....after it was rammed by a huge ford pickup, an old one from when they made cars out of metal. Needless to say we are now driving a mini-van, a rental, and Casey is desperately trying to find another car :) Here are just a couple pic's of Megan, funny faces.

Petting Zoo

This our new favorite place. The pet store just down the road has an awesome petting zoo, Megan loves to see the puppys and then to run around outside and see all the animals. Here is the cutest basset hound :)

Camping and 18 Months

We are back in civilization! This is a bouquet of wild flowers Casey picked for me, I was very impressed by the colors he chose. We spent the last 5 days in Island Park, just north of St. Anthony, camping with the Schanzs. Megan had a blast as well as Casey and I :)
Three out of four of Casey's sisters were able to make it and it was so much fun to watch all the kids runing around. It brought back a lot of memories of my own childhood, camping in the woods.
We went for a little hike, had 'lots of four-wheeler rides, many smores by the campfire and went to Big Springs to see the ginormous fish, they really liked our cheese that we brought to feed them.
We have been up to Island Park many times but have never gotten our lazy butts up to go to church on Sunday morning, so this time we decided we better go. Amazing! They have two buildings just to accomodate for the amount of visitors they have every week, and this wasn't even a holiday weekend. Their church building was full to the brim, broadcasting the sacrament meeting into the relief society and primary rooms. We were in the second building, a really neat log cabin that was full to the brim, there were even people sitting outside on the grass. I think there was close to 1,000 people there, 95% of them were visitors. It was just amazing to see so many saints clamoring to get a seat at church instead of so many empty pews that we are used to in our home ward, and they were all on vacation!
Well Megan is 18 months old! She can now officially be in nursery allthough she has been going with me for the past few months. She is just a hoot, makes us laugh everyday. She is also very stubborn, has to do everything her way and on her own. She is a very picky eater and something she likes today will most likely be thrown back at me tomorrow. But, pickles and pimento still seem to be a big hit. She wants to do and be a part of everything you're doing. Some of her new words are mamo and bapo for grandma and grandpa, she'll say nienie for her cousin Sydney, nanie for candy, and pop for popsicle, which she loves.

She looking mighty cool in these shades with her phone, and yes she can still fit into her infant carseat :)
Just a cute sleeping picture, she slept in until 10 this morning, camping really wore her out.
This is Skyler, they have a love hate relationship :) Skyler is so excited to see her but likes to boss her around which doesn't go over very well with Megan.
Here's dad and Megan, you can see the corner of our canvas tent in the background, thank you Dennis! It stayed nice and warm throughout the night.

She loved the fourwheeler, it took a while to warm up to it. The little helmet is just hilarious.
Here are some more pretty flowers, and it was still so green up there considering the time of year.