A little bit of this........

Ok.....so, I have been under the impression that I need to have pictures in order to actually blog. But I guess not! Really, I don't write very often because I don't have much going on...but in reality there is so much going on in this little head of mine, why not put it down! especially since I found out that you can publish your blog into a book easily through blurb.com

So this is what I realized lately, Hardly anyone on my side ( friends and family) know Jacob and then a lot on his side do not know me! So here is a little bit about the both of us....

1. Jacob and I met in Chattanooga at institute. I had an internship there creating programs for people with disabilities. He was working third shift in the ER and finishing off college.

- The first time I met him was at a fireside and he was wearing a white sports coat and black suit pants. And I literally thought to myself, "I could never date someone that dresses so WEIRD." Little did I know..( and he was wearing it as a joke..)

- I was there 4 months and he didnt ask me out until I had two weeks left, then we saw each other every day. I moved out to Provo and he came and visited me.

- The first time I thought, " I could marry this man" was when I visited him for thanksgiving and saw him interact with his family.

- The first time he thought "I could marry this girl", was our first date.

- I put a taco bell sauce in his backpack when he flew back home that said, "Willing to relocate."

- I moved back to Georgia and 6 weeks later we were engaged.

- We were sealed in the Nauvoo Temple. And Jacobs parents, brother Aubrey, and sister Dana and her husband Bruce and kids joined us in Nauvoo, along with my entire family but Tim since he was on his mission, and my Aunt Janice also came.

- We drove the day we were sealed, 10 hours to Ohio and the next day had our reception, then we drove down 8 hours to Georgia and had a second reception.. (TOO MUCH DRIVING!) and then Honeymooned in Flager Beach, FL at this place....

http://www.whiteorchidinn.com/

A LITTLE ABOUT JACOB

- He is 6"5 and is an incredible basketball player.

- Some claim his photos make him look very quiet and shy! Believe me he is anything but! He is one of the most outgoing, friendly people I have ever met.

- I have never heard him raise his voice

- My family all loves him, my mom swears that she knew him before this life and conspired with him to marry me.

- He would do anything for anyone at the drop of a hat

- If you are looking for him at a family function, he will always be surrounded by all his neices and nephews climbing on him and teasing him and playing with him.

- He is the 5th of eight children and has grown up in one city all his life.

- He loves to be involved in decorating our house

- He hiccups when he eats hot things ( love it, i think its so cute)

- In the last three days I have heard 3 different people say, "he is so hot" not realizing i was his wife..(LOL)

- He is very down to earth

- he likes to be adventurous and spur of the moment as long as there is a safe plan behind it

- He has dropped everything to come help me with things ( ex...driving across town twice in a week when we were engaged because I locked my keys in the car, driving two hours to come rescue my sister and I stranded on the side of the road with a dead car)

- He LOVES to mow the lawn and take car of the outside stuff of the house, he feels its his meditating time.

- He loves to take a moment, lay down and just look at the stars.

- He's played most sports and loves hiking and camping.

- He wants to give me everything in life and tries to find a way to make it happen

_ He is a manager currently working for Blood Assurance over the training and Protocol of their ALYX machine.

- If he had a million dollars he would want to use it runing around doing secret acts of service for people ( buying them a new car and putting it in their driveway)

- He is fascinated with mythology and would like to go to Greece someday, along with Alaska and the new England states.

_ He served his mission in the Phillipines

_ He paid his way through college by himself semester by semester

- He is often the one family and friends go to for help

- He loves cars and someday wants to rebuild a black 1978 Trans Am with the yellow firebird on the top

- When he laughs these incredibly handsome crows feet show on his eyes

- Before he dies he wants to go to Alaska, fly an airplane, and travel the US in a motor home

A little about Leisa

- I have lived in Utah, Oregon, Idaho, Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia, and Ontario Canada

- I love to run and play volleyball

- I love to cook and would love to become a gourmet cook someday

- The first time I ever made a pie was with my friend Missy and somehow we totally forgot to put the water in to form the dough and had to piece it together in the pan, after that I was hooked and LOVE to make pastries

- I am the oldest of four and am best friends with all my siblings and parents

- One day I want a house with a driveway that no one would come up unless they were on their way to our house, and during Christmas time I want to be one of those houses everyone comes and sees. And on the fron porch I will sell my Christmas pastries!

_ I love photography and the light that filters in to reveal the content of the pictures. And own my own standard film darkroom and equipment, however i do now prefer digital and own a Canon xlt.

- Ive always wanted to run a marathon and do a triathalon

- I love playing the piano, I can't really play technically but I love to play from my heart and have my own music recording equipment and a Christmas CD that I have composed and recorded with my friedn Stephanie singing.

-I love love the water and could swim laps all day, for our first anniversary Jacob took me jet skiing and I dumped us because i was to scared to go fast and did a 360 EXTREMLY slow and just tipped us off

_ I am terrified of birds, especially geese. I broke my wrist after being on roller blades and was attacked by one.

- I have the craziest stories of getting stuck places with no way out, like coming from canada and not having a ride back into the us, my airplane always seems to take off before me on my connecting flights and fo course with no more flights going out that evening, my car blew up in nowhereville Idaho in the middle of the night, etc....oh it really goes on and on.. I just laugh!

- I have had some of the most AMAZING people influence my life and have been so blessed by their friendships.

- Jacob is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me

- I wish I had majored in photography

- Someday I want to go to the Macy's day parade

- I love having a clean house but hate cleaning the bathrooms

- If my mind gets stuck on something I never give up until its done

- I love Utah

- I went on a mission to Toronto, Canada

- I tend to let people take advantage of me and suck me dry

-I would love to get dressed in a beautiful dress and have my hair and makup done just to go to a really fancy dinner

_ I love to read

- I study my scriptures with about 6 books of reference including the Hebrew bible and enjoy translating hebrew

- I loved college and if I could have been a student for life if that was possible

- I gained my testimony at BYUI with help from my incredible friend Reta and its has just been on fire since

- I love doing crazy things and can't wait to have kids and open this creative world to them

- My new favorite store is Kirklands

- I have worked at Taco bell, as a receptionist at a Chiropractors office, Wendys, a potato plant, for Banc One Home loan service, Safelite autoglass taking insurance claims, as a contact lens manager at an eye doctor, cleaning a behavioral unit for children, outdoors backpacking with troubled teens, as a medicaid home health aide for two elderly women and a child with cerebal palsy, for the city of Chattanooga creating programs for people with disabilities, as a dental assistant, for Olan Mills touching up pictures, and finally for a school with 3-4 year olds who are cognitively disabled.WHEW!

- We both want to build our own house one day and work with our own hands on it

- I love love love Christmas and all it brings

Catch up......chronologically

Sooooooooo

It's been awhile

And we're back

It's going to be long.......

So here we go!

As hard to believe I have never been to a circus before.....well my parents say they took me when I was younger...but it must have been too young to remember..! So, Barnum and Bailey came to town and Jacob surprised me with tickets. ( Well I say surprised, only because he intended too, but I found them before he told me...oops! actually......I think I have only been really surprised once by secretive plans....but not intentionally....I just clean the house too well!)

I'll spare you the pictures and the details....but I was pretty impressed, and gasped a couple of times at the stunts they pulled. I have to say though...the clown was definitely my favorite!

Next up: Jacob's 30th Birthday

This time it was my turn to surprise Jacob. He loves cabins, so I found this cabin way up in the smoky mountains with no one else around, just a gorgeous view and a barbecue grill. I brought all his favorite food and cooked all his favorite meals...we spent two days hiking and relaxing, it was gorgeous!

Our gorgeous view!

Our gorgeous cabin!

Our gorgeous night view...look at all the stars!

One of the water falls we hiked to...yep set the camera up on a rock and ran like mad..

I just love this picture of Jacob...It looks like he is an old time cowboy or something..

More gorgeous hiking views!

All the cars were pulled over on the side of the road, and usually that means there is something really unusual to see, but our previous experience in this area showed people stopping to take pictures for ducks and raccoon! So when we pulled behind the long line, I was like this better be good! And sure enough there was a little baby black bear!

May: Our trip to Disneyland....the pictures are pretty self explanatory!

This is where we stayed ... at the Yacht Club
The famous animal carved tree
A Broadway show of Finding Nemo! It was my favorite thing there!

June: Our 2nd Anniversary

Jacob planned our anniversary weekend on this lake...Actually the following view is from our room. We spent it relaxing and hiking!

Jacob acting crazed on the long rope bridge

One of the waterfalls we hiked to

July: Next up! Florida!

My sister came out from Utah and we headed down to the gulf of Mexico in Florida. It was so great to be with her again! I just love my sister time!

The hotel we stayed at right on the beach!

I love this artsy picture of Becky!

We tried to eat at as many crazy restaurants as possible...here is the pirate ship we ate at

Why I love my sister.......so silly...I need silly!

Our last night at the beach the scenery was gorgeous!


Our latest update: July 20, 2008

Well Jacob and I have moved to a new place. We just wanted to rent a house instead of an apartment and we really love it. We have three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Its great because I also have a new job touching up photos for Olan Mills at home and I can use one of those bedrooms as an office and the other one as a guest room for all our guests!
Because I will be home so much we got a dog.....her name is Ella. She is pretty spunky and I love it!
Jacob is still job searching but I'm sure we are getting closer....and he has some opportunities on the horizon.

I recently had shoulder surgery on my labellum sp? Its cartilage that has been separated from the bone and holds up my shoulder. We can only guess that my roller blading accident followed up by the car accident with the semi truck and an initial affect in that area. So I am in a sling for 4 weeks...grr. The sling is so huge I call it the beast. its so hard not to be able to do basic things for myself, like button my pants, put my hair up, open a can! 22 days left in the beast!

EllaOld Apartment

New house

Our backyard

Up close

"The Beast" complete with 5 inch pad between my body and my arm!

Whew! I forget how long that takes! Especially with one arm! I guess Ill be better in keeping up!

And the world starts to turn again.........

So, we've been a little MIA for the last 5 months or so and guess its time to come back to the real world. Even though sometimes I think we have had more of the real world than we can take! So hopefully we can get a little caught up on everything!

From the months of March through May we made a decision based on a lot of prayer to go through the expensive invitro fertilization process, in hopes that we might be able to get pregnant. The process itself was a little tiring but we felt so certain that this is what God wanted us to do in our lives that we were happy to take on the challanges, and everything that came with it. Including blood being drawn every other day, 2 - 6 shots a day, medications, and many other uncomfortable procedures and tests. The initial outcome was incredibly hopeful. The eggs fertilized and began to mature quickly inside it's little petrie dish. Then the day before transfering two embryos and freezing the rest. We lost the rest of them, they just didnt continue growing. It was disheartening, mostly because if these two embryos did not fertilize we didnt have any more to fall back on and try again. So we had those two embryos placed up high in my uterus and hoped for ther best. There is really no trick way I supposed of keeping the embryos, just bed rest for 3 days....after a week or so we went in and they drew blood for the pregnancy test. And we waited for 45 minutes before they told us the news.

The test was negative.

I so wanted out of that office, and they just kept trying to schedule us for one last appointment, I just couldnt handle it. I fought so hard to keep my tears back, wanting to be brave and not let thee nurses see the hurt and sadness flood over me. We managed to make to sears where we were getting our brakes fixed, when th flood and storm of emotions overtoke me to the point of racking sobs and uncontrollable shaking. Im sure I worried my husband. The pain and anguish of that moment is still so raw. And just then Sears came out to tell us it would cost us $1200 to fix the cars brakes. SOOOO not the right moment.

Jacob took the rest of the day off and we went home and just stared at each other. And we knew, that we just needed to get away from the sadness of our house. The empty syringes, and ultrasound pictures, from all of medicine unopened we were supposed to start taking once we got pregnant, away from questioning eyes, and un needed advice. Away to a happy place.

And so we went to Disneyland. It was a much needed time for us to talk and re group and work through our spiritual feelings. Knowing that we felt prompted to go through with invitro. Knowing though even up to this moment that God had prompted us for different reasons than we ever realized. We felt a lot of peace and a lot of tears that week. But were able to enjoy the shows and rides and each other. Funny though how every little tender moment in the shows made my eyes tear up mpre than it ever would.

On our way back home it was hard to realize that we would have to go back to real life. And apreciated what we had together. Grateful for the support, and connection we had. Knowing it would be impossible to endure it with anyone else. And not looking forward to explaining it to anyone else. It was like a sacred sadness that was all our own there to conquer with each other and God.

Our last appointment was even more disappointing. According to his professional view. He couldnt figure out why in the world someone so young would only have 6 mature eggs instead of 22 per month. Then after saying he couldnt figure it out he said my clock was ticking faster than it should and it was a hereditery problem that couldnt be fixed. Immediatly when he said that I felt the spirit tell me it wasn't true. And we left.

have we conquered our trial yet? Whew, I really don't know. Learning and overcoming is a process we are still working out. The pain has lessened and so have the list of why's. Someone said today where God closes a door he opens a window. I believe that. Im still looking for that window though and the motivation to go through it.

We are blessed. We are grateful. We are happy. And we love each other more than ever. And now as our world starts to turn again, we look forward to where it will take us.