7 years and no itch!

Today, July 29th, 2007, Kevin and I have been married for 7 years! I can't believe how the time has flown by! We were married in the Salt Lake Temple and then had a reception that night in Murray, UT at the Murray Mansion. It was so fun. We had a huge turnout and were able to visit and dance the night away with many loved ones. That night we were able to stay in a luxury presidential suite at the Residence Inn by Marriott (thanks to my brothers who were working there at the time.) Then we were off to Las Vegas, Newport Beach, Sea World and Disneyland. It was one of the best, most fun and exciting weeks of my life! Then a week after we got back, we got to have an open house in Shelley,ID and have a fun-filled night of socializing and dancing all over again!

Kevin I just want to say why the last picture in the slide show says "Happily Ever After." Even though when we got married we were so young and naive in some ways, and had a different idea of happiness, now we know that we do have a happy life and will forever. We know that true happiness is finding joy in everyday life, in the little things in spite of any trials or challenges we're going through. I'm so glad we were able to get married when we did because I have been able to live, laugh, love and LEARN with my best friend (and true love) everyday since. I love you with all of my heart and soul.

Love,

Nettie

Harry Potter and X-rays

I'm so excited to have gotten my book this afternoon. (I needed something fun to happen this week!) I've only been able to read 4 chapters so far, but I have had A LOT of interruptions.

Yesterday I got to look at my x-rays and let's just say they're not good. I tore almost all of the vertebrae in my neck and it is perfectly straight instead of curved how it should be. I also have some slight scoliosis going down my upper spine. And, my lower back shows degenerative disc disease. The lowest two vertebrae are almost close to touching - the disc btw them has worn away considerably. Now the neck problems are from the wreck. But the other's were there before. I believe mainly from a lot of gymnastics on hard gym floors and grass during my cheerleading days - although it could be genes or other factors. I believe that the accident was a wake up call and happened for a reason. It got me to the chiropractor. I've been going to chiropractor's since I was 16 (during those cheerleading days) on and off. But I only go when I'm in so much pain I can't function. Now that I saw my x-rays again (it's been a few years and they're worse) I know that once the whiplash is gone, I still need to go there for maintenance on my pre-existing problems -so they don't get worse. Why do we sometimes put everyone else first and then have to have a big thing come along to get us to pay attention to ourselves?! I am not doing that again. I vow to take care of myself better from now on. It's only fair to my family to have me in my best condition! Don't you think?!

Thank goodness Kyle didn't come today!

Oh my gosh I'm still a little stunned. I got in my first car accident today. I've never been in one or caused one...until a few hours ago. You see, I had just dropped Audrey off at dance and then went to the bank. I was on my way back to my mom and dad's house to get the boys when all of the sudden, I was in another vehicle's back end! I swear all I did was blink and before I knew it, the truck in front of me had stopped suddenly. I guess that's 5:00pm traffic on Broadway - I'm not usually out driving at that time, but Audrey has a dance camp this summer that puts me on the road during rush hour. It was an out-of-body experience, I'll tell you that. I still don't know how it happened but it did. I can't explain to you how scary it was to jolt forward, then have the air bag stop you cold only to be sucked into the seat from the protection of the belt retraction (both wonderful safety features but still, ow!) When I got out of the van, my chest hurt. A minute later, I realized my hand was burned and was bothering me. Then I found another burn on my arm that didn't feel good. A few minutes later my neck was in pain. And minutes after that, I realized my head was hurting badly in a few spots. I'm very lucky that's all that happened (so far - hopefully that's all) and that no one else was hurt. Also, I'm glad we're fully covered with our insurance and that we invested in some extra GAP insurance, too.

Do you want to hear how I was especially blessed, though? I was out during the day at a nutrition class and the kids were being babysat by my parents. When I went to get them and take Audrey to dance - Kaden was asleep and Kyle wanted to stay. I left the baby but I actually had Kyle in the van and had pulled out of the driveway when he said he wanted to stay. I was going to say no and let him cry it out, but felt I should ask my mom if it was o.k. She said yes, and thank goodness. After the wreck we were taking things out and went to get his carseat. It wasn't buckled in to the van! (We move it around a lot btw our two cars, my parent's and Kev's parent's.) All I can say is thank you Heavenly Father for inspiring me to let Kyle stay with my mom and dad - and for my mom saying yes. Who knows what injuries he would of had if he came with me and was in a carseat not buckled in. His carseat could have flown to who knows where during the wreck!

Flashback Friday - Ducks

My life has been so crazy these last couple of months (who are we kidding, it always is.) A lot has happened and there were many fun activities and gatherings with a lot of pictures taken. Now I have so many things I want to post about because I had all of the birthday entries, etc. I wanted to do first. I'm a little overwhelmed so I'm going to start with something small. This is what I saw sometime in May when I stepped outside. Two ducks where on the lawn but by the time I got the camera they were running away through the neighbor's. We love to go feed the ducks at the river but it was a change to have them come to us. It was so fun to see them waddling around on the grass!

And a cute three year old watching in awe!!

Flashback Friday - Annette!

O.k., Kristine, you had a good idea and I listened. I am posting these old pictures of me today. My beautiful 3 photo albums from birth to Christmas 2005 (when I received them for a gift from my mom) are in one of the three boxes we haven't run across in storage yet. So, I scanned in some photos my mom has. She has a baby book of me from birth-2 years old. Then she has an album of the last years of me at home. So, that's why the age jumps from 2-16! I hope you enjoy and maybe some of you will have some memories in viewing them.

This is very special. My dad made this and snapped a picture of it on the day I was born!

This is me a month before I was 1 year old - on vacation in Salt Lake City Utah on my Grandpa Bagley's reclining chair. My cousins and I would all try to sit on that together from the time we were babies up until my Grandma died and the house was sold when we were teenagers!

My 2 (almost 3) year old self on the stairs in my Rochester, N.Y. house that I modeled, acted, sang, danced and did gymnastics on the whole 18 years I lived there.

Want to hear something interesting (crazy?) about my Junior year in high school? I was invited to another high school's Senior Ball the night before my SAT's and my Junior Prom. So, being a typical "invincible" teenager, I went to the Webster Ball with a guy I met at Stake basketball, didn't sleep that night and yet took the SAT's and scored well above average, and then fixed my hair and put the same dress on again to go to my Junior Prom that night. And my boyfriend was wondering why my eyes were a little squinted and not very "open" for our picture that night!

I just had to add that since a good amount of the comments I get on this blog are from Roch 2nd (oh and also a big reason why I started blogging.) Can you guess who this is? I'll give you a hint - Sarah Baier was also invited to the Webster Ball, and was in the group I went with, and this was taken at her house after all of the pictures of the Ball-going- teenagers. Me and one of my favorite rug-rats at the time! After this we all went to Webster to ride to the school in a stretch limo!

I ended up wearing this dress twice also. Once to another school's Senior Ball and once to mine! This is my friend Andrea and I before our Senior Ball - right after our big group got our pics. Then we all hopped into our stretch limo to go to Olympia High! (One good thing about being a girl - not having to pay for the limo - although I don't think that compares to wedding costs...)

Me doing a wipback flip on my front lawn of 23 Mountain Ash Drive (Greece, NY.) Boy did that lawn and tree get a lot of use as places for me to do my floor and bar routines - in addition to dance and cheerleading routines.

This is Becky Graham and I at my 18th family b-day dinner (I guess I got to invite a friend.) Roch 2nd girls - do you see that she is opening the scrapbook Michelle McGuiness made for me!

Guess who my mom was feeding that night - the missionaries!! Notice my cookie cake. I don't know if this was my first but ever since I got my first one (definitely sometime in my teen years) I have never had anything else for my b-day. 10 years later and of course that's what I had last Monday!

I found this picture and couldn't resist. It's me out proselyting before the Hill Cumorah Pageant (minus the Lamanite dancer costume, of course) and running into who else?!

Notice the theme going on with these last 3 pictures. Boy there were always a lot of missionaries in N.Y. This is me and my summer boyfriend I had to say goodbye to before I headed to Ricks. There's Sarah and wow, the missionaries again. Out of these three pictures 4 of the missionaries wrote me when they got home and there were more from Rochester I don't have pictures of right now that did too! One of them told me "There was no way I would make it on a mission before I got married." I was so mad because it was right after my Senior year "mini mission" and I just KNEW I would serve a full time mission when I was 21. Guess what I was doing when I turned 21, instead? I was engaged and days away from getting married...