Surgery.
Surgery went as well as surgery goes I guess. I hated coming out of the anesthesia it's a horrible wake up. I ended up spending the next two weeks on the couch on some serious pain meds, working from home and then going into work still all doped up. I’m told I was very entertaining- I don’t remember.
I have a really unawesome scar from the incision, but I have full function of my shoulder so that's good and I go back in on September 8th to get the plate and screws taken out. Luckily I had full coverage on the Jetta so they paid off my car and then covered Jason and Rachel’s health expenses. Mine they covered $3,000 of and then after this second surgery I send them all of my costs and bills and they are going to give me a settlement. I’m a little nervous about that part because I’ve been switched case workers and the second one sort of blew me off when I brought up the settlement but luckily I have an email from the first girl confirming I was getting a settlement. We’ll see.

Brett’s wedding.
Jason’s Dad Brett got married again. I’m not sure how to explain this one- it was fast for us. It sort of went:
“My Dads engaged.”
“Oh? I didn’t know he had a serious girlfriend?”
“Yeah, the wedding is next month.”
“Serious?.... you are serious. Oh…..Well did you meet her?”
“Yeah, she’s cool I guess. I wasn’t with her a lot. She has seven kids.”
“Ha! So we are Yours, Mine and Ours now?”
“What is that?”
“Never mind. Are any of them your age? Boys? Girls?”
“All girls.”
“Wow…. so are we supposed to be at the wedding?”
“Yeah I think so.”

Her name is Catherine Gwilliam and she lives in Jackson Hole, Brett is living part time up at their house in Jackson and part time down here in SLC. On our way up to the wedding, which was in Jackson, we were anxious. It felt very fast and unplanned. Also, I was nervous about a house full of girls. In my previous experience anything more than three girls in a house was nightmare. Anyway, we get up to Jackson and stay in the guest house with Chan, Kelci, Amber and Ambers boy at the time, Nick. We met a ton of people and the wedding was the next day. It was cute at a lodge and all of the kids walked down the aisle in front of Cat, which was kind of a riot to watch. We didn’t get to play with the kids a lot there was so much going on but it ended up being fun. And then we left the next day. I walked away going ok, that wasn’t so bad. I wasn’t totally on board yet but at least the kids were cool.

Ok so since the wedding though we have hung out with the Gwilliam girls quite a bit and really love them. If you are part of our Facebook circle you will see that most of the comments become like a full conversation- hilarious because everyone in our family comments once and it’s already a really long thread ha. And just recently we did a Haward/Gwilliam family part one staff and last weekend Jason, Amber and I went up to Jackson and everyone went camping. The best part of all of it though is the way Brett is showing up for Jason. Somehow I think Catherine is changing Brett and he is stepping into the father role that Jason has always wanted. Yeah, in my experience so far, Brett is someone I want to be around now because of the change in him since marrying Cat.

My family rocks. Moving on.

RSA.
At Zrii I have several roles, I am the Recognition Coordinator, meaning I give recognition when our distributors hit certain sales levels. I also am an unofficial assistant to the Events Manager so every time an event such as RSA (Rising Star Academy) rolls around I am pulled onto the ‘events team’ and as of the moment that I am writing this post I am also the unofficial receptionist. My work likes to hire and pay someone for one job but then give them several other jobs too- according to my bosses this is because of the economy?

I digress, so every year we have a miniature convention called RSA which I have written about before. This year it was in Las Vegas at the Venetian. I won’t go into all the details because unless you have put on an event for an MLM it won’t make sense, but it was four days of no sleep, no eating and most of the time I was in three places at once. Didn’t know that was possible did you? It was awesome. I love doing events. And I hate doing events. It’s an events thing. I met Ali Larter and Hayes MacArthur- that was cool but I couldn’t get a picture with her- the CEO would have killed me. My favorite was being on headset with the A/V team, next time you are at a show or some event watch the people on headset, they are connected to a totally different reality even though you are in the same room.


Truck build.
One of the reasons I married Jason is because he is a dreamer, he likes to do stuff that has never been done before. Sometimes though, I don’t think I thought that through very well. Jason decided to take two different motors from two cars and merge them together to make a really powerful motor and put it in the Dodge D50- because no one has ever made a hybrid of those motors before. Brilliant and stupid of both of us. Long, long story short. We lived at the shop for two straight weeks to build this truck and though it’s cool. It wasn’t worth the time and money we lost doing it, not yet anyway.

Wyoming for the fourth.
We went to Wyoming again for the fourth of July, we being Dad, J, C, R and the Smiths. It was a lot of fun. I like escaping to Cody where I have no cell phone or internet. Playing with the Smith kids of course was fun as it always is. You know it doesn’t matter which of the kids we are with, it always ends up being the best time. Brendan’s one liners though make my life. I think he is the only family member I have that I quote on a regular basis. We did fireworks of course, went to the parade and went to the Stampede Rodeo. Hm, I think when I’m rich I’m going to buy the Dobson Cody house from my Dad and sibs and just keep it as a vacation home.

Moving.
When Mom and Dad divorced Mom also filed bankruptcy and surrendered the house. She had warned me that we would be moving out of the house in the next 6 months but I was not a happy camper about losing my childhood home that I had helped Dad build. It was awful having to pick through my treasure boxes and throw some of it away. It was coming with me to an apartment and I didn’t have room for all of it. It was also awful watching my little sister cry as she packed up her room. I think that was worse than my own stuff because she isn’t quite old enough to get why Mom getting out from under this house was a good thing. I’m proud of Mom though, making a clean break and loving herself enough to let go of the material things that were keeping her stuck. Dad unfortunately is still not over why Mom had to surrender the house.
The new place Jason and I moved to is perfect! It’s on 800 N not too far from the shop and it’s a cute two bed, two bath on the bottom floor. And the pool here is freaking awesome. It seems like since we moved there we have someone over every night, and sometimes they stay and use the extra room for a couple of days. I’ve learned recently that the thing I want most in life is connection, (Though frankly I am still judgmental about who I should and shouldn’t connect with. I’m working on it.) So having lots of people over all the time is awesome.




Staffing part 1.
My family on both sides is very involved in a life training center called The Great Life Foundation. Jason’s dad is a trainer there and my dad has enrolled and coached a lot of people. This place quite literally saved my life- but that’s a whole nother story. In it there are three main classes and these classes sometime require people to handle the logistics of the room, chair setup etc. For which graduates that have been through like to go back and help and also get to sit through the class again for free. Ok so at this point all of my family has been through and we get a kick out of going back together and staffing. It’s our version of a family reunion ha. This last time in August it started with Brett training, Catherine captaining, Jason co captaining and then it was me, Chandler, Kelci and Mary G. Other unofficial extensions of our family included Apollo Leonidas, formally known as Ryan Rieger.
I was a small group leader this time so I have seven people who are going through the training that I coached. Boy was that eye opening. I learned a lot about myself as a friend and leader. It’s interesting how some of the people in my group I really connected with and others I didn’t. I’m proud to say that I still talk to several of them even though I’m not their coach anymore, and writing this reminds me of the ones I want to call. Taking time out of my life to connect to someone else’s is very hard for me, I’m a to do list girl and if what I’m doing isn’t crossing off the things on my checklist then I get frustrated. Like I said, I’m working on it. Favorite part though? Loving another person I don’t know much about so completely that when I would tell any of them I love them I was almost crying.

Jackson trip for anniversary.
We went to Jackson for our anniversary and hung out with the G Wills. It was pretty neat, Jason and I pontooned down the Snake River with Brett- I got hella sunburned, and then everyone went camping. I hadn’t been camping in forever, and I sort of remembered why ha. The girls were so sweet, they decorated Mary’s room where we were sleeping for the first night, with flowers and happy anniversary cards.

So I think that catches me up. Sort of.

The Great Car Wreck

I had listed my Jetta for sale the Monday before we headed to Wyoming for my grandpa's funeral and had 3 people that were going to come look at it the Monday we got back. I coulda saved my energy.

Jason was driving, I was passenger in the front and Rachel was passenger in the back behind the drivers seat. We were on highway 120 30 minutes from Thermopolis and 30 minutes from Meeteetse when a deer jumped on the road in front of us. Jason swerved to miss it and we ended up in the ditch (note: when we tell people this story they say oh your supposed to just hit the deer. My response to that is if we had I'd be dead. There is no way my Jetta was going to just take that deer out without it coming through the windshield and hitting me.) A witness says we rolled front end over trunk 2-3 times before stopping upright. I'm not sure if I believe that because looking at the damage to my car, there is no damage to the front or rear bumpers and that would take an enourmous amount of air and speed.

Anyway, when the car stopped Jason was out immediately to Rachel who was ok except that she hit her face on something and it cut above her eye and left her with a black eye. Jason didn't know until he got to the hospital that he also had a black eye and his shins had gone into the dash scraping them up. I however had broken my right collar bone from my seatbelt keeping me from going through the windshield.

Now I agree that you are always supposed to wear your seat belt, and believe me Jason and Rachel caught hell from the cops, the hospital and every other person we ran into for not wearing theirs. But for me, I'm glad this time that they weren't. Both of their wounds have pretty much healed up but I'm going into surgery and I'm positive if Rachel had her seatbelt on too she would have broken bones instead of just a black eye. (This is my little warning to everyone that if you bring up the seat belt thing to either of them you might be the one with the black eye. I'm just saying.)

Anyway because we were in the middle of nowhere both cities we were close to dispatched ambulances to us, we had 5 show up. When they arrived Rachel was sitting in one of the cops cars with the heater on high all wrapped up in a blanket because she had started to go into shock so Jason had carried her over and put her in there. Jason was running around trying to help and I was sititng in my seat still, not moving. I knew my collar bone had broken, I felt it pop but while I sat there waiting my neck had started to cramp up pulling my head down to my shoulder. That was probably the worst part of the pain at the scene. The EMTs put me in a collar, gave me an IV- which really hurt, and strapped me to a board and drove back to Thermopolis. On the way one of the EMT's got a cell phone call. After he said hello he looked at me and said, "Are you related to the Christophersons?" I laughed, only in Wyoming would my relatives be able to find me in the middle of nowhere after a car accident. I said yes and he held the phone up to my ear. I told Myron Christopherson, who was the one that had called, to find Nolan Dobson and tell him I would be at the Thermopolis hospital in 10 minutes. Jason had called Dad at the scene and told him already but just in case I figured I'd spread the word through the extended family too. I didn't know this at the time but Jason and Rachel had also been put in an ambulance and strapped down and were caravanning behind me.

We get to the hospital and one of the nurses asks me what my moms name is and if she can give out information about me. I said yes, I guess Mom had been calling for 45 minutes and knew more then the nurse did anyway. So I get my xrays and my blood work done and I hear Jason and Rachel come in but I can't see them because I'm still strapped to the board. I hear my Dad's voice, and then see him walk up next to my bed his eyes all red and I said in my mom voice, "Have you been crying?" He shrugged and said, "You know me, I'm a softy." Then my Aunt Louann and Uncle Larry walked up and filled me in on Jason and Rachel.

I am glad Louann and Larry were there, Larry is an OBGYN so they were watching the doctor and nurses making sure they did their job right. The board they had me strapped to started to really hurt because it was causing me to lose circulation to parts of my body but the hospital couldn't take me off it until the radiologist cleared that my neck had no injury to it. I ended up moving my body around underneath the straps anyway to get blood flowing to the parts that hurt.

Anyway, so much happened during all of this I could go into tons of detail.

Ok so they release all three of us and give us all painkillers, which save my life because I can't hardly move my body before I take one it hurts too much even today. But there was one big problem for me, they didn't have a figure 8 brace to hold my shoulders back to keep my collarbone aligned. They did give me a sling though. (According to the orthopedic surgeon there is no literature out there that says a brace is better then a sling which is why it wasn't a big deal to the hospital that I didn't have a brace.)

The next morning we were troopers and showed up for Grandpas funeral service but had to leave early as Jason, Rach and I were hurting and really needed more sleep. After everyone else got home from the services I called the Cody Hosptial Emergency Room, because we were staying in Cody not Thermopolis, and asked if they had a brace. They did and we went in and got it. However, the girl that put the brace on me I think wasn't really a nurse because she didn't pull my shoulders back or anything so I ended up wearing the brace kind of loose and incorrectly the rest of the week. None of us knew any better at the time.

The plan originally was for Rach, Jason and I to come home Sunday night so we didn't miss work or school but because neither Jason or I was in any shape to drive we stayed in Wyoming until Wednesday and then rode home with Dad and Chan.

Thursday morning I go in to my doctor here in Utah for a follow up and I tell him I'm a little concerned about the medical treatment I got in Wyoming because, bless their hearts they were really nice, but something about my body just didn't feel right. My shoulder had like a sunken in feeling to it. He had my shoulder xrayed and guess what. The bone pieces are seperated by like and inch and hadn't been doing any healing while I was in Wyoming.

My doctor sent me to an orthopedic surgeon who said yep you need surgery or that will never heal. So I go in for surgery next Wednesday to get my shoulder cut open so they can put a metal plate and screws in to hold my bones together and then in four months I get to go back and have the plate and screws removed.

That is it so far. It's such a big event that this is only really a summary of everything that went on which is why it's kind of impersonal.

I'm grateful for the way the whole situation played out, being in Wyoming where I'm related to everyone, having my doctor uncle with me, only being an hour from Cody, not rolling on the sides of the car, having full coverage on the car and good health insurance.

Birthdays and funerals

This is my first weekend in 6 weeks I get to be at home with nothing happening. Can I get a hallelujah?

It started with Valentines, Jason and I went to the Melting Pot for dinner. It gets a thumbs down from us, the quality of food was not worth the money we spent. We actually were really dissapointed. But then we went to the Hampton in downtown and stayed the night. That was fun.

The next weekend I had to go to Vegas for work. One of our big leaders in the MLM I work for had a meeting so we went to take photo and video of the event. That was kind of cool getting to hang out with my supervisor Melanee, we talked a ton on the way down there and found out we are really similar.

Me with Melanee my supervisor at the hotel in Vegas.

The next weekend was Jasons birthday. We went up to speed street go cart racing with some of his friends and raced around on the track and the two of us went to Red Robin, his favorite restaurant and also Clark Plantearium and watched the laser light show.

PHOTO -I can't find it right now ha.

The next weekend was my birthday. We went to dinner at PF Changs and then stayed in a really fantastic Hyatt because the next morning we went up to Park City and did outlet shopping all day.

The next weekend we went to Wendover with a bunch of friends. Jason had been practicing his poker for this trip to make some money. I still don't really love Wendover but I was excited for Jason to try his hand at the poker table. He did really well but lost it at the end. He went all in with a pretty much clutch hand but the last card that flipped over gave the win to the other guy. Just the nature of the game, it's called betting for a reason. But now we know he is a really good poker player haha.

I thought that was going to be the last of the trips but then my grandpa, my dad's dad, died on the 14th. He had been sick in the hospital for a long time so this wasnt a huge surprise but later that week I did end up having a good cry in bed with Jason about it. Last weekend we went to his funeral. Well, sort of. I loved seeing my cousins and being in my grandparents house. It was all so comforting and safe. It was a nice safe place to hide away with my family for a little while. I am really going to miss that part of my life- we used to go up to Wyoming and stay at my grandparents house and then drive out to the ranch every day to take care of cows. Especially branding over Memorial weekend.

This whole thing brought up that feeling of enjoy every moment now because who knows how long it, or they, will be there for.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Sheesh time to catch up.


The last 4 months have been a bit of a nightmare, every time I went to post something I sounded so depressed I scrapped the post, but now I've got good news.


I have been on the corporate yoyo about a job promotion from the call center into the marketing department since June 09. I'd get all excited about being moved and then crushed when finance decided it isn't worth the cost or Bill, the owner, didn't see a need for it. I was really pushing hard to get put into marketing as the Event Coordinator. I'd been bugging the marketing VP everyday about it but one day after a meeting with the CEO I realized the marketing VP was not going to be able to help me because he is in hot water himself.
So I went to the sales director and explained how I've been working a job in the call center and a job in marketing for 6 months without a pay raise but for a promise of a promotion that wasn't being fulfilled and that I had started looking for another job because I felt taken advantage of by Zrii and asked if there is anything he could do. He said yes he could but that it might be more of me being moved into the sales department but sitting over in marketing so that I could be a connecting point between the two departments (Sales and Marketing though they have almost the same job responsibilities do not get along and therefore don't communicate). I sort of threw my hands up and said whatever you think is best I'll just follow your lead.
A week later I was promoted into Sales as the Recognition Coordinator! My responsibilites are ensuring that our distributors receive their recognition items such as pins and certificates at certain sales levels, creating a retention program by recognizing field leaders and doing the recognition bit on stage at events. And then as a sub helping with events since I've got experience. I was told to keep my place in Marketing since my job is so entwined between the two departments and act as liasion. My job rocks. I'm very happy with the career part of my life right now.

Next.


Jasons business is now OUR business. I've always felt like it was his thing because I didn't do much with it- until recently when we realized Jason can't run an office. I don't mean can't like isn't smart enough, I mean can't like he sees a pile of paperwork and melts down. It would be like me looking at an engine and being told to take it apart- melt down. So I've taken over. I do the taxes, the bill processing, the budgeting and misc stuff like filing a lien against cars we never receive payment on. And I'm damn good at it if I say so myself.
Me taking on this part of the business seems to have had a ripple effect, Jasons sales are going through the roof. ( Ok ok, maybe I'm giving myself too much credit, I don't control the spending habits of others.) But really the debt hole in the business is getting smaller and even our personal finances are improving, it's looking like I will be able to pay off all my debt except my car loan when I get my tax return. We are being very careful right now though because this is about the part we usually crash and burn because we start spending. :S


Next.


The parents are getting the divorce again. Wait, before you start feeling sorry for me let me tell you something. It bugs me to no end when I say yeah my parents are getting divorced and the response I get is, 'Oh I'm so sorry.' You shouldn't be. I'm not.* I have great parents but when they were together it caused this dark energy in the house because they want different things. Dad moved out to his own cute apartment about 1 minute drive from home and Mom is giving up the house- which made Rachel sad but I agree with because this house is much too big for just Mom and Rachel.


*For my family that reads my blog I want you to be assured that Chan, Rach and I are ok. We aren't much for talking about all of it to anyone, though we appreciate the reaching out you have done.



Next.

Have I told you about Nina the worlds cutest dog? Jason and I bought her (against Moms wishes ;) on Dads birthday for Dad. She is a teacup chihuaha mixed with something. I'm glad we got her though, she hangs out with Dad and Jason at work and keeps Dad company at night. Here is a picture of her.






















Next.

Holiday update. For Thanksgiving Jason and I drove down to Phoenix with the Harward girls and played with his family. It was a lot of fun, we did our first black friday shopping ever and got tons of stuff and I bought Jason an RC plane called a Trojan P 21 or D 21? I can't remember. I don't know if I've mentioned yet Jasons new obsession with RC planes. He flies almost every day at lunch.
For Christmas we stayed in Utah. We went opened presents in the morning with my family and then went to Susans where we met Brett and the boys and did breakfast and presents and then came back to my parents to play and have dinner. Jason, being the sneaky bugger he is, bought me all of the accessories imaginable for the Nintendo Wii and a ton of games and wrapped them individually so it took me like 15 minutes to open everything that morning at my parents but then he told me he didn't get the actual Wii console because he spent so much money on the accessories but when we went to Susans the Wii console was there. I really believed he had bought everything for the Wii but not the console. The rest of our Christmas break we were glued to the TV playing Wii sports and MarioKart.

.....Ok I think thats everything for now.