Hard Knock Life.

You want to know what no one talks about? Miscarriage. It happens more often than people realize, but still no one talks about it.

Now I totally get it.

Having gone through it myself, and not wanting to tell people the hurt that you are experiencing because frankly, in the moment, you can't put the pain into words. And the last things you want to hear are sorry attempts at comfort. People try so hard, and I am grateful that they do, but sometimes the only thing that makes you feel like they understand your feelings is them saying "I'm sorry that life's a bitch." (excuse the language.) My sister in law told me that, and it was the first time that I was appreciative of anyone's condolences.

Life is hard. And this miscarriage was extremely hard. Especially because it wasn't over for weeks. Weeks! Most people find out they're miscarrying when they start bleeding a ton. I found out by going to the Dr and them telling me there was no fetal heartbeat (this was 8 weeks in). In that moment, I could have sworn my heart was going to stop. It was painful news. Already I had become so excited and attached to this baby. It is so weird how quickly that happens. It's not that I could feel it, or that my belly was a cute little bump proving that there was something growing in there. But I knew it. And Taylor knew it. And we would talk about how excited we were to become parents. What we were going to teach our baby and how much our life would change in the next year.

But then it all ended.

In a matter of a few hours, we were told that that baby wasn't coming anymore, and to prepare ourselves for the miscarriage. We left that appointment and I couldn't even talk to Taylor. Not because I was mad at him, or anyone else for that matter, but because I hurt. A kind of hurt that I didn't know how to talk about just then. So I just cried. We grabbed some dinner after the Dr so we didn't have to cook, and neither of us said a word while we ate. I just cried and hoped the people around us wouldn't notice. The next few days were similar. Tay and I didn't really talk about the miscarriage because there really was nothing to say. We were losing our baby, and at this point were just waiting for the bleeding to start.

The bleeding didn't ever start on it's own. At least not for the 3 weeks that we waited. We kept going back to the Dr and having my HCG levels tested to see if they were going down and they weren't. They were actually still going up. I was so beyond frustrated. Let me just paint this picture for you: Three weeks ago the Dr said I was miscarrying. I waited every. single. day. for three weeks for the bleeding, and it never came. I went back to the Dr when my HCG levels were going the opposite direction of what they were supposed to be doing, and he says that there could be a possibility that the other Dr just missed the heartbeat, but he didn't want to get my hopes up. KILL ME! After three weeks of pain, he says the Dr could have been wrong. I didn't believe that though, only because I don't think that I could have handled being excited about baby again just for that to be destroyed a second time. We had another Ultra Sound and the results were the same. No fetal heartbeat. Finally, the Dr asked me if I wanted to try a prescription that might help start the bleeding process which I was thankful for. After all of this waiting and anticipation (and still feeling grossly pregnant) I was glad to have an option that would allow me to continue on the healing process so that we could start again.  I took the medicine and things started happening right away.

The actual miscarriage is painful. So painful. You have to pass a lot of tissue to clean out your uterus so you can get pregnant again. It is not easy. It happens easily, but you feel like you're dying. I cried. More like sobbed/shook because I was hurting so bad, and Taylor just held me because there really is nothing anyone can do. After I passed it all I had pretty instant relief. I was no longer shaking from the pain. It was hard, but I knew it was finally over.

Miscarriages are hard. And they happen frequently. Especially in first pregnancies. They are painful: both physically and emotionally. But you get through it. You're frustrated, and devastated and even numb after you've held on to the first two emotions for long enough. But eventually, you make it through. I am lucky enough to have a husband who is so tender and loving that he never left my side when things got really hard. He held me when I cried and gave me the time I needed, and sometimes still need, to be sad. He takes care of me and I am forever grateful that I married such a loving man.

Red Pepper Pasta

Admittedly, I am not the best cook. Nor do I cook dinner every.single.night. bleh. BUT I am trying. I am making a conscious effort to make homemade meals more often, and cooking healthier/cleaner meals. Last week I cooked 4 nights! That's huge for this girl who would gladly welcome a McDonald's cheeseburger and call it dinner on any given evening. Also, I am making a conscious effort to use the fresh food in our house before it goes bad. (Rocket Science, guys...seriously) I am proud to announce that I am also improving in that area as well! So you could say my efforts in the kitchen are going pretty well... So from our New England kitchen to yours here's what we had for dinner tonight:

Menu: Ed Giobbi's Red Pepper Pasta & Edamame

**A few tips: I skipped the basil because we didn't have any in the house. Still tasted great. The crushed red pepper adds a lot of heat without much, so be careful is you're not super into spicy. 

Hopefully you make this and it turns out as well as ours did! It was a super easy meal to throw together and the husband loved it. Kudos to C-Smack killin it in the kitchen!

Elder Evans

Well a week ago, Ethan became Elder Evans and left the country. He is currently in London, England where he will remain for the next 2 years for his mission. It was so hard to let him go, but we are all so happy that he has made the decision to serve our Heavenly Father. He is a really great guy and we will miss his sense of humor around here, but the people of London will get to experience it which is lucky for them. He seriously is hilarious. But we are proud of him and look forward to his letters each week!.

Happy 23rd Birthday to me!

July 31 is my birthday, and for some reason I still get super excited to celebrate. Maybe it's just the excuse I need to throw a party for myself. Regardless, this birthday we had a little get together.

The day was casual and started with the gym. Since moving in with my parents, I hardly ever get to go to Zumba with my friends, so I made it a goal to get there that day. It was my birthday, and no one was going to stop me :) after Zumba I made my birthday cake, which took forever! I have been wanting to try to make the minion cake that I have seen on Pinterest, and yet again, my birthday was the perfect excuse. My mom felt bad that I was making my own cake, but that is exactly what I wanted. So I did. And I loved every second of it!!

Finally that evening, Tay threw me a family birthday party with Pumpkin Belgian waffles with peaches and cream. So delicious!! We had our family over to celebrate and it truly was the perfect birthday. Also, Zack sent me videos all day long of people in Pittsburg wishing me happy birthday and they are hilarious. I'll try and post some so you can all witness the greatness of this!

Bluebird Cafe

So Tay's mom works at Sundance which means we get the hooks ups on occasion. A few weekends ago, we got invited on a double date with Tay's parents to the Bluebird Cafe. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but Tay seemed excited about it so I agreed to go. It's always nice spending time th his parents and be date ideas are somewhat hard to find.

We went out to dinner at Cubby's which is this new place down in Provo that people have been thing us to try. It was so good! Tay and I both had the heart attack, and that menu item has never been more accurately described! It was a spicy hot dog/briscuit sandwich and it was delicious. I'm pretty sur I gained 5 pounds from it instantly and my arteries got clogged with each additional bite, but it sure was good. After dinner we headed up to Sundance.

I don't know if I'm just naive,but just in case, Bluebird Cafe is where song writers go to show off their stuff. They sing the songs they've written, share the back stories, and if they have been lucky enough to have a famous artist cut them.

I seriously loved this so much! It was three country song writers who came, and I recognized so many of the songs! The songwriters sang songs by Miranda Lambert, Brad Paisley, Kip Moore, Joe Nichols, Kacey Musgraves and so many more! It was so fun to hear how they got their inspiration for the songs and to hear the songs as they were originally written.

One of the funniest parts of the night was when we walked to our seats in the amphitheater, Kat and TJ were sitting on the same row. So ironic, but so fun to share this night with them as well!

Exciting Things in Our Lives

Said goodbye to this babe...

And welcomed this gem to our family.

So tons of great (and a few not so great) things have happened in our little family I've the last month. I guess that's my way of announcing a post that will probably be too long...

So here it goes...

We finally sold Bella! My car which was a 2003 Eclipse. We loved her while she was around, but a few things about her were a little bit hard to love

1. She only had 2 doors
-- aka she was not family friendly, and anyone who knows me knows that I've been baby hungry since Tay proposed. So that was a big reason why we had to let her go.
2. She was TERRIBLE in the snow.
--And considering that we are moving to a place that gets 3 feet of snow overnight, we chose life.
3. She was low to the ground.
-- this really wasn't that big of a deal to us, but we did not like having to do a deep squat to get in and out of her every time we wanted to go somewhere. Also, I'm pretty sure I pulled a hamstring while getting out of her one time. Not ideal.

That being said, we knew we wanted something different. Four doors and 4wheel drive were our only two real requirements. We wanted good gas mileage so we were leaning towards sedans like a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord, but we didn't really are. We started looking around and I sort of fell in love the idea of a Honda Pilot. I felt like it was perfect because it was reliable, great in the snow and gave us plenty of growing room. Turns out those babies are expensive(!!!) and really hard to find with a decent amount of miles on them. So we kept looking and stumbled upon the Honda CRV. It was also great in the snow, great on gas mileage, and I think it's super cute. We looked at dealerships and they were all super over-priced (shocker, right?), but that allowed us to get in a few and test drive them. Let me tell you- we found love that day. As much as we hated the guys trying to sell us the car, and the awkward sales pitches where they tell us what a killer deal they are giving us, it was nice to get thrum down on our new dream car.

Fast forward a few days and a few hours of searching KSL and we got ourselves a new CRV! We go it from a private seller, which is rare, but we love it! It has been the perfect addition to our family.

One Year Down...Eternity to Go

Yesterday we made it to our first anniversary! It is so weird to think that our wedding was already an entire year ago! It feels like it just barely happened, but at the same time feels like we've been married forever. In order to celebrate this occasion we decided we needed to get away. Living with my parents is great and all until you need some time alone- and then it's a slight nightmare. Well not a nightmare; but just not really possible.

So Tay and I decided that we would rent a hotel for an evening up in Salt Lake. We opted to stay at the Hotel Monaco which was so amazing! It was classy and swanky and we loved every second of it. One of my favorite parts was that we got to stay in a King sized bed which was such a treat for us! I could sleep on my back with one of my knees up and Tay still fit in the bed too. It really was incredible.

So Sunday night we went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory at City Creek Mall. It was so good to be together for a night out. We then went back to the hotel for the evening. This morning we woke up with the intention of going to breakfast, but ended up having a lazy morning in which I was totally fine with! Sleep is a rare thing for us these days, especially for us to be able to sleep in together. As soon as we were ready to roll out of bed we showered and put on the zebra robes they gave us and sipped on fancy juices. We then got ready and went to lunch at one of Tay's favorites: Tony Caputo's. It was once again, delicious.

All in all it was so nice to be together on our own. We were able to just hang out and be lazy and have a good time. Getting away from our everyday life and spending time together was so special. It took me back to our dating days when we were carefree. Life is good and we are more in love than ever!

Happy Anniversary to us!

Busy Bee's

After having put in 5 hours at work by 10am, we were feeling a little tired

Before Tay and I got married I had this idea that marriage was going to be the best thing ever. And it is! Except for the fact that just being married automatically makes you 10,0000 times busier. I don't know what happened, but since getting back to our normal lives together we hardly have time to see one another. [Maybe its the multiple jobs that we have...who knows... ]

Lucky for us we come home to each other after the long days work and then hang out for a few minutes before passing out.

Married life is wonderful :)

Although most days multiple jobs stinks, we occasionally love it because we get to cater an event together. For some reason, work is a lot more tolerable, and dare I say enjoyable, when your spouse is there with you.

This morning was one of those occassions where we worked together. We had to get up early because it was a breakfast for a golf tournament which started at 5:30. So painful! But we made it out alive and even managed to have a few laughs [and naps] along the way.

'Merica!

 

Unfortunately, during the day we didn't do much to celebrate our Countries' Independence. This was due largely to the fact that I had to work at Vivint all day. Not my most favorite thing, but such is life. After work though, we were able to celebrate with both my family and Taylor's by having a BBQ at Tay's parents. We ate brats, watermelon and chips in true American fashion followed by PG's firework show. Not the craziest holiday, but one that we were happy to share together.

Back to Blogging

Starting a new blog is a daunting task these days. I want it to be a true depiction of our married life without being overly cheesy. Mostly, I want a place to document our adventures together without having to pull out a pen and paper to do so. That being said, we are pleased to announce The Rodericks Relative!

Exciting, I know.

Now for a slightly longer than short back story to set the stage for our current status:

We got married just under a year ago (July 14) in the Draper, Utah temple. Had our reception that night at Thanksgiving Point Gardens and it was truly the perfect day We got married in the right place, and followed that by the best dance party we could have imagined. We spent the night in Salt Lake at the Grand America so we could feast on the Sunday Brunch they host there which was delicious! We then road tripped to Vegas and on to California to indulge in a week-long vacation during which we ate tons of food, relaxed on the beach, and visited amusement parks.

Since then we have been working and going to school to try and finish up. I (Chelsey) will finish my degree this year with a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education. Taylor is doing an exchange program for the next two semesters to finish up his Undergrad which will be the reason for our move to New Hampshire in the Fall. We are super excited to move back East and being on our own for a time. We look forward to traveling up and down the East Coast to try and take it all in. In the meantime we are living with my parents in Highland to save money for the upcoming year. We are enjoying the summer together and will continue with updates as our lives continue to change.