We made it!! We arrived in Minneapolis last night around 6 p.m. My cute friend Andrea picked us up from the airport, took us to her home in Rochester, and then fed us a home cooked meal! What a pal! Brighton relationships have such a blessing in my life! Then she took us to our hotel and we got settled for the night. Thanks Tibet a.k.a Andrea and her husband Eric for all they have done for us and all they continue to offer to do for us! :)

Today has been a LONG day....but an extremely peaceful and educational day. Our day started with an appointment at 6:50 a.m. and did not end until 6 p.m. First was blood tests, then echocardiogram, followed by a cardiac MRI, then chest x-rays, EKG, etc. The afternoon was spent meeting with different doctors - Dr. Cetta, Dr. Dearani, and Dr. Cannon. We also slipped a portable EKG test in there too. Lots to say about today but I will sum up a few main thoughts.

First, the Mayo Clinic is incredible!! We have never met more friendly, sincere people. Everyone is available to help you and treats you with such kindness. It is amazing!

Second, we have felt so educated today. In Salt Lake most doctors/medical staff/people don't know anything about this heart defect, but that is not the case here. It was SO nice to come to a place where people know and understand this condition. So many things were clarified today and that brought a lot of peace into our lives. I think we have gotten used to not knowing much about this defect and also having most medical people around us be unfamiliar with this.

And finally, I am amazed at the peace we are feeling. I fully expected that after meeting with all these doctors I would be super nervous for surgery tomorrow but that is not the case. I left the Clinic today feeling complete peace. Every doctor we talked to left us feeling secure and positive. The cardiologist, Dr. Cetta, told us he was very encouraged by what he saw in our heart films. People with this heart defect usually have very bad right ventricle function, which leads to extreme, irreparable issues. He said my right ventricle function was not normal but extremely good for a person with Ebsteins. How exciting! Dr. Dearani, our surgeon, is a very honest, direct man. He came in and told us his exact thoughts. He said he is not exactly sure what he will do in surgery tomorrow. He believes there is a 50% chance of fixing the valve doing a slight cone procedure and the other 50% chance is that he will just have to replace our valve. But after talking with him we feel very at east with whatever choice he feels he needs to make. We talked about surgical risks and he felt very confident. He has worked with so many patients with this heart defect and he feels our surgery will be completely successful. Dr. Cannon is a cardiologist that specializes in heart rhythms. He wants us to have a pacemaker put in during our stay here as well. We felt complete peace as we talked about that choice and know it is the right thing to do.

SO, tomorrow is the day! We check into the hospital at 7 a.m. Surgery is supposed to be about 6 hours. We are feeling good and very much at peace. We acknowledge that peace to the power of prayer, the power of faith, and the blessings that result from fasting. Thank you to all that have helped us in this! We love you all!!!

On Our Way!

We are on our way! I was a little concerned we wouldn't make it out, just driving to the airport was wild! But we did make it out of Salt Lake this morning and are now in Denver. Our next flight to Minneapolis was supposed to leave around 2 but has been delayed to 3 so I thought would take the 3 hour layover to update the blog!

The past few days have been very touching. We continue to be strenghened and uplifted by the kindness of family and friends. How blessed we are!

We had the opportunity to fast with our family on Sunday. Being together with both sides of our family was wonderful. Keven, with help from other family priesthood holders, gave me a blessing. I don't remember a lot of what was said but I do remember how I felt -- love and peace. Thank you to our family for joining us in this and thank you to others who also participated.

We spent Sunday night at Grandpa Martin's viewing. Grandpa looked SO peaceful! We are glad his suffering is over! We are sad to miss the funeral today but are sending prayers to our family there.

Hannah went home to cousin Maleia's house after the viewing. She was SO excited to go! She was out the door, in the car, and buckled up before we got the chance to say goodbye. Silly girl! We are very glad she was excited to be where she was, it sure makes it a lot easier to leave. Jamie texted us last night saying that Hannah and Maleia were laughing and giggling in Maleia's room as they went to sleep. How sweet! Thanks to Jamie and Sean for taking our Hannah!

We parted with Spencer this morning. Keven's parents drove us to the airport and Spencer came too. I think he was getting tired of my kisses as we drove, but I wanted to get in all the love I could give to my boy. Spencer is staying with cousins Madison and Lily. They are such cute girls and have been so excited to have him over! Madison has been asking me for the last week if Spencer could just come home with them then. :) Thanks Ryan and Whitney for taking our Spencer!

Tonight we are being picked up at the Minneapolis Airport by my friend Andrea (a.k.a Tibet!). Her husband is doing his residency at the Mayo Clinic so when they heard we were coming out they offered to help us out. We truly appreciate their generosity!

Tomorrow morning we start a full day of testing/appointments at the Mayo Clinic. Bloodwork at 6:45 a.m., followed by echocardiograms, mri, ekg, consultations, etc. We will post again tommorrow night after we know more details about surgery and our plans. We are scheduled to have surgery Wednesday morning but we should know all final details after our visit tomorrow.

Wish us luck for a successful flight out of Denver!

Not sure exactly how to start this, but the best words that sums up my thoughts are this: THANKS!!!

We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family who support us! We truly appreciate all of your prayers, fasting, phone calls, emails, etc. We have been so touched by the different people who have come forward with words of comfort, actions of servce, offers of service, and friendly listening ears. And thank you for putting our name in the temple!! We are so blessed!!

The past few weeks have been crazy. We were supposed to move into our new house, get things set up, and then take off for the surgery. Well, getting our house finished took longer than we thought. We finally got our Certificate of Occupancy today but our loan is still in underwriting which means we will most likely not close on our house before we need to leave. Now, I recognize miracles can happen so we might get a miracle and close tomorrow......but not likely. Luckily our builder said we could move a few things in before we go -- like our bed! (I really want to come home to my own bed!) Craziness I tell ya! BUT, it all works out! At least we will have a home eventually and we feel blessed in that manner.

Sunday evening Keven's Grandpa Martin passed away. We will miss him but are grateful that his suffering is through. Between that and our house craziness it has been a little wild. On the bright side, at least we have had some other things to distract us from our adventure next week.

Thanks again for all your suport, prayers, and love! We truly have felt uplifted and strenghened! Happy Thanksgiving and Happy BYU/UTAH Game!! GO Utes!!

Going Public...

No pictures of the house today. I need to put new pictures up, everything is almost finished! We should be moving in this weekend or right before Thanksgiving sometime......we hope :)

Today I am going public :) Going public about something that has been going on in our little family. It's a long story, but I will try to sum it up quickly.

I am going in for heart surgery. The surgery will in December 1st. The surgery will be done in Minnesota, at the Mayo Clinic. We leave to go there Monday, November 29th. We will be there for a couple of weeks. We plan to be home for Christmas unless anything crazy happens.

I was born with a heart defect called Ebstein's Anomaly. This defect causes the tricuspid valve of your heart to be in the wrong place and the valve is disfunctional. A couple of months ago I developed a problem with an irregular heart rhythm. This lead to the decision that it was time to do some work on my heart defect.

This heart defect is very rare. In the past there has not been a great solution for fixing it. But there is now a new surgery out for people such as myself. It is called the cone procedure. This is an open-heart surgery in which they use your own heart tissue to reform the bad valve into a cone. The cone shape helps funnel blood into the correct places. This surgery is still very new but very successful. We will be having it done by one of the most experienced men in the country, Dr. Joseph Dearani.

They entire process of discovering I had a irregular rhythm to finding a new cardiologist to discovering I needed heart surgery to going to the Mayo Clinic has been a very spiritual process. We know the Lord has been with us and believe He will continue to be with us.

We plan to help keep family and friends updated about our surgery on this blog so there may be a lot of crazy things appearing here soon.

We would love any prayers that could be sent in our direction. We have felt the prayers of our family as we have proceeded this far and would love any extra support we can get. :)

Halloween......and the House!

Oh, look at my cute puppies!!! Hannah has been really into pretending to be a puppy. You can ask her friends and cousins - I feel like she is responsible for teaching all to walk on all fours, tie things around your neck for a leash, and scratching behind the ears with your hands. (Thanks to so many who humor Hannah in this game - cousins Lily and Maleia, and Hannah's Caleb.) So it seemed a good idea to let Hannah have a puppy costume and some time to really go puppy! Spencer enjoyed the costume too or should I say many people enjoyed watching Spencer in the costume. Whenever he ran his little puppy tail would bounce like a real puppy. It was hilarious!

And the house! It really is coming along! We are supposed to close the end of next week!

Some of these pictures are recent and some are outdated but all worthy of documenting for history's sake...

This is the bonus room above the garage.. a.k.a playroom

Kitchen w/ the cabinents

Pretty sure this is Spencer's room

Archway into the master closet

Master bathroom

The hallway!

This week is counter tops, flooring, touch up paint, finish electrical and plumbing, and exterior. Big week!