10. 22. 2009 the day the earth crumbled beneath my feet.

Following our Three Trees date, Dan and I were inseparable.  We spent every second we could with each other. Five minute smoothie dates in the middle of the work day.  Movies.  Dinner.  All night guitar hero sessions.  Walks.  Talks.  Smiles. We had fallen. Fallen hard.

It was only a couple weeks until we told each other the "L" word.  And until then, Dan would always say, "Do you know what is happening here?" Finally, I told him, "It's already happened, I'm in love with you."

Our families didn't take our relationship too well. The first time my mom met Dan she grilled him hard. "So Lyndsey said you were engaged before, What happened?" "You're a whole lot older than my daughter, what are your intentions?" When she was done, Dan stood up from the table and his shirt had sweat marks on the back.  I was mortified, Dan said, "Well, I would ask the same questions if you were my daughter." Handled it like a pro, no matter how hot the fire blazed in that room.

Dan took me to meet his family the following weekend at their church. I was so nervous.  I spent hours deciding what I should wear.  Just how casual is your church?  Well what does your mom normally wear?  This shirt, or this one? Church was pretty easy, you can't do much talking in the middle of the sermon.  So we decided to join Dan's parents at Brunch following the service.  That is when my questioning happened.  They were a little more tactful with their questioning than my mom was, and I thought that I had done well enough.  They invited us over to their house later and offered me a drink, but quickly remembered that I was only 20 and said, "Well how about a water, or coke?"

Dan took me on a tour of their house.  Big and beautiful.  Dan's step father, I learned, is a builder.  We held hands the whole way and decided yes, this is where we will be married.  The aisle could go this way.  You could stand there.  Our dance floor could go down there.  We had been together such a short time, but already knew we were going to be married at Dan's family home.

After all, we had looked down that well lit road.

The next day, I asked Dan what they thought of me.   Did they really like me?  "They said you were definitely young." The age difference never occurred to me to be a problem.  Yes it was the butt of a whole lot of jokes.  Yes we laughed that I was in sixth grade while Dan was at his college graduation.  But I felt that our maturity met somewhere in between.  We were in love and could handle the age difference.

10. 22. 2009

This is a hard story to tell. I would like to stress that while, the emotions I felt this day were very real for me then, I love my life now and wouldn't change a thing. 

It is beautiful how God uses really tough times to make us the people we are today.

I hadn't been feeling well.  The swine flu was spreading like wildfire.  Both of my little brothers and my mom got it.  And I was sure that I had too. I was in the middle of moving out of my apartment and into a town home with my older sister and her boyfriend.  Dan came over to the new place before work to check it out and drop his dog off with me.  He would be spending the night over there with me. I wanted him there with me the first night in a new place. And maybe, I planned to have him help unload a few boxes.  

A couple weeks back we had planned a spur of the moment, no reason at all, Mexico trip, and would be leaving on the 25th for just a few days.  Dan mentioned something, before leaving for work that day, about not having had a visit from my Aunt Flow last week. Would she be accompanying us on vacation? I just said that I hoped not and kissed him good bye.

I needed to get a few last things out of my apartment that day and had planned to finish up the cleaning and turn my keys in.  I had to stop at the store for some cleaning supplies and walked past the aisle with all the feminine products.  All of a sudden I thought about what Dan had mentioned earlier.  I kept telling myself, Lyndsey don't worry about it, you have been irregular before, you are on birth control, you're fine.  But I decided to pick up a box of pregnancy tests anyways.  A four pack.  On sale.

A couple hours later I was sitting in my empty apartment. And the pregnancy tests were staring at me from the counter. Taunting me.  So I drank my bottle of water, read the directions too many times and waited to see if the plus sign appeared.

Curse words began racing through my mind but I could not catch my breath long enough to say any out loud. Maybe its wrong.  More water, second test.  Maybe the plus sign means positive, as in you're good, as in you can't possibly be plus one. Read the directions again.

Where is my damn cell phone?  My fingers were fumbling around the phone like I had never seen one before.  Allie answered the phone and it took only seconds for her to realize I was sobbing uncontrollably and this call wasn't going to be the usual gab session.  All I could get out to her was that I had taken two tests and both were positive.  She started crying right along with me and talked me through taking the third and the fourth tests while on the phone with her.

I kept saying over and over that this can't possibly be happening.  Dan was for sure going to leave me.  Sure he said he loved me, sure we talked about a marriage and a family one day.  But he is going to be so mad at me.  I can't ruin his life too.  What am I going to do? How am I going to tell him? How am I going to tell my mom.  His mom?  I'm too young.  He's too old.  Our relationship is too new. But still those little blue plus signs were there.  They seemed to be throbbing, pulsing like a strobe light to the beat of my racing heart. 

Allie heard things come out of me that day that no one else will ever know.  She saw a side of me, no one had ever seen before, and there was no judgement.  She allowed me to really feel.  To feel everything however hard.  She was so reassuring telling me that Dan loves me and that everything would be okay. That she would always be there for me.  That together we could handle anything. She even called planned parenthood to make an appointment for the next morning to get a real test.  The lady told her that at- home tests don't give false positives though.

I looked like a train had hit me in the face.  I was terrified.  My body was shaking, and I was so mad, why me? I am not that girl.  There was so many emotions, that poured out of my eyes like waterfalls.  I couldn't breathe.  After praying with Allie, I got off the phone and into the shower to try and steam out my sinuses.  I sat crumpled on the floor of the shower.  I felt so broken.  The earth had dissolved right under me and I was falling.  Falling hard and hot like the water from the faucet.

I stayed there until the water turned cold and finally emerged from the shower.  I quickly realized that I was in an empty apartment without a towel.  Shivering both from being cold and from complete fear, I wiped the water with my hands from my body, and realized I was by myself in this apartment, but not alone.  And my hand rested over my flat stomach.

Dan would be back to my place soon, and I kept going over and over it in my head.  I was so scared to tell him. I was sure he was going to get his dog and leave.  I was sure he wouldn't want to be a part of my life anymore.  I was sure I would be on my own to make a decision about this baby.  And I thought I could for sure kiss our Mexico trip good bye.

Dan met me after work, back at the town home.  I was so quiet, and closed off.  I had used up all the tears I was allotted for the moment.  Thank God, He allows our eyes to rest every now and then, on those really hard days.  Dan would reach for my hand to hold and I would pull mine away.  I am sure Dan wondered what was going on with me, I was my fun spirited normal self that morning.  Maybe he just chalked it up to my having the swine flu.  I kept thinking, "Okay, I'm going to tell him now." But I would talk myself right back out of it.  I wasn't ready to be on my own with all of this.  I kept thinking maybe if I don't say the words out loud they won't be true.  Maybe I could make myself believe it would go away.

Finally, it was time to go to bed.  I had to tell him, I had an appointment the following morning and I had to go.  The lights went off in the room.  I still didn't know how to tell him.  Luckily he helped.  "You have had a pretty dumb day huh?" "uh yes." "Is it just because you weren't feeling well." "No, but I'm scared to tell you, I think you'll leave me." "Did you cheat on me?" "No. I'm pregnant." The words finally just spewed out of my mouth, like a geyser that had been waiting to explode for years.

I was crying again.  My reprieval was over.  Dan just held me tighter.  I was so thankful the lights were off. For some reason it is always easier to break down when the lights are off. All my insecurities were flooded back.  The once non-existent fears about our age difference suddenly seemed to hard to overcome.  Before that day, I was so confident in the love we shared, however new.  But now, it seemed not good enough.

Dan took my hand and said, "It's okay, we'll figure this out.  I'm not leaving you.  We'll do this together.  I love you."

In the dark and stillness of my bedroom, I knew, we would get through this delicate and challenging time.  The calm and comfort in the middle of the storm, the one that God grants our souls, the one that makes you feel like everything will be okay again, that's the one I was most thankful for on that hard, emotional day.

7.27.2009 standing in line for the ride of my life.

There is no rhyme or reason to why I am writing this story today.  Except that it is something I've been wanting to get down on a hard copy so as to never forget.  And it is by far the most beautiful experience I have ever encountered.

There were so many ups and downs.  So many emotions.  So many tears.  So much unsureness.  A real roller coaster ride.  A lot of things in my life have offered this same list, but somehow, I forced myself to believe that this event would be different.  At the end of this scary, real, and crazy ride, I was going to be blessed with an amazing gift.  Everything would turn out okay.

There are so many wonderful pieces and details to my story and I don't want to leave anything out.  It is all so important and dear to my heart.  So I'm going to break it up into chapters and the next few posts will all be in chronological order.

July 27th 2009, looking back  now, was like me standing in line for the biggest, scariest, and most thrilling roller coaster ride yet.  I didn't know what to expect with this ride, didn't know what I was getting myself into.   I didn't know how scary it would be.  I didn't even know if I met the height restrictions to get onto this roller coaster.  Most of all, I had no idea how proud and exhilarated I would feel when the ride was over.  At the time, I didn't even know I was at the amusement park.

  

7. 27. 2009.  

I went on an amazing date with an even more amazing man. He took me to city park for a picnic.  I was to bring the blanket, and he was going to take care of everything else.  I guess bachelors don't just have extra blankets stored away in a closet somewhere for picnic dates? We set up our little feast under a group of trees which formed a shape of a triangle.  This special place is now affectionately known as "Three Trees."  My hot date packed a brown paper bag (I guess guys don't have lovely picnic baskets lying around either) full of shrimp cocktail, fancy cheese and crackers, mango salsa and chips, 2 chocolate bars, and a bottle of red wine.  Oh and two red party cups.  It didn't matter at the time that I was only 20.  It would not have been very cool if I was drinking grape soda. We ate, and we talked.  We flirted. We smiled.  We kissed, and we held hands. And then, a torrential down pour swallowed our sweet little picnic up. 

I love the rain.  Not only do I love to watch thunderstorms out my window, but I love being in the middle of the storm.  There is something about getting drenched that is so liberating, and fun. Especially if it is one of those end of July hot day rains, with a hot guy.  So we sat on our blanket dripping wet and just enjoyed the night.  When one of us would get cold, we cuddled a little closer. But we never stopped talking.  Never stopped whispering our dreams.  Never stopped touching and kissing.  We never stopped falling in love.

There is a little winding road that cuts through the park.  And it was lit with curvy, old fashioned looking light posts.  The road, soaked and puddled with rain, reflected the light.  And with the sun setting pink in the background, and the rain still coming down strong, the road looked totally surreal. Something out of some painting somewhere.  Its funny too, until the rain came, I hadn't even noticed this sweet little road.  One of those things that God waits until the perfect moment to show you.  I love those things.  I wish we would have had a camera there with us to capture all of this.  I suppose it is good that I'm writing all of this down.  A word photo.

I pointed the road out, and said " I wonder where that road goes." The end curved away and we couldn't see the where it led. He turned my face towards him, kissed me hard, and said, "Wherever it goes, you'll be with me."

I know. Great metaphor. A bit cheesy.  But stinken glorious.  

That was the night that I knew for sure I was in love with Dan. I knew that I wanted to be with him.  And I knew he wanted to be with me.  We made our "dating" status official.  He was my boyfriend.

He was ten years older than me, but that didn't matter.  He was in a real big boy carreer, and I was a waitress at a bar, but that wasn't a concern.  I was a month out of a different, volatile, not-fulfilling, relationship, but I didn't care.  He had been engaged 5 years before, but it wasn't a second thought.  We knew we were supposed to walk down that road together...

unaware. in the night time.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does the tree still fall?

The same logic can be used for whatever might happen at night time, while the world sleeps.

While we are all drifting sweetly into dream land, does the world outside our window carry on? Do things still happen in the enveloping darkness? It is easy to get swept away into a deep slumber, and believe that the only thing truly happening in this world, is the up and down, rhythmic breathing of your chest.

The answer, is, as I found out last night, yes.  As I am hibernating for the night, the world does carry on.

I guess I should explain a little.

Three or four months ago, as the weather started to turn warm up here, we allowed our Bengal cat, Mowgli, to become an indoor/outdoor animal. Little did we know he would become so obsessed with being outside that he would meow incessantly to be let outside at all times of the day and night. Tired of being pestered by our very persistant pet, we decided just to leave a window open for him to get in and out of.

Fast forward to last Wednesday. The window is still open and our once cuddly family pet, is now more like a rude roommate who only comes home to be fed.  Literally he takes two bites from his bowl, and is off on his merry way again.  Sometimes not coming home for days, doing Lord only knows what.  But that is all besides the point.

Kai and I were in the middle of something very productive and important (probably mindlessly watching Blues Clues) and in from the window, scurries a very disgusting, and fast little mouse. I screamed and jumped on top of the couch, making Kai giggle.  And that revolting creature ran right under the couch and off behind the day bed, where I have been sleeping mind you.  Owning a Bengal cat does have its perks though.  You see he is mixed with an Asian Leopard.  Part wild. Ferocious. And very good at hunting. So I hid his food for the day, shut the window, and trapped him in the living room.  It only took him a few hours of chasing, meowing taunting, and literally scaring the poop out of, to trap and devour our foul little friend.  I saved the carcass for Dan to clean up when he got home, I definitely wasn't going to touch it.  Who knows what sort of creepy crawly diseases that thing might be festering. Dan put the trash bag remains out on the porch with the rest of the trash in the house to be hauled to the community dumpster the next morning.

I have a point I promise.  Ask anyone that knows me, I just like to get every last detail out when telling a story.

The next morning when Dan left for work, he found the trash bag split open and trash thrown everywhere all over our porch and grass. What had happened that night while we were all zzzzzzzzzzz's? Dan thought maybe a dog was trying to get at the bacon grease or something, I thought at the very most, maybe a raccoon was hungry.

Well last night, I set out the kitchen trash, knowing that if I set it outside the door, my wonderful and helpful hubby would be more likely to walk it to the dumpsters.

Our bedroom has been terribly hot the past month or so, so Dan and I have taken up residence in our basement living room.  (the scene of the mouse homicide).  Dan sleeps on the couch, and I on the daybed in the corner.  Last night I pulled back the comforter and found a giant 8 legged little furry creature.  That was all I needed to scream yet again, and decide I will sleep naked, with a fan, by myself, in a blazing hot room, if it will keep me away from anymore nauseating beasts.  

With a kiss goodnight, I left Dan in the creature dungeon and went to sleep upstairs.  It wasn't long until I floated off to neverland and left the world to sleep.

At about 2am I was awakened by a loud crash and drag sound. Could Kai really be old enough to climb out of his crib already? Was someone in the house? Dan is all the way in the basement. Where is my shot gun?

Reality.

Our night time trash thief was back.  I could hear everything loud.  The porch directly below the bedroom window. I was gonna check this thing out.  I ran down the stairs threw open the front door, and OH MY LORD!!!

Reality x2

Our little annoying raccoondog was actually a big brown bear.  Brown Bear or Grizzly Bear? I don't know but it's fur definitely brown. And he was big. And he was four feet away from me on my front porch digging through a pile of coffee grounds.  Great now he is on a caffeine high too.

Back inside. Slam the door. Safer here. Wake Dan. Look out the window. Bear Gone. 

My point with all this, is that yes, while we are all sleeping in the darkest deepest part of the night, the world continues.  While our bodies all shut down and the moon and stars grace us with their presence, the world outside our front doors never rests. Makes me feel very small.  I am such a minute little creature on this vast never stopping earth.  I love it.  Puts things into perspective. Its beautiful.

A couple Editors Notes.

number one. I cannot take credit for the pictures in this post. it is day time right now and the moon is not out.  so thank you google images for beautiful pictures of the night sky.

number two. I am going to set out trash again when its ready (maybe tomorrow?) and hope that my thief comes back. I would love to snap a picture. Baiting? maybe, but really its a bear on my porch.

community.

friends. family. babies. doggies. bouncy castles. community.

We are blessed to live in such a wonderful place. A true resort town.  People travel crazy distances to get here, which makes us incredibly lucky to live and work here. 

A new baby, a new marriage, and 106 miles away from anybody familiar.  Moving anywhere new for a job transfer can be hard.  But the whirlwind couple years we have had mixed with a big move, extra hard.  And the thing I miss most is feeling a sense of community.

Don't get me wrong, life in Vail is great.  The summer up here is the best.  And the year spent away from our friends and family has done wonders for Dan and I to make our family unit strong.  We have spent a year relying on only each other and our sweet little boy.  It has been hard at times but so worth it.

sweet,  peaceful, Kai

But living in a place crowded with thousands of tourists, and hundreds of languages, is very isolating for me. There are very few locals here and it has been very hard for us to find a group we fit into.  Being young parents, we are not here for the party, ski bum scene.  And we are most definitely not here for a rich, luxurious retirement. In moving here, we have lost our fellowship and community.

But on Sundays. Ahhhhhh Sundays, we get the Farmer's Market.  This pompous, high class resort, gets overtaken by barbeque stands, fresh peaches, strollers, toy trains, bouncy castles, families, dogs, art, kids, and silly jazzy music.  It gets overtaken by community. And. I. Love. It.

  On Sundays, there is a true feeling of a neighborhood here.  A feeling of sameness for me. Of Company and friendships.

Community.  It's beautiful. Isn't it?

Just. Be.

Today is one of those days.  My sweet boy will not stop crying.  Cutting teeth.  One of those days, as moms, you wish you could just take all the pain away.  One of those days that at any given moment, I too, might not be able to stop crying.  How is it that he still looks so dang sweet with tears streaming down his face?

I am tired.  I have a killer headache.  But I just must be.  Be a mom. Be a motivator. Be a shoulder.  Be a friend.  Be. Be. Be. Be. Today I am having a hard time being.  But the show must go on. Its not over until the fat lady sings.

So, I will Be Positive.  I will Be Great. And I will find the beauty in this hard day.

pink toenails in the river.

The beauty beside me today is my sweet son. And the fact that there is always a tomorrow.