The Front Porch

So this guy up there, he is pretty great if I do say so myself.  Like really, I knew that before we got married, but man I am so lucky to be married to such an awesome guy! He surprises me everyday with how awesome he is. (Don't worry, this won't be as gaggy as I'm making it sound like.) The other night we were driving home from Idaho Falls together and I was in a crappy mood.  I've been really hard on myself lately which has put me in a semi-permanent sour mood- poor Joe! I was whining on and on about how nothing goes my way and how I'm not good at anything... blah blah blah!!  Joe then proceeded to tell me a story from his mission- I almost tuned him out because I've heard his mission stories numerous times, but this time it was a new story so I perked up a little bit and I'm sure glad I did. 


Joe served in the Washington D.C. South mission, it was his first transfer and him and his companion had been meeting with a woman investigator for quite some time.  She was excited and eager to learn more about  the gospel and they were planning on committing her to being baptized.  They went to go meet with her and set a baptism date, but no such luck; she didn't want to meet with them anymore.  They were so discouraged and upset about being dropped that it severely put a damper on their attitudes.  (I am so guilty of letting the smallest most obscure things ruin my day, so I can only imagine how they felt). They complained the rest of the day about how lame it was that their investigator up and dropped them like that until Joe's companion threw a curve ball and said, "Once I step off this porch I am going to have a better day!"  Joe said he looked at his companion with a puzzled look and wondered how in the world you can just change your crap-ola mood into a good one?  Well they both did just that!  The only had positive things to say the rest of the day- they laughed all day long and had a great time.  It was all in their attitude, nothing more nothing less. 


I am often (as we all are) faced with all sorts of negativity on a daily basis.  Whether is a test that I didn't do too great on, or a conversation with a friend or family member that suddenly went south, our attitude makes up everything!  I am so grateful that Joe can continue to teach me this simple lesson, I definitely still have a lot of work to do but I know that it will come with time. 


As some of you may know, this weekend was quite eventful in the Leiser home.  On Saturday morning I accidentally locked us out of our apartment when we went to go run errands.  I did not keep a level head, unfortunately.  I did the exact opposite; I flipped out.  Joe has the ability to laugh at just about anything, and that's what he was doing. Me on the other hand, not even close to laughing.  Luckily, we had the keys to my car so we weren't out in the freezing cold, but I was still bugged.  I didn't have time for that nonsense! I had stuff I needed to do, inside our house! (visions of us having to sleep in my car kept running through my head. Drama, I know). We called a locksmith and in 15 minutes he was over and unlocked our door, not a big deal at all. 


Tonight, Joe decided my iphone needed to be updated.  He went ahead with the update and much to our dismay everything was wiped clean off my phone.  I will admit that I cried, just for a little bit, when he told me what happened. Lame I know, whatever.  The same thoughts ran through my head, "I don't have time to get all my contacts back", "I want all my pictures back!". I am still pretty bummed about it, but it's okay it really isn't a huge deal.  I was at the tipping point of having a total meltdown when Joe's mission story popped into my head.  I can totally control this and change my attitude, is it really worth getting mad and upset about? Nope, not at all. Joe felt terrible and apologized at least 100 hundred times, he even offered to buy me the new iphone 4 (might just have to take him up on that offer haha) I feel proud to say that your attitude really does change everything, somethings just aren't worth being upset and moody about. I am so grateful for the wonderful example that Joe is to me on a daily basis.  I feel bad, but he always has to be the level headed one in every situation- I'll work on being better at that! 


I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes that gives me the hope to push through any trial or hardship in my life, big or small: 


“Things work out, it isn't as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out, don't worry. I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. If we will put our trust in him, if we will pray to him, if we will live worthy of his blessings, he will hear our prayers.” 
― Gordon B. Hinckley

Love this man!!

So sweet 

He makes me so happy

A Trip to the E.R.

Our Honeymoon came to a screeching halt as soon as we arrived back in Rexburg.  Our cruise ended on a Friday and we made the long, sad journey from sunny California back to dreary Idaho. Joe was complaining about his stomach being upset and I chalked it up to the massive amounts of food we ate during the week.(we hit the buffet more times than I'd like to admit)  We continued on our way, spent Friday night with my Dad and sister in Bountiful with my Dad's Aunt and Uncle and opened all our wedding gifts! Loved that! 

We woke up early on Saturday and finished the drive up to Rexburg.  I was ready and eager to get unpacked and set up our cute apartment, but there were other things in the cards for us that did not involve decorating or even unpacking!  Joe continued to complain of his stomach being upset and I continued to ignore it and blame it on the food we ate (wife-of-the-year award goes to: ME!)

Sunday morning was spent watching conference and eating cinnamon rolls, again I am such a bad wife; feeding my sick husband sugar coated cinnamon rolls and telling him to suck it up. As the day went by his pain grew more intense.  I ran to the store, in hopes of salvaging my "good" wife title and bought every antacid and stomach pain medicine I could find.  Nothing was working!! We both grew increasingly frustrated and I decided we should just go to bed  (sleep is usually a cure-all for me so I figured it'd work for Joe). It was only 8:30 so we both took the best sleeping aid ever, Melatonin.  They are all natural and they don't leave you groggy so it all made sense to pop a few of those and sleep off that stomach ache. Right.

Not thirty minutes after going bed Joe was in agonizing pain and I started to get worried.  He is a lot tougher than this, I kept saying to myself. I started to think that this could be a lot more serious and then this thought came to my head, "Call his mom".  I rolled over and dialed Joe's mom and she told us to call our sister-in-law, Nicole, who had her appendix out earlier that year.  "Appendicitis? I can't be that..." I was so skeptical, I didn't think his stomach ache was that serious! Sure enough everything that Nicole said she felt was exactly what Joe was going through.  I jumped out of bed, scrambled to get dressed and rushed Joe to the E.R.  Mind you, Joe was not covered by any insurance.  We were planning on adding him to my insurance plan once we got back from the honeymoon....

As we sat in the Emergency Room you could almost hear the dollar signs adding up as they did scan after scan and multiple tests. We were at the E.R. for hours and I was so worried and so exhausted. (remember the sleeping pills we took? Definitely kicking in at this point)  It was finally determined that Joe had appendicitis and needed to have an emergency appendectomy.  Unfortunately, the doctor had already put in a 16 hour day and needed to go home and rest before he could perform Joe's surgery.  They wanted to keep him over night, but the cost of doing that was so expensive we decided to go home instead.  We figured if his appendix did burst while we were home, we would most likely beat the doctor to the hospital. (thinking back on it now, that was definitely a dumb decision) They told us to come back at 5:00 am and surgery would start at 7:00 am. As we drove home, every bump and curve in the road made Joe wince...it was so hard to see him in so much pain. 

I tried to make him as comfortable as possible, but nothing was going to help until he got that nasty appendix out.  Neither of us slept, we just laid there still and scared.  I had racing thoughts in my head that kept me periodically checking to see if he was still breathing.  I checked the clock at least a hundred times hoping we were an hour closer to going to the hospital.  Surely, this could have been the longest night of my life.  Finally at 4:00 am we decided to just get ready and go over to the hospital. We waited in the parking lot until about 4:40 and went in, hoping they could admit him early. 

All I could think about was how scared I was and how I hoped everything went alright in surgery.  I was also freaking out about school.  I had missed and entire week for the wedding! And now I was missing more.  That's so typical.


Side story: When we were in the E.R. filling out all the paperwork for the surgery the next day, I asked the E.R. doctor if I would be able to go to my class at 8:00 (Obviously, I care about my husband, but if I could be in class while he was in surgery that is what I wanted to do). Well the E.R. doctor was so rude after I asked this...Joe and I had no clue how long the surgery would take, for all we know it could have been an all day ordeal! The doctor proceeded to tell me that as a new wife it was in my best interest to stay with my husband. My jaw dropped. She's just lucky I was delirious on sleeping pills, because I thought of some choice words after the fact (isn't that just typical).  I was so upset, after she walked out of the room I started to cry. "As a new wife..."   Pssssh! 


Joe was checked in and they started right away with the pain medicine which seemed to help considering the night we had just endured. The Anesthesiologist came in next and gave Joe his sleepy medicine, and then nurses wheeled him out and assured me they would take good care of him.  (when you're watching someone you love so much being taken away, no amount of reassurance can calm you down. At least that's how I felt.)


It will probably sound so silly, but this was one of the loneliest and scariest moments of my life.  I had horrible thoughts running through my head.  I've been married for one week and my husband is already in the hospital, you have got to be kidding me!   
I tried to sleep during the two hours that Joe was in surgery, but no such luck. I just sat in the uncomfortable hospital chair and cried. 


Joe was finally wheeled back into the room and he was surprisingly peppy and chatty.  It was actually really funny.  My Nana has three cats and Joe is pretty allergic to them; they make his eyes water, throat scratch, and noes itch.  Well among the many hilarious things he was rambling off he kept repeating the phrase, "Nana's house!" Apparently, the anesthesia caused his nose to itch like crazy, haha poor thing!  I spent the rest of the day cuddled up with Joe in his hospital bed.  It was the first time we were actually able to sleep and it felt great!  I was naive enough to think that we would be able to go home later that day and that everything would be just fine, but we had to stay the night. 


We had some of our friends come and visit which totally made our day! Thanks so much for visiting with us, even though Joe doesn't remember any of it!  I also had two of Joe's friends come and give him a blessing, thank you so much for doing that- it put me at ease and gave me the confidence to get through the rest of his recovery.  I am so incredibly grateful for the power of the  priesthood and the blessing it is in my life. 


I spent the night with Joe at the hospital, luckily he slept a lot better than the previous nights- me not so much.  I don't even think the nurses were technically allowed to let me sleep in his bed with him, I think they all felt so bad for us that they didn't say anything. Good thing. I had my phone set to go off every 30 minutes to push Joe's Morphine button;  we learned quickly that when we slept and forgot to push the button the pain Joe experienced when he woke up was excruciating. So sad.  The next day Joe had to eat breakfast before he was allowed to leave.  I was so tempted to just eat a bite of his toast and apple sauce and say he did it so we could just get out of there. Don't worry, I didn't do that... 


Around 1 pm we were finally discharged and so began the long recovery!  All I wanted to do was sleep for a week straight.  Joe spent the next few days camped out on the couch, our bed is too high for him to climb into so I had to lift him into bed every night.  The next four weeks went a little something like this...


I had to do literally everything for Joe. If he needed to get up, I had to help him off the couch and walk him to where ever he needed to go.  If he wanted socks on, I had to put them on. When I say everything, I mean it! Showering, getting him dressed, helping him get to sleep, it's a huge blessing that we were married when this happened, because I don't know of any roommate that would do that for him haha!  He slept propped up on about three pillows for the first week, until that became unbearable and then he moved to the couch.  I couldn't imagine sleeping in our bed without Joe, so I dug up an air mattress and slept on the ground next to him.  I had to wake up every four hours to give Joe his pain medicine and antibiotics.  I was back in school at this point and everyday seemed like a blur.  I was so exhausted and constantly worried about Joe at home that I don't even know how I passed my classes. 


To make matters worse, Joe's incision got infected the week before we were supposed to go to Arizona for our open house.  I was at work when Joe called to tell me that he had to go back to the Doctor to get his incision checked out.  This is so disgusting, but they had to shove 3 feet of gauze inside Joe's incision. 3 FEET! Gag. I'm so glad I wasn't there for that.  Oh, and the doctor told Joe that he could take the gauze out himself in 3 days. Umm...what?! I won't go into the details of that, but it was horribly disgusting.  I had to sanitize our shower three times before I felt it was safe for us to shower in there.


I definitely had a few breakdowns during Joe's recovery, mostly stress induced and lack of sleep ha.  Looking back on it now, I feel so grateful for being able to truly serve my new husband.  The times where I was the most unhappy were the times that I was more concerned with myself and my "problems" than with him.  When I put more care and concern into Joe's needs, my homework stress some how disappeared and I found the time and energy to get everything done that I needed to.  


Some might call it luck, but I definitely believe that we were blessed far more than I ever imagined because of our temple marriage.  The things that worked out for us seem so impossible now, but I know that our Heavenly Father was truly watching over us.  To show how truly blessed we were I will share a few amazing things that happened during this trial: 


We were able to enjoy a perfectly amazing honeymoon together. 


Joe was out of work for four weeks. I worked maybe 15 hours during the course of his recovery. We were still able to pay our rent, buy groceries, and pay tithing no problem.


Joe's parent's came and visited for the weekend and helped us out so much! 


Since Joe and I got married we learned that my insurance was retro-active, due to a life changing event, and we were able to add him. They covered 80% of our hospital bills. Amazing.


We grew stronger as a couple and learned sacrifice and service.


My teachers were amazingly understanding and willing to help me catch up on my assignments.


I fell in love with Joe even more.  Didn't think that was possible, but I truly could not imagine my life without him. 


So grateful for the blessings of the temple and for the beautiful opportunity I had to be sealed to my best friend for not only time, but eternity as well.  Our first month of marriage was rough, but we've pulled through once again, and I couldn't be happier with where my life is.  Hopefully, there won't be anymore E.R. visits anytime soon! :) 

To think that there was a nasty appendix festering as this picture was taken blows my mind hahah

So blessed <3

Honeymooners!

 We had the most amazing honeymoon, we went on a carnival cruise to Mexico!  We had never been on cruise before so we had no idea what to expect.  I was super nervous that I was going to get sick and ruin our entire honeymoon, but no one got sick yay!  

After we got married we stayed in Salt Lake for two days and drove all the way to Long Beach, California.  I usually hate road trips, but this time it was so much fun just driving, listening to music, and gushing about how amazing our wedding was.  To split up the drive we decided to stop in Vegas and play around there. 

   

Driving all day long

Pulling into Vegas!

We only stayed a few hours in Vegas...not really our kind of place.  We definitely want to go back and see some shows- hello Cirque du Soleil and Celine!! I doubt I can convince Joe to go see Celine, so who wants to go with me?! 

I hated this building...We couldn't find our way out!

Tourists 

Dancing for dollars

,

We thought we could make the drive from Salt Lake all the way to Long Beach in one day, but we later learned that we were way too tired and so sick of driving.  We figured that there had to be a town outside of Las Vegas that we could stay in, but honestly after you get past Vegas and into to California there is NOTHING.  We stopped in one town called Baker (if you're familiar with this area you're probably laughing right now) It was the smallest, most podunk town ever! It looked like Radiator Springs if you've seen the movie Cars! There were two motels and they looked like something out of a horror movie.  We kept driving and driving (thank goodness for our GPS)  and finally found a hotel to stay in...I don't even remember where it was, but we were so glad to stay in a normal hotel! 

We woke up bright and early and drove a couple more hours to Long Beach to board the ship! 

We waited in the biggest line to board the ship.  I seriously checked and re-checked every document we needed; I was so paranoid that I had forgotten something important and we wouldn't be able to get on the ship. 

Small and cozy room :)

Long Beach Port

One of my favorites on the cruise, towel animals! 

 I would find myself having these creepy Titanic-esque thoughts our first few days on the ship.  I was convinced if anything happened we would die at sea.  In reality we were only like 10-15 miles off the coast of California so if anything did happen we would be fine, but still those lifeboats did not look big enough to fit everyone!  

The most terrifying thing was hearing the anchor being dropped. Not only was it loud and scary, but it happened bright and early at 6 am! Not fun. The first morning we were on the ship I thought this was going to be turned into an E! News special: Honeymoons from Hell- The Cruise Edition. Dum, dum, dummmmmm!  The noise sounded as if the entire bow of the ship was breaking off into the ocean...Joe would say I am being dramatic, but the first time I heard the anchor being dropped I jumped out of bed looked out our little porthole and front door to make sure everything was alright. No worries, the boat was still intact

e

I have about a million palm tree pictures- Joe loves them!

So in love

Catalina Island 

I really wish he would've gotten that shirt! :)

Formal Night :)

More towel animals

Joe surprised me with a delicious cake! He knows me too well

"Hoppy Honeymoon" :) 

The view of Mexico from our porthole haha

Mexico was pretty dirty and scary. I definitely remembered none of my high school Spanish. Senior Wrobel would be so disappointed. 

We decided it was best to head back to the ship when we went into a mini mart to get a soda and there was a man with a huge shot gun standing in the back of the store...

Handsome husband (:

We stayed long enough to buy cheap sunglasses 

Our favorite pastime: eating

Chocolate Melting Cake...this was sinful and ridiculously delicious

The Tiramisu was divine. Not as good as the Chocolate Melting Cake...

Cute Sting Ray!

It's a cruise...food baby's come included in the price

Everyone had them...we fit in great! 

These narrow hallways were the hardest to walk down! You could feel the boat rocking a ridiculous amount. I don't know how the drunk people made it back to their rooms at night?

And this is where the food babies came from. At least there's some fruit on the table...

Fun day at sea!

Finally married!

The best part of the day

Delish 

Our dinner waiter, Donald, was so awesome 

Joe got pulled up on stage during one of the shows. He has some mad dance skills.

The last towel animal :( even though this isn't an animal...

We had such an amazing honeymoon together I couldn't have asked for anything more relaxing or perfect.  It was so nice to spend an entire week with each other; finally married, in love, and so incredibly happy. Everyday since we talk about the cruise and how badly we want to be back on the "Lido Deck" or laying poolside. We are definitely planning another one for our one year anniversary! Woot woot! 

More to come on updates...the excitement didn't end after the honeymoon!