At the beginning of 2015, I thought my life could not get more eventful than 2014. Marriage, baby, how could there be more?
I was so so wrong.
JAN
Let's start with January. Leka turned 21 (I know- we're young. According to Leka he's an "old man"), I was coaching club volleyball and I just had to give up playing for the UVU women's club team because I couldn't afford it... little did I know it was a blessing in disguise because I found out that I was pregnant at the end of January. Ammon was barely 6 months old, but I wasn't nervous in the slightest. I love being a mama and I felt like having a second when we did was the perfect thing for our family. This pregnancy was already 100x harder though because of nausea and fatigue, which I didn't really experience with Ammon until the 3rd trimester.
FEB
February 1st was Ammon's blessing day. We celebrated our first wedding anniversary with a weekend up at Aspen Grove. It was a couples retreat for Valentines Day that my parents thought would be great for us. Well, not only were we the youngest ones there, we were about 10 years younger than the youngest couples there. It was still awesome, and we spent a lot of it hiking the beautiful snowy mountain trails and enjoying the scenery.
Me and Leka decided to keep our new pregnancy to ourselves, but my family found out about baby number 2!
Also Ammon got his first 2 teeth!
MAR
In March, my best friend Amanda got her mission call to Italy. We took an emergency trip to Cali to visit Leka's family and take care of some stuff. It just so happened to be the weekend, so we traveled back all Friday night (Leka drank so many energy drinks that he started to see things- like cops chasing him) so that I could make it to my club volleyball tournament Saturday morning, which also doubled as my birthday. I finally turned 20. I'm not going to lie, it was not a fun birthday. I was super emotional, had no sleep, and we were about 1 1/2 hours from home, but my team finally won a set, so it turned out to be a promising day.
Ammon started crawling in March and had his first dentist appointment!
APR
April was pretty chill. Leka and I got to go to General Conference for the first time together. It was actually his first time ever. Also my lovely friend Kate got married! My sister noticed a very soft and slightly swollen spot on Ammon's head and I decided to have it checked out since his soft spots should've been gone by now. My doctor called me in a panic after getting the x-ray back that Ammon had a skull fracture. He kept hinting that it was no bump on the head, he had to have been dropped from a significant height or had some major impact. We guessed that it might have happened at the 24 hour fitness daycare since I dropped him off there twice a week while I coached practice. I'm still not positive that's what happened, but we tried to be a lot more careful with who watched Ammon after that.
We also got to walk through the Payson temple open house which is essentially the day we decided that's where we wanted to be sealed.
Leka's dad and stepmom welcomed a beautiful baby girl, Elisa on the 26th! It was such an amazing experience to meet Ammons new aunty.
MAY
In May, I got to take a trip to Arizona with my mom and sister for a "mother's retreat" for Mother's Day. It was a blast! If you've never been to Last Chance, it's an experience you definitely want- especially because I got 2 pairs of Nike Air's for $60! What a steal!!
Mother's Day is also the day I announced my pregnancy at about 4 months pregnant, and in the same weekend, Leka's brother Mike came to live with us!
My little brother Kevin graduated from high school!
We had our family reunion down in Las Vegas where Ammon took a couple of his first steps!
JUN
We discovered a splash pad around the corner from our house and spent a lot of good summer days there. We also celebrated Leka's first father's day. My BFF Kim who also doubles as my cousin came home from her mission as well! We entered Ammon in the baby contest at Orem Summerfest, and although he didn't win anything for being cute, I told them they were crazy, cause obviously my baby is adorable (we did win a raffle prize though!)
Ammon officially started walking!
Anyways that pretty much set off a chain reaction of events! Obviously we had to reschedule the sealing ;)
In November we went to the 3A high school football semifinals to support our cousin Wayne Alofipo as he coached them to the championship game! It was freezing, but they squashed them! We got our family pictures taken and then celebrated Thanksgiving in Las Vegas with my moms family.
Finally, December was a great month. Ammon said "mama" intentionally for the first time. He also got his first haircut just days before our little family was sealed for time and all eternity in the Payson Temple on December 5. I've never had a more spiritual experience. It was seriously indescribable. I felt so blessed knowing that everyone I loved most went out of their way to be there, including Leka's beautiful mama from California who dressed us in our Tongan attire. Funny side note to that day: my sister woke up and couldn't even move. She'd been having pain for a couple days but it was progressively getting worse. So they decided to give her a priesthood blessing, which got her through the sealing, but after the luncheon, they took her to the ER and found out she had a kidney stone. Priesthood blessings people- they work wonders. The next day, Leka got the awesome opportunity to bless baby Tyson.
My best friend Maddi got her mission call to New Mexico.
OH! On Dec. 10 I entered an Intermountain Moms contest. Their 12 days of giveaways. AND I WON! I've never won anything before in my life. It was a $75 gift card to massage envy.
A few weeks later, we left for Florida for Christmas vacation courtesy of my wonderful loving parents. I had back pain the entire week. Luckily, I had leftover percocet from the C-Section and I used it all week to help ease the pain. If I didn't have that, I don't know how I would've made it through Florida because when we flew into Vegas and then drove to St. George to have our family Christmas party, I ended up going to the ER during dinner because I couldn't even breathe. I honestly felt so stupid for going in, but it ended up being critical! After 4-5 hours in the ER, they told me that I needed to get my galbladder out because it was BAD! So I made the executive decision to drive back up to Orem to get it removed so that Leka could go to work and I could recover in my own bed. That drive was miserable, but the kids did great and Leka was such a trooper at holding down the fort. We literally drove straight to the ER, I didn't even go inside my house. So I spent the next 2 days in the hospital. Had to get another endoscopy to get a gallstone out that had passed and gotten stuck.
These days I find myself frustrated with my body and I can't understand why I am so tired all the time and I have to keep reminding myself that I went through a lot of traumatic events lately and I need time to heal! By next year, I'll be back to normal... and hopefully not pregnant again for at least 2 years!
JUL
In July obviously we celebrated the 4th of July! It was so incredibly fun! Then a week and a half later we got to celebrate Ammon's first birthday! We hiked to stewart falls (6 months pregnant!) and then Mike moved back to California.
AUG
August was fun! Leka and I got to do the moonlight lift ride and go to a REAL Salt Lake soccer game! Got to watch my friend from high school, Alexia Meyer perform and compete on SYTYCD! Took Ammon to 7 peaks, and worked a part time job in HR at Provo Canyon School. Took Ammon to his first carnival. Leka's best friend, Hunter returned home from Guatemala.
SEP
September started out great! Though I was feeling very huge, we went to lots of weddings and took Ammon to the aquarium! On September 12 all of our hard work paid off and we got to enter the temple for the first time to receive our endowments. It was the most wonderful experience for me because for the first time in my life, I really had to work at getting myself worthy to enter and all of that paid off. The Mount Timpanogos temple is beautiful by the way! I had our sealing all scheduled for October 2 (yes, 10 days before my due date :) Then, 12 days later, I woke up and had a baby! You can find that story here!
Anyways that pretty much set off a chain reaction of events! Obviously we had to reschedule the sealing ;)
OCT
On October 3rd, we took Fina to general conference for her first time and then we finally got to bring our little miracle baby home from the NICU! A couple weeks later I had to get a colonoscopy/endoscopy to test for Chron's Disease. They did find something that looked like an infection in my small intestine. Thank goodness the GI doctor did a biopsy and gave me the news that it wasn't Chron's, but it was odd that I kept having the pains... eventually they went away and at my follow up they told me that ibuprofen had probably been the reason for problems in the hospital that did something to my digestive tract. My best friend Kim, the one who doubles as my cousin... yeah she married her sweetheart on October 22 and I got to witness their sealing in the temple. It was the first sealing I'd ever witnessed and it had me so excited for my own. We also found out that my sister in law, Sesi, was expecting a baby BOY! Yay for boy cousins! Then we celebrated Halloween by taking Ammon trick or treating... AKA going to maybe 5 houses before we were all worn out.
NOV
In November we went to the 3A high school football semifinals to support our cousin Wayne Alofipo as he coached them to the championship game! It was freezing, but they squashed them! We got our family pictures taken and then celebrated Thanksgiving in Las Vegas with my moms family.
DEC
Finally, December was a great month. Ammon said "mama" intentionally for the first time. He also got his first haircut just days before our little family was sealed for time and all eternity in the Payson Temple on December 5. I've never had a more spiritual experience. It was seriously indescribable. I felt so blessed knowing that everyone I loved most went out of their way to be there, including Leka's beautiful mama from California who dressed us in our Tongan attire. Funny side note to that day: my sister woke up and couldn't even move. She'd been having pain for a couple days but it was progressively getting worse. So they decided to give her a priesthood blessing, which got her through the sealing, but after the luncheon, they took her to the ER and found out she had a kidney stone. Priesthood blessings people- they work wonders. The next day, Leka got the awesome opportunity to bless baby Tyson.
My best friend Maddi got her mission call to New Mexico.
OH! On Dec. 10 I entered an Intermountain Moms contest. Their 12 days of giveaways. AND I WON! I've never won anything before in my life. It was a $75 gift card to massage envy.
A few weeks later, we left for Florida for Christmas vacation courtesy of my wonderful loving parents. I had back pain the entire week. Luckily, I had leftover percocet from the C-Section and I used it all week to help ease the pain. If I didn't have that, I don't know how I would've made it through Florida because when we flew into Vegas and then drove to St. George to have our family Christmas party, I ended up going to the ER during dinner because I couldn't even breathe. I honestly felt so stupid for going in, but it ended up being critical! After 4-5 hours in the ER, they told me that I needed to get my galbladder out because it was BAD! So I made the executive decision to drive back up to Orem to get it removed so that Leka could go to work and I could recover in my own bed. That drive was miserable, but the kids did great and Leka was such a trooper at holding down the fort. We literally drove straight to the ER, I didn't even go inside my house. So I spent the next 2 days in the hospital. Had to get another endoscopy to get a gallstone out that had passed and gotten stuck.
These days I find myself frustrated with my body and I can't understand why I am so tired all the time and I have to keep reminding myself that I went through a lot of traumatic events lately and I need time to heal! By next year, I'll be back to normal... and hopefully not pregnant again for at least 2 years!