"The Breakdown of a lifetime…"

Where oh where do I even start this post!  As many of you know in the apprenticeship things change from week to week, day to day.  Since about June we had been told work was getting pretty slim in Sterling and there would be a big chance of a layoff anytime.  That of course had me very nervous because I was due in August but in the end it all worked out and I got to deliver Bashlyn in Greeley (yay!).  We had been putting off going home because we just figured we would go home when Brandon got laid off, introduce Bashlyn to all her friends and family and finish up things with my dads estate, ect.  Then we got word that we may be in Sterling for awhile longer so Brandon talked to his foreman about going home before the snow hits.  Driving 17-18 hours is not fun period but really not fun in the winter.  Brandon talked to his foreman and he said, "well next week would work".  I wasn't surprised, in fact I was semi prepared to leave at the drop of the hat.

I had my 4 week Doctor appointment on Thursday at 1:30 in Greeley.  Brandon got rained out Thursday afternoon so he raced home and got home a few minutes before me.  He started packing up the truck and I started racing around the 5th wheel frantically trying to pack our clothes and bathroom stuff.  Bashlyn of course just wanted to be cuddled the whole time so I was able to use our front pack for the first time and she LOVED it! She instantly fell asleep and slept the whole time I was packing.  I packed and got everything clean and in order in Piper so we could come home to a nice clean house.  After a couple hours, we were on the road by 7ish Thursday night!! This was great news, we would pretty much get a whole extra day in CDA!

We drove 5 hours to Casper, WY and got a hotel.  We stayed at the C'mon Inn and it was so fun! They gave us a double room though so Brandon and I had to sleep in separate beds, I definitely felt like I was on an episode of "I love Lucy".  Friday we drove about 12 hours and made it to CDA around 10 pm.  Bashlyn did AMAZING!!!! She slept pretty much the entire drive, only waking up to feed.  Surprisingly she still slept her usual schedule that night too!

We had such an incredible trip home, we got to see all our friends and see all the sights of beautiful Coeur d Alene! We had wonderful whether for the most part and enjoyed it to the fullest.  We went on a bunch of hikes, coffee dates ( with actually good coffee!!!) and meeting up with Friends, it was just perfect! We even had time to sneak in a family photo shoot, so fun! I will forever cherish the memories of seeing our friends meet and hold Bashlyn for the first time!!

Then the rain storm that would be our life started.  Our renters sent us a text late Thursday night saying they wanted to talk.  Friday afternoon they told us they were moving out (in a month!!), breaking their 3 year lease and had no intention on paying anymore rent.  We spent most of our day Friday dealing with that, going to the place, inspecting it and then trying to decide what we were going to do.  We decided at the time I would come back in two weeks and deal with getting it rented again.

Saturday morning we started our drive back home to CO.  We were driving along, talking about our trip and talking about our rental situation.  We decided we would look into property management companies because dealing with a rental 1,000s of miles away was just not working.  We got to Missoula and were driving on I90 and the truck just shut down.  I was driving and I told Brandon, "there is something wrong with the truck, its not going"  It had died, so we coasted to a stop and Brandon had me try to start it again.  It turned over but just wouldn't fire.  We sat there on the side of I90 with semis and cars flying by us, frantically trying to figure out what our next move would be.  Brandon was doing some things under the hood but didn't know what was going on.  He got back in the truck and said "well should we call someone, I don't even know who to call, we don't have AAA" Then I remembered we had roadside assistance on our insurance so I called them and arranged for a tow.  It would be about an hour and twenty minutes until the tow could get to us.  We started calling every repair shop we could find on google in Missoula, most were not open and the couple that were open did not work on diesels.  We decided to have it towed to the Ford dealership because we didn't know what else to do.

Then we had to figure out what WE were going to do now.  We decided to rent a car and continue the drive to CO, we HAD to get Brandon back to work.  I called a couple rental car companies but they had closed at noon on Saturdays and it was now 1:30. I found a rental car company and she asked me what time I was going to pick up the car.  I explained to her our situation and that I need to get to CO.  she said "Oh I'm sorry our vehicles are not allowed to go to CO, they can only go in the northwestern states".  My heart sunk, I really didn't know what we would do now.  I started looking at plane tickets to Denver and one ticket, one way from Missoula to Denver was $798 for Brandon to fly out on Sunday.  Then Brandon said well what if I fly out of Spokane.  Thank goodness he thought of that, I booked him a ticket flying out of Spokane for $258 leaving Sunday! We rented a car and we drove back to CDA.  It was so crazy to be getting back into CDA Sunday night when we had just left 12 hours ago!

So Sunday, Bashlyn and I put Brandon on a plane to go back to CO.  Saying goodbye to Brandon at the airport was honestly one of the hardest goodbyes I've ever had to do.  We got there and there was a HUGE line for security so I ran to the restroom really quick.  When I came out Brandon was all the way up the ramp, too far up for him to be able to bend down and kiss me and way too many people for me to be able to work my way up to him.  He had to hand me Bash over the railing and we had to just wave goodbye.  My heart just broke instantly and it took everything in me to control the tears so I wasn't a sobbing mess.  I wasn't ready to leave him, I didn't have any time to prepare to be away from him this early with Bashlyn and not even knowing how long we would be apart.

The past three days I have been running around meeting with property management companies and a repair guy to fix damages at the house.  I think everything will work out for the better, IF we can get it rented before the snow flies.  Ford was giving me the run around and wasn't looking at the truck so I arranged to have it moved to another shop in town.  Ford of course charged me $100 for an hour of "shop time".   Its at another shop now and hopefully I will hear some sort of progress about it today. Now Bashlyn and I are just waiting on the call that the truck is fixed and we'll start our drive to CO to see Daddy.  The sad thing is though, even when we get home we won't even get to spend time with him because he has class all weekend from 8-5 Saturday and Sunday.  You better believe we'll be driving to Denver with him both days!!

This has honestly been one of the most trying weeks of my life.  I keep trying to tell myself, "its only money, we'll make more, 10 years from now this will just be a memory" but I honestly feel like its just getting to be too much.  Then the emotional toll this is taking on me is so hard.  The stress from the rental, the stress of the unknown amount of money we'll have to pay for repairs at the house and the truck to be fixed, the stress of being away from my husband and a few other emotional things that have blown up this week is wearing me down.  If I could get a hug from him, if I could see him hold and love on Bashlyn it would make this all so much easier.  At what point is it all just too much? I know it will work out in the end and I know God knows what he is doing.  I am not trying to question him or change his plan.  I am just so tired and I just want a hug from my husband :(

Gosh time is flying! I've been meaning to write this post for over a week now and just haven't had the time.  I've been a bit busy cuddling and kissing on our sweet little baby girl every chance I get! Bashlyn is 24 days old already (ahhh slow down!!!) and she is absolutely perfect! She is only waking up two times a night, once around 1-1:30 and the next is around 4:30-5 (daddy's alarm starts going off at 5:20 so she's just helping him get up ;) ) She eats perfectly and then goes back to sleep, sometimes until 9 am!!

Bashlyn was so lucky to have so many family members drive and fly across the country to meet her.  Nana drove for about 20 hours and got to meet her the day we brought her home.  The following week her 3 mom and 3 pop flew from New Jersey for a week and got to get a lot of snuggles and kisses in! It was a great time, just getting settled in, getting used to and learning about this new member of our family! The best day though, was Bashlyn's Dedication.   As many of you know Brandon and I started going to Journey back in January when we lived in Greeley, CO.  In March we got moved to Sterling, and as much as we wanted to keep going to Journey every week it proved to be just a bit too far.  During my whole pregnancy, I kept saying,  "I hope we stay here or at least driving distance to Greeley, because I REALLY want Arron to do Bashlyn's Dedication!" Well God heard our prayers because we got to stay here and Arron DID get to do her dedication! Journey was incredible and accommodating to us and our short time frame ( I wanted to be able to do with it all the family in town).

On August 25th we dedicated our sweet baby Bashlyn to the Lord in front of many friends and family. We were so lucky to have my mom, mom mom and pop pop, Erik, Shellie and (BRAND NEW, 3 days old) baby Oakley Hall, Amanda Henley and Uncle Chance Thomas there to help celebrate and witness our dedication.

Here are a couple videos from the dedication, the video cut out in part of it, but here is most of it.
After almost 4 hours trying to figure out how to upload these dang videos I resorted to taking video of the video playing on my computer on my iPhone.  So bear with me, hopefully you can hear and see most of the video…it was such a special day for us so I wanted to share it with you all! <3

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152639206443475&l=4551618552352645045

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152639213848475&l=5901221871891249181

It is such an overwhelming feeling to hold this little baby in our arms, this baby we had prayed for, planned for, created dreams for.  She is here and God chose US to be her parents, gosh we are lucky!!