We're still alive! :)

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a year since my last post! What I crazy year it has been. I'm going to give a brief update of the happening's of this year, so that when I look back at my "online journal" I won't totally have a loss for 2009 :). A year ago November, we moved out of our house in Spanish Fork in anticipation of our move to Las Vegas where we were opening up a new Urgent Dental clinic. Because it wasn't yet complete we spent 3 months living with my dad out in Grantsville, UT. It was a fun time I will always remember. As my dad was recently re-married, it gave me a chance to really bond with his new wife and her family, they are wonderful and I'm so glad to have them as part of my family. Also, it was fun for my dad to get a chance to spend more time with Ethan and Micah. Ethan spent most of his time chasing around the cats -especially "no-no" I think they created a special love/hate relationship with each other, and even now a year later, every-time I tell him we are going to see his Grandpa, he asks about "no-no". The first week of February we moved to Las Vegas, well I guess I should say Aaron moved me to Las Vegas, he stayed up in Utah another month working for Dr. Haynie while we got things settled down here. It was a long month without my wonderful husband, but Ethan and I explored the town and got ourselves acquainted with our new home. We spent a lot of time at the Park and watching the giant fish tank at the Silverton (just down the road from our house). March 15th we finally got the go ahead to open our doors for business and Aaron, Ethan and I all went to work. Because of the "credit crisis" our approved loans were all "reduced" and we opened the doors with zero working capital. Not the best way to start a business, but we were determined and decided we could live very frugally to make it work. We hired two part-time assistants to work a few hours each week when we got patients and put our effort into marketing. Slowly the business picked up enough that having my little 18 month old helper around the office was not such a great idea anymore - and so I had to put him into daycare. It was a "temporary" arrangement and I knew that it was only going to be for the next 3-4 months, but still Ethan and I both cried every morning when I dropped him off, and he would burst into tears each afternoon when I came to pick him up. He never really did warm up to the idea, and every day got harder instead of easier, so that as soon as we could justify hiring someone vs. the cost of daycare - I got to go back to doing what I really, really love...being a Mom. I only put in time at the office a few hours a day and I bring my little "terror" with me. The patients love him...even if he is a huge distraction. The "day-care" experience did teach me a lot about how important motherhood is as well as how hard it must be on the kids and parents who are left with no other choice.
Now, over a year later, the business is "booming" and Aaron works around 70-80hrs a week. He takes call and goes in to see emergency patients at all hours of the day and night. We have gone through 2 office managers and a few assistants, but I think we finally have it right and all the staff (7 people now) are a great fit for the office and really hard workers. We are in the process of building out the rest of the rooms and hiring a second doctor to take some of the load off Aaron. We all feel so blessed that in this horrible economy where over 130 dentist have gone out of business in Vegas, we are able to grow. I no longer even go into the office unless it's to visit Aaron or bring in food/treats. I am able to do all the back office, payroll, marketing, etc. from home - and even though a few days a week Ethan probably watches a little too much TV while I work, I think it is working out well.
Micah is able to come spend several weeks with us every time he is off track. He loves Vegas and thinks it's really fun to be able to swim often and to explore all the new adventures Las Vegas has to offer. His only complaint is that he doesn't have all the friends here that he had in Spanish Fork. We did, however, just move into a new home (only a few blocks from our old one) and it put us in a new ward with a few more kids his age, so we are optimistic about the friend potential :) (Our old ward was a lot of young families and there were about 100 kids Ethan's age, literally, we had 7 nursery's).
We finally sold our Spanish Fork home in May, and after 18 months of paying a double mortgage/rent and sometimes a triple mortgage when our American Fork home wasn't rented we are very grateful for that blessing. However we did have to finally short sale it, since the value had dropped so dramatically from when we bought it and as most of you know, I don't see it changing any time soon.
The most recent news in the family is that we are expecting another baby this fall! And even more exciting (in my opinion at least) is that we are having a GIRL! I love my boys and really was happy for either, but now that I know i'm having a girl, I'm a lot more excited about it than I thought I would. This pregnancy has not been as easy as before. I feel like I'm 90 and between the pain and exhaustion I'm pretty sure I act like I'm 90 too :)
I'm going to post some pictures that I have saved on camera's/phones and maybe give another little glimpse of the last year of our life...and then, I'm going to make sure that I keep somewhat up to date from here on out :-) Once I finally got the computer back to the house (from the office) I have been avoiding the updating process because it seemed to daunting to even begin to catch up...but now I've decided something is better than nothing, and we'll just look forward from here.