Spring time and Summer (part 1)

The Summer of 2013

I am terrible at keeping a blog but here's our summer of 2013 of the things we went out and did!

Well of course you can't start off any summer without going to the local town traveling carnival or "the rides" as McKaty calls them.  The carnival comes through our town every year when school gets out and we always get a few free tickets to let McKaty and Kenna go on the rides.  This year though McKaty was really fun as well as Kenna but at least McKaty showed a little more expression on her face as she rode some of the rides....last year she just had this expressionless face and it was pretty funny and I wish I got a picture of it but oh well here's some pictures of this year at the carnival.

McKaty's favorite ride was the roller coaster or "the train" as she called it and Kenna loved riding the merry go round.

We then took a couple of trips!  First we went to the zoo up in Salt Lake and had a blast.  McKaty was way more fun to take this year because she actually enjoyed looking at the animals and could actually walk around by herself.  Kenna was also fun but obviously we had to push her in the stroller so we had to keep weaving in and out of people with that and park it anytime we wanted to go into a building.  They both loved seeing the elephants, giraffes, and monkeys.  McKaty got a little nervous because we walked by the ape exhibit where the glass windows are and there was an ape sitting there eating right next to the window and when McKaty walked up to the window the ape turned and stared at her haha it was funny.  We all also enjoyed the polar bears because they were showing off and doing fun tricks too in their exhibit!

We then took a trip down to Mesquite and stopped at Zions on the way down with some of Duke's family.  We found out that McKaty is quite the hiker!  She cruised up the trail that we were hiking like it was no big deal and she loved it.  Kenna really enjoyed the hike too and really enjoyed the ride in the hiking backpack that we borrowed as well.  After Zions we traveled on down to Mesquite where we enjoyed relaxing, swimming and just being with family.  McKaty and Kenna really enjoyed the arcade that we took them to and Duke and I even tried our hand at the slot machines.  We didn't win anything though haha.

A few weeks later after all that fun we took a little trip to Capitol Reef which is like an hour away from us.  We hiked a little trail and the girls had fun especially by the little stream that ran along the trail for a ways.  Kenna had to actually hike this time because we didn't have a hiking backpack but she did just fine!

Then after our trips we stayed home for a while.  I started up my horse riding business on top of the horse lessons and Duke started up the concessions at the park and we both got ready for the tournaments of the summer.  I signed up for a race called the Dirty Dash along with the Liberty 5k and had a ton of fun with those...especially the Dirty Dash.  It's an obstacle race in the mud and I rand with my cousin, her husband, and friend and we got dirty and laughed the whole way...I will definatly be doing that race again!  The Liberty 5k was also fun but humid and I almost died!  Of course though I finished the race and will also be doing that again in the future.  Oh and also with the Dirty Dash I went up the night before and stayed with my friend Lauren and we had fun hanging out like old days and shared many laughs when we went rollar skating and tried on funny glasses at Walgreens for like a half hour haha.

Of course we went to the 4th of July parade and had fun there.  Again I was with Lauren and her family and we had fun watching the floats and McKaty and Kenna had fun picking up the candy that was thrown out.  It took like a whole month or so for that candy to get eaten though and that was with Duke's help! 

Probably on of the funnest things that we did with just McKaty was taking her to her first rodeos.  We got a special box seat at the Ute Stampede and that was a lot of fun because McKaty got to watch everything up close and could also move around.  It was nice for Duke and I because we had nice soft seats to watch the rodeo from.  McKaty's favorite part was when the rodeo royalty came out or the "princesses" as she called them and rode around.  A few weeks after the Ute Stampede we headed up to the Spanish Fork rodeo with McKaty and some friends.  The seats weren't as good but it was still fun to go watch that rodeo and in the end we went over and sat with my uncle because he had better seats than us but we definately got spoiled at the Ute Stampede with the nice box seats but non the less it was still a lot of fun!

The pictures aren't in order but they're still fun to look at!

Also this summer we got some new animals!  I got myself a new horse...a 5 year old gelding who I renamed Ranger and we also got some new kittens, Starsky and Smee.  I had Starsky's brother Hutch but Hutch ran away so I got Smee from my neighbor.  We also finally got a bunny named Bulls-eye.  They're all great! Ranger is a great trail horse who I can put anybody on and be confident that they'll ride him easily, Bulls-eye is fun to watch and a good sport with everyone and the two kittens are great sports with McKaty who likes to tote them around like their her purses.  Of course it's getting harder now because they're getting bigger but she still likes to hold them...especially Smee.

Oh and Smee is the black kitten and Starsky is the striped one!

Well that sum's up at least spring and the first part of the summer!  I'll get the rest of the pictures on and do summer part 2 hopefully here soon!

The Dance Family

Welcome to the Dance Family blog!  

Duke and I met at Snow College in the spring of 2008.  From then on we were pretty much inseprable!  Duke is from Wyoming and is the 4th child out of 7 and I am a native of Utah and I am the youngest of 6.  Duke and I got married in the Manti Temple on August 16, 2008 and we lived in Ephraim in a little tiny apartment and went to school and worked at our jobs.  Duke worked for a company called EcoLife and did pest control and lawn care and I was a lifeguard at the pool and also a swim teacher and the Assistant Swim Coach then head Swim coach.  I got pregnant in the summer of 2009 and we had our first child on February 9, 2010 in Provo, Utah.  We named her McKaty Day Dance and we have had a lot of fun raising her...even on the bad days :).  We moved to Glenwood in the summber of 2010 and have been here ever since and the following summer I got pregnant with our 2nd child and she was then born on March 23, 2012.  We named her Kenna DeLila Dance and she is a hoot!

Duke Arden Dance and Carrie Warner Dance

As mentioned above we met in Ephraim in the spring of 2008 but here's the story!  Duke moved down to Ephraim about 6 weeks after he got home from his mission and moved into an apartment full of guys that I hung out with all the time.  He was a little shy at first and I was a little rough around the edges.  However he became less shy and I started to enjoy the little things he did for me and we started dating.  The first time I fell in love with him was when we went to Star Valley for the first time for his little brother's baptism and I just knew that marrying him was the right thing.  We then got engaged shortly afterwards where he proposed to me at the Rexburg Temple and six weeks later we were married in the Manti temple.  From there it's pretty much happily ever after and today we have been married for four and a half years and love each other very much.  Duke has a successful career at the radio station here in town where he is a radio co-host on the morning show and also does sales, sports, and whatever else that needs to be done at the station along with finishing up his Bachelors degree in Business.  He also sells concessions at the local baseball park during the summer and I help him with that as well.  I have chosen to stay at home and raise our two girls but on the side I also teach horse lessons and in the fall I am hoping to go to school to become a Personal Trainer along with a Nutritionist, Youth Exercise Specialist, and a Womens Exercise Specialist.  We love working hard and we are very grateful for all that we have and that we are able to work hard for everything we have and we also love our Heavenly Father and know that without Him we wouldn't be as successful as we are today!

McKaty Day Dance:

This is McKaty about a week after she was born.  When she was born she weighed a whoping 4 lbs. 12 oz. and was 17 and a half inches long.  When we took her home she weighed 4 lbs. 6 oz. and still have no idea where she lost 6 ounces from!  The night she was born was sure an exciting and scary one!  It started out with me going to a doctors appointment on a Monday and my doctor telling me that I had really high blood pressure that hadn't been going down.  My blood pressure had spiked about 4 months before but it went down but it now wasn't going down so my doctor set up an appointment for me to go to the hospital in Mt. Pleasant for a stress test.  We went in for the test at about 5:00 expecting to only be there for no more than an hour.  They hooked me up and got me going and took my blood pressure again which was scary high apparantly so they gave me some medication to try and get it down.  About an hour later they checked my blood pressure again and it still wasn't down so they took me in for an ultra-sound to see how McKaty was doing and everything.  As soon as they were done with that they put me in a delivery room telling me that I might be having a baby that night.  By this time it was about 8 or 9 pm and I was starting to feel a little nervous.  The nurses got me hooked up to an IV and what not and checked my blood pressure again which was still scary high.  A little while later a nurse told me that I was going to have to go up to Utah Valley University Hospital in Provo because my preclampsia was so bad and she was waiting for my doctor to tell me if I was going by ambulence or life flight.  Life flight?!?!  Needless to say I was freaked out but strangely calm at the same time.  I ended up going up to Provo by ambulence and when we got there the crew that was pushing me around got lost because apparantly they weren't used to going to the maternity ward haha.  Anyway we finally find the maternity ward and I'm told that I'm going to have a C-section.  WHAT?!? I DID NOT want a c-section at all!  So now I'm all scared that they're gonna cut into me before I'm numb but the anastheologist told me that they were checking my blood platlet levels to see whether or not they would have to put me to sleep or not.  Next thing I know I have 2 anathesologists trying to get some sort of IV into my arm but they're trying to do it at the same time because apparantly I'm dieing and they have to go fast...well it HURT! I seriously freak out now because it feels like they're putting hot huge needles into my arms and they're not getting the IV or whatever into where it needs to be so they have to keep trying.  I scream that I hate them because it hurts so bad and one of the anathesologists gets mad at me and starts yelling at me.  They finally get whatever it was in and take me into surgery where I have to get put to sleep.  I had some comfort seeing my Uncle there who was assiting in the delivery but I was still scared.  All turned out well though and McKaty was born at 2:02 in the morning on February 9, 2010. 

The weeks after McKaty was born were rough! Not only was she so tiny and had to eat like all the time but I was working on transitioning from a free life to a stay at home mom, guilty feelings from not being awake for her birth, recovering from a c-section, and all the other things that come with a new baby.  In fact I wanted to put her up for adoption because I felt so young and inadequate to raise this child! Horrible I know but that's how I felt!  Obviously I stuck it out and today she is a spunky 3 year old who loves to watch movies, dance, play outside, ride horses, and basically do anything!

Kenna DeLila Dance:

Oh our little Kenna!  We call her Kenna bug and she is one busy busy child!  Her delivery story was also quite the adventure also although not as adventursome as McKaty's!  Kenna was born on March 23, 2012 and she weighed in at 8 lbs. 5 oz. and was 20 inches long.  I basically know what it's like to have a teeny tiny baby to a bigger baby.  The day she was born was interesting because I was I wanted to have a VBAC with her and in order to do that I had to go to a bigger hospital.  So I was staying at my Uncle's house who was 10 min. away from the hospital in Payson and my mom stayed at the house with me.  I remember waking up at like 3 am having to go to the bathroom because I was leaking.  I was sooooo annoyed because I just wanted to sleep!  I had no idea that my water had broke because I didn't go through labor with McKaty so I'm dripping this liquid that's dark and I can't stop it.  This goes on for a bit then I start having cramps and I'm sitting there and it hits me "oh I might be in labor!" So I call the labor and delivery at the hospital and they have me come on in.  I wake up my mom and get McKaty up and we head out to the car and just at the right moment McKaty tells me she's all wet and needs her diaper changed.  Ugh!  So since I'm quite uncomfortable I just change her there in my Uncle's garage and off we go!  I get checked in and I call Duke (since he had to stay home and work) and tell him what's going on and he starts heading up to Payson with my dad. Since he works at the radio station all of central utah knew I was in labor because his co-host kept them updated throughout their show :).  About an hour or so after I get to the hospital I get an epidural because I had to have one since I had a c-section with McKaty and let me tell you I am a fan of the epidural!  After that epidural got going I was fine throughout the rest of the day and finally in the late afternoon my doctor tells me that it's time to start pushing and Kenna was born at 4:02 pm and was the cutest pudgy thing I'd ever seen!  I was crying because it was such a wonderful moment and I was awake this time to witness her birth and also because she had to be taken right to the nursery because she had miconium and had to get on anti-biotics right away.  Anyway they get me all taken care of and tell me I can see Kenna a little bit later. So I'm gathering myself together and they bring me dinner and I'm like starving!  So I start eating and I just don't feel as hungry as I thought I was so I don't finish the food.  Duke left with my parents to get dinner so I'm sitting there watching TV and all of a sudden I'm way lightheaded and the blood pressure machine keeps beeping.  So I lay the bed down thinking that will help.  That didn't help and I'm just sick and barely with it so I call the nurse and they come in and can't figure out what's wrong so they call in the doctor and then the next thing I know my room is full of nurses and the doctor is just pushing on my stomach and what not and I just freeze and freak out!  They tell me I'm hemorraging and that I might need a blood transfusion and that really scares me because it takes me back to the night McKaty was born and those 2 anathesiologists doing whatever to my arms that night.  My doctor though was so AMAZING!  He stayed calm and talked me through everything and got me all better right as Duke came back.  They had pumped me full of pitosin and by this time it was like 8 or 9 at night and I was one upset momma!  I was snapping at everyone and unknown to me I has swelled up like a marshmellow! Finally at 10 that night I got to go see Kenna and was told everything that was going on with her.  I stayed with her until midnight then I had to go to bed.  I was given a sleeping pill and the next day went much better!

Bringing Kenna home was also a hard adjustment because I couldn't sleep when she did because I had McKaty and I was having to take care of 2 kids!  However the recovery was much better because like 3 days later I was riding the 4-wheeler.  I did have to go on anti-depressants about 5 months after Kenna was born and after I went on those everything got much better.  I love Kenna and she is so much fun!  She loves playing with McKaty, helping me with chores, and pretty much loves to be involoved in anything and everything we do!  I love her red hair and her personality that goes with it :).

So that's our family! Thanks for taking time and reading if you've made it this far! Below I put a bit of a picture timeline of our lives!

Welcome to our family!