Happy To Be Alive

Author: mommygnat /

Just when things are at their best, something knocks you on your ASS!  One week ago I (Justin) was enjoying the life of a 4th year medical student, light work hours, no one really cares what your doing, basically senioritis to the maxium.  I was half way through my rural rotation that had required me to drive to Truckee CA everyday and then ..... Feb 23rd.  I was the passenger in a Mazda SUV with the doctor I was working with and his nurse, on our way back from a long day of seeing patients in Quincy CA when the driver of our vehicle lost control in the snow and smacked head on to a car coming the oppisite way.  For me it was if everything was in slow motion ...  It was if I knew we were going to hit the oncoming car for an eternity ... I braced for the impact and then .... POW.  The next thing I knew I was looking at my right foot, searing in pain, pointing in a way I did not think was physically possible.   I took off my seatbelt and swung my legs out the door to try and get a better look at what was happening.  My right ankle was without a doubt broken, but nothing else had really set in yet.  I looked at in the dark night at the road we had just slid down moments before, thinking to myself this is bad.  Moments later the doctor who escaped unharmed came around to my door, and reduced and relocated my dislocated and broken ankle before moving on to check out the driver.  After what seemed like an eternity of sitting there, I saw headlights moving fast down the hill, and something told me that I needed to move.  Somehow I managed to get up (a task that I had tried and was unsucessful at several times before) and run to the side of the road just as the third car smashed into the car where I had previously been sitting.  I am still uncertain exactly how it happened but I had made it out of the way.  As I sat in the snow on the side of the road my body begain to shake violently from cold and shock.  First aid finally arrived and with a great deal of help got me onto a back board and into the ambulance on the way to the hospital.  While lying in the ambulance I was given a phone to call Natalie, ring ring, ring ring.... oh you guessed it she did not answer.  After at least 5 attempts I gave up and call Russ and asked him to get ahold of her.  I was taken to Truckee Forest hospital where Iwas pocked and prodded and imaged every possible way.  The diagnosis, besides my severely broken ankle, I had lacerated my spleen, I had ruptured my pec away from my breast bone, I ruptured my abdominal wall muscles off of my pelvis and fractured a few spinal process off my lumbar vertebrae.  After spending one night in the ICU in Truckee I was transported down to Reno where they fixed my ankle.  I finally made it home Monday night.  Now for the long recovery.  I will be non weight bearing on my right ankle for 6 weeks.  Uhhhhhhhh.....

Freaking Frightful October

Author: mommygnat /



Well here I am finally posting my first blog.  Justin's been doing it for me.  He set everything up, he's such a good wife.  Now all I have to do is sit my fat "A" down and blog about our exhilerating life and bore everyone with the dorky things my kids do.  All right hold on to your hats and glasses cause this here's gonna be the wildest blog in the wilderness!! This month was Cozette's 8th birthday.  We gave her the option of having a birthday party or a Nintendo DSI, as you can see she chose the DSI.  For that I am eternally grateful to her because I find doing birthday parties to be utterly annoying.  Happy Birthday Cozy!!






 Here's Cozette modeling her baptism dress that her Grandma and Grandpa Terry bought her.  She absolutely loves it and insists on wearing it every week to church. 
















 Our two little princesses, and boy do they play the parts well.







 I know what your thinking, that's an enormous pumpkin Nick's carving, but actually the pumpkins devouring him.  It was touch and go there for a while but finally we got the pumpkin to let go of his harm, all we had to do was carve his mouth shut. 



Claire's blessing day.  She looks cute.  The flower on her head's almost as big as her.  Nothin says stylin like sportin a ginormous artificial flower on your head.  She was absolutely perfect during the blessing and if you've met Claire you know thats a miracle.  In the blessing circle my dad said they were rocking her so hard up and down that they thought she'd fly onto the Bishop's lap 20 ft. away.  Apparently no one person was holding her it was a group effort so once they were done she should've just fallen.  I don't know about those Priesthood holders... Fortunately everything worked out and Justin's blessing was beautiful.

Claire Madeleine Terry

Author: mommygnat /

After several trips to labor and delivery, including one at 5 30 AM only to be sent home, Claire finally arrived at 12:53PM on August 20, 2009. She weighed in at 8lbs even and was 20 inches long. She is a blessing in our lives, even though she has a little bit of a temper (she gets that from her mom). I ve been told she looks like me but I will let you decide. PS: Check out the videos at the bottom of the page


















10 days until Justin returns from Sin City!!!