Everything Changes, Nothing Stays the Same..

I may be redundant by saying once again, “everything changes, nothing stays the same” but I can find nothing more fitting than these words to represent how this year has gone for the Mjoen household. This little phrase has so much meaning behind it. It’s grandma Trout’s motto. A woman that I would consider "The Most Interesting Woman", had she been on a Dos Equis commercial. It signifies that when you’re having a hard time and feel like your spirit is being severely beaten, that there will be an upside and it will be magnificent. It also reminds us to be humble. We may be having the time of our lives one moment, but to not let it go to our heads, there will be something that comes to test our character. How we decide to deal with those challenges or behave in our triumphs speaks to who we are, we are our own future holders in a sense. We can’t decide what happens to us in this world but we can always decide how to react with what comes our way. 2017 Has really thrown us a lot of changes. More triumphs than challenges, which we are so greatful for. Here's our quick list of 2017 happenings that were particularly significant to us.

Rowan Jean

January 19th 2017 is a very special date for our family. It is the date that Chelsey blessed the world with baby Rowan Jean! Kyle and I got to meet our first niece! She was so perfect that day (and still is), looking just like a doll.

It's been wonderful being able to watch this little girl grow up to almost a year old now. She is toddling all over and getting into anything she can find. This little Popeye is growing way too fast and we are so lucky to be able to watch her grow now that we live so close! Can't wait to see what the new year brings for her!

Florida Vacation

For our yearly vacation, we decided to go to Naples with my mom and Ryan! We had a great time relaxing at Ryan's family's place putting puzzles together and playing cards. There was an abundance of great sea food that we took full advantage of eating while we were down there.

We stopped at the Zoo in Naples and also met up with the best man from our wedding, Daniel. It was so nice to see him, it had been such a long time since we saw him last. We decided to fish a little with him off the pier and Danny ended up catching a pelican! The boys were able to get him free from the line and let him loose, no pelicans were harmed.

Kyle and I ventured off on our own one day and went on a fishing trip. It was amazing!  We caught "feeder" fish which were the biggest fish I had ever caught, until we started catching barracudas, and Goliath groupers. It's insane how big these fish get out in the ocean. Kyle and I will definitely be doing this again sometime.

Lastly, we took the ferry to Key West. We got to celebrate the sun set like they do every night in Key West, party it up, and eat more tasty sea food.

The Big Move

Last year we said we had plans in the making for a big change, we just didn't announce what. The secret is out though, we decided to sell our house in Eden Prairie (SAD!) and move out to a hobby farm (HAPPY!). It took a while to find what we wanted and where we really wanted to settle down. Did we want to live further from work AND family? Or did we want to just live further from work with the option to of course find new jobs closer to home and live closer to family. We found the perfect place. Never did we think we would move to a different state, but here we are living in River Falls, WI on a 12 acre hobby farm! We had loads of help from family to get us all moved in to our new home, we could not have done it without them! Family truly is the best.

We have officially been in our new home for six months and are still loving it. Our lives have changed for the better because of this place. There is a sense of home that I believe we were both seeking and not quite obtaining until now. There is nothing more peaceful than weekend mornings with the sun shining into the kitchen and seeing the barn in the background. At least for us anyway! We are still figuring out the property and assessing what needs to be done and what we want to do with it. Lucky for us, time is on our side as we don't plan on leaving this little farmhouse anytime soon.

We're Expecting!

Kyle and I are beyond thrilled to have announced our pregnancy this year. I'd like to say it all happened so fast, moving and then all of a sudden we are pregnant, but that is definitely not the case. We have been trying for five years to get to this point and it has been draining in so many ways.

You never think that infertility is something you would have to deal with until you are living it. It's incredibly sad to have month after month of not getting pregnant. Watching others you love having success and trying to be happy for them but deep down you are hurting that its not working for you too. Then having a month where you actually do get pregnant, but its ectopic and you have to end it. After our ectopic pregnancy, we had to take three months off to heal and have medication leave my body. During that wait we were selling/buying houses, dealing with job uncertainty and I'm sure other things.

Maybe it was the crazy amount of things going on in our lives at the time, or fate that things just fall in to place at the right time, or from so many people that told us they were praying for us, but Kyle and I got pregnant and found out shortly after moving into our little yellow house! It is surreal to be living this now, something we have been hoping to happen for so long and we are now in the home stretch. I've had people ask if all that pain is gone from all those years of trying, and of course they aren't. This doesn't wash away those feelings. Infertility changes you. It has definitely made us grateful for where we are in this moment and we are cherishing every moment pregnancy is giving us and cannot wait for Baby M who is due February 27, 2018!

Farm Life

We are thrilled to be living on a hobby farm! We know there are so many things to do but that's what we love about it.

Our first project was to get our yard under control. Lots of the yard was overgrown and needed to be cut and branches needed to be cut from trees. Kyle worked really hard this summer on those things, its a job that is never ending but he made a lot of progress and it looks so much nicer now! Dogs are loving the bigger yard and we are loving them have less ticks.

The barn now has a couple cats in it. Kyle thought it would be good to get a couple to hunt mice on the property. So, we now have Huck and Finn. They are good kitties. Now to just get the dogs used to cats living by them...

We put a roof on one of the buildings that needed it with the help of family! Now we can be less worried that it will fall down. Not sure what that building will be yet, but at least it has a roof now!

Kyle started working on the chicken coop. The roof is falling down and I kept hinting to him that I'd like it restored rather than tearing the poor thing down. So, Kyle, being the awesome husband he is, is learning how to build things and is fixing the coop! I can't wait for him to finish so we can have chickens! 

Disc Season

This disc season turned out to be a peculiar one, a bit of saddness but ended the year on a really high note. It started out like normal with Cedar doing her thing. Most of the season, Cedar played her heart out per usual and the boys went to cheer her on. She got 1st place in TimeWarp at an UpDog event, they also played at UpDif and we loved every moment of it. Kyle and Cedar really hit their stride at State Champs this year when they went out for their freestyle performance round and ROCKED it! They were having so much fun together and were really in sync. 

Later that year, Cedar started to have a limp in her rear left leg. We brought her in and they determined that she has a partial tear to her CCL, which is similar to a tear to a person's ACL. Not a wonderful thing to happen. It means lots of rest and no playing, no running, no Cedar things. She has been on rest since her diagnosis and at the beginning of next year will have a check up to see how she is healing. 

The year ended with Birch proving he can be a disc dog too! Birch and I have been working on engagement. He has disc drive but struggles with staying engaged in distracting/stressful environments. Something clicked in our training and he started to have an intensity to him that he didn't have before. We started bringing him to a few toss and fetch games and he was doing well in that, then he even got to participate in State Champs with Kyle and did amazing at FarOut! Who knew Birch would rock at long distance rollers! And.... Who knew Atom discs could roll that far! 

ChillyDog was coming up and I had gifted Kyle the sign up fees for ChillyDog to play with Cedar. Shortly after registering, Cedar had gotten hurt so plans changed and we decided we should still go because we love ChillyDog and all the people that go. So we changed our registration and had Kyle gamble with playing with Birch. This was asking a lot of Birch because there were a lot of games over the course of three days. He had never played that many times in a short span ever even with him showing improvement in his engagement. Team "99ProblemsButABirchAin'tOne" started off iffy but managed to pull off getting third place in FarOut and continued to improve as the weekend went on! It was amazing to see Birch come into his own with disc and prove that he can do this! 

Our 2017 was eventful, and mostly good to us. Lots changed for us this year and there will be many more in 2018. We will take on those changes good or bad and try to enjoy them or learn from them. 2018 is going to be a good year for the Mjoen household. I can just feel it!

Here's a snippet of our year... See you in 2018!!