Sarcastic Street Signs

By Kyle

I'm not sure when street signs became too boring to catch the public's attention. I started noticing sign after sign attempting a sarcastic or clever message somehow trying to guilt drivers into compliance with residential traffic laws.

I don't know what's sadder....that residents went through the trouble of conceptualizing these signs and getting them passed through local municipalities or that I took the time over several weeks to take pictures of each one.

The above picture should be prefaced by saying this sign is not located on a freeway.

One would think that they would illustrate a car running with a briefcase to work. The fine is for driving too fast...right?

Now, I've never seen a child on the road with the above sign as it's located just outside of a retirement community....maybe the message is idealistic. I apologize to those who may have lobbied for clever signs like this in their neighborhood...I just think it's funny.

A Big Deal

"Life doesn't always play out the way we plan it to" as someone famous probably said at some point.

Our life plan was the typical BYU-student family plan: marriage, job, and children. Marriage and job happened and we continued onto the third leg of the race with all that entails. After some time trying to get pregnant, we faced the music and took the sobering walk into the fertility clinic.

We felt many of the same feelings many couples do: disappointment, doubt, confusion and anxiety. We've weathered many of the strange and/or awkwardly forward social encounters with inquiries regarding our plans for children. We deflected and joked as we could, knowing there was no harm or offense in asking. However, the gravity of our potential future weighed heavier as time moved along.

With time, we've become accustomed to a life involving blood tests, varying medications, probes, needles, medical procedures and surgeries. Our medical stash resembles a hospital closet. Kyle could inject a shot with his eyes closed. We were getting very good at not getting pregnant.

With each negative result (and huge disappointment), we allowed ourselves a "sulking" day with a bag of Double Stuf Oreos and a big Mountain Dew. Life can be tough, but Oreos seem to be a pretty effective buffer. Stan's donuts work pretty well, too. Indian food just made us sad.

Resources and options were running low. With much contemplation and prayer, we decided to move forward with IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization). We put all of our trust in the medicines, our doctor, and God for this to work. With much effort and many prayers on our behalf, we fully embraced the procedure and it's potential outcome.

With the completion of an additional surgery, copious amounts of shots and the actual IVF procedures, we awaited the results.

We knew well what a negative pregnancy test looked like, so we didn't know how to react to the test results. Kyle broke the news that the test was negative. Because he'd never seen a positive sign, he didn't know how to recognize it when it actually appeared. We didn't believe it anyway until the blood work came back positive. WE'RE GONNA HAVE A BABY!!!!

Baby Sager - Due May 22, 2012

We feel so blessed for the answered prayers and this gift awaiting us a few months from now. It breaks our hearts to hear of other couples having to go through this struggle and extremely difficult process of trying to get pregnant. It has opened our eyes to the sensitive nature of the many struggles that families may pass through, in any stretch of life.

We want to thank our families and friends for all of the love and support they've extended to us. We're elated to share the good news we've been waiting so long for! We can't wait for our baby to arrive.