March is a HUGE month for us!!!

March is probably the biggest month for our little family in a LONG time!! We are kind of on emotional and physical overload trying to take everything that is happening in our life in right now!!

FIRST THINGS FIRST…

Zach is FINALLY getting ready to launch his product he has been working on for a couple of years on Kickstarter TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I wrote all about what Kickstarter is and a short description about his product on this post.

Preparing for this launch has been SOOOO much work!!! As we are getting close the emotions are pretty much on a rollercoaster ride right now. One second we are SOOO excited and pumped, the next second we are scared and stressed out of our minds!! When you put SOOO much time, thought, passion, money, work, and effort behind something it becomes VERY personal to you! Not only do you want it to be successful to recoop what you have put in…but you want it to be successful because you care SO much about it!!

 

Watching our preview of the video for the first time!!! Can't even tell you how many hours went into this!! Writing the script for this I thought Zach and I were going to kill each other! ;)

For Zach and our family this is more then just a fun idea/product that we hope people like and if not it’s no big deal! For Zach and our family this is EVERYTHING!!! He has made his landscaping company continue to work for us (as crazy as being a blind landscaper sounds and is) because he is a go getter, the HARDEST worker, and mostly because he had to to keep our family afloat and that is the only way he knew how at the time! When most people would have given up and said I can’t do it I’m blind…he didn’t! He got up bright and early, he humbly let his wife and kid (kids now) take him to bids, went out in the hot sun and dug those trenches as hard as it was and as humbling as it was because he is a good man who LOVES his family and wasn’t going to let us down!! His work was and still is PERFECTION!!

Waiting for daddy in the truck while he is at a bid! As hard as “living” in the truck is during the spring/summer…it does make for some pretty sweet memories!


The Lord has truly blessed him and has been VERY mindful of him and our family in helping him to continually have work and make things work out for him!! But for those of you who have followed my blog you know…this is not what he wants to keep doing forever! Although he is VERY good at what he does and will continue to do it until he has to…it is definitely not ideal and definitely not a lifetime career. Zach’s mind is naturally a thinker! Product development is in his blood!! This guy’s mind NEVER shuts off!! Getting his posthole digger licensed 10 months ago was a HUGE confidence booster for him…knowing that his own idea was validated by a big company game him the confidence to keep developing!

Zach at the hardware show in Vegas (March 2013) where he met the company that licensed his post-hole digger!


We are hoping this new product (The Germavoid Clean Touch) is hopefully the one that will take his product development ideas and turn them into a new career! He has more ideas after this but he can only spend so much time and money on them without getting anything back in return! We are launching this product on Kickstarter because the molds that he needs just to make this product are around $50,000. We have already put up a lot of our own money to get it this far but there is only so much we can put upfront on our own. Kickstarter helps take the huge risk out of things for entrepreneurs like him and helps you presale so you have the funding to keep going!! Zach has done his homework and is continually working to make this product a success but if this Kickstarter campaign doesn’t go well then his dreams will be crushed!! This is where the fear comes in!

But this quote about sums it up!!


We honestly feel that we have done EVERYTHING that we could to the best of our ability to prepare for this Kickstarter campaign and are just praying that the Lord will continue to guide us and help us the rest of the way!! The hardest part once we launch is just SPREADING, SPREADING, and SPREADING the word!! In order to get enough backers to buy the product people have to KNOW about the product. In order to do that we need people to spread it like wildfire so that it can reach people across the globe! We have gotten AMAZING feedback from the people that have previewed our Kickstarter video and product! We KNOW it is a good product that SOOOO many people will love and want but it is a BRAND NEW product…nothing like it on the market! So we not only have the job to educate people about it by getting them to watch our short AND funny video…but we have to first get it into people’s hands so that they even have the chance to learn about it and then buy it!!! So I am not just asking right now, I am begging EVERYONE that reads this post to first check out our Kickstarter page (which I will post the link to in the morning…aaaaahhh!) and see what we have been so passionately working on…if you like it, back it! If not no sweat…we won’t hold it against you! ;) SECOND, PLEASE SHARE, SHARE, SHARE it with EVERYONE you know and ask them to share it too!! Use social media, email, snail mail, whatever you got…just share!!! ;) This is the ONLY way we can ensure that we have THE BEST and fairest shot possible to have a successful campaign. We only have 30 days to reach our $50,000 goal!! So this is HUGE!!! Set your alarms for Tuesday, March 17th 9 a.m when The GERMAVOID Clean Touch goes LIVE!!!!!! We need ALL the help we can get!!! My SINCEREST thank you’s to ANYONE in advance that helps us with this…TRULY!!!!


SECOND…


They broke ground on our house this week!!!!

I have never been so happy to look at dirt!!


We are FINALLY getting closer to having our ONE LEVEL home!!! For those of you not from Utah…one level homes are a rare thing around here! Most homes have stairs galore just to get into the front or garage door! When we sold our house we looked and looked for a home already built but there was nothing that looked accommodating enough in a spot we liked so we decided to take on the challenge of building. We had a lot of ideas of what we wanted to make life easiest with Dakota so we decided to draw up our own! Zach (the blind one) spent hours drawing them up just right. This is what took us the longest…just trying to get them to be the best possible layout for Dakota without making the house too big and unaffordable for us.

It has been such a long process leading up to this point, it started to feel like our house was just something we talked about but was NEVER going to happen! This little basement rental started to feel like our forever home!! So to finally see a hole in the ground makes it all real again and SOOOO exciting! I am already dreaming and envisioning wheeling Dakota right into the house instead of carrying his 40 awkward pounds down stairs in the dark. Wheeling him into his walk in shower instead of bending over our bathtub breaking our backs trying to lift his slippery, heavy body out!! It sounds MAGICAL!!! We know we have a LONG physically challenging life caring for Dakota so to make things as convenient and easy to do these things for him is worth EVERY penny!! He is worth it all!!!


THIRD…

On the exact same day we broke ground on our house we got our new car for Dakota!! It is a long story but through some insurance money we were able to get a brand new SUV that has a special seat that can literally come out of the car and onto the ground to put him in, instead of lifting him up and sideways trying to get him awkwardly into his carseat!! This is a HUGE tender mercy from the Lord that this BIGGEST and most SUPRISING blessing came to us!! We weren’t expecting it or planning on it but it testifies SO clearly that the Lord is aware of each one of us…He knows our needs…and at times we have NO idea how we are going to do things or make things work…and He steps in and makes it happen EVERY time!! I still honestly can’t believe it every time I get into drive it! We could NEVER have afforded a brand new SUV on our own!! Our hearts are FILLED to the max with gratitude!!

We are waiting for the seat to get done to get it installed but I will post a video of Dakota man in it when it comes!! ;)

Now you can see why March is so huge for us!! These are 3 huge life-changing events all wrapped up into one month! We are feeling SO very blessed right!! A few years ago, there were SOOOO many fears about the future, so many doubts that the Lord was even aware of us and what we were facing, so much despair at the losses we faced, so much insecurity about how we would manage and what we were going to do with a blind husband/father and a brain injured son! The future looked dark, lonely, and scary!!!

This quote sums it all up

Today I can tell you I KNOW with ALL of my heart the Lord was and IS with us EVERY step of this dark and difficult road!! He not only listened to our MILLIONS of pleas for help…he step by step guided, taught, and blessed us through each day!! Even when I couldn’t feel him near I KNOW he was there!! 4.5 years later…Zach is still blind and Dakota is still brain injured (despite the hundreds of prayers that we pleaded for miracles of healing) BUT the load on our shoulders is lighter and brighter then it has EVER been and the miracles came..not in the way we had wanted or hoped… but in a way that WE needed…in our hearts!!!

The person I am today is a MUCH better person then I was! My heart is FOREVER changed…it is FILLED with love and compassion for my fellow travelers like never before. My eyes and Zach’s (although still blind) see much clearer the things that matter and mean the most! My relationships with my family/friends and even more importantly with my Savior are stronger, closer, and more sincere then ever before!!

I testify with ALL my heart these trials, these unanswered prayers have been the GREATEST blessings in our life!!

These 3 mean the world to me!!!