Food Obsessed

You know how each anniversary has its designation:  gold, paper etc.

This birthday, clearly is the food birthday.

Don't believe me?

Let's see, I started the morning off with Reese surprising us all with

homemade Blueberry Pancakes.

She had forgotten that two of my girlfriends were taking me out for

breakfast.

 The afternoon was gobbled up (like that food reference?)

with taking the pups to the vet for follow-ups, a

shopping spree at the grocery store (more food)

and then dinner out with my 98-year-old grandmother...

 my sweet mother-in-law...

 and my wonderful parents.

Byron and the kids came too.

I don't know how we missed getting pictures of them.

But trust me, I need to be rolled up the stairs and into bed.

I'm stuffed.

Oh, and feeling well loved.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes.

I have the best group of friends.

The "Sorta" Test Results

I've had so many of you ask if we got the results from Kean's

testing on his seizures.

Well, kinda.

We don't meet with the Neurologist for a few more weeks

but Kean's pediatrician called on Friday to say while he hasn't

gotten the official report, he did not see anything scary.

However,  (and geez, doesn't there always have to be a however with 

this kid), the sleep study showed his heart stopped several times

during the night for short durations (over 2 seconds is all I know).

So guess what?!?!

We now get to add another new doctor to our stable.

Lucky us.

We are hoping it is no big deal.  But for a kid

with his health history, we don't get to skate.

Kean's new Cardiologist ordered a heart monitor harness

for 24 hours- Monday onto Tuesday.

That's Nicholle, Kean's therapist helping

me hold him down so the technician can
put the sensors in the right spots.

 Surprisingly, it wasn't too much of a battle.

And he didn't fight it quite as much as I expected

at home.

The night was a bit rough (he woke up several times

to tell me "off").

But we completed the test without having to re-attach

any of the sensors.  So that's definitely a win-win

in my book.

We turned it all back into the hospital yesterday.

And now we all wait.

We see his new Cardiologist on January 12th.

Stay tuned.

The fun sure never ends, does it!

As Good As It Gets

I have long since given up trying to get Christmas Cards out in the mail.

(Thank you to all of you who do send them to us, we LOVE them).

Our cute neighbor cornered us into taking a few "snaps" one Sunday afternoon in our yard.

So this will have to do for our holiday greetings.

Happy holidays.  How grateful we are for each of you,

for your examples of kindness, goodness and friendship.

And how thankful we are for a Savior who loves

us unconditionally.

May 2017 bring health and happiness to all of us.

Land of the Shining Mountains

Nothing like blogging about our family vacation nearly two months after the fact!

It may not be timely but we sure had a phenomenal trip.

We went with our close friends, the Borup's to Montana.

We visited the old farm where Byron grew up...

 We spent time with his mom, Grandma Kay

and some dear friends, the Morgan's.

 We strolled the quaint streets of Byron's hometown, Big Fork.

 And then headed up into Glacier Park for a couple of days.

 We all had fun taking family pics with the stunning scenery

behind us in every picture.

The Borup's were so much fun to be with 

and get this, they still are our friends after spending that 

many days with us in our camp trailer!!!

 We hiked up about half way to where Byron was chased

by a grizzly bear years ago.  If you haven't

heard his crazy story, you should.  That bear had him

and for some reason, let him go.

 We also oohed and awed over

some of the sites.  It was so pretty, it

almost looked fake.

 We walked the shores of the lake in the rain.

But that didn't stop us from spending a good half hour

seeing who could skip rocks the farthest.

 This boy.

He loved, loved being outside

and got a good work out nearly every day.

 We love visiting Glacier in the fall...

 Even though several of the hotels and lodges are closed,

it is as if we have the whole park nearly to ourselves.

 And there is a picture perfect picture to take

nearly everywhere you turn.

 Outside the park, we visited White Fish Lake...

gorgeous.

 Swan Lake...

gorgeous.

 And Holland Lake.

Yep, that's right.

Holland has her own personal lake.

Or at least she thinks so.

 And yes...

gorgeous.

We love Montana.

In fact, I think, Byron would move back in a minute.

Uh, not gonna happen.

I'd be the first white cross on the side of the road...

Too cold.

Gorgeous but too cold.

Repeat After Me: Trick or Treat!

What a fun night we had tonight.

You can't tell from this picture but we really did dress Kean up for Halloween.

Our first stop?  The Bodily's and before I could even get up to the house,

Kean had stripped off his monkey suit, walked into the "Gobily's" house

and started pounding down the candy.

Only problem is he forgot to take off the brown paper

around his Reese's Peanut Butter Cup-- and ate it too.

(Fiber, right?)

 It sure didn't take long for Kean to catch 

on to the fact he could get a treat at every house.

He quickly learned to say "Trick or Treat" and "thank you".

It did take him forever to catch on that he needed to keep

his costume on!

 In fact, at our neighbor, Gina Kwid's house the ol' costume came right off.

 And while he, yep, ate another piece of candy, I did

get a picture of these cute girls-- H, G, and R and their friends.

 We always spend the first hour or so of the night visiting

a handful of our dear neighbors and friends.

We love that tradition.

You'd think with the slower start it would cut down on the candy grab--

unfortunately (in my book but not the kids), that's not the case.

They get especially spoiled and come home with more candy

than should be legal for a child to have!

Our Hospital Reward

Today was one of those days where if I let myself, I'd mow my fingernails

down to nothing.

We had Kean's cancer screenings.

And even though we are now just over a year out, it still scares

the spit out of me to have to wait for his results.

Kean, of course, wasn't nervous one bit.

In fact, he fell asleep in the car and snoozed through

much of our wait to start the tests.

 It was kind of rude of us to wake him up just in time to 

stick a needle in his arm for blood samples.

But he was a trooper.

If anything, he had a harder time holding still for vitals.

That is, until we gave him a little dog to put the blood pressure

cuff onto.  He liked that.

 The clinic was getting used to a new computer system

so we had an extra amount of waiting.

Kean just decided to look cute while we waited.

 He kind of gets me with that toothless smile.

And all the waiting sure paid off. 

 Kean's counts are getting better and better

with each month.

In fact, drum roll please... we now only

have to go into the hospital for testing

every THREE months.

Christmas came a little early for this mama.

Lucky Ducks

For those of you who don't live in Idaho-- I feel sorry for ya.

It takes us just over an hour to get up to some of our favorite spots in the mountains-

we love to go up and relax around Lake Cascade.

Not too far from there is this fabulous little hot springs

and on this crisp morning, we had it all to ourselves.

 On a few occasions, we've hiked in to find a few

naked folks.

No problem-- we just tell the kids to look the other

way when they get out.

 It is such a lovely setting, Holland and Reese

asked for a photo shoot.

 Of course, Byron and I had to do our own version.

 Sunday after church, we took a family hike.

 Bryon and I each took one of Kean's hands and he even hiked

up quite a ways until it got too steep.  Good therapy, eh?

Holland found these formations that looked like giant toes sticking out.

We sure love where we live.

Actually, we've loved everywhere we've lived.

We are pretty lucky that way.

The Huge Highs and the Little Lows

It is funny, I used to be so good about making near daily

posts on this blog.  Now that Kean is finished with treatment

(and hopefully cancer forever) I'm lucky if I check in once a week.

So here goes:  our week in review-- and what a week it has been.

We had a church/neighborhood Rodeo-- the real thing.

From 3 legged races...

 to jump houses that Kean didn't ever want to leave...

 to massive egg toss competitions (come now, doesn't every

rodeo have an egg toss)?

 The highlight had to be the pig chase--

yep, picture 100 kids madly chasing after a good sized

hefty, squealing pig with fifty bucks taped to its hind leg.  And they

did it twice with two different pigs!

Byron and I even ran into an old friend from our single days in Arizona-

Maurice Matsumori. 

 Kean had a ball.... riding horses...

and deciding after all that Cotton Candy is a good thing.

 I cursed him by telling everyone how well he's been doing.

The next night, we spent most of the night in the E.R.

 Poor boy got a double whammy-

Croup and Stridor-- both respiratory issues.

He's fine now, thankfully.

 Greer and I spent much of Saturday at the Music Theater of Idaho's offices

building a bathtub as part of the set for The Little Mermaid.

Then we raced home, scraped the paint off of our hands and arms

and did our best to clean up.

Our family was invited to the big Make A Wish gala event.

 It was in the Stueckle Sky Building-overlooking

BSU's football stadium.

The views were stunning of our fair city (and

Greer looked just as stunning-- so grown up)!

 My mom kept Kean and brought him up later

for the program.  I was the keynote.

But we had a blast leading up to the dinner.

The attendees all buy "wish bucks"-- think monopoly money

they pass out to BSU athletes who pull off the craziest antics

to earn money.

 They have players from all the big sports teams at BSU and

they compete to see which team can earn the most.

This guy was from the wrestling team.  He showed off

a talent only a mother could be proud of-- he drank down a

water bottle through his nose.

Ick.

 The football team sang and danced...

 Reese's favorite was the gymnastics team--

they did back flips, cartwheels and all kinds of

bendy things down the hallway.

 Holland was adopted by the Track and Field team

(she runs track for Eagle High)...

 And this tennis player serenaded the family in French.

 In fact, I think we had every team do something for our family

What a fun and crazy night.

All of a sudden, the BSU marching band came streaming out

of the elevators- playing their fight songs full blast.

They literally pushed everyone into the room for dinner to be served.

 Once inside, some of the coaches spoke, we had more

players do some pretty crazy things

and we had a lovely dinner.

 Well, the little bit I ate tasted fine.

I can't eat a ton and then get up and speak.

Suffice it to say, the speech went well, there were tears

in the audience and most importantly, people gave generously

to Make A Wish when all the talking was done.

 We treasured our trip to Disney World, Universal and Sea World.

Looking forward to it kept us going for those three plus dark

years of Chemo, surgical procedures, vomit and hair loss.

And now, we have those memories-- and what amazing memories they are--

to always fall back on.

Thank you Make A Wish for an incredible evening and

a trip of a life time.