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.

La Goon's

Why do I feel like I need a vacation to recover from a vacation?

Probably because I wrestled the kids without Byron.

He stayed home while I took the crew to Utah for the weekend.

First stop?  Lagoon Amusement Park.

 The girls took off and hit some of the "bigger kid" rides

while Kean and I hit a bunch of the small fry options.

Reese was a good sport and joined up with us to ride with

Kean on many of the rides I could barely get my long legs in to!

 And then, bless their sweet souls, were my nieces, Morgan and Lindsey.

They rode with Kean on several rides that would have had me barfing- like this one-

a ride that spins and lifts up.  

It was, hands down, Kean's favorite.  Get this, he rode

it EIGHT times with Morgan and Lindsey.

 My favorite was the ol' Rattlesnake Rapids-- a rafting trip

down a river and through a waterfall.  Because of Kean, we

got to ride every ride twice before getting off.

And on this one, boy, did we get soaked.

 Our tickets to Lagoon were free-- part of our parting gift

from our Make A Wish trip we took to Florida back in

November.

 We didn't get the rock star treatment like we did on our

Make A Wish trip, but we did have a blast cramming in

as much as we could.  The lines weren't bad and Kean

surprised us with his stamina.  As long as we kept him

on rides, he was happy.

The girls were just crazy.

 We topped the night off with a stop for dinner

at In and Out.  

Kean wolfed down his own milkshake.

You can see someone's hands in the pic- all

ready to grab the shake.

That would be because he has a habit of

tossing things when he's done.

For example, a near full cup of root beer

in the car (make that, all over the car we had just cleaned 

from top to bottom)!

 Notice, the girls are all responsible drinkers.

 The other big highlight of our trip was visiting my

grandmother at her new assisted living center.

Of course, Kean waltzed right in, found her bed

and pretended to take a nap (snores and all).

 Her new place is lovely.

Seriously, I'm tempted to sell off my kids

and move in there with her.

It is that nice!

 We got a tour of her new digs...

 look at how cute the area is just outside her door.

 We even had lunch with her in the dining room.

We actually were there to help celebrate and honor her

on her 98th birthday.

We gathered in a room upstairs and many of her children,

grandchildren (there are 86 of us) and great grandchildren (she has over 300)

took turns performing for her and sharing their talents.

Greer was one of the first to go-- she sang a solo.

 I thought you'd like to see my darling Grandma

and her children.  I love every one of these people

more than I can ever express.

I count myself pretty blessed to come from such goodness.

Now if I can just figure out how my grandmother seems

to have much more energy at 98 than I do at .........

California Dreamin'

I need to tell you that as part of Kean's Make A Wish trip back in November,

we were given an International Amusement Park Passport

that gives our family a free pass good for one year to

all kinds of places (Six Flags, Legoland, Magic Mountain, Lagoon etc.).

We felt we were crazy not to use some of it for Spring Break.

The passport included passes to the San Diego Zoo

where we had a chance to see all kinds of creatures--

or in this case, they had a chance to see us.

 The longest lines were to see this cute little guy. 

 Our passes included an "ability" pass that 

made it so we didn't have to wait in lines.

What a blessing.

 Kean loved taking the sky trams over the zoo.

We rode them several times.

 The next day we took a day off to relax.  I don't know who needed

it more-- me or Kean!

We all drove up to LAX to pick up Byron (he had to fly home

and work for part of the week).

And then it was time for one of my favorite evenings--

we met three of my close friends for dinner.  

Robbi Peele and I have been friends since I worked in North Carolina.

She's the brunette next to me.

She is an Investigative Producer (worked for Dateline and a number

of local stations). We have tons of memories together at Investigative 

Reporter Conventions.

Chris Jolly is next to her.  He's like a brother.  One of the

most talented photojournalists in the country-- we worked

together in Phoenix and then in L.A.  He now is an editor for

the CBS Evening News.

And then Lori Carnahan is the blond next to Holland.

Lori is a Deputy District Attorney in L.A.  She and I traveled 

around Europe together several times before I got married.

 We talked for THREE hours-- catching up.  It was great.

The kids were so patient... that is until we got outside and

Greer had to "perform" for her little audience.

 I guess it was time for my friends to be patient!  Ha!

 The next morning, we headed back down to San Diego

(this time with Byron) for part two of the zoo-- the

Safari Park.

 As if the San Diego Zoo isn't spread out enough,

this one is 18 times larger.

I loved this picture that shows Kean's feet

wrapped around Greer like a little monkey.

 Lucky for us, we could take in much of the park

on a Safari truck tour.

 We even got to see this little baby giraffe-- a baby that

was a whopping 6 feet tall at birth.

 Oh, was it good to have Byron along.

 One of the other highlights for us was the Butterfly garden.

 The flying insects were everywhere and landed on our clothes

and in Holland's hair.  So fun.

 We then headed over to Mission Beach in San Diego

to Belmont Park-- where Kean rode the carousel- oh, about

a thousand times.  At least that's what it felt like to us.

 The girls were everywhere-- up the sides of walls...

 and bumping into all of us on the Bumper Cars.

Clearly, another big winner with the boy.

 We hit the bumper cars several times too--

but always headed back to the wild horses on the carousel.

 We did this while the girls rode the old fashioned

wooden roller coaster right on the beach over and over again.

 Saturday morning, we headed back to the beach for a little R & R.

By this time, Kean was spent.

This is about as much action as he got on the beach.  He spent

most of our time on my lap.

 The kids, including the extra big kid on the right

frolicked in the water and jumped rope with a long piece

of seaweed on the sand.

 My friend Lori Carnahan spent the day with us at the beach

then let the girls ride in her new convertible to lunch.

I do believe they fell right into this California Lifestyle

a little too easily.  Greer has decided she wants to be Lori's 
personal assistant.

 We then spent the next day and half driving home (ug).

But can I tell you how great it felt to be home, to sleep in my own bed

and to be out of that insane traffic.  I don't know how I ever

handled it before.

Kean was thrilled and exhausted.

Of course, being around all those germs, he is now sick.

We have hospital testing/cancer screening tomorrow

and my gut says to pack an overnight bag.  I wouldn't be

too shocked if he doesn't get admitted.

Dang.