How 'bout a Shirley Temple

There's nothing like being home and getting back into the old routines.

Kean has speech this morning

and surprised his therapist Claire by saying "motorcycle"  at least three times.

 While Kean got back to work, Holland and Greer (who are in Vegas with my parents)

got back to playing-- at warp speed.

My dad had a doctor's appointment, so my childhood best friend, April,

took the girls to Wet n' Wild (no, it's not a strip bar-- it's a water park)!

 As if that wasn't enough, April and her hubby, Chris

took the girls out for a fancy dinner at one of the restaurants

in the Paris Hotel.

 Forget the girls, I want Chris and April to be my parents!

Holland and Greer come home tomorrow.

I'm certain they will be tired but bubbling over with details of their adventures.

If you are wondering what Byron and I will do to "compete"

with the excitement they've had... hmmm, we were thinking a

night of weed pulling might bring them back to planet earth.

 

 



We're Baaaaccccckkkkk!

Well, at least some of us.  Holland and Greer went with my parents to Las Vegas for a few days.

The rest of us drove home today from Southern Utah (St. George-- where it was quite toasty).

We had a grand time at the family reunion... swimming, playing games, eating way too much

and catching up.

Here are my parents (on the right) with my dad's brother and his wife--

I LOVE these relatives!

 We stayed at my cousin Scott's house.  He and his wife Sandee

have three little girls-- so you can imagine our girls and their girls

did some serious playing.

Kean even finagled a golf cart ride out of Scott.

 Sandee's mom watched Kean one day and my long time friend, Diane

and her son, Leo watched Kean all day yesterday while we were at the reunion.

 We spent one of the days at an old childhood haunt, Veyo--

a hot springs (that was actually cool and refreshing).

It is a beautiful spot.  Right next to a river where Reese spent several

hours catching craw dads.

 Here's Byron mugging with my dad.

You'd never know my dad is 80 and Byron... are you ready for this...

turns 5-0 on Wednesday.

 We love our Leavitt family reunions... because they are not over planned

and over scheduled-- they are to quote Goldilocks-- just right.

That's one of my favorite cousins Laurie on the left (who am I kidding, they are all my favorites).

By the way, my mom and I did not plan to have twinsy swim suits.

 Reese loved playing life guard with my cousin Scott and his daughter, Kinsee.

Reese and Kinsee are both six and were joined at the hip for most of the weekend.

The other day of the reunion, we went to a place for more swimming

(did I mention it was hot?) and rock climbing.  That's Greer in the pink shirt

near the top of the wall.

 On Friday night, we went over to a wonderful little park in the town of

Ivins.  The coolest thing about the place, is the land used to be owned by

my grandfather-- and my dad and his brothers spent countless years of their lives there

cutting alfa alfa.  We pretty much pushed the ol' envelope and took

Keanut with us (since it was out in the open).

He was in heaven!

Here he is right after he climbed into someone's "Cars" camping chair.

The funny thing was, he wouldn't sit in it normally, he had to sit sideways

so he could look at Lightning McQueen.

So funny.

 They wrapped up that night with a fun family tradition...

the launching of candy out and over the kids

(plus a few surprise water balloons).

The kids were in heaven.

It was the best--- just what we needed to recharge the ol' batteries.

And Kean did amazingly well.

Can I just tell you how fun it was to get out of "Dodge"

and to get to take him along!?!?!?!

Gunning For His Sister

Kean must be in one of those learning windows.

He's really starting to mimic words and up until

now, he'd get on his "Harley" and was barely able to get it to move.

Now just look at him trying to run over his sisters!

When you have a little one who works as hard as Kean does...

every little accomplishment is h.u.g.e.

I'll be off radar for a few days

but hopefully, will have lots of fun stuff to post when I am back.

Do Two Naughties Make One Nice?-- Updated

I can't believe I forgot to take pictures of Kean and his new "therapist" today.

Actually, Chelsea is not a therapist but she's getting paid to come work with Kean

above and beyond his therapy-- more time working on walking and speech while Momma

gets some things done.

It is beautiful.  She and another - home-from-college-student, Lindsay

will be coming for a few hours a few days a week.

I'll say it again, it is beautiful.

 Kean was a bit of a pill tonight at dinner.

He flung his dinner plate across the room--

picture chicken, sauce, peas etc. dripping down the wall, on the furniture and the floor.

Ug.

So, I must admit, I was about as naughty as he.

I let the dog in the house-- I let old Zoe lick up the mess and take care of

the majority of the gunk before breaking out the 409.



 I can't say I'm proud of myself for that little stunt.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Houston, We Have Liftoff

Drum roll please....

Kean's counts were a robust 1000 at his check up today.

They said we can thank the Steroids for kicking them up

and the fact he got a one week break from Chemo.

The good news (well, more good news) is that he did not

have to have Chemo through his port today (just orally at home).

The bad news is because of that, we were not the first to get to try out

the newly remodeled Chemo suite.

 However, he was the first to get anything done in there...

even if it was just the removal of his needle access.

We go back in two weeks to check on his counts

but other than that, we've been given the green light to go to our family reunion--

yippee-- a get out of jail (for now) free card!!!

 I know you will find this shocking... but none of the girls wanted to go to Chemo with us today.

Thankfully, my friend Tammy Christensen was willing to be our date.

The girls, ended up going over to Mari Tanner's house

for fun on their little lake.

 When they wore themselves out completely, they went inside

and did a little craft project-- they sewed up the cutest little handbags.

 Good day for them.

Good day for us.

My Turn

Wow was today a quiet one.

Byron took the girls to church and then to a birthday dinner for a friend...

so Kean and I were at home all day.

Can I just tell you how thankful I am that as of today, he's done with his Steroids

(until next month).  They sure make him snarky.

Tomorrow's the big Chemo day.

Pray for good counts, okay?

 Actually, I did get out of the house tonight at 8:30.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know that the Moomey's are some of our dearest friends.

Tonight their son Mark was officially set apart to be a missionary for our church.

What that means is, the leader in our area, President Firmage (on the left)

gave him a blessing where he was called to serve the Lord for the next two years.

He leaves in a few days for training before he goes to the Netherlands.

In case you didn't know, Elly is from Holland and all of her family is still over there.

So it makes Mark's mission even more exciting.

 Tonight was a true highlight.

I wish I could put into words the spiritual experience we all had.

Mark is one of the greatest young men I've ever seen and

exceptionally well prepared to serve his mission.

All that was quite evident in the blessing he was given tonight.

We will miss him so... (especially our three girls)

but clearly, he has some important work to do.

Elly had asked me to sit in on the meeting tonight and to act as a scribe--

to take notes so all the advice and counsel would be remembered.

It was a very special experience and made even more so by the fact

I could finally do something nice for Elly and Ron. 
Elly, if you remember, went with Byron and I to the hospital

on the day we found out Kean had Cancer.

She acted as scribe that day and for hours took

pages and pages of notes for us.

So as of tonight we have two notebooks filled with

two sets of very different notes.

Both of them are significant though...

they represent life changing moments in both of our lives.

 



High Tech

Kean is one spoiled little boy.

Today he got his very own ipad.

He got it through a special program as part of his therapy.

We're loading it up with apps that will hopefully help

him with his speech and occupational therapy.

 He seems to like playing on Maureen's (his Occupational Therapist)

and sure had fun today with a couple of free apps I quickly downloaded.

(Oh and notice the book Holland is finally reading.  She's begged for two years

to read the Hunger Games-- and being the mean mom that I am-- I made her wait until she was 12).

 Here's my favorite picture of the day-- Kean pushing Holland away.

He actually pushed everyone away.

He wants to do it all himself.

Two final notes--

it came with a military grade case designed to withstand sandstorms,

falls, scratches, spills and... being tossed across the room by

a three year old!

And yes, I've already bought and downloaded the movie Cars!

Chemo on Monday should be cake with this thing.