Jen's 30th Birthday

So I celebrated my 30th birthday WEEKEND - it was a 3 day event.

I showed up to work on Friday and my office was decorated with balloons, candy and all sorts of fun stuff.

Then we had our group gathering and I chose Raspberry Bread Pudding from Kneaders...yum yum. (I choose it every year).

Friday night, Shane and I went to dinner with some friends that live in our cul-de-sac -- Tara & Mike and Cara & Mark. Cara and I have the same birthday, so we went to dinner at Market Street/Oyster Bar. I ate way too much, but of course after we decided to leave, we all decided we needed dessert and headed to Goodwood to get Brownie Sundaes.

Then Saturday night, Shane made reservations for all 5 of us (Me, Shane, Dylan, Dallas, & Tyler) to go to the Chef's Table. I love that place!! The boys thought it was pretty cool since they have never been to a nice restaurant.

We got home and Shane told the boys to help him with something in the garage and told me to go inside. Well this is what I was met with when I opened the door.....

SURPRISE!!!!

Yes that is Wendy who is attacking me with the silly string

I thought I was safe...oh wait...NOPE!!

I am not sure how many cans of silly string got shot at me, but I was covered!!

Shane, with the help of Wendy and friends, had pulled off a surprise party for me. It was lots of fun!! I had asked for Chocolate cake from Magelbys....oh yum...There was a huge cake and I think it will last a year.

Hun, thanks for such a great birthday!!

Thanks Wendy for helping Shane!!

Ohh and I almost forgot all the great birthday presents from Shane....umm let's see...I got everything I asked for...Ugg boots, new clothes, Nautica quilt, dishes, rug....EVERYTHING!!

Tackle Football

So Dylan and Dallas decided that they wanted to play tackle football this year. I was a little concerned because I heard how time consuming practices are. They started at the beginning of August with having practice Monday through Friday for 1 1/2 or 2 hours per night. When school started, they cut it back to 3 nights per week for 1 1/2 hours each. Now this is for 4th graders.... Their coaches are pretty intense. All players are guaranteed at least 10 plays in each game if they have shown up to all the practices. If they miss, they don't have to play them at all.

Well Dylan and Dallas absolutely love it!! They come home from practice telling us about the different plays and tackles they did. Dylan is on the starting offense team and is the Tight End. He is a great blocker!! Dallas plays mostly middle linebacker and he loves it!! I tried to get some cool pictures at one of the games...but it's pretty hard to get the timing right so you can actually see one of them instead another player who steps in front.

Dylan is #43 going into block

Dallas is #32

Hiking

Shane has been taking the boys hiking quite a bit. They are all loving it!! He took a couple pics of Dylan & Dallas on one of their long, long hikes.

We went hiking as a family on Monday night and AF canyon looks beautiful with all the leaves changing colors.

Shane didn't want me to take his picture...can you tell my the look on his face?

Catching Up....Back-to-School

So I haven't been very good at updating the blog lately.... So I thought I would do a few posts to catch up to present day. So we are back in August for the First Day of School.

Tyler

Dylan

Dallas

I walked the boys to school and Dylan and Dallas saw friends just as we entered the school and took off. They are getting way too old. I did make them wait so I could take a quick pic in the hall before they left with their friends.

So it was only Tyler who I walked to his classroom and waited with. He was a little nervous because he didn't know anyone in his class. But he has made so many new friends now.

He was having a hard time looking at me with the sun in his eyes

Greatest Wife EVER!!!!

If you are a wife reading this please take note, Jen is the GREATEST WIFE EVER. The past 2 weeks my workout partner hasn’t been able to make it to the gym so instead of leaving for the gym at 5:45 I have been leaving around 7:30, this has allowed me to view Jens daily routine and I am amazed. Jen wakes up at 5:20, gets dressed, drinks a protein shake, lifts weights, gets on the treadmill for 45 minutes, makes the kids breakfast(usually pancakes, German pancakes, cinnamon roles, eggs, waffles, rarely cereal), she showers, gets dressed, helps the kids do their chores, helps them get ready for school, she eats breakfast, she cleans up breakfast, logs into the spa and checks reports and then still has time to do things like this:

This is only a few of the many notes I found when I got home from the gym today, and as you can see from the pic below, this isn't the first time she has done this.

Not only does this make Jen great, but she NEVER and I mean NEVER complains or whines, let me type that again for some of you, she NEVER and I mean NEVER complains or whines , and this is just what she does before she leaves for work. You're the best Hun and I love you tons.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!

One Hundred and Eight Thousand seconds ago I received both good and bad news. The good news being that it looks as though I am on the actual trial drug and not the Placebo, I have been getting sores in my mouth which is the most common side affect. The Bad is really bad though, it appears that I am responding quite well to the drug, so unfortunately for the rest of you I should live to see Christmas and I will be expecting a Christmas present, sorry guys. The Ugly is, well I think you already know.

Hun, I love you!!

So I guess I am a pretty horrible wife for not putting pictures of Shane on the Lake Powell post. But hun, there is a picture of you...if you look at the picture of Tyler jumping off the cliff (you know the one where it looks like he has a tail) you can see your cute bald head in the water. :)

There really was more than 1 picture of him...so sorry hun for not putting them on here. And the picture he posted below with Tyler, after calling his name 5 or 6 times and him ignoring me or not hearing me whichever he admits to, I just took the picture...kind of like this one too.

Here is another one of him.....

Doesn't this one count too...you can see part of him. :)

Sorry hun I will do better next time.

As I have read other’s blogs I have noticed that the “Blog Updaters” post pics of their families including their spouses. After reading Jen’s Lake Powell update I noticed that there are no pics of me, so I looked at the images on the camera and realized that out of 70 Lake Powell images there was only 1 of me ( The pic is actually of Tyler, but in order to keep me from hanging myself with a sock I pretend it is of me) Anyway, I pondered the question as to why Jen wouldn’t post or even take pics of me, and then it hit me, I am hideous, and what may you ask turned this extremely handsome prince into a disgraceful frog? CHEMO, and since I get a lot of questions concerning the side affects I thought I would post up some pics and explanations, so sit right back and you’ll hear a tale.

Warning: The pics are blurry.


Baldness – I miss my Goatee something fierce, but I don’t miss trimming my junk




Nails - Probably the most gruesome of the side affects, I actually get an abscess under the nail that stinks once it lifts the nail, so I dig in as far as I can and cut the nail off to dry it out.



Sensitivity to the sun – For someone who hasn’t worn sunscreen in I don’t know how long, this was a tough battle and as you can see by the pic I lost. I had a very minor burn on a Saturday and then had Chemo on Monday, my Wednesday I was almost purple. I ended up pealing 3 layers and it took about 3 weeks to somewhat recover. Also in the pic you can see my 3rd nipple\port, I am thinking about getting it pierced.





Water Retention – This is the most annoying side affect of them all, the pic doesn’t do it justice. I can gain 20 lbs. of water in about 5 – 7 days, it starts after my double dose and even though I haven’t had Chemo in over a month it still comes and goes. It may not seem that bad to most, but on one of my appointments my resting heart rate was 115 BPM, up from 67 the week before due to water retention.





Snot – This may be the weirdest of the sides, as you will notice in the pic, it is mostly blood, I was getting these 2-3 times a day, it gets bad enough that I start breathing through my mouth. I am sure you all want to know, and the answer is YES, they do taste as good as they look. MMMmmmmmm







Oh and here is the pic of Tyler, and yes below that is the pic of the sock I have chosen to use.

Update

So we received results to Shane’s scans last week. It showed a very slight increase in size in the one in his back, but they didn’t know if that was just the difference in how the radiologists measured it. But the ones in his lungs are either not there or were too small to measure. The ones in his lungs were very concerning, so that was definitely great news.
So Shane started the experimental treatment on Monday. It consists of taking 4 pills a day. No one is allowed to touch the pills except for Shane..kind crazy. The doctor told him that he should know within a few weeks if he got the real or placebo pill by how he feels or if he gets mouth sores. They will do another scan in 8 weeks.

Family Lake Powell Trip

We went to Lake Powell last week with the boys, Jace, and Mindy (Shane's brother and Mom). We had a really cool camping spot. We always go to the Escalante and camp in one of the caves with big overhangs so we have shade all day long. This year we had a great view of an arch.

There was a lot of fishing....

some cliff jumping....

A little tubing, snorkeling, and not a lot of wakeboarding (The water was pretty choppy) But Dallas was so excited to wakeboard this year. He is loving it and it getting really good.

Seven Peaks

I took the boys to 7-Peaks last week and they had a blast. Dylan and Dallas wanted to go on all the slides and Tyler just wanted to hang out and play in the pools.

Dylan and Dallas both went down the Free Fall (or whatever it might be called now - they have changed all the names of the slides since I was a kid). Dylan loved it and decided to go down it for a second time. Dallas thought one time was enough.

4th of July Weekend

For the 4th of July we went down south by Antimony to go camping/four-wheeling. There were some good trails to ride the four-wheelers up and there were a lot lakes all over. The boys fished for awhile and on one of the days, Shane and Jace decided to build a raft. It wouldn't quite hold both of them. But Dylan and Dallas both got on and they were looking like Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer out on the lake with their sticks rowing.

Dylan and Dallas have become quite the little expert in the four-wheeling. We went up some very rocky roads and they just bounced right up the road. There was an occasional stopping to help get them up the hill, but for the most part they did awesome.

I forgot to take pictures except for one night while we were roasting marshmallows and then right before we were leaving.....so here they are: