WE'RE DONE!!!!! Well almost

It's hard to believe that we were here just 3 years ago.  It's been a looooong hard road, but we've made it, kinda.  Technically Randy has one more 3 credit class to finish until he's officially done, which will be completed by the beginning of June, but since we really don't think we will be here in August when the summer session ends, we decided to have him walk in the Spring Graduation.  We have struggled since the day we got married as to which was the right direction to go for Randy's schooling but once we figured which path to take, Heavenly Father sure took over the reigns.  We have gone from clueless on how we were going to go back to school to getting relocated to Utah, losing a job, miraculously getting Utah residency, going  to and finishing a Bachelors from UVU, thinking we were going to move to Cedar City to finish school and having that fall through, to being led to the EMPA program at BYU and not having to pay for his graduate degree all in 5 years time (which to some might sound like a lot, but when you have 4+ children things sometimes take a little longer, lol).  I can't count how many times I have felt my Heavenly Father push us in a different direction than what we was going during this time.  I am sooo grateful that He did though otherwise we may have ended up with a completely different outcome.

WARNING: PICTURE OVERLOAD!!!!

Now for the fun you've all been waiting for. . . the pictures, ta da!  Randy picked up his clothes early and we decided instead of waiting till graduation day to take pics when there would be tons of other grads doing the same thing, we'd go to the signs at BYU the day before and take advantage of less crowds.  I have so many shots and really wasn't in the mood to do a lot of editing so I just put up a few random ones. 

It was a little breezy, can you tell?

I love this shot.  We were walking back to the car and I couldn't resist shooting this.

Micah sporting his dad's cool hat.

Randy walking in, he's 9th from the end with his arm up pointing.

 A little closer shot, looking right at us.

His mom's camera got even closer, I love that he looks like he's marching.

This was right before his row got up to go to the stage.  That's one of his EMPA buddies that decided to graduate early as well.

Really blurry I know, but here he is going up on stage.

On the other side with the 2 other EMPA guys.

We were naughty and left after he walked.  Apparently in the business school, over half of the grads were getting their graduate degrees.  I really couldn't sit any longer for them to go through the Bachelor's as well especially since Randy was literally right at the end of the graduates.  Blame it on #5.

Here are the families that were able to come and celebrate with us.  Julie and her kids.

Alina and Ki Ki-these 2 are troopers.  They had already sat through another graduation early that morning.  Alina's mom graduated with her Master's in Education.  Thanx again Alina for coming.

Of course us-minus Morgan who decided she should make this day extra special by barfing, the poor thing watched movies on my bed all day.

Randy's parents and sisters.

Even though she looked like trash we didn't want to leave her out.  We had to get at least one shot of her with her handsome daddy.

At home for a couple more shots.

I'm going to regret this later, but I couldn't resist.

After it was all over and we checked up on Morgie, we went out for Linner at one of our favorite places, Rib City.  It was probably our last time eating there and man it will be missed.

Grandma tried really hard to get these kids to sit still long enough to get a cute shot, this was the best that we could do, the little stinkers.

Next on the agenda, getting a job.  Right now Randy's got a really great opportunity in San Antonio and we will find out by the end of this week if he got the job.  We are hoping things work out for us down there, but I've learned over this past years that it's really not in my hands.  So if we are suppose to be there I know that Heavenly Father will have a huge part in it.  However, prayers couldn't hurt, lol.  Here's to the next chapter in our lives.  Congrats Toots!!! We Made it!!!

Moab = No Kids, Yippee!!!

Friends of ours have a family-shared cabin close to Moab and they decided they wanted to  have a getaway with some friends without kids.  Originally there were 6 couples going to go, but 2 had to drop out, and we missed them, so 4 ended up going.  Randy and I were excited and we quickly begged and pleaded with Gma and Gpa for some babysitting, which they so kindly obliged.  We left Thursday afternoon with 1 1/2 of the couples and got there before dark. The other half came up later that night.  The cabin was beautiful (which of course I forgot to get pictures of).  Our friend's dad built it, with the help of some other family members, up in the mountains off the Colorado River.  It was 10 degrees cooler up there (yeah) and has an awesome view.

We had never been to Moab ( I know pathetic considering we've been here 4 years already), so we really didn't know where to begin.  Friday morning we were up bright and early to go to Arches National park and get the Fiery Furnace passes before they were all handed out (they only allow 75 groups per day to go through) and also get as much hiking in before the heat killed us.  It was amazing to see some smaller arches and some really cool rocks.

 Kye and Kelly, one of our Moab experts and our friends with the cabin.

 Ben and Bridget.

 Rob and Matney, our fearless leaders through the slot canyons.  Also our other Moab experts.

 One of the smaller arches we ran into.

 Beautiful eh?  We then proceeded back down and had lunch and then headed to back into Moab to a secret spot (well sort of) that Kye knew about.  He calls it the Dam Hike, cuz we hike around a dam and river but we like to be sinners and just call it the Dam Hike for the fun of it.  It was perfect because by the time we were done at the Furnace, it was pretty hot.  Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera, due to the fact we were hiking through water, and didn't get any pictures.  It felt so nice playing in the water.  We rode the rapids down on our tushes, and jumped off cliffs (well I didn't but some of us did).  I just wanted to be in the water cuz that's my element, so I was happy just to be there.

 We went out for dinner that night at Pasta J's.  Kelly wanted to see what she looked like with Bridget's glasses on.  She kind of looks like a fly we decided.  They look really good on Bridget though.  Sorry Kel, couldn't resist.

 Just chillin and waiting for our food.

After indulging in some ice cream we headed back to the cabin and played games and attempted to take showers, we ended up having to boil water cuz something was wrong with the water heater, and just talked the rest of the night.  The next day we headed further up the mountain and went skeet shooting and looked for dinosaur tracks.  Matney almost beat all of the boys in skeet shooting, just got beat by Kye.  She rocks.  After that, we headed back, cleaned the cabin, ate lunch and headed back out to go home.  It was a nice weekend away from our offspring and just spending time with some really cool people.  Thanx again Kelly and Kye for including us on such a fun weekend.

Going Under the Knife

The day finally arrived.  Big changes were coming to such a small little girl, and we were all excited for the end results.  For the last year and a half, Malia has had a lower than normal voice and been getting sick a little too often for our comfort.  After talking with her pediatrician at her last well child check up, he referred her to an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor who scoped her and said her adenoids were almost covering her nasal passage and her tonsils were not much better.  She gave us the info we needed and we decided to get them both removed.  We knew something was wrong and it needed to be fixed or there could be serious repercussions later down the road.  So we scheduled 1 month ago for today.  We really didn't talk to her about it until about a week ago when we attended a "Pre-op Hop" to help kids who are prepping for surgery could get themselves acclimated with the surroundings and equipment that was going to be used on them.  Amy her helper was amazing.  She was really thorough, gave her a doll to decorate, instruments to test out and even gave her the mask that they were going to use on her so she could practice at home.  She was actually excited to go and use the things she had been practicing with.  Last night, we went out to eat at IHOP because it was going to be the last real meal she was going to be able to eat for a couple of weeks and she wanted hamburger and fries AND juice (go figure).  We wanted to have her voice on record to see if there was a difference after she healed so we videoed her at IHOP.  However, she had way to much sugar yesterday and so she was acting really goofy and making her voice higher for part of it, oh well, we tried.

She realllllly wanted juice. 

 Grandma was even able to come down to help out with the rest of the kids so Randy and I could be with Malia the whole day.  (can you see a theme here with the juice).

 We were scheduled to be at the hospital at 7 AM and since we weren't going to the one right down the hill from us, we had to be up at 5:30.  We were a little tired.  But she is still smiling.

Eah and Mom before surgery.

 

I just had to get one more vid. of her beforehand, cuz who knows what was going to happen after.

How quickly it can change though.  Here she is about 20 minutes after she came out of surgery, man that anaesthesia was not her favorite.  She was thrashing and wailing and gnashing her teeth.  It was sooo sad to see her like this.  Her doctor said that her tonsils were actually worse than what she thought.  That when she went in there, they were "kissing" which meant they were actually touching each other when she was laying down.  So it really was good we decided to do both.

Such a sad little girl.

 She didn't do well in recovery, she could not keep her O2 levels up above 88 and wouldn't drink anything.  The meds that were in her body was just making her act weird and she just wasn't really "there" for a long time.  So, because they needed beds for other surgical patients, they transferred us up to the Pediatric unit to finish recovering and try drinking juice and eating Popsicles.  It was nice to not have people on top of us and have a little privacy.  She slept a lot and whined a lot and ate and drank very little for a long time.  We watched Marley and Me and tried to convince her to drink something.  She eventually got her footing and walked around a bit and we found the playroom.  At which point we realized she needed more pain meds and gave her the option of drinking her meds and getting the IV out or keeping it in and getting the meds put into her IV.  She really hated that IV and probably would've done anything to get that thing out.  So she took her meds and proceeded to spit it out, so we tried a different med and she drank it up.  She was soo happy to be free of that stupid tube.  We went down to the playroom again and gave her a different juice and got a few sips out of her.  It wasn't until this person

 showed up and convinced her that the sooner she drank her juice the quicker she could get out of there (which she apparently didn't hear the 50 million times before that was said by me and Randy and every other nurse out there).  Thanx a million Andrea, you Da Bomb!!!! 

She had fun with the play room toys, especially anything she could push around.  The wagon soon became the big hit.

 And of course I had to get the backside hospital gown shot.  It was too perfect.

 Sorry I couldn't resist another one.

 So after 7 hours of absolute fun, we were able to go home.  She made out like a bandit.  In the surgical wing, Amy brought her a quilt made by the Project Linus group along with a stuffed duck (which by the way worked wonders in recovery, she loved having it rubbed on her skin).  Then in the Peds unit she had a fleece blanket, beanie baby bear, sippy cup and pillowcase waiting for her. Andrea brought a new baby doll for her.  Oh and of course Grandma had to spoil her a little get her a Fur Real puppy, Toy Story 3 and have the kids give her a new Barbie.  Maybe she'll want to have surgery again, hopefully not.

The crazy thing is, she almost seems back to normal.  Her post op instructions told her to be on bed rest the next 3 days and light activity after that, HA!  That's not going to happen.  She wants to eat real food sooo bad and has no desire to sit still, cuz she knows if she does she will fall asleep, and of course who would want to do that?  We caught her with a stolen bag of Cheerios trying to stuff her mouth.  This is going to be a trying 2 weeks.  I'm just grateful she has done so well, except for the little hiccup recovering.  I'm so happy we got it done now when she can recover quickly and not when she's a teen or older and completely miserable the entire time.  I'm grateful for amazing technology.  Which reminds me, I need to get my Grateful Turkey up and going for the month.

Reunion; TAHOE FUN

For our vacation this year, my sister was able to secure a few rooms at a timeshare in Tahoe.  We had 3 rooms that slept 8 each.  It was so much for my sister's and brother's to hang out and have fun.  We drove a little bit around Lake Tahoe.  This is Emerald Bay.  It is gorgeous.

Alina, Kiki and Malia posing.  Malia wouldn't leave aunt Lina's "house."  I've never her seen her eat as fast as she did, so she could quickly head back over to their room.

Bacon and Tate.

Shauna acting like she doesn't like me taking her pic while eating ice cream.

We headed down to Round Hill Beach and spent a day chillin by the lake.  The water was pretty cold, but it was really warm out and we had fun anyways.  Here's Malia, Morgan and Preston hanging out on the beach.

Micah really liked to dig and dig.

Morgan and Preston kept asking us to bury them . . . so we did

Morgan really wanted to be buried.

The guys trying to be brave and get in the water.

Billy Alina and Kiki enjoying the water while Kiki let them.

McKenzie pretty much spent the whole time in the water.

Malia (with her suit falling off) and Ella filling up the basket full of holes.

Lindsay, cousin Chris and Shauna soaking up some rays.

Bacon and I hamming it up for the camera.

Tater trying not to fry.

And in the end, the kids were a bit pooped.  They slept pretty good that night.

And a quick pic for good measure of me and Randy above Emerald Bay.