Memorial Day 2013

Memorial Day is always a good time of year for us.  I love that it starts summer and that we are able to spend time with both sides of our families.  I especially love though that this is a time to remember our grandparents and others who have passed on with out sadness.  I know they are happy that we are thinking of them, sharing stories, and taking time out to come visit if you will.  This year was fun with Alden being older and more interactive.  We drove to Hyrum on Saturday with LaWayne to meet Joe and Bonnie.  Alden loved the wind chimes and pin wheel on the head stones near my grandparents.

 

He was also a big help with the flowers.  

I think he did a good job.

Group Shot I love this picture every year to see who is there and how things change from year to year.

We have relatives buried in two areas of the Hyrum cemetery.  When it was time to walk back to teh car Alden was so cute to walk back with his aunts and uncle.

And finally we love family pictures at the cemetery.   

After celebrating with my family we headed up to the mountains to spend time with Cass' family.  We camped over night in Diamond Fork Canyon and enjoyed more beautiful weather and family time.

Horseshoes!!!

Alden loved the little creek net time our camp site.  He had to have his clothes changed shortly after this because he was soaking and loved every minute of it.

We also roaster marshmallows.  This was Alden's first time roasting his own mallow.  He thought it was pretty fun until it came time to eat it.

Can you tell he did not care for the marshmallow being soft?

And finally because Cass thought this was hillarious, a bird pooped on my arm.  I thought this would never happen to me, but it did.  Despite this though we still had a great weekend and are excited for summer to come.

The Fun Road With Cancer

On March 12th I was able to finish poisoning my body with chemotherapy.  It was a lot of work going to the Huntsman Cancer Institute a total of 21 times over a nine week period, but worth it when we found that my lymph nodes had shrunk to a normal size. When I finished my chemo the staff at the huntsman came over to sing and give me a certificate of completion and a blanket.

Even though my Lymph nodes had shrunk to normal size I still had to have a surgery to have them removed. When my cancer was evaluated they found a type of cell that does not respond to chemo so we proceeded to surgery.

I went into surgery on the 19th of April and it lasted about four and a half hours. Everything went well and I would then be spending the next five days in the hospital to recover. Over that several hour period the doctors cut me open from just below my sternum then past my belly button. They then removed my intestines and worked around my kidney (they could not move it because I have a horseshoe kidney rather then two normal kidneys) and removed 23 lymph nodes.

I was lucky to be able to see Alden everyday that I was up there, thanks to my parents. 

Here are some pictures of his visits.

Alden and Grandma created a get well card for Dad

One downfall of having such a big surgery, or one that moves your intestines around, is that you can't eat for a long time. The day before the surgery I was on a clear liquid diet followed by nothing on the day of the surgery. After I got out of surgery I was only allowed to swab my mouth with water for the next couple days.  Then ice chips for a day and finally back to the liquid diet.  Below is a picture of when I was finally allowed the liquid food.

We have been lucky to have all the family to help support us during my recover. Now that it is several weeks after the surgery I am doing well, nearly feeling normal again. The surgery was also a success in that they found cancer in three of the lymph nodes.

I want to say thank you to everyone that has helped take care of our little boy and for the thoughts and prayers.

Graduation

Last December I received a little piece of paper for several years of hard work. Months later on April 26 I was able to be recognized for some of that hard work. I was able to walk, or ride, at my college convocation.

I have to admite that I was worried that I was not going to be able to walk at my graduation because I was released from the hospital just two days prior. Luckily I was able to use a wheel chair and still enjoy walking with the School of Education.

Here are some pictures of the convocation.

He was clapping when I got my diploma 

Because I was in a wheel chair I was able to go second right behind the school's valedictorian

Randi's Parents were able to come in from Elko and my brother came down from Idaho Falls to help celebrate.

There was a dinner at our house afterwards, but sorry no pictures. 

Thanks to everyone who has helped me get this far through school.

A Step Back in Time (sort of)

With Cass spending so much time in the hospital and Alden at grandma and grandpa's it was nice to spend the afternoon with my little guy.  When Alden came up to visit his dad we went to the near by This is the Place Monument.  It is baby animal season and I though Alden would have fun getting to pet the baby animals.  And I was right.  It was a little on the chilly side and it is a Monday so the park was pretty dead which was nice for us.  We also discovered there are a lot of things to do here and that by next summer Alden will be old enough to enjoy them all. Thanks for letting us ditch you for a couple of hours Cass.

His first look at the animals.  There are some giant cows just outside of the picture.  He was really excited in case you can't tell.

Standing on the stool to get a better look at the baby ducks.  He was a little unsure of the baby chicks though

He loved milking this fake cow while waiting for the pony ride.

 One spoiled kid.  He already got his first pony ride.  I haven't even had one of those yet.

Petting the baby sheep

And he loved the baby goats.

After petting the animals we made it up to the leather shop to stamp our own leather piece and then went shopping.  At the old store they had this kitchen and grocery store area set up.  Alden loved taking his cucumber out of the shopping cart and putting it in different places in the kitchen.  He was kind of sad when we made him leave.

 After lunch we did a train ride, which he loved even though he look like it in this picture.  We passed several fun activities like panning for gold and the miniature train ride that we will have to do next time.  Then we made two more crafts (one for him and one for dad) before heading back to the hospital to visit with dad.  If you are ever in Utah and have a free afternoon I highly recommend this park.  It is great for kids! 

Our New House

We have been so blessed lately it is unreal.  Here is one of the biggest blessings.  We were able to purchase our own home.  We have been saving pretty much since the dy we got married in order to buy a house.  We decided to just look at houses on the internet during President's Day weekend and the next thing we knew we had a realtor and were putting offers in on houses.  It happened a lot faster than we expected, but with everything that has happened recently we know it is the right time and place for us.  We live in probably the nicest neighborhood in the whole world by the way.

Our house was built in 1950, but the person we bought it from remodeled the inside so everything is new from the plumbing to the paint.  This is a perfect compromise for us.  Cass wanted old with character I wanted reliable and nice.  We are also really excited to have a full size dishwasher (it is amazing how many dishes we can wash at one time now!) and we are growing our own garden so keep your fingers crossed that we will be partaking of an excellent harvest this summer and fall. Here is a street shot with us on the porch.  There is a garage off to the side that you can barely see.  No more scraping windows for me :)

 

And now for the inside.  Please keep in mind as you look at the pictures that we have a 14 month old who likes to play with everything.  And we have only been in the house for 2 weeks.

Here is the front room.  We LOVE the windows.  So different from the basement we have lived in for the last 3 years.

Kitchen- pretty excited about the gas stove.

Master bedroom. There is a small walk in closet behind you in the door goes to a bathroom.

Our master bath.  It is small, but we are so excited to have a bathroom connected to our bedroom. 

This is Alden's room

And Alden's bathroom

There is a basement too, but we didn't take any pictures of it yet.  There are two more bedrooms, a bathroom, a family room, laundry room, and another kitchen downstairs.  There is also a separate entrance to the basement so we could rent it out if we wanted to, but for now we have a guest room and craft room along with extra kitchen in case I get really excited to cook :) 

Easter

We had a fantastic Easter this year.  The weather was beautiful, we got to see a lot of our family over the weekend, and most importantly we got to remember our Savior's resurrection.  Here our some pictures from this special day.  

We took a family picture last year on Easter and I think it will become a tradition.  Here is this year's picture on the step of our new house (stay tuned that is the next post).

Grandma and Grandpa Norton got Alden this suit for Easter.  I think he looks so good in it.  The blue shirt makes his eyes look even more blue and pretty.

There was the usual Easter Egg Hunt at the Peterson house for the grandkids. 

This year Alden was big enough to participate with just a little help.  He was really fun to watch.

So were the rest of the kids.

Finding another egg.

Dad had to help a little to get this one. 

Grandma and Grandpa Peterson were so excited to get out the bounce house because Alden is finally big enough to play in it.  Just one problem, he hated it.  I mean hated it!  He started crying every time we took him near it.  You can tell he is not happy to be in there with Makenna.

After all the celebration we just hung out outside to enjoy the nice weather.  Alden loved carrying these squishy balls around. 

Treygann just hanging out

Alden got a new hat for Easter and he put it on all by himself, can you tell?

And finally a picture of Alden loving Oz.  He gets so excited to see Oz, it is really cute. 

We hope everyone else had a delightful Easter as well.