Posting Spree!

Well in my usual all or nothing style, I wanted to post the latest at the Guymon house, and hopefully include more than just my health drama, so here's what we've been up to:

Halloween!




Well pardon the pics, since I still haven't replaced my old camera, and my little Nikon Coolpix runs through batteries like crazy and is having lens problems so I have had dead batteries or a defunct lens. Thank heavens for crappy cell phone cameras, but despite all.... the kids have had a great halloween. We actually managed to get our costumes figured out early in October, so that wasn't much of a stress. Cai was Woverine, although he couldn't wear a mask most places so we gave him hair like Logan's with big chops like he has in the movie. Then we had gotten some Wolverine claws for his birthday that fly out and have sound effects, so he got to use those a little
Cole has wanted to be a ninja for about the last three months so his costume was a piece of cake. He had a tough time keeping his special Ninja weapons backpack in it's package until halloween night, but he finally got to wear them. Somehow I knew four swords and daggers would dissapear or break before Halloween. Cate was very close to being a fairy, but she found the Super Girl costume and was sold. I was just glad to have her chose something that wasn't slathered in pink princesses. So somehow for the third year in a row the kids have managed to keep some kind of theme. Last year they were a fairytale... knight, dragon and princess. I guess this year it was superheroes.
The kids were excited that they could use the pumpkins that they grew in their garden to carve. So I let them have free reign on the design. The colored what they wanted in marker and then I carved it. I took a bit of creative freedom in interpreting Cate's jack 0'lantern face, but kept pretty true to the original. I've decided I need to be a little less picky, and honestly didn't have the time or interest in doing a super complicated carving this year. I was shocked at how gynormous Cole's pumpkin grew. All summer they excitedly watched it grow bigger and bigger! I could barely lift it by myself to get it into the house to carve. At the end of night I had to laugh. The boys were determined to take-off early to get the most candy possible. They went with a big group of boys their age and hit tons of houses in the neighborhood. But still when they arrived home and everyone dumped out their candy, Cate's pile was by far the largest. She left later, came home earlier and still she had almost twice as much. Chris said she was a little charmer. She would go up to the door and announce "trick or treat smell my foot!" and then run back to her daddy exclaiming "they were home!" At one house she said "thanks stinky!" Somehow that non-traditional tactic worked because Chris said nearly ever house gave her several pieces of candy. This just confirms my theory that a little blond curly haired girl can be as big of a stinker as possible and still charm her way into getting whatever she wants!

Viva Las Vegas! U2 concert









Pope family trip to Moab

It was so much fun to get to spend a weekend with my sisters and parents over General Conference weekend. We wanted to meet somewhere half way in-between Pueblo Colorado, Mesa Arizona, and Logan Utah so we came up with Moab. We managed to find a group camp site down there where we could fit a bunch of trailers and a few tents and we managed to find a great place. It was about 17 miles from Moab, but it was so pretty. It was a short hike to some pretty red rock formations, with ATV trails straight out of the campsite. The kids just had a blast with their cousins. My sister Cami couldn't make it since her whole family caught the swine flu, so we were really sad and missed them terribly, but the whole rest of the family was able to get together. The kids just loved playing with their cousins. We hit a few hiking trails in Arches, but I think the kids had the most fun hiking to the rock formations near camp, and making Halloween masks, pet rocks, and decorating Halloween cupcakes. We even let them put their masks on and trick-or-treat from trailer to trailer. As usuall we ate way too much food, stayed up way too late talking and laughing, but I think we all decided that the camping trip needs to be an annual event. Although It certainly could have been warmer. The first night was FREEZING! The kids and I ended up in my parents trailer, but the next two nights after Chris got there we stayed in the tent, and were at times a little too warm since we were so paranoid about bundling up after the first night! So maybe next time we'll go for a slightly earlier time in the year.

Update on U.C. and Thyroid

Well first off thanks so much for everyone's prayers and fasting. It has been a rough few weeks and I have felt like my body (and mind) was just falling apart. First my Thyroid had suspicious growths, then my U.C. meds were damaging my kidneys, then the doc decided to put me on Prednisone. About the most horrific medication with awful and embarrassing side effects like acne, weight gain, "moon face," mood swings, OCD, joint pain, and on and on. Then finally after weeks of waiting and worrying I find out that the growths on my thyroid are benign! What a relief. They are still too big, but the doc isn't forcing me to have them removed right now, their size is a worry, and if they get even half a cm larger I wont have a choice anymore and I will have to get my whole thyroid removed. But at least I can let that go a little now while we try to get my U.C. under control again. They had to take me off my Lialda for two weeks until my creatine levels went down again, and I have had a major flare up since then. I just started the Prednizone on Saturday and have only noticed a little puffiness in my face so far. The doc called yesterday and said my blood levels were back down again on Friday, so he's going to start me on Asacol (the non time realease version of Lialda) for three days and have me go in for another blood test on Thursday. I'm kinda hoping that there was just something about the time release that my kidneys didn't like but we'll see. The Asacol is a pain just because it is 4 pills 3 times a day, but I'll take that over the prednisone anyday! So please all I ask is that no one laughs at me when I look like the stay puffed marshmallow man in a few weeks!

Thanks to all who helped Taylie

Thanks so much everyone who linked to Taylie's blog and helped raise money for her treatment. There were 358 links made totalling $716 dollars and then the man who donated for the links offered to double his previous commitment and donated her family $1432! So it just goes to show that small and simple acts can go a very long way to help when many others are involved.

Inspired to do something!

Well I am sitting at home reading blogs because I'm such a moron and lost my keys AGAIN. For those of you who don't know me that well I am extremely absent minded to a ridiculous degree. I'm supposed to be volunteering in Cai's class right now, but can't since I lost my keys AGAIN! I'm too frustrated with myself to do something productive and started scanning facebook and blogs to get my mind occupied. I came across the most wonderful story on the blog of a friend of mine and I was inspired to do something to help as well. Nothing like someone elses mountainous problems to make you feel like yours are just a mole hill.

There is a little girl named Taylie who is 4 years old and recently diagnosed with AML Leukemia. Her family is obviously terrified and drowning in medical bills that are only going to get higher. I came across a link to her blog, and really felt inspired to help out, and any one can do it too. It just takes a minute of your time to help this family. If you want to help all you need to do is write a short introduction about Taylie on your blog with a link to http://www.tayliebug.com/ then go to adashofseason.blogspot.com and leave a comment there indicating you made the link on your blog and you're done! Someone has offered to donate $2 for every blog with her link as long as you indicate you have done so on adashofseason.blogspot.com. So easy for a family that could really use some help. I was so impressed that someone would do this for a little girl they hardly know. We live in a beautiful world, full of beautiful people who really care.

BTW her family is having a charity 3K run/walk, 5K run October 10th. The 5K and 3K walk start at 10 a.m. and the 3K run starts at 10:20 a.m. Early registration is closed, but you can register there.
Location: American West Heritage Center4025 South Highway 89-91Wellsville, UT 84339

Birthdays!

Well since I haven't posted since Chris's B-day I figured I had better get things pulled together. This is suppossed to be my subsitute for a journal or scrapbooking! So I can't let it go too or I'm doomed to forgeting my kids lives.

Cai's B-Day

Well Cai turned 7 in May. We took it a little easier this year and let him invite 4 friends to the funpark. I am embarrassed that I didn't get him a decent cake made, but I had just finished doing a wedding cake and was a little burned out and had very little time. In fact I can't even find a photo of the one I did make. Oh well at least he got a little cake and cupcakes for his B-Day party with his friends from Sam's Club. They had a wonderful time at the fun park. We bowled ate pizza and played lazer tag. They had a blast! Me, Chris, Cate and their uncle Nic even joined them in Lazer tag. It was pretty funny to watch Cate running around with a vest on as big as she was. But she caught on very quickly and did really good. It was Adults and Cate against the boys. That weekend his Grandma and Grandpa Guymon and Grandma and Grandpa Callister came up for his last soccer game, and then we all went to Pizza Plus, since the Grandparents HAVE to go there when they're up, and I don't blame them. We went home and opened presents. Had Cai's "Ghost Town" cake per his request. I had envisioned something more grand but it pretty much ended up being a big chocolate square with two skeleton men battling it out.

My Birthday!

Chris really surprised me for my birthday this year and arranged for a baby sitter to come. He had planned the whole evening and it was awesome. He made reservations at La Nonne for dinner which was excellent. The food and atmosphere really reminded me of Italy so it was fun to reminisce about that. Then we went to see "Angels and Demons" which was really fun to see an entire adult movie with no interuptions. It was also fun to watch them race around Rome and remember the sites we had seen. It was really a good movie. It makes me want to read the book again. I had already kind of given myself my birthday/mother's day/Anniversary gift when I got my ring in NZ. So I wasn't really expecting much but Chris let me get new dishes anyways. And considering what he got for father's day I didn't feel too badly about the splurge.

Cate's Birthday!

Yes this time of year is quite busy with Birthdays they come about every two weeks from the beginning of May to the end of June. So sorry for the monster post, I'm trying to catch up. Well the little princess wasnt quite old enough for a friends party so we went to Salt Lake to Chuck-E-Cheeses by her request. I't pretty sad when you're just excited at the end that all the tokens are gone, and then spend about an hour choosing their 5 cent prizes, Oh the choices! A sparkly comb, or a puzzle that will break in ten seconds flat? She had a great time, though and that's what matters. She had to stand in front of the stage to watch the silly animatronics people and dance to the music. She's got some great moves! We went over to Grandma Callisters to opend presents and have Cake and Ice Cream. She desperately wanted a purple Barbie cake, so I managed to get the cake baked, but not decorated when we left home. So we stopped at Walmart on the way home and I bought some ready-made frosting and decorated it in about 10 min. Grandma Callister didn't have any red so we ended up with a Cinderella blue instead, but Cate was a good sport. She got a "Baby Alive" and a bunch of baby stuff. And of course new clothes! She had a great B-Day, and I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that my baby is now 3 years old!

Cole's Birthday!

Well Cole is such a good sport. His Birthday is dead last and it gets a little difficult to wait that long, but he did great. He had his cousin Gavin and Collin up so we had a pirate birthday party. We were trying to get a bunch of stuff done on the yard before we left for Colorado, so yet again I rushed through getting a cake baked. I figured I would make his requested pirate ship one for his friends party that will be who knows when. We hoped we could have it when we returned from Colorado, but all kinds of unexpected events occured. Our trip was permanently postponed due to the death of my Hero "Uncle Dean." It really rocked our family to the core. In my mom's family Aunt Claudia and Uncle Dean were just the rock that the rest of the family relied upon. My mom lost her mom when she was just 16 years old, so my mom's oldest sister (Claudia) and her husband Uncle Dean were more like grandparents to us. So due to funerals and my sister from Colorado coming up here, we just stayed in Garden City and hung out with the family. It's not often that all of us get together since we're spread all over the place so it was great. But like most family get togethers we all get each other sick. My nephew started getting sick and later we discovered it was Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease, so Sunday morning Cole woke with a fever. We still aren't sure if he's got it so his Birthday party with friends is gonna be really late! Oh well better late than never. He had a good party with the cousins though. They all dressed up like pirates and we drank Shark's Blood punch and let the kids decorate their own chocolate cupcakes with pirate stuff and then had a treasure hunt. Coley was thrilled to get several lego sets and a new Wii game. The Wii has been "broken" for a while, so we "fixed" it and let them play. Cole also finally got his Easter bike replaced. He got a new one for Easter that broke almost immediately. We could not find a better bike in the entire valley, and believe me I looked. The construction was pretty shoddy and two screws stripped the threads in the handlebars making the bike useless. Fortunately they took it back but the only bikes around were the same brand or worse in Logan, so we finally took a risk on a motorcyle bike. It didn't get great reviews but we were desperate, and he is IN LOVE with it. He had been riding Cai's old one around since Easter, which had a crushed seat I ran over in the van. We managed to bend it back but the seat kept tilting back. It worked temporarily, though until we could replace the other one.

What we've been up to besides Birthdays:

Soccer!

Came and went rather quickly. Although both the boys played this year many of the games got canceled due to the rain. Cole who had begged to play since last year suddenly ran out of enthusiasm at the first practice. It didn't take long for him to get into it again, and I think he really had fun. He was more familiar with it than Cai was so he ended up being a pretty good player. Cai improved greatly this year. His endurance was a lot better and he understood the game much better this time. He took the ball all the way down the field several times but didn't ever get a goal. It's so funny to watch at that age. It seems they just kick it right to the goalie cuz that seems to be what they should do. I guess strategy will be the focus next year.

Cole's Preschool Graduation:

Cole is moving on to kindergarten next year so this will be his last year at Billye Sue's. He is so excited. And I must say so am I. It was a little rough when Cai went into first grade. They are so close and Cole got pretty stir crazy. Not to mention the fact that Cate will now be in preschool leaving me with four entire hours a week to myself. I am making a vow to spend it painting!

We had a friend of mine from high school come stay the weekend with us. It was fun to spend some time with her family. We went to the Zoo and they had the "Friends of Willow Park Zoo" kids Fair so that was fun there was crafts and games for the kids, and then that evening we went to the Demolition Derby at the Fair grounds. My kids just love them. They had a great time and we watched a car get flipped over right in front of us. They couldn't stop talking about it. It was really fun to catch up and spend time getting to know each other again.

Cai had his first year of Baseball this year also. He is really into it more so than any other sport he has tried before. He used to complain about soccer and basketball, but he is really loving baseball. He is doing really well too, he played first base for a few games and his coach has even been pitching to him. Hopefully his interest isn't short lived.

Chris and I have been working our butts off to get the backyard gazebo and patio done. We had to get that done before we can get the rest of the yard tilled up and ready for grass. It is so nice to have a place to put the grill for now and enjoy the waterfall! I think our neighbors have gotten more out of it than we have up to this point. I can't wait to get things put back together back there. We are probably going to wait on the deck and driveway to the back garage until next year. We ended up getting a new hot tub for a great price for Chris' father's day present. Bullfrog had a factory direct tent sale at the Lee's in Logan. We really needed to get that first before we build the deck. We had a pad poured underneath the covered area in back and then we'll build a deck around it so that it is sunken in. The kids are having a ball. I thik they're in there about 3 times a day along with all their friends. But they haven't asked to go to the aquatic center once this summer!

Then at long last I finally finished the tile in the downstairs bathroom and the glass tile and hearthstones around the fireplace in the family room! Now I just have to paint it. Although I did finally get the walls in the dining room and the walls down to the basement all touched up. It made such a difference, I can't believe it took me so long. Now next on the project list is getting the game room/downstairs kitchen decorated. I have been searching for inspiration forever, and finally found what I had been looking for. We wanted it to look kinda retro urban loungeish. Which sounds a little odd but I really have it all figured out in my head. The real challenge is finding art deco decor to match, but I finally found the perfect prints for the walls! They're vintage 30's jazz club posters. They have female lounge singers on the front advertising different Jazzclubs in New York and Chicago. Just picture a look like the movie/musical Chicago. Chris LOVES that show, and I knew these were perfect for the theme we were going for. I just can't believe I found them. They even have a rusty orange color that matches the stained concrete down there to a "T." Then we want to make a lamp to go over the future pool table (now air hockey table) that looks like these lamps that were all over the set of the last Norah Jones concert we went to. They look like huge drum lamp shades with different colored pendant things that hang around the drum. So they'll be reds and oranges. I love it when plans I've had in my head for years begin to materialize.

Funny and Freaky Photo's

For your enjoyment, and my own I wanted to compile all of our goofy and down right scary looking photos. So enjoy!

You gotta zoom in on this one to get the yuck factor.

This classis was hiding in the background of a birthday party pic!

After fearlessly diving in, he actually came up happy (2nd photo)

Note to DCFS: this is an optical illusion, I do not make it a habit of hanging my kids off cliffs for a photo.

The living dead? Or just compromised genes. Probably the later.

He's Finally 30!

Well at long last I am no longer married to a twenty year old. I don't often get the chance to be the one cracking "old" jokes, so I may revel in this occassion a little too much. Yes I am older, but still I just gotta rub it in a little. Some trips down memory lane, this is Chris at 19! Doesn't he look like a baby! We actually picked up my wedding dress on that trip.








And now a decade later!





We took the kids down to Moab to go camping for Chris' B-Day and we all had a blast. We tried to camp but a sudden rainstorm freaked us out when we arrived so we hurried and made hotel reservations, then the rain stopped an hour later. It sprinkled during the night on Saturday, but that was about it. We wished we wouldn't have jumped the gun on a hotel, but that storm came so hard and fast, and while Chris was calling around most hotels only had a few rooms left! The rest of the trip was beautiful. We did some easy hikes, took a hummer ride and had dutch oven chocolate cherry cobbler on the bank of the colorado river for his "Birthday Cake." We figured a campfire would be more appropriate instead of candles, because lets face it it's about the same effect at his age (JK). I'm glad we got away though, with soccer and t-ball games on the way camping may be a little tough for a while. If you want pics of the rest of the party go here.

EASTER!

I found this video on the LDS Church website. I loved to so much I had to haul my computer to church on sunday so I could share it with my Laurel class.



I can't believe that Easter has come and gone the calendar confirms it, however the weather and my internal calendar just seems a bit off. I usually am anticipating spring so much I can hardly wait, but this year, I really don't want to tackle all of our outdoor projects. It just seems we have barely wrapped up the inside ones. I really can't wait to have it done, I'm just running out of steam to do it myself. In fact I am ashamed to admit I just noticed a Christmas garland outside that has not yet been removed. I keep thinking I would get to it but the ladder has been in the extra garage surrounded by mud. Shameful! To still have Christmas decor up AFTER Easter! A perfect illustration of the state of affairs at our house though. Oh well, enough whinning lets talk about Easter!


We had two visitors come to stay with us. The top picture is Easter loot they scored from Uncle Gabewhen he came about a week ago. The second pic is what Grandma Guymon brought for Easter (a dress and doll for Cate and street hockey gear for the boys). Much to our kids delight they are doomed to be spoiled. They are the only grandkids on the Guymon side so it gets rather ridiculous, although they would never complain. While Grandma was here we had projects to do of course she is a great sport about helping watch the kids, and helping in the manual labor department as well. Every holiday has been tainted with one project or another this year, but Grandma had fun with the kids while Chris and I painted his Logan office and I tiled the downstairs tub surround. The kids were in desperate need of new bikes, so Chris and I got the kids some new ones since their birthdays are still a ways off, I don't think they would have let us wait another minute. In fact Coley declared he would not ride his "little bike" to school ANYMORE! I admit it was way too small for him, but we thought bikes for Christmas would have been a little bittersweet since they couldn't ride them till spring anyways. I guess the cheapskate in me has to apply a big toy purchase to some sort of holiday! Cai got a big 20 inch bike with handlebrakes and a kickstand those were about his only requirements since every picture of any bike he loved. Cole just wanted a big bike so he got one with flames all over it, and Cate (if you haven't guessed already) wanted a princess bike with a basket. We couldn't even wait for the big day to give them their bikes. We ordered them in and I had to go pick them up so I took the kids with me, and they were so excited to see them. Cole nearly wanted to ride it right through the store. I figured since it was supposed to rain the rest of the weekend I would let them ride on them while the weather was good on Friday.

Easter morning was really fun, Cai came into my room at 6 a.m. I told him we would go out and look at baskets at 7:30. So Cai crawled in bed by me and proceeded to ask me if it was 7:30 yet every 15 minutes. They had already received their big gift so the baskets were mostly small toys a DVD and candy, but they were ecstatic nonetheless. The Easter bunny had a great idea this year by the way, each kid was assigned two colors of eggs to hunt for so that each kid got exactly the same number of eggs and the Easter Bunny could hide them according to how old they were (i.e. easy spots or harder spots). We'll have to remember that for next year. We picked up some really cute wind up toys from a store in New Zealand called Catch & Kiss, they're all metal and mechanical so the kids can see how they work. Cai's is called Pintacuda and Cole's is called Sparklz. Cai's walks like a bouncy bug and Cole's spins and makes sparks. The boys loved them and so did we. You can see them and more at Kikkerland.

Somehow we had a bit of a Swedish food fest on Sunday I didn't realize until later that we had Swedish pancakes with lingonberry preserves for breakfast, and Swedish hamballs for dinner. Maybe it was one of those subconcious things.