Things that Make me Feel OLD

I am totally copying from a friends blog.  But, she and I must be on the same brain wave because I have been thinking this exact same thing.  I thought that 2010 was a bit much as way of growning old.  I am now looking down the 2011 yellow brick road and am thinking......holy crap! 

My eldest offspring will turn 14 this year.  With that age brings a ton of OLDNESS.  She moves up a class at church and will be a Mia Maid.  This also gives her the "chance" to go to stake dances.  I say "chance" because she has to convince her daddy-o first.  After this summer she will be going into the 9th grade.  If we didn't live in Utah this would be first year in High School---------> a Freshman if you will.  Can you remember when you started as a Freshman? I can!  She also starts Seminary....sheesh!  Stop already!

The middle child is not much better.  He turns 12.  That makes him a true "Tween" according to his dad.  Next year in school he will start Middle School.  He will also receive the Priesthood.  This gives him the chance to pass sacrament, collect fast offerings, and other special privileges.  He will start going to YM.  He already goes on mutual night so this Might not be so hard......but it also tells me that he will go to summer camp that is a week long!  Having helped a past scoutmaster with summer camp, I know all the "grown-up" things he gets to do.  Again OLD.

The youngest is probably the smallest offender.  He only turned 9 this past month.  I look forward to the double digits in 2012 with this child. He moved up in cub scouts and is now a Bear.  Funny thing about this is that the Bear leader is the same person when Drew was in!  (Thinking that this fact is worse for the leader than me but still....)  He will be in the 4th grade.....no more baby stuff at school like show and tell and student spot lights.  This also makes it possible for me to have a child in each grade school.  OLD.

All though these things have been milling around my head for a few weeks I do have to say that I love being a mom.  I love the three children that my Heavenly Father has entrusted me with.  They are good kids and each bring a special  spirit into our family.  I guess if they have to grow up (and make me old) I couldn't ask for three better kids than the ones that call me Mom.

(Such a bad picture of me.  That is not what I look like anymore)

Victory is Mine!

I did it!  I can't believe I did it!  Holy CRAP I did it!  Three months ago I blogged about my weight loss goals.  I bragged about my  30 pounds loss.  That was about my halfway point.  I am so excited to be able to blogg once more of my success.  It has been a long 8 months but I have stuck too it like a booger to your finger!  I set many goals along the way and acheived everyone of them.  Now a little more detail (or shall I say bragging).  I started out at my heaviest at 241.5 pounds(and yes that .5 sure is counted!)  I am now 175 pounds.  That is 66.5 pounds lost in 8 months! I have lost a total of 38.25 inches!  I have lowered my BMI from 37 to 27! I went from a size 20 to a 14 and a shirt size of 3X to L!  I used to have chronic knee pain that kept me from being active.  I started out slow and now I can walk a 12 minute mile!  I love the new me!

Celebrate with me because it will be a short party.  After further thought, I have decided that I need to keep going.  I want to loose another 10ish pounds.  Thank you too all that have already acknowledged my hard work.  Thank you to those who walked with me over the summer and to my new partner in crime who has me up at 5:10 AM to take me to the gym!  I have awesome family and awesome friends!  Oh!  I almost forgot the best news ever.........I weigh less than Andy!! 

Christmas Hope

You might remember back in August a post about a special event that was coming up that our family was going to participate in called the Festival of Trees.  My sisters and I had decided to donate a tree in honor of Mom.  It was to be called Christmas Hope.  Since then we made plans on what kind of tree decorations, went shopping for them, and put them all on the tree to make sure it was exactly what we wanted. We had so much fun doing all this knowing it was in honor of a fantastic lady and for a great cause. 

November 29th was decorating day and the excitement grew even more.  We spent a good 4 hours making the tree structurally safe, wiring all the ornaments and other decorations on, and sometimes just goofing off.  So there it was......the last three months of planning, shopping, crafting, worrying all done.  And it was beautiful!

On opening night, the first thing we wanted to do was see Mom's tree.  It sold!  We were so excited. 

Later that week I took my cute little family back to Festival so they could also see the tree.  By then, they had posted who was the purchaser of the tree.  We wondered if it might have been a friend that knew about our donation.  It was a complete stranger which surprisingly made it even more special to our family.

I was told that donating a tree to the Festival would help bring our family together even more during this hard time.  It would bring the Christmas spirit deeper into our hearts.  If you have never donated a tree to the Festival, you might not understand the feelings that surround the whole idea.  I was not expecting what I learned and felt. 

Christmas Hope....what does that mean exactly.  When we decided on the tree, the meaning was dual.  The best present that Christmas could bring was a cancer free mother which brought our family hope.  Many people hope for a Christmas all to together.  We submitted a story about our tree.  It stated how Mom had hoped and survived many things in her life.  Even now with her battle with cancer she believes there are only two things that can get a person through.....Love of family and faith in God.  She says, "if you don't have faith in God, is it worth the fight?"

My final thoughts came to me yesterday while enjoying and listening to testimonies being said at my church.  Christmas hope started before our decision to donate this tree.  Christmas hope started before my mom was diagnosed.  Christmas hope started when Christ came to this earth as a baby with the plan to become our Savior.  My mothers hope to survive cancer came from this baby boy.  My hope that she will live a long happy life comes from this same baby boy.  Our life on this earth is given hope through the baby Jesus.

Never-Slowing November (family)

Carina, you just finished the hardest year ever without a husband!  What'll you do next?

I'm going to Disneyland!

Come on....you can't be surprised....we are addicted to DL. 
Our thought process is as follows----->
Do we really want to remember 2010 as the year Andy was always gone, that Mom/Grandma was diagnosed with crappy cancer, and we were all really lonely and sad? H*ll no!  We need a vacation!  We left for DL the Friday after Andy got home.  We drove all day and stayed in Ontario, CA.  A word to the wise.  Ontario is the hood.  While trying to get settled for bed, we heard this really loud noise and our room started to shake.  I thought maybe a car driving by with a stereo?  Nope....we were right next to a car stereo installation store!  It was 10 PM!  What are ya thinkin!  We demanded a new room and called the cops.  Good thing we were only there one night.

We spent  Saturday, Tuesday , and Monday at the park.  It was never very crowded.  We walked onto most rides.  By Tuesday, they weren't even giving out fast passes.  Couldn't have asked for better weather! It was anywhere between 75 and 80 the whole time (sorry Melissa). 

We went to Huntington Beach on Sunday.  We try every time to make it to the beach but run out of time.  I am so glad we did!  That was the day it was 80 degrees.  We had lunch at a quaint little surf side shack, ate under straw umbrella's, and soaked in the Cali atmosphere.  They had a surf contest which brought in a fabulous people watching crowd.  We even saw a pair of dolphins!

Tuesday was my birthday.....I know right!  How awesome is that to spend your bday at the happiest place on earth!  I wore a button saying it was my birthday. Complete strangers wished me happy birthday all day.  I had an enormous hand dipped corn dog for lunch. I shared a piece of mile high chocolate cake with the fam while watching the fireworks.  Perfection!

Enjoy the slide show (watch for the hidden mickey's!)

Never-Slowing November (Andy)

The next big event with the start of the new month was our daddy was finally coming home!  He had decided to stay an extra two weeks so his plan was to fly home November 8th.  That made it 8 weeks total this time that he had been gone.  That's 2 months people!  Ugh....hard Mim.  But, we fought on.  We also decided that this would be his last time in Alaska.....at least until the spring.  He gave his notice and said that he was going to try to find something at home but if not he would be back if they would take him.  They really liked Andy and had no problems with that. 

Good, a door left cracked.

We never got a bad feeling about giving notice.  We felt like it was right.  That Heavenly Father had things to help us at home.  That it was time to have our daddy back.  And sure enough......with a little faith and prayers we have found some things to keep us busy for a bit.  Isn't the spirit awesome!  We are still  praying that more will come. 

Andy did have a heck of a time getting home.  Alaska is an Arctic tundra and we thought that weather in November might have an effect on Andy's travels.  It was the right thought.  His plane leaving Barrow, Alaska broke down and he had to take the later flight to Anchorage.  His flight from Anchorage was delayed because the pilots were on another flight that was delayed by weather.  He missed his flight home and had to stay the night in Seattle.  He finally arrived home the morning of November 9th!

It has been so great to finally feel like a real family again.  To send Andy to work, kids to school, and we all come home in the evening to have dinner together at the table.  To have a second person to set and maintain rules.  To not have to schedule when I can talk to my own husband.  To have someone to fix things right away.  To not be lonely.  To have my best friend back. 

I have always said that I have been blessed to be married to a person that takes pride in providing for his family.  He has worked seconds jobs, long hours, and in harsh weather.  This last year with him taking out of town work has made me realize even more how amazing he is.  He lived in places with terrible weather, lived in houses that were filthy, worked two weeks straight without a day off, left his family for weeks, sometimes didn't have a familiar face around.......all for US.  His family.

Thank you Baby.....you are one AMAZING HUSBAND.

Never-Slowing November (Mom)

You all have heard of March Madness?  Well let me tell you about my Never-slowing November......(And I will be splitting into parts as to make it easier on the reader.) 


After that dreadful holiday Halloween, it was the final count down to many exciting things!  Firstly, Mom had finished her chemo and the next step was surgery.  We did celebrate her end of chemo with a lovely dinner at Sizzler and a round of mini golf .......adults only.  We sure were excited to have Mom finally feel a little better!  Her surgery was scheduled November 5th.  She did amazing and was home from the hospital by Saturday afternoon!  In fact, I had a Sunday dinner at my house and they came!  She is such an amazing and strong person!  They told her that the pathology results would take to till the end of the week.  It took till Thursday November 11th to hear that they got all the cancer in her breast, the perimeters were clear, and only 1 of the 9 lymph nodes taken showed cancer in it!  Wow!  What a fantastic day.

Mom is cancer free! 
She fought like a girl...........kicked cancers ass................
She is a survivor!

Right now she is gearing up for the holiday season.  Thanksgiving is at her house.  She's been Christmas shopping.  She will go with you to do errands.  She is alive again!  Her hair is growing back, she can taste things again, and has so much more energy.  They will decide next month about radiation but for now......All I can say is she is one AMAZING WOMEN!

Do I Really Have to

"Do I really have to do Halloween?" This was what played in my head for the whole month of October. Halloween is more of Andy's holiday anyway.....he's not here so I have a "get out of Halloween free" card right? Well the guilt crept in and soon SOME of the Halloween decorations went up. I drew the line in putting new batteries in the talking skeleton! We did a few traditions that there was no way out of like the corn maze and the cousins Halloween party. This is what you get in way of pictures for Halloween.....

My attempt of making the corn maze fun. We finished it in a half hour! Guess we need to find a harder one next year.

I love how boys can take a very nice and pleasant costume and add gore and death to it! Poor Mario and Luigi never new what hit them.

Janae made a self portrait in her cookie decorations.....so clever

As you can see, no pictures from Halloween. I did take them. One of Drew and one of Zach. Lost them while downloading! Why am I not surprised!