Summer = Bugs?

Ok seriously I still get the shivers just thinking about writing this story. So last night about 10pm I was in Shane's office chatting away and I decide to go to the kitchen to get a snack. As I am walking by our front door on our wood floor, I am about to step down when something just under my foot starts moving.

I freak out!! Scream!! Run!! And yell at Shane to get out here!! We flip on the lights in the entry way and this is what I see crawling across the floor, well crawling pretty fast:



Seriously, the body itself was easily 1.5 inches. So what does Shane do?? He brushes it out onto our porch and closes the door...like well that's the end of that. OH NO!!! I was NOT about to just let him brush it outside, so I ask him why he didn't kill it? His response? It's Sunday! Seriously!!!???!!! And he just goes about life like nothing has happened. Meanwhile I'm still totally freaked out that maybe it's going to crawl back in...what if it had babies, maybe our house is infested, etc. etc.

I think Shane finally realized I was NOT going to just let this drop so he went and got bug spray and went out and sprayed it (why couldn't he just smash it I still don't understand?) So it was doused with bug spray and brushed into the bushes. Oh great, so now it's in the bushes mating with his friend producing more.

Ok I know I'm being overly dramatic but when I finally sat down to eat my bowl of cereal, I started gagging thinking about it and couldn't finish. Ok I'm a freak, I admit it.

I thought it was a cockroach but consensus at work today says it's some type of beetle. I haven't seen anything this big since my mission in Australia where I had to kill cockroaches this big on a regular basis. Hint, put bowl over big cockroach, wait overnight, remove bowl and it's dead. They crawl up the bowl, fall over on their back and die. I LOVED learning that on my mission, that I didn't have to smash them.

PS I do have to give Shane credit for taking care of the problem, as I don't know what I would've done. I was paralyzed with fear. I love being married!!

Summer = A busy blog slacker

I'm still here! Did you wonder where I was? Yeah, it's summer and my sit inside and work on the computer knack has gone away. Probably because I've been busy enjoying summer.

So I'll get you all caught up in the next several posts of Summer with a promise to try to post more often so I don't get behind.

Summer = Cancer Free

Maybe the most exciting piece I have to share with you is that I had my 2 year scan about a month ago and everything came back clean and perfect! Yeah! So I've hit my 2 year mark which is the big milestone you want to hit for Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Apparently my chances of the cancer coming back went from about 15% to less then 2% now. I LOVE seeing that percentage going down.

I thought when I hit the 2 year mark I'd have a big celebration, some sort of party. But so far I haven't. I still might but nothing has really come to me as to what to do to celebrate. Any ideas?

So...the plan now on my health is that now I only have to go to the clinic every 6 months instead of every 3 months...yeah. But I still have to get scanned every 6 months (I thought it moved up to a year, oh well.) However, instead of a PET scan like I have been having, I only have to have a CT scan. Berry Barium here I come...mmmmm (ok really it makes me want to gag thinking about having to drink that stuff!)

And an update on my hair for history sake. Here is my hair growth of 2 years, minus some trims to get it to one length.



So that's the update. CANCER FREE!!!

Summer = Concerts

We've been going to a ton of outdoor concerts and events this summer and the best part is that they've almost all been free. Who doesn't love throwing a blanket down on some grass and listening to music? It's one of the true signs of summer for me!

We've been to see Peter Breinholt at Draper historic park, Ryan Shupe at some political event (I was there to hear Ryan not for the political event, so much so that I didn't even vote for the guy...should I be admitting that on here, oh well.)

We also went to the opening of the new Draper ampitheatre where we saw the Utah Symphony perform. It was fun because they performed movie themes like ET and Harry Potter.


Then we spent both nights at Draper Days this year. Have I told you how much I love Draper. I do...maybe I should save my love for Draper for another post...until then, just know that I LOVE Draper! We saw Collin Raye and then the next night was Beatlemania and Fireworks. Beatlemania was NOT good I didn't think but loved Collin Raye. I think Shane wouldn't have minded skipping both nights but he was a great sport to go with me both nights.


The 4th of July was spent in Sandy with some of my family. Not sure who performed but they played a bunch of songs from the 80's and so we all enjoyed it. And then of course the fireworks at the end were great.


This last weekend, Brigitte and I went and saw Tim McGraw in concert at Usana. We got grass seats at the last minute and had a great time. I hadn't been to a big country concert in a while so it was fun to go to one and hang out with Brigitte.

Summer = Hiking

Brigitte and Tyler invited us to go hiking a few weekends ago. We hiked of Bells Canyon, not too hard of a hike and it was fun to see the views and the lake up there.

That hike inspired Shane and I to go on a few others. One other one that I really liked was hiking to Secret Lake (some spell is Cecret, I saw both and not sure which one is right.) It was a little early in the season for wild flowers but it was a good hike and fun to hike when it's so hot outside and then all of the sudden you come to a big pile of snow to walk across. Then the lake still had a frozen section in the middle.




The other thing we did which isn't really hiking, well hiking in your car out west. We went to Kennecott Copper Mine. Of all the years I've spent in Utah, I've never made it out there to see it up close! So it was a fun little afternoon trip one day. We didn't stay real long but still fun to see.

Summer = Family Time

We've been doing a lot of things with our families lately and it's been so much fun.

Christy and her family came up to visit and so one day we took all the kids to the Draper pool. It was actually my first time at the pool but it was so fun. The kids had a blast and loved playing with cousins.


My parents left on their mission to Arcadia, California the end of June. They had a big open house the night before their farewell and then Sunday was the farewell and setting apart. It was a very busy weekend but so fun to see everyone that came to support my parents. They're settling into everything down there a doing a great job.


Shane and I got to babysit Michelle's kids for their anniversary one night. We walked over to the park and played on the playground and let the kids run through the water park. We had so much fun and loved spending time with them.





My sister Lori had a baby boy in July. They named him JD (Jay Douglas) and it's their first boy. He's a cutie and I would imagine he's going to be dressed in blue and orange a lot when football season starts. We're just happy they didn't name him Gator! :)


We've also been entertaining at home. Shane's mom is in town so we were all able to get together for a dinner one night. It was fun to just sit around and talk and get caught up with everyone.

Also, Jeff and Whitney came over one night for tacos and a little Jazz Singer movie watching. Love all the music in it. Although Jeff grew up part of our family and even knew 90% of the songs, he had never seen the movie. So I introduced Jeff, Whitney, and Shane to the movie
and I think everyone thought the movie was a little better than they anticipated.

4 Little Monkeys

This last week I had the opportunity to go to California and stay with my sister Christy and her family for the week. Christy just had her 4th Girl and needed a little extra help as she was recovering. So I flew down and stayed the week with her. The week was casual and we just hung out mostly so although I went down there to help out, I still consider it a vacation because it was pretty low key.



Some things I did do: Go to the park with Mia, walk Avery to school, take Eliza out to dinner to celebrate her getting baptized the week before, and held, fed and cuddled Emmy whenever I could. We did go to the beach on Saturday, it was overcast but still a fun time.

Eliza and I at Ruby's celebrating her baptism:


Being down there just hanging out made me more excited to be a mom one day. Christy's girls are so cute and full of energy and they made me laugh everyday.

Christy and I were able to go to a movie the last night I was there so it was fun to get out for a while. Also, my good friend Konstantina came down one night and we went to dinner and got caught up on each other's lives.

The 3 girls could not get enough of their new, cute, little baby sister Emmy. If they were home, one of them was usually holding her. They argued over whose turn it was to hold her and would often count to 10 (or 100) to signify it was now their turn to hold her.

All 3 girls surrounding their new sister:








One cute story about Mia. Mia is obsessed with iphones. If there is an iphone around she is begging to play a game on it. Whenever she would turn my phone on and see the picture of Shane on the front she would say: "There's Uncle Shane" and then flip the pages until she found the game she wanted to play. She knows how to turn the camera on to take a picture, how to pull up the pictures she has taken. She knew when I moved one of her games to another page on my phone. The girl is a crack up with the phone and she isn't even 3 yet!

Mia at the park so excited that I was going to take a picture of her going down the slide:


So it was a fun week and it was so fun to be down there and hang out with family and see their newest addition, little Emmy. And she is so little, I always forget how little they come!