Rain, Rain... Go Away...

We wanna swim and play... oh, and stop driving our mom crazy!!!

Well, the pool is finally fixed and open. We've just been waiting for a sunny day to happen. Well, our window of sunshine came... for about an hour! For some reason summer just doesn't seem to actually begin until we get our first swim...

...Summer 2009 begins.

Playing catch-up...

I'm playing catch-up as you can see...

It seemed like I blinked and April and May were OVER...

I'll admit that I am a nerd... I blog all year, then publish the blog in a hard~bound book.

It's kind of my way of keeping a family journal througout the year.

I do my best to keep up on all the important happenings... and as you can see... I fall behind.

Wait... is June half way over already???

Awards Assembly, June 5th

Krystian and Cammy both had perfect attendance for the 2008~2009 school year...

Neither one of them missed a single day of school!

Krystian also received an award for Oustanding Citizenship (only 4 per class were handed out), so that was quite the big deal!

Cammy received an award and a patch for the Math Olympiads... she's like her mom... she actually likes math!

Way to go girls!!!

Easter

April 12th

Krystian and her best friend, London.

A sunny Easter morning... heading off to church.

My nephew Jacob's 3rd birthday...

What happened to his 2nd birthday?

Party with the family...

April 18th

Nickolas

Abram

I warned my brother... I told him to stop making faces every time I tried to take his picture.

He didn't listen...

Nathan and Nick

Staunzee and Taylor

Memorial Day... Fort Douglas Cemetary

The girls and I spent the day with my brother Jason, his wife Liz and their 2 boys.

May 25, 2009

Can you say...

...Autoimmune Disease?
If you're sitting in a doctors office and the doctor is looking at you with a blank look on his face... you may have an autoimmune disease.
If your symptoms are all over the place and don't make any sense to anyone (even the doctor)... you may have an autoimmune disease.
If you've had close to 20 labs drawn in a month and they still don't know what's wrong with you... you may have an autoimmune disease.
If you've ever sat in a doctors office and told the doctor that you'll pay him when he can tell you what's wrong with you... you may have an autoimmune disease.
If you've ever wondered if the doctor just made up some fancy word and called it a diagnosis... you definitely have an autoimmune disease.

So, after several months of playing the medical mystery game, I chose to "take a break". I just couldn't justify seeing another doctor and running yet another test.
So, originally the doctors thought that maybe my back was the culprit, but now they're saying that there is no way that my back is the cause of everything. Um ya... that's the very question I asked 2 months ago... So, the mystery continues.
The doctors are saying that I have an autoimmune disease. The trick is... there are so many diseases that fall into that category that I could have test after test run and still not have a definite answer any time soon.
Basically an autoimmune disease starts out with a virus. Your body sets out to destroy the virus but doesn't know that the virus has been killed, so your own antibodies keep attacking... since there is no virus to kill, the antibodies attack the healthy tissue in your body. This would explain why I have described the feeling over and over again as my body feeling like it's under attack. Fun times!
The symptoms seem to come and go... in fact there are days when I wake up and feel like I had never been sick at all. So, I have decided to take the summer off. I just want to enjoy my girls and my family, relax and de-stress. My plans are to either diagnose myself (haha)... if that doesn't work, I'll see a doctor in the fall... maybe.

If you're sick of being sick... you may have an autoimmune disease!

What to Do, What to Do...

So, for the past two weeks (well actually 14 months) I have been going back and forth about going back to school. When I graduated from design school last spring I thought I wanted to jump right back into it and applied for the architecture and engineering program at the U... after a lot of thought and prayer I just felt like it wasn't the right time or the right thing to do. So, for the last two weeks I have just been overwhelmed with the feeling that it's time to start up again. Here's where it gets interesting. I originally wanted to stick with something in the design industry, like architecture or engineering (city planning), but the more I think about it... I feel like I need to pursue a family friendly career. This is where I'm beginning to think that the teaching job I was offered last fall fell into my lap for a reason.

...so, I'm off to school AGAIN... the secondary education program at Westminster to be exact. The best part? With a design degree and a liberal/fine arts background, I can teach what I love and still be there to raise my family!!! Yay for knowing that this is what I'm suppose to be doing! :)

Freshly "Fallen" Flowers...

So as I was getting dinner ready and cleaning things up around the house... my sweet little Krystian came running in with the biggest smile on her face and a handful of flowers... "here mommy, these are for you!" She was sooooo incredibly proud of herself for carefully selecting and "hand~picking" each one! I asked her where she got them. Her answer was priceless... knowing that she shouldn't be picking other peoples flowers, Krystian so innocently said "I found them on the ground... they fell off all by themselves"..... awe.... even writing it now, I can't help but laugh a little!

So, I just want to say THANK YOU to the neighbor that planted and grew the flowers that my sweet daughter picked today! I am enjoying them immensely... not just because they are beautiful, but because my daughter did what every little girl does and picked her mommy some flowers! I love you... my little missy!

Girls Night...

Over nighters in Park City, shopping cart races at Target, finding (and riding) random zip lines in the mountains, hours (and I do mean hours) of laughing, and all out "good times"... this is what girlfriends are all about!

Nothing is more rejuvenating and uplifting than a good group of girlfriends!

Stephanie, Linda, Me and Shelley...

The "cheerleader" pose...

Um... I'm not sure what was happening here, or whose idea that was, but eeewwww!

So, this last girls night was a "get our unfinished projects done" night... we went out to dinner, then hit the craft store... then helped each other finish up the unfinished projects we've all been meaning to finish for months. I'm not so sure that we should have been "crafting" until 2 in the morning... things got a little out of control!!!

We mod podged paper on wood frames for Linda's family room...

Shelley made personalized magnet boards for her girls...

And Steph... well, Steph clung to her Sobe all night while I just took pictures of all the craziness and made the magnets for Shelley's boards!!!

Can't wait for next month!!!