Copper Hills High School Graduation 2013

Victoria Graduated!!

Seminary Graduation

 Victoria graduated tonight from Seminary. We are so proud of her and all of the hard work she has done these past 4 years. More on that in a later post though! Seminary has been an incredible experience, and she has grown so much in her testimony of the Gospel. It has been so awesome to watch her discover who she is, and discover her potential. We sure love this girl!

These kids have been such a solid foundation for each other since 7th grade. (and earlier for some!!!) Even though they have all gone on to be involved in separate activities and groups in High School (as they SHOULD), they have remained good friends and support to each other. That is family. I love each one of them like they were my own. In fact, here is a picture from the first day of 7th grade...

Keely moved out, and Patrick moved in. What a great group!

New Year!! I have spent the morning looking back on older posts and realized that this is the best form of journaling I have ever done!  I had forgotten about so many of these posts. The pictures make me a little sad, seeing how much my girls have grown up and changed over the years. I have decided to keep going with the blog, even though most everyone has long since moved on to faster forms of communication. This is for me! This is going to be such a crazy year with 2 girls dating, graduation, college starting and so many other firsts!! Stay tuned!!

Confession:  I really like Big Time Rush. It started out as a cute show that my girls really liked, then I would catch little bits and pieces of it. I was slowly starting to think it was a cute show.  Their personalities on the show are cute, and the music is really fun.  Last night I took my mom, sisters, girls and nieces to their concert here in Salt Lake, thinking it would be fun for the girls.  WRONG!  Not only was it fun for them, it was amazing for us as adults!!  Great show boys!

Time to jump back on!  I haven't blogged in way too long, and looking back through all of the posts and pictures was so fun!  It reminded me that I was doing this mainly as a journaling exercise. 
I can't believe another school year is almost over!  We are all so excited for summer.  Victoria is a junior, Hayley is a freshman, Erin is in 7th grade and Emily is in 4th grade.  I am back to working at the school now that all is well with Hayley, and loving it! Dan was made Regional Safety manager this year, and he travels quite a bit.  It was quite a year!  We are trying to sell our house, but that isn't going so great.  We will probably be taking it off the market soon.

anyone out there?

I haven't blogged since November. I never thought I would go that long. I almost feel like I am starting my journal over from scratch....So I guess I will just jump right in. I am currently computerless, but get Dan's laptop every night when he gets home from work. Hopefully mine will be up and running again soon so I can post a bazillion pictures. MORP was last night. T went with a good friend of hers and they had a blast. I love having older kids. I love the stage they are in right now. H is doing okay. We had a little visit to the ER on Thursday night. hopefully we will get this all straightened out sooner than later.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours! We have so much to be grateful for this year. Especially how healthy everyone is, or is getting!!! We are settling back into a routine of sorts, and so happy about that!

Never too busy for an IV

I told the dr I was too busy last week to be admitted into the hospital, so they sent me home with an IV in my arm instead. I had to go in every day for my medicine. Over the weekend they sent me to home health, which taught me how to do my own IV injection and sent me home with a cooler filled with goodies. It is still red, so I go in today to find out what the next plan of attack is.
The girls got to dance at the University of Utah halftime Spectacular on Sat. Some of their teachers are on the Crimson Line, and invited them to come perform.. They spent Friday night learning the dance, eating pizza and oogling the men cheerleaders, then got to do the game Sat. It POURED rain thru the whole first half. So much for cute hair!! The sun came out right before halftime and they had a blast dancing. We left right after that and met Roxanne for Mexican food. I was feeling bleh, so we left early from dinner and headed home. I actually got to go to all three hours of church yesterday for the first time in almost 2 months. It was sooooo nice!!! Erin stayed home with Hayley for me, who was (and still is) having severe stomach pains. Tapering off of the medicine is a beastly process...One step forward and two back. A sad decision was made last night to pull her from dance for the year, since this is so much more long term than we thought it would be.

what we're up to

well, last week H was readmitted to the hospital. We figure the 4th time is a charm, right? IT was a rather short visit for her, she went in on Monday and was out by Weds afternoon. SHE had a small surgery on Tues. It was only about 45 minutes long. They put a scope up her nose, then took some biospy samples in three different spots. They then cauterized the left side to try and stop the 5-6 nosebleeds she is getting a day. Her oxygen levels are much better now than they were before she went in, and I am very very happy about that!
We drove to Logan for the weekend to forget all about her medical stuff. We stayed at Hampton Inn, which had an indoor pool and YUMMY breakfast. We got to see Uncle Steve and Aunt Mary, go pumpkin hunting and swim. It would have been a perfect weekend, except I had this small pimple that turned into a full on boil by the end of the trip. I was in so much pain, that Dan took me to urgent care, which should now and forevermore be known as the back alley chop shop. The man impersonating a dr ended up doing the most painful little surgery I have ever experienced (I screamed). I am now filled with packing stuff, and waiting to find out from my own dr if I am being sent to the hospital for IV antibiotics. Good times are afoot here in our household! I told Amanda that my chest is on fire, and she said I was just feeling that "burning in my bosom" hehe

Hayley Update

I am home early from church with H. She is not doing so well today, only made it through most of Sacrament meeting. Last night she threw up a little bit and there was some blood. Not much, but still... They have upped her prednisone again (drat!) and doubled the two stomach medicines she is on. She is now on the highest dose for adults. We will see if that helps. Friday at the dr her oxygen was at 88. At 87 her dr admits to the hospital for supplemental o2. What a roller coaster ride! Her good moments are starting to happen, and getting longer, so there is light at the end of the tunnel. Her iron levels are low, so the dr told her to eat more red meat. That is normally not a problem for our little carnivore, but lately she hasn't had much of an appetite for anything! The jaundice looks a little better, and we are glad the mono is gone. Now if we can just get her nosebleeds down from 4 or 5 a day to just 1 or 2, we can concentrate on her HSP, which is the dratted disease that started this whole mess! I wish I could take away the stomach pain, I think that is the worst of this all for her. That's why they doubled the meds, but so far it's not helping. Where is House when I need him?