Salt Lake City Marathon

Jason ran his first marathon! So at the end of April we went to Utah for the Salt Lake city marathon. He ran the marathon with his sister Jessica.  They both did great.  Jason finished in 4 hours and 27 seconds.  He was hoping to finish it in 4 hours.  His legs were cramping starting at about mile 18 and from then on he was fighting the cramping.  The marathon is a 26.2 mile run.  I am so proud of my wonderful husband for working and training so hard for his marathon. 

Here is a before the marathon photo with his sister Jessica.  

 

Here is the after the 26.2 mile run. 

For the first couple of days we stayed in Salt lake to be closer to the finish line.  So we spent our days before the marathon walking around Temple Square and the mall.  The kids haven't actually walked the grounds of Temple square and seen the visitors centers and such.  So we showed them the sights.  It was nice to be together as a family and show them the fun sights on Temple Square.

 

Mya and Brianna are our posers. 

 

Adam and Maddy are the best of friends.  They love to wrestle with each other all the time.

After we were done in Salt Lake we drove up to our families cabin in Provo canyon where we met my sister and her family and my brother and his family for dinner.  I love the mountains up by the canyon unfortunately I didn't get any pics of our family up at the cabin.  This is the only pic I have from our day at the cabin.  It was so good to spend time with my family.  I wish we could see more of each other.

Here are my cute nephews Sam and Ty.  I can't get enough of them.  They are so cute and fun.

Mya turned 8!

Mya turned 8 years old in Novemeber and was baptized and confirmed Dec. 3rd. She is such a wonderful girl and a great example to her younger siblings. We were so blessed to have wonderful family and friends come into town to be with Mya on her special day!
(Sorry about the randomness of the underlining. Can't figure out how to turn it off)

Our good friends the Reynolds!

Mya with Granny and Grandpa!

Mya with Grandma and Grandpa!

We were lucky to have my grandmother come up for Mya's baptism.
Here is our four generation photo.

Thought this was so cute.
Maddy sure loved seeing Great Grandma K.

No more Hospitals PLEASE!

So when we returned from our trip to Arizona Maddy started complaining that her Belly hurt. At first I was just thinking that she was tired as we all were since we had just returned home from our trip. It kept persisting and then I started to think that she was either gassy or constipated. She started complaining of pain on Sunday afternoon. The pain was very sporadic. She would be complaining one minute and the next minute she was fine and running around and playing. I knew something wasn't right when she woke up on thursday morning and wouldn't eat or drink anything. I started by just taking her to urgent care. They could tell that she was in pain but was not running a fever or anything. They sent us to the ER for a "Full work up". After blood test, Urine test, and an x-ray. They concluded that she was dehydrated. They started her on and IV and then told me they were going to do more investigating because they could tell something just wasn't right. ( I later found out that the original xray showed a small bowel obstruction.) They then proceeded to do a ct scan. What they thought they saw in the ct scan in that her small intestine was "malrotated" They then ordered an upper GI test. After the upper GI test they admitted her to the Peds. floor and the next morning they did a lower GI test. After the lower GI test they concluded she had something called "Intussusception". Which is where your intestines act like a telescope and they fold inside itself like a telescope. They then moved quickly and transported her to another hospital in Reno and had her in surgery very quickly to repair the intussusception. She was in PICU for a night to monitor her and moved her to the Peds floor when she was stable. She was released from the hospital on a monday. But the next day we took her right back to the ER because she spiked a fever that initially read 107.2. The ER sent her home once they got her fever down and did more blood tests. Everything came back n0rmal.



Once Maddy was feeling better she wanted to get out of bed and take a walk around the halls. But the IV came everywhere with her.

The only other thing she liked to do while in the hospital was watch movies. They brought in a tv with a vcr and dvd and she watched movies.

She is doing much better now and her incission looks great. She still complains of pain sometimes so we are watching that and if it doesn't go away we have been instructed to call the surgeon again. Her doc said worst case scenario is that it has folded in on itself again. The chance of this happening again is less than 5% chance. But I've learned that Worst case scenario is very possible. We're just praying that its not.

Summer Happenings!

I know it has been over a year but I am now finally getting around to updating our blog! We luckily got a new/used computer so I can now update our blog. The only pictures I have on this computer is what I've taken very recently that were on our camera. Our other computer locked me out and won't let me in to do anything. So there aren't to many pictures to show for this post.

To start off our summer the day the kids got out of school in June the kids and I took a trip to California to help out my sister Terie who had just had her baby. The baby was 3 months pre-mature. His name is Samuel. He is now almost 7 oz. and is getting ready to come home from the NICU in a week or so.

Our next trip was as a family to Utah for the 4th of July. We had fun hanging with my family and had the amazing opportunity to go to BYU's Stadium of Fire. The whole show was amazing. Brad Paisley, and David Archiletta performed. The fireworks gave me goose bumps.

Next we took a trip to Arizona the first week in August. Yes it was Hot but we had such a good time. Jason is currently working on his Masters Degree in Human Movement. He is doing it all online through AT Still University. They are located in Mesa AZ. Luckily my sister Emilie and her family lives their so when Jason had to attend on campus lectures for one week we were able to stay with them. The kids had a blast playing with their cousins and of course swimming. Granted the water was probably about 85 degrees but it was still fun.



Brianna started to learn to swim without a life jacket or water wings and did quite well.

Mya also learned to swim without any floaties. She is quite the fish. By the end of the week she was diving in and swimming so well. Without assistance.

Maddy started off the week by being terrified of being in the water without anyone holding her. She learned that with water wings she can float and have a great time. By the end of the week we could hardly keep her out of the pool she loved her new found freedom in the pool.
Adam made amazing strides as well. He started off by just sitting on the side putting his feet in the water he was so afraid of being in the water even with someone holding him. So I did what my nephews swim instructor did and just threw him in. Yes it was scary but it got him in and he also realized that he can float with the water wings and have a great time. He was swimming and floating all over the place by the end of the week.

I was so proud of my kids and all that they learned and accomplished.

Ongoing projects

We constantly have some sort of project that we are working on. Recently Jason has felt the urge to work outside. So here is the most recent outside project.

When we bought the house there was a sort of rock garden in front of our house. Jason got sick of looking at the rocks and decided to take them out. It really wasnt to bad until we got to this rock. It took about 2 hours just to get this big granite rock out. It was much bigger than we had ancticipated. Jason eventually hooked it with rope and towed it across the driveway with the van.

Here's Adam trying to help daddy get the rock out.

Here are some finished pictures of the landscape outside. It looks so much nicer.

Here is the latest inside project. The 2nd full bath in the house was the worst by far. Covered with wall paper that was water stained and halfway peeling off the wall. The floor was laminate tile that was laid poorly and was coming up at almost every seam. We decided to gut the bathroom and retile. We retiled the floor and half the wall with Porcelain tile. It still isn't quite done but looks so much nicer than before. These pictures are backwards but you get the picture.

A few more from Zions

Here are a few more picutres from our Zions Adventure. Here's the group that went on the zip line. It really isn't the most flattering picture. But it was sure fun.

From left to right. Dad, me, mom, Kareena, Chris, Ben, and Mya .

Maddy sure loved spending time with Kareena.

Poor Maddy was just to tired to make it up the stairs so she just crashed.

We're finally posting something!

After many long months we are finally posting something. In June we had the wonderful opportunity to make a much to quick of a trip to Zions National Park in Southern Utah to be with my moms family for the Keddington family reunion. It had been atleast 20 years since we had been together for the Keddington reunion. We got to see family we hadn't seen in years and we got to hear my grandmother talk about my grandfather that many of us did not have the opportunity to know because he passed away 30 years ago. It was so fun to be there. And to be with all my siblings but one who is still on his mission. (We miss you Mike.)


We enjoyed some very beautiful scenery in Zions. We hiked and played in the ranch where we were staying.

Adam playing in the water on our hike.

Mya and Brianna on the pony ride.

Mya is our dare devil and did the zip line. She loved it.

Miss Madelyn playing in the water.

Mya and Brianna our posers.

More beautiful scenery.

Adam sporting his new sunglasses.

The whole gang, except Mike.

Winter Storm

Here's the latest storm to come through. It dropped about 18 inches and then continued to snow all day today but it was too warm to have more stick. Church was cancelled due to the massive amounts of snow on the roads. We usually will only get a few inches at a time, not almost two feet in less than 24 hours.



I used our retaining wall to make a nice little snow slide for the kids. They had a blast. Here's some video and pics of them having fun on the slide.