Events

We have had so much going on lately and I have started feeling guilty for not blogging about it.  I feel enough mom guilt, I should not feel guilty about blogging! So I tried talking myself out of it and finally decided to just post so I can feel better. After Easter we drove to UT to visit my sisters, Julie's family and see all of Danny's friends.  We had a great time visiting and got to spend a lot of time with some of our favorite people. The highlight of the trip was taking Becca to her first sonogram appointment.  Some doctors think that my incompetent cervix could be genetic, so Becca was a little worried about it and had the sonogram at 16 weeks rather than a little later.  We didn't think they'd be able to determine the gender with any accuracy and  tried not to get our hopes up-but we were pleasantly surprised! She is having a little girl! We were all pretty shocked. It was so fun to see her little baby kicking and moving around.  I was lucky and got an ultrasound every two weeks with Lucy (well, if a high risk baby is considered "lucky") and could never really see anything. Just looked like an alien to me. The perspective i had watching Becca's baby was totally different-weird huh.  The nice technician pointed out the feet etc and I could totally see it!  Mmm, must have been my lame technician, he really was a jerk. Anwyay, it was really fun to be there for that exciting event. We immediately went out and bought the cutest pink outfit we could find. The only picture I have of that trip:

Becca decided to drive home with us and we had a fun time seeing her last week.  On the 16th we drove down to San Luis Obispo for the day for an open house at Cal Poly.  We got to walk around the city for awhile (and bought the LAST iPad in the apple store for Steve's birthday-victory!). It is an incredibly cute town. They have all the big retailers, but with this cute little downtown feel.  My favorite thing was this little stream running through town, in front of the mission. Restaurants have little patios over it and there is a nice walking path that winds around the stream.  Lucy had a riot jumping on the rocks with Danny. 

Danny went off to the open house and Lucy and I had special girl time. We ate cookies on the riverbank and threw pebbles into the stream. We had a great time.

I expected Danny to be gone awhile,
to be continued....

Easter and Revenge

I haven't been blogging much lately-but here I am blogging about Easter on Easter itself! On Tuesday we drive to Utah (the first of two UT trips this month), so I thought I should get the Easter pictures out there early. Easter relaly took me by surprise this year.  We put up our chickie and egg window decals a couple weeks ago in anticipation and then it snuck up on me.  The easter bunny was stuffing eggs (all eight of them) two minutes before our impromptu hunt this afternoon.  Last year Lucy dressed up in a beautiful easter dress with adorable pig tails and hunted for eggs. Since conference falls on Easter sunday this year Lucy drove to Grandma Karen's house with hair in her eyes in jammies and a Cinderella dress.  (I started out in a comfy skirt, changed to jeans and ended up in sweats and a hoodie. I love Conference Sunday.)  Instead of a hundred pictures like last year I have about five from Danny's phone. I just didn't get it together. Oh well. Lucy still had fun.
She ate her first "Peep"(and hopefully her last. I think those things are nasty!)

and was lucky enough to hunt for candy at both G-ma's houses. (She switched to Tinkerbell before the next hunt).

Now for Revenge. I just want to document this anecdote for posterity. Backstory: Several days ago Lucy got a time out for not doing what Danny said.  So, Danny and Lucy were playing catch and Lucy told Danny to put his shoes on. Danny told her that he didn't want to and wanted to play in his socks. Lucy put her hands on her hips and said, "Daddy, when you two and I'm Daddy I will give you a time out and put you in that chair." Later she added, "I will be mad at you for not putting you shoes on."  Ouch.

Hobbies

Yesterday Danny parted with his beloved drum set.  When he got home off his mission he was so excited to buy a new set of drums and "jam" with his best friend and roommate Jared. I came along and distracted him from that a lot, but we went to guitar center as soon as we got to school that fall and bought him some drums. I remember being hopelessly in love with Danny and wanting him to have whatever her wanted, but the logical side of my brain asked me why I should encourage him to buy drums when I was hoping he would be marrying me soon, and how practical is a set of drums in a small college apartment?  Well he LOVED those drums and played them often with Jared for a good six months. Then he played them slightly less. Then we moved to CA and had a baby and stored them in my dad's office for a few years.  We just didn't have the space for them and our neighbors wouldn't have had the patience for them.  When Danny got cancer we moved them over to the garage so he could play them when he had the energy.

He played them a couple times these past eight months, but yesterday Danny decided to sell them. Isn't that sad? I may not have always been in love with those drums, but now that they're gone I'm kinda bummed. Fortunately Danny wasted no tears and on the day he sold the drums he got his new wetsuit in the mail-part Christmas present from Grandma Joyce and my parents.  Danny has always used garage sale wetsuits, so a brand new O'Neill wetsuit is heavenly. We are incredibly excited to be going to a school (UC IRvine or Cal Poly) within minutes of great surfing beaches. That has been Danny's dream for a long time.  He is now all set to fully enjoy his favorite hobby. Out with the old and in with the new!

Dallas

Well, I didn't muster the energy to blog from Dallas and tell you about our adventures as they were happening, so on photo-intensive post will have to suffice. Dallas was really fun. We had great/weird weather.  I am not a fan of humidity so I have thought I could never live in the south-but March in Texas is actually quite nice. It was similar to here except that one day it got freakishly cold and snowed-but then it was 65 degrees the next day, so we couldn't complain. We arrived and adjusted to the time change quite quickly-and then adjusted again with daylight savings time. Lucy slept beautifully, but I need to start putting her in a bed rather than a porta-crib because the girl is TALL! She slept on a diagonal with her head hitting the mesh the whole time-poor baby. All of the kids played together perfectly. Danny left about the same time Luke and Emily did-he flew to Irvine for a reception for admitted students in his program. I admit I was a little frightened being left with all the kids on the first night without anyone else but it went surprisingly well.  There were never any tears over sharing or fights as I expected there would be. The kids were also took there parents departure and absence in stride.  I would sob like a baby when my parents left us for more than a few days (heck, I got homesick when I left for college and sobbed from Salt Lake to Provo).  The kids were awesome.  The hardest part was entertaining everyone! It was spring break so we had long days to fill, but everyone enjoyed the outings we went on.  They caught on quick that an outing meant Aunt Christy giving Princess fruit snacks and crackers in the car:) We did have some boo boos along the way.  Poor Camille fell and hurt her leg at one point and wouldn't walk on it for two days.  I took her to urgent care just in case and they said she had a light sprain. She scooted around the house on her bum to avoid walking on it. When she did start walking again she tripped at the park and scraped off several layers of skin off her nose. Poor girl.  She was rewarded with Barbie band aids.  On our last day in TX we took the kids to the pool. Within 30 seconds Lucy fell on the pooldeck and got two cuts under her chin.  I was covered in blood while we tried to figure out if she needed stitches or not.  Fortunately we decided they didn't look too deep (and you can't see a scar down there anyway!) and she hopped back into the pool. She was excited to get a Barbie bandaid on her face and match her cousin.  Grandma Marilyn came about five days in and gave us an emotional boost. Danny and I were able to go out to dinner and a movie which we haven't done in awhile. We needed it by that point too! She really saved us-she was another playmate, another set of eyes while trying to keep track of everyone and another set of hands preparing meals. Bless her forever for coming with us.
  It is weird being home now with only one kiddo. I miss the kids and think about them going about their routines that I'm aware of now. I hope Lizzie doesn't forget me. We feel lucky to have really bonded with those kids during our stay.  Lucy has missed playing with them and we have missed talking and hugging them.  I'm glad we'll see them in a few months.
Some pics:
St. Patrick's Day! Danny and Spencer made a trap and we painted some rainbows to lure the leprechauns in.

The Leprachans were too clever for our trap and they made a disaster all over the house!

Malls are awesome! We drove around, played at the Disney Store and Barnes and Noble several times.
 

 

 

Proof of poor Camille's owie.

 On a perfect day we flew a princess kite.

 

Bloody shirt (excuse bad pic)

 

Adorable Lizzie at pool

Off Again

So here is my confession-Lucy is still not potty trained. Through no fault of her own. She can't wait to go buy Princess panties and get going but I keep postponing it! At first I was waiting until chemo treatments were done, I didn't need to worry about someone elses fluids at the time.  Since then we have had one fun trip after another and I just haven't wanted to ruin the consistency potty training seems to require.  I am also secretly hoping that there won't need to be much "training" when we finally get to it. We'll see!  We leave for our March trip tomorrow. We're flying to Dallas to play with Spencer, Camille and Elizabeth while Luke and Emily travel to Europe for almost two weeks.  We are really excited to see them and Lucy imagines having three playmates every day is what heaven is like.  I haven't seen the kids since last Christmas since we missed our reunion this year and am really excited to see them-they are the cutest. So wish us luck-going from one child to four may be an adjustment for me and my lazy lifestyle right now.  We'll see if I can post from TX and show off the cute brood.

Port Removal

So I lied about posting our Zions trip.  I totally forgot. In the meantime we've had some stuff happening! Last week we found out Danny got accepted to UC Irvine's Urban Design and Planning masters program. We were really excited.  Our lives are still very different then they used to be and I guess I have felt like we would simply go on doing this forever. It is incredibly refreshing to imagine our lives away from cancer and actually DOING something. Don't get me wrong, I love not doing anything. I love that Danny stays home with me and the most stressful thing we do is make sure we get his walk in. It is awesome, however, we may feel more fulfilled in the future. We are still waiting to hear back from UC Berkeley,  Cal Poly and the U of U. I'm excited to hear back so we can start making some decisions.

Last weekend we went on fun beach trip with Steve and Marilyn. We drove up the Marin headlands and walked to Black Sands beach. "Black Sands" sounds so exotic-but it was more like "Brown Rocks". It was a gorgeous walk down though and the beach was very beautiful. Lucy LOVES the beach and had a wonderful time.

Tomorrow we go to a surgeon to have Danny's port removed.  Most cancer patients keep their ports in for awhile in case their cancer recurs.  Our Dr. told us we could take it out whenever we felt like it-which made us feel great. The procedure is much easier then getting it in. It is only local anesthsia and I guess they just open up the wound and pop it right out. Done in 30 min. He can't swim for several weeks, which he is bumbed about, but other then that it is just a good excuse to have some vicodin again! More then the actual procedure, we are relieved to get it out just so that reminder is gone. Danny said this in a family email:

"Getting the port out will definitely mark an important moment in this shedding of the cancer process.  I'm really looking forward to getting it out.  It does feel a little symbolic in the sense of it all kind of began with the port - it all happened through the port - and it will all kind of come to an end with the taking out of the port. I never thought about keeping it as a keepsake!  Good idea, maybe I'll ask.
It's funny to think about the beginning at Tahoe when I had just gotten it in.  I remember the night before we left for Tahoe (I believe I got it in that day) and I had just loaded up on some vicadin and Christy wanted to go to Staples to get some calendars and stuff.  It was 9 at night and it was the first day on vicadin so my system was really sensitive to the stuff still, so I was super loopy when we went.  I went into staples with my sweats, socks (no shoes:), and a sweater.  I was kind of swaying as I walked, with a big grin on my face as I walked around following Christy.  It was all so funny right then.  We were completely overwhelmed after our meeting with the nurse practitioner that day, but I was able to kinda forget with the drugs and poor Christy was trying to put it all down on a calendar just to try to make sense of it all.  Oh man, I'm certainly glad that we aren't there anymore:)"


Me too.  I'll post some before and afters of the big event.
And now just because-here is Lucy throwing rocks in the gutter behind our house. What a beautiful time of year!

Disneyland!

I can hardly think about our Disneyland trip without getting giddy with happiness.  We had SO MUCH FUN.  Last Wednesday we drove down to Irvine and spent the night with my Uncle David and his wonderful family.  Lucy went to sleep talking about all the Princesses she was excited to meet and what she would say to them ("I'm Lucy. I'm two. I love you.") We woke up and Lucy wore her Aurora dress,  Princess bows I made her, princess shoes, Aurora socks and a princess jacket.  We left for the happiest place on earth and I was as excited as Lucy.

A little background: I have always loved Dinseyland-even more so because we didn't go that often ( I've been probably four times). We almost went a year ago when Lucy was one and I selfishly thought she would just hold me back. How could I go on Space Mountain a hundred times with a baby?  Well, Lucy is at the perfect age for Dinseyland now and this experience was all about her.  Since Danny got cancer I have been pretty protective of Lucy-I just wanted life to seem more normal for her-even though it was far from it. I did this by showering her with the attention I could spare and as many princess gifts as I could afford (and then some). I just think she deserves something extra for the hard months we've had.  This trip was soothing for me because it made me feel like I'd done okay. Lucy was so happy, she was in heaven and thats all I really want. It felt great to be there as a family (even if Danny was wheeling along beside us:) Anyway, that is why I couldn't stop crying as we walked down Main Street and got out first glimpse of Sleeping Beauty's castle.

We saw Mickey as soon as we got in.  Lucy was very excited and gave him a big hug. Then we went straight to Dumbo.  Lucy is usually very adventurous, but lately she gets worried she'll "fall and get a big owie" so she won't ride her bike or run too fast etc. She yells at everyone to "be careful". Anyway I was worried she wouldn't like the rides but she loved them.

We got Danny an electric wheelchair for the day, knowing we would be there all day and running around the park and it was a great decision. Danny was tired by the end of the afternoon anyway and it got us on rides SO FAST!  We went in the exit on all the big rides and went straight to the front. You wait for a minute and you're on. Awesome.  It is one of the few ways we can cash in on cancer-I didn't feel bad passing those people at all (although we got a couple looks-what is that cute young man doing in a wheelchair? I'm sure they thought we were cheaters. ) My uncle, aunt and cousins joined us at Disneyland and everyone wanted to take Danny around on rides:) My favorite rides are Space Mountain (rode twice and it was so much fun) and Indiana Jones (rode twice, got stuck once right as the boulder was coming down on us-so scary sitting there in the dark with the truck bucking over and over). My parents are really fun to go on rides with. My dad pretends to be terrified and does a special yell I find hilarious and my mom often is terrified and does a yell that is equally funny.

The best part of the day was the Princess Fair. You stand in line forever to meet and take pics with three of the princesses. We were able to meet Tiana, Ariel and Belle. Lucy was star struck. She was totally shy with Tiana-I couldn't get her hands out of her mouth. She was slightly standoffish with Ariel but liked talking about Flounder.  She LOVED Belle. Those girls are so sweet and good at drawing kids out. Belle was kneeling on her level so she was easy to talk to. They talked about Lucy's Aurora dress, and all about Lucy-it was so sweet. When Belle asked for a hug Lucy just squeezed her. When we left Lucy was ecstatic. We still talk about it daily.


I was excited about the parade. As a kid we always skipped the parade and did the big rides with very little line while the suckers watched the parade. This year I spent an hour saving a spot and waiting for it! It was well worth it. We ended up right in front of a float. Lucy gave high-5s to every character and dancer that came our way. The highlight was Minnie blowing her a kiss and Lucy returning it. I could have died with happiness at that moment. There is nothing like watching your child when she is filled with happiness. We went home exhausted and happy.

(Stay tuned for our Zions trip. Short track speed skating is on. You understand.)