August with the Cahoon's

August for us was a busy month. It started out with me recovering from getting my 2nd g-tube put in. (that is another post for later...). Then we got to spend some time with Curtis' sister and her family. Because Ben was working out-of town, Heather came up to Boise for a week with the kids. I had fun going to the Boise Zoo with Heather, Spencer & Matthew. (we did take pictures, but it was with Grandma's camera because I left mine at home) We also got to play with them at our house and over at Grandma Judie & Papa Chuck's house too. Spencer didn't get to bring his Trio blocks with him, so he was super excited when he got to come to our house and Uncle Curtis had them. We also took the blocks over to Grandma's one day so that Uncle Curtis and Spencer could build together with them for a few hours. (I think they both were in heaven) Having fun building
"I'm building Uncle Curtis"

Cheese

Matthew also wanted to be just like the "big kids"


While Heather was in Boise, Ben flew in for the weekend and we got Cahoon family pictures. (No, Crissie did not take these. She was unavailable at this time, but we had another friend in our ward take them. Greg Bodily works with Curtis in the YM program and he did a great job!) The last time we had taken Cahoon family pictures was when Spencer was about 6 months old, and now he is 4 and Matthew is 1, so it was definitely time for a new picture.

All of us together

A cute, fun, & goofy family picture w/the immediate family

After Heather and the kids were here for a week, I left with them to go back down to their home in Utah to spend a week with them. It was sooooo much fun to be able to spend some one-on-one time with my sister-in law and nephews. The kids kept me entertained and Heather and I had a lot of fun just talking and visiting with each other. (this was the most time that I had spend one-on-one with Heather in the 5 yrs I've been in the family. I throughly enjoyed getting to know her better and enjoyed her company.) I was a little worried about how the kids would handle me being on oxygen all the time and always needing to do treatments, but it never seemed to bother them. They learned quickly how to walk around/over all the oxygen tubing and that I needed to do my treatments and take my medication. After being at the house for about 24 hrs, Matthew (17 months) followed my oxygen tubing to the bathroom and started pulling on my tubing to get me to come out and play with him. The boys also LOVED treatment time (which is good since it was 2-3 times a day). They got sooo excited when I said the word "treatment" and would go running to the bedroom. I think they mostly loved the fact that they got to jump on the bed while I was doing treatments, but the also loved trying to help me get all of my medicine ready and putting on and turning on the vest. Treatment time definitely was not dull and boring for me.

Matthew learning how to work the Vest machine

"Aunt Sara I'm a frog...ribbit, ribbit!"

My cute little buddy!!!

Spencer loves bulding with his Trio's so much, he even builds words with it

(thanks to Word World on PBS)

I LOVE this picture of Matthew. He is such a happy boy!!!

Uncle Curtis joined us Labor Day weekend to spend time with the famliy and also to bring me home. The boys were VERY excited to see Uncle Curtis. (Spencer immediately wanted to build with him when he first walked in the door) They also loved jumping, singing, and playing with their Uncle too. On Labor Day, we all went to the Hogle Zoo. It was lots of fun, but I think that Aunt Sara needed to be in the stroller too. Lets just say there are a lot of hills at this zoo and I was having a hard time walking around because of my lungs and oxygen level. We didn't get to see everything here, but we did see several animals and we also got to watch the "World of Flight Bird Show". Here are some more fun pictures.

Tigers

Penguins

Momma & Baby elephant

Shores' family enjoying the Zoo

This was a big bird (I think it was a type of Eagle, but I can't remember)

Hawk getting ready to fly

Flying over the audience

Aunt Sara & Uncle Curtis enjoying the show & our time with family

Family Pictures

I have been wanting to get some updated pictures of Curtis and I for the last year. I really wanted to do it before Christmas last year and try and do a picture Christmas card to send out. Unfortunetly we were busy and/or I was sick, so we never did it. After Christmas I still wanted to do it, but was in and out of the hospital, so I wanted to wait a while. Then I went on full-time oxygen, and then got a feeding tube to help me gain weight. I was really hoping that the full-time oxygen was a temporary thing, so I kept waiting. After we finally made the call that it was for sure a permenant thing, and I had gained a few pounds, I decided that we were going to try again to get pictures. I realized that it didn't matter if I was wearing oxygen, because we were happy and it is a part of my life so I didn't need to be ashamed of it. So in June, we finally got our pictures taken.

We had Crissie Fields take our pictures. She is in our ward and a HUGE BSU fan and she takes some pretty AMAZING football pictures during the game. She also has started doing children's photography and is working on expanding her portfolio. Crissie was excited to take pictures of us because she had not taken couple pictures yet. We went to the Boise Train Depot and had a great time. I usually hate getting pictures taken because it's always "Smile...ok 1,2,3...got it" and then usually I'm blinking or smiling funny. Chrissie did our pictures more like action pictures, so there was no pressure to try and look good, we were laughing and talking all while she was snapping away. Of course most of the stuff she took was thrown out, but she did get some really good ones of us. Here are some of our favorites:

This was the first picture that caught Crissie's eye as she

was downloading pictrues.

I really love the color in the picture.
This one is tied with the first one, I really like this one too!!!

This one is the one that most people seem to really like

He loves me...can you tell?

Gotta have a kissing picture, right?

Aren't we cute together!

Walking into the sunset....

Thank you Crissie!!!

I LOVE our pictures!!!!

Random Happenings

As usual this year, I'm a little behind in blogging. I've been wanting to update our blog with pictures and stuff from the year, but I've put it off because I've been trying to get some other things done that are a little more important. (like taking care of myself and my husband :o) Below are some pictures of things that we have been doing this year. (they are in no particular order...)

When Heather, Ben & kids were here in May for the CF walk, we had a small family birthday party to celebrate the upcoming June birthdays. Spencer turned 4 and Curtis turned 32. Curtis is slowly teaching Spencer to like the Chicago Cubs. Spencer says "Go Cubs Go" often. During this trip up here, Curtis also played the "Go Cubs Go" song for Spencer. He loved it! So, for our birthday celebration Heather made a "Cubs" cake in honor of her brother and her son.

"I get to blow out the candles Uncle Curtis"

"Go Cubs Go"

For Mother's Day this year, we had Both of our Mother's and family over for dinner. It was really nice to be able to spend a few hours with my Mom and Curtis' Mom and honor them on their special day. They both do so much for us and we are VERY thankful for all the love and support that they give to us. We Love you Mom & Mom!!!

My Mom (Melanie)

Curtis' Mom (Judie)

The weekend before we left on our Seattle trip, we got a wonderful surprise. Curtis' Aunt Mary Jo was in town with her husband Clay to attend her 50 yr high school reunion. Aunt Mary Jo is Chuck's only sister and she lives in Michigan. I was excited to meet her as I have never met any of Chuck's siblings since I married into the family (but I have heard a lot about them). Curtis was also excited because he had not seen Mary Jo in over 10 yrs! It was fun to talk to her and get to know her. I also enjoyed watching Chuck talk with his sister and talk about all of their memories from their younger years.

Judie, Chuck, Mary Jo, Clay

July 4th weekend we were invited to light & watch some fireworks with some friends from church. It ended up being a neighborhood party! There was lots of food, decorations, music, and fireworks. The kids started the festivities with a parade down the street showing off their Red, White & Blue. We all enjoyed the company and of course the fireworks!!!

Getting ready to watch the fireworks

Happy Birthday America!!!

5 Years

The first day of our journey together: 5 yrs later our journey looks like:

What an amazing 5 yrs it has been for us!!! Who knew 5 yrs ago what kind of experiences we would have so far together. I think that both of us had a different vision of where our journey would take us. Thankfully we have a loving Father in Heaven who knows us and the kind of trials and experiences that we would need to help us learn and grow individually and together as a family.

Some of our experiences together have been:

-Both of us finishing up college & becoming licensed in our field of study

-Curtis being able to keep his job through the MANY lay-offs that have happened

-Curtis learning how to deal with 12 & 13 yr old boys as Assistant Scout Master and now as Scout Master

-Hundreds of doctor appointments, pharmacy runs, and lab tests (99.9% of them have been for me)

-Several surgeries, procedures, and overnight hospital visits

-Getting use to taking medical equipment with us where ever we go

-Having a friend live with us for 2 months, my brother live with us for 1 yr, and now my sister living with us for 2+ yrs

-Finally having a successful garden (after several different attempts)

-Being a part of an "empty nesters" FHE group once a month and becoming friends with many people in our Ward

-Serving others and also learning to accept and allow others to be blessed as they provide service to us

-Spending time watching movies, playing games, and reading fiction books together

-Having fun babysitting and doing fun things with other family & friends kids (and then later sending them back to their parents...)

-Learning what is truly important in life...love and family relationships

The list could go on and on....

Through all of our experiences in the last 5 yrs we have grown closer to each other, our faith and testimonies have been strengthened, and we have learned to accept Heavenly Father's plan for us. Yes, there are days that are hard and we may get frustrated that our life isn't exactly how we had pictured it would be right now...but we LOVE our life and we wouldn't want it any other way.

Thank you Curtis for all of the love and support that you give to me each day. I wish that I could put into words exactly just how much you mean to me and how much I love you...but I don't think that anything means more than these simple words: "Thank You" and "I Love You!" I'm so thankful that you are my BEST FRIEND and that I'm married to you for Time and ALL Eternity. I'm excited to see where our journey takes us over the next 5, 10, 20+ years.

Happy 5th Anniversary!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

Seattle-part 2

Here is the rest of our trip:


Thurs. June 24th: We went to the Pacific Science Center. It had a ton of different hands on experiments that you could do that explained the workings of science. There were displays on animals and some life size games set up that you could play. They also had several different movie theaters that were showing 2D & 3D science movies. The unfortunate thing for us was that several of the exhibits were not working and a few of the movies and exhibits cost extra money to see. However, what we did get to see was fun and pretty cool to see.

This was in the walk-in butterfly exhibit. There were at least 20 or more different kinds of butterflies in this room and many of them would fly right in front of you and land on you (so we had to be VERY careful while walking around so we didn't hurt them)


Beautiful!

I love the color of this one!

Curtis & T-Rex
I'm scared!

A Douglas Fir tree that is over 600 yrs old!

Friday June 25th: We went to the Seattle Aquarium, walked around Pike's Market, and took a 1 hr. harbor cruise. This was the only day that was fairly cloudy and cooler. It did rain, but it stopped before we left our hotel for the day, which was nice!

Star Fish

You could almost touch this octopus....good thing there was extra thick glass in between you and the octopus.

tropical fish

HUGE fish! There was no need to zoom in on this big guy!

Tiger Fish

Marlin & Nemo at home in their anemone w/Dory swimming by

This anemone is a fish eating anemone....I was waiting for this fish to be eaten.

A multi-level open market place....It was cool, but my balance problems made this a not-so-fun place for me to visit.

Here is the harbor where we got on board the Argosy and took a 1 hr. harbor cruise.

The Seattle Aquarium is completely over the harbor!

Some of the many cranes that load & unload the cargo ships that come in from all over the world

Another view of the harbor

Sat. June 26th: Drive home! Seattle was lots of fun! We didn't get to see everything, but that's ok....we left if for another vacation. :o) This vacation was just what the doctor ordered for us: a change of scenery and some much needed time together.