Building Hope for a Cure

On July 31st I had the privilege of participating in a American Cancer Society Relay for Life. Our team name was "Building Hope for a Cure". To start off our fundraising, Larry's work (Sutherland Lumber) made a very generous donation to our team. So we decided to base our team name around "building". Larry built a frame of a house that said the word "HOPE" inside to display at our camp.

We also had a lot of support from my mom's work (Swire Coca-Cola) in Salt Lake and Grand Junction. They donated water to our team. We even had a group drive up from Salt Lake to participate on our team.

We started the walk at 6pm. It started with a "Survivor's Walk" 9or as I call it...the purple shirts". I was honored to walk with a good friend, Tina Hart, who is a cancer survivor as well.

After that, all the teams started the 12 hour walk. I was amazed at how long some of the people actually stayed on the track. it meant so much to me to have their support, but to see them out there all hours of the night really touched my heart.

At around 9pm there was a Luminaria Ceremony where bags were purchased and designed to honor or in memory of those touched by cancer. Lauren was our official bag decorator. She made a very cute bag for me. She also made a bag for my Dad (Grandpa Kelly) and Larry's Grandma (GG). She also decorated a couple of bags for other friends. One of the bags was for my friend Michelle, who has a friend that lost her sweet little boy to cancer last year. It was so touching as the names were read and the bags were lit to light the track throughout the evening.

I could not have asked for a better group to participate with, not to mention all of the many, many donations made to my team by wonderful friends and family. It does go to a wonderful cause..the cure for cancer. Something I plan to see in my lifetime!

First Day of School

Well, I can't believe it's finally here...My baby's last year of Elementary School. Her first day of Kindergarten is still fresh on my mind, and here she is the "big dog" of elementary school. And Josh is going into 3rd grade. Wow! Time flies too fast.

When I woke up at 7:30am, Lauren had already showered and was ready to head out the door to school (they leave at about 8:40am). I could tell she was excited to get back and see her friends. Josh was excited as well. I made my "traditional" 1st day of school breakfast. And then they headed out the door. I was sad to see them go, I love having them home for the summer. But my sadness did not compare to the sadness another little friend in the house was feeling. Hope was so sad to see her "guys" (as she calls them) leave for school. But we went out to wait for them when school was over, and she was thrilled to see them heading back home (and so was I)!

My update is Out-of-Date

So, this will be a long update, because I think I took the summer off. :) Our summer seemed very short for some reason, and school starts tomorrow for the kids, so I should be able to keep up a little better.


We went to Utah for a week this summer. We were able to go see Stadium of Fire at BYU. The Jonas Brothers (or as Lauren calls them..The JoBros's) were in concert. We had really good seats in the stadium , but I still snuck her down on the field, almost up to the front row so she could get a better look. She had a blast. Josh's favorite part was the military flyover at the very beginning. He thought that was awesome.

We also went to Lagoon. Hope was able to ride a lot of the little kiddies rides with her brother or her cousins. She loved it.

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We also went to a new water park in Draper called KowaBunga Bay. It was another very fun day.


When I got back from Utah, I was feeling very run down. I talked to my Oncologist about it, and she moved my September CAT scan up to July. She said the cancer is stable, my lymph nodes have not grown any, so that was good to hear. She did think I might want to consider a round of Rituxin therapy. It is an immunotherapy, and is not as harsh on your system as chemotherapy. She said it would shrink all my lymph nodes down, and could help with some of the symptoms I've been having. The down side is, it would be a 2 year treatment. It is a 4 hour IV drip once a week for a month. And then 2 months off. I'm just not sure I'm ready to commit to that yet. The last month I've actually felt great. So I'm going to wait until my follow up appt in September to discuss that option. Not sure I'm mentally ready for any treatment. I'm liking this "watch & wait" because it allows to me to live a normal life. But I'm not opposed to the treatment if I start to feel like the symptoms are getting worse. I still take it one day at a time! And so far...the days have been pretty darn great!

Summer Splashin'

Hope has been so excited to go swimming, but the pool just hasn't warmed up enough this year. We did get one really hot day and decided to let her try it out. She LOVED putting on her new swimsuit. She LOVED kicking her feet in the water. She LOVED getting in the pool...but only for a few minutes. It really isn't very warm yet. I think she'll really LOVE swimming, when the water gets up to 85 degrees. We're still waiting for those "hot" summer days...hopefully they'll be here soon. I feel like we're still waiting for summer to start. Either way...we're having FUN!!

No Longer my Friend....

Here's WHO:

Here's WHAT:

And..Here's the CAUSE:

I guess doorknobs no longer stop her.

ps: You can tell Hope is a 3rd kid. If my first kid did something like this I would be disinfecting the entire area. Clorox-ing the shower and throwing away the shampoo bottle.

With the 3rd kid, I just put the shampoo bottle back, hoping it would get rinsed off well after the next person takes a shower, hoping it's not me. :)

2 Busy Days for 28 Relaxed Ones...Good trade off!

So, here's how it started. I've done this crazy thing before. I've even gone to places that specialize in this kind of thing. I do it to make my life easier. But it's been a loooong time since I've had the motivation. But I was just one Taco Bell away from my limit. So I decided to muster up the motivation to do it again. The "thing" I'm referring to is MASS COOKING!!!

It takes a little planning, but in the end it's definitely worth it. I will post what I made, and you can comment if you would like a specific recipe. I make very simple meals. I just pre-make them and freeze them to cut down on cooking time every night. So here's what I did:

First I made a menu. I picked items we normally eat, and then some new recipes to try. I GOOGLED "Once a month cooking recipes" and searched for some that looked good. THIS is one of my favorite sites for recipes.

Next I took my shopping list to SAM'S & WAL-MART. At Sam's I bought a package of disposable pans (30 pack) and I also bought all of my meat. 3 big packs of ground beef, one big back of chicken breasts, a package of 2 roasts and a package of boneless ribs. It was $75.00 for all that. And then I bought the "other" ingred's at WAL-MART at spent about $45.00. So it's not that expensive considering the amount of food. I've gone to Supper Solutions before and made 12 very small dinners for about $150.00. So it's much more cost effective to do it on your own.

On the first day, I prepared all the beef dinners. I cut the roasts up into 4 small roasts. Then I browned the 2 packages of ground beef. And then I made the rest of the beef dinners.

The second day I prepared the chicken dinners. I baked the chicken breasts, and then chopped them up in the food processor ( I'll post the items I actually made below). But then I also froze a lot of ground beef and ground chicken to make in future recipes. Cuts the prep time in half.

These are the recipes I made. Let me know if you decide to try it. It really frees up a lot of my time. Good luck! :)

MY MENU

Spaghetti sauce x 4

lasagna

cheeseburgers 'n' fries casserole x 2

meatloaf x 2

roast x 4

Poppy Seed chicken

Chicken & Rice burritos ( I made 15)

BBQ Chicken (just put some breasts in a baggie w/ BBQ sauce)

BBQ Ribs (same thing as the chicken)

Chicken Pot Pie x 2

Plus I have 5 or 6 packages of pre-cooked ground beef, and 2 of cooked chicken for quick dinners like tacos, etc.

Then, in the morning you just take out what you want to have for dinner and let it defrost in the fridge all day. Then throw in the oven that night. VOILA

It's the big ONE EIGHT

....that's eighteen months old. I just can't believe how much change takes place in such a short amount of time! I'm trying to savor every moment, because I know before too long I'll wish we were back here.