Aloha From Maui!!

Jared had a pain conference in Maui so we went early and turned it into an anniversary trip! I've never been to Hawaii. It is AMAZING. Everything is gorgeous. If someone would bring my kids to me I could just stay! When we got here, we stayed in a town called Kaanapali for 3 nights. It was great! Our hotel (Sheraton) was listed as one of the best places to snorkel. When you swim out just a little bit there are these HUGE sea turtles that come to eat. It's a little freaky the first time you see them. You can actually rub their shell. On Tuesday, we moved over to a town called Wailea. We are staying at the Grand Wailea. WOW. It's absolutely amazing. I haven't taken very many pictures here yet so I'll put those up soon.

This is flying in. It's so festive. Even the bathroom signs are fun :)!This picture is from my phone. I didn't get very many pictures of our resort. Jared jumped off of the Black Rock. I took the camera down but forgot to put the battery back in :(.

It was neat to see the different islands from the beach.

Jared, Joe, and Julia (his partner and HILARIOUS girlfriend) went up to watch the sunrise on Haleakala (a volcano) and rode bikes back down. I opted to skip this :). I'm scared of heights and read a scary review about the bike ride. They had a great time!! I still do not regret not going :).

We drove (halfway) to Hana on Tuesday. We planned to go the whole way but got a late start. I'm glad we did it the way that we did because we were able to stop and see some neat things. You can buy a coconut and they chop the top off and stick a straw in it. Very cool! That's Julia.

We stopped at a place called Garden of Eden. It was gorgeous!! I've never seen more amazing plants, flowers, and trees.

This rock was in Jurassic Park!

We stopped and watched surfers at Hookipa Beach. There were little kids out there that were amazing! I guess you learn to surf here as soon as you swim. We stopped and ate in a town called Paia. It was very cool! Everything that we have eaten so far has been amazing!! I'll be wearing dresses for awhile until I can get back to the gym :).

Happy Birthday Harrison!!

I can't believe Harrison is seven! This birthday made me a little sad. It just sounds so old. We got to have a "date day". It was great. We went to the movie and out to lunch. He picked Buffalo Wild Wings. Then we went to Party City and he picked out things for his party. He decided on a soccer party since the World Cup is going on. My boys LOVE soccer. For awhile I thought I was going to be hearing those horns in my SLEEP :). We had his party the next night at our house.

Test Results

On Sunday evening, Lydia's incision completely opened and was very infected. Thankfully it happened right around the time that Jared got back into town. He called her very sweet surgeon and he met us at the clinic at 8:30. He thought he might need to reclose it. When we got there he had to put cotton swabs down in it to get cultures and then cleaned it out. She flinched but never cried or pulled away. I was SHOCKED. She's a tough cookie :). He decided to leave it open and rechecked it today. It's healing really well so he's just leaving it like it is and will check her again in two weeks. We found out that all of her results have come back NORMAL :). I can not tell you how thankful we are. Thank you for all of your prayers, calls, and texts. That meant more to me than I can tell you. We've got sweet SWEET friends and family :). We are waiting for a few cultures to come back (they take several weeks to grow) but those aren't the scary things that we were so worried about. She did come down with fever today but I think she's fine. I couldn't post without adding a picture. Those of you that know Harrison can PROBABLY see the resemblance. They always look alike but sometimes it just freaky :). I thought this was!

Party and Pool Pics

Jared teaches the Teen class at church on Sunday nights. We've got such a sweet group of kids (young adults!). We had a pool party a couple of weeks ago and had a great time. Hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, nachos, and ice cream sundaes. One of the girls asked if she could just move in! Haha!! I forgot how much teenagers can eat! I should know since I've got Zane. Usually when we host a party we have way too much food. We had a couple of burgers left and that was it! I love it. Our sweet friends Patrick and Lindsey Pulley and their kids Kennedy and Will came. Jessica's parents were also there. I just love them all to death! It was so nice to be able to sit and chit chat. Harrison with his masterpiece! The girls enjoying their picnic.

Jared built an arbor over the cooking area a couple of weeks ago. I LOVE how it turned out!! I really am going to get some finished pics of the pool and post them...eventually :).

LOVE this umbrella. It's huge and it swivels all the way around. We can turn it and cover Lydia's big top step in the pool so that she doesn't get too much sun.

Jessica and Lydia. We are going to miss her SOOOO much. She's one of the sweetest girls but I'm excited that she's getting to move to Russellville and go to Tech. She made the dance team there. YAY Jess!! I'm proud of her :)

Surgery Day

Lyddie had surgery yesterday to remove the knots from her neck. He ended up taking out three. We should get the biopsy results back in a week. Please keep praying for her :). We are hopefully almost finished with this!

Her surgery was at 8 but we were supposed to be there at 6:30. She was all smiles on the way there. We rode with Jared and my mom took us home incase she was sick or upset. Granny beat us there. I don't know what I would do without my Mom. She's been to every appointment that Jared couldn't go to. She's the most supportive person I know. She's such a great example of what I want to be for my kids. She had two presents for Lydia. One for before and another for after the surgery. She LOVED her new pony. I think her name is Marshmallow.This was after we walked back to her room. She did great but started to get nervous when people started coming in to talk and check her temperature and oxygen.

They gave her some Versed to help her relax. It worked! It was so weird to see her like that. I cried and giggled at the same time. She started drooling and babbling. Her mind was moving slower so when you would say something to her it wouldn't register for a minute. Then she'd just giggle. She moved so slow and she couldn't hold herself up very well.

It relaxed her enough that they were able to just push her back. That was much better than them peeling her off of me to carry her which probably would've happened if they hadn't given her the "happy juice". My Granny came up and stayed with us, too. That helped more than she'll ever know!! We are blessed with wonderful family. Jared's parents and Grandma were out of town but we kept them update with text pics :). It was hard on them not being there.

She was not happy when she came out. She kept trying to pull her IV out. I felt sorry for her. She was being stubborn (I guess that carried thru even with the medication. Ha ha!) and wouldn't let me help her with her popsicle. She wasn't with it enough to control her hand very well so she kept missing her mouth and getting mad. Poor thing! She started to calm down a little after we walked downstairs to leave. She ate some bacon and pancakes on the way home. She was almost back to normal by the time we got there. She was such a little trooper. I'm really proud of her!

When we got home she opened her second present.

She got a little princess doll. She loved it :).

She took our temperature. She would put it against our skin and say, "Yes!! It's 20."

Last night she helped me shuck corn. She may've found herself a job! Now I'm going to teach her to snap green beans :).

She did a little painting. We let her stay up and play while we watched a movie. The boys stayed with my Mom and Dad. They had a great time going to a baseball game and the movies. They might not want to come home!!

Surgery

We went to the doctor today and the test results came back normal. He is going to remove at least one of the knots on June 22 and do a few tests on it. He said that it's probably just a chronically enlarged lymph node (I think that's right) but there are a few forms of lymphoma and some other things that they'll test for. I would've been a lot happier if he hadn't mentioned lymphoma! Jared feels good about it which makes me feel better. Please keep her in your prayers. She'll go under anesthesia but it'll take less than 30 minutes to do. I'm going to try to post some May pictures before we leave for Florida on Friday. If I don't do it now then I never will! I found a web site (blog2print.com) that prints your blog into a hardcover book. I'm going to try to keep this really updated since it'll be the only form of a scrapbook that we'll ever have :). It's amazing how those silly little stories or pictures become SO precious a couple of years later! Have a great day!
***I just posted them and put them under this post!

May

We've been having a lot of fun. The pool has been AWESOME. I have a feeling that it's going to be a great summer. The kids had their last day of school Monday and we are leaving for Florida on Friday!! Here are some pictures of what we've been up to.

We had our friends Stephen, Ashley, and Loddie out for dinner one night. Another one of our really good friends came for a little bit but bailed on us. We still love him tho (haha David!!) Lydia was loving the crab :). Lyddie LOVES gymnastics. A friend of mine was cracking up at her during the last class. She said she just looks so happy and smiley out there. I'm really excited about her doing it. This was the first time that she would actually do the rope swing. In the past, when it was her turn she would point to the girl sitting next to her. I was really proud of her!I think they call this Spiderman. When she does it at home, she starts closer to the wall and is basically doing a handstand (with NO mat). She scares me a little :).

We went to the park with some friends from church. It was fun but HOT. This is Kennedy. She is SOO sweet. Luke was there too but I didn't get a good one with him in it. We were talking and not taking many pics :).

I couldn't believe how curly her hair was! It looked like she had a perm :)!!Loddie came out one night and we played outside and went swimming. They had more fun playing hopscotch than I ever imagined. It was hilarious to watch them go as fast as they could.

Lydia had to "hold" her leg up when she came to the singles. She never actually picked her leg up. She just hunched over and drug it. Hard to explain but funny to watch!!

A frog jumped onto the driveway. Lydia wanted to touch it so bad, but when she would get her hands close to him (or her I guess) she would start shaking and say, "I just gonna look at him." The best part was when Jared picked it up and it peed on part of her hopscotch. She cried and said, "That frog peed on my hockscotch." She was MAD.

Loddie and Lyddie (it can get confusing).

Arwin came over for a visit. This is the biggest scaredy cat I've ever seen. She's terrified of storms and will find any open garage when she hears thunder. One night, we went to the garage for something during a storm and she ran into our dining room. She was soaking wet and muddy. Jared had to drag her out (leaving a nice mud trail). She's sweet!

Coconut is still around. Still tolerating Lydia :).

Lyddie and Courtney. They'd had a big night of swimming!

On Memorial Day, my family came over. These are my sisters-in-law Ofelia and Lynn. Love them!!!

Living the hard life. Eating homemade ice cream on a raft in the pool...

My nephew Carter. He's a cutie!! My nephew Colin. ALSO a cutie!!!!

They had a big game of volleyball. Jared said it reminded him of the Holiman days :). Background incase you don't know...Jared and I were next door neighbors when I was growing up. We had a pool and played a LOT of volleyball!!