One last trip to Maine: Labor Day 2012

On Labor day we decided to take one last trip to Maine, because we can never really get enough of Maine, it's our favorite. :)

We started with some beach combing in Perkins Cove

 The girls found lots of shells and shiny rocks for the buckets. Cam founds lots of shells and shiny rocks to put in his mouth. ;)

 We grabbed some ice cream and toured the cove, then headed over to Oqunquit beach.

Kisses for Mommy? please? (he's not having any of that)

 He'd rather be splashing in tide puddles. 

 Daddy will give me kisses though :) 

Love him

 My handsome beach boys

It was really a perfect day

That ended with a delicious Maine seafood dinner. Happy bellies = happy babies :)

Backyard Camping: Labor Day weekend 2012

On Labor day weekend we camped out in our backyard. There is no better way to camp in my opinion. You still get your fire, woods, bugs, tents and sleeping bags, but you are also ten steps away from electricity, microwaves, cribs, and cozy mattresses, just in case... ;)

We set up the tent earlier in the day to maximize the girls' time to play in it. 

Nestled in the corner of our yard, with woods right behind them. See...That's camping!!

Cam crashed early in the night, so we put him down inside the house, then we threw some logs in the fire pit and roasted up some hot dogs for dinner.

Everyone ate 1, except for Brinley who ate 2 1/2. That's my girl :)

We all stayed out by the fire (even Monty) talking, singing, roasting marshmallows and telling stories till finally it was time for bed. Someone had to be inside with Cam so I kindly volunteered to sleep on a real mattress and let Taber sleep outside with the girls. 

He texted me this pic in the morning. So sweet :)

Bright eyed and bushy tailed! The campout was a huge success!

Horseshoe Falls: August 25, 2012

Last year Taber (with the help of our friend Joseph) discovered a little water hole with a great rock for cliff jumping. We loved it so much that we had to go back again this year. 

I love seeing the smiles on our kids faces when we do things like this. Reminds me that you don't need to spend a lot of money for your kids to have fun and make memories. A little water hole does the trick just fine :)

Cam was too focused on throwing rocks in the water to bother looking at the camera. 

Now he's looking!! Such handsome handsome boys :)

The kids loved going on a floatie safari with Dad. Look at Brinsies smile! Ah I love it!

It was also fun watching everyone jump off the cliff. Taber taking the plunge!

Even Mommy took a break from kid duty/camera duty to do a few jumps.

Flying Ninja kick!! Had to bust out my sweet moves. ;)

Cutie Cam dipping his little tootsies in the water

It was a great afternoon with some great friends!

Blueberry pickin' August 18, 2012

 One of our favorite summer traditions is picking blueberries at Parlee Farms. 

 The blueberries are always so big, plump, sweet and juicy! 

 Cam likes sampling them. He's a very good taste tester :)

 The girls are awesome little pickers and filled two big buckets this year.

 Meanwhile Cam was sampling. 

 And sampling...

Although he did take a quick break to pose for a picture. 

(And he really thinks he's smiling when he does that :)

After we picked berries we headed over to feed the goats and sheep. 

Blueberries and farm animals. What more could a kid ask for? :)

Manchester by the Sea: August 14, 2012

 For the year end celebration at Taber's work we got to take a lobster boat tour of Cape Ann and eat lobster by the sea. It was a nice way to close out the year and say goodbye to beautiful New England.

We brought the kids and they had a great time. 

Taber's boss owns the boat and has several of his own lobster traps. He made the kids' day when he pulled a lobster unto the boat. They were so excited! 

Later we dined on the lobster and listened to some live music

 The kids stayed entertained by looking for hermit crabs and seashells.  They managed to gather quite the collection.

 It was a gorgeous night in a gorgeous setting.

One last picture because it makes me smile :) These two are just the bestest little buds in the universe!

Girls Camp, Epic Skit Night and a Celestial Hug

I really really love working with teenagers. I love their energy, I love their silliness, I love their enthusiasm for life and their general awesomeness overall :) So when I was asked to be a Stake assistant camp director for our church's Girl's Camp this year I didn't think twice about it. The answer was easy, "YES PLEASE!!!"

I arranged for my kids to be farmed out to different friends during the week while Taber was working and then at night he courageously took on single Dad duty. I'm so grateful for everyone who made it possible for me to be up there the whole week because it was one of the best weeks of my life :) 

Some of our rockstar stake leadership team. It was really awesome working with these fabulous ladies!

 The first day we had to pack our own lunch. Taber packed mine for me and when I opened it up I found Runts in my lunch. Isn't that the cutest thing? He put Runts in a zip-loc baggy for me. :) I rationed them out all week and every time I ate one it made me think of my sweet thoughtful hubby:)

 We had just over 100 girls at camp. Their shirts were color coordinated by what year of camp this was for them. I was in charge of all the cute little 1st years in the white shirts.

There was lots of singing

And lots of silliness :)

There were night time devotionals

And morning flag ceremonies.

We had hair parties...

And celebrating 100 years of girls camp parties!

We also had an epic night of skits. 

 I was in charge of the skit for the stake leaders so I busted out an old rap I made up back when I was at girls camp about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

We acted it out and the girls went nuts over it. 

 We also showed them our dancing skills. Those teenagers may think we're old, but we still got it... ;)

Also I think in an alternative universe I would've been a pretty good rapper...lol :)

 Jeana and Candee dancing around as flames in the furnace :) Love these ladies!

And Me and Merissa breaking it down one more time... :)

 The girls all had amazingly awesome skits too. They did them by year and I was so impressed by their creativity, fearless acting, and hilarious scripts. Such a fun fun night!

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The highlight of the week though for me was meeting Sister Elaine S. Dalton, General President of the Young Women organization for the entire LDS church. She had flown in from Salt Lake to be the keynote speaker at a regional young women's conference in Massachusetts but agreed to come up to our camp and speak to the girls the day before the conference.

From the moment she walked into the amphitheater I felt her spirit. She radiated light, joy, beauty and love.  None of us could stop staring at her. We had prepared a special song to sing for her and I was asked to sing a short solo at the beginning. I looked right into her eyes as I sang, and when the girls joined in with me, singing about living for what's right, strengthening others, and holding up our light, I smiled with all my heart because in that moment every single person there could feel God's love for us and we couldn't help but cry happy tears. 

When we finished she invited me to come up and share my feelings about the song we had just sung. She said some amazing things to me, about me, that I will treasure forever and never forget.  I love this picture because you can see how happy we both were in that moment. It was amazing!

Then she gave me a hug. I say it was a celestial hug because I felt so close to heaven in her embrace. :) She truly sees everyone around her as God sees them, and she radiates His love for us. I will never forget that experience. Listening to her speak that night and spending time in her company has inspired me so so much and changed me for the better.

On our last night we stayed up till almost 2am talking about all the fun things, the spiritual things, the crazy things, the hilarious things, and the wonderful things that had happened that week. I was exhausted, but invigorated at the same time. I learned so much in that week and was uplifted and inspired in so many ways. I know that was exactly where I needed to be and I just thank everyone again (especially Taber!) who made it possible for me to be there :)

Biopsy Results

Back in August I needed a physical to go to girls camp, so I scheduled an appointment with my OBGYN, (since I was overdue for my annual anyway) and figured it would be just a quick in and out type of thing since overall I'm a pretty healthy gal :) During the breast exam however my doctor found an unusual lump.  As soon as she showed me and I felt it for myself I was like, whoops, that was obvious. I felt a little embarrassed that I hadn't been doing my monthly self-exams but at least my doctor was on top of it. She ordered an ultrasound and the results showed that the lump was irregular. A needle biopsy was scheduled next, they found that the cells in the lump were rapidly dividing and it would need to be removed and further biopsied. Surgery was scheduled at the end of August and the lump was taken out. I was told I should have results back in a week, but after the first round of tests the doctors couldn't come to a consensus on what it was. Luckily we are blessed to live 40 minutes away from Mass General, the #1 ranked hospital in the nation. My labs were sent to the experts there and a week later, they had results.

We were in Chicago house hunting when I got the call.  My doctor had good news and not so good news. She said that the lump was something called a phyllodes tumor. Not cancer. (Good News!) But it was more aggressive than they originally thought and had the potential to return and become something more serious, so she told me I would have to come back in for surgery to take out more tissue and get clear borders. (Not so good news )

I was happy that it wasn't something terrible, happy that it had been caught early, happy that we were close to such a great hospital and able to get the most clear and accurate results, but in the middle of the stressful task of finding a house and trying to make some huge decisions for our family in a very short amount of time, the thought of having surgery again overwhelmed me and I felt my emotions threatening to fall apart.

As tears started to come, Taber helped me hold it together. He put his arm around me and gave me some golden advice. He said, "Babe, I know we've got a lot going on right now, so let's just take this information, put it in a box, and lock it up for awhile. Right now we're going to focus on finding a house. When we get home, we'll focus on all the other things going on, and in two weeks, when it's time for your surgery, we'll open up this box again."

So that's what I did. I wrapped it up, put it in the box, sealed it up and tucked it in the back of my mind. We got through our house hunting trip. We put an offer an a house and it was accepted! We got lots and lots of paperwork taken care of. My mother, (who had flown out to watch the kids for our trip) stayed an extra week and helped me clean, organize and purge my house so it would be all ready for the movers. We got so many good things accomplished in those two weeks while that thought was locked away.

Tomorrow is my surgery so tonight I finally opened that box up again. Now that all that other stuff is taken care of, the thought in the box isn't so scary anymore. I've got Taber, who is taking off work to take care of me. I've got great friends who are watching the kids and bringing meals. I've got an amazing doctor who I'm sure will perform the surgery flawlessly, and I've got a pretty good feeling that I'm gonna score a milkshake tomorrow, because Taber loves me like that :)

I'm grateful for my awesome support system here, grateful to have good doctors and access to great medical facilities. Grateful for family, grateful for prayers, and grateful for "little boxes" :)