SO BLESSED!

 We have so many people helping us around our place. When we drove  up to our house, after being in New York for 3 and half months, we found the lawn mowed and trimmed and green. Our chickens were well taken care of. My house was clean, dinner was brought in. We have been given lots of garden veggies to eat, food keeps arriving. Friends come to visit. So blessed!

We did leave a few problems that we didn't get fixed before we left. We've had a leak in our root cellar that started back in Feb. but it was winter and cold and it didn't get fixed. Other things that weren't really problems, just things I wanted done, that now have been done, mostly by our friend Randel Penrod and his big, heavy equipment. Our garden spot got taken over by the silver maple trees, like a forest growing. Randel had to take down the fence around it first, then he plowed them all down and hauled them off! Unbelievable!!

 Then my sweet, wonderful, brother in law, Randy, has really went above and beyond helping us! He brought his helper, Jason to help too. They raked leaves and pine needles up everywhere and hauled them out to my burn pile. This is stuff I usually do in the Spring. He has weed-eated our whole place, several times, he has brought his mower and he drives from St. Johns to do all this!

They cleaned up the area by my shed that Randel Penrod had to dig up to fix the water leak we had before we left. This area was thick with lilac bushes that were over grown. He had to take the back fence down to get in there with his back hoe. So much work!!

The water leak problem was still not fixed, it was leaking in another place! It was like we had a hose running. It was all coming from our well and our poor little pressure tank was running constantly! Oh, Randel had replaced out the old one that wasn't working right and put a new one in! So LaVerl got out and dug in a place (only he knew where this valve was) and figured out where this other leak was coming from. Then Randy Lee came and fixed that! Sonja helped too, she was dumping muddy water from the shop vac he was using to suck all the water away, she was handing him tools, etc. because he was laying in the mud!

He had to cut the water line going to the valve and just cap it off!

And all he got for doing all that was breakfast!!

Then Randel Penrod used his big backhoe to shove all LaVerl's piles of wood, shakes from our roof when we replaced it, other piles of stuff, all together into several big piles, and burned them!!

After they burned down, he dug a huge hole and put what was left down in the hole and covered it all back up!  He will level it all up once the fire is completely out. 

LaVerl said that he's not going to have anything to do by the time he gets well!! But he will!! We have lots of projects!!!

Then our sweet Tami came for a few days and she was a great help! She got me all lined out with healthy snacks and food for LaVerl, she copied off positive affirmations for him to read everyday and she got him drinking 'sunshine water'. We put his filtered water in glass jars and let it sit in the sun for a few hours. Then before he drinks it, he shakes it up, so that it's 'moving water'. She's so cute!! Then she helped me clean the patio off of 1/2 in of mud that came with a flash flood like a river through my backyard. We power washed and scooped mud into a 5 gallon bucket to move it off my patio. Then she helped me repaint all my patio furniture.

I just can't express how I feel about all the angel people that have helped us so much. We are blessed!!

GRANDKIDS- first day of school pictures!!

 I just love first day of school pictures. It reminds me of sending our own kids off to school. They always look so cute in their new school clothes and big smiles on their faces!!

 Mark's kids-started school August 5th

Daxxon- 2nd grade

Zallen- Freshman, 9th grade

Bolden (with his new braces!) 7th grade

Wembley-4th grade

Milea is a Senior, 12th grade

Bret's kids started school July 22nd

Kingston- Junior, London- sophomore, Dempsey-7th grade, and Ivory- 5th grade!! They started school the middle of July in Mesa!!

Lisa's kiddos-started July 22nd

Lilly- 4th Grade

Lucy- 1st grade

Landon- 1st grade

Kari's kids started school Aug. 7th

Rivers-8th grade

Elijah-6th grade

Leo-4th grade

Gabriel- kindergarten, 

Reed's - Eliana started 1st grade Wed. Aug. 14th

Tami's kids were the last to start school in Idaho! Adlee, 2nd grade, Colter, 6th grade, started August 26 and Blake, 8th grade- started August 27th

Being here in Mesa has its good points. I was able to attend Dempsey's first volleyball game!

Family is the BEST!!

Home, but not home!!

 I haven't blogged since we got back from our service mission at Seneca Lake, so I thought I'd do some catch-up!

So much has happened--

We drove home in 3 days, instead of the 4 it took us to get to New York! At one of the motels we stayed at, I had a little reminder that our Heavenly Father was aware of us and to let us know our friends at the camp were missing us. At the camp, we had lots of little frog/toads get inside the doorways and screen doors of the cabins. We would shoo them off to safety. So in the middle of Texas we stopped for the night at motel that was surrounded by cement and parking lots, no green grass or fields around anywhere. And as I was coming back in, for the second time, carrying some luggage, there in the back doorway, was the very same type of frog I would see at the camp. I call these little incidents, 'tender mercies'. Little love notes from my Heavenly Father.

We hurried home to get LaVerl into a Dr. as soon as possible to find out what exactly was happening with the 'mass in his bladder.' I started calling Mayo Clinic and other Urologist in Flagstaff. It seemed like we waited forever, but after 2 weeks, we had an appointment at Mayo! We had many visitors and help from our friends at home. They 'heart attacked' our door, they fixed water leaks and replaced our pressure tank that had gone bad. They mowed and weed-eated our lawn, they brought food, they called and let us know they were praying for us!

Randel on his back hoe digging out behind our storage shed to fix a leak!

We did get home in time to save a few of our apricots. I just blended them and froze the puree in jars to make fruit leather later!

July 21st

During our wait, my sweet Mom, had her 99th birthday. Kari said she would come be with her Dad so I could travel to Mesa to spend this time with my Mom.

It's also my son-in-laws birthday, Barry!! 

She had lots of visitors! Sonja's boys, Boyd and Curt came over with their families! What a fun crowd, we laughed and had a great time visiting. Of course, Mom can't really hear what is going on around her, but she smiles and enjoys watching the rest of us have fun. They had to leave when Bret and Lisa show up with their kids, Mom's house is just too small for all of us.  Then we took some 4 generation pictures!

Kingston came later! Wrestling practice! He drives now!!

On Sunday, July 28th, we finally head to Mesa to see the Dr.s at Mayo. Some of the kids that live close came by to see their Dad.

Lisa's kids swam in J'net's pool.

LaVerl's brother and Paula came too.

Bret brought his family. The kids were very emotional, probably because they understand what stage 4 cancer is- their mom died of Stage 4 breast cancer!

Our first appointment at Mayo was on Tuesday, July 30th. He met with his Urologist, Dr. Mark Tyson and then with the Oncologist, Dr. Parminder Singh. On Thursday, Aug. 1st, he had his biopsy done. They tried to take out as much of the mass as they could get, but the chemo has to do the rest. The biopsy would tell us if he had the 'treatable' kind of bladder cancer.  The Dr.s were hoping to put two internal stents in from his bladder into his kidneys to help drain them, but they were unable to find the tubes due to the mass being too extensive.

He had been fasting, so after the surgery, he was hungry and finally got to eat. 

Because they couldn't put internal stents into his kidneys, they had to do another surgery the next day, Friday, Aug. 2, called bilateral nephrostomy tube placement. 

They kept him another night and we got to go home, (to J'net's) about noon. He's been feeling not so great, lots of weakness, dizziness, constipated & no appetite (he weighs 141 now!!)

We made an extra trip to the Mayo ER on Sunday, Aug. 4th. I panicked when I didn't see urine in one of his bags. Everything was fine, but we spent 6 hours there. Uggg

We were so relieved to find out on Monday that his biopsy showed that he has normal bladder cancer, the treatable kind!  Prayers were heard and answered!! He had his first of many chemo treatments on Wed. Aug. 7th! (Also  our sweet Adlee's #7 birthday!)

  

We are feeling very lucky and BLESSED so far that he hasn't had any major reactions yet! He has felt OK the last couple of days now!! Yay!!!