HAPPY ANNIVERSARY DANIEL!

Believe it or not, it has been one year since Daniel had his transplant! As I read back thru my journal over the last few days I have been very emotional of that wonderful time! Our family was amazingly blessed! (Have continue to be!) To me it was a very spiritual time. I would never want any of my family or friends to go thru it for the reason of worry, but I am SO grateful for every other aspect of the experience! I grew spiritually and felt the Holy Ghost more at that time than any other time in my life. I don't consider those 3 months a trial at all....it was a blessing. Thank you to everyone (especially Kevin's parents for living here and raising our kids for those 3 months)who served our family during that time. Below are some pictures of Daniel then and now.





Notice who is the taller one?
We love you, Daniel!

First day of School.....and something I forgot to post!

So yesterday was the first day! And since Marilyn is dying to see pictures...here they are! (Boy! You are spoiled, Marilyn!)

Ryan is in 4th grade now! I can't believe that! He has a teacher we are not familiar with, but seems to be good so far. Ryan is very studious and should do well in about any class. So we are not too worried about him!

Comptyn is in 3rd grade. He has Mrs. Lister (formily known as Miss Eliason...she got married!) We love Mrs. Lister! We are hoping Comptyn can do well this year and not get in trouble so much for talking and getting out of his seat. We'll see!

Bryce is in 2nd grade. He has Miss Woods. This is her 3rd year in a row with a Lords' boy. Bryce will do well! Miss Woods is wonderful with the kids and we hope her year goes better than last year. (She had a few tough kids and then Comptyn contributed periodically.) Bryce is a really good student so he should do well. Don't know if you can see Bryce's nose. Maybe click on the picture ot get a bigger version. The day before he tried a skate board for the first time.....I needn't say anymore!

Nathan started kindergarden. I had to chase him down for my hug and kiss goodbye! He has Mrs. Mitchell and she is going to be great! We are sad we didnt' get Mrs. Malnack who taught our other 3.....don't knwo why the request didn't happen.....at any rate, we are happy. He is glad to being to 'real school' now. (He was in preschool before for speech therapy. I don't know if he realizes he will still have speech or not!)

The 3 older boys all rode the bus home for the first time. I have always driven them to and from school. Well, our beast vehicle takes a gallon of gas each trip into town! At $2.79 a gallon times 3 I just thougth we'd try the bus. (Imagine our gas budget when gas was $4 a gallon a few years ago!) Anyhow, they had a good time. We walked up to meet them. I am having a little bit of guilt that I am not a very good mother because I am not going to get them. I am hoping the savings in gas money will change my thoughts!

Then I forgot to post what we did last week. Some friends invited us over to swim in their pool. It was a lot of fun! Daniel, as many of you know, can't swim out at the lake anymore, so we are grateful the Koenigs took pity on us! Thank you guys! We had a lot of fun! Notice I just had them all wear life jackets and I didn't have to worry about them. That doesn't mean some didn't swallow water, but at least they were floating when they were coughing up pool water!

Just a few things.....

I'd like to start by telling you about my WONDERFUL day yesterday! Two incredible young women volunteered to come over and watch our boys for us so Kevin and I could go on our ward temple trip. They brought movies, made play dough with the kids (which was the high light of the day for the kids!) and played games. Kevin and I had a wonderful time over in Reno! Thanks Chelsie and Jordyn! Hope your first day at the HS goes wonderful! ;-) It was kindof strange at the temple, it was the first time in probably 10 years that I didn't have a family name to do! I have 'found' probably close to 4,000 family members and their work is all done! So now it is time to do more research and find some more!

We got lab results for Daniel that the BK Virus was negative! That is 2 negatives in a row! I told you previously how his medicine wasn't even at the right level. We know this was all answers to our prayers. We are grateful for that! His other levels (including pH level) was great! No labs for a month! YEAH! The pH level was from one we were curious in because when we went to UT last month we ran out of his sodium bicarbonate. Thought we would do a lab....see how levels are. So I will inform them this week he isn't on it anymore. Please don't email me about taking him off meds and how scarey that can be. I would never do this to meds that would damage his kidney. If levels were low, we would have started him back up on it again. Now we are watching his iron levels, hemoglobin, etc. We want to get off the iron supplement! :-)

We met all the kid's teachers this week. Ryan has Mrs. Kunweiler. We think that will be a good fit for him. Oldest one kindof gets the luck of the draw as we don't know many of the teachers. They are not going to rotate 4th grade, so he will be with her all day. He is so excited to start school! Comptyn has Mrs. Lister (was Miss Eliason....but she got married this summer.) Ryan had her last year. We love Mrs. Lister! She is a great teacher! We hope Comptyn can be obedient to when it is and is not appropriate to talk, get out of his chair and be the class clown! Bryce has Ms Woods. Comptyn and Ryan both had her. We love Ms Woods, too! Bryce is excited to be in 2nd grade and he'll do well in there. Nathan starts kindergarden this year. They have it 4 days a week 3 hrs and 15 minutes. I like that! Mrs. Mitchell is his teacher. She is young and really nice! Nathan is SO excited to be going to 'real' school, as he calls it. (He has been goign to the preschool there for speech for 2 1/2 years) Anyhow, we are all ready....back packs packed, lunch 'stuff' bought! I have boys and they are young, so they don't get 'school' clothes. Why spend the money? They could care less!

Kevin had teachers come back to school on Friday. I made 41 DOZEN cookies for 100+ staff at their staff meeting Friday. My boys were awesome helpers! We did it all in 3 hours! Anyhow, I made 4 types of cookies: chocolate chip (they turned out good), peanut butter (instead of putting in vanilla flavor....it was strawberry....but surprisingly still good!), molasses (they were suppose to be SOFT but only 2 came home, so apparently they were OK) and No-Bake cookies (which never set up hard...a little sticky....but still almost all gone!) This is his first year at the High School as principal. He has a great office staff that he says is incredible dedicated and hard workers! They get a long well and are fun to be with. This will be a long year for him! Hopefully things will run well. He is a good leader. (In my VERY biased opinion!)

So that is our latest updates! Off to pack Sunday bags, finish setting out clothes, make a little lunch for the kids (can't wait to be early church next year!) and then hopefully have a calm, reverent Sacrament meeting! Have a great Sabbath day!

Daniel-ism

Let me preface this by saying when we play I-Spy we say, "I spy with my little eye somthing.....". So grandma had back surgery Friday we went to over to Reno to keep g-pa company. We took a picnic lunch and stayed with him until the surgery was over. I don't know if the 6 kids and I were a help or hinderance, but we know that waiting in a hospital can be LONG and boring! Well, we certainly were lively. So we were playing eye-spy and Daniel passes some pretty stinky gas! He then says, "I smell with my little nose something stinky. IT'S DANIEL!" It was the funniest thing I have ever heard him say! He actually made a joke and didn't think the word underwear, bum, or poop were the funniest things said.
But the way, g-ma is doing great and gets to go home today. We are very happy to hear that!

Daniel update

We haven't had an update on Daniel in a while. And since his year mark is coming up in 2 weeks, I thought I'd share! We found out that his last BK Virus lab came back negative! That is wonderful. The nurse said, "I can't believe his body fought it off because his leflunomide (the drug he is on for it) level is way too low!" (we have been trying to regulate that!) Then she said, "Wait, it doesn't surprise me....you're the praying family!" I think it's great that they remember all our little miracles have happened because we tell them it's all the prayers and fasting for Daniel. Anyhow, we have to have 2 negative labs to be considered BK Virus free! We go into tomorrow for another draw.

Daniel's grown leaps and bounds! He weighs about 38 1/2 pounds. Pre-transplant he was 26-28. I have to check next time we go over to CA. He has grown 3 inches since his birthday in December, so in 8 months. He is also officially the big brother of him and Sammy. It's great! He eats more than Sammy! that never happened!<\p>
His other blood levels are all doing good! We are hoping to get him off 2 of his meds here pretty soon. They are his iron and sodium bicarbonate. His kidney should be producing those, so hopefully soon it will 'smartin up' as the doctors tell us. Then he'll be down to only 4 meds! that would be great! We haven't gone to CA all summer as we have had many trips that we are spending our money on instead. There has been a lot of turn over in staff over there, so once school starts we are goign to call and get over there in September or October.

Utah Trip Part 2

So our second part of the week started with a trip to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House in West Jordan, UT. It was so pretty and SO much fun to watch the boys and their reactions and questions to everything.



We then headed out to Tooele to our annual Lords' family reunion. We pulled up in front of Uncle Paul and Aunt Jen's house and found this:
The kids and adults were very quickly in love with the water slide! The littler kids played some Red Rover.....
And ring around the rosie.....
On Friday we headed to a park in Tooele. G-pa and G-ma introduced us to a new and fun game called Koob. It's a game the Vikings played. It is really fun! Here Sammy is trying to knock over the koob's. Anyhow, we are going to make a set of them! It's a great game for all ages!
There was some baseball and basketball. Here Comptyn is hitting the ball!
That evening we went to the Tooele Community Pool. WHAT A POOL! This is the little kid's pool that only gets 2 feet deep. They had life jackets and inner tubes for the kids to use, too. We had the whole pool reserved for our family only. It was FUN!
This is the water works area where the kids could turn the water on and off. To the left of it is part of the lazy river. It circles around.....
the water slide! WHAT A HIT! All of my kids went down this except Sammy. In fact, Sammy stayed in the kiddie pool the whole time. The current in this pool is too quick for him. Daniel finally when on it the last 15 minutes and did it 5 more times after that. It was deceivingly fast! It shoots you out pretty quick!
This part of the pool was for laps and diving and playing water basketball.
This is our whole family (minus Moe, Travis, Boyd and Karla....we missed you!) after Jordan's baptism.
It was a fun week! We are all exhausted and can't wait to do it all again! Sunday during church was quite rough! Kids need another day to catch up on rest and get back into a routine! Thanks everyone who made our week a lot of fun and filled with lots of memories!

Daddy started work today and kids start school 3 weeks from tomorrow.....back to the grind stone!

Utah Trip Part 1

We are going to have to do this in sections. I took a TON of pictures and we did a lot of things! We started out in American Fork visiting my sister and her family. So here are my sister, Carrie, and I. She is the youngest and I am the oldest in our family of 5 kids.
This is her daughter, Nicole (Nikki). She is going to be 3 in October. GREAT month as Carrie and my b-days are also in Oct. She looks like Carrie and I did when we were little. Isn't she the cutest!
Aunt Carrie introduced our family to fondue! We are fondue finatics now! I have heard at least 3 times since that night that we need to get some fondue pots! We started out with apples and bread dipped in some cheese fondue. Moved to some broths and we dipped beef, chicken, pork and my favorite, shrimp in. Then the kids joined us for dessert. Chocolate peanut butter fondue and banana split fondue. We dipped mini creme puffs, bananas, cheesecake, strawberries, shortbread cookies....and I am sure I am leaving something out. But the kids (and adults) and a BLAST! Definately something we are going to do periodically! Thanks Aunt Carrie and Uncle Josh!
These pictures are of us hiking up to and inside of Timpanogos Caves. Bryce was VERY nervous about being in the caves, so hence the glow sticks. But he fell in love as soon as he entered! All the kids were great and had a good time!



So on Wednesday we went to Thanksgiving Point to the neatest petting zoo! The kids got to have a pony ride, and feed many different animals! It was a great price and Aunt Carrie brought lots of corn to feeds the animals! We even shared with some other families there.








I got to go with Carrie to where she worked and makes lasar die cuts. I will have to scan in and show you them sometime. T hey are amazing! We all had such a good time! Thank you Carrie, Josh, Jonathan and Nicole for sharing your home and week with us! We hope we are invited back again! We love you!