Christmas is coming soon! I can't believe it's already December and we are counting down until Christmas. I just had to put this you tube link in here for my favorite Christmas parody. I think you'll enjoy it! No snow yet here in Utah. My boys are so anxious for snow to come that they just can't stand it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQkF7fpw-wI

Scout

Our beloved pet Scout passed away on September 23rd, 2008. Over the fourth of July weekend Scout had some breathing problems and orientation problems so I ended up taking him to an emergency vet (on the evening of the 4th). The vet took one look at him and felt his abdomen and told me that he believed that Scout had a tumor in his belly. He gave me three options. 1-I could take him home and let nature take it's course and in a few days he would probably be gone. 2-I could have the vet do surgery, take the tumor out and see if it is benign or malignant. The operation would buy him time at the least. 3- I could just have the vet put him down right then. Of course my whole family was up on a mountain camping and I had to make the decision alone. So I decided to have him operate on Scout. Scout stayed the night and by the next morning he was able to come home. Two weeks later we found out that the tumor was malignant and he had cancer of the liver. They told me at that time that Scout would live about a month, maybe two if we were lucky. Our Scout was 9 years old. He was such a fun part of our family and we all miss him. Sadie, our other dog, misses him terribly. She has never known life without him. We felt extremely lucky that we had an extra 2 1/2 months with him. That last week of his life he started acting lethargic again and had no interest in eating or playing. He was breathing funny again so we decided it was time to let him go. That was a really tough day.

Claudean

Poor Adam!

First of all I'm sorry that it has taken me forever to post again on here. I'm going to try to be better at it.


In July we were all excited because we would be going to my family's house in California. We were busy getting packed and talking about all the fun that we would be having there. We had our plan trip set for August 4th. I would be flying out with the kids and then Kary would come later.


Adam was so social this summer! He was always playing with someone and going to friends houses or they were coming to mine. It was fun to see him open up so much. When we lived in Thailand he didn't ever want to leave the house!


On August 2nd Adam had a friend over and they were playing down in our unfinished basement. All of a sudden I heard screams of pain! I ran downstairs and found Adam laying on the floor next to the fooseball table and I couldn't get him to settle down. So I helped him upstairs and laid him on the couch. Come to find out he had been on top of the fooseball table trying to walk in between the bars. He had lost his balance and fallen off. His leg got stuck in between the bars...but then he fell to the floor. Now understand it was a friday afternoon at 4:00 pm. Kary had gone to youth conference the day before with Gavin and Sean. I took a look at Adam's legs and noticed that his right leg looked a little different than the other one. So I made a quick decision to take him to IHC instacare before they closed. I knew that if I waited too long than I would have to take him to the emergency room if he needed medical help. Five minutes away and $35.00 vs. 30 minutes away and $85.00. I decided to drive the 5 minutes and have them take a look at his leg. Well, they x-rayed his leg and it was definately broken. They put a splint on his leg and told me that we had to wait until monday to cast it because they wait for the swelling to go down. I started to panic....our flight was on monday! How were we going to get to California if we couldn't make the flight! They scheduled our appt. with the orthopedic surgeon for 8:00 a.m on Monday morning. It turned out that our flight was at 5:00 pm that evening! Thank goodness it all still worked out.
Here he is with his first cast! He wanted bright red and he had to wear shorts all the time. It was a good thing it was still summer and the weather cooperated with his wardrobe needs!
We borrowed a wheelchair from Kary's parents and that saved our life! We made it back from the orthopedic surgeon just in time to get ready for our trip to California. This would add an extra element of fun to our trip!

They Got Us!

We were trying to slide by under the radar at church. We were enjoying going to church with no responsibilities because we knew that would change as soon as we were given callings. Our church records finally came from Thailand to our ward here two weeks ago. I was asked to be Primary President and Kary was asked to be Young Men's President! Double Whammy!! I don't know if they think we are superhuman or what! All we can do is give it our best try. I am excited to be able to work in the primary. I love the primary! That is my favorite place to be! This next sunday will be my first week in there...but I've already asked the outgoing president to come in and conduct. I think the kids need a transition from outgoing to incoming. I think it will be better for the kids to have the previous president let them know about the changes and introduce the new presidency.Our shipment from Thailand finally arrived here on February 21st...Gavin's birthday. So we are still trying to unpack and get things put away. It's tough because we are in a smaller house here than we were in Thailand, so our furniture and things don't fit like they did in the house there! Needless to say we have made and will make many trips to Deseret Industries to give away the excess.On top of everything else this week I am sick. Bronchitis is wiping me out! When it rains it pours.
Posted by Claudean at 8:26 PM 2 comments

It's February and Still Snowing!!!

It has been the snowiest winter in Utah history since the 80's!! It has been snowing almost every other day for the last 8 weeks! Finally this weekend, Feb. 9th we have sun! But the weather people tell us that the snow is not over yet! Adam is absolutely loving the snow! He wants to go play in it every day. One day he came inside and declared that today was the funnest day in his entire life! That declaration came after just sledding on our little snow mound in the front yard! We've been over to the park a few times so that he can go down the "big hill". The first time we went to the park Adam came down the hill and ran almost head on into the swingset! What fun that is! He has since learned how to bail off the sled when it's needed.Sean and Gavin have also had fun at the park going down the "Biggest Hill". It's not huge, but it's funner than not sledding at all.

Back in Snowy Utah!

Here it is January 2008 and we are back in the U.S.A. Let me catch you up on a few things. First of all Thailand thinks Kary and I are too old to adopt and already have too many children! (What?) So much to our disappointment we won't be adopting from Thailand. The social worker we worked through kept making us believe that we would get approved to adopt and it would happen soon. Well, soon never came and we were finally told that if we wanted to adopt we would have to wait until we moved back to the U.S. and then send them an updated homestudy before they would continue the process. Just to do that and finish an adoption would cost us about $11,000. Yikes! We originally thought that we would come back here to Utah and foster/adopt. I'm not sure yet if that is the right thing to do or not. I would love to have a little girl...but I'm starting to believe Thailand may be right....I'm getting to old to take care of babies full time! Time will tell what happens next.Our foster baby Tara has adoptive parents that are trying to finish paperwork and get to Thailand to pick her up in a few months. Her adoptive parents live in Idaho so we will be able to occasionally see her. When we left we gave Tara to her adoptive Grandparents to be her foster parents. Her soon to be grandparents are serving an LDS mission in Thailand right now and with permission from the mission president they will be her foster parents until her a-parents will be able to come and get her. Everything has worked out so well for Tara. She is a special little spirit and doors have been opened for her to be adopted by Johnny and Kindra. Giving her up was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I had foster babies before...but they only were with our family for a couple of months at the most. Tara was with us for a year! She was part of our family and it was heartbreaking to hand her over. Both Tara and I went through a grieving process. I think I'm still going through it. Tara will be named Jasmine by her adoptive family and I need to get used to referring to her by that name. Work finally agreed that we could stay in Thailand until the boys finished up their semester of school in December. So December 24th we flew from Thailand to Salt Lake City. We arrived in the middle of a snowstorm and it hasn't stopped since we came. Today, January 9th, we got 21" of snow and more is predicted to come tomorrow! Welcome to Utah!
Posted by Claudean at 4:47 PM 0 comments