Turkey Day 2009

This year Thanksgiving was WONDERFUL! We went down to my grandma's house and ate dinner. There was 21 of us there. This is the first family picture we have done for about 4 years. There are only 2 people missing. My uncle Paul (who had to work :( ), and my cousin Will that is on a mission. Having that many people in my grandma's house was a challenge but we did it! Owen even said the prayer with the help of Jeremy of course. It was so great to be with my whole family like that. There was way too much food, a lot of teasing and joking and lots of pictures.

My brother Morgan and my cousin Charlie made a trebuchet in metals. This year was the grand debut and they were so proud of themselves. If you don't know what a trebuchet is think MONTE PYTHON. It was pretty cool and we definitely got some great family jokes out of it!
This is the crew waiting in granny's backyard waiting for the flinging to start. It was such a nice day.
Owen took this picture of us trying to fit everyone in my granny's basement. We were squished but happy. He loves to take pictures and is getting pretty good at it!
He also took this picture. He loves to take pictures of himself!
This year we also had our first ever Turkey 2K. My granny lives on a giant block and ten of us decided to run around the block before our turkey dinner. It was only about an hour but man did it kick our butts. My cousin Charlie won! My mom made a t-shirt for the winner. It was fun to do some physical activity with my family and hopefully we will have many more years of the turkey 2K !

After we had stuffed our faces and taken family pictures we went over to the Hamilton's for pie and FHE. It was great to spend time with them. We played a bingo game Danielle got at the dollar store. It was so fun! She even got prizes for the winners. Then after pie we watched THE FORGOTTEN CAROLS. I had never seen it before and it was the perfect end to the perfect day. Thank you to both our families for making this year special.

Friday all the girls went shopping in SLC. Not the crazy wake up at 3am shopping but just as serious. We went to Gateway, 2 targets, Trolley Square and Old Navy. Today we will hit more stores and 2 more malls. I love shopping with the girls. There is just something about shopping with the girls from morning till night. Having lunch and laughing till it hurts.

You will all be happy to know that Gobble the family turkey lived to see another day. Granny decided she loved him too much for him to die and we feasted on another bird. Its probably a good thing cause Owen would have been traumatized for life. He is a pretty sweet turkey, I'm glad he will still be a part of our family.

I am so thankful for my health and my family and all my blessings I am granted with everyday.

A health update

So I realize I have been too busy to blog about my latest appointment with the specialist's in SLC.I went up there with my sister this time since Jeremy had to work. My mom very graciously watched Owen for me while we were gone.

The ultrasound went well that is until the tech went out of the room to check with his supervisor before letting me go. She came back with him and continued on with the scan except she was NOT as gentle as the tech! My poor abdomen was red afterwards from all the pushing and probing. No fun.

In between the ultrasound and appointment time we had about 3 hours to kill so we headed over to Gateway for some lunch and a little retail therapy. We ate lunch at Mcgraths it was NOT good. The last time we ate there was so long ago I had forgot if I liked it or not. It was exceptionally sad considering I had to fast all morning for the test and that was the first thing I ate that day. Lesson learned.

We headed back for the appointment and I was pretty excited to see Dr. Hutson since he wasnt able to see me for our last appointment. (he was in a transplant) So it had been a full year and I had some questions for him about the H1N1 shot thing.

We waited forever in the small room and then this other dude comes in named Dr. Summsion.

I was less than thrilled, but you take what you get and he was another specialist none the less.

He said my ultrasound looked good. My spleen had shrunk 2 cm and there was again no fluid in my abdomen. All good news! He suggested very strongly that I do the SOUTHBEACH DIET. He said in his patients that had done that lifestyle change with it has amazing results. I told him I would give it a go! Why not right! I got 7 tubes of blood drawn for the usual levels and a few extra to make sure my Hep vaccines were still in my system.

All my blood work came back great! Better than 6 months ago actually and that is wonderful news!

Other great news is that Jeremy's company is changing their health care coverage with the new year. We will be on IHC and that means a whole new specialist and a second opinion. We have wanted one of those for a while now. Not that we dont believe the doctors just that it would be interesting to see what a new specialist would say.

The thing I am NOT excited for: another liver biopsy. The new specialist just might want one. We will see. I have a while before any of that happens. It would be nice to see if there was any improvement. That is really the only definitive test for cirrhosis.

On a side note Owen and I both got the swine flu shots. I did fine with mine but Owen has a fever now. It's been 2 days since his shot and the Dr said if his fever continues I have to bring him in tomorrow. Poor kid. Lets hope he gets better overnight and his body will fight hard to make antibodies fast!

Halloween & more!

So after I posted those other pictures of Owen and Jaymee together I realized I better take some of just him! He is getting so tall everyday it seems he grows too much! Every time I buy him new pants they are too short within about 2-3 weeks!
He was so over pictures at this point but he was still a good sport and this one is my favorite !
You can sorta see the little tiny lady bug on his fingers, he was pretty proud of himself for catching it and keeping her for a minute.

This year Owen said he wanted to be a Dracula and so soon it became that every boy was going to be one and I had to be a zombie. This picture is great because they both have the RED EYE thing going for them and it looks pretty real!
Owen kept saying he wanted to suck my blood before Halloween but then when the time came and I had my zombie make-up on he wasn't so sure!

My hair was supposed to be a lot scarier but it just looked like i had my head out the car window or something dumb.

Earlier in the month Owen, my sister and I went to a place in PG for a pumpkin drop. There was a gigantic pumpkin they hoisted in the air and dropped with a crane it was pretty cool but dark by the time they got it done so Owen was kinda over it. This super cool carving he was not so thrilled about. It took him a while to realize it was fake and wouldn't eat him up.
Our boy had a pretty good Halloween this year! Next year will be fun too he is growing up too fast though. I cannot believe next year he will be 5! We sure do love our Owenator!