More Farm Fun

More fun out by our shooting hill. Giving the kids another lesson on shooting guns and practicing our own skills.....or lack of. ;)

Gary, Sierra and Grace walking back together after checking their targets. Joe and Grandpa on Starfire.

Grace and Grandpa on Starfire. My Lily dog running back to me! Or more like bounding through the tall grass....you could barely see her when she was down.

Emmalee and Grace riding their pink camo 4-wheeler, The Pink Lady.

Joe doesn't know how to go anything but full throttle....I wonder where he gets it from! Uh, maybe the man in the picture next to him. ;)

The kids being silly!

Grace, Emma and Joe on Star. Emma and Grace balancing on our log seats.

Daddy and Em out for a ride. Hanging out by the fire....one of our favorite places.

Sierra and Joe on "Red" ready to give Grace a push up the hill if she needs it. I love the sunsets up at the farm! It's breath taking most of the time!

Family gathering at the Farm

I know that my husband was inspired to make the family farm our project this summer. We were meant to work there and make it a place for our family to get together and just spend some quality time as a family. With everything that's been going on with my dad this year, there is no doubt, whatsoever that we were supposed to be there, pulling our family close together. It's been a great blessing in our lives and I'm so grateful for all of the memories that we've made there this year. I'm sure there are many more to come for all of us, I just don't know how many more, if any, we'll have up there with my dad. But for now, we have many, wonderful memories for all of us to look back on and enjoy. Here are some of my favorite pics from our family gathering in June. Down below is our dirt pile. It's one of the first places all of the kids love to go to play, dig and discover knew treasures. They love it! There's my cousin Marshall with his lovely wife Mandy trying to keep up with their son Maddox. He's full of energy! We love to have them around with us!

There's mom and Mandy and some of the little girls getting the table cleaned off so we can set out our spread. No one ever goes hungry when we all get together! See, there's Joe trying to eat the bean dip and chips without taking off his helmet, that takes too much time! Emma and Megan playing with the bubbles.

My dad, one of the greatest man on this earth! I love him so much! There's my brother Nate and his wife Ami just hanging out. Sierra, Karissa, Grace, Kaitlin and Marshall, hiding behind Kaitie, cooking hotdogs for dinner.

Amanda with Lily and Lily, just getting to know each other. Too cute! There's Maddox, figuring out what to do next. The Fam with the MacBeths, who are as close to family without being blood related as you can get!

Aubrin, Emmalee, Megan and Mariah eating dinner together. Such cute girls. There's my man Zander, what a stud! My beautiful niece Karissa, getting ready to chow down.

There's Joey...."How you doin'?" Sierra and Karissa coming back from a walk to escape all the little people that are running around. There's Marshall and Maddox coming back from a nice ride.




And this is one of my favorite pictures of all! My brother on Sierra's pit bike. There are no words.....the picture is enough!

Swim lessons

The week of June 14th-19th my best friend Brooke and I and ALL of our children, camped out at Green Canyon for the week while 6 of our 8 kids were in swim lessons. It was quite the adventure and lots of fun. I didn't get many pictures throughout the week. It's hard to use and take care of a camera around a pool and keeping an eye on all the kids too! So all of these are from the last day. Here are Em and Alex hanging out while the kids are in their lessons.

Here's Josh....he's just too cute!

Sierra and Tori out in the hot pool getting some instructions from their hottie swim coach. ;) Most of the girls thought he was pretty cute.

Joe learning how to back float.

Grace practicing her backstroke across the pool. I love how she holds her breath every time she goes in the water.

Kyle making his way across the pool.

Brooke and Alex just chillin'.

Tori trying to pass off all of her swimming stokes across the pool.

Sierra working on all of her strokes across the pool. It was a great week, even if everything was wet and muddy all week thanks to all the rain that we had this spring/summer. We're all signed up to do it all again next year. I can't wait!

Building the corral at the farm

We did this project in the beginning of June. Luckily we have awsome neighbors and they came up and helped up finish getting all the post holes dug and the posts set. It was a lot of fun and not too rainy that day, thank goodness.

Gary and Joe working on one hole with Matt close by working on the next one.

Mandy, Gary and Sierra taking a break from filling in the hole while Matt and Joe keep working. I even managed to kinda grab a picture of Gary smiling....no tongue sticking out at me or anything! ;)

The kids (Lily is included in this statement!) playing on the trailer after we're done with the holes. They had a great time jumping and dancing on here. After we got done with the posts, we headed up the hill to the firepit, started a fire and roasted some hot dogs and smores over the fire for lunch. It was a lot of fun and the rain stayed away till we were about done eating. It started pouring down just in time to make up clean up quickly so we could head home for the day.

The end result looking down from the road above. A good days work done!

Hello!

Hey everybody! It's been a long time.....a really long time since I've updated and I'm really going to work on getting things caught up this week. So expect a lot of posts with a lot of pictures! I just want to quickly update on my dad right now. He's doing pretty good. He's good, other than his feet hurt really bad. That is one of the side effects from the chemo that he is doing. He first started his new chemo meds after he went on his Alaskan cruise with my brother Matt. After a few days on them, he got a horrible rash from head to toe that itched like crazy and just made him miserable. He couldn't really sleep and he'd get up in the middle of the night to shower to help relieve the itch for a little while. He had the rash for about 2 weeks and then it finally started to go away. After that, his feet started to hurt and he started to lose his hair. It started coming out pretty quickly. Last weekend, the 17th - 21st he went to Lake Powell with some buddies to go fishing and he said it was great, because when he showered he didn't clog up the drain with hair like he usually did while he was at home. With all the driving around the lake doing 55 mph it help blow out the hair and thin it so he didn't just lose it all in the shower! He cracks me up! So I went to see him, Amanda and my new nephew Noah last Wednesday and dad asked me if I would just shave his head for him. He didn't want to look like he was trying to do 3 different comb-overs on his head! So I obliged. He was cracking jokes the whole time and was just having fun with it. He wanted me to give him a mohawk, because he knew this would be the one and only time he'd ever do it. He wanted lots of pictures, so pictures we took. I'll load them up later....I was using my mom's camera. I think he actually looks pretty good bald. If you're on facebook, I have all the pics on there. After I shaved his head, he went and showered and what not. After coming back out he wandered around for a minute before stopping and thinking for just a second. He then told Amanda and I that he was looking for a comb! Till he just remembered he didn't need one anymore! We all laughed pretty hard then! He's really a trooper with everything that is happening and trys to see on the bright side of life. He is such an inspiration to me! He makes me want to be a better person and to just be a better me! I want to take care of myself so I can help him if he needs it. This life is too short to not try to be the best you can be! Anyway....much more to come soon!

Update on Dad

So for all of you who have been asking how my dad is, here is the latest. He's been recovering wonderfully from his surgery. He's looking and feeling better. So, the big news is that they found 2 types of cancer in his thryroid. The 1st on is called papillary, basically it is the most common, easiest to cure kind of thyroid cancer around. The 2nd one is called anaplastic, it is the least common, no cure for kind of cancer. With the diagnosis of anaplastic, most people are given from 1-3 years before the cancer completely takes over and there's nothing else to do. The only problem they've really had with the diagnosis is they weren't sure if what he has on his lungs is part of the anaplastic cancer, or from something else. The biopsy that they did do on his lungs was not good enough for a definite anwer. So he had another CT scan on his lungs to see what's going on with the nodules they found. They told us that if there was a significant amount of change with the lungs, they knew that it was the anaplastic cancer that was affecting the lungs. We had been waiting for the results on the CT scan. The outcome of the results would determine the course of treatment that he would follow. If the anaplastic cancer isn't affecting the lungs, then they can start radiation treatment for the thyroid cancer. If it is affecting the lungs, they can't use radiation, because you cannot radiate the lungs. They would have to use other kinds of drugs that can work on both the thryoid and lungs at the same time. So, Tuesday dad went in to Dr. Dixon to get the results of the CT scan. It's not great news. They have confirmed that it is anaplastic thryoid cancer that has moved to dad's lungs. With this diagnosis they have started him on some very new, experimental pills. They are basically the radiation medicine, but in pill form. He's going to take these for the next six weeks and then do another CT scan on his lungs to see if it's having any effect on them. So for now, we sit back and wait yet again to see what happens. Dad is bound and determined to enjoy every day that he feels good. For him that means lots of fishing, an Alaskan cruise in a couple of weeks, and lots of good times with his friends and family. We love him so much and all hope and pray that this medicine will help him feel better. We really appreciate all of the love and support from everyone out there. Anyone willing to put his name in any temple is sure appreciated. Every little thing helps! If you have any ?'s, don't be afraid to ask. I'll get back to you as quickly as I can. Thank you again for your love and prayers.

Quick update

Dad was able to come home on Friday. He and mom came up to the farm on Saturday and ate dinner with us and visited for awhile. He wasn't sure if he was feeling up to coming to visit, that is till he heard that I was making my homemade honey barbeque pork ribs! ;) Those are his Favorites! Anyway, he's feeling better. The scar on his throat is not very pretty. It looks like a small rope right now. Mom kept teasing him that she was going to color it gold and hang some bling from it. Too funny! Anyway, he'll get his stitches out tomorrow and we'll hopefully have some results from everything in the next couple of days. I'll update with the fun things soon. Lots of pictures! So anyway, so far things are going pretty well for now. When I learn anything new, I'll be sure to let you all know. Thank you all so much for the prayers and love!! They are all heard and felt! We really appreciate it!!!