Changes and Pet of the Week

Well things have been kinda crazy and I apologize for not really posting anything. I'll post more in the future about all the craziness that's going on in our lives. I wanted to post about the cute puppy in the previous post. Well we got attached to him so we decided to adopt him which is very bitter sweet for me because I do love this little dog but I had a few of you ask about him and I feel very bad about that. So I wanted to do a weekly adopt a pet post on wed so that I can still help people find a pet they will love as well as rescue a life. I would like to focus my posts on pets that are at different shelters with an emphasis on shelters who don't have websites where you can see a picture of pets you can adopt. So our pet of the week this week is....Scoop

Scoop is a red tick hound mix, he is a medium size dog and is a sweet and loving little guy. He is neutered and about 8 years old. If you would like more information on Scoop please contact the Humane Society of Utah at 801-261-2929 Ext. 227. Please give them his animal ID so they know which dog you are talking about. His animal Id is A030330.

Happy Birthday!

Today is Gary's birthday Hooray! :) I know this is going to be short and Gary if your reading this I'm sorry. I just wanted to wish you a...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Happy Fathers Day!!

To the Two best Dad's a girl could ask for. :) I hope you feel special and loved today and always!

Happy Birthday!

Hee Hee...This is my mommy. :) She's probably going to be a little upset I posted this picture. :) But I love it so much..it stays. Today my Mom celebrates her birthday in beautiful Ecuador right by the ocean and in 104 degree heat. :p Honestly I am jealous. :) her and my Dad are serving a mission right now in the Guayaquil Ecuador mission as temple workers, they are loving every minute of it too. My Mom loves to travel and going new places. She also enjoys boating, water skiing, camping, reading and many more things. She loves her family very much. She is a grandma to 22 grand kids and 3 great grand kids...soon to be 4. So here's to you Mom on your big day go have some fun you deserve it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Happy Birthday

Today is David's birthday hooray! David is a former Navy man who enjoys spending time with his family, playing wii, movies and traveling. he also loves to joke and just plain having fun. :) So here's to you David on your day...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

HELP!!!!

This week I have kinda been feeling like "the world is my oyster" except instead of the world it's more like Utah. This is a feeling I haven't felt in a long time and it has been a little overwhelming. James and I have been talking about getting me back in school, we've also been talking about courses that I might like and be interested in. It's so weird to think that I can just go ahead and go to school where ever I want...well I think I'm going to stick to the Salt Lake area and up into Northern Utah. But I have been thinking about courses I might be interested in and which school I would want to go into. I have been thinking very strongly towards a degree as a Vet Tech. But again there is so much that comes with that. What if we get pregnant again what kind of strain is that going to put on me. Then when we have the baby how am I going to juggle work,school and being a mother. (with this degree I would have to be in the class room or in labs and things like that.) What are the good schools, should I get the Associates or bachelors,etc. I have also thought about a couple more things...doing a basic training course for seeing eye dogs, or getting another dog and doing pet therapy for hospitals and nursing homes. That's where the little guy above comes in. Currently we are fostering him (so he is up for adoption if your interested) the lady at the pound said that she thinks he is half Yorkie half schnauzer. But the way he walks and his face and ears might suggest he has some Chinese crested in him. Anyway he is almost 1 and still a puppy(although you would never tell by his disposition) he is calm and snugly. But there is another dog at the pound that is pretty old. She said that she thinks he might be 10+ years and because of his age she doesn't think he'll get adopted, but would like to see him go to a loving home where he can live out the rest of his life. Because he's so old I wouldn't have to go through puppy craziness again like we did with Rosko, he's already calm so I could still do the training with him and take him to hospitals and such. the down side? He is a bigger dog,long hair and again he's old so we couldn't get to attached cause he probably will pass away soon. But going back to the school thing if I go to school I might not have a whole lot of time to do the volunteer work for the hospital. I would be able to do the seeing eye dog program because I have to take the dog with me where ever I go... but I'd have to talk to my boss at work and make sure it wouldn't be an inconvenience. By law the dog is required to go everywhere I would go. But I don't want to put a sour taste in my bosses mouth...step on toes that sort of thing. There are some other programs I'm interested in but I would really like to work with animals...especially dogs and horses. ARRGGGGHHH...I'm SO CONFUSED!!! If you have ANY advice good or bad PLEASE share.

Abby and Weekend

Well just wanted to give an update on Abby. The surgery as you know went really well but when I went to work Friday I found out that she wasn't doing very well. Her lung collapsed and she couldn't sit up to help it and the pain medication she was taking was making her sick and she couldn't keep it down. James and I were both worried about her all day, my boss has been so great through all this I am so grateful and lucky to work with the college. I was able to take the rest of the day off, so James and I went up to Primary Children's hospital and truth be told I was bracing myself as we were walking up to her room. But when we got to her she looked a lot better than what I thought. She was still in the CICU and she was only allowed to have 3 visitors at a time. Mom was there with her and said that Nikki was down with the boys in the play area, I offered to take the boys so Nikki could focus on Abby. Uncle Kim and Gordy came to see her too so we said goodbye to Abby so they could visit with her. I took James to work real quick and then came back to the hospital to find Nikki to ask if she wanted me to take the boys. After some planning we got a great plan. Hoogle Zoo was doing a one day special event that day to all Primary Children's Medical Center patients and family, they closed the zoo to the general public and then opened it specifically for these people for free. So Dad Armstrong and I gathered up the boys and headed to the Zoo. It was a lot of fun and the boys loved it. they played on all the statues including the elephant that blows water out of it's trunk (that was their favorite) and kept making requests. Included in this was a free dinner from chick fil-a so we took the boys to the pavilion for some dinner and little Gavin was quite the charmer, after he was done eating his dinner he went up to the chick fil-a guy and sweet talked him into giving him more chicken. The guy laughed and gave him more and Gavin became his little shadow the rest of the meal. :) He kept asking for things and he even took a drink to the guy. Which he though was great. :) At that point I turned to dad and made a comment that I'm glad he likes kids. :) He was so nice to Gavin and Nate and kept giving them food. We spent close to 3 hours there and got to see tons of animals as well as pet a few too. Some of the trainers were out with animals that the kids got to see and even got to pet some. We saw a possum, 2 snakes, a turtle, the coat of a snow leopard and a hawk. The boys got to pet all but the hawk, I was impressed at how these boys just didn't seem scared of any of them, especially the snakes. Nate seemed a little nervous but he still pet one and I even got a picture of him standing next to it..keeping his eye on it the whole time. :) Little Ethan was quiet pretty much the whole time, just sitting in his stroller watching the animals occasionally pointing at something and calling it either a monkey or a dog. But when he saw the snake he kept reaching out to it and the guy was so nice he got down to Ethan's level and let him pet the snake. N o fear, no problem, Ethan LOVED it! :) After the zoo we headed back to the hospital to plan out the rest of the night/weekend. Then after getting the two youngest to go back home with their mom and dad Nate, Dad and I went to go get James from work early and headed out to Nikki's to drop off Dad at his truck and grab some stuff for Nate to come stay at our house. Gavin was going to sleep over at Mom and Dad's but by the time we got there he was out like a light. Dad was a little happy about that cause Gavin was kinda crazy on Friday. When we got home Nate really wanted to play some games but we convinced him to watch a movie instead. So we watched Wall-e. i actually fell asleep half way through it and James had to wake me up to get me upstairs. I was woken pretty early in the morning by James poking me. I got really bugged at him (oops) but I was tired. He was poking me to let me know that Nate had a bad dream and was in bed with us. He didn't want me to get out of bed in just my garments when Nate was right there. He did that a few time throughout the night. Saturday morning I was kinda grumpy because of all the poking the night before. :p But on Saturdays James has Tae Kwon Do so Nate and I took him up to class and then went over to mom and dad's. Dad was already gone so Nate and I got some breakfast and watched some TV till we had to go pick up James from class. Nate got to meet a couple of the sensai's that James works with and got to see a bow staff form which he loved. After that I dropped James off to get the truck that was left at the train station and he was headed to the bank. I went home to make a grocery list...but ended up enjoying the sunshine outside with Rosko. When James got back we got a call from Dad asking if we could come help him watch the boys again. James and Nate headed over but I went grocery shopping then headed over. By the time I got there Mom was there and the plans changed. Ethan and Gavin were going to sleep over at their house and Nate was going to spend the night with us again. So we packed up the boys stuff and headed out to mom and dad's for dinner and to just visit and talk till it was time to go home. We didn't have any trouble convincing Nate to go to sleep that night. Sunday James dropped us off early at Nikki and Justin's and went to the baby blessing of his best friends baby boy. Rumor was that Abby was coming home on Monday and since we thought she was going to be in the hospital a lot longer we had a surprise planned that needed to be done in one day. We were going to move her bedroom upstairs to the old office. Re-painting, patching up holes, new curtains...the works. So after running back home with Gavin to help get him outta the way from Dad ( he was REALLY wanting to help paint) we grabbed some stuff from the house to make a welcome home sign for Abby and headed back to Nikki's. By the time we got back to the house Lisa was there. So with her help we spread out some paper and Nate and Gavin got to work on their welcome home sign. Nikki was home and she was helping Dad pain Abby's room. After awhile the boys started to get crazy so we sent them downstairs to watch some TV and play and Lisa and I rolled out a fresh piece of paper and made a sign for Abby too. After the sign was done I helped put on the second coat of color and Nikki and Dad went to get some privacy shade for the french doors that are on the one side of Abby's room. When they got back we had some dinner and then Nikki and Justin started to pack to go back up to the hospital while we made some finishing touches with repairing holes and painting the room. After they Nikki, Justin, and Lisa left Bob occupied the kids so James, Dad and I could bring up Abby's bed and dresser. With all the big stuff done we called it a night and went home. Over all it was a great weekend. Monday Abby did indeed come home and the room was for the most part done. Her primary came over and heart attacked her room (tons of paper heart cut outs posted all over the room with notes on them). She loved all of it and is doing so much better. She is eating more and more the pain medicine are doing their job and she looks great. I was able to go over after work on Monday and bring her some flowers, a balloon, and a cute ceramic angel to help cheer her up. She's happy and glad to be home and we are all happy she's home. :)

I Think We Can Breathe Easy Now?

Well first off I want to apologize for not posting anything on this earlier. I have already been freaking out about this and I thought that maybe blogging about it would freak me out even more. But now that we are in the home stretch I think I finally want to open up and talk. These past few months our family has been getting hit pretty hard, between 2 miscarriages and an upcoming surgery (and that's just the major stuff) we've all been on our toes and pretty jumpy. For those of you who followed my CHD Awareness posts in February you know about the precious little girl in the picture above. For those of you who may be just hearing about CHD I'm so excited to share this with you and hope to help spread the word. I did quite a few posts about CHD, to see the first post please click here to view the rest of the posts please click on February in my blog archives. Now to get to the nitty gritty. Ever since about March we knew that Abby's surgery was going to take place sometime the end of May beginning of June. After learning it was going to be June 1st we all started to prepare as much as we could. My sister in law Nikki (Abby's Mom) has been writing Abby's story in her blog Perfect Broken Hearts as well as giving updates on the surgery. Also Abby has created quite a fan base on Facebook. :) Her page Abby's Perfect Broken Heart has (as of right now) 864 fans that are following her story and that number keeps growing. This has been a tremendous help and comfort to Abby as she has been preparing for this surgery. She has been receiving help from other CHD babies and heart families as well as a ton of different family and friends. Before I get into the surgery I want to tell you a little about Abby and her condition. Abby has a Congenital Heart Defect called Tetralogy of fallot when she was 6 months old she had an open heart surgery to fix a hole in her heart which was part of the problem the other was that as she would grow her valve in her heart wouldn't grow and they would need to replace the valve with a cow valve. They were really hoping that this would take place when she was a teenage. But that wasn't the case. So we were scheduled for June 1st to have her go in for surgery to replace the valve, but as we got closer her Mom got a call saying they had to move the surgery to Thursday, that was a little frustrating and hard on the family. I think it was hardest on both Nikki and Abby. So we started to change our plans again when we found out on Wed that they were going to bump her surgery back again to Monday. I don't know what happened I heard that Abby's Dad Justin called the hospital but I'm not sure. But later Wed afternoon we heard that they called and said everything was still on track for Thurs. So James and I went over early Thurs morning to get instruction on food, cloths, etc. and to see Abby off. James and I helped Dad Armstrong (lovingly known as grumpy. :p) watch the boys all day. It was a lot of fun. But we were a little on edge waiting to hear any news about Abby. We did get calls from either Nikki or Mom Armstrong letting us know what was going on. Abby went in at 3:40, the doctor came in and said she took the anesthesia no problem and they were going to start soon. The Doctor that was going to work on her was Dr. Kaza. He is a graduate of Harvard and has worked for years at a children's hospital in Boston and recently moved to Utah to accept a job at Primary Children's and he's one of the best. He told Nikki that they didn't need to stop Abby's heart at all and he reassured her that everything was going to go great. After a few hours we got another update saying that they were ready to sew in the cow valve. I think as James, Dad and I were sitting in Nikki's backyard playing with the boys each one of us kept saying a prayer in our heart over and over. We got another update later that the new valve took beautifully and that they were just about to sew Abby up and everything went better than planned and in about an hour she was going to be moved to ICU. YAY! That was a huge weight off our shoulders and I think all of us breathed a sigh of relief. Then we started to make phone calls to other family members with the news. We are so grateful for every ones prayers on Abby's behalf as well as her family. We know that the Lord has blessed us in this. Especially Abby! Abby is now in recovery and I will continue to give updates on how she is doing.

Happy Birthday!

Well Sorry I don't have a whole lot of time but I just wanted to do a quick post for these two cute girls :) Today is Tara and Kylie's Birthday HOORAY! Tara (on the left) loves sports and playing with her siblings. She's such a sweet girl who instantly makes friends with anyone. Kylie (right) is a true girly girl. :) But she also loves playing with her siblings and sports. These two cute twin girls also love each other very much. their personalities are night and day from each other but they are still each others best friend. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Happy Birthday

Today is Heathers Birthday. Heather is a loving mother to 4 great kids, she is currently finishing up school and is excited to be done. She loves creating new things, baking and hanging out with friends and family. Here's to you Heather on your day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!