Field Day

Last field day for Tag and Sienna. They were ready to go with their hats, sunglasses, water bottles, and sunscreen. I'm glad they enjoy field day!

Seminary Graduation

James graduated from seminary! He enjoyed seminary so I was grateful that it wasn't a battle to get him to go each time. My presidency helped plan seminary graduation with the stake presidency and stake YM presidency. It was nice because we helped as much as we could beforehand, and then the stake YM presidency did everything from the start to the end of the night. It was a fun night celebrating James. He is the example to his siblings and he has paved the way and set a good example. 

HS Soccer Banquet

This is the only picture I have from James's last soccer banquet. The high school was reserved so the banquet was held at Grimley Gym. It is a detached garage gym that is owned by a family of a player on the team. It is a well known gym. James (and Kade) has practiced there with different teams he's played on. It was fun to see inside after taking to practice so many times over the years. 

The banquet was catered by the Haunga's which is always yummy Hawaiian food. It was fun celebrating the boys' resilience and growth even if they lost all season. 

Kade's Soccer

Kade double-rostered again this year. He played on Forza, an AA county team, and La Roca. Forza was fun and carefree. They won every game, and the coaches were chill. La Roca was high-pressure, high-stakes, and lots of yelling. They won one game, and it was a rough season. There were boys on the team who had never played soccer before. It's frustrating to pay a lot for club soccer but have the experience of rec soccer. 

Forza won every season game, like I said, and then played in the tournament at the end and won it. The crazy part is that the final tournament game overlapped with a La Roca game. Kade planned on going to half of the Forza game and then the full La Roca game. When it came time for him to leave, Forza was only winning by one point, and it was a close game. His coaches bribed him to stay and play until they were ahead more or until the end. So Kade stayed for most of the second half. Then we rushed him to the La Roca game, and he got there close to halftime. His coaches were not happy. They yelled at him on the sidelines and didn't sub him in to prove a point. It was so ridiculous for a 13-year-old team. They eventually subbed him in, but only for a short amount, and nothing like normal. Usually, he plays the whole game. The whole thing was so dumb. 

I don't have the picture saved from the end of the spring season for La Roca, but I have this one from the winter tournament.

RSL Game

Another fun night at the RSL game. 

Mother's Day and Grandma Ruth's Diagnosis

Mother's Day hit a little differently this year. On the day we got pedis with my mom, she mentioned she was having left sided abdominal pain and it had been going on since she got home from my aunt Donna's funeral. I asked her what she had tried and she said she was taking a probiotic. I thought maybe it was a stomach bug and didn't really think too much about it. Then she had the episode at lunch. That night when I was going to bed I started to replay the conversation in my head. I realized that she had gotten home from Florida the very beginning of March. The pain was going on for about 2 months. Then I realized that was not normal and definitely something she needed to check out. When we were together she said it was on her left side and I was thinking lower abdomen so I was thinking something was going on with her colon. It was actually left upper quadrant. Either way, I talked to her Saturday or Sunday night and told her she needed to get in to see her doctor. Monday morning she called and her doctor wasn't available so she saw my dad's doctor. He ordered some blood tests and a CT scan. The CT was scheduled for Wednesday which is fairly quick for scheduling imaging and in a small town. The blood tests weren't really significant and her urine sample showed a possible UTI but because she wasn't symptomatic, they weren't going to treat it. I wasn't worried. 

She had the CT scan Wednesday afternoon. They called her within an hour of her finishing, wanting to review the results in person. That's when she received the bad news that they found a mass on her pancreas and it was suspicious for cancer. My mom called me that night. It had been a nice day where I felt very happy. It was the day before my birthday and I was feeling good. I remember going to the Dollar Tree that day and while I was getting party favors, I bought supplies to make a sunshine basket. I didn't have anyone in mind but wanted to have supplies on hand. All of that is said because there was a 180 change from how I felt during the day to receiving the news from my mom that night. I knew she saw the doctor Monday and I knew she was having a CT scan that day but I hoped it wasn't anything to be concerned about. I didn't think she would have results back that fast. 

When she called me she told me they had found a mass on her pancreas and it was suspicious for cancer. She said that they would be doing a biopsy on Friday at Utah Valley hospital. I was in shock. How could this be happening. Especially two months after my aunt, her sister, passed away from pancreatic cancer! We cried together and I told her I would go with her to the biopsy on Friday. 

That night was rough. I cried, Marshall held me, and I wasn't sure what the future would hold for my mom. Ali slept over Thursday night and brought my mom to the hospital Friday morning. I met them there and we got checked in and Same Day Surgery for the biopsy. The nurse checking my mom in was very kind and positive. We were all feeling on the brink of an emotional breakdown but we were holding it together. The GI doctor was very kind. After he completed the biopsy he told us that to him, the mass looked different from cancer. He was hopeful that it was a type of immune reaction. He said we would know for sure once the biopsy results came back in a few days. So we left feeling hopeful. We had a family fast on Mother's Day. There was an underlying sadness but we tried to be positive and enjoy the day. 

We played the broom game and Kade had fun putting them all together after.

It's fun seeing how much the kids have grown.

These pictures are priceless!

Senior Pictures

Marshal took James's senior pictures around North Lake Park one Sunday afternoon. Lynnlee went with and helped. I like how they turned out. 

MORP

James went to MORP with Lydia one of his friends since 9th grade. They spent the day at Tibble Fork and at a friend's cabin. 

All his friends were asked by the girls group that they are friends with so it was one big fun hangout.