Christmas Tree and Programs

Wow. Has time really gotten away from me. Let's see I finally got the tree up. Seth has been asking for me to do that ever since Thanksgiving got done. I was able to dig the box with the tree in it out of the storage room and get that set up. But when I tried to get the box with all the lights and decorations I realized it was behind two other boxes and on the floor. So I passed that on to Jamie to get. He was able to get that out a lot easier then me.

Here's Jamie trying to get the lights on before the boys take over.

It's always fun to watch them take ornaments out and talk about when they made them.

Jamie helped out with the other ornaments that are not the boys. He tried to even the tree out a little bit too.

And of course finally my angel from Germany. I love that thing so much.

This is Jakob's new ornament for the year. I got it cause he is always playing some sort of game.

And I got this one for Seth cause this summer he was always drawing something on the driveway in chalk.

Here is the tree all done and decorated. And no it's not leaning, that was me taking a bad picture.

Then it was on to Christmas Programs for school. I didn't put to many pictures of that in here. They are always in the gym and the lights are off so the pictures turn out really bad.

This is Jake and his friend Tommy. Tommy also goes to the same church we do so they have gotten to be pretty close. Jakob has also had Tommy over night and they are trying to figure out when they can do it again.

Jamie went down to get a picture of Jamie and finally made him laugh.

Here are all of the second graders in Hayward.


Then it was Seth's turn. The principal introduced them as the class of 2022. It was so strange to hear that. Which means Jakob will be the class of 2020. Here's to hoping it stays that way.

He was harder to get pictures of . All the parents rushed up to take pictures.

Then when I finally got close enough the kid beside Seth was waving to his mom and Seth got ticked off. He actually told the kid to knock it off cause his mom was trying to take a picture of him and his hand was in his face.

They did great just like every other year. I'm very proud of them.

As for me, after this Thursday I will be half way done with my chemo treatments. So happy about that. I'm going to talk to the doctor about getting a different medication to help with the nausea. The stuff I have now knocks me out for about 4 hours but my stomach still hurts when I wake up. Plus I really don't like the idea of not knowing what is going on and being knocked out like that. Thanks for all the prayers and support.

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was one of my good weeks. So I was very happy to find out that Joe and Corrina would be spending the week with us. Neither one has been here yet to see the house and lake. I'm hoping they will be able to come back in the summer some time so we have more stuff to do. But I think they had a good time just hanging out with us. Well poor Joe might not want to come back to soon. The boys wouldn't leave him alone, if Joe went out with the dogs Jake would try to follow. If he was in the house they wanted to play video games or catch or just be around him. I'm sure that gets a little overwhelming when your not use to it. But Joe you did great.

The night before Thanksgiving Joe and Corrina made up some of Joe's family cookies. Here are the boys and Joe cutting them out.

Cookies out of the oven and cooling. We decided to let them cool over night and we would decorate after dinner the next day.

The next morning Joe and Josh went out and broke up a bunch of hay bales that Jamie got. They covered up the well so hopefully this year the line doesn't freeze up on us again.

This year we decided to use the turkey fryer. We haven't use it before so it was fun watching Jamie and Josh trying to figure out how the thing went together. We also had Josh and Josh's friend Chris and his son here for dinner.

You have to love Jamie's manly blue with white daisies glove he used when dropping the turkey in.

I was a little nervous with all the smoke, but I guess this is suppose to happen right???

While inside Corrina and I tried to get everything else ready to eat. Seth helped make the honey butter for the corn bread. He loves helping in the kitchen.

Jamie and Josh cutting the turkey up. I laughed at Jamie when I asked him if we wanted the electric knife. He just looked at me blankly and said, "Do we own one of those?" So needless to say I got out the electric knife we received as a wedding present 10 years ago. Shows you how much we make big meals.

Once everything was cleaned up and put away. We got the cookies and frosting and stuff out to decorate. Seth was all about it and very much into the decorating.

Here's Joe supervising and trying my pumpkin cheesecake. Joe made a Redskins football player out of one of the cookies.

Here are the cookies.

It was funny when the boys made cookies for me and Jamie. They wrote Sam and Jamie on the cookie instead of mom and dad. How strange.

Then Friday Joe and Corrina had to head out so they could get to Cheryl's and spend some time with her before driving all the way back to Colorado. It was great having them here and like I said I hope they can make it back this summer.

Taking Back Control

After my 2nd treatment my hair finally started to fall out. It started out with just a few strands here and there and then it just kept getting worse. It was either Friday or Saturday night I took one of those combs you get at picture day and started to comb my hair. My hair just kept coming out and it didn't look like it was going to stop. So I had to make myself stop combing cause I was starting to get really depressed about it. I asked Jamie if he thought I should shave it or leave it and he thought I should wait awhile. But the more I talked to other people they said to shave it and Take Back Control. We knew my hair would fall out, but I'm the one making the choice to shave it not the cancer.

So Sunday I got up took my shower and that is when I decided enough was enough. It was the worse shower I have ever taken in my life. I had hair all over my hands, arms and the shower floor. So I called my neighbor, Carmen and her husband George and they came over to shave my head. George took pictures for me. I'm not to sure who was more nervous me or Carmen, but it had to be done. Here are some pictures for you.

I asked if we were going to do an attachment first or just go at it. And Carmen said we are just going at. And here we go.

The boys popped in once in awhile, but didn't really stay to watch the whole thing.

I do feel better now that it is done. But it is very strange to see this person staring back at me in the mirror. Thank goodness this is only for a short time.

First Deer of the Season

Josh got his first deer of the season on Saturday. This is also his first deer with a bow and arrow. Unfortunately he could not find the arrow. But at least he was able to find the more important of the two. Here are some pictures for you.

Jake thought this one looked like she was sitting on the truck.

Right above that piece of grass is were the arrow went in.

And that's were it came out.

Jamie is starting to feel a little pressure now. Josh got like 4 last year and one this year. I don't think Jamie has gotten one yet. He even stayed home from church on Sunday. He didn't see any deer put two Gray Wolfs ran past him. I don't think this would have been to bad, but he was sitting on the ground when it happened. Next weekend is gun opener so hopefully he will get something then.

I personally and doing pretty good. I had about 3 or 4 rough days after chemo. It was pretty much just an upset stomach and a lump in my throat. I'm really hoping that is all I have, but you never know. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers. My next treatment is this Thursday and now I'm just waiting to see if my hair falls out or not. It sort of makes showering a scaring thing to do. : )

First Round of Chemo

Thursday was my first round of chemo. We got to Ashland around 8:40 a.m. to start the day off with my Muga Scan. This is a scan of my heart using radioactive material to see if my heart was health enough to start chemo. The poor lady tried to get an IV started on me twice and blew the vein out both times. I asked if we could just use the port and she said they can't with radioactive material. So then we had to get two other people to try and finally the second guy was able to get the IV in and get the stuff started. The first fluid they pumped in had to go through my system for 20 minutes. I guess this was to get the blood cells ready to grab onto the radioactive stuff later. So I went back to the waiting room sat with Bev and Jamie for a bit. Once the 20 minutes were up they pumped in the radioactive material and we were ready to go. I had to lay on a table that slid into a tube, sort of mix between an X-ray machine and a MRI machine. The first picture was the side of my heart and the second was from above. Each picture took about 10 minutes to take.

Then it was over to the cancer center to start the chemo. We got there around 10:00 or so and they gave us a room right off the main desk. Which was their first mistake. : )


Here are Bev and Jamie playing their ipods waiting to get on with the chemo. They were having Farkle contests.

This is Brooke (awesome) she is accessing my port to get an IV started for all the medicines. And yes it did hurt as you can see from my face. It sort of felt like she was plugging something into me. Which I guess she was.

All done with that part.

I got a new blanket from the cancer center. Brooke tried to have Bev and Jamie pick one out for me but in the end I had to pick from four different ones. We picked this one since there were M & M guys on it. : )

Here is the first drug of the day. As you can see this one is red and comes in a big syringe she has to push over 15 minutes. They also have to wear gloves and an apron cause they can't get any of the chemo on their skin. Makes me feel good that it's going into my veins. Doesn't that just seem wrong??? : )

This poor girl had to sit with us and listen to us. They were laughing so hard at us by the time we were done. They even came in to figure out if Bev and I were sisters, cause they thought Jamie looked more like my brother. Oh man we laughed at that one. I think they liked us.

Here I'm into the last drug. This one was a drip for 45 minutes. Bev asked the nurse at one point if I was ok cause I looked stoned. And I would have to agree it was starting to take a toll on me at this point. I could feel myself drifting and not concentrating on anything. I would start to read from my book and it wouldn't make any sense. I don't like that drug to much.

Once we left I was pretty tired and was starting to get an upset stomach. Which seems to come and go as the days go on. Bev has been really good about making me eat small things here and there. I'm just thankful that it's not to the point that I have to throw up it just feels like I road a roller coaster to many times. Here's hoping to them all feeling this way. And that it will only last a couple days.

Halloween 09

I was able to help in Seth's class this year for the Halloween party. Before I went to Seth's class I ran over to see Jake and get his picture. They were able to walk downtown and parade for all the stores and people. He said it was a lot of fun.

Then I got to Seth's class and I helped him and his classmates get there costumes on. They normally go to the nursing home and sing, but with the flu going around they just did a parade through school.

Here is Seth and one of his friends. Not sure why, but he wanted to be black spiderman for school.

Seth's class.

Here we go....time to parade through all the other classrooms. One of the first grade classes was actually doing work. That's just wrong!!!!!

Time for treats.


Saturday Seth got into his normal costume. Both the boys wanted to be Army men.

I went into Jamie's old Military clothes and found his camo stuff. I wore it to Seth's school party and a lot of kids asked if I was for real. It was so much fun.

Here is me and the boys with Jamie's Air Force jacket on. We had a great night.

Update on me: I'm sure most of you have gotten an email on our plan of attack. Tuesday (tomorrow) I will be getting my port put in and Thursday will be my first round of chemo. Then it will be every other week for 8 times. I will be going up to Ashland to have this done. My first round I will have Jamie and Bev, my sister, with me. It should be interesting. I'm pretty nervous about it cause I just don't know how I'm going to react to the medication. Here's hoping for the best. Love ya all. Sam