Changes in life

Well I wanted to write this out so those of you who read will understand thing better. I have been a Sgt for over five years and have loved it however when I promoted to be a sgt I missed having those "banker" hours. Every time a position came open in the courts I would debate giving my position up but didn't. As time has gone on I have prayed and thought about doing this. With the new jail opening and several new positions there that meet what I want. I have spoken with people about it and discussed it fairly in depth with Paula. And we both felt comfortable with the decision. So with that said I gave up my sgt position so I can get a position that I desire. I will be able to spend more time with the kids and be able to make it to their events and activities something that I don't always get to do. I am comfortable in my decision.

new updates

I am going to give you an update on Paula. She has been feeling ill for a while nausea and headaches sinus issues so I thought she just Had the flu. She kept telling me it wasn't the flu, but my mind kept thinking she just got scans and tests and everything was OK so I thought it couldn't be anything else. It started getting really bad so she got an appointment at Huntsman and went in last Thursday. The doctor agreed with her and ordered some new scans. He called us Friday morning and explained that the tumors in her brain had gotten bigger and they were going to get us into her brain doctors. The appointment was yesterday. We were able to look at the scans from last week and the ones from before and saw that the tumors definitely had grown. The brain doctors said that wasn't the biggest the concern it was the swelling in the brain. and they showed us those scans and basically it showed that half of her brain had swelling. They expect surgery is coming but they want to try and see if the can get the swelling controlled through medications. As long as she doesn't have any major issues we go back in a month for another MRI. If the swelling is still there we will schedule the surgery then. The picture above shows her brain the small white dot in the left center is the tumor it is about twice that size now. When they showed the swelling it basically covered the whole left side. The smaller tumor is not seen on this view. I wish I would have taken a picture this time but didn't think of it.

Breast Cancer Awareness

Tis that month again. I am sure you already aware of it due to all the food companies having the pink ribbons on their products. I just want everyone to tell your loved ones to get regular check ups or self examinations. We used to be of the mind set it won't happen to us not now anyway Paula is to young. Well it did happen. If someone you love has any major changes or lumps get checked out. Please. Also when purchasing items at the store and you decide to buy something based on the ribbon make sure they are donating to legitimate charity. We have found over the past few years that many companies do donate but it is to charities that don't help with the research or funding other programs. Cancer hits everyone in one way or another. Help yourself by doing everything you can to keep your self cancer free.

Special Month

As we come up into October I find myself always reflecting on the month and the past x amount of years. See it is my anniversary with Paula not only is it our wedding anniversary but it really is the month we started getting serious and I knew then that I was going to marry her. It just took some time to convince her I was right. Since then when I say something she knows I am right. :). No seriously I reflect and think how lucky I am to have in her my life even in our bad moments during college a lot of actions that I did or thought about doing were influenced by her and what she may think of me if I did those things. You can say even though we weren't talking for that short time she still had a hold on me and was able to keep me on the right path. The other day we were actually talking about the first place we met and what our impressions were. Come to find out little ole' shy me didn't make the first move, I thought she was a sophomore and I wasn't going to be associated with one of those. she started talking to me. I guess I just have a magnetism that she couldn't resist. In college I made a few mistakes and had to take care of those so I could serve a mission. During this time of repentance Paula was at my side again and she hasn't left. But I had an ex girlfriend from college that prior to getting my life together for my mission she would tell me she didn't want me to go and would try and keep from going even though it was something i wanted to do. While in my preparation to get on the mission Paula never once told me verbally that she didn't want me to go. She just always told me that I needed to do what I wanted and she would support me in that. I debated it for months and finally decided to go. she wouldn't promise me that she would wait and it took a lot of convincing for her to take a ring she still wasn't entirely convinced that I knew she was to be my wife. I think she finally figured that. She didn't want to make promises she couldn't keep. i returned home and we were married hahahaha I was right/ :)

Anyhow getting back to the why this is a special month. any one who has had a life changing event that puts stress on their marriage knows that the fact you have made it another year whether it was good or bad is another year down. October is special because that is one more year that I have had with her. One more year that my kids have had with her. Knowing that her cancer is terminal has changed my outlook on life and I have learned to cherish her. I find myself laying in bed next to her and I can't help but to touch her arm, face, stroke her face. I generally feel bad cause most of the time she is sleeping and I wake her up but I want to remember ever moment I can. she is my heart.

Recently I had some issues at work and needed to get some things worked out while getting these worked out she was supportive and never placed blame on me. she actually never even asked to hear the whole story. She just was there to help me. Which I think if she wasn't there for me I wouldn't have been able to get things worked out. When people say that so and so is their rock their foundation I don't think I ever really knew what they meant until I married Paula.

I am excited to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary and our 17 year together. coincidentally they are less than a week apart.

As for Paula and her health she is doing okay she isn't doing great but she is doing okay. She has moments of great days and bad days. she continues to get scans and tests to make sure no tumors are growing. I will keep everyone updated as they come.

RElay for Life

Well we did the relay for life this past weekend. They require a lot of preparation and with comes stress I was getting frustrated by the minute while getting things packed into the van. But once we got there it turned out to be fun and enjoyable that stress was gone and as I looked back on it it didn't seem all that bad. They had a lot of fun activities and such. The family had cumulative of 34 miles most of them walked by the two older girls. Their was both set up with beads and necklaces once you bought the necklaces the beads were free and you picked on up for each lap walked. Once I got the necklaces the kids really didn't want to stop walking.

They did a luminary ceremony and also a lap to remember everyone who has or is fighting the horrible disease, Paula chose to make this years relay in honor of her mom who died almost 10 years ago of multiple myloma. when she was diagnosed multiple myloma wasn't treatable, but in the time we have been dealing with her cancer we have found out that they are able to treat and extend life for that particular cancer. we have been amazed by these advancements which makes these fundraisers so important to us. With each year new developments are being made and new treatments discovered.

As the night progressed on they had events and music playing that was fun. They had a locks oflove ceremony and both of the older girls had gotten enough courage up to have their hair cut(both of them would have ear length hair after) but they were both about an short of the minimum length, they were both little bummed out but really didn't stop them participating in the other things, karaoke, cake walk, etc. They had fun.

During the first part of the night we had the part of our team that was scheduled to rotate with us through the night find out they were getting foster kids the next day and needed to get things ready for that so they wouldn't be there after 10 pm which left it up to our family to walk until about 6 am when they next walkers were to get their. When I first heard this I thought oh well we will walk until 1 or so and we would all go to bed. But this decision didn't sit right, and I was feeling horrible about making that decision. And then at about 11 I remembered a story Paula had told me about a friend of hers who is a cancer survivor as well, did it last year or the year before, the weather was bad and nasty and the organizers or some of the teams wanted to up and stop the event but Paula's friend said no cancer doesn't take a break because of bad weather and neither I am I and she continued to walk the rest of the night. Once I remembered this I knew what I needed to do and so I told Paula to go lay down and get some sleep at about midnight and I would wake her up around 3 am and then I would go and lay down(I had no intention of getting her up). So her and the kids all went and laid down and then about 1 am I walked by the camp site and saw Paula, Maddy and Nicki all up because of the music and loud campers around they weren't able to get to sleep (the older girls were a sleep when I went into the tents at about 12:30 so I know they got an hour or so. I gave Paula the cell phone headphones so she could plug her music in and go to sleep which she did and the older girls and I walked the night rotating out who was walking. They really enjoyed it and both seemed to love the idea that they were doing this for Grandma Ruth.

I realized something important about my kids dedication to their mom, they were willing to do what they can to help out and even go beyond what they think they can do. They would tell me during laps they were tired so I would tell them to go and lay down and get some sleep but they refused to and just kept walking. I am proud of all my kids for participating in this without complaints. Thank you to everyone who has supported us the last three years your support to us appreciated.

updated

I was reading facebook today and saw a post from my siuster that she hadn't updated her blog for a long time and that reminded I hadn't either. So things are going okay in our household. The kids are getting excited for school and having fun through the summer. All four kids have taken swimming lessons and most of what they learned seemed to have stuck. We were able to spend a week down in Huntington and got to take the kids to Goblin Valley which they all seemed to love and the want to go back next time we will take alot more water with us we all took a bottle of water and it ran out quickly. We also took them to the wedge overlook. But the thing they loved the most was going to Percy's Pond, Paula's dad has a friend, Percy, who has a small pond he has stocked with fish and also has deer you can hand feed and some llamas and a ton of other things out there. The kids got to fish and loved it they were all able to catch at least 2 fish, they absolutely loved it when their lines began to bob up and down. we are going to try and do one more day trip somewhere before school starts.

Paula had a follow up appointment and Brain MRI and the doctors seem to be good with the way things are going. We go back to see a couple of her other doctors in the next couple of weeks but they don't have any other scans planned until November.

San Diego day 6

Today we went to legoland, drove to the Mexico border and then tried to catch the sunset over the ocean just missed it starting we caught the last part of it.

Callie liked the rides and enjoyed the rollercoasters. She really loved being able to drive the car by yourself with no one else in it.(as a side note she wouldn't let anyone else pass her she kept swerving in front of the other kids).

Tommy d liked the Roller coasters and liked the airplane rides. He also like aquazone water rides. He really loved the 4d movie even though he didn't get sprayed. He liked the teacup thingy it goes alot faster than a traditional teacup ride. He liked being able to drive by himself even though it took me a minute to get the hang of it. he liked battle splash trying to spray everybody he could even innocent by standards. Hwe liked all tghe rides.

Nicki liked everything again a girl of a lot of words must be her dads child.Her favorite thing was the rollercoasters and water rides. She really enjoyed technix rollercoaster it was fast and turned alot. And she also liked the drivers course she driove all by herself. she got a drivers license from it.

Maddy liked everything especially these rides: Technix rollercoaster, big verision in teacups, the 4d movie, and the aquazone and the air[planes ace ride. The beetle bounce.


Paula enjoyed all the rollercoasters, she really liked the dragon rollercoaster, we got to ride it back to back due to no lines. Her favorite was miniland. All these cities formed in legos, she could have stayed there all day I think. She loved being able to do things with the whole family including the little ones they allowed smaller kids on all but two rides. that is pretty much it.

I enjoyed the rollercoasters. I really enjoyed listening to Callie laugh she wouldn't leave my side but everytime she got excited or scared she would just start laughing her head off, it was awesome. I really liked all the kids run to the rollercoasters and rides cause they were excited. My favorite ride would have to be the Dragon coaster though.

San Diego Day 5

Today we started with the Air and Space Museum, then we went and rented snorkeling gear and wet suits, and then we finished the day off at Boomers amusement park. we wanted to go to Belmont Park but it closed 2 hrs from the time we would have gotten there so we decided to go somewhere else where we could spend some time.


Callie enjoyed the beach and building sand castle. She loved going over and smashing Paula's while it was getting built.

Tommy D liked the Boomers and the going on the Go Cart rides even though he wasn't old enough to drive himself he enjoyed being able to ride and act like he was driving. The mini gold course. He also liked playing the arcade games. He liked the beach and building sand castles. He laughed at Callie sitting on Paula's castles and really liked it when Callie farted on it. He also liked the 4d movie. He liked it when the movie sprayed us with water from a monsters mouth and I said eww stinky you need to brush your teeth. He also liked the Childrens place in the air and space muesem. He liked going in the water at the beach. He liked watching Nicki getting 2 holes with one stroke. she hit a little hard.

Today Nicki liked when she hit the golf ball to hard and got the 2 holes with one stroke. Pretty much everything at the Boomers. She liked the beach and chasing the waves and running away from the waves when she wasn't so cold she didn't want to do anything. The soft sand was pretty cool to her. She also loved getting a broken seashell right off the beach. She also liked the air and space muesem the play area and the 4d movies.

This is Maddy and I liked the beach especially the water I spent the whole time [I don't know how. I also liked the mini golf and getting a hole in one which is my first hole in one and I have never played before. I loved the teacup except for two of the spinnings it felt like like I was the moon and I had to orbit around the earth. The farris wheel I was scared on when it was going down. I loved riding the go carts with my mom. I liked the 4d movies at the air and space muesum except when i got sprayed with water. I got to see Amelia airharts plane the lockheed vega 5b.I liked being able to go snorkeling with my dad. We went out about 100 yards or more from the shore. It was great.

Paula liked seeing the Red Baron plane at the muesem , the 4d movies, she liked going to the beach even though it was cold. she is thinking about getting a wet suit for everyday living. She liked racing the go carts until some little girl crashed into her.

I enjoyed listening to the kids laugh and giggle at lots of stuff. Callie seemed to really enjoy today and she let us know it by how she laughed and laughed and laughed. When we were on the go carts she didn't stop laughing the entire time. I also enjoyed throwing Paula into the water at the beach she wouldn't get her head wet so I gave her a little assistance. I got to take Maddy out and teach her how to Snorkel and with her life jacket on she seemed to really get the hang of it. I think the thing I have really liked about this trip is my frugal wife even on vacation she is watching the local sales and shopping accordingly. She also got us an awesome deal on a card that lets get into tons of places we got the card for $1,000 and have already used that much plus Legoland to go.

San Diego update

Today we had planned to go to Legoland but while enroute when Paula remembered reading a few days earlier that they were closed in the middle of the week. We changed plans and went to the Zoo instead. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun but lets get it straight from them.

Callie's favorite parts of today were Pandas she remembers that one of them was eating. She also liked Giraffes which we just missed seeing a new one born by less than an hour.

Tommy D liked the rats because of their home and all the tubes that connected it. he thinks there were three of them and maybe one was hidden. he also liked the rabbits in the petting zoo he just wishes he could have gotten closer to them. he also has decided he wants a pet rabbit because they look adorable(his words). He says the tortioses were pretty cool. He liked the baby hippo and the momma hippo. He liked the lions. He liked the elephants(surprisingly they have 11 of them here). He enjoyed riding the skytram across the park twice. He liked the snakes and monitors. Basically he loved the whole entire zoo.

Nicki walked over to me and said she liked the petting zoo and then walked away with nothing else to say. Guess cartoon withdrawls have set in.
as a side note nicki stated she liked the Koalas

Maddy liked the petting zoo, the okapis, and the all the babies.

Paula was excited cause tommy d finally showed some emotion and smiled alot. We had a large tortiose come over to us the thing was huge an easy three feet in diameter and she was impressed with their speed. Paula thinks she may be able to beat them in a race.

Tom enjoyed the sky tram rides the most partly cause they were free. The Pandas were pretty cool but it seemed liked we were getting rushed through. I thought watching the Callie in the petting zoo was cool she seemed to love all the little animals cause they were the same size as her. We went on a guided bus tour there which I would suggest not doing you really don't get much time to get to see the animals and you only see about half the zoo if that. They do give you alot of information about the animals you do see. I was impressed in how the kids were reading the signs and remembering what they had learned I was floored by some of things they told us. They started to read whether or not they were endangered.

Vacation first three days

I have decided to record our vacation and what each kids liked best each day.
Day 1:Vegas seaport village and the beach
Callie said she just liked the travel she loved going to the beach and seaport village

Tommy D favorite part of the day was the Vegas breakfast and playing water fights in the beach with his mom. and jumping on his dad.

Nicki's favorite part of day one was going to beach.

Maddy liked the Seaport Village and watching the sailboats go by, going over the bridge to Coronado island.

Paula loved playing at the beach.

Tom has just enjoyed watching his family play and get along with each other.
Day 2:Midway and Harbor Tour

Callie stated the Midway was the best part of the whole day she liked the flight deck and she could see all the boats from there. She liked the sea too.

Tommy D liked listening to the self guided tour speakers on the Midway, he liked going around the Harbor and being able to see the seals and sealions on the docks.

Nicki didn't like anything on day 2.

Maddy really liked the historical part of the Midway and being able to see all the planes. She also liked seeing what it was like on the shi[ and what jobs they had. On the Harbor Tour she liked seeing the Top Secret Submarine Bay. They had Covers all over the top-secret propeller.

Paula and Tom both enjoyed seeing the kids locked up in the Brig.

Day 3:Sea World

Callie's favorite part of the day was seeing the Shamu show. and that is all.

TOmmy D really liked the water rides at Seaworld particularly Journey to Atlantis, seeing Shamu watching mom scream and yell and laugh at things, and watching the dolphins, seeing and playing with the starfish. He liked the Sea Lion show.

Nicki enjoyed everything today but she really liked the rides at Seaworld.

Maddy liked the rides although she didn't like them when she first got off the water rides cause she got cold. She loved the Dolphin show and just seeing Shamu. She thought the sea lion show was funny, especially the Dancing with the Sealions portion of the show they danced the tango, pop, and swing.

Paula enjoyed the sea lion show. She was upset that Shamu didn't get are area very well and she didn't get wet. She enjoyed beign with the kids and just being silly around them She liked the fact she could show them that mom and dad aren't always serious and can have a good time. She liked the rides and the smiles that came to the kids.

Tom's favorite part of the day was watching Paula just being herself witht the kids and not caring about what others thought. He loved watching his kids dancce and play. His favorite show was the Sea Lion show they seemed to get alot more packed into their 30 minute show than the others. The dolphin show was nonstop but they had more trainers and dancers than they did animals.

March 2011

I decided since I am so busy tonight at work I had no excuse to ignore writing and updating the blog. even though the majority of the people on here know what are going on cause you are part of my facebook network. I guess it is better to have multiple spots of history so if one goes down I still have the other.

Paula had scans done in Feb, they came back good I guess. The doctor stated that the brain tumors are still dying and not growing at all. as long as the tissues don't cause swelling nothing will have to be done.

the kids are doing good are excited to get swimming lessons this year, we missed softball signups so we are putting them in swimming.

We are getting ready for our vacation to San Diego and I will update on how that went next month.

Another Year down

After reviewing my past New years Resolution blogs and I really don't know if I accompished them to the degreee I wanted to. I havbe tried to make more memories with the kids but I really don't know if we they have any better memories or not. I guess we will find out when they get older.
But after reading the blog I have been trying to think of something I can work on this coming year. Of course the common get in shape, eat healthier, save money yadda yadda yadda I plan on those anyways I don't think any resolution is needed for that I think that is something that is always is the back of my head and something I want to do. I do know one thing I want to do this coming year is start to run again I know I have missed this stress relief it was always great running you could always clear your mind get the frustrations andanxiety out you don't have the choice but to do so.
With that being said I think my biggest resolution this year will be to get myself motivated to do other things. right now I have so may excuses as to why I can't do this or I can't do that and in reality it is just an excuse I don't want to get off my butt and go and do them.
Just for everyones FYI who is wondering about Paula she is doing great, the last scans came back great the brain tumors have stablized and haven't grown any and the rest of her body shows no new signs of cancer.