Graduation

Ok, so bear with me. There is a lot of pictures here. I just couldn't decide which ones to post. Ambrea graduated last Friday, May 23 '08, and we are so proud of her.


Ambrea and her proud dad.




Her hard earned diploma. (Notice the bright blue nails. We stayed up late the night before doing those beautiful nails. Do they make a statement or what?!!)







Ambrea with G-Ma and G-Pa Shaw. We were so happy they could make it.

With the family.
Ambrea with some of her friends.






Another picture of the hard earned diploma.







We had a little lunch for Ambrea after graduation and for her dessert she wanted this chocolate cake that you get from Costco. It is 7 lbs. of chocolate. It is soooo sweet you can only eat a tiny sliver of a piece, but oh man is it good.

Such a beautiful graduate!

We Have a Date

I finally got ahold of the hospital and we have a date set for Ashton's cath. He will have it on July 11th. He wasn't very excited when I told him. I kind of know how he feels. Once you have a date it makes it become even more real. We are nervous but we pray that things will go in our favor. He's a tough kid.

Really Grandma, do you have to take the camera everywhere we go? (Probably what Savannah was thinking when I took this picture.)

Graduating

Our "little girl" is graduating this week. (Little girl is one of her nick names because she has always been such a little person. She is only 5 feet tall. :) ) We can't believe she is graduating. Just like I say, time goes by soooo fast. It seems like just yesterday I was walking her to the bus to start kindergarten. We are so proud of her and want her to know we love her tons. Way to go girl, you rock.

Clouds Beautiful Clouds

I took this picture on the day we went to the temple to see the statues of Christ. Even though it shows the beautiful temple, that is not what this post is about. If you notice the sky it is cloudy. It's not that often that there are cloudy day like this here. I remember when we were preparing to move here I had been talking with my friend Julie, who has lived here for over 10 years, and she was saying that sometimes they would actually look forward to cloudy days. I couldn't believe it. Now we have to remember that I LOVE the sunshine and I couldn't believe someone would actually like a cloudy day. Well, after living here for 2 years now I understand what she meant. I still absolutely love the sunshine, but during the hot summers a cloudy day can become very welcome. But I still would not trade the hot summers for the cold winters like they experienced up north this past winter.

Beautiful Kids!

A couple weekends ago we went to the temple to see the carvings or statues that depict the life of Christ that are on display. They were beautiful and if you get the opportunity to see them we suggest you do it. I think they are only there until the end of May though. Well, we had about a 30 minute wait so of course I wanted to take pictures of the kids. They are usually pretty good to cooperate and of course the temple grounds provide such beautiful backgrounds and it was an overcast day so the lighting was perfect for taking pictures.

Roses

A few weeks ago our rose bush was full of beautiful roses just like this one. (Sorry it is a blurry picture.) When I took this picture there were two roses left on the bush. Of course, I didn't get a picture when there were a lot of roses. When Ray and I "dead headed" them we counted about 21 roses. It was beautiful! We are so lucky to have this rose bush in our yard.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms. As this mother's day has been approaching I have been thinking about my mom and other moms who have touched my life. The older I get it seems the more I appreciate my mom. You always hear that happens, and I see it happening to me. My mom and I have always had a good relationship. Even as a teenager I didn't mind being seen with her and have always had a desire to make her proud. My mom has always been a giver. She is always doing something for someone. Currently her and my dad live with my
grandma so they can take care of her and my oldest brother who is handicapped. How many of us would leave our homes and move to live at our moms house to take care of her? My grandma will be 99 this June and until just recently has had a sound mind. Now it comes and goes. Just recently my sister had the opportunity to spend a day with my grandma while my parents went to dr. appts. It gave her a new understanding of what my mom does everyday. As with anything, until you experience it yourself you don't fully understand what someone is going through. I also have a lot of memories with my grandma. Every summer I would go spend a week or so with her and the thing I remember the most is the time she would spend with my cousin and I. And the motorcycle rides she would take me on. I would get on behind her and after a while I would get sleepy so she would have to pull over until I was wide awake. And the time we were looking for broken glass to put in a do-it-yourself keleidascope and there was a huge blow snake hissing at us in the middle of the road. Grandma killed it so we could get around it. I hate snakes!! She was my hero. :) I could go on and on. And I have been so impressed with Ray's mom and her patience with kids. Not only did she have 8 of her own, but also all the kids she babysat.

So on this mother's day as I sit back and think about the memories of my mom I just want to tell her thank you for everything. Love you mom. You're the best!

Happy Birthday Hazel!

Happy Birthday Hazel! Well, actually it was yesterday, May 7, but I'm still getting use to this blogging thing and remembering to get things on there on time. Hazel is now the big 21. Wow! Her and Nate are planning a little trip to Vegas this weekend to celebrate this big birthday. Hmm, gambling?? No but really, Vegas is such a nice place to relax. Actually, it is one of Ray and I's favorite places to vacation because we can just relax and not do much of anything.

Hazel has been with our family for quite some time now. We have been through good times and rough times. We even knew her before she got her drivers license. We feel like she is one of our own and love her just the same. She is a really good mom to little Savannah and we are really proud of her. Hope your day was great Hazel. We love you!!

The decision is made

Dr. Day, the cardiologist called me at work the other night so we could discuss the possibilities of how to help Ashton. He is such a nice guy and spends so much time helping us understand things. Sometimes we wonder if he ever sees his family because he is always helping his patients. So we made a decision on what to do. We will do a catheter which will be scheduled in June sometime. In the cath. there are three things they want to try to achieve. First off he will try to open up the shunt that has closed off. I have been worried that the clot may go up instead of down, but the dr. said he would not do anything if it looked to risky to try to remove. The second thing is to try to clean up the area in the left artery going to his lungs that had a stent but then that got cut apart and they put in a homographt. He just wants to make sure there is nothing starting to block off that artery. Third, he will coil some colaterals, which are small veins but have gotten bigger because more blood has gone to them looking for oxygen. A coil in them will not let as much blood flow through, or he may stop all blood flow if it looks like it is too big. If he is not able to open up the shunt then we would have to have a surgery done, which I assume would be at another time, to put in a new shunt. They are using a new type of shunt and the surgery to put it in is easier than in the past. I know this is a lot of information and it may be a lot of foreign information to some of you, but after talking to Dr. Day I feel good about the decisions we have made. We will keep praying and ask for your prayers also. We decided to have it in June so we will be out of school and we can get Ambrea through graduation.