Snow Storm '21

It's been 12 years since we've had this much snow here. Aubrey was a baby then! The kids were absolutely thrilled. It all started on Thursday with wintry mix and snow, and when we woke up Friday morning, we had three inches or so. It started snowing again Friday afternoon, and the kids went out and played in it during their lunch break. None of the kids had too much school work on Friday, as teachers seemed to understand the importance of the snow day. :-) It was pretty windy, and the sleet/snow pelted their faces, but they didn't seem to mind. Grant and Aubrey helped me make Valentine's cookies in between snow sessions. They all played out in it again later after school, too. 

By Saturday morning, though, we had a ton of snow! I don't know what the official count was, but we had two feet of snow on our deck, up against our slider. Our porch was completely covered!  We were all shocked by the amount of snow. 

Saturday was a true snow day, complete with lots of friends and neighbors sledding down our hill, and a crew of kids and friends at our house to warm up with hot chocolate and apple cider. Our dryer worked overtime, drying out wet snow gear. We made four boxes of mac and cheese and raided our frig to feed the crew, then went back out for more fun. Joel had a big group of friends get dropped off to sled in the afternoon. They had a blast! Greg was feeling good enough to come out and play, too, with breaks on the side. The Langleys spent the day with with us, and Kevin, too, had to pace himself, as he is just finally regaining strength and energy from COVID and pneumonia. It was great to have a day of fun. Most of the crew headed home later that afternoon, but Joel had three friends come back to our house, and they stayed and spent the night. Kari had Kylee spend the night, too.  They played outside all afternoon, having snow fights and eating snow ice cream. It was a party at our house. We made a huge batch of waffles and ham and eggs for a big breakfast for dinner, and then they went out for a night sledding adventure after dinner. 

While we were thrilled with the snow, our hearts were heavy with an undercurrent of sadness, as Greg's Aunt Sue went home to be with the Lord early Saturday morning. Strange to be having all kinds of snow fun, mingled with sadness for the Thom family and Mom M., along with relief that Aunt Sue was no longer suffering. 

Sunday we woke up to another couple inches of snow and throughout the day freezing rain coated everything with a layer of ice. Greg, Kari, and I worked hard shoveling the Roupp's driveway next door. They have been in Arizona since before the snowstorm, and their housesitter couldn't make it because of the weather, so Kari has been on pet duty, and we've helped, too. Greg had to dig a path out the back slider so their dog, Samson, could go out. They come back tomorrow night, and we wanted them to be able to park their car in their driveway and get to their garage without a huge slushy mess. We got our workout in, for sure! Kari and Joel shoveled part of our driveway, with the goal of making an ice cave in the snow drift. Joel finished it up after Kari got picked up for a sleepover at Katelin's. 

It's been an amazing weekend of fun, play, and some work. It felt good to be hosting people in our home again. I've missed that this last year. I was glad I had over-bought hot cocoa at Costco and glad we had lots of food on hand. :-) It's suppposed to warm up in the next day, so the snow fun will likely quickly turn to messy slush and then be gone. We enjoyed it to the fullest! 

Friday

A little before-school Curious George in front of the fire for our teenagers on this wintry day. :-)

Saturday

Colby and Joel made a tunnel through a snow drift by the sledding hill.

hard to tell in the photo, but they're eating the snow ice cream they made

There were a few more pairs of boots out in the garage and on the boot dryer, too! 

Sunday

Sunday evening--between a quarter and a half an inch of ice covered everything and made the snow shiny.

still have a bunch of snow on our deck

Happenings at home

 

DONE!

 

Greg and I both posted on social media within minutes of each other, not knowing the other was doing it. :)

Greg's post:

This is a post that I have desired to write for the past several months.  Here it goes...

I. AM. DONE. WITH. CHEMOTHERAPY!

I saw my Dr. today, and she gave me the medical ‘ all done’.  When she said it, I clumsily said “ okay, thanks”.  My brain had not processed what it had heard.

As made my way out to my truck to call Andrea Moffat, tears started forming.  As i relayed the great news to my bride over the phone ( i know i am still old school, didn’t even think to FaceTime) the tears came.  Tears of relief, of  being finished. Tears of God’s goodness to me and my family.

Tonight, As I sit here I am already making mental lists of things I long to do again;  walking ( maybe even running), playing guitar, disc golf, basketball.  These are all good things, and I am glad that I will be able to do them again, Deo Volente.

But I also think of those I personally know who have gone through physical, emotional, and spiritual journeys this past year.  Those who are physically suffering, those who have lost employment, those with broken relationships.  For all of us, this place is not our hope, not our home.

The song linked below ("Faithful God" by I Am They) has taken on some ‘new meaning’ for me the past several weeks, as I started to listen to the lyrics.  I am looking forward to learning it on the guitar soon.

Thanks to all of you out there who have been our support: cards, notes of encouragement , treats at our door, ears to listen, hearts to pray.  Andrea and I are beyond grateful to all of you for coming alongside us for parts of the past 9 months.

My post:

Six difficult months of chemo, and now he’s done!!! One round shy of the 8 planned. He’s had enough!  It’ll take some time for the effects to wear off, but we are so happy and relieved he can be done. He ended his treatment with a bang and suffered through kidney stones, too, this last week.  His body could use a rest! We’re praising God for carrying Greg and our family through this challenging season of cancer on top of everything else this last year.  We are so very thankful for the prayers and encouragement we’ve received from so many of you. I don’t have the words to express all the emotions I’m feeling tonight. 

Harry Potter

Back in December we decided to let Grant read the Harry Potter books. We had the older two wait until they were 11, but he's the youngest and because...COVID (that's our excuse for everything these days). Out of all the kids, Grant has the least amount of school work and the fewest activities (none)--too much time on his hands. He and I have enjoyed reading aloud together in the afternoons, so I started reading it with him. He was hooked after the first couple chapters, and now he's on the fifth book (of 8), and he's obsessed! Whatever he is into, he is ALL IN. Harry Potter has been no different. He makes constant connections and references to the books and characters in every day conversation, and he loves to share about what he's reading. When he reads ahead, he catches me up with a not-so-brief summary. I love it, though. I love that he wants to stay up too late reading and can't wait to find out what happens next. 

Joel does not enjoy reading and tried reading Harry Potter years ago but just couldn't get into it. He discovered the audiobook version, though, and that is how he has been reading the books. Grant caught up to him (the audiobooks are from the library and aren't always readily available), and so now Grant has been reading aloud to Joel. It's so cute! Aubrey started reading the books after Grant, and she's on book three now. We've been watching the movies as a family after she finishes the books. It's been a great distraction for Grant these last couple months.

Week of drama

The side effects of Greg's chemo are cumulative and take longer to go away after each round the longer he's on them. This last week, he finished a brutal round on Monday, and we ended up in the ER on Tuesday evening due to kidney stones. It came on suddenly around 1:30pm. He was supposed to go into work that afternoon. He tried but turned around half way there and barely made it back. Meds didn't do much, and the pain got too bad, so after I got the middle school girls home after youth group, I came home and drove Greg to the ER. We were there for three hours. I took the hand photos there because the color was so shocking. They confirmed with a CT scan that it was indeed a kidney stone and that he has "a bunch" up in his left kidney. They pumped him full of morphine and sent us home. He felt just terrible all week and through the weekend--both kidney pain and all the chemo effects.  It was brutal. He was miserable and down, and we were all just feeling pretty low. 

The next day I got an alert from our credit card company that we had fraud on our account. Sure enough, someone had tried to use our number three times. They closed our account, and I spent the day trying to change all our automatic and re-occurring payments (at least 20). Of course, our new cards will take a week to come, so I had to change everything over to our Costco visa, and I'll have to switch it all back to our Alaska card once we receive the new ones. Such a pain. 

The next day Kari woke up with a swollen jaw and cheek. Her wisdom tooth surgery had been over 3 weeks ago, so I called and had to take her back in to the oral surgeon. Thankfully, they saw on the xray that there was a tiny bone fragment that was left behind and prescribed antiobiotics, in hopes that it would just dissolve and go away on it's own. It was just another thing in a week that didn't need more "things." 

Greg had a follow-up appointment at a urologist two days after the ER, and he learned that his "stone burden" was great in that left kidney, and he would need surgery to remove all the stones. The problem was that he was finishing up chemo, so surgery would need to wait. They set up an appointment for a month later and sent him home with instructions to filter all his urine until he passed the stone. We just couldn't believe this was all happening. Not even done with chemo and needing another completely unrelated surgery. 

The other issue causing me stress was our cell phone service. I started the process of switching carriers on Monday, and it turned into a huge fiasco. I was on the phone with T-Mobile for almost 10 hours that week, trying to get our phones to work and to get the promotions they promised. I lost hours of sleep stressing about it, too, especially when we had no working phones for a day. I should have just gone into the store and taken care of it all in person. Lesson learned! Switching should save us about $100 a month...eventually. :-)

Sunday was the Super Bowl, and we had a rather strange mix of foods requested by various members of our family--boneless wings, tater tots, jello jigglers, berry bagels and cream cheese frosting/dip, bean dip and chips. Greg had 4 canker sores, yet another unpleasant side effect of chemo, but Tiffany had given us a tip about a product they have used. I went out and got some, and he was able to eat without as much pain in his mouth. 

That night, as we were getting ready for bed, he called out for me from the bathroom. I came running in. He was fine, but he had just passed 7 kidney stones! Crazy! The biggest one looked to be about 5-6mm. They weren't tiny! It was very exciting. :-) The next morning he woke up feeling so much better. Chemo stuff was all still bad, but his kidney pain was gone! He said he felt "almost like a new man."