Mother's Day and My New GF

All About My Mom

by Mykelle

My mom is 30 years old.

My mom weighs 30 pounds.

My mom's favorite color is blue.

My mom's favorite food is broccoli. 

My mom always says, "I love you."

My mom cooks the best eggs.

My mom's job is going to the store and buying groceries. 

My mom laughs when I do fun stuff. 

If my mom had time, she would love to play with me. 

My mom and I like to hug and kiss. 

My mom really loves hugs. 

I LOVE my mom because I love her too.  

All About My Mom

by Evan

My mom is 7, 31 years old.

My mom weighs 78963 pounds.

My mom's favorite color is all the colors. 

My mom's favorite food is oranges and bananas. 

My mom always says, "Darn it!"

My mom cooks the best eggs and bananas. 

My mom's job is washing dishes. 

My mom laughs when she tickles me. 

If my mom had time, she would love to wash the clothes. 

My mom and I like to hug and go outside apple picking. 

My mom really loves apple picking. 

I LOVE my mom because she lets me do the Disney Cruise. 

Mother's Day was a nice one for me- Adam and the kids made me breakfast in bed: french toast strips, eggs, and strawberries.  Mykelle picked out a bouquet of flowers for me and helped put together my present- some Coke Zero, gummy worms, a movie, and a blog book certificate!  In the evening we went over to the Avery's and had a good dinner with them.  

The best part of the day was the kids being so excited about breakfast and giving me their cards.  They've never been allowed to eat in bed, let alone in Mom and Dad's bed!  And their cards were so sweet, the looks on their faces were priceless.   

Check out my new necklace-

My idol Dr. Laura sent me the necklace she made herself after I called in to her program to ask her a question.  Isn't she sweet?  I wish I could truly say she is my new friend in a closer sense of the term but I'll take a phone conversation and a few emails back and forth :)  Love the necklace!

While I'm showing off new things... did you see my newly painted dining room yet??  I came home from the Utah trip and Adam had painted for me!  He had to have put in so many hours painting both the room and my little blue table.  What a husband huh?  I love that he did it without my knowing and that he knew what colors I'd been thinking of!  

The table is a 1930's buffet table our landlady left us and said we could paint.  I LOVE it!  

Mykelle making "carpet angels"

I just have to share this part of Mykelle's prayer yesterday, it made me laugh out loud!  She is always saying things similar to this:  "Please bless everyone on Earth to be super duper good for you Jesus, so they can live with you again and I can meet new people."

Mykelle was able to celebrate her birthday on the cruise but I thought I'd post a pic of the "cake" we gave her before we left for the trip.  Since we were opening presents we had to have candles and cake too!

I was tucking in Evan tonight and this is how our conversation went:

E:  Why is my voice different?  And why is your voice and Daddy's voice and Mykelle's voice and my voice different?
Me:  We all have different voices because of our voice boxes in our throats that-
E:   We have a BOX in our throats?!
Me:  Yes, it's called a voice box that has vocal chords in it.  It's how the sounds of our voices are made and we all have them in our throats.
(Several back and forth comments about boxes, chords, and voice sounds, then suddenly-)
E:  Why can't I see Jesus??
Me:  Well, you've seen a picture of what Jesus looks like right?  Why don't we close our eyes and think of what he looks like-
E:  Is he wearing pants?
Me:  Uh... Maybe, yes.  And he has dark hair and nice happy eyes with a loving smile...
E:  What color is his shirt?
Me:  Dark.
E:  Where does he keep his other shirts?  In Heaven?
Me:  If he needs a new shirt, yes, but maybe he doesn't need one because he's in Heaven.
(And in walks Daddy to tuck him in and the conversation is over!)

Color For Tessa- Thank You Cache Valley!!

This is a double post- I already posted it on my cancer journey blog but it is not something to be kept separate from my family life.  It was a day I'll never forget and I hope my kids and family will always remember the love we felt on this day.

Saturday the 28th of April was absolutely one of the best days of my life!  My USU Ambassador friends threw a fundraising party for me and my family in Cache Valley and it was AMAZING!  My friends contacted me to let me know they wanted to do the event on my family's behalf and just needed my permission.  It was incredible how everything came together with only a month of preparation!  

The event was called "Color For Tessa" and was so creative and had such a great feeling about it.  It started with a "Splash of Color 5K" and 1 mile kid's run where people were splashed with powdered color during and after the race.  SO FUN!!  Afterward, race participants and anybody who wanted to were invited to a "COLOR Festival" that included music, food, a silent auction, raffle prizes, games for the kids, and pony and train rides, as well as the baby animals at the American West Heritage Center.  In the evening there was a "COLORS Concert" put on by the band COLORS!!  I couldn't believe all of the fun things planned and put together on such short notice!

Can you believe all of these runners?!  The turnout was amazing!

Aunt Taro took most of these great pics and really helped out with the kids throughout the day.

Starting the race with the air horn

Evan ran a good 100 yards of the mile before Taryl had to carry him :)

Mid-race Color Station

Finish Line!!  1 mile in just under 20 minutes!!  Good job Evan!!

I arrived at the AWHC at 8am and didn't sit down until I was in the car leaving the party at 3pm!  I had one of the best times of my life!!  It was like a combination family, high school, and college reunion!  I saw so many old friends and family I hadn't seen in years.  Plus I met a lot of new friends too!

Hess Family

The first and third place runners of the kid's race!  Sophie on the left was first, and she was absolutely the most tender-hearted little 4th grader I've ever met!  When it was time to leave the festival she started sobbing saying she "just felt so bad" and wanted to come see me at my parents house!  It was so touching.  She said she got first place to help me get better and then went and ran next to the adult runners finishing the 5K to push them a little harder.  SO sweet!  I'll never forget this sweet little girl!

Adam's cousins and friends with Mykelle and Evan

Can you just hear Mykelle's evil laugh??

Not in the face!!

The kids seemed so surprised they were allowed to throw powder on other people and even MOMMY
without getting into trouble!

What a beauty huh?

High school friends!

Taryl gave me a colorful tacky BFF gift the night before the big day :)

I don't know how to thank everyone appropriately, but I and my family are incredibly grateful to everyone that helped make the day a success.  The feeling of love and peace I felt all day was overwhelming and something I will never forget.  It will help me get through the tough days coming up when I recall this special day.

Colors did an improv rap where they took words to include from the audience.  They had to rap the words toothpaste, ninja, epic, true aggie, and Tessa. They did great! Thanks guys!

I am so very grateful to the people who organized this even and all of the individuals who donated auction and raffle gifts, time, money and talents.  There were many businesses that donated gifts and services that were wonderful!!  And the Colors band coming together for a concert for ME!!  So cool!  Cache Valley is a community I'm proud to claim and call my own.  Thank you so much for all that was done and continues to be done on my behalf.  I am and will be forever grateful to all who made Color for Tessa so wonderful and hope to to pay forward the love and goodness shown to me.  Thank you!

Disney Cruise

Our family had an unforgettable vacation on a Disney Cruise over Mykelle's birthday in April!  We were so happy that schedules came together so well after years of discussions with Skip to all go on a Disney Trip!  We thought it would never happen with all the health issues first Skip and then I started to experience, but it finally came together!  With a relatively clean bill of health from his doctors and the okay from mine to schedule a cruise, we were off!  

PS. I got started on this post and it turned into the never-ending post!!  Sorry there are so many pictures and videos, I just couldn't leave any out!

Jet Blue plane ride to Florida- not too bad with headphones and cartoons!

My little Star on the red carpet!  We stayed at the All Star Music Hotel in Disney World.  

 The kids LOVED walking out to the back of the hotel and seeing the awesome guitar shaped pool with the character fountain shooting water out of their guns!

Ariel and the kids by the piano shaped pool at our hotel

Mykee sitting in front of our building.

Our ride in style to the Disney Dream ship!  A Hummer Limo!!  Skip wanted to make the ride special and memorable for the kids so he splurged for the extra fun!

The excitement of a big ride!

First Limo experience

Dancing to Rio!

Could that be excitement for a Cruise??

Sharing a Cherry Coke!

Going through customs to board the ship- Disney even made that part fun!

The kids loved the bunkbeds in the stateroom!

Free room service??  Yes please!!  Giant cookies and milk every night before bed!

Mykelle and Evan absolutely loved getting to see all of the princesses!  They were so nice too, especially since we had to wait in line and there were a ton of kids wanting to see them.  Each princess made sure to spend a perfect amount of time speaking to each child individually and making them feel special.  Princess Tiana wins for prettiest dress in my book, and Princess Ariel for being the nicest :)

The kids didn't understand why some of the characters didn't speak to them- after all, why would the REAL characters need to wear masks?? :)

The kid's club was awesome!!  The kids each wore waterproof GPS bracelets at all times and could be dropped off from first thing in the morning until 1am!!  Though we never did leave them in THAT long :)  Every day they begged to go to the kid's club- awesome! 

Each night there were shows to see and they were fun!  We got there early to sit up close (this is front row) and enjoyed all the entertainment.  

Adam was called up to help with the Knight magic show where he had to screw in the metal hoops to trap the lady inside.

Then they raised a tarp around her and stepped off to the side and dropped it- just like that she came out dressed in a different outfit and free of the hoops!  Adam had no idea how it was done either!

We did a fun shore excursion where we went for a ride around Nassau in a glass-bottomed boat before stopping to look at the fish and coral under the boat.  It was a fun way to see more of Nassau than just walking the streets- which we were told could also be dangerous!

Ready to go to our 7 course dinner at Remy's!

We sat in the Gusteau room- it was beautiful overlooking Nassau!

We had a beautiful dinner and great service!  Even though we had to turn down the wine list and the wine guy was a little rude about it... He actually scoffed at us!!  Jerk.  :)

I had to include a couple of the dishes- they were SO good!  This dish with the cup too had lobster and cold fish soup in it... sounds gross but it was not!

My favorite dish!  Sea Bass in a creamy cauliflower sauce.  I practically licked the plate clean :)

Lamb- looks prettier than it tasted!

Beef, baby veggies, potatoes and shortribs- very good!

I had a delicious chocolate bar with edible gold on top (because I'm worth it :)

Adam's dessert was pretty good too

The chef sent out some complimentary hand-made treats for us to take with us for later.  I was so full I didn't try any of them!  But I think the kids were appreciative

Evan liked to pretend the window sill was a washer

Our itinerary for the next day, chocolates on our bed, a thank you from Remy, and a towel animal from our room host

Mykelle's big smile when I left a rose on her pillow before bed

Beautiful view from our verandah

The Mickey Mouse slide on top of the ship.  It was really cool because the kids could go by themselves and the line wasn't too long.  They loved it and went over and over!!

They did get in trouble a couple times because they wanted to go together and they're supposed to be separated

Cool slide right?

The pools are SUPER tiny!  And with over 3000 people on the ship they were this full most of the time.  The kids were only lost once or twice...

Nemo's Reef was a fun little splash area mostly for toddlers.  Pretty cool but once again, pretty crowded!

Souvenir time!  Skip bought the kids some fun things to help them remember the fun time they had on the cruise.

Skip and Evan in the foreground with our ship in the background.  Castaway Cay was a great beach and the weather was perfect!

Handsome hubby looking back on our chairs and the dining/restroom area

One of the kid's favorite parts about Castaway Cay was the unlimited self-help ice cream dispensers!  We had way too much of course :)

Pirate Night!

Our server presenting Mykelle's very own birthday cake!

Mykelle "picking" flowers to help Mommy feel better!

Mykelle's towel birthday cake had one candle and gold coins in it