Valentine's Day at Copper Mountain

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but the moments that take our breaths away." Author Unknown.

We're spending the long weekend in Colorado at Copper Mountain. It's beautiful here. Copper Village is quaint with brick walk-ways and shops and the snowboarding has been amazing. I made a joke during lunch today that no matter how much space we have to move around, Matt and I always seem to run into eachother. I said it was because we were like magnets - magically drawn together.

After lunch Kayleigh and I took off on our own, and Matt went to hit some of the more challenging terrain. We had plans to meet back up in our room after the lifts closed at 4:00. There are 2,450 acres of terrain, 22 chairlifts, and 126 marked trails at Copper Mountain. At around 3:45, Kayleigh and I were about 1/2 the way down the mountain. Just ahead was a point where our run crossed paths with another run. I looked towards the crossing, and looking up at me, was Matt.

Matt and I are like magnets. No matter how much space we have, we are magically drawn to eachother. Out of all the cards and sweet things Matt and Kayleigh did for me today, this was one of those "take your breath away" moments and I will never forget it.

Grandma's 89th Birthday

On Saturday, January 17th, we celebrated Grandma's 89th Birthday. She's still as sharp as a tack! Happy Birthday Grandma!

I love this picture of Kayleigh and Grandma.

Check out the candles on the cake... My Uncle Mike laughed and said, "We gave your Uncle Butch ONE job to do, and he couldn't even get THAT right!!!"

Matt, Amy and Kayleigh with Grandma

The whole scary family

New Year's Eve

We had a wonderful, quiet New Year at home this year. Kayleigh was with her Dad, so Matt and I hunkered down, made a gourmet dinner and watched the fireworks over the strip from our upstairs windows.

Christmas Photos

We've been Elfed!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

More Snow Pictures

Our house looks so pretty with the Christmas lights and the snow. Matt did a great job putting up the lights!

We got to make a snowman!

Matt, Kayleigh & Frosty... with palm tree arms... what do you expect from desert dwellers???

Frosty in front of the house.

The BIG picture.

Snow in Las Vegas!!!

We got hit with a blizzard today! Everything is covered, and we're expecting 6-10 inches at our elevation. It will all be gone tomorrow, but we're enjoying it while it lasts!

We took advantage of the background and got some amazing photos. The last photo was taken just down the street at Kayleigh's bus stop. It looks more like the mid-west!

Kayleigh almost killed me - Seriously!

While eating lunch together last Sunday, Matt got into position to give me the Heimlich maneuver when I suddenly gasped mid-swallow and began choking on my grilled cheese. What, do you ask, made me gasp - and eventually fall to the floor laughing? We were talking about TV and movies, and the fact that Kayleigh is getting older, and will be catching onto 'things' that she didn't understand before. She agreed, then said, "Yeah, like in this one movie, the lady said, 'hairy pair of testicles' - what is she talking about???"

Ahhhhh yes.... Kids say the darndest things! Needless to say, I recovered - fortunately without the need for the Heimlich, and it's a day we will never, ever forget!

Our Disneyland Trip

We went to Disneyland a couple weeks ago to celebrate my Birthday (belated) and Matt's diagnosis. We had a fantastic time!

We decided to get the medical stuff all out of the way this year, so we could have an awesome '09, so tomorrow, I am finally having my foot repaired from the first round of botched surgery.

The new guy said my foot has been broken where the doctor put in the original screw from the time I had the first procedure. So basically, I have not been healing slowly, I've had a broken foot for a year and a half! It has gotten so bad lately that I can not even walk bare-foot in my own home. I am so excited to get it fixed! Having the procedure done before Thanksgiving was smart for two reasons. 1.) I won't have to miss too much work, 2.) I get out of cooking Thanksgiving dinner!

I am sure we'll post pictures in the next couple of weeks. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Chan's Video

 

Steve, Grandma & Pat come to visit!

 

Great Photos from October!

Quick Matt Update

Just a quick update to let everyone know that Matt came through surgery OK. The tumor was the size of a ping-pong ball. The Dr figures it's been growing for 5-6 years. Matt will be in the hospital for a few days and as of right now is feeling pretty terrible.

I will update more when I have some more time. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!

SHE COULD GO ALL THE WAY!

This just in!

Kayleigh's first quarter as a 6th grader ends on Monday, October 27th. Her school has an awesome parent network that allows us to see all her graded assignments and her current grade. She had a little bit of a rough start to the quarter, but as of today, October 15th, she has Straight A's in every subject!!! In reading she has a 98%!

Whooo Hoooo! GO KAYLEIGH! We are so proud of you!!!

Matt Update & Kayleigh Funny

FINALLY!!! Matt will be going in for surgery on October 23rd (Happy Birthday to me!). He felt bad about scheduling it the day after my Birthday, but I can think of no better gift then to have my husband healthy!

There is some interesting information on the web about his condition. If you go to this site: Parathyroid.com you can even watch a video of the same type of procedure Matt will be having. They have to make an incision right in the middle of his neck. Yikes!

Our biggest challenge now is keeping him healthy. We had some pretty big scares over the past few weeks with a bacterial infection that go into his glands, then a simple cold that turned into bronchitis or pneumonia. All from Kayleigh coming home with the sniffles! His immune system is so weak he does not have the ability to fight off anything.

As for Kayleigh, she is wonderful as usual. She's adjusting to middle school beautifully and is thinking about joining a few clubs now that she's more acclimated. Here is a picture of her on her first day:




Here's a funny Kayleigh story: About two weeks ago, Matt and I were in the living room and Kayleigh quietly came up to me and asked if she could speak to me in the bathroom. She looked like she was on the verge of tears, and she was scared out of her mind. When we got into the bathroom, she had a complete melt-down. She said, "I don't know why I'm crying! I know that this is no big deal, and I'm going to be OK..."

So here I am running through all the possible scenarios of what could possibly be wrong with her, and I think... She's 11. She put on 10 lbs over the summer. How old was I when I, well, you know...

She calms herself down. Sits on the edge of the tub. Pulls off her sock and says, "I have an in-grown toe-nail and it REALLY hurts!"

All I can say is "THANK GOD FOR IN-GROWN TOE-NAILS!!!" Whew!

Soooooo Behind on updates!

We're in September already!?!?

Here's a quick update on '08:

January

I ended '07 super sick with a sinus infection and infections in both ears. Kayle was in IL for Xmas this year, so that worked out OK. She came back a little earlier and we got to go to Disney for New Years. We had a BLAST!!!

Click here to see the pictures!

February

Matt broke out with severe psoriasis due to a newer biologic the dermatologist put him on called Raptiva. They finally decided to switch him to Enbrel, so we're hoping that one is better for him.

March

Kayleigh's school had a sock-hop. She looked SO cute! We met up with her cousins at the school. The following weekend was Baylea's birthday. She had a luau! When Kayle got dressed up for it, Matt decided it was time to start cleaning his gun! We also took the BEST blackmail picture of Matt's brother-in-law to date! The link below has the pictures.

Matt took me to the Dodge SRT8 Track Experience. WE HAD A BLAST!!! It came with the purchase of my car, and it's basically a full day of driving and racing in Dodges SRT model vehicles. There were 4 different events, one of which was drag-racing. You'd never guess who kicked every one's butt.... ME! I only lost 1 race out of 20. Matt got 4th in the autocross and he had so much fun, 3 days later he went back and took his Dad for his birthday! That day he got 2nd in the autocross event. Go baby!!!

Click here to see the pictures!


April

I pretty much don't remember April... Did we have April this year??? WAIT! I REMEMBER! I had lasik done! I no longer wear glasses or contacts. Yay me!

May

I started a project at my work for Locks-of-Love. I had always wanted to do something, but with a sometimes crazy travel schedule and a family, volunteering is not easy. I wanted to do something that my co-workers could get involved with too, so I set a goal for us to donate 2008 inches of hair to Locks-of-Love. I created a blog to track our progress. I then cut 12" of my own hair for the cause. To see the pictures and the video visit my blog at: http://hair2spare.blogspot.com/ . If you know anyone that would be willing to help our cause PLEASE send them my way!

Kayleigh also started riding lessons! In the link below you can see pictures of her with "Captain Underpants" aka, Chester.

Click here to see the pictures!

June

Kayleigh graduated 5th grade with straight A's, and had a Hawaiian Birthday party.

Matt still wasn't getting better, so more visits to the doctor were scheduled this month. Through several reviews of blood tests, the doctors found that Matt's blood-calcium levels were too high.

Click here to see the pictures!

July

What a BUSY month!!! It turned out that Matt didn't have psoriasis as much as he had dermatitis. It was also determined that he has a tumor in his left parathyroid gland that is throwing everything off. Though our cruise was scheduled, for a while there, we thought we might have to cancel the trip. The doctors gave us the "OK" to go just 1 day before our flight left.

Kayleigh came home, and Pam and Rach came to visit on the same day! I was so glad we were able to spend time with them. The whole family got together for a cookout. We also went to Red Rock and took some amazing pictures, and Rach and Kayle had a blast swimming.

Click here to see the pictures!

Our Cruise

We took our first cruise! It was a Western exotic Caribbean cruise to Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize & Honduras. It was a little on the cheesy side, but all-in-all we had a great time. What was best about it was that we forgot about everything. I had been working 70 hour weeks, and Matt was going to the doctor or having blood tests every other day. It was great to get away.

We took some incredible pictures! Click here to see them.

August

With summer winding down, August was more relaxing. Work slowed down a bit, and Matt's doctor's appointments did too. At this point, we are still waiting for the surgery to be scheduled, but we're hoping that will happen during the 2nd week in September after he sees the Endocrinologist.

Kayleigh's friend, Paige, came to visit and they had a great time.

Click here to see the pictures!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

We did not get around to sending out Christmas cards this year, but making our first music video was A LOT of fun!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1634538324

Happy Holidays!!!!

How Well do you know Christmas Carols?

I got this one from Chan - I got 5 wrong. She only got 2 wrong!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/carolquiz,0,7827105,post.triviaquiz

Stuck in the house....

This is what happens in TX when it rains a lot and you start getting creative...

Avah Lorraine Burkinshaw - November 5th

I have some happy news to share! On November 5th, Gareth and Irma gave birth to a beautiful baby girl! Below is the picture they sent me - but soon they will be getting their own Baby Blog, so watch out for that!