November

November 7-9th was the Eagle's 2nd tournament this season - the Park City Shootout.  We were victorious and came home with the championship banner - great job!!

Misc. pictures - Owen loves putting together puzzles and he and I did this one that Grandma Marla gave us.  The picture on the right is par for the course around here.  Bradley and/or Will and Owen have a lot of fun wrestling one another... I can't think of one time that the laughter didn't eventually turn to tears...

November 10-17th were filled with doctor appointments.  I went to my regular OB, then got a mammogram and ultrasound, had a meeting with a surgeon, then finally had my biopsy done.  More details on my other blog.

November 20th - JT Concert Trip: For Matt's birthday (back in August) I surprised him with tickets to see Justin Timberlake (his unabashed male-crush) in concert in Portland, Oregon.  We flew up for one night and came home the next day (my cancer diagnosis kind of busted up our weekend plans) and we had an incredible time with each other.  Halfway through the concert, Justin rode on a floating stage above everyone's heads towards the middle of the arena.  He ended up two rows away for about half a dozen songs.  As fun as a concert is, it is amazing how much more fun it is when you're that close to the performer!

My favorite song that JT performed wasn't even one of his own, it was an Elvis cover... so fun!

November 22nd - Lauren's Play: One of the perks of coming home earlier than expected from our Portland trip was that we were able to see Lauren perform in her theatre group's performance.  The kids were the writers, directors, set designers, etc of their show.  Lauren's group did a mashed up fairy tale version of Hansel & Gretel, Candy Land, The Princess and the Pea, and Studio C.  Lauren played the role of Queen Candy and was obviously dramatic and adorable. 

November 23rd was Snow Day!!  It wasn't technically enough snow for our annual tradition, but we decided to fudge it a little bit and celebrate any bit of snow we could get!  Our gift was the game of "Clue" which the kids have been wanting to play ever since we saw the Psych episode that referred to the game/movie.

November 24-26th - The days leading up to Thanksgiving I met with my cancer team.  It started out with Monday - I went to the hospital for an MRI and later that afternoon I met with my oncologist.  Tuesday I met with my radiation oncologist and Wednesday I met with my surgeon; fun stuff!  More details on my other blog.

November 27-30th - The weekend around Thanksgiving we stayed in Las Vegas for another Eagles tournament.  Although I miss seeing extended family during this time, we've really had a lot of fun the past two years going there.  This tournament was a "Silver Sticks" tourney, which means it's the best teams from around the intermountain area and the winner gets to go to a tournament in Canada.  Utah usually isn't a contender for the championship in these tourneys but our team won 2nd place - way to represent Eagles!!!

 While Bradley was playing hockey, the three younger kids were either cheering him on, playing their electronics, or I was bribing them to let me watch in quiet with $ for concessions and/or arcade games.  Owen became quite adept at the claw machine and won a pair of fuzzy dice for every kid in the family.  We also ate out quite a bit on this vacay with our favorite place being the "Hash House a Go-Go."  It was featured on the TV show "Man vs. Food" and the portions were enormous!  And of course, no trip would be complete in our family without a trip to the ice cream store.

 The weather was lovely and after we'd drop Matt and Bradley off over an hour early to get ready for their games, we'd head to a park and play outside.

Family Pictures

We had our family pictures taken right before Halloween this fall.  We had such a difficult time trying to find a date that would would and finally we settled on a Saturday morning.  Here comes the "I told you so" part of the story (ha ha) because we wanted the pics in our backyard and I knew in the morning they'd be backlit by the sunrise.  Matt was sure the trees would filter the light enough.  We had a friend, Joel Farr (Joel is Matt's previous business partner, Mark Farr's brother) from Jibe come take the pictures.  Once he got there we proceeded with the pictures although he voiced his concern about the lighting as well.  Owen and Will had alternating tearful moments and it was really difficult to get them both on board for the family pics.  Joel was so sweet with them and us, but really wanted to come back to take the pictures at a different time because of the lighting.  I actually also wouldn't have minded because after seeing the pics I would've changed a few outfit options, lol.  We were going to try and squeeze in another photo shoot but then our lives detoured down the cancer road a couple of weeks later.  I'm pretty grateful that we did get some pictures done before my diagnosis, even though my cute, perfectionist photographer wasn't happy with the outcome because these kids grow so fast and who knows how long it will be before I go down the picture road again.  Joel hasn't retouched any of these photos below yet and some of them aren't print worthy, but I chose a few candids, some that showed the kids personalities, and some that may be my final options.