Hangin' with the Smacks: March 2011

The worst Thanksgiving ever!

We should have stayed home!! We had decided not to go to Idaho for Thanksgiving because of the terrible weather. Driving in snow and wind through Wyoming would be about the stupidest thing one could choose to do. But the kids were so disappointed and the weather report looked promising so we decided to chance it. We left on a Wednesday but the Monday before Emma woke up throwing up. I ended up being up with her most of the night helping her in and out of the bathroom. It ran it's course in about 7 hours and thought we were good to go. Wednesday morning when we were pulling Amy out of her bed to go we discovered that she had thrown up in her bed and was completely covered in it. But she seemed perfectly happy and content, we cleaned her up and off we went. We made it through Wyoming with surprisingly good roads. We made it to Burley in good time and stayed the night with Aunt Bonnie on the farm. The kids love the farm and it seemed like a pretty good start to the weekend.

Not so. . .

Thanksgiving morning we head to Twin and all the festivities and laughs over there. Ted begins to feel queasy. He is so sick he doesn't eat not one bite of Thanksgiving dinner!!! Now if you know the Smacks, you know that anything touched by a Smack hand is heavenly good. He was so sad. We head back to Burley early so he can sleep. He is sick all night. We head back to Twin the next day kind of late to see everyone even though Ted is still not feeling great.

The next morning is Saturday and Ti, Joe and I feel terrible and come to find out the entire Smack family also caught the bug. The 3 of us laid in bed all day feeling sorry for ourselves. Thankfully Bonnie was around to doctor us and tried to comfort us. It began to snow and didn't stop. We were worried about our drive home.

We head back Sunday morning during a blizzard and thankfully made it all the way home safe and sound.

The next time we feel like we shouldn't go we are going to stay home!!!!

Random

Amy Amy Amy- We are all in love with her. We think everything she does is cute. Well. . . almost everything. She can throw a pretty good tantrum.

A castle Ti made with Ted's help for his Medieval unit in school.

Their hair is growing out- time for a shave already!

Ted and Ti went to a BYU football fireside and Ti was able to meet and talk to Coach Mendenhall. He came home floating on cloud 9 and is now a BYU fan!!

If a picture can a say a thousand words than this picture says a million!!

They are truly the Three Amigos.

Horses

I forgot to include these cute pumpkin patch pictures with the Halloween pictures. What is there not to love about Halloween?

Our dear neighbor Shirley is dating an awesome old cowboy named Jack. This is up at Jack's place. This first picture is a time we went up after we caught two raccoons in a trap. Jack raises and trains (trophy winning) coon hounds. We took the raccoons up to him so he could let one of his dogs get the scent of the coons.

All of the following pictures are a couple of weeks later when Jack let us go riding. Shirley brought us up one day when the kids were out of school. Veterans day, I think. They all did amazing and Emma is absolutely in love with and not one bit afraid of horses.

Halloween!!

You know how much I love Halloween! Although I do love it I have never stressed too much about whether we all match or not. But. . . this year just snowballed into one hilarious trip to the Good Will after another.

The best are Uncle Rico's powder blue cords. They are freakin' sweet. Joe needed hair but we made do with a wig. Emma was going to be Summer but then we thought making her into LaFawnduh would be more hilarious. Plus then she gets a wedding dress to play in. Ted was scared that I played Deb a little too well.

What's sad is you can't see Napoleons moon boots. That was a major score!

We hung out at the Goldsberry's on Halloween night and made carmel apples. But we had to dress up one more time for them because they would so appreciate a Napoleon Halloween. By the way, Amy is Tina the llama!!

Side note: Amy is not afraid of dogs. I don't know why it surprises me so much.

Niko 5K

On September 2nd, RJ Niko was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, which is the most common bone cancer found in children and adolescents. His left knee had been bothering him all summer. He'd had an x-ray but nothing showed up so he had been doing some physical therapy but with no improvement. When he came back from trek it was really bothering him so they took him back in a cat scan showed a tumor. In a matter of a few weeks the tumor grew from not visible on an x-ray to showing up on the cat scan to the size of an orange before he had his first chemo treatment. A friend of theirs in the ward organized the 5k as a way of raising some funds to help offset the medical bills. It was well attended and they are already talking of doing another one in the fall. It was a great success and the Nikos were definitely appreciative of all the support they received.

Helen with her sisters.

The race just started. Rob is beside RJ on the scooter.

Tate and Joe with RJ throughout the whole race. RJ was feeling pretty lousy that morning.

Helen(white shirt) with Chloe and Seth.

The crowd gathering at the end of the race.

Mike took our picture as we were leaving- huge bonus:)

Since I am obviously writing this after the event, I will give a little update. RJ is has undergone surgery to remove the tumor after 4 rounds of chemo to kill it. They took it out and six inches of the femur above the knee. They put in a titanium rod and knee and he is doing physical therapy to regain the movement. He will not be able to play any impact sports now but the surgery was a great success and should last a pretty long time. He is still doing chemo treatments and hopefully will be done with them in April. There is a light at the end of the tunnel for them. It's been a very LONG seven months so far. But they are very grateful to all the care and support they have received. They are able to recognize the Lord's hand in the entire process.

For RJ

I have always been pretty protective of Joe's curls. Ever since I met Ted, I couldn't wait to have my own blonde curly haired boy. When I discovered that Joe had the curls I dreamt of I have never let his head see a set of clippers. But RJ's diagnosis of cancer silenced my wishes to have Joe always in long curly locks.

We went from this . . .

to this.

(I must admit I almost cried. . . then I really cried when I realized it was right before Halloween and he needed hair for his costume!!!!)

With some fun in between!

Joe's Golden Birthday "7"

We had two golden birthdays this year. Joe wanted a soccer party for his. He got his wish (and I got my wish because it was a beautiful day!!!) and almost everyone could come. He was a happy boy.