Madi - 12/05/1999 - 03/21/2010

Today was a super sad day at our house. I woke to rustling sounds by our bedroom door and I found our 10 year old dog Madi trying to get up. She has had a massive mammary tumor that I could not afford to fix and so we decided that as long as she was not in pain we would not put her down. I struggled with this because she smelled bad and the growth was gross, but could not put her down.

Well after I found her in distress I KNEW her time on earth was drawing to a close. She suddenly could not hear me or see me and finally just fell and couldn't get up. Devin and I sat with her for a bit and let the kids say goodbye. Devin then gave her a special blessing just letting her know that we loved her very much and that she could now go peacefully to be with our Father in Heaven.

We placed her still breathing body onto her doggie bed and within a minute she was gone. The moment was so spiritual and kind of sweet although saddening as well. I miss her so...she has been there for me whenever I needed her. She would follow me everywhere (even the bathroom), so this is super hard.

My parents lost Madi's mother Magi about 6 months ago and they had buried her in my brothers backyard, so I called and asked if Madi could be buried next to her own Mother. I love that she can be buried by her Mom.

I will miss her so much and even though I know she is in such a better place I am still selfishly sad. I wished that she had not been so sick, but Our Father in Heaven knows what is best.

This is a tough day.

Peace and Love Peeps,
Cami

Long time NO POST!

I think I must live the most boring life ever when i can't even find interesting things to post about often. I am just now catching up on The Holidays and other stuff. So we had a very quiet and relaxing Christmas. We had many miracles occur and for all of them we felt completely blessed - also comforted that The Lord has his hand in all of them. The kids enjoyed the day and I was happy to have spent the day with my family and also taking a nap during the day.

The New Year is here and I am hopeful that it will be a good one. We will be moving again soon, so I am looking for another home. Although I am not looking forward to moving I am anxious to find a home closer to Mesa. It is tough to live so far out. We are also hopeful to move into a wonderful loving ward. It has been tough over the past 6 months, because we have had a difficult time in this ward we are in - from the start. I will just leave it at that, because I don't wanna do any bashing on my blog.

Devin is as most are in these difficult times desperately in search of a job. We pray every night that one of the gazillion applications he has placed will stand out among all the others. I have thought often if I truly feel comforted knowing that so many are in our same position and my clear thought is always NO. I do not wish this for any of us - but we continue to push through supporting each other in every way possible.

I truly hope all of you are having a great New Year. Thanks to all of you wonderful family and friends who continue to come to our Blog to check on us.

Peace and Love Peeps,
Cami

Thanksgiving

This year we spent Thanksgiving with my side of the family. We were all there this year for dinner and that has not happened in many years, so I was THANKFUL for that. Devin was there and did so good for a pretty long time and then during dinner he got a bloody nose and his anxiety was too overwhelming, so Carli took him home. Everyone was able to see him and spend some time with him which was a blessing.

After dinner we played our favorite game to play as a family - CATCH PHRASE!! This game has been a family favorite for about 8 years or so and it is fun!! We always get so into it...especially me. It is fun now that some of the kids are old enough to play with the adults. We always are hysterically laughing and some of us (my mom and I) always end up nearly wetting our pants from laughing so hard. It isn't often that we get to play games together as a group, so when we can we have a BLAST!

I am just so thankful this year for my family. I am thankful for our health and to have the gospel in our lives. I honestly don't know where I would be without the values I have. I am thankful for my children and all of their sweet spirits. They each have such a valuable place in our family -so different and so special. I am thankful for Devin's bravery and courage to fight with a vengeance to be on this earth. He is so strong and I am thankful for that strength.

I am just so thankful for so much!!

Peace and Love Peeps!!
Cami

Trunk or Treating

My parents invited me and the boys to come to their wards Trunk or Treat this year. We are not Halloween people, but we have been pretty cooped up in the house for awhile so I jumped at the chance to get them out. Daley is gone with her cousin Paris to Snowflake to have a Halloween Sleepover for the weekend so it was just me and the boys.

My parents' ward does a lot of activities in a vacant lot next to their Bishop's house and is just grass. It is an awesome place to have activities, because everyone just lines their cars along the fence and then everyone gathers in the center of the lot. They had a Chili Cook Off and of course cornbread and rolls. It was perfect weather for hot Chili too - it was quite chilly literally. I was glad that I brought jackets and dressed me and Scout warmly, because it made for less whining for sure.

We ate dinner and then took the little kids around to all of the trunks to let the kids get their candy and were able to wrap things up in about an hour and a half. That is the perfect amount of time for the kids to have full belly's and bags of candy. I am not sure if it was the chili or the walking around, but I was wiped out by the end of the night. Scout had a great time walking around and getting candy from every car. He loved saying Happy Halloween to everyone and saying Thanks to all of the candy givers. He just could not believe people would just go and give him candy - just because. He is so funny. They had a fire pit that they got going right at first and Scout freaked out - He was like, "Oh my gosh!! A FIRE MOM!!". I guess he thought I was going to go grab a bucket and put it out, because to him that was not something you just do - start a fire right in the middle of people. I tried to explain that there was a man that was in charge of the fire and that he would make sure that nobody got hurt or burned. He still was not so sure, so he kept his distance.

There was also a funny moment when Scout had to go to the bathroom, and there we are in the middle of a vacant lot and no bathrooms to be found. I said, "Well, we can go back behind the cars and you can just pee in the dirt." He looks at me with this perplexed face and says, "Are you kidding me?". I just burst out laughing. I was under the impression that all boys thought it was cool that they actually could pee outside without trouble. He apparently thought that was just the most ridiculous idea ever. I guess we have never been in a position where we have ever had Scout pee outside before and since he was never curious about it on his own - well there you go - total inexperience in terms of peeing outdoors. Hahahaha.

After the "party" we headed back to my brother's house before we left to go home. Somehow the "peeing" topic was brought up again and my brother says, "Oh, I found this gadget online for girls to be able to pee outside like boys.". I was trying to imagine this gadget in my head and so he got his computer out and showed me "the gadget"...It is called "GO GIRL" and here is the site - for real...
http://www.go-girl.com/
Can you believe that? I mean pretty creative, but not so sure I would try it. Maybe?? Let me know what you think about this.

Peace out Peeps and Happy Halloween!!
Cami

Scout's Eye Update

So our journey to the eye doctor began with a ride in a Taxi. Our Insurance can give us a ride to our appointments if needed and since I am an "illegal driver" (errrr that is another long story) I needed to have a ride to Scottsdale. Sooooo...

Scout was excited to ride in a Taxi - me, not so much. It was okay though, because the driver was nice and spoke pretty good english, so it wasn't awkward. We got to the appointment right on time and were called back right away (sometimes it pays to be on time). The assistant checked his vision with his glasses and then we waited for Dr. Plotnick. Scout got to watch Elmo's World while he waited, so he was perfectly content. Dr. P came in and did some checking on his vision and determined that the vision in his right eye is worse and that when he tries to look at things close up his eyes overfocus way too much and therefore lots of crossing happens.

Dr. P then said he would write a RX for BIFOCALS, so that he can have that support more for close up and be able to support any other vision issues when looking at a distance as well. Killing two birds with one stone, but I guess it is just bizarre to think that my 4 year old will be wearing bifocals. When I think of bifocals I think of my grandparents looking down through that second lens in their glasses. YIKES!! This will be the best though for now, because that means surgery is postponed for now. Dr. P said he is trying to avoid another surgery, but we will see. Scout is doing well with his glasses though, so it is not a big deal for either of us.

After our appointment we walked out of the office and there was the Taxi driver waiting for us in the hall. He was parked in the shade and was so nice. He got us home safe and sound and that was all I cared about. Scout did say a funny thing when we first got into the taxi before our drive over to the doc - he said, "Hey, nice Taxi!!". I thought that was soooo funny.

All in all a pretty good day.

Love and Peace Peeps,
Cami

Just had to SHARE!!

This is such a neat example of the bond between a married couple. Check it out!!

What to Post???

I don't think I have ever gone this long without posting before. I guess I will just update as much as I can, so I don't have to see my same post from a month ago over and over again.

Dev and I are hanging in there. I can't say a lot right now, because we have had quite a bizarre couple of months. One exciting thing is that tomorrow is The 18th Anniversary of mine and Devin's first date. It is amazing to think we have been together for almost 2 decades. Crazy how time flies.

Dylan is plugging away at school. He is making friends like crazy and really loves having a social life that is so FULL. He attended his first Church Dance a few weeks ago and had a blast.

Slade and Daley are busy with school, and because they are doing Arizona Virtual Academy - I am able to see them all the time. I enjoy learning things I had forgotten right along with them. They have their days that they enjoy it and days that they wish they could just go to regular school. I am determined to complete this year with A.V.A. and then we will be able to make a decision after that.

Scout is, well...SCOUT. He is very adventurous these days - with his imagination just all over the place. He is such a good boy. He reminds Dev and I a lot of Dylan when he was 4. Scout has been wearing his glasses really well until...he left them sitting on the couch and the puppy found them and bent them and chewed on them a bit. Dev was able to bend them back, but one of the nose pieces broke off, so I need to replace the nose piece. He will go back to see his Eye Specialist on the 16th and see how much progress if any the glasses have made to correct the Strabismus (Eye Crossing). He will have to have another eye surgery at some point, but the doctor wants to see if he can get them correcting enough on their own, so that the eye muscle will only need to be corrected a little bit instead of a lot. Devin was watching some surgery show and ironically they were performing the same eye muscle tightening surgery that Scout has had twice and will have to endure again. Devin said it was so gross, because they actually pop the eyes out of the sockets and them cut and tighten everything. YUCK!! I am glad I didn't see that episode - whatever it was he was watching. I will post when I know more about his eyes, but hopefully we can postpone that until after the holidays.

I know it is not much to update, but maybe this next month I will have more to Blog about:)!!

Peace & Love Peeps,
Cami