Grandpa Visits Jade's Class

The book was Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

Today Jade's Grandpa came to her class to read them a story. Jade was so proud to have him there and he always puts on a good show for the kids. Thanks Grandpa!

Meet Riley

This is Riley, the newest addition to our household. We found her at the Humane Society the day we came back from the North Pole. She is a two-year-old terrier/sight hound mix and she is a real sweetheart. She is great with the girls and the cat (just some minor scuffles). She does have some minor behavior issues that include jumping, submissive peeing, and dragging us on the leash. But with the help of Natalie, we are learning some techniques to help correct these problems. Other than that, she is a great pet. Jade is so happy to have someone to sleep with every night and Erica loves having someone else to hug!

North Pole 2009

Once again, we managed to squeeze in another trip to the North Pole between the holidays for a visit with Santa. We all gave him our wish lists and spent the rest of the day on heart stopping, stomach retching rides. Man, are we getting old! This year Jason, Karen, and Joseph joined us as well as Grandma and Grandpa Leveille. The younger ones left early for some much needed sleep, while the rest enjoyed a full day of fun!

Halloween

Pumpkin Carving the night before

Jason, Karen, & Joseph

Han Solo, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, Master Yoda

Teri on stroller duty

The force is strong with this one

"Luke, I am your very short father."

Random Moments

When we met Jade's teachers for conferences last week, the first words out of their mouths were, "Can we clone her?" She is doing fantastic in school. She got her first award at the end of the quarter for writing. She can read and write sentences and is even putting them together to create short stories. The only thing she is struggling with is getting her work done on time. Apparently, she is a people watcher and prefers to see what everyone else is doing rather than doing her work.

Jade completed her second season of soccer. She found her niche playing defense. She received many compliments throughout the season on her skills.

Erica's first real experience playing in the leaves.

Jade climbing the tree in the front yard after playing in the leaves.

Erica flexing her muscles. She must have had chocolate for snack that day.

Erica's first attempts at going potty. She has a long way to go, but we're glad she is starting to show interest. We'll be done with diapers in no time!

Not sure why these pictures keep looking so pixilated. Anyone know how to fix that?

On the Road to Recovery

Many of you know I had thyroid surgery on September 24th. Everything went well, as far as surgeries go, and it lasted about 3 hours. I was saddened when I woke up to find that I did indeed have cancer and the entire thyroid had to be removed. Recovery was very slow the first few days. I had an extended hospital visit because my calcium levels were low. After being home a couple days, I was sent back to the E.R. because of shortness of breath when talking and hoarseness. They determined my right vocal cord is weak, most likely because the vocal cord was probably "dinged" during the procedure. It was only a minor setback though, and I am recovering well. Most of my energy is back, I have very little pain, and my voice is slowly returning to normal. Thyroid treatment is unique in that I don't have traditional chemo or radiation. Instead, I will take a pill of radioactive iodine in about six weeks. The iodine will be absorbed by any remaining thyroid cells and destroy them. No hair loss and little to no nausea...I will just be radioactive for a couple days! I will follow up with periodic thyroid body scans and will have to be on medication the rest of my life. I am very fortunate because as far as cancers go, this is a pretty easy one, with almost a 100% survival rate. We have been very blessed to have so many friends and family help out over the past week with babysitting, housecleaning, and bringing us food. We appreciate all the love and support we have received from everyone. We will keep you all posted as more occurs. Thank you to everyone!

Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha

Thanks for the passes Amy! We had a great time. What an awesome zoo!

Jeff & Erin's Wedding

Somehow, I missed a bunch of family members when taking these. Sorry.

Erica rubbing frosting all over her face and hair. (Thanks for teaching her that one, grandma.)

Jade's 3rd cousins, Olivia & Isabella

On a More Serious Note

I know some you you already know what is going on with me medically, either by word of mouth or following my facebook, but I wanted to fill in those of you that don't.

Back in May, out of nowhere my blood pressure skyrocketed for two weeks straight. I went to the nurse practitioner and she put me on a diuretic temporarily to bring it down. While I was there I had her check the lymph node below the right side of my right jaw because it was still enlarged after the fine needle biopsy done on it eight months earlier. After examining my neck, I was surprised to hear her say that she wanted to have my thyroid checked. Though I was sure this wasn't the problem, I went to the lab and had the blood work done.The results were sent to my physician and I made an appointment to see him. I met with him and got my numbers back from the blood tests. Everything was normal. He, however, was still not convinced and ordered an ultrasound to be done both on the thyroid and the lymph area. And this is where we finally started to figure things out. It turned out there was a mass measuring 1cm on the right side of my thyroid. The lymph was also enlarged, but otherwise showed no signs of abnormalities. I then had the biopsy w/ ultrasound done on my thyroid and on the lymph area. All my results were sent to an ENT (ear, nose, throat doc) that I was then referred to. Justin and I met with him and he told me that while the lymph still checked out fine, the mass on the thyroid was a follicular neoplasm, meaning it was a suspicious growth and in order to find out if it is cancer, we would need to remove it along with the right side of my thyroid. Though we were relieved to finally have some answers, the thought of surgery was not appealing. So we got two more opinions, one from an Endocrinologist in Denver, and another ENT in the Springs. Everyone said the same thing: we needed the surgery. In the meantime, had an MRI done on my neck to make sure nothing else was wrong. So here we are now four months later...I have surgery scheduled for September 24th (Happy Birthday to me!) @ 7:30am. They will remove the right side of my thyroid, and while I am under, have it sent up to Pathology to have it tested for cancer. If it is not cancerous, they will close me up and I will be finished. If it is, they will remove the other side. I will then have to follow up with one treatment of a radiation iodine and have a thyroid scan of my body to check for any spreading. I will also have to be on medication the rest of my life. Everything looks very promising though, and even if it is cancer, we are pretty sure we caught it early enough that this should the end of it. We will continue to keep everyone posted. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we get closer to that day. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
A side note: My blood pressure has never been high before or since, even after stopping the medication. Wierd, huh?

Summer Fun

Another summer has come and gone, and we had a great one this year! I wanted to share some random moments along with a great little video of Erica falling asleep while eating.

Going fishing at Quail Lake down the street.

A visit to John Bishop Castle.

Looking cute

One of Erica's favorite hiding spots.

Ahh...the laundry basket--more fun than any toy.

Playing at the Julie Penrose Fountain

What a great (free) place for kids in the summer.

Jade's first day of Kindergarten. She's getting so big!

Father's Day Video

With the help of my brother-in-law Sean, I was able to create a video for Justin for Father's Day. Hope you enjoy--we sure did!

Note: It's 11 minutes long.

Denver Botanic Gardens

This summer, the Botanic Gardens featured Jurassic Gardens. Jade loved hunting for all the hidden dinosaur bones and statues throughout the park.

All the rain we have had this year just made everything that much greener. It was absolutely beautiful!

The dragonflies were amazing (If you like that sort of thing)

Times like this I wish I were a professional photographer with one of those fancy cameras. It was impossible to capture all the beauty.

It was nice to cool off by the water. It was an extremely hot day. Worst of all, I didn't think to bring water or snacks. It's a good thing Aunt Karen was prepared!

Aunt Karen with Erica and Joseph. What a fun day! Always good to catch events like this on a free day.