Last week at home......

We had an excellent last week at home spending it with family and friends. I am so grateful for all the love and support we have gotten. Last Sunday evening Ariauna slept at Aunt Angela's for the last time. She had a blast and will miss her cousins terribly. Monday she spent most the day at her cousins house. All the kids ended up at Angela's that morning so that I could get some last minute things done, and so I could go have a pedicure with a dear friend, Karen. It was great to go out by myself and have one last girls day out. Then that same dear friend and her wonderful husband took the younger three kids so Jerry and I could go out on a date. Yep, a real date!!  We have not had one of those in a million years. To start off our date we went to visit a family member who was admitted to the hospital yesterday with some health issues but is doing much better, thank goodness. Then we went to dinner at Olive Garden (one of our favorite places) and then we went to see the movie "The Heat". We had a great night and the kids also had a blast with our dear friends. Thanks Kings for the date night! (We skipped swim lessons this night because a date was more important). Tuesday we tried to clean house and got some laundry done, swim lessons were cancelled because of thunder storms and I ended my night going to get a Jamba Juice with my friend Molly :-). Wednesday we had Ashlyn Whiting over for a play date and her and Ariauna had a great time playing. We got our great news from Minnesota that the donor's physical came back great and that we would be flying out for sure on Sunday. We were so excited and happy about that news, but then reality sunk in and we have a lot to do in a few short days. Mrs. Harward (the school counselor) and Mrs. Weston (Ariauna's Special Ed teacher) came by to wish us well and brought Ariauna a gift card to take with us. So sweet of them. She is so excited and hoping we can make it to the mall of America to the American Girl doll store again before her birthday and before we get admitted to the hospital.  Ariauna and I with her friend headed out to Grandma's work so that when Grandma's friends all got off work we could give them Thank you cards for all the sweet gifts they sent home for  Ariauna (money, clothes, purse, stuffed animals,  journal, etc.) Then we convinced Ashlyn to sleep over. Yay! The girls were so excited. Here they are having so much fun!

 We went to swim lessons with the two little one's and then I joined my sister and my friend Tammy for bunco. We had a great time! Thursday morning we had my visiting teachers over for a great visit, I am going to miss their visits too while we are gone. We got our cousin Camilla this morning. She is going to hang out with us the next two days because her mom and siblings are going to youth conference.
Then we headed down to Heather's for haircuts. Jaxon and I needed haircuts pretty bad and Ariauna decided months ago that once we knew we were leaving for sure she wanted to have her hair cut off to donate to "Locks of Love" to help a child who is in need of a wig due to chemo, cancer, etc. Here she is with long hair and with her new style.

After haircuts we had the Brinkerhoff's over for the last play date for awhile. Tammy taught us to make some new cute hair bows, we had lunch and the kids had fun playing together.

The Hatch girls' came by to wish us well and brought us a gift of opening up an account with send out cards.We were excited and sent our first card out to Grandma and Grandpa. Our home health care nurse came by and drew her labs today and Primary's called us late Thursday evening to let us know her current labs. Her Hemo was 9.2 so it took a big drop from last weeks number that was 10.2. Her ANC went back up to 800 and platelets are at 30,000. She is still good to fly, so that was good news. Thursday night was date night with the kids. Jerry took Ariauna out on a date with just the two of them. They went to see the movie "The Croods" and went to Golden Corrall to eat. They had a great time together!

I took the two littles to swim lessons, picked Austin up from or swim lessons and we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. We even took the monkey "Ariauna" with us.

We also took monkey to meet Ariauna's teacher at the school, Mr. Zito. Monkey will be joining his class this year so we took him the stuff that came with monkey, but we are keeping monkey for the rest of the summer to hang out with the family. Friday we got Camilla again bright and early and then it wasn't long after that we got ready for Austin's water polo tournament. He had a game at 10:00 a.m. in Murray. They pretty much killed the other team. We came home and started laundry, did bills and tried to pack a little bit. Mrs. Holloway came to visit Ariauna and brought her some money to take with us to do something fun. It was good to see her.

Later on we all went to Sadie and Jaxon's last swim lessons. Daddy got in the pool with Jaxon this time and Jaxon loved that. Right after we headed over to Austin's polo tournament. His team skunked the team again tonight and they ended up taking 1st Place. I was so excited that we all got to be together as a family to watch him play polo again.

Saturday we got up and just packed, packed, packed. Kept laundry going the whole time and tried to get the house cleaned. We all pitched in and helped. Jerry made goodies for the going away party that night and he left for awhile to pick up the cakes from the cake lady. We did get quite a bit done since we all pitched in. At 4:00 we had my family come over while we did blessings for Jerry, all the kids and I. I think everyone that was there pretty much cried the entire time. Probably not the best way to start off our "Wish you well" party. But Austin was headed out to a birthday party for a friend and I wanted to make sure to get him done and wanted him to be there for everyone else. It was a very spiritual hour for me and I could feel the spirit so strong. I had been having severe anxiety a few days prior and was feeling physically and emotionally drained. I was doubling up on my pills and still was having a hard time. I felt a complete peace come over me during the blessings and know that my Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ are going to help me through this. I know I may have times that I am lonely and lost for family and friends, but I know my Savior and Heavenly Father will not leave me alone and comfortless and for this I am grateful. I am grateful for those who were there and who helped in the circle. The rest of the evening was special too. I am so grateful to everyone who came. I did really good at getting pictures at the beginning as people started to come, but then it got really busy and I forgot to take pictures. So I am sorry to those who I did not get pictures of. Doesn't mean we don't love you, just means I am a slacker.

                    The Petersen's

                                 Meaghan

                   The Mason's

                              Dani & Gabi Gavira

                  The Thompson's

                           Terri & Annabella

                      The Thomsen's

                             Edible Minions

                   Brent and Karen King

                            Jack & Erin Leslie

                          Ashlee, Mekenzie, Jeni, Lisa and Jen

                       Lisa, Jeramie, Jen, Ashlee and Jeni

  Luke and Tanner Harmon, Wyatt, Mia, Sadie, Andrew Whicker and Oakley

              Kimi Bayles, Kylie, Maddi, and Sheri Mills

          The Harmons, Whickers, and Kings

        Grandpa, Jeff, Grandma, Sabrina and Zachary

         Brent King, Ron Whicker  and Brian Harmon

                       Ariauna holding Afton Storey

                   Jaxon holding Langfords new baby

Ariauna got a lot of gifts tonight. Some were early birthday presents and some were just going away presents. Thank you for the sweet and thoughtful gifts. Sorry that I did not get pictures of all of them either, it was a bit crazy. The cute necklace actually has Hope engraved on it, there are 1000 cranes which means good luck, best wishes and get well which is a Japanese tradition for someone who is really sick. If you finish the 1000 folded cranes in the first year the person will have a long life. My sister in law Jeni and her mom folded them all for us. It was beautiful. She got a Big Joe chair for her new room, lots of fun activities to take on the plane, money, best friend pillows, scarves to tie on her head, pajama's and a beautiful engraved Christ to watch over us and I got a key chain for me that said "Stay Tough" and a willow tree angel "Surrounded with Love" they were both very special.

After everyone left I was up until 4:30 a.m. trying to get things finished up and the house picked up, bills caught up, etc. And the alarm went off at 7:00 a.m. to get ready to go to the airport.We had a great week and are grateful for the out pour of love we have felt. There are several others who came by during the week that couldn't make it to the party Saturday night so they stopped by on their own and several of those  brought her gifts. Thank you, thank you for everything.  I will try to be better about the blog. Thanks again for all the love and support from everyone at home. Sending our love!