Justin

What?! A post?! Yes, and the return to Give Kids the World.

Mar 312016

Hello everyone. I know this is a surprise, we have not posted on this site for quite a while. But here it is.

Brenda has been asked to go to the National Case Managers convention in Tampa Florida this year. And I get to join her later in the week. We had never really planned on going back to Florida, because it is so far away, but since we will be there, we are going to go visit Give Kids The World! 0010 Welcome to Give Kids The World

We will be able to go and see Amelia’s paver that Grandma Kelly bought after we went. It is hard to believe that it has been 4 years (almost exactly) since we went on that make a wish trip. If you want to look at those pictures again you can go to Amelia’s Make A Wish site or here are some pictures from then and some from now! The kids grow up quick!

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The post Thanksgiving back to normal

Family, Holiday No Responses »

Dec 022013

Hello! Well folks, it is finally December. How was your late Thanksgiving weekend? Ours was pretty good. We realized that we are late getting Christmas set up this year, and now we are scrambling!

We did manage to get some shopping in this weekend as well as a visit to the zoo for Zoolights! That was a fun time to go to the zoo in the dark and see all of the lights that they have set up around. There were not many animals out, but they did have Santa and 2 of his reindeer! The kids enjoyed themselves. We had to go this weekend, looking at the weather we decided that a 30 degree drop for the next few days wasn’t going to be very good for the kids.

But, back to Thanksgiving. We spent the day just being with our family. We didn’t have anyone else come over and we didn’t go anywhere! It was kind of nice to have a quiet day with some football, the parade and the dog show. We did try something different this year though. We decided to barbecue the turkey on the grill instead of the oven.

There was good news and bad with that, the good news is that it cooked quickly and turned out really tasty. The bad news, it was done about an hour earlier than we had planned, so we had to hurry and get all of the sides done. I was really surprised how even it cooked, it worked better than last year in the oven. I have been using the grill for more baking and cooking lately leaving the oven alone.

All in all, it was a very nice day. Now the crazy starts, this month of December is already scheduled for most of the month. We have lots of things planned so I will be trying to get posts and pictures up as we do things.

I will get some zoo lights pictures up as soon as I can get them off of Brenda’s MP3 player.

Until next time,

-Justin

Images of 2013

Geocaching! No Responses »

Nov 272013

Here are some pictures of this year that didn’t make posts….

First Fish Lake for Leatha’s birthday!

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Next the first day of school…Leatha to 7th grade, Cameron to 5th, Amelia to 1st.

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and finally, some miscellaneous ones:

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Thanksgiving and Christmas Time!

Family, Holiday No Responses »

Nov 272013

hello everyone. There has been a decidedly black hole here at 6 matthews.com. We have gone most of 2013 with few updates, and several draft’s of posts from last year. Pathetic on my part. Today I start over.

English: Saying grace before carving the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner in the home of Earle Landis in Neffsville, Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Happy Thanksgiving! Yes it is Thanksgiving time again. There is so much that has happened over this past year to be thankful for. Amelia didn’t go to the hospital for anything this year, that is the most important. We are all relatively healthy and happy now and looking forward to our big meal.

After a fun Halloween season and party we have been “normal” in our house for about 3 weeks now and after this weekend, we will be bedecked with Christmas….Santa, trees, red and green, lights….the whole bit. More on that later. Just suffice it to say, the end of the year is nigh, and out family is doing pretty well.

Thanks to all of you who have helped with that over the year. You know who you are. We are thankful for you. Have a great Turkey Day.

-Justin

Lithograph, Home To Thanksgiving, published by Currier and Ives. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Camping with the older kids

Geocaching! No Responses »

Nov 272013

The last weekend in September brought about a new chapter in our lives. Splitting the family for a couple of days. This year for my birthday the rest of the conspirators in the family decided that it would be a good time for me to go with Leatha and Cameron, into the woods by ourselves. It was justified as “too cold” for the younger kids, (it was), and a good “bonding time” with the older ones.

So with that, we got things together and left. We decided that, well I decided that we were going to save some cash and not camp in a campground. That has always been fine with me, I get tired of campgrounds anyway. The kids had a new experience. They had never stayed anywhere without the flush toilets and concrete fire rings of a campground. Cameron called what we were doing “fake camping”. I just had to laugh, because it only gets more real for him when he starts backpacking in Boy Scouts.

We got to the lake, drove up one of the side canyons that we have always wanted to explore, and

***Editors Note****

This post is not finished. But it is old. Over a year now. So, I am posting what there is, and the pictures from September 2012. NO more old stuff after this, only new posts. Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming in the next day or two.

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A long day of fun, at Lagoon!

Family, Hope Kids, Make A Wish No Responses »

Jul 112013

Hello again! Well a couple of weeks have gone by now since the kids got out of school and Leatha graduated from 6th grade. As a part of that celebration, we went to Lagoon! We haven’t been to Lagoon since the Kidney foundation had a Lagoon day and we took Amelia after a dialysis session. That was about 5 years ago.

Give Kids The World Village (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This trip, like Cherry Hill, was graciously given to us by the People at Lagoon in conjunction with our Make a Wish Trip and Give Kids the World. They even included parking.

We went up and it was really like going to that place you have been a million times, but it still changed. There were not as many games, not as many bands or roving performers, no gunfights in Pioneer Village. But many of the classic rides were still there.

I had a great time overall just remembering how we used to come with the family or the church, the rides we would do, and all of the things that made it a day out with the family. It is a bit different now. Some of the rides are getting worn and don’t work as well as they used to, some are new and the seats are made for kids or really small adults. Some of the rides I am sure our perception of them has changed over many years.

But we still had fun. We ended up being escorted out of the park by security because we were the last ones to get our stuff from the picnic areas! When they shut down, they shut down. The kids, however, had a fantastic time. They rode and rode and rode rides. The older kids loved being able to go off to the bigger rides with either me or Brenda and not be stuck in kiddie land with Tristan and Amelia all of the time. Poor Cameron was just barely too big for most of those kiddie rides. He manage to talk some of the ride operators into letting him on, but not all. It was kind of hard for him to let go of the helicopters and the other planes. But he is now big enough for Colossus and some other big rides we just couldn’t get him on.

Colossus the Fire Dragon at Lagoon Utah (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, it was still a great trip even with the heat. It topped 100 degrees while we were there, but at least the lines were not too bad. We figured everyone was waiting for the next Saturday and the 4th of July fireworks. Didn’t bother us, we never waited for more than about 5 minutes to ride anything. That doesn’t happen often.

So, here is to old memories of Lagoon and to new memories for a new generation at Lagoon. I can’t wait to take them all back for more.

Thanks again to the folks at Lagoon for giving us the tickets and the parking! You guys are Great!

-Justin

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A Weekend at Cherry Hill!

Family, Hope Kids, Make A Wish No Responses »

Jul 112013

Hello everyone. We are just a bit behind still. Last month, we went to Cherry Hill water park up in Fruit Heights! They were kind enough to give us tickets to the place in conjunction with our Make a Wish and Give Kids the World. Can you believe that was a year ago???

Give Kids The World Village (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anyway, We headed up on a Saturday to swim and play in the water. We were going to miniature golf but we ran out of time! We are going to go up and do that later. We all had a great time. It wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t too busy, and it was just a good time.

I don’t want to do a review of the park, you can check it out yourself. I was impressed with the cleanliness of the place and how friendly everyone was. It really felt like a family place to go and just hang out. We spent a lot of time in the lazy river just floating around. We got Tristan a blow up tube to float in and we went around and around. We all got to slide and play on the pirate ship. Tristan didn’t want to leave the ship, he was the captain and let some other kids know it.

We didn’t take too many pictures, but we got a few throughout the day. And, no one got sunburned!

Enjoy the pics.

-Justin

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The one about Amelia and the Tonsils of Doom!

Geocaching! No Responses »

Jan 292013

Well folks, Amelia is a few grams lighter after this weekend.

I know it has been a while since an update and I owe everyone a Halloween and Christmas update, but this one will have to come first.

Amelia finally hit the point where her tonsils were big enough that they had to come out. Her tonsils have always been big. The nephrologists have been watching them since dialysis started and they have always been big. Finally they were touching and making it hard for Amelia to breathe and sleep. So they had to come out! This is not unusual in transplant patients and something we had been planning on for a while now.

Friday the 25th we went in to Primary Children’s again to get those tonsils taken out. They were planning on keeping her overnight so make sure she was drinking enough so we packed for a night in the hospital again. However! She was doing well and drinking enough that we left the hospital at 7:00 that night and went home.

She continues to get better and is feeling well enough now that she is going to make it to school on Wednesday the 30th! We are all glad that she has recovered so well from what is actually her 24th surgery.

Thanks to everyone reading this, and thanks for continuing to keep Amelia in your hearts and prayers.

Until the next one,

-Justin

PS. Check it out, they took the camera into the surgery for us and took some pictures!

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Kidney Kamp 2012

Camping, Family, Kidney Foundation 1 Response »

Oct 022012

And in a related story…..This month we went to Kidney Kamp again! This is our fourth time going and the kids still love to go. The activities are basically the same but that is predictable and they know what to expect. This year they are older and they got to go off and play by themselves for a couple of hours in the afternoon. They are very excited to be getting bigger and having more responsibility.

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September Comes, School gets Amelia!

Family, School, September 2012 No Responses »

Sep 252012

Well folks, September 2012 is here and on the 4th, School claimed Amelia. Yes she is 6 and big enough to go to school. She is healthy and the doctors are good with her going as long as we take precautions. Luckily, her teacher is very understanding and is helping keep things clean.

As of this writing, it has been almost a month and Amelia loves it! She comes home every day excited about the new letters that she has learned and all of the fun stories. She has been making friends and she just loves it!

Cameron is in 4th grade and learning that school gets more and more involved with each grade! He has spelling words that even I get spell checked on, last week he had one of the same ones as Leatha!

Leatha is in 6th grade and in the advanced class. But she is doing really well, her teacher asked her to be an assistant and help with putting papers in the files and passing things out. She is also playing her trumpet again, I will put up the concert dates when we get them.

Tonight we are headed to Parent Conferences, I am sure they are all doing just great and getting ready for the rest of the year. More to come as I know it!

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