Bathtime!

Bathtime for Sam and Cam!

Sorry everybody.. I know it's been a while. You can email me if you miss me. I'd love to hear from you!

MySpace

So, I've started a MySpace thingy. If you want to see it, go to www.myspace.com/ilikecows13

I'm really liking it and would like to get in touch with any biola/alturas people that might be out there! I think you all are swell!

Changes

This picture is of Sam staring at a light at Downtown Disney. We finally got our passes again, so now we can go whenever we want for the next year! (We're going this next wednesday!)

Well, after all this hullaballoo, Greg's probably going to go back to teaching. No, it's not our favorite plan of the ones we've had so far, but it's teach again, or move to the other side of the continent where houses don' t cost near as much and you can still find a job that pays enough for life. He's putting in his application this next week.

Greg's cancer is also looking very positive. No tumors anywhere in his body that we know of. He gets his CT scan done on the first of march.

Other than that, things are kind of boring 'round here. We're just hoping to find something to do with ourselves until whenever Greg works again. Sam keeps us pretty busy, though. :)

Silly Lil' Guy!

Cameron is my nephew. He's a chunk! We think he's a lot of fun.


We went and saw my sister's new baby this last week. Wow. What a teeny tiny lil' guy! He was 5lbs. 13oz when we got there. He's so amazing, though. He's really a miracle. I had no idea how close he actually was to not making it. We thank God so much that he did. His umbilicle cord was wrapped around his neck three times and they had to recessitate (sp?) him. He must have been super active in there. Poor Karlie. A C-section is no fun. I wish I could put movies on here because we got a really funny one of Karlie "making him talk".

I Love My Family

I love my little family. Don't you like this pic? I sure do!

YTMNDs Are Our Friends

I recently discovered this internet phenomena "You're The Man Now, Dawg" or "YTMNDs". I cannot take credit for any of these, but here are some of my favorites. (All from YTMND.com)
(Instructions: Some of them take a while to load, so have patience. Also, some of them require a refresh because of picture-sound syncronization)

Attack on Mordor (Use Refresh)
Pi
Manatee (Use Refresh)
"Noooooo"ler Coaster (Use Refresh)
Tom Hanks Finds New Harry Potter Book (Use Refresh)
Vader on Wheel of Fortune
I Love Bell Peppers
"Dad" "What?" "Dad" "What"
The Evolution of Super Mario
Spy On Your Friends
It's a Trap!
Waldo Found Me
Duel Of Squirrels
Mr. T Lectures You
Vader Sings the Hits
America Had One Weakness
Picard Song
Picard Gets Down

There are also a whole bunch of ones dedicated to the movie "Night at the Roxbury" and the head-banging car scene. Those are pretty funny too. Anyway.. just thought i'd take a break from life and introduce those of you who haven't yet been enlightened. I'd love to find out your favs.

My sister had her baby today! Crazy huh?

His name is Hayden Asher. I don't know much about him yet (weight, hair color, etc.) because she had to go in for an emergency c-section because his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. Thank you God that he's safe! Sounds like he and Karlie are fine, but I'll know more tonight.

The picture is of Sam a couple of months ago, but I just love it so much. Don't you? He's such a goober!

Cuteness!

We are doing really well. Christmas was super-great! =) We had a really nice time visiting my family in good ol' nor cal. The snow was crazy on the way back, but it kept us awake. We did the overnight trip thing because we wanted Sam to sleep through it all and not be awake and crying all day. He got sick while we were up there.. we took him to the emergency room because his temp got up to 103. We were really worried for a little bit, but he's doing much better now. It was just a viral infection of some kind. He was really generous and gave it to Greg and I too! What a sweetie.

Please pray.. there's another job prospect out there for Greg as a networking tech at one of the nearby school districts. This would be a BIG load off our shoulders as far as our financial situation goes.

Greg had his second (and hopefully final) round of chemo on Wednesday of last week. It seemed to go well. He got the hiccups again.. a little less often this time, thank goodness. We think we've got the cancer taken care of, now. He's got another checkup in 4 months. Thank you so much for your support and prayers through this tough time. I know that they have helped soooo much.

Sam's keeping me busy. He's gaining two more teeth on bottom and four more on top, the poor little guy. Between naps, he's been a bit fussy. I think he's also a little bored with his parents.

How It Goes

Greg had chemo last friday. It was an interesting experience to say the least. Here's how it went:

We got there and they brought us into a room full of other people hooked up to IVs. Nobody looked like they were dying or anything, so that was encouraging.

The nurse sat us down in a chair and started "educating" us on the procedure and its after-effects. This was the hard part.. hearing about all the things that could possibly go wrong. I guess there still is a chance that Greg could lose all his hair, which makes me soooo sad. He's got such beautiful hair. The other possible side effects were numbness in his extremeties, nausea, and more susceptiblity to colds/flu/whatever.

The nurse started the IV which sounded like it was pretty painful for poor Greg. He already has a hard time with needles. IVs are brutal. I know from experience. Greg was pretty freaked out at this point, so I asked the nurse for some anti-anxiety medicine like he had when he had surgery. They gave him some ativant, which made him quite happy, quite quickly.

After that was done, they started the chemo (carboplatin), which didn't actually seem to do much to Greg while he was on the IV. So, we sat there for an hour till the chemo was finished. They unhooked him and he could go home.

Since then, Greg has experienced several of the side effects, but none were too major except one. He got hiccups BAD. He must have had 10 sets of hiccups on Saturday and Sunday. At first I didn't think that it could be an actual side-effect, but I looked it up online and found out that it's not completely uncommon for men (in particular), to get hiccups after chemo. I said "well, it's better than puking your guts out, right?" and he agreed with me. Yesterday Greg started feeling a little nauseated, but it hasn't been too bad at all. Weakness/tiredness has been the biggest hinderance, but he's been pretty good about it.

Sam is doing terrifically well. We love him sooooo much. He's happy and funny these days... spoiled rotten, though.

Well.. that's about it. Write comments! I don't know who's reading this anymore! Please?

Crystal

Yes, We Still Exist

Wow. It's been a while since I've posted. So sorry everyone!

We hope you all are well. Greg is doing great. We will know tomorrow what the plan is as far as chemo or radiation goes. We're not sure what the next step is with job searching, so please be praying for that.

Hey, I'm selling my 2004 vw beetle. It's galactic blue (look on the VW.com website for what that is). If you are interested, please email me at ilikecows13@hotmail.com -- it's only got 8000 miles on it. It's just that we don't want to have to keep making payments on this car we don't want! We're selling it for 13,000 which is a STEAL (trust me.. blue book it). Almost perfect condition.

Sorry for the shameless advertising.

So anyway... new pictures on www.snapfish.com
username: ilikecows13@hotmail.com
password: samuel

Hope your Christmas season is happy so far!

Good News

Well, things are definitely looking a lot brighter. Greg went and had some more testing done on Friday of last week. They were not sure if there was any more cancer in his body or of exactly what kind of cancer he DID have. The cancer looked like it was contained within his testicle, but they weren't abosolutely certain. After the testing results came back, though, everything looked good. In his CT scan, it looks as though there are no visible tumors in the rest of his body. The blood tests showed that there was no more growth hormone being produced, so that's a good sign too. We are going ahead with radiation treatment because we want to be sure that all existing cancer cells (if there are any) are eradicated before they take hold somewhere.

The only problem now is the posibility of sterility. Although I don't want any more kids at the moment, I do feel like I would like to have more somewhere down the road. Radiation has been known to cause men to become sterile and that would be a serious bummer. We do have Sam and are so glad that he is here, but more kids the merrier. So, we're thinking of sperm-banking.

Please pray for Greg as we are going to be doing this radiation. He has to go all the way to LA for it and that's a LONG drive. (3 hours or so). He will be doing that for three weeks, five days a week. Fortunately, he will be getting the lowest dose that they do.. so that's nice.

If you have any questions about things I forgot to write, feel free to email (ilikecows13@hotmail.com)

Take care, all! Thanks again for your prayers

Love

Crystal

Surgery

Greg's surgery went well yesterday. He came out fine and we'll have the results on friday. thanks for your prayers. Sam's crying, so I have to go.

Whimper

Greg definitely has cancer. We're having one of his testicles removed within the next couple of days. We don't know if it has spread or not. They will do tests after the surgery if not during to see if Greg needs further treatment.

Please pray for us.

Go Figure

Well,

With how wonderful life has been recently (sarcastic), you would think that we would have seen something like this coming. Good grief

Greg might have testicular cancer. He found a lump day before yesterday. We went to the doctor yesterday. They did a sonogram on him to see if it looked serious. It did. They will probably do a biopsy early next week.

We are devastated.

However, We have heard that if men are going to get cancer, this is the kind to get. If he has to have a testicle removed, he still may have baby-making capacity. It's been done before.

So, anyway.. that's our big news for right now. We tried the "extinction" or "cry it out" method on Sam last night. It seemed to work super well. This morning he was really with it and seemed super happy. Right now, he's in his crib crying again. It's time for his morning nap. We're trying to get a little bit more of a schedule extablished here. It's been a little bit frustrating because we haven't had any time to do anything. The house is a disaster. We're tired all the time because we get up 3 times a night with him. I don't believe attatchment parenting was the thing for me, so desperate times call for desperate measures.

Hopefully this will work.


Please be praying for us. We really don't know what is going on. We try not to question God's soveriegnty, but it's hard not to when things are this bad.

Sam Pics

So, here is where you need to go for all of Sam's recent pictures

www.snapfish.com

username: ilikecows13@hotmail.com
password: samuel

Sorry

I know, I know, it's nearly been a month... and what a month it has been

Ever have one of those days where the whole world seems to be against you? That everything is going wrong and nothing seems to be working out the way you had hoped? Well, not to whine, but a blog is sure a good excuse for a good vent. This last month has been the most singularly disasterous month of my (and I think my husband's) entire life. It has been quite difficult to keep the faith, but God has been teaching us lots of stuff though it.

The List of Things That Have Recently Gone Wrong:

-Our toilet is broken

-Our digital projector bulb went out--we bought a new one--didn't work--the projector may need repair (It's on it's way to the service center)

-Someone tried to siphon the gas out of the gas tank in our SUV with a knife.. Greg didn't know.. attempted to drive to work (After refilling the empty tank) and was spilling gas all over the freeway... he's lucky he didn't get killed. Had to replace the gas tank--guess how much $700.00!!!! (It would have been a thousand if they hadn't been as nice as they were) Greg's parents paid for the repairs and we are forever grateful.

-We've been trying to switch over to a new (less expensive) insurance plan with Kaiser Permanente. Our son doesn't qualify because of his medical condition.

-We were given a van by Greg's family friends, the Halls. Thank you guys! We are having major issues getting it registered here in California, though.

-We have been trying to get rid of my 2004 VW beetle. ARGH! So frustrating to have to pay for this car that we don't really use. Anybody want it? It's yours for 15,000 if you do! It has one new tire. It's pretty and blue.

-Greg accidently threw away his principal's letter of reccommendation, so now he only has references.. no letters when he goes job hunting.

-Sam has taken to have an 7-8 o'clock nighttime crying session for the last week or so. It's enough to make you crazy when you're as tired as we have been.

-Greg still hasn't had any real estate leads, which is really a bummer. We're wondering why the heck we went for the whole real estate license thing in the first place.

-We bought this 20,000 dollar time share because we could afford it a year ago.. well.. we haven't been able to use it yet because Greg has been having to work so much to keep the bills paid. We were supposed to go to Oregon last week for a week long vacation at a ritzy resort. We can no longer go and I'm bummed because it means that sam doesn't get to see my side of the family until thanksgiving.

-I couldn't find my check card anywhere, so I went ahead and cancelled it and ordered a new one. THe next day, my mother-in-law called and told me it was at her house. Argh!!

-Skittle's license has been expired for over a year now. We need to get her a new one, but in order to do that, we have to have proof that she has had her shots. We can't get proof of that until we go to the place where we got them done. It's over 2 hours away. Forget licensing the dog for now.

-I feel huge. I haven't lost any weight since 3 weeks after I had Sam. I initially lost 30 pounds I'd gained, but I'm still way overweight.. 40 lbs over where I'd like to be, actually and that's hard. I'm doing better at working out, though. Sam is interested in watching me run on the trampoline and lift weights, so that's fun. =)

-This has nothing to do with me directly, but it was still hard to hear. My long-time friend Melanie Briton passed away last week. She had been fighting cancer for a really long time. I had had no idea it was so bad until about 3 weeks before she died. I am going to miss seeing her at True Value when I go home at Christmas. She was a really funny sweet person and I wish I'd been able to spend more time with her when I had the chance. Please remember Melanie's family in your prayers. Having my own child, I can't even imagine what her parents must be going through. It would be utterly devastating to lose Sam and I've barely even gotten to know him. I can't imagine having known him for 24 years and then losing him.




But there have been good things that have happened this past month as well.

-My hubby has an interview for a really wonderful-sounding job on Tuesday at 2:00 pm. We're hoping and praying that it works out. It would definitely be something that would pay the bills.

-My dad is coming down on the 2nd for my great aunt Ada's bithday. She is turning NINETY FIVE. She's an amazing lady and we are so lucky to get to know her. Talk about a determined soul. She has macular degeneration and some dementia and she's just trying as hard as she can to keep on going like those things are nothing. We really admire her for her stamina and just-plain-oomph!

-Greg is working for his Aunt Jane. She is a life saver. IF it weren't for her, we would most likely be living somewhere else...no idea where. Thank the Lord for sweet wonderful and caring relatives!

-Greg took me to see Knott's Halloween Haunt. Oooooooooh it was fun! I was really impressed with the detail work that they put into the event. I had no idea it was so elaborate. Lots and lots of fun. I highly reccommend it (even for the money you end up paying).

-Sam has started SOLIDS! Huzzah!!

So that's that for now. I'll try to get some new pictures up of our little chunk (he weighs almost 16 lbs now). Please keep us in your prayers. We are feeling a bit out of sorts as you can see. We're just hoping that something works out soon as far as the whole job-for-Greg situation goes. If that were covered, everything else would be soooo much more bearable.

Love you guys!

Thanks Sheriduh

Here's a bit more info about me--survey taken from my friend's blog:

[ ] I am bisexual
[ ] I am homosexual
[ ] I've run away from home
[ ] I listen to political music.
[ ] I collect comic books.
[ ] I shut others out when I'm sad
[ ] I open up to others easily
[ ] I am keeping a secret from the world
[ ] I watch the news
[ ] I own over 5 rap CDs
[x] I own something from Hot Topic
[x] I love Disney movies
[x] I am a sucker for hair/eyes
[ ] I don't kill bugs
[ ] I curse regularly.
[ ] I have "x"s in my screen name.
[x] just to be funny I've slipped out a "lol" in a real conversation
[ ] I love Spam (as the food)
[x] I bake well
[ ] I would wear pajamas to school.
[ ] I have a job
[ ] I love Martha Stewart.
[x] I am in love/like with someone.
[ ] I am guilty of tYpInG lIkE tHiS
[x] I am self conscious.
[x] I like to laugh.
[ ] I smoke.
[ ] I loved Go Ask Alice.
[ ] I have cough drops when I'm not sick.
[ ] I can't swallow pills.
[ ] I have many scars
[x] I've been out of this country
[ ] I believe in ghosts.
[x] I can't sleep if there is a spider in the room
[x] I am really ticklish
[x] I love chocolate.
[x] I bite my nails
[x] I am comfortable with being me
[x] I play computer games/video games when I'm bored
[x] Gotten lost in the city
[x] Saw a shooting star.
[ ] I had a serious Surgery.
[x] Gone out in public in your pajamas
[x] I have kissed a stranger.
[x] Hugged a stranger.
[ ] been in a fist fight with the same sex.
[ ] Been arrested.
[ ] Laughed and had milk/soda come out of your nose
[ ] Pushed all the buttons on an elevator
[x] Made out in an elevator
[x] Swore at your parents.
[x] Kicked a guy where it hurts.
[ ] Been skydiving
[ ] Been bungee jumping.
[ ] Broken a bone.
[ ] Played spin the bottle.
[x] Gotten stitches
[ ] Drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour
[x] Bitten someone
[ ] Been to Niagara Falls.
[x] Gotten the chicken pox.
[ ] Crashed into a car ... mailbox ... dirt hill.
[ ] Been to Japan
[x] Ridden in a taxi.
[ ] Shoplifted.
[ ] Been fired.
[x] had feelings for someone who didn't have them back
[x] Stole something from your job.
[x] Gone on a blind date.
[x] Had a crush on a teacher/coach. (In First Grade, mind you)
[ ] Celebrated Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
[x] Been to Europe.
[ ] Slept with a co-worker.
[x] Been married
[ ] Gotten divorced.
[x] Saw someone/something dying ... and it was a cat!
[ ] Driven over 400 miles in one day. ... before I was legal driving age
[ ] Been to Canada.
[x] Been on a plane.
[ ]Seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
[ ] Thrown up in a bar.
[ ] Eaten Sushi.
[ ] Been snowboarding.
[ ] Been skiing.
[x] Been ice skating.
[x] Met someone in person from the internet
[x]Going to or have gone to college.
[ ] Done drugs
[x] Taken painkillers.
[ ] Cheated on someone else
[ ] Had sex with more than one person.
[x] Thought about suicide
[ ] Feared for your life because of another
[x] Been hurt so bad you'll never forget the pain.
[ ] Wished somebody would die
[ ] Lied to your girlfriend/boyfriend

Sam and Me Looking At a Fountain at the L.A. County Fair 

He's Sittin' Up! 

I'm EVIL

So, I had an opportunity to be nice yesterday, and I didn't take it. Sam and I were at Target. I had a gift card from my birthday. I had intended to use it to buy the second season of "Northern Exposure." When I got to the video section, however, I noticed that the latest season of the simpsons was available, but there was only one copy of it left! Ohhhhh choices, choices, choices! Argh! So I put The Simpsons in my cart in order to ponder my dilemma further. As I was standing there, staring at the shelf of dvds, a guy came up with his wife. He looked at my cart, looked at the shelf, and said "I think we missed it." I was supposing that he was talking about the simpsons since the only other thing sitting in my cart was my son.

I did the unthinkable. As the guy with his wife was drooling over my treasure, I walked away! Am I horrible or what!? I mean, I hadn't even intended to buy the stupid set in the first place! I didn't want the Simpsons, I wanted Northern Exposure! But when the guy made it seem like he wanted it to, all the competitive rage in me said, "No! It's mine!" And I walked away with it! What a jerk I am. I know, only guys can be jerks.

This senario is why I don't play sports. I can't stand to lose