Yay Boo

Yay Boo
Welp, we're pretty sure we have the job in San Bernardino. This is good news and bad news. Good, because we will be back in our own house, Greg will have a job (possibly probationary instead of temporary!), and we will have benefits! Yay! Sam and Aunica will have their own rooms, and we will have our own room (FINALLY) and we will be living on our OWN!
However,
The school is on a track system, which means that they are year-round. This means that Greg's school year would start smack in the middle of summer-July 28th. Our 5-year anniversary was all planned and ready to go for the 2nd and 3rd of August. We were SO excited, and now we may not get to do it. We were also going to be going up to Montana, and that isnt' going to happen anymore either. Soo, I'm excited and bummed at the same time.
Also, we have renters in our house in Yucaipa, so we'll have to get them out. We have to give them sixty days notice, so we'll be almost into september before we can get back into our house. So, Greg will be living out with his Grandma, and I will be living here with Greg's parents for a couple of months. Alone. *sigh*
So anyway.. that's the news for the day. Thanks for your continued prayers.

Random

Greg got a call and has a job interview in redondo beach of all places. The school looks fantastic and I would be absolutely jazzed if he were able to work there. Housing, however....

It's Greg's last day of work today. We are excited to have summer be here, but it's going to be quite busy. I am sad it's only 2 months long.

I am going to be taking online classes through LaSalle again this fall. I'm excited! Phonetics and Intro to Comm. Disorders! Yay!

Your mom goes to college.

Amusing

This site made me giggle:

http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com

Enjoy!

Another one

First Attempts At Digital Scrapbooking

Here are my first attempts at digital scrapbooking. Comments are appreciated! Enjoy!

I'm Back

So, I've been using myspace to do my blogging, but since some of my friends who were regular readers have quit using myspace, I'm going to start posting whatever I post there, here as well. So, here's an update on my life.

The last post was from 2006. We were just about to move back in with my parents at that point. Sam was not even 2 yet, and Aunica was just a glimmer in our eye. Since then, Greg worked in Alturas for a year, then we moved back to Southern California (yay!), found out we were pregnant with a girl, had the girl, Greg got a job in Santa Ana, we are living with Greg's parents, and Sam is turning 3 in less than a month! Crazy! Golly.. I'd better get started on those invitations! We dont' even know what we're doing for his birthday! We don't know where we're going to be next year. We are pretty open at this point, as long as where we end up is warm and doesn't get too much snow. Greg's job in Santa Ana has been a temporary teaching position. It has paid wonderfully, and we've been so relieved to have AWESOME medical benefits. We are praying that he will have a job in San Bernardino next year (there are openings as far as we know) and that we will be able to have benefits again.

Here's today's myspace post: I have been a zombie for weeks now. But last night Aunica woke up ONCE to feed and slept the rest of the time. Yay! If you have a child who is being a stubborn sleeper, I'd highly recommend The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep from Birth to Age 5. It's a good'n!

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.