Thank you Grammie!

As most of you know, we recently lost Todd's Mom to cancer.  It has been SUCH a hard few months full of tears, fears, stress, and work.  Along with all of this pain has come a lot of peace and love from our family and our Savior.  For the past few months, I have been here helping her do her daily activities and making sure she has been comfortable.  There have been some pretty easy weeks, and some very discouraging and distressing weeks.  Days full of weakness and worry.  Days full of laughter and smiles.  Days full of medication and supplements.  Days full of prayer and hope.  In the end she returned to be with her eternal companion and has left the pains of this life.  It hasn't always been easy to share my feelings with her.  I always loved her, but there were always the things I just didn't understand or couldn't comprehend.  As I have served her and sat by her bed, fed her, washed her, dressed her, talked of her worries, something amazing happened, I really learned to LOVE her!  She was such an amazing person and I am so grateful I was able to be there in the last few hours of her life.  I hope that I can share her legacy with my girls and my family.  I miss her so much that I can hardly put it into words.  I know that she is watching over us and will be around as we go about our days.  But for now, thank you Grammie!  Thank you for being an amazing mother, for sharing your talents and for loving me even when I probably wasn't the easiest person to be around!

Some Fun in the Fisherhood

 Lily loves to make this face, and we think it's pretty cute...

 On August 25th, I ran a relay race with 4 other ladies from our ward.  It was SO much fun!  I even got my own little cheering section during part of the race.  Our team ended up taking 3rd in the women's category.  It was HUGE for me!  I have never gotten anything like that when doing the races, so it was exciting for me to bring something home other than a sense of accomplishment!  :)  We ran 31 miles in 4:11:57.  WAHOO!

 Todd is teaching them while they are young...

 Todd tried on his mom's wig the other day, this apparently is his Zoolander Face... nice!

 For our anniversary we took a much needed quick trip to Lagoon for the day.  We jumped into one of the photo booths and used Todd's phone for some free pictures!  hehe

 I am not exactly sure why, but I just LOVE this picture! 

 Reese was eating an ice cream cone at the fair the other day... yeah VERY MESSY experience. 

 We found this at Todd's mom's house and Todd decided to bring it home!  :)  It has been wonderful having it! 

We attempted to let Reese ride rides at the fair, yeah this is what happened...

So we tried again, and this is what happened... so we stopped trying.  Hopefully someday, she'll be daring like her sister, but if not it'll probably save us a lot of money in the long run.  :)

We have been busy starting school and doing all sorts of fun things.  I know I am a slacker and didn't get a picture of Lily on her first day of school.  Maybe I will get a picture of her on her 4th day of school though!  lol we are doing a joy school with some ladies in our ward as well and she is loving it so far1  I love how grown up she is, and how much she is learning!  LOVE HER! 

The Half Marathon... in honor of Lisa! ;)

 4 of us from my ward ran the Bryce Canyon Half Marathon this year and it was so much fun!  These ladies did an amazing job and it was great to have some support on such a big day! 

I was pretty much SUPER exhausted after the race as you can tell, but I did a great first time of 2 hours and 13 min.  I was only 3 minutes off my super big goal of 2:10.  I would love to do another one day, but probably not this year... we'll see!  Next up... CEDAR EXPRESS RELAY!  Way excited for that race!

July 4th

 We went to Richfield this year, the parade definitely delivered!

 The spoils!

 The girls with their candy... they were heaven!

 CHEESE!

 The girls with Papa Fordham!  He was happy to have visitors!

 Later that night, Reese was starving... she ate THREE hotdogs, yes you ready that right THREE!!!!!  She was happy after dinner though!  :)

A few days later, we introduced Reese to corn on the cob, she LOVED it!

The past couple of months...

 At the beginning of June we found out that Todd's mom has Stage 4 Cancer.  They don't know what kind of cancer it is, they just know that it is growing fast.  She has been in and out of hospitals and it has been a tough couple of months, but with that comes good things!  We have had a lot of family time!  We learned it is very hard to entertain small children in a hospital room....

 ...But they tire out easily and cuddle a lot!

 We have learned to appreciate all that life has to give!

 Our patio was finally finished and we have been loving it and BBQing a lot too!

 Tons of cousin time!

 We got to go see Collin Raye for free!  :)  ( Thank you again Brittany!)

 Then we got to meet Collin Raye!  Super cool guy!

 He even hugged our niece which was super sweet!

 Got to play music with each other and feel of the spirit with the family!

 We got to go to Zion Nation Park and hike around a little bit!

 Rhonda was able to be with her siblings for the first time in 30+ years!  Which also included Todd and his family actually meeting his aunts and uncles for the first time!

 We appreciate any kind of time outside where we get to relax and have fun!

 Todd made a big mistake....

 So instead he started supporting his mom...  :)

And then she had to push him around in the wheel chair... :)

With each big trial like this, you learn to really appreciate the things you took for granted before.  Any kind of laughter or joy is completely hungered for!  It has taught me how to love those which was hard to love previously.  It has taught me that our Heavenly Father is in control and he has a master plan for all of us.  We are to learn something from these hard times, and what I have learned is priceless and I can't even begin to describe how it has changed me!  I know that he takes care of us.  This has brought Todd and I as a couple closer together as we grieve and grow together.  We lean on one another and together we rely on our Savior to get us through this!  This has been some of the hardest times of my life, but what is being changed and progressed, is far beyond measurable!  Please keep our family in your prayers, but know that we are trying to hang our heads high and get through this still in tact! 

Here are a few pictures of some things we have been up to lately!  Check out our sweet Cherry Tree!  We're kind of excited about our fruit trees!  The picture of Reese with the smoothie all over her CRACKS me up!  Right before this picture was taken, she was crying, but as soon as she saw Todd pull out his phone she all of a sudden said, "CHEESE!"  It was pretty hilarious!