Some Time with Grandpa

My wonderful Grandpa Watson lost his appetite and started losing weight at the start of the year. Initially, the doctors tested his heart to see if that was the cause of the weight loss, but nothing turned up. As they expanded their tests, they believed that Grandpa had Kidney Cancer. This was not the case.

After meeting with an oncologist, they were informed that Grandpa had a High Grade Non Differentiated Sarcoma. It is a cancer that is highly aggressive and is its own entity. It is not attached to the kidney. The entity had spread to his kidney, lymph nodes, and lungs, and it continued to rapidly spread through his body. He was diagnosed on September 2nd, and I flew out on the 4th to be able to spend time with him.  They gave him about 60 days to live. 

Grandpa was able to go to a Weber State Football game even though he was feeling pretty tired.  He enjoyed most of the first half, but tired quickly. So they headed home just before half time.

Fun Times with Cousins

Jack and Joseph have lots of fun together.

We were able to visit Ariel at her work at Bellas. We had Amanda and kids, Mom, and Grandma Olsen. It was a wonderful lunch. 

John Lee's dentistry had a party for their patrons. They had a dunking pool. In this picture, you can see the exact moment when he got dunked by his Dad. 

They also had an awesome inflated obstacle course and slide. Jack has awesome cousins who helped him through the course. 

Jack was also able to see a parade in Brigham City with his Grandma and Grandpa Roring. 

He loved the marching band:

http://youtu.be/J4ob4NxdAyc

Grandpa Lewis sure loves playing cars with his grandsons. 

Fly Boarding

For my Dad's birthday, we all pooled together and got him some time on a flyboard. The flyboard is powered by the jet stream coming out of a jet ski. The person sitting of the jet ski is in control of how much water pressure you get, and how high you go. When people get pretty good and in control, they use a button instead and control their own water pressure. The flyboard is pretty much the coolest thing on the planet.

Jason and Amanda came with us to the lake. Jack and Joseph are best of cousins. They loved watching their grandpa fly. 

Dad was, of course, very good at the fly board. We could tell he was having a great time. 

After he finished his lesson, he gave me the best surprise ever. I got a turn on the fly board. Not only that, but he had saved the drysuit for me. (He only used his wetsuit and the water was freezing). 

I don't think anything compared to how much fun the fly board was. I absolutely loved it. And the instructor let me go pretty high, which was great. 

Jack loved watching mommy fly, and then he got to watch Grandma fly.

My mom had a go of it as well. 

Needless to say, it was a very very fun day. 

Visiting McDermotts and Picking Fruit

We were able to go up to Connecticut over Labor Day weekend to visit Justin and Ashley and kiddos. Here you can see Luke flying. Justin is definitely a fun daddy.

They had the wonderful idea of taking us to an orchard. Jack was obsessed from the start. He loved it. Here is a pear that he picked. 

And his personal favorite...the nectarine. We had repeatedly told him that we were picking the fruit off the trees, not the ground. And that the ones on the ground were yucky. But as I was picking a nectarine off a tree, I hear Jack say, "this one isn't yucky mom, it's yummy." 

The nectarines didn't even make it into the car at the end of our trip. We ate an entire grocery bags worth in less than 48 hours. 

We also picked several different types of apples. Jack loved getting his daddy's help to reach the fruit. 

I have the best boys in the world. 

Ashley is a genius, and she gave me this idea of how to organize my spices. It has totally changed my world when it comes to cooking. Everything is alphabetized and it is so easy to just scoop out of these jars. (they are baby food jars that she had saved). Pure genius. 

Playhouse

There is yet one more wonderful place out here in Virginia. Back at the end of August I took Jack to this playhouse. Your first time there they give you a discount so it was 5 dollars for Jack and free for me because I am an adult. There were ride on toys, 

A giant climbing and slide area, 

A toddler aged area, 

(and an old friend. Some may recognize this was Jack's favorite toy until it stopped working)

And of course a throne for King Jack to sit in. 

I wanted to make sure we got our money's worth and made it worth the drive (35 min), so we were there for 5 hours. Needless to say, Jack fell asleep the second I put him in his carseat to go home. It was great fun. 

Light The Night Walk

Hi friends and family,

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is doing their yearly fundraiser called "Light the Night". Light The Night Walk is a fundraising and awareness campaign that brings together families and communities to honor blood cancer survivors, as well as those lost to the diseases. These walks take place all over the country, and I've created three teams for walking in the following locations Washington DC, Salt Lake City and San Antonio. If you would like to walk with one of these teams please follow the instructions below to register for the team. Note the date and time of the walk in the city you are signing up for, as they are different in each city. You do NOT have to donate money in order to participate in the walk. If you are not walking, but would still like to donate, please follow the instructions for donating at the end of this email, and use the link to the Washington, DC team. Otherwise you can donate to the team that you are walking with.

The LLS has invested over $1 Billion to develop better cancer treatments over the last 60 years, and $.90 of every $1 donated goes directly to their mission: to cure leukemia,

lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma and improve the quality of life for patients and their families. These treatments spill over into other types of cancer and diseases.

Let me know if you have any questions or issues with registering/donating.

Thanks!

Anthony Roring

Salt Lake City

Date: Saturday October 11^th

Festivities begin at 5pm

Location: Sugar House Park

Link for registration:

http://pages.lightthenight.org/ut/saltlake14/antherpanthersslc

San Antonio

Date: Saturday October 18^th

Festivities begin at 6pm

Location: La Villita Historic Arts Village

Link for registration:

http://pages.lightthenight.org/sctx/SAntonio14/antherspantherssa

Washington, DC

Date: Saturday October 18^th

Festivities begin at 5pm

Location: Freedom Plaza

Link for registration:

http://pages.lightthenight.org/nca/WashDC14/ernstyoungquest

Instructions for signing up to walk:

Click on the link for the walk you would like to register for. Scroll down to the “Join our team now” highlighted in yellow. Looks like this:

Click on the red “Join” button. This will take you to register to walk site. If you have a LLS login ID, (most likely because you have walked in the past) use it to log in; otherwise click the “New Account” to create a new account or sign in with a social network on the right.

Go through the steps filling in the required information about yourself, then click “Register”. After you register, you’ll receive an email verifying it went through. You are all set!

Instructions for donating:

Click on the team page link. On the right side of the page you choose to donate to the team as a whole, or if you signed up yourself or would like to donate to a specific person on the team, click on their name (this takes you to their personal fundraising page). Click on the red “Donate Now” button under the blue “Make a Donation” section. It looks like this:

Fill out the form for the donation and submit.

HAIRCUT!

I didn't realize that I hadn't posted Jack's haircut yet. These 2 picture were from the day of. He has been so sweaty all summer so I decided it was good for him to have shorter hair for the summer and then we'll let it grow back out for the winter. I think he looks all grown up :)

This is how I got him to hold still while I cut it. Good 'ol Ipad. 

Today we took advantage of the heat and washed the car. Jack was a natural at using the sprayer. 

He figured out pretty quickly that he could spray me with the hose, and he thought that was pretty hilarious. Good thing we were both in swimming suits.