Friday Sept 7th

Wow, it has been a busy week. Every day I kept meaning to update my blog and just never got there. There's lots of stuff to do to catch up from being gone.
We had a great trip out to Salt Lake. We ended up leaving at 2am on Friday morning when Jon got off of work. I think it worked out well since the kids slept for 3/4 of the way there. Much less time to entertain them. We got to my sister's house at about 10 in the morning and then tried to take all the kids over to the pool. Unfortunately there is some virus going around Utah county that is easily transferred by the combination of kids, swimming diapers, and use your imagination from there. So they weren't allowing any kids under the age of 5 in any pools in the area, even hotel pools. Then we had a bunch of unhappy kiddos on our hands since we were all dressed to go swimming and weren't allowed in. It was funny the lady at the front desk of the pool was like, "Haven't you seen the news?" I guess it had been going on for a few weeks and when we said we weren't from there she acted like she had never been around ANYONE that wasn't from Salt Lake. "You aren't from here?" "Wow, where are you from? How could you have not heard about all this?" It was crazy. Any-who.... We ended up taking the kids down the street to the park for lunch and then my sister Amy remembered that we had 2 kids that were 5, Olivia and Cole, and suggested we just take them back to swim. So the guys took the other 4 kids to Cabellas to look at the animals and the fish tank and then back home to nap while the rest of us took the other 2 kids to the pool. They had a great time and we were practically the only people at the pool. It was fun to sit and visit since the kids are pretty much old enough to play without having us right there with them at all times.
Saturday we went to Farm Country which is this mini farm where the kids can see, pet, and feed all sorts of farm animals, go on pony rides, and a wagon ride. I think everyone had a good time there but it was pretty hot so we only stayed for an hour and a half or so. We went out to eat at Cafe Rio which according to my sisters is the best Mexican food ever. They are supposed to be opening a similar place out at our new shopping center here in Loveland that is owned by the same company. It was actually really good so I am looking forward to this other place opening by us. In the afternoon the guys took the older 2 kids to the BYU vs. Arizona football game and we stayed at Toni's for her baby shower. It was fun to be able to be there for that and meet some of Doug's family and the little kids napped through most of it so that was nice. We met the rest of the crew down at Brick Oven in Provo for dinner which was also really good. They had a balloon artist there that made each of the kids a balloon figure and we also saw the BYU cougar mascot at the restaurant. The kids got to take a picture with him which they thought was awesome since they saw him on the field during the game.
Sunday we all got up to rainy weather and went up to Ogden to see my grandpa Harris. Since it was rainy we all had to visit inside and my grandpa had out all his model plane stuff. The kids wanted to be all over that, so we weren't able to stay as long as we would have liked but we did have a really nice visit and it was fun to be able to see him. Jon and the kids had never been out to see temple square so we headed over there. We walked through the visitor's center and took a few pictures by the temple but since it was during the kids nap time the trip was a little short lived. It we neat to be able to see the new conference center and the kids loved the water fountains out in front of it. Cody is obsessed with water. He was more excited to see the waterfalls at the zoo then the animals so he was in heaven next to all the water there. The one crappy thing for me out there was that my allergies were horrible and haven't really gotten too much better since I have been back. Hopefully they are bad all fall.
Amy and Trevor had to leave on Monday morning so we all got up to see them off and then went out to Park City. What a beautiful place. I just love the Salt Lake area and all the beautiful mountains. It is neat to see all the huge mountains surrounding Salt Lake and there are no foothills, just the valley and then giant mountains all around. We walked around the outlet mall in Park City which was a zoo, but I was in heaven. I wish we had great outlets here. They had all the good stores. Then we went up to Olympic Park which was so neat. We saw all the freestyle ski jumpers practicing jumping off and into the pool and then Jon and Doug went on the bobsled run. They said it was intense. They went about 70 miles an hour and 4 G's. Jon was sore all the next day from having to hold his body stiff. It looked like a lot of fun.
We left Toni's early on Monday to make it to my Dr. appt by 9am. Toni ended up driving back home with us so she watched the kids while we were at the Dr. I really liked the doctor a bunch. She seemed to be really on top of her game. She explained all about the microsurgery and what it would entail. She also explained the option of reconstruction using the latissimus muscle from my back. This one they tunnel that muscle from my back under my arm and use skin from my back. She said that I was a good candidate for either procedure but that she didn't think that they would be able to get a very large amount of tissue for the microsurgery. With microsurgery they can't use an implant because they don't want to have any pressure on the newly formed artery and vein. She definitely didn't pressure me either way on making a decision but did say that it might not be worth while to do the microsurgery since they wouldn't be able to form much a breast with the tissue I have. She also said that it will probably look cosmetically better if I did the mastectomy on the other side since it would be easier to match. But they wouldn't do all of that in one surgery. So this will probably be a process of 2 to 3 separate surgeries. I feel like I am much more informed on my options but still haven't come close to making a decision either way. The microsurgery is a longer recovery process too since you are very limited on bending and moving with tearing apart your butt muscles. I suppose there are many pros and cons on both sides. She also recommended waiting about 6 months after radiation to do reconstruction so that puts me back to Dec or Jan-ish. If I decide to not do the microsurgery though I would probably choose a surgeon here since they all do the other surgery and obviously more convenient to have it here than travel back and forth a bunch. Although I REALLY liked Dr. Chen in Salt Lake. I guess we will have to see how I feel about it in a week or so.
The car ride back was pretty uneventful. Toni got stuck in the back with the kids but they were actually really good and kept themselves busy with movies, books, and coloring. Jon drove the whole way home and I finished my Harry Potter book. That was good because I knew I wouldn't have time to finish it after I got home. It was an awesome book. I really enjoyed reading the series. The rest of the week has been pretty uneventful. Laundry, working, Olivia back to school. We are taking the four wheelers out tomorrow and having a birthday party BBQ for all the kids on Sunday since their birthdays are all so close together. I will upload our vacation pictures this weekend sometime.