Cecret Lake

Lilly is still delayed. :( Her ANC is only 200 as of Thursday. We won't do another blood test until Tuesday in hopes that she can be admitted on Wednesday. But, her platelets are good and her red blood cells are good, so we decided to take advantage that she was feeling well and go on a hike. We went up Little Cottonwood Canyon and hiked Cecret ("Secret") Lake. It's about a mile both ways and both of our girls did great! They hiked the whole way. We took a lot of breaks, but that's ok. They did amazing!!!

We saw lots of little critters on our hike. Can you spot him??

The views on our hike were breathtaking! I am so grateful for all the beauty that our Heavenly Father has created for us to enjoy. Thanks for coming with us mom! It was nice having an extra set of hands if we needed.

One of Lilly's favorite parts of the hike was crossing the little streams...

And Em too!

We came across a mother and her young calf. They are magnificent animals!

Jay spotted some deer WAY across on the other side of the mountain... Good thing he has a good camera lens to take a great picture of them.

Isn't it beautiful??

On our way back down the trail, we ran into one of Lilly's most favorite nurses - SARA! I thought it was so funny, out of all places, we would run into her up in the mountains!! She was heading up while we were heading down. It was a great way to end our hike! Both girls were very tired once we got back to the car, but it was a great accomplishment and we made some awesome memories. 

Delayed...

Lilly has been delayed to start her 4th round of high-dose chemo. We were supposed to be admitted again on Monday the 21st. I think her body is tired of getting all that high-dose chemo. Her ANC (Absolute Nutrofil Count) has dropped all the way down to 100. It needs to be 750 before she can be admitted. We've been trying to keep her pretty isolated since she can get sick so easily, but sometimes that is so hard!! But, her spirits are high most of the time and we try and still do fun things even though we can't do everything we wanted to do this summer...

The week before, we had family in town and Lilly's numbers were up a tiny bit, so we took advantage of it and had fun outside.

WATER-FIGHT! Who doesn't love a little water-fight on a hot hot day? Also, Lilly enjoyed loving on her new baby cousin Quaid who was in town visiting from Texas. Later that week she asked me when she was going to get a baby brother!! ;)

We got out Lilly's awesome pool to play in. The kiddos said it was too cold, but had fun anyway.

Silver Lake was so much fun! We need to take more advantage of the fact that we live so close to the mountains. It is so beautiful and we all want to go back up there really soon!

Lilly gets another blood test today to see if she can be admitted tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath though. I don't see how she can go from 100 to 750 in 4 days. But, we'll see... 

All About Nails!

During our 3rd inpatient stay for high-dose chemo, Lilly was all about the nails! She is definitely carrying on Michalla's legacy by painting the nurses nails. She is obsessed! But, whatever keeps her busy and happy...

Look at this awesome shirt!! My friend Amber is in town from Indiana and brought it for Miss Lilly. Everyone loved it!

Amber and her cute cute baby Callie

Lilly's nurse Britt had shellac already painted on her nails, but she recruited other nurses for Lilly. This is Heather, Kristin, and Amy - sorry about the blurry pic. I was having issues with my camera for a sec.

Oh how we love you Dave!

Tracy

 We thought about painting Roxy's nails... ;)

 Another cancer kiddo's mom got her nails painted by Lilly... And Nancy too!

Bre showing off her lovely nails by Lilly.

Even Dr. Doug got in on the action!!

Thanks for taking the time to come up to see Lilly on your day off! 

We Love You!

We got to visit with Miss Taleah in the hall for a bit late at night. It was so good to see her and we are so happy she is doing so well! :)

Lilly thought it would be fun to draw marker on her face when she wasn't busy painting nails... And then she thought it would be even MORE fun to draw on mine! Next time we will use washable markers... They weren't permanent, it just didn't say "washable" on the box so it took a little scrubbing to get it to come off!

This is Lilly's nurse Britt. It's pretty special when you get to have the SAME nurse 3 days in a row! 

 Lilly's cousin Sydnee was in town from California so it was nice of her to come up to the hospital and spend some time with us. Even though the hospital can be boring sometimes, we made some good memories while they were here.

We made a new face for Jessie the IV pole. Each time we have made a new face for him and I think he's getting better and better. What are we going to come up with next time?

We had a date with Taleah at Kid's Corner late at night and the girls "blinged" out their masks. I think they are stylin' girls!!

Lilly does pretty well with the high-dose methotrexate... It's when it's finished that she has a rough time. She always seems to get a fever after she's cleared and each round we do seems to get a little worse. Good thing we only have one more round of this stuff. Her fever got up to 103.4 last night! It's been more than 24 hours since her antibiotic and the Tylenol is out of her system now so let's hope she doesn't get another fever today, or we're heading back to the hospital. 

4th of July!

I love the 4th of July! It has been my favorite holiday for as long as I can remember. I grew up in Oakley and I don't know any place I'd rather be than there on the 4th. Lilly's numbers were high enough that we felt like we could at least go to the parade. I told Lilly she couldn't pick the candy up off the road because it's too dirty, so we brought our own candy instead. We couldn't go to the patriotic program or the rodeo because of the masses of people and also dust/dirt at the rodeo, but at least we got to do a little bit. For that I am grateful. 

This is Lilly's cousin Sydnee. Her family came to town for the 4th and Lilly has been so excited to spend time with her. My sister and her husband stayed home from the parade because they drove all night from California the night before to get to Utah for the 4th. 

Mom and Me

Our little sunshine!

This is the way to pop "pop-its" per Emery... By gently placing them on the ground and then stomping on them!

Selfie. 

Our TRUE colors. ;)

Later in the day we caught up with some friends we hadn't seen for a while. And they happened to have their horse out and asked Jay if he wanted to take the girlies for a ride bareback. Of course!! What city girl wouldn't LOVE THAT??

This little girlie wouldn't come near the horse. He was too big for her. 

Later that afternoon we met back up with my parents and had lunch, and then we went over to my old bishop's house. We wanted to see how big their baby horse was getting since the last time we saw her... It was our lucky day! The girls got to ride a horse AGAIN, but this time in a saddle by themselves! (being lead by another horse) 

The baby's name is Honey and the mama's is Sugar. 

Love this picture.

So much fun! Sydnee told bishop her name was Sydnee Austrailia! Silly girl.

Em watched the bigger girls ride the horse and she kept saying that she wanted to ride too. 

And then we got on the horse and she got really nervous. But, Jay told us to go around the field anyway because she would feel bad if she didn't. And he was RIGHT! She cried a lot, but she just wasn't sure what to think... We went home shortly after the horse ride and Em fell asleep quickly because she was so tired. She woke up a few times during the drive home and would say, "Em... Ride... Horse... Mama." And then would fall back to sleep. She was dreaming about it!! She's still talking about riding the horse every day! I'm glad she had a good experience. 

Honey, the baby horse, loves to be out in the field with her mama. She runs and runs and bucks and plays. It was fun to watch her. Lilly was in heaven. It was a very special day for her. 

That night we were invited over to our Stake President's house to watch fireworks from their backyard. They have an AMAZING view. You can see from Bountiful to the point of the mountain. We saw hundreds of firework displays all at once. Awesome. 

Em is trying to blow out her sparkler like her birthday candles!! :)

Even though we didn't get to do everything we "normally" do on the 4th of July, it was still a good day. I'm grateful that we live in a free country and I'm so thankful to all the service men and women and all they do to protect this beautiful land that we live in. God bless America, land that I Love!