~Camping At Brownie Lake~

We went camping this weekend up to Brownie Lake with Grandma and Grandpa Ropelato and Uncle Marc. It was a fun, quick trip, and it was really nice to get away for the weekend. The weather was great, but the fishing wasn't (we didn't catch a thing). We rode 4 wheelers, told ghost stories, and really enjoyed one anothers company. Hunter was upset when we had to leave. He really wanted to stay up there for 19 days. I'm not sure he realizes how long 19 days really is. :)

Mckell was so excited to use her new fishing pole. She even tried to put her worm on it herself. Hunter, on the other hand, was having no part of picking up a worm :)

Hunter and Grandpa relaxing by the fire. As you can see, we definetly were not roughing it.

Hunter loved riding his dirt bike to his hearts content. In fact, he got a little teary eyed when we made him get off of it to load it in the truck to leave.

Marc hanging Mckell over the water. She must have know he wouldn't really throw her in or else she wouldn't have been smiling :)

Don't you love how green it is. It really is beautiful up at Brownie Lake.

This was one of our pit stops on our first 4 wheeling trip. Now I understand how people get lost up in the Uintahs. The trees are so close together that if you get in them, you cant see 10 feet infront of you.

This is me driving back down the mountain in a river. I was kind of freaking out, when we were driving up the river because I knew that I would have to come back down in the river. The ride we went on was no ride for the weak :) We were driving up boulders, through rivers so deep that you had to lift your legs up on top of the 4 wheeler so they wouldn't get wet, and over trees that had fallen down. It was a really fun ride though. I look forward to going back and doing it again.

Lexi was a little trooper. She had a fever the entire trip. The funny thing though, the minute we got home her fever was gone. Go figure.

As you can see, Mckell is watching her fishing pole really good :) Luckily there were no fish, or I think her pole would have gone right into the water.

Hunter got bored with fishing, so he decided to go rock climbing instead. He was so proud of how high he had gotten.

We really had a good time.

~This Water Isn't Cold~

Since I have been resting ALOT, Dave decided to take all the kids up to Grandma Darinda's to give me some peace and quiet :) What a good husband! Really I think that was just his and Hunter's excuse so they could go and practice riding Hunter's dirt bike :) After spending about an hour riding, they all decided to walk over to the dam and throw rocks in the water (aren't they sooo lucky that Grandma lives right across the street from pineview dam) Well it started off with them throwing rocks in the water, then they found some big tires and climbed on them for a while, then they found a floaty thing in the water to play on, and then they just ended up swimming. They had a blast! I guess Grandma kept asking them if they were cold, but Mckell kept saying, "Grandma, the water isn't even cold" Ya, right!

The joys of being young! I don't think they stayed dry for very long, Hunter fell off this floaty thing and was soaked head to toe. So of coarse, Mckell joined right in :)

He's got pretty good balance. He gets that from me :)

Who needs Grandma's 90 degree pool when you can have the 60 degrees of Pineview :)

Everything Turned Out To Be OK!

Many of you know that our family has had quite the ordeal this past month. Mid April I went in for my yearly woman's exam (which I never do, the only time I really have gone in for them is when I have been pregnant) and we discovered that my IUD was MIA. I hadn't even had it very long, but it was no where to be found. My doctor ended up sending me up to Mckay to have a CT of my abdomen. They ended up finding my IUD (it had gone up into my fallopian tube) but they were more conderned with something they saw in my kidney. That night my doctor called me to tell me that they found a cancerous looking leasion in my kidney. SOOOO SCARY!!! I'm to young to have cancer, and here I was totally worried about my IUD being in my fallopian tube, and that is nothing compared to having cancer!

But things just fell right into place with getting into the best doctors and having a quick surgery (it seems usually you have to wait months to get in to a specialist, but I got in to one in 2 days) Like I said, things just fell right into place. Being a mom, I was more worried about my kids. School was coming to an end, and both Hunter and Mckell had fieldtrips, class parties, school carnivals and I was more worried about who was going to get them to everything that they needed to be too. Also, Lexi is a little mamma's girl, and I was sooo worried what affect this would have on her. But I also knew that I needed to get this thing out of me. So I went in for my surgery to remove 1/2 of my kidney. I had to stay in the hospital for 2 days so they could monitor me and make sure everything was ok.

I don't know why I was so worried about my kids, because they were totally taken care of. I have the BEST family, friends, and neighbors. This surgery totally kicked my butt. I don't think that I was even close to being coherent for about 2 weeks (it must have been the drugs :) ) I didn't get out of bed for 2 weeks and I slept pretty much most of the time. But my family, friends, and neighbors stepped it up and took care of everything. Everyday someone took my kids and made sure they got to were they needed to go, we had dinners brought in for 2 and 1/2 weeks, I even had friends come in and clean my bathrooms and kitchen and do our laundry. I don't know what I would have done without all of their help, I couldn't take care of myself let alone my kids. I am soooo grateful that my Heavenly Father has blessed me with such wonderful people in my life!

The tumor ended up being Benign, so that was great news! I'm still sore from the surgery, but I know that will get better, I'm just glad this is all done and we can put it behind us.

We ended up having to wait for 5 and 1/2 hours to go into surgery, because the surgery before me took longer than expected. It totally sucked because I hadn't eaten anything since noon the day before and I was starving!!!! They ended up taking me in for surgery at about 5:30 p.m. I had the best doctor, and would totally recommend him to anyone.

Hope this didn't gross you out, but the tumor is that clearish yellow lump on the kidney (the medical instrument is pointing to it) That is only half of it, the other half is inside the kidney. Isn't it amazing what they can do know a days!