.
Wow, I cannot believe my last post was in January. Life has continued to move on and in a good way. Cancer is seriously the furthest thing from my mind although I do have occasional days where it surfaces and it is staring me in the face.
Since January I have been super busy enjoying my life. We started finishing our basement in February almost 2 years later than planned but it is done now and we love it. We have finished it into a full mother-in-law apartment so that if we ever get in a bind or something happens to one of us we can always rent it out. It was finished completely the beginning of May. We haven't really had time to enjoy it because we immediately started camping for the summer.
 |
| Beginning the framing, it was a huge mess. |
 |
| The finished and decorated fireplace. This is our favorite!!! |
 |
| Getting the kitchen put together, we still had to install the mircrowave. |
In March Jeff turned the big 40 and Kaci turned 12.
 |
| Kaci's idea to decorate the car before we left for dinner. |
 |
| I can't believe this is the last year before she becomes a teenager. |
We had our traditional Easter party that I came up a few years ago. We usually do it the Saturday before Easter and we have a yummy dinner and then an Easter Egg hunt for everybody in the dark outside in the back yard.
 |
| Before we headed outside to hunt for Eggs. The prize eggs this year were cash!!! |
Jeff finally graduated with his bachelors degree at the end of April. He should have been done almost 2 years ago but was delayed with me getting sick. We are super excited to finally have that stress gone from our lives. Kaci and I are enjoying having him home more.
 |
| Our little family. I was a little sentimental this day and cried a lot of happy tears because no matter what happened he never gave up. |
 |
| Jeff's parents and sister came to support him too. My mom was there but not for the photos since she stayed for my sister's graduation following Jeff's. |
In May Kaci finished out her 6th grade year. This year she was part of the choir and the student council which she loved. It was a great finish to her elementary years. Following her finishing school we took a last minute Memorial Day trip to Yellowstone. What an awesome time to visit Yellowstone, we saw so many animals including a mama grizzly bear and her two cubs. Next year we are going to plan ahead and get our reservations before the week we go.
 |
| Kaci on the right and her friend getting off of the elementary bus for the last time. The bus driver even bought all of the kids donuts. |
 |
| Yellowstone. |
In June we took out trailer up to the mountains where it stays all summer and were able to get in 2 camping trips prior to us leaving on an Alaskan cruise at the end the of the month. We went to Alaska to celebrate Jeff's graduation. We took Kaci and also went with Jeff's parents. We absolutely loved Alaska and can't wait to go back. We have it on our radar for another trip in the summer of 2019.
Something crazy happened to me after the first night of this cruise MY HOT FLASHES STOPPED. I am not sure why they stopped but I still haven't had a period since the last one if February. It was perfect timing because I was so worried being bundled up because Alaska is cold and then having to rip all of my layers off during a hot flash. It couldn't have stopped at a better time and made this trip even better. Until you have hot flashes all of the time you really don't realize how much they diminish your quality of life. This trip was so memorable and so good to be able to celebrate Jeff's graduation.
 |
| Mendenhall Glacier |
 |
| I added this one because it shows how long my hair is getting. 2 years and 3 months since finishing chemo. |
In July we camped almost every weekend, we enjoy decorating our RZR and then we go out driving with our neighbors for a night parade and sometimes we pass out candy for any bystanders.
My 43rd birthday was on July 30th and I decided I wanted to do something different and fun. So my niece, mom and the 3 of us headed up to Park City for the night. We went to the Park City Mountain resort to ride the alpine slides and the next day we went to the Utah Olympic Park where I ziplined o(on my actual birthday) down the Olympic ski jump hills. What an experience. I am not a daring person at all but I tried it and loved it.
August came fast and before we knew it school was getting ready to start. I have been dreading August all along because of Kaci starting Junior High. We did have a good August though. We booked a last minute condo for the night over Raspberry Days in Bear Lake and were able to go up on a Thursday night to enjoy the parade and the next morning we were able to drive around the lake, watch a play and have lunch before going home and then we headed up to the mountains for the weekend. It was super crazy getting home at 6:30PM and then packing some clothes and our cooler to head up to the mountains at 7:00PM. I love being busy and taking in everything every chance I get. I feel like life is so short and I want to do anything and everything I possibly can. The day before school started on August 21st we headed up to Riverton, WY to watch the total solar eclipse. Wow! I don't even know how to describe how cool it was experiencing something like that. Again this was my crazy idea and I was able to once again score a last minute hotel reservation in Rock Springs, WY which put us within 2 hours of Riverton. It was worth getting up that far so that the next morning we were close. Our original plan was to drive up to Idaho Falls the morning of and then drive home. I am so glad we didn't go that route because traffic was horrendous. I am so glad we did it as it was probably a once in a lifetime experience. After the sun started peeking back out we hit the road and didn't stop once. We brought our lunch with us and ate in the car. We were able to drive home in 4-1/2 hours with no traffic jams. We were at the very front of the traffic so we cruised right home and arrived at 4:30PM, just enough time to get showered and ready for Kaci's back to school night at the junior high. We were able to attend her orientation and find all of her classes. We were worried about missing it and I left it up to her if she wanted to go to the eclipse or not and she chose to take that chance. We were so happy we were able to do it all. We all slept really good that night even though it was the night before school started. She was up when her alarm went off and out the door by 6:50am to catch the bus. I worried all day about her and was hoping she would come home saying she loved junior high but also prepared for the worst in case she didn't like it. Well, she came home and said she loved it! She still loves it now and it has been about 2 weeks since it started.
Now it is September and for Labor Day weekend we took a girls trip up to Park City. It was my mom, Jeff's mom, Kaci and I. Jeff decided to finish out his last weekend of the deer archery hunt in the mountains. We love Park City during Labor Day. They have quite a few events up that way during this holiday weekend that we like to attend. One is Swiss Days which is the largest craft fair I have ever been to. I cannot even begin to guess at how many booths there were. The other is the Soldier Hollow Classic (sheepdog competitions). Of course this weekend we saw record high temperatures and it was almost too hot to enjoy all of these activities like we would like to. Regardless we still had fun and even went to the outlet stores to stock up on some more school clothes.
Jeff and I flew up to Spokane, WA the Thursday after Labor Day and then we shuttled over to Kellogg, ID to pick up our new car. We decided since our Honda is now 10 years old with 193,000 miles that is probably time to get a new car. Our last Honda was 10 years old with over 200,000 miles on it when we sold it. Both Honda's have been great cars and have never had any issues other than the regular maintenance. It was bitter sweet selling our car last week because of all of the memories. Jeff and I had a great 3 nights away, it was like a mini vacation for us and one that we have never done since we had Kaci over 12 years ago. The night we picked up our Jeep they gave us a hotel room in Kellogg so we stayed there. The next morning we got up early and headed out. I had reserved a very nice hotel in McCall Idaho, it is called the Shore Lodge. It was amazing and we had the best food while we were in town and really was the 2nd highlight of our trip since obviously picking up our Jeep was the first. The next day we headed out later in the afternoon since we wanted to soak up McCall for as long as we could and headed to Twin Falls. We stayed the night there and then headed for home on Sunday morning. Kaci was so excited to see us and we were excited to see her. This trip was very much needed and it shows us that we need to do these adult vacations more often. McCall Idaho is on our list of vacations in the future. From our house it is a 7 hour drive so about the same distance as Las Vegas which I have done many times. Next time we need to stay for at least 3-4 days and explore more in this beautiful mountain town.
 |
| Shore Lodge in McCall Idaho. It right on the lake. |
 |
| Twin Falls but not a lot of water flowing this time of the year. |
Obviously we have been super busy and that is the reason for my lack of posting. This year so far has been the best year of my entire life. We are doing all we can to keep busy and explore new areas. Traveling is my passion and if I had a lot of money and time I would be traveling all of the time. For now we just do what we can. I don't have a large savings account but I don't care, I can't take the money with me anyway when I die so our motto is enjoy it while you have it and you feel good. If something major should happen we have plenty of toys we can sale to get by if we need to. I guess I look at those as an insurance policy.
