Category: family activities
It has been way too long! I thought I’d give you all a short update on our April activities.
We had a week off for spring break and it should have been a week of rest, but I had many painting projects planned for the week. The first project…fireplace face lift.
Before
My little "helpers"
After
Second painting project…bathroom facelift.
My "helpers" hard at work again...before...gray/blue color...I mean, what goes with bright blue tile and a salmon/pink colored sink and tub?
Melted Butter Yellow of course!
I just love how warm it feels!
To try to combat all of the fighting over the ballerina towel (Austin not included), I hung individual towel hooks for each child and made them a special hooded towel. So far so good! I just need to get their names put up over their hook.
And after all of our hard work, Easter Sunday fun!
Julia, Austin, and Olivia...thanks Grandma Kamper for the wonderful outfits!
Three happy kids on Easter morning!
Even a big nine-year-old likes to hunt for eggs.
Run Olivia!
Go Julia!
April has been a busy month. Austin has started baseball. Julia and Olivia have started gymnastics. Joe has started softball. Me…I haven’t started anything, but I’m getting geared up to start back up at Westminster next month to finish my master’s degree. I’m wrapping up a school year and planning a baby shower for my sister.
I also want you all to join us at Great Strides this year. It is on Saturday, May 19th at 9:00 AM at the Energy Solutions Arena. Let me know if you want to join our team. Please visit www.cff.org/Great_Strides/JannaMills for more information. We’d love to see some more people come out and support Julia’s Warriors.
Enjoy this year’s Great Strides video!
It’s been long since my last post. I don’t think I’ve ever been this busy…ever. I just wrapped up another semester at Westminster, only to jump right into the next. Summer term will be my hardest yet, with nine credits…the most I’ve taken since my undergrad days. The good news is that I renewed my teaching license on Friday and am now searching for a teaching job for the 2011-2012 school year and beyond. I am licensed to teach grades K-8, so the job hunt begins. I have been consumed with filling out applications, sending transcripts, and putting myself on the teaching job market.
This has all come so fast and quite prematurely from what I had in mind for my life’s plan. I originally planned to stay home with my kids until Julia, my youngest, began first grade, but oh how things have changed. With my 35th birthday fast approaching, I now am in a higher age bracket for our health insurance and our monthly premiums are pushing $1200 per month. Ahhh, the world of private health insurance. Bottom line…this family needs some group health insurance and fast. It feels like we’re being eaten alive by health costs. Fortunately, I have a skill that will hopefully provide this necessity for our family. We just cannot be without health insurance, ever. I always knew that I’d go back to teaching and am actually looking forward to this new adventure. It’s funny how you see your life one way and it usually never turns out like you originally planned.
Today was Julia’s CF clinic appointment. She is doing splendidly! She is in the 74th percentile for weight and 84th percentile for height. This is so great! She still proves to be tall and skinny. What I was most amazed by was her FEV1 of 104. This is her highest blow yet! She has the lungs of a superhero! I’m thinking of naming her Big Bad Wolf because this girl can huff and puff. Now, I have the week long anticipation of the culture results. I’ll keep you all posted when I find out what she’s growing in there.
This morning’s appointment was an early one…8:00 AM. That’s not so early right? I had to wake Julia up at 6:00 AM to fit in her hour long treatment, breakfast, and dressing routine. That’s early for a three-year-old. Clinic visits seem so standard these days. We seem to wear CF like an old t-shirt. I’d like to draw mention of another mom’s blog about her kids’ most recent annual CF clinic visit. I just love her descriptive writing and say it like it is attitude. She describes just what it takes to get it done and on top of it all…she’s a career mom! Visit Life in a Pickle Jar…I love this mom’s blog. I must warn you…she has a mouth that goes with her attitude and can speak sailor with the best of them, but it’s moms like these that get ‘er done.
Julia holds her prize for huffing and puffing!
We can never leave PCMC without visiting rainbow horse.
On top of it all, we managed to take a little holiday and headed south to the land of sun. We left Salt Lake City and the snow and within a few hours landed safely in Long Beach and welcomed the 80 degree temperatures. The kids were shocked by the heat as they weren’t accustomed to it. I loved it and soaked up as much as I could before heading back. We felt the necessity to squeeze in this trip as this summer is jammed packed with my Master’s program and with the prospects of possibly teaching in a few months, it could be a while before our next excursion.
Here are a few pictures of our trip! With almost 200 pictures taken on the trip it was hard to narrow it down to a few.
Julia at Doheny Beach.
Julia and Olivia at Newport Beach.
Austin and the girls at Disneyland
Mickey can put a smile on anyone's face.
Austin at the tide pools in Laguna Beach.
The whole family
Olivia and Julia at the Dolphin show as Sea World. It really put the Shamu show to shame and the kids loved it!
Olivia and Julia at Knotts Berry Farm.
Joe savoring sun
Footprints in the sand
Many of you may not know that our family took an unplanned vacation last week. I got a call from my dad on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and he told me that my Grandma Kamper may only have a few more days left of her life. After trying to figure out flights, we just decided to jump in the van and jet down there to see her one more time before her last breath. We got down to El Centro the next evening and I went to see my sweet little grandma in the hospital. She was indeed in very bad shape when I got there.
About four years ago, my grandma had cultured Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare (MAI) in her lungs and was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Talk about the things that make you go hummmm. I think we can be fairly sure that Julia’s CF gene comes through the Kamper line…my dad’s side of the family. Anyway, my grandma kept things on the low-down with this diagnosis. She didn’t really talk about it and we now know that she wasn’t treated for it in anyway which seems to have been by choice.
So, after much research on MAI, I found that it is a bacteria that can infect the lungs. Not just anybody’s lungs, but of people like Julia who have CF, or people with AIDS, for example. I read that just like many bacteria that Julia has cultured in her lungs, if MAI is left untreated, it damages the lungs, causing them to fibros, and eventually leads to death. I don’t know why my grandma cultured this bug, but she did and it was left untreated and with time it definitely took its toll.
After Christmas, Grandma Kamper got a cold virus and let’s just say…with pre-existing pulmonary issues, it really took her out. By the time I got to the hospital, she could barely breathe. I keep up on many blogs that have illustrated quite vividly end stage cystic fibrosis. My grandma went out of this world exactly the same way. It truly broke my heart to see her struggling for her every breath. It shattered my heart when she told me that she didn’t want to fight anymore but that she wanted to go home to die. I think it probably took everything my dad had, but he honored her wish and Grandma Kamper went home on Sunday and passed away next to her sweet husband Monday morning.
We were unable to be there when she left this world, but I am so glad I could see her one last time before she earned her wings. She was truly a remarkable woman and I’m so privileged to call her my grandmother.
I will leave you with a few pictures from the trip. I didn’t take any pictures of Grandma, because she was in such bad shape, but I’ll have to get some old ones posted later…The kids were truly in sand heaven last week and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect!
Austin in Glamis
Olivia in Glamis
Julia in Glamis
Kids at Coronado
Me...and the Hotel Del Coronado in background
Julia at Coronado
Joe, Olivia, & Austin at Coronado
Pacific Beach at sunset
Last night my sister Sarah and I put on a baby shower for our sister Elisa, who’s having a baby boy this month. This week has been a crazy one, getting last minute things ready and yesterday, let’s just say, was busy, busy. But oh so worth it because everything turned out great. The food was good, the games were fun with great prizes, and Elisa got lots of things that will come in handy when the baby comes. Here are a few pics of our shower fun!
My first booby and belly cake...so much fun!
This was my first time working with fondant and it wasn’t so bad. I had to consult my sister-in-law Jessica on this cake, but she gave me some great tips and a simple fondant recipe and it couldn’t have gone more smoothly. I love it!
My girls sat watching intensely as Elisa opened each and every gift.
Kamper sisters (left to right) Rhonda, Janna, Elisa, Sarah, and Laura
Kamper sisters plus my kids, Austin, Olivia, and Julia...and of course our dog Jack
Austin and Olivia wore their chess shirts because they matched Elisa’s color scheme for the baby’s nursery. We are so excited to have a new baby coming to our family. I look forward to holding him lots and lots!
In this wonderful state we live in, things are done a bit differently. If Halloween ever happens to fall on a Sunday, it is understood by the masses that it is to be celebrated on the Saturday before. It’s not like this rule is written down anywhere, (or maybe it is and I don’t know about it) it’s just the way things are done. So, we went trick-or-treating yesterday, Saturday, October 30th. The awful thing about it was that it was pouring rain. Yay, lucky us! We met with a large group of neighborhood friends and braved the rainy weather with our kids. We had umbrellas and the kids were dressed up in their heavy winter coats and boots, all except Julia who insisted on wearing the sparkle, red glitter shoes instead of her boots. We bundled up and off we went door to door in our neighborhood. We lasted about an hour and a half and called it a night. The rain did let up about an hour into our escapade which helped, but we were still drenched regardless. Fun, fun times celebrating Halloween Salt Lake City, Utah style!
Julia was a ladybug this year. She just loved her costume. She wore it many times in the weeks preceding Halloween, so it ended up needing a washing. I washed it and the spots seemed to almost wash out along with the dirt, so on Halloween she was a ladybug with faded spots. Such a cute girl!
Olivia was a cat this year…a very simple and cheap costume that you could really layer up underneath. We found that cats are a very popular choice for Halloween costumes, but she loved it anyway. Such a pretty kitty!
Austin just couldn’t decide what to be for Halloween this year. We went to numerous stores and looked through the racks of costumes, but he could never decide. He’s getting to that age where he doesn’t like most things because it isn’t cool. I opened my big mouth and said that I had seen some kids make their costumes, so that’s what he wanted to do. We talked about several options, and the toilet was the final decision. Everyone loved the toilet! He was mobbed at the trunk-or-treat by all the kids…everyone flushing him, trying to sit on him, etc. He stole all of the attention away from my cute girls. The toilet hole is where the Halloween treats were inserted and the adults thought that was so funny. Sometimes home-made costumes really are the best.
We hope you have, or had, a fun filled and safe Halloween. The kids really do love Halloween. I am really glad, however, that it is now over! I had intentions of dressing myself up as a witch, but it never happened. After putting all my time and energy into getting three kids all dolled up, it was always time to run out the door, just getting places barely on time.
I really felt the pressure of Julia’s medical care this past week. We were squeezing an hour long treatment in before school costume parties and Halloween musical performances. I was running around like a mad woman, dressing children, feeding children, make-uping the girls and curling their hair, sitting with Julia for her treatment, etc. It was extremely difficult…but we never missed a treatment. We fit them all in and got them all done. Julia is now finished with her 28 day run of TOBI, so we get another 28 day break! She goes in for her CF clinic appointment this Tuesday to see how she’s doing.
Another bit of CF related news…Julia got to be filmed for a montage that will be played at a big CF fundraiser here in Salt Lake. The fundraiser, Taste of Salt Lake, brings in big bucks for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I will post the montage on my website when it’s finished. We can’t wait to see it! Julia sat so nicely and showed the camera man how she does her treatments like a big girl. She really was a good sport and was so great to cooperate for the project. If you want to know more about Taste call 801-281-1886 for information and tickets.