Now that Cadence was home & our big trip to Mongolia & Turkey was over, we settled back into normal life for the month of April. We still had a lot happen in that time, but it was a good month.
Bladen officially got his top braces put on. (It is now June & I'm completely amazed at how quickly braces can pull your teeth straight. His teeth look SO good right now, but they were crazy when they put the braces on.)
Canyon always asks to have pictures taken of him at his little Activity Days group activities. He is always so proud of the fun things they do together.
Trek, Bladen, & Canyon all fixed the fence gate leading to our backyard. Since we moved in, we haven't been able to close the gate at all. Trek was able to re-cement the post into the ground so we can feel safe & close/lock our gate now.
Opa & Oma sent the kids some cute Easter cards this year. They arrived a little after Easter, but the kids were thrilled all the same.
Opa & Oma also came out to visit us & took us to a nice lunch. In mid-April, Cadence & Trek went biking & Cadence was in a serious bike accident (she shattered her helmet, but her head was okay, but she broke her left arm & severely sprained her right wrist. She was in splints/casts for over a month, the poor girl.). In this picture with Opa & Oma you can see her braced arm.
For family night, the weather was perfect, so we washed Trek's mini cooper. It ended in a giant family water fight which was a blast.
I took Cadence to the Taylorsville Temple open house. We had fun spending the day together.
Then Trek & I took Lorien to the temple to do sealings. We absolutely love visiting the temple with our girls.
After the temple we went out for ice cream, but Trek's ice cream decided to completely explode in his hand. It was hilarious.
In April we began the long journey that my dad is currently facing. They found a small nodule in his left lung (his side has been hurting since December & now we know why). I took him to the hospital to get a small biopsy done of the nodule to see if it was cancerous or not. It was the first time my sweet dad had ever even had an IV before. He's always been so healthy.
(Fast forward 2 months. . . the nodule was lung cancer so they scheduled a surgery to remove the nodule from the lung in May. When they opened up his body, they realized that it wasn't just a nodule. . . the cancer had consumed the entire lung, & all of his diaphragm. He's now in Stage 4 Lung Cancer. He started chemotherapy yesterday which will prolong his life a little bit, but not much. We are at the beginning of the end & it breaks my heart. I love him so much.)
In April I was able to meet up with my best friends from gradeschool. We've been friends since the 5th grade. I love them so much. It's so nice being in UT where we can see them more often.
I also took the kids to clean the temple grounds. We did some weeding, planting, & cleaning around the tree beds. It was long, hard work, but a lot of fun to do together as a family.
And the best activity we did with the youth in April was human Hungry Hungry Hippos. We had an absolute blast with this one & I think the youth did too. The young men leaders knocked it out of the ballpark with this activity.
April was a blast. It flew by in the blink of an eye.
