A Hero in My Eyes...

My Dad is my hero. He's also been one of my best friends as long as I can remember. I've looked up to him and admired him for so many reasons: his love of his family, life and his God, his work ethic, his sense of humor, etc.

And now there's the chance of losing him again. An excerpt from an email I just got from my mom...

"Way-back-when (childhood), something (toxins?) affected Tom's bone marrow. In '94, his marrow failed, began producing leukemic cells; they hit it with chemo, and that further assaulted his marrow, but 'cured' that leukemia. Now his marrow is failing again (Myelodsyplastic Syndrome); could be the original toxin contamination, or the chemo which saved his life in '94; or both. This failure will lead to Acute Myelogenous Leukemia again for Tom; it's not there yet, but it's getting close, and getting close fast. Hence, they will do a transplant as soon as they can get him into remission.

The doctors HOPE the transplant will cure the original bone-marrow failure. Pray for his strength and God's mercy: no mouth sores, no infections, no fevers, no nausea (he had no sores, no nausea in '94; he DID develop pneumonia and scared the heck out of everyone with that); pray for a quick remission, for a strong donor to be found; for financial peace-of-mind, for the job to be as supportive as they were before."

With the impending birth of our first child (which we don't know the sex yet...) we've settled on some gender specific names. I'm praying that, if it is a boy, then the name will be in living honor of my dad and not in an honoring rememberance of him. I pray that my Dad will live to see his grandchild.

God this hurts... again.

I Be Slackin'...

Yup. Slackin'. Why does it feel soooo good to do nuttin'?! 'Cause it don't feel like anything! Yeah... I'm not an english major. Can you tell?!

Anyhoo... not really anything big happenin' right now in the Stephen - SLC household.

First, Zippy is still achin' (literally) for soccer. She tried kickin' a ball around with her girls team and now some other joint(s) in her body is all wacky-like. My poor Zippy. If it's not one thing, it's another. But I don't think she'd trade being pregnant for anything else in the world. Well... perhaps having the baby in her arms instead of in her. Perhaps.

Speaking of which... Peanut is growin' like a weed! 26 weeks now and still kickin' hard! Every now and then, I'll put my head on Zippy's tummy to listen to our kiddo and can swear that I can hear it's heartbeat! I think. It's kinda hard to tell, what with my heartbeat in my ears and Zippy's heartbeat through her stomach aaaand all the gurgling that's going on in there! But, most of the time, I end up getting a good drubbin' from it kickin', punchin' and who knows what else! Sometimes I can see it thumpin' away in her! What fun!

Me? Well, I'm still workin' hard. At least it certainly feels like it! Cheney is coming to BYU tomorrow and I just found out I'm runnin' the sat truck for the event. Ohhh goody! Then next week I'm on the road all week with our main weather guy in the sat truck too. Plus flyin' in the heli a bunch lately and havin' my section on the assignment board crammed full has kept me running enough!

Soooo... what's new with you?!

Travelin' in Style...

Two weeks, me thinks, since the last post! *whew!* I didn't realize that this would be this demanding... not that 15 or 20 minutes is sooo demanding to type out some thoughts!

Anyhoo... First off, Zippy is doing great. She is now 23 weeks preggers and keeps gettin' bigger and more beautiful with each passing week! Peanut is abouts 11 inches long and around 1 pound, and kickin' like the soccer player it's gonna be! In fact, Zippy told me that she's now able to see it kickin'! I keep teasing her that we're gonna have to watch the "Alien" movies now!

As for the car situation? Well... we bought one! A 2002 Honda CR-V from a local dealership for a great deal! "But what about the other CR-V?" you might ask? We never did take it in for the engine compression test, instead Zippy shopped around and found ours for essentially the same price and with no strings attached! The mechanics practically pushed this newer one on me saying I'd be a fool for not getting it! All in all, we feel much safer and much happier with this new car and feel that all 4 of us, including Peanut and Roxy, are gonna be just fine now! And Geo-rge? He's been sold to a coworker of mine (HAHAHA! "Sucke... ehhh... a fine choice sir!") for his soon-to-be 16 yr. old daughter. Schweeeeeeeet.

And just the other day we went to REI and bought Peanut a Kelty Baby Carrier for another killer deal! It's normally $190, but I had my $90 dividend aaaaannnd members also got an extra 20% off, when using their dividend, on a regular priced item! For a grand total of $72!!!!

I tell ya... between my beautiful wife, the schweet new car, the jogging stroller gift and now the baby carrier, Peanut is -4 (that's negative four) months old and already lookin' pimp while on the move!