Kidney Cake Part 2

Chris not only gave his kidney to me, he shared it with everyone!

We had a party where I served chili with kidney beans  (haha!)

The only women not pregnant in attendance were me and one other friend.

My friend, knowing us all too well, thought we were going to play "Pin the Kidney on Nanette" or something.  :)

Unfortunately, we didn't have any fun activities.  Just dinner, chatting, and an awesome

 Kidney cake!

Today, we're going to celebrate with family and partake of Kidney cake #2!

Not sure why, but Chris decided to add the ureter to this one--and some hearts

Thanks again, Sweetie!

John 15:13: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend--his wife

10 years ago today in the early morning, Chris and I were in a small hospital room being prepped for surgery.  Our vitals were checked and IV’s were placed.  

Then it was time for Chris to go.  He leaned down to my hospital bed and gave me a big hug.  I didn’t want to let go.  I cried, and we said how much we loved each other.  Then he got into his bed.  My heart sank as I watched him being wheeled away to the operating room.  I have never been so sad or scared as I was at that moment.  I prayed that all would go well and that we would be reunited again.   

Four hours later, I woke up in ICU and saw two nurses at the end of my bed.  One of them said “Your kidney is working, Nanette."

Chris called me the next day and sounded so awful!  The surgery was much worse for him than it was for me.  Later, he convinced his nurse that he was well enough to sit in a wheelchair and visit me.  When he came, he looked as bad as he had sounded on the phone.  He tried to talk to me, but he kept falling asleep!

Eventually, I was released from the ICU and Chris and I shared a room.   He wasn’t much of a roommate though because he slept the whole time, poor guy.  He was in so much pain.  (If you look closely you can tell that he’s not all there)

We were delighted when at last we could have our most important visitor of the week

It has been a long and bumpy ride, but  10 years later we are still a happy, healthy family!

Thank you Chris, for saving my life, and thank you Elle, for being our ray of sunshine.

Happy 10th, Kidney*!

*not actual kidney. Enlarged to show detail

More fun in the summer sun!

My awesome friend (Elle's friend's mom) took Elle to the beach last week!

As you can see, Elle was quite excited

She brought along our little digital camera and decided to be all artistic with her shots

Her friend's family goal is to visit as many ice cream shops as possible this summer then vote on the best.  (I think Elle said they have to write a paper on why they think it's the best, so it's actually a very educational goal)

More artistic looking pictures 

We have also enjoyed eating a couple things from our garden--

artichokes and lettuce is all, really

And we also picked raspberries!

More fun in store, I'm sure!

Art!

Check out Chris's latest:

http://charveyart.blogspot.com/2013/07/sculpt.html

Summer So Far

Here's a quick overview of what we've been up to so far this summer:

Lounging in the hammock, talking walks, playing at parks, hanging out with friends,  and cultivating our depressing garden (at least our artichokes are doing well!)

Our trip to Utah:

We had a rough start on our drive to Utah this year.  After we had gone less than an hour we had to stop on the freeway for 2 hours while they blasted rock.  At least it was a nice view (top left corner)

When we finally arrived, we had lots of fun with cousins!

We toured a dinosaur park then had burgers and a fabulous raspberry shake.

Elle and cousins played at a splash park and one of her cousins got to spend the day at grandma's with us doing all sorts of fun cousin things.

More fun with cousins! I taught them all how to play "Kick the Can" and they loved it! 

We went on a hike, looked at the construction of two temples--Payson and the transformation of the Provo Tabernacle (Provo City Center Temple).  We had lunch at Joe Vera's then painted at Color Me Mine

Our latest adventure was camping for the 4th of July.  We left Wednesday afternoon with high hopes of staying until Saturday morning, but it turns out we are not the mighty campers we thought we were.  We left Friday afternoon after a long walk to ice cream sandwiches, a canoe ride, giant slip and slide, more ice cream, then another long walk back to camp.

Before that though, we had fun hiking around on little trails, chatting with our friends around the campfire, riding horses (not doing that again!), and watching the fireworks show.   The whole camp is run by missionaries so the elders and sisters set off the fireworks!  We all sat on a hill and watched as they ran back and forth setting off each one.  It was pretty impressive!

Who knows what is in store next for our summer of fun!

Elle's commercial

Elle has a giant public awareness and she chose breast cancer research.
She made this video for it:

Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

updated art

Chris updated his blog again!

http://charveyart.blogspot.com/