~Home Sweet Home~
We started off back in May thinking we might be able to find our way into a new house. All those who have bought a house, specifically their first house, know how absolutely trying and difficult it is. This was our second attempt since being married almost 4 years ago. Well after saving nearly 9 grand in 3 months, (thanks to the help of our tax return) beating out 30 other realtors on our specific home and packing to leave our condo of 4 months for a total of 11 moves since December 2005, we finally on July 25th moved into our first house in Lehi. I am so proud of us!!
~Heart Wrenching Moments~
While planning for our home, we came upon the scariest moments as parents thus far. In June Dallen became somewhat ill. At first I noticed he had a low grade fever and was tempermental. Usuall signs for a normal cold or bug from the daycare. After 2 days of him getting worse and throwing up a couple times, I rushed to the Dr.'s office. His normal Dr wasn't available so he was seen by another. I explained I thought something was wrong with him, I was told he had a certain illness where spots collect on the throat and he would be fine by the weekend. I was given no medicine and felt I was not listened to. Over the next 2 days I watched Dallen as we went into the weekend. He became so lethargic I would have to wake him up to eat. I would take him out of his crib and he would lye down on the floor too tired to even move. After a blessing, we took him to see his regular Dr. after again expaining the details, it seemed she had no idea what was going on. She sent us to UV Hospital where blood and sinus tests were done. I was called with results that his blood plateletes were high. We were then sent the next morning to do another set of tests. With a confirming high count, we were then sent to the ER at primary childrens, with the conclusion that he may have Kawasaki Disease. After 6 hours in the ER doing x-rays, blood tests and urine tests, they admitted us to the hospital with another conclusions of the disease. For those who don't know it is an auto-immune disease that causes anurisms in the heart leading to severe heart trauma. We spent days in the hospital waiting on this test and that test and it just seemed as though they didn't know what was wrong with him. They administered IVIG which is all the healthy antibodies from plasma donations (about 10,000 to be exact) to clean out his body of all the inflamation occuring. They discharged us after 5 days and an echocardiogram. After the weekend we still noticed he was struggling with eating and had a fever. Monday he was readmitted to Primary's where we stayed another week while they did more tests and concluded it was atypical Kawasaki as his 
symptoms were off a bit from what the disease should have caused. They administered IVIG again and two more echo's. His heart showed no trauma. They will want to see him next year and in his teens to make sure there was no underlying trauma. This was by far the worst experience I have ever been through. Working from the hospital, sleeping in chairs, not knowing if our child would come out of this damaged from the state he was in before. Well here we are almost 2 months later and Dallen acts and plays like a normal happy child. The only after effects are the medical bills of which maxed out our insurance for the year! :) I am happy to pay the small fee for my sons healthy life.~Smithfest 2009~
Smithfest this year was so much fun! We started off with pizza and birthday cake. Everyone received their totally cool smithfest shirts as well. The 3 of us got to share a condo with Steve, Sarah, Richard, Ryan, Amy, Val, McKinley, Denise, Emily, Addy, and Stephen. Wow it was a full house! We didn't spend too much time and the condo because everyday was filled with activities and fun. We had pool days, a lake day with boating and tanning on the beach, hiking, we went to the Hill Air Force base to tour, and was amazed by what we got to see. We had a Lagoon day in which me, Richard and the Parker kids got stuck on the Samurai!! The family talent night was great, David and I Irish Dance, I actually got him to wear a Kilt! It was awesome! All in all with only a week to fit everything in we had a great family vacation.
