Marvls Happenings

I have traveled to Mt. Rushmore more times than I can count.  You probably have seen this passed around, but I have always wondered what it looked like on the other side.

Jolyn and I recently celebrated our 12th year anniversary.  Jolyn gave me a card that statistically laid out a few things that has happened in our lives since we have been married. I thought it was a great idea and wanted to expand it even further.

We have gone through much together over these last 12 years.

• We brought 3 beautiful children into our family, 2 spending time in the NICU.
• Moved 6 times.
• Purchased 2 homes, 4 vehicles, 3 dogs and 1 horse.
• Jolyn has graduated from the university and has now gone back for more.
• Marv has pursued 3 different professions.
• Marv has received 5 different professional licenses.
• We have dealt with cancer once, beat it. Now we are watching someone close go through a worse form of cancer.
• We have had 6 bone breaks, one being a major femur bone.
• We have had 7 different surgeries.
• We have lost one father (Grandfather).
• We have traveled to 13 different states.

These are only a few of the things we chosen to do. Life has thrown us other obstacles of illness, pain and sorrow, but overall we have developed only 4 laugh lines and 2 frown lines on our faces. So I think these 12 years have been good years!
The great thing about this list is that each one of you could make a similar list yourself.  It is not that we are special, but it is amazing when you list the things you have gone through it is kind of fun to see what has been done in a short amount of time.

For Christmas Marv did something very special for me. He commissioned an LDS artist to sketch this portrait of my dad. This was a complete surprise. I had no idea he was going to do this. The artist is Jean Keaton. She happens to be our neighbor just living across the street. Right after we moved in, Marv started talking to Jean about sketching this picture. Jean does many of these portraits. She told Marv that it probably would be a year wait for her to finish, just because there is that long of a waiting list. That was in July, she was able to finish this portrait on Friday, December 19th, the day before we went to Vernal to celebrate Christmas.

Marv collected different pictures of my dad and gave them to Jean. During one of the conversations he had with Jean, Jean asked if there was just the three kids in my family. Marv said no, that I had a brother who passed away just after he was born. So in the picture she sketched my dad holding my brother Josh. If Josh were alive today, he would be 37 years old, Marv’s age. When Marv told Jean that she asked if she should put a baby in the picture as well. And he said yes! There was some divine guidance.

Marv gave this picture to me on December 20th when we were in Vernal. The way he did it was just perfect. After we opened presents with my family, Jessi, my sister said she had a video to show us that she put together. The video was titled “Growing up as a Hacking”. It was pictures of my family and all of us growing up on the ranch. It was amazing! Marv had no idea that Jessi was going to do this. And it set the stage for his gift. After the video was finished, Marv said he had a special gift to give. He then showed us the portrait and went on to explain the process he went through to have it put together. We were all amazed! And yes, we were all crying our eyes out! It was so neat! Marv had typed up his thoughts of my dad and experiences he has had. It was beautiful!

This was such a special Christmas gift. I absolutely love the portrait. Jean did an amazing job at portraying my dad. It looks so much like him. I love to look at this picture and know that my dad is now happy and he is with my brother. I am so thankful that Marv did this for me and my family. My mom said to me later, “Marv sure made our Christmas.” I completely agree with her. This gift was given at just the right time. Not two days before, I was commenting to Marv about how I wish we did more for my dad at Christmas and even remembered my brother more. And then he did this. Amazing! It is amazing how things work out!

[SinglePic not found]Welcome to our blog. On our Christmas cards this year, we listed the url to our blog. So if this is your first time to our blog, we are glad that you are here. We would love for you to take a moment to read a few of the things that have been happening in our life this year. I must admit that we have not been very regular about posting on the blog. So I turned back the clock and added new postings for the last few months. So if you have visited our site before, there are probably new postings that you have not seen.

We love Christmas. This is such a beautiful time of year. We hope that all is well with you and your family. As you will have read, we have had some sadness the last few weeks, with Marv’s mom being diagnosed with cancer. When life throws you curves, it makes you step back and reevaluate things and appreciate all the blessings that you have in your life. So we are thankful for friends and family who love and support us. It is frustrating how busy life can get and maintaining relationships becomes more and more difficult. But we are so thankful for the influence and relationships that we have had with many people in our lives. We are who we are because of the experiences we have shared with you. So thank you for being a part of our life and taking the time to get to know what is going on in our lives a little bit more by reading these postings.

If you have a blog, please let us know, so that we can keep up to date with the events of your life.

Wishing you the very best this time of year!
Love,
Jolyn, Marv, and family!!!

On Monday (Dec. 8th) we had our Christmas piano recital.  All three of our kids have been taking piano lessons. Emily and Abby have been playing for over three years and Blake just started two months ago.  Our family has been going to Valanne and I have noticed a huge difference in their playing ability.  

Emily and Abby’s song was four pages and they memorized it together.  Actually they had memorized all of their music and they were pretty much the only ones who had done so at the performance.  Every time Valanne sees me she comments about how good our kids are and she loves teaching them.

Jolyn was roped into playing with the girls and she has had no lessons.  I have been very  impressed watching her teach herself how to play.  The recital was enjoyable.  I usually dread them to sit for an hour and half listen to good songs played poorly.  This recital was joyful and even helped get the Christmas spirit to come alive.

Here is the video of the Piano Recital.

A couple of weeks ago, my mom, LaRene, was diagnosed with “Invasive Ductile Carcinoma Breast Cancer”. After multiple scans, tests and biopsies it has been determined that she is stage 4 with the cancer metastasizing through out her body. Stage 1 is the earliest stage and stage 4 is the latest stage. You don’t want to be in stage 4. Stage 3 means it is moving in the blood stream and stage 4 means it has started growing in multiple organs. They have found the cancer in her liver, lymph nodes, breast and bones. There are four places the cancer is located in her bones, two on each hip, one in the pelvic area and a spot on the back left shoulder blade.

With breast cancer there are three basic types: estrogen, progesterone and her2:new. My mom was estrogen negative, progesterone negative and her2:new positive. Her2:new is the most aggressive and destructive form of breast cancer. Ten years ago there was no cure for someone with her2:new cancer. Today they have a new drug called, Herceptin which in the last 8 years has been able to beat the her2:new cancer. My mom has also qualified to be on a study medication called, Taxotere which is a new drug that works with Herceptin to fight her2:new cancer even more. The way the doctor put it, it is like adding 1 + 1 and equaling 6.

Since my mom is stage 4 cancer, they have told us that she is treatable, but not curable. How do you take news like that?

She started her first round of chemo this last week and did fairly well. The next few rounds of chemo will be a lot worst on her body, because the chemo starts building up in hersystem with each dosage and the side affects get worse. The doctor’s told us that her immune system would be destroyed in 9 days and we now have to be very careful when we go around her because we don’t want to give her any colds or germs.

She will do 4 months worth of chemo and then have a mastectomy on her left breast. They couldn’t do the mastectomy first because there are two tumors that have merged into one large one. We saw the MRI and it appeared like 80% to 90% of her breast was this merged tumor. If they proceeded with the mastectomy now, there wouldn’t be enough clean tissue left to properly bring her chest together, let alone do any reconstruction surgery. So they want to start with the chemo to reduce the cancer in the breast and then follow-up with the mastectomy. After the mastectomy then they will hit her with radiation and then another round of chemo.

The challenge with stage 4 cancer is that it has spread through out the body. They have to treat the liver different from the breast. The breast different from the bones and lymph nods. So it becomes a constant changing battle to beat the cancer. There are patients who have lived 10 years, even at my mom’s stage so it is hard to say how long she has and they are not giving us odds.

I have been reading a neat book about cancer, by Lance Armstrong called, “It’s not about the bike.” If you want to understand what it is like to deal with cancer, this is the book. If you like inspiring books about overcoming diversity and challenges I recommend reading it.

This year for Thanksgiving we spent the holiday with my family. The rotation was on the Hacking cycle! We decided that we wanted to do something different. Eight years ago we rented a cabin and had Thanksgiving all together. Abby was just a baby then, and our family was a lot smaller. That experience was so much fun so we decided to do that again this year. We rented two condos up at Flaming Gorge Lodge.

We all arrived on Wednesday. Enjoyed a relaying Thanksgiving day. Then parted our ways on Friday. The time spent was a lot of fun. We played our favorite family game “Loaded Question”. On the cover of the box, it says “Expose Yourself”. Unfortunately that is exactly what happens when our family plays this game. It is hilarious and a lot of fun to see how much we know about one another and also how much we don’t know.

The kids enjoyed putting together scrapbooks, playing the Wii, watching movies and just being together. We are really glad we did this. Also while we were up in the mountains, we decided to get a real christmas tree. You will have to read about that on our next posting!

While we gathered with my family for Thanksgiving, we took family pictures. Here are a few that you can enjoy.

Sometimes the fall can be a lot of fun. We spent the Saturday getting Christmas lights up and raking up leaves. You couldn’t have asked for a nicer day in November to be outside.

This year we had a lot of fun for Halloween! We started off the festivities by hosting our Ellis Family Halloween Party. This is a favorite of our kids and all the cousins. We have been having a family Halloween party for at least the last eight years. 

This year Emily dressed up as a Fifties girl. Abby and Blake were both pirates! Marv was a racquetball player and I was a soccer player. Marv and I struggle each year to find a costume. So this year we just raided our closet to see what we could dress up as. The soccer uniform is Emily’s! I think we all look adorable.

Ben, Missy and Logan dressed up as a Lion, Tiger and Bear – Oh My! Jana, Matt, Tyson and their dog Jack were Shrek characters – Shrek, a princess, a prince and a dragon. Zach and Kalab were dressed as an Ewok and a Ninja. Grandma and Grandpa were dressed as a witch and a Walmart Greater. I just love how we all like to dress up. It is a lot of fun!

For our party this year, I cooked a chopped off Monster Foot for dinner. (It was only meat loaf, but very life-like.) The kids always gross out each year with our exciting concoctions. In the past we have eaten: Monster veins (spaghetti), Zombie teeth (corn), brains (gray jello), and witch fingers (breadsticks) to name a few. This year Emily told me that she is sometimes afraid to eat what I make for our Halloween dinner. I just smiled!

This year we traveled to Vernal on Halloween Night. We attended a Trunk or Treat at Jessi’s ward. Tyler, Angie and their girls also came out. It is always fun getting together and raiding Grandma Linda’s house.

Below are some photos of our Halloween party.