Life!

The past few months have been CRAZY!! I have felt like I have been riding a roller coaster. Life has taken us up and down quite a bit this last little while and I finally think I have things have calmed down a little and I can finally write about some things.  We have had some incredible great moments as a family and some really not so great moments. 

First off on January 26th Troy came home for good!! Hurray!! He was able to get off a week early and the day he found out he could come home he was planning on taking off right after he was done in the hospital. Well he was in a surgery that unexpectedly went until 10:00 that night. He called me and I told him just to wait until morning to come but nope, he was going to come home right then. He was so ready to be home.

He left Seattle at 11 pm and started driving the 12 hour drive to Shelley.  He slept at a rest stop in his car for a few hours and got home the next afternoon. He rang the doorbell and the kids were so excited when they found out who was at the door!  

He brought all of his girls flowers.(Mason's holding mine)

I am so happy that those 8 months away are done!! It was SO HARD.  I can't count the times I called crying to Troy.  There were so many times I told him that I couldn't do it anymore.                              I just missed him way too much. Somehow we got through it.
And I don't ever want to be away from Troy again. 

The next day on January 27th Katelyn and Kylie turned 6 years old.  Birthdays are fun, but 6?? I have no idea why time seems to be speeding up.  I swear I just had them!  As much as it is sad to see my kids grow up it is also fun and I love the little people that they are becoming. 

They are currently obsessed with Cheetahs so this is the birthday cake I made for them this year. 

We had a fun little party with some family, and the girls got spoiled!

Another great moment for us was when we found out that some research/poster stuff that Troy did with 2 other people from his class was submitted and won 1st place!  I am so proud of him. It was going to be presented at a big podiatry conference in Las Vegas and they were going to pay for most of the cost of travel and hotel and entry into the conference. So we decided that we would all go as a family. We were going to stay in a Las Vegas for 4 nights, and most importantly we were going to stop in St. George and see my Grandparents.

Well, 3 days before our trip I got a call that broke my heart.  My sweet and loving Grandpa had passed away during the night.  It was so unexpected to me and it was so sad.  He had had heart surgery a month prior and I guess he just did not recover all the way.
The funeral ended up being during our Las Vegas trip. The hardest part was not missing our trip, but the fact that we missed seeing my Grandpa by 3 days. That part was so, so hard.  It made me cry a lot.

 Losing my Grandpa was harder than I even thought it would be.  I have so many wonderful memories of him.  He was so much fun and he was so sweet to his grandchildren and great grandchildren and really to anyone that he met!
I am going to miss him so much and it will definitely be hard to not have him around.  Life just won't be the same without this great person.

He was there for all of my kids' baby blessings.

The girls

 

 Tyson

Mason

 So many great memories of fishing, picnics, boating, and camping.

 

 Katelyn and Kylie loved to watch him clean the fish.

 

I am so grateful to know that I will see my Grandpa again. 


We had another birthday this past month!! My sweet Tyson James turned 1 on February 20th.

Love this little sweetheart so much!

 And then Troy's sister Michelle was married on February 23rd.
She married  an awesome boy named Logan Peterson.
I am so happy for her.  Ever since I met her when she was 12 years old she has been one of my best friends.
 It was such a great few days which included a fun Hawaii Luau dinner before the wedding day and when we went to the temple with Michelle. And since Michelle is the youngest, it was so great for all of us siblings and Mom and Dad Fowler to all be in the temple together!

We woke up on her wedding day and it was a blizzard outside!! The snow was coming down like crazy and the wind was blowing so hard.  But right before she got married it stopped and the weather ended up being perfect.

Another great moment and something that we have anticipated for a long time is finding out where we will be going for Residency.  On March 20th we found out that we will be spending the next 3 years in Greeley, Colorado!  We are really excited and grateful that we wont be so far away from home this time.  We will be headed out there in June.

And then to make life even more crazy we decided to take the kids to California for spring break!  I will blog about that in another post with lots more pictures!