Take Every Chance You Dare

THANKSGIVING 2010

2010-12-07T22:10:00.004-07:00

Kaya found some foam curlers the night before thanksgiving and the result was pretty cute. It may be the first and last time Kaya has curly hair. I tried to talk her into doing curlers again for her dance pictures and she adamantly declined.

In preschool, Kaya made a book called "My Book of Thanks." Here is what Kaya is thankful for...
-my baby and my momma
-my baby brother
-my family that lives in my house
-my toys and my new blanket
-my dogs, but they ran away

And I am thankful for Kaya. I tell her 20 times a day that I am the luckiest mom in the world cause I got her. Kaya must be the easiest, most agreeable child in the entire universe. I think she could practically raise herself. She is very loving and cuddly. She is hilarious and has a great sense of humor. Despite a slow start, she is as smart as can be now. She is my best friend.

It's a secret...

2010-11-28T22:24:00.001-07:00

Today Kaya said to me,

"I am going to make you a craft project and you will love it. But I'm not going to tell you because it's a secret."

A baby brother

2010-11-28T18:40:00.005-07:00

We had our ultrasound a few weeks ago and found out our baby is definitely a boy. Kaya and I were a little surprised since we had assumed from day 1 that we were getting a little sister. We have no idea what to call baby boy since it appears that Ella Sheep is no longer a fitting name. Kaya has come up with some fantastic alternatives including Humpty Dumpty, Otter and Shower Tank.

The baby looks healthy and we are excited for his arrival. It is still quite a long way away and Kaya ( and mom) is getting anxious. It's been one of the longest 23 weeks of my life filled with throwing up, nausea, grouchiness, random mood swings, unbearable cravings, dizziness, nausea and more throwing up. After 12 weeks with Kaya, I was feeling pretty good but no such luck this time.

I had this idealistic dream that I was going to have a healthy, happy pregnancy and eat all the right things, exercise right and run a half-marathon at 20 weeks. Unfortunately, I must have completely forgotten what it was like to be pregnant.

KAYA SAYS

2010-08-18T00:20:00.002-06:00

"How long will we live in this house?" she asks me
"Till you move out and go to college," I said.
"I don't want to move out. Will you come to college with me?"
"Nope," I said.
Then she started to cry.

JUST CUZ HALF MARATHON REPORT

2009-11-10T17:23:00.005-07:00

Lance 1:47, 28th out of 70
Mindy 2:08, 59th out of 117

We both did better than we thought we would do. Lance beat his time last year by 13 minutes. The theme was 70's and Lance's wig was well received. He posed for so many pictures that I'm sure there are 200 runners out there with a Lance wallpaper on their phones.

Training for Lance consisted of running three times and resting his knee for the last month. I've been running 3 times a week and doing 10K's all summer. The farthest I've ever run is 8 miles, but probably walked several miles of that. Knee pain was pretty intense that first day but by Monday I felt great! Excited to do some more next year.

KAYLEE MEETS KAYLEE AT THE EISF

2009-10-05T22:53:00.006-06:00

Right after Kaylee was born, Kaya decided to pretend that she was Kaylee. It was so cute. For weeks Kaya anticipated the day that baby Kaylee would come and there would be 2 Kaylees (real Kaylee and Kaya-Kaylee). Kaya met Kaylee and all her dreams came true.

It stopped being cute after Kaya started to mimick Kaylee's crying. Real Kaylee has come and gone (a month ago) but Kaya-Kaylee remains and has gotten rather irritating. No matter what I say to Kaya, she responds with "I'm baby Kaylee."

I say, "What do you want for breakfast?"

"I'm baby Kaylee," she says.

I say, "What do you want to wear today?"

"I'm baby Kaylee," she says.

It's the first thing she says in the morning and the last thing at night. Sometimes she rolls over in her sleep and says, "I'm baby Kaylee." And there's the crying. Constantly. She wrinkles up her face and makes the most irritating sounds...all day long.

NEW STATS

2009-08-11T20:49:00.001-06:00

Age 38 months. 25lbs (5%). 36 inches (10%).

FISHING WITH DAD

2009-08-05T16:38:00.005-06:00

Lance and Kaya caught a variety of fish including one 5 inch and numerous 2 inchers. Kaya would give them a quick pet and then throw them back in. (photos taken with my lovely iphone!)

GETTING MARRIED

2009-07-08T20:18:00.005-06:00

Every night this past winter Kaya would put a hat on and declare that she was getting married.

Mindy: who are you marrying?

Kaya: a boy

Mindy: what's his name?

Kaya: I don't know

Mindy: Is it Ben?

Kaya: No. He's too naughty.

Mindy: Is it William?

Kaya: No. He's too mean.

At least she's set on marrying someone who is neither mean nor naughty.

YELLOWSTONE WITH GRANDPA PAPA

2009-07-08T20:02:00.005-06:00

I keep trying to tell Kaya that Grandpa Papa and Grandpa Jerry are the same person but she insists that it's just Grandpa Papa. Last month we went on a quick dash to Yellowstone with the entire Tim Hong family and Kerry and Livi. Elk, bison, and a bear's bum were seen.

ALL ABOUT KAYA, AGE 3

2009-06-30T22:55:00.003-06:00

Kaya is all girl. Not exactly what we had in mind, but she's so cute we can't resist embracing that girliness. She loves to sing and dance. I often hear her singing made up songs to herself. She can get pretty excited when dancing and is exhausting to watch. She only wears dresses and has plenty of cute ones thanks to the immaculate taste of Aunt Mandi. Kaya loves movies and all things Barbie and Disney Princess. She has fallen prey to their overwheliming marketing strategies despite my best efforts.

Kaya's favorite activities are reading books, painting, cutting pieces of paper into tiny scraps and scattering them around the kitchen, playing with her dogs, and playing in the backyard. Kaya's favorite book is "Grandma and Me" and she reads most of it along with me.

Kaya is potty trained, sings her ABC's, counts to 13 and knows all her colors. When she was little I thought she might be a little slow but she's fairly intelligent now.

She often floors me with the crazy things she says and the big words she knows. I like how she answers most "yes" questions with "of course." One of her favorite words is "dangerous" and she uses it often in conjunction with any activities Lance does. She knows everyone's favorite color and loves to point out things that are my favorite, blue, to me all day long. Her favorite is pink, of course.

Kaya's favorite foods are chocolate, chicken nuggets, fries, pineapple, apples, raisins, fruit snacks and marshmallow cereal.

Kaya is a special girl. She charms everyone she knows. 95% of the time she is a total little lady. She has a very loving and caring personality. She even likes the old people that most kids are scared of.

Kaya is my best friend. I never feel like I need a break from her and I am so sad when I'm away from her. I love my girl! She is the best part of my life.

KAYA JADE TURNS 3

2009-06-13T22:26:00.004-06:00

KAYA TALK

2009-05-28T03:20:00.003-06:00

Kaya says the weirdest things. I laugh all day long. Here's a sampling of some of the creative things she came up with today...

"The sun came out too much today."
"I'm engaged to be married to the prince."
"I got a flower and all my dreams come true."

She also made three phone calls today...

"Hi Gus and Jaq. You need to hurry. The cat is mean. Bye Gus and Jaq."
"Hi Prince. I love you prince. Bye Prince."
"Hi Cinderella. I need to borrow your blue dress. You need to share. Bye Cinderella."

She was fighting her shot tonight. I told her she needed it so she could get big. She said, "I just want to stay little."

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF KAYA

2009-05-03T07:10:00.002-06:00

The other day I asked Kaya what she did at school. Here is her answer-

"I paint my spider. It's black. It's mine. Not Benjamin's. I go to potty. No accident. There were new crackers. Not round-square. My best friend Kylie is gone. William was naughty. He pushed me. Emily was not naughty."

BINGHAM MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

2009-04-23T00:02:00.003-06:00

I've been employed for twelve weeks. It's a record. Apparently it took me almost 30 years to learn how to work. Maybe by time I'm 60 I'll be ready to move up to a full-time job.

The recession hasn't hit Bingham Memorial's marketing department and they are in full-speed ahead mode. The CEO is a big fan of marketing and pr and is willing to throw money into it. I'm excited about the projects I'm working on. It's very satisfying to be able to put quality time into creating "art" pieces rather than doing something menial like $10 business cards.

I like the freedom I have to work on all aspects of a project from research to strategy to promotional materials. I study crazy things like hydrocephalus till I feel like I could treat it. Then I write papers on it and create promotional materials like brochures, posters or tv animation to educate the public.

Someday I'll get my design site updated so YOU can see what I do every night from 11pm-2am.

BENGAL TRIATHLON

2009-04-16T13:55:00.008-06:00

It's been my goal to do a tri ever since Lance became the director for the Pocatello Triathlon. The only problem was I didn't bike, swim and I was a horrible runner. Winter is kind of our off season for sports so Lance and I decided to take up swimming. Suddenly not having a road bike was my only excuse and Lance remedied that by buying me an $800 one.

I thought I would have plenty of time to train since the Poky Tri isn't until August. Then we heard about the Bengal Tri. It's a sprint tri-700yd swim (28 lengths of the pool), 20K bike and 5K run. Lance was committed to it but I was kind of wavering until the night of. We went to watch the initial swimmers and there was an 11 year old kid in the pool. If that 11 year old kid could do it then I figured I better try. Besides, I knew I wouldn't be dead last-I could totally beat him.

Turns out we can swim-but not fast. Our swim times were less than stellar. Lance has endurance though and moved up a whole 20 spots after his bike/run. I moved up a few spots too due to my super fast bike. We know Lance is good at everything and it turns out that includes triathlons. He ended up 14th out of 68 and beat many seasoned triathletes. I was happy to finish and didn't come in dead last (neither did the 11 year old kid)!

Next up, Lance is trying to get me to do an Olympic triathlon which is double the distances of the sprint triathlon we just did.

SPRING BREAK FOREVER

2009-04-09T09:48:00.018-06:00

Nobody technically had a spring break but we decided to take a break anyway and head to Southern Utah for the 5th year in a row. We began in Torrey Utah where we did some desert disc golfing and ended up in Page, Utah touring museums and slot canyons. Somewhere in the middle we went to Escalante, Utah and redid all the things we meant to do three years ago when Peanut and Charlie disrupted our vacation by making a 24 escape from us.

Lance has been doing some writing for Outdoor Utah and got ample story material while I took over 1000 pictures of famous photography hot spots such as: Calf Creek Falls, The Golden Cathedral, The Wave, Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe bend.

2008 RESOLUTIONS

2009-01-07T18:06:00.000-07:00

Our goals for 2008 were relatively few and we accomplished them all. Lance made a goal not to die in 2008 and although he had some close calls he remains alive though not unscathed.

I made a goal to lose my final 7 lbs of baby weight and the last few weeks of school were so stressful that I unintentionally fulfilled that goal. Unfortunately, the weight came off all the wrong areas and I now wear the same size of pants but my bra size went from a 32C to a 32B.

Kaya’s goal was to lose the bottle and it turned out to be less traumatic than I thought it would be. Instead of having a bottle to go to sleep she has now picked up the habit of combing hair so every night Lance and I attempt to fall asleep to Kaya brushing our hair.

2009 RESOLUTIONS

2009-01-07T18:04:00.001-07:00

As for 2009 we have a few new goals. Lance’s remains the same. It’s really all we can ask of him. Kaya is going to get potty trained and has a good start on it. I am going to get really ambitious and have vowed to do my part to stop the spread of consumerism. In the year 2009 the Clarks will neither give nor receive gifts.

It really is silly for us to spend time and money buying our loved ones useless gadgets that eventually end up at the D.I. In return, all of you spend time and money and it turns into a vicious cycle. Why can’t we all save our money and buy the things that we really want for ourselves? The one exception to this rule is that we will accept trips. I also know that many of you live to spoil Kaya so I suggest that instead of contributing to her piles of toys you donate money to two special funds that we have set up for her well-being.

-The “I don’t want to be 4ft tall and need growth hormones” Fund
-The “My mom didn’t know that a bottle would rot out my teeth and now I need crowns” Fund

In 15 years when she is 5’5” and has a gorgeous smile we will tell her who to thank.

DOES THIS LOOK SAFE?

2008-12-27T23:16:00.003-07:00

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T11:04:00.010-07:00

Hi everyone!

So we're going green this year and saving money by sending you an electronic version of our christmas letter and pictures. Happy holidays! As usual, I take no responsibility for the content of the Christmas letter-it's all Lance.

PRINCESS HAIR

2008-11-24T08:41:00.006-07:00

There is a girl (Aubrey) at the Early Learning Center that likes to do Kaya's hair. Kaya loves it and says it's "Princen Hair." Kaya is attatched to her friends, Aubrey and Angie, at the ELC. She is always very excited to go to school. Sometimes she even cries for Angie and Aubrey when I give her a poke.

Sometimes I think that Kaya might be the cutest kid in the whole world.

KAYA IS GROWING!

2008-11-12T01:31:00.003-07:00

Kaya saw Dr. Donaldson today. We normally go to Salt Lake for our appointments but a couple times a year he comes to Pocatello and we were lucky enough to get an appointment with him. Kaya is still making good progress. She is now 34 inches tall which is the 25th percentile and 21.5 lbs which is still off the chart.

Dr. Donaldson said it is rare for him to see patients with GHD who have just one pituitary disorder and rarer still to get the medicine right on the first try and see such good results. We are very happy with Kaya's growth.

We talked to him about a few concerns we had. Kaya hates her shots and they seem pretty painful for her. I have talked to other moms and read on the MAGIC forums and it seems like the shots shouldn't be as painful as they are. I found out that some kids are sensitive to the preservative in the shots and it can cause a lot of stinging. I wonder if this is what is going on with Kaya. Dr. Donaldson is reluctant to try a different kind of shot without a preservative because of how well Kaya is growing. I wish I could just ask Kaya but obviously she doesn't understand yet. A few weeks ago I accidentally gave her a shot but didn't inject the hormone because it wasn't dialed up right. She barely even flinched so I wonder if it's not the poke but the medicine that causes the nightly anguish.

The other concern we have is the cost. Our insurance pays 80% and Kaya's dosage is at 4 clicks right now so we pay $200 a month out of pocket. Dr. Donaldson said that in a few years Kaya will be at 12 clicks and it will cost us over $600 a month. We better start saving now!

2008-10-28T13:28:00.000-06:00

KAYA'S GLAMOUR SHOTS

2008-10-25T20:19:00.006-06:00

THE HALLOWEEN HAUNT

2008-10-25T19:33:00.007-06:00

Luke and Livi came down to help us decorate pumpkins for our annual Halloween Haunt Disc Golf Tournament. The Halloween Haunt is a night disc golf tournament that our friend, Brandon Merzlock runs every year. The discs and baskets are lighted and each hole has theme with decorations. There were a record 70 people that played this year.

Kerry was not one of those. He claims that he can't see well in the dark so he helped run the tournament instead of playing. The tournament started at 7pm and we didn't get home until 1:30am. It's a good thing that we left the kids home with Grandma Roo! We felt kinda bad though as she got into her car to drive home at 2am.

I ended up first place out of 14 girls and Lance ended up "not seeing well in the dark" so he may join Kerry as Assistant tournament director next year.

See our results at http://pvdgc.com/2008dghhresults.pdf

KITESURFING

2008-09-30T10:19:00.003-06:00

Lance is taking up a new sport. This is our first try at uploading video. It's kind of crappy. Any tips on how you do yours?

MOMMIES, DADDIES, AND BABIES

2008-09-25T21:47:00.008-06:00

Kaya likes to categorize everything as Mommies, Daddies or Babies. For example, a big stick is a daddy stick and a small stick is a baby stick. A big piece of ham is a mommy ham and a small piece is a baby ham.

The other day she asked me which of our dogs was the mommy and which is the daddy. I told her and now she calls Peanut, "mommy" and Charlie, "daddy."

Sometimes I'll be doing something in the other room and I'll hear Kaya say "C'mere mommy." I'll go to help Kaya only to discover that she's calling for Peanut.

Kaya and her "mommy" and "daddy" have been having issues every night. Kaya likes to lay in the kennels when the dogs are going to bed. Sometimes she kicks them out and sometimes she just lays on top of them.

GROWTH HORMONE AND INSURANCE CHANGES

2008-09-19T19:47:00.002-06:00

Oh No! Two things just happened that will have big impacts on our finances. Lance's insurance changed and instead of paying 90% on prescriptions they will only pay 80%. Our co-pay for Kaya's Humatrope just doubled!

Kaya's dosage also got increased so instead of getting 2 refills a month, we get 3. In short, we used to pay $67 a month for growth hormone and now it will be $201 a month. By the end of the year, Kaya's dosage should increase again and our monthly cost will go up another $67 a month.

We just realized we are going to be poor for the rest of our lives. We continue to make more money but the cost of Kaya's medicine increases at a much faster rate. We are grateful to have access to growth hormone but we are kinda sad.

FAIR NEWS

2008-09-17T01:08:00.012-06:00

I didn't think it would be a good year for The Good Wok since the economy is bad but apparently people would rather spend their money on chicken than gas.

I missed Kaya so much during the week but she had a great time with her grandma and cousins!

We didn't do Aspen Creek this year since we are slowly trying to close that chapter but I did get to enter some pictures. I won 13 ribbons in the pro division and a nice puffy sweepstakes ribbon.

MY STUFF

2008-08-26T04:19:00.004-06:00

Check out my photo and graphics portfolio @ http://www.mindyclarkdesign.com/. Let me know what you think.

KAYA IN COSTA RICA

2008-08-26T03:35:00.002-06:00

Sarah asked how traveling with humatrope went. It didn't go very well. I packed the pen and an extra vial of medicine in the special insulated bag from eli lilly along with a huge frozen ice pack. We traveled for about 24 hours from the time we left home to the time we got to our hotel in Costa Rica. I opened the bag and the ice was totally warm. Our nurse told us that we shouldn't ever leave the pen out of the fridge for even 15 minutes so I'm pretty sure that the medicine went bad.

We didn't know if Kaya would be worse off getting bad medicine or no medicine so we did continue to give it to her for about a week. But then we had trouble keeping the medicine cold again. Costa Rica was so hot and we would travel for 7-8 hours a time between our hotels. Finally we just quit giving it to her. $1000 in medicine down the drain.

I have no idea what 2 weeks without humatrope did to Kaya. She was not herself but certainly traveling was stressful on her. I'm sure that going without her medicine for so long would affect her though.

I thought that Kaya had finally hit the terrible twos in Costa Rica. She started throwing tantrums and hitting. She had never had any problems before. It was frustrating because I couldn't set up a discipline routine while traveling all over. As soon as we got home I bought a kitchen timer and planned on sending her to time out for 2 minutes whenever she would act up. It's been almost a month now and I haven't had to use it. Kaya went from 3-4 tantrums and hitting 25 times a day to nothing. She is back to her sweet easygoing self and I don't know if her problems were caused from the disruption in medicine or just traveling. I think it was probably a combination of both.

One problem that we didn't have was getting the medicine through security. I brought a copy of her prescription and documentation of her ghd because I thought it would be a big deal to transport growth hormone and needles. However, we had no trouble and I never even had to break out the papers.

MANUEL ANTONIO: THE LAST STOP

2008-08-25T21:36:00.007-06:00

We arrived at our hotel after a 6 hour drive. We were all tired and the babies were crying. We tried to check in but they told us we didn't have a reservation for that night. It could have turned ugly but super-organized Miss Carrie pulled out all her printed email coorespondences and proved that we should have a reservation so we got taken care of. Thank goodness for Miss Carrie.

Manuel Antonio National Park was worth the drive. It was a postcard white sand beach with monkeys, raccoons, iguanas and hermit crabs running everywhere. We also saw a basilik lizard

and a sloth. Grandma fell asleep under a tree and woke up to see monkeys swinging right over her head. The waves scared Kaya a little but she loved playing in the sand with Danny.

The second day Lance rented a surfboard. He got up on his first wave and we thought he was pretty cool until he failed to get up again...After two hours he traded in his surfboard for a bodyboard and it turns out those are pretty fun too. I enjoyed riding the bodyboard but the highlight for me was the special snow cone I got from a street vendor. He carried a block of ice in his cart and shaved it by hand with what looked like a cheese slicer. He filled the cup half full then added powdered milk, more ice and then coconut flavoring. Lastly he topped the concoction with ample amounts of sweetened condensed milk. It looks scary but was actually pretty tasty.

MOTEVERDE

2008-08-24T22:40:00.005-06:00

Monteverde was so action packed that I didn't take many pictures. The roads surrounding Monteverde are horrendous. Mile after mile of twisting pot-holed roads. Lance and I have been to some pretty remote places on bad roads but these roads take the cake. We were all carsick upon arrival.

We all stayed in one big cabin and that was interesting since Danny goes to bed at 8:00 and wakes up at 7:00 and Kaya goes to bed at 11:00 and wakes up at 10:00. Sometimes they hardly even saw each other.

We did zip lines and a canopy tour on Wednesday. Lance was super sick so we made him sit next to the bathrooms and watch the two kids while the rest of us did the zip lines. It was super fun. There was an optional section called the Tarzan swing. I've done a lot of challenge courses but this swing was scary (and FUN!) Miss Carrie screamed like a little girl, Matt screamed like a little girl, but I thought I would be immune to the screaming since I've done lots of stuff like this before. I couldn't help it. The freefall was so scary I involuntary let out a little shriek.

I've worked on challenge courses before and so am very safety conscious. Costa Rica apparently has little problems with lawsuits because the safety precautions were very lax. At each zip line a worker clipped us onto the zips but never locked down our carabiners. It was horrifying for me. Then after the zip line we did the canopy tour on bridges that were over 100ft high and sometimes there were spaces on the bridges that Kaya could have fallen through. I didn't enjoy the canopy tour as much as I should have because I was freaking out about Danny and Kaya.

Thursday was Carrie's dream day. We rode horses to a remote waterfall. The horse ride was awesome but challenging for some. I loved it. I've done horse riding in Harriman and it is fun but not really exciting as you ride mile after mile on flat ground and the horses are so old that they couldn't run if they had to. This horse ride was totally different. We up and down steep mountains and sometimes the horses galloped!! Kaya liked being on the horses but she was really tired since we had to start at 6:00. She kept falling asleep on the horse but couldn't get comfortable since she was sitting on the horse and I could only hold her with one hand since I had to hang onto the horse with the other.

The waterfall was gorgeous. I wish I had some good pictures but I couldn't take my tripod on the horse and a tripod is essential for waterfall pictures. Lance, Matt, and Carrie did some jumps into the pools.

MORE ARENAL

2008-08-24T22:14:00.008-06:00

Above: Lance poses in front of Cerro Chato. Grandma LaRue graciously offered to watch the kids while Matt, Carrie, Lance and I headed out for another adventure. We did a vigorous hike to Cerro Chato, which is an extinct volcano with a lake. It was a steep hike up to the rim of the volcano and then the hike down to the lake was more like rock climbing. We couldn't see much of the lake because of the clouds but we did see some cool frogs.

ARENAL VOLCANO

2008-08-17T20:33:00.010-06:00

We met up with the Matt Hong family and headed to our next stop. Arenal is the third most active volcano in the world. We stayed at the Observatory Lodge which is the closest hotel to the volcano. We had great views of the volcano every day. Kaya quickly learned to say "cano" and Danny taught her to say "boom boom" when the volcano made noise.

Staying at the base of an active volcano is very exciting. The volcano went "boom boom" quite often, probably at least once an hour. The falling rocks sounded a lot like thunder. The noise scared Kaya. Now at home, when she hears loud noises she yells "cano" and runs for mommy.

Matt and Lance decided to go for a hike on the old lava trail. There was yellow caution tape blocking off the trailhead and there was some question as to if the trail was open for hiking or not. A hotel employee said you could choose to hike on the trail but you might not make it back alive.

The girls went for a swim and watched then the volcano during lunch. Suddenly the volcano made a really loud and long "boom boom" and lots of smoke rose up. Everyone, even the waiters, rushed to look out at the volcano. We could see lots of rocks flying and for a second I was worried about Lance but then everything quited down and I realized that Lance wouldn't be hiking up as far as the rock fall.

But it turns out that Lance and Matt were hiking in the rock fall, very high on the volcano. They saw some strange signs with a picture of a hiker and a big, red x over it but unable to decipher the spanish they continued far up the volcano.

Suddenly the volcano had the big eruption and they looked up and saw car-sized rocks coming towards them. Lance ducked behind the biggest rock he could find and watched as horse-sized rocks flew over Matt's head. Matt soon managed to find his own rock. Upon returning, Matt was a little humbled but Lance was as exuberant as ever-ready for his next death-defying adventure.

My view of the eruption from the lodge's restaurant.

Lance's view of the eruption from way too high on the volcano.

Night pictures.

POAS

2008-08-17T14:30:00.011-06:00

It took another long day of traveling to get to Poas. A boat ride, a minibus, a taxi, and another taxi and finally we made it. The Poas Volcano Lodge was gorgeous but a little off the beaten path. Shortly after arrival, Kaya got bitten by the lodge's german shepard so that ruined the rest of her day.

It was cold and rainy for the two days we stayed here so we didn't really see the volcano or get to do much hiking. We spent a full day at the La Paz Waterfall Gardens though and that was definately worth it.

It has a hike that winds around 5 different waterfalls. At the final waterfall Lance was feeling rather adventurous and decided he was going to jump off a ledge halfway down the waterfall, a 20ft drop. Our driver and Grandma both almost had heart attacks but Lance survived. Sometimes Lance makes our lives a little more exciting than we'd like. I didn't get a good picture of Lance jumping but if you look close you can see him swimming away from the falls in this picture.

A wild coati inspects Kaya.

TORTUGUERO

2008-08-10T21:39:00.011-06:00

We flew all night to Costa Rica and then immediately went to the bus station to start our trip to Tortuguero. We took a nice bus for 2 hours then changed to a ghetto bus for 2 hours and then had a 1 hour boat ride. It was very stressful after flying all night. Tortuguero is very remote and only accessible by boat or small plane.

We stayed at Casa Marbella, right in the middle of town (Is it still a town if only 50 people live there?). It was very authentic. No vehicles, stray dogs and roosters running all over, no McDonalds... The town is only about 200 yards wide. On one side is a wide river, very Amazon-looking, and on the other side is the Caribbean sea.

Tortuguero is THE place to go to see nesting sea turtles. We took a night turtle tour and were lucky enough to see three green turtles laying eggs. Lots of people go home without seeing any!

The green turtles are huge, around 400 lbs. We were able to see the whole process, the beaching, dropping the eggs, the covering of the hole, and the return to sea. It was probably one of my coolest nature experiences ever. Sadly there is no picture taking allowed since the flash would disrupt the egg-laying process.

We also hiked in the national park and took a boat tour. We saw lots of monkeys, two caiman, frogs, and a river otter. Kaya loved it. I have been training her since birth to be an animal-lover like her mom. The best thing we saw on our hike was an eyelash viper. This is one of the top ten most venomous snakes in the world. They are very recognizable because their eyes have huge pointy flaps over them that look just like-you guessed it-eyelashes.

Lance wanted some fresh coconut so he bought a machete and labored quite a while to get it open. It was very delicious. There were coconuts lying everywhere and Lance couldn't figure out why there was no one splitting and selling the coconuts. Just then we saw a guy walk past with a coconut and straw. We turned around and found the coconut stand within 50 ft of us. The coconut dealer probably had a good laugh watching Lance struggle to split his coconut with a dull machete.

COSTA RICA COMING SOON

2008-08-07T08:56:00.004-06:00

I am planning to blog on our trip in the near future but I have 3+ design jobs to finish first. In the meantime check out my sister-in-law's blog about part of the trip...
http://www.thehongs.blogspot.com/ .

CHAINSAW ENCOUNTER

2008-08-07T08:46:00.004-06:00

Lance was cutting wood at the ski area with his staff on Wednesday and one of his staff accidentally tried to cut off Lance's leg. I wish I would have gotten a before the stitches picture. It looked like a bear mauling. He got 25 stitches and is doing well.

WE'RE HOME

2008-07-27T11:19:00.003-06:00

We were in Costa Rica for 2 weeks and just returned yesterday. Grandma LaRue went with us and after 1 week, the Matt Hong family joined us.

We went to celebrate Grandma's 60th birthday this year. I think we provided her with more adventure in 2 weeks than she's probably had in the last 30 years. We hope she can recover.

We had a fantastic time but are very glad to be back. We all have sunburn, bug bites, rashes, infections and the traveler's runs. Our beagles are still alive and are happy to see us.

More stories and pictures about our 2 week adventure to come...

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!

2008-06-25T04:26:00.003-06:00

We made the trip to Salt Lake today for Kaya's 3 month doctor's appointment. She now weighs 19 lbs and is 31 inches tall. She has grown 1 1/2 lbs and 2 inches in 3 months. That's quite the growth spurt. Her medicine must be working.

PAYETTE RIVER TRIP

2008-06-23T00:35:00.010-06:00

Every year Lance takes a group of people to raft on the Payette River for work. He went a few weeks ago and found lots of stuff he wanted to share with us so last weekend we made the trip.

We brought Grandma Rue along to keep Kaya busy and the beagles along to keep me busy.

Lance planned the trip as a surprise for me. Kaya and I ran in Lance's fun run Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon when Lance got home he announced we were leaving. Lance had everything all ready to go, I just had to pack my clothes.

We did an easy float in inflatable kayaks. Easy for the humans, the dogs found it quite challenging and fell in several times.

At night we visited hot pools including moondipper and pine burl and the party pool.

(left) Kaya swimming in "hot patchi".

Happy Beagle!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAYA AND UNCLE MATT!

2008-06-10T01:09:00.007-06:00

We celebrated Kaya's second birthday on June 7, and down south in Texas Matt celebrated number 31.

We don't believe in big birthday parties and lots of presents so we just took Kaya to a pet rally and set up a slide that we bought her. She has a fun day everyday so I don't think she noticed much difference.

Kaya is the love of my life (sorry Lance). I love spending every moment with her. She is such a good little girl. I love taking her with me everywhere I go. Everyone is always amazed at how well-behaved she is. She makes me smile all day long. She makes the funniest faces and does silly things. She is starting to string 2 or 3 words together at a time and says really smart, and sometimes really funny things.

Kaya's favorite things to do: read books, watch Shrek, play outside, swing, play with the beagles, wrap anything (babies, stuffed animals, key chains, even a piece of ham) in a blanket and sing rock-a-bye, dance, sit on her stool, drink patchi (water) from her tea cups.

Kaya's favorite things to eat: milk and juice, canned corn, chicken, hot dogs, oreos, chips, ham, and cheese.

I wish Kaya had a more varied diet but she refuses to eat anything not listed above.

Grandma LaRue made Kaya a beagle cake for her birthday.

DISC GOLF

2008-06-06T21:04:00.008-06:00

Kaya decided to take up disc golf this summer too. It's good exercise for her. She walks almost the whole Ross Park Course. Lance, Kerry and I have played in a number of tournaments. Our most recent was the Ross Park Monthly. See how we did here... http://www.pvdgc.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.phpt=319&sid=e3f4713f1168dc470d854e79661612f3.

Also, if you're ever bored and want to find out about Lance's secret internet life, check out the forum at http://www.pvdgc.org/.

SPEAKING OF ROCK CLIMBING...

2008-05-24T23:13:00.003-06:00

I recently did a book on broken femurs for school and thought I would share my femur x-ray.

On September 16, 2006, Lance was climbing in a competition called the Pocatello Pump and I was his belayer. Lance clipped in wrong on his last climb and fell 35 ft from the top of the Sunnyside section at Ross Park.

It was the worst possible place to fall with nothing but jagged rocks on the deck. Luckily, Lance landed in the lap of his belayer (me). I don't know why we survived. Probably 1 in 100 people would walk away from that accident. 1 inch difference in any direction and Lance would have broken his neck or mine.

Lance ended up with a compressed vertebrae and a broken wrist. I got a segmental (broken in 2 places) femur fracture.

Lance's back rarely hurts; only sometimes when he drives. My lower fracture is okay but my upper fracture, which is actually considered a hip fracture, is painful everyday.

Lance had a full arm cast and a back brace for 12 weeks. I had immediate surgery with a permanant titanium rod inserted inside my bone where the marrow would usually be. It is held into place with 4 screws.

BACK IN THE SADDLE

2008-05-23T01:06:00.012-06:00

Yes, that is Lance and Mindy rock climbing. Lance took his staff to City of Rocks last weekend for staff training and I came along for my first climb in three years.

The first climb we did was Lost Arrow Spire, 2-pitch, 5.7. It was a little ambitious for a first climb with lots of exposure. I did okay technically but I was freaking out on the inside. I almost cried. I did three climbs and each time triple checked all my gear and then had someone else triple check it for me. I was such a safety nazi that I probably drove everyone crazy.

We always knew Lance would climb again since that was part of his job but I didn't know if I would. I just had so much fear about it that I wanted to purge that and also replace some of those bad images that still flash through my head with more positive ones.

Some people think that we are crazy for climbing again. If Lance never climbed again he would get fired from his job. I have to get over my fears or every time he goes out I will have a heart attack. Part of facing those fears was getting back on the rocks myself.

And I know that Kaya will rock climb someday. She's going to want to since her Daddy does it and he runs kids programs. I can't very well tell her that she can't take her Daddy's kid rock classes. If she's going to be out there doing some climbing, I need to be with her.

People almost die all the time in car wrecks but no one thinks about not driving again. I got in a semi-serious car wreck about eight years ago. The next day I got back in the car and drove again.

I am not taking for granted that I survived a bad accident and that it was hard on many people but I can't live in fear for the rest of my life because of it.

PRETTY KAYA

2008-05-12T19:10:00.003-06:00

Kaya is a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl, just like her mom. But she got a new batch of clothes from Olivia and it turns out she looks pretty cute dressed up. Thanks to Mandi and Olivia for providing Kaya's entire wardrobe for the last two years.

JEEP RALLY

2008-04-11T00:52:00.004-06:00

We couldn't find a hotel or campsite in Moab for our first weekend because it was the big Easter Jeep Rally. We thought it would be amusing to check it out so we went to Mill Creek. It was one of the funnest things we did. I now am seriously considering making the trip to the Easter Jeep Rally an annual event.

Jeep after Jeep after tricked out truck after truck who had no business there after Jeep tried to climb up a steep slickrock face. Trucks were smoking and axels breaking right and left. Some Jeeps got a little tippy but once you started up the hill you couldn't back down until you made it up the hill or until your wheel fell off-not with a 1000+ crowd, half-drunk, cheering and at the same time yelling insults about the driver, the driver's truck and the driver's mother.

My favorite insult overheard: It's time for you to take your kids to soccer practice!

THE SAN RAFAEL SWELL

2008-04-06T17:26:00.008-06:00

Lance has wanted to do some canyoneering for a long time. Unfortunately he often hangs with the wrong crowd for that. Kaya's limitations are obvious and I have, in recent years, developed a fear of heights and rappelling. So Lance settled for an easy 5.5 mile route in the San Rafael Swell called the Ding-Dang Loop.

Lance tries to avoid the water by stemming.

Unfortunately, it didn't work.

VACATION WITH GRANDPA

2008-04-01T00:58:00.020-06:00

We went on our annual spring break trek to southern Utah and Grandpa Jerry decided to come with us for a few days. We took him to see some petroglyphs in Green River and then hiking in Arches National Park.

Grandpa got us a hotel but he decided he wanted to sleep in his van. Kaya loved having Grandpa and finally showed him that she did know how to talk. After he left, she looked for him for two days and kept calling "Bapa."

We thought this petroglyph looked suspiciously like an alien.

Lance and Pine Tree Arch.

The famous Landscape Arch. I need a wider lens.

FIRST TRIP TO THE ER

2008-04-01T00:38:00.006-06:00

Kaya and I took our usual trip to Nordic Center for some Saturday snowshoeing and it ended badly. After snowshoeing, Kaya and I warmed up in the A-Frame with Lance. There is a woodburning stove in the middle of the A-Frame with a 3ft wide passageway next to it.

Kaya is very careful around hot things. In fact, "hot" was one of her first words. As she was walking past the stove she turned around to see her Dad and she tripped and fell against the stove. I immediately picked her up but her hands were already burned. I put her hands in some cold water and then snow and we rushed down the hill to the ER. Ironically, one of the worst blizzards of the season was going on and I thought we were all going to die before we arrived at the ER.

The reason we took Kaya to the ER is that her hands were blistering very badly and Lance says you are supposed to take all babies to the ER when they get burned no matter how bad it is.

Three weeks have passed and Kaya's hands are healing. They really bothered her for a week or so especially at night. Neither one of us slept for a few days. Her fingertips look perfect but the back of her left hand has some pretty bad scarring.

SHOTS!

2008-03-16T15:33:00.012-06:00

Caremark shipped our Humatrope growth hormone and we went to Salt Lake for GHT training. Rosemary Scales was our trainer and the process is more complicated than I thought it would be. I was thinking just a quick poke and it would be over. But it turns out you have to clean, pinch, poke, inject, hold the needle in for 4 seconds, then press with a cotten ball for 30 seconds.

Injections can be in the arm, thigh, bum, or belly. We have to keep track on a chart of where we do the injections so each spot gets rotated and rested.

I have done the injections for 11 days now and it breaks my heart each time. I have had two mess ups where Kaya flinched and my instant reaction is to flinch too. The needle is so small that if I am not careful then it comes out before the medicine is done injecting. So we've had two misses. I cried both times for about 15 minutes. I hope Kaya realizes how hard it is for me to poke her.

After her shot she says, "mommy poke" and she rubs it for awhile. I wanted to see how it feels so I gave myself a "poke" in the stomach three times. The first time I didn't even feel it and the other two times it was just a tiny pinch. The needle is so small. It is a 31 gauge and is 3/16 ". Some people have trouble with the medicine leaking out when they use this small of a needle but we haven't had any problems.

Kaya is starting out on a small does, 3mg a day. We give her the shot and then she gets M&M's for a prize. We will take her back to Dr. Donaldson in four months and should see some results.

One bad thing about the medicine is that it has to be refrigerated all the time. You can't even leave it out for 30 minutes. We are going on spring break next week so we will have to be very careful to keep it cold in the cooler. If I accidentally leave it out, I could ruin $450 worth of medicine and our insurance won't replace it.

We will get a shipment from Caremark every twenty days. I have to call each time and order it so that will be a pain.

I hate the shots but I am anxious to see her get stronger! Without them she could never fulfill her/my dream of being a soccer star someday.

NAUGHTY BEAGLES

2008-03-09T21:07:00.008-06:00

Our beagles started on a diet this year since Charlie is very fat. Since then, they have become masters at stealing food from the cupboards and counters when we are gone. We were amazed when Charlie started pushing chairs around the kitchen to get on the counters and into the cupboards. In the last month, they have fell off their diet by eating a whole bag of Cadbury Eggs, and then getting a half a cake off the top of the fridge.

They really upped the game on Friday when we came home to find the freezer door open and a previously unopened bag of bone-in chicken thighs sitting empty on the floor. Peanut and Charlie's bellies were so swollen they looked pregnant. I thought that their stomachs would rupture and they would both die in the night, but much to Lance's dismay, they both survived.

The next day we took them to the nordic center and made them run 12 miles to burn off the chicken fat.

MARCH SNOW

2008-03-09T20:55:00.006-06:00

It snowed 3 more inches at the nordic center. It is almost the middle of March and there is still a good snowpack. We took advantage of the new snow and went snowshoeing, sledding and even rode on the snowmobile with Lance while he groomed.

BLUE CROSS COVERAGE

2008-02-22T15:14:00.003-07:00

After hearing lots of other mom's stories and reading the yahoo forum on children with GHD, I thought that the insurance process would be awful. However, I was so happy to get a letter from Blue Cross stating that Kaya is approved for Humatrope therapy!

Lance's insurance has been such a blessing to us throughout this medical crisis and our rock climbing crisis. We have a $500 deductable and a $1500 maximum out of pocket expense. I do feel a little bad though that our family is probably the cause of the City of Pocatello's rising insurance costs.

WHAT CAUSES GHD?

2008-02-10T06:29:00.001-07:00

From Wikipedia...

There are many causes of GH deficiency. Some examples include:

mutations of specific genes (e.g., GHRHR, GH1)
congenital malformations involving the pituitary (e.g., septo-optic dysplasia, posterior pituitary ectopia)
damage to the pituitary from incracranial disease (e.g., hydrocephalus), intracranial tumors in or near the sella turcica, especially craniopharyngioma
damage to the pituitary from radiation therapy to the head for leukemia or brain tumors surgery in the area of the pituitary
autoimmune inflammation (hypophysitis)
severe head trauma
ischemic or hemorrhagic infarction from low blood pressure (Sheehan syndrome) or hemorrhage pituitary apoplexy.

Some people also say that it can be caused by birth complications such as not getting enough oxygen. This may be Kaya's case since her birth was very difficult.

Many cases of isolated growth hormone deficiency (IGHD) recognized in childhood are idiopathic and a cause is never found.

DWARFISM

2008-02-10T05:43:00.001-07:00

In the Idaho State Journal today there was a feature on a local seven-year old girl who has achondroplasia, which is the most common type of dwarfism. I was reminded a little bit of Kaya's situation but also very grateful that Kaya just has GHD and not achondroplasia.

GHD is actually a type of dwarfism and is often called pituitary dwarfism. Medline Plus says there are 2 types of dwarfs. The pituitary dwarf has too little growth hormone. The achondroplastic dwarf has an orthopedic reason for having short limbs and a short spinal column. while the pituitary dwarf lacks growth hormone (an endocrine reason).
Unlike achondroplasia, pituitary dwarfism can be treated.

The girl in the Idaho State Journal, Maddie, lives a life similar to how Kaya's life would be without treatment. Maddie deals with social problems like teasing and name-calling and also physical problems.

Due to peer teasing her parents have had to come to her school and educate all the students on dwarfism and how some people come in smaller packages. They used the example of two beautifully wrapped gifts, one big and one small. Both gifts hold the same thing, a Nintendo DS but one is orange and one green. Maddie's parents said that like the gifts, people can look a little different or come in different sized packages but inside is a person that feels the same and can do the same things as others.

Maddie's home is all decked out with special accommodations. Every year before school starts, her parents go into her classroom and do special things to make sure that Maddie can be accommodated. Her school even has a special lowered sink and toilet for Maddie.

A few years ago a new reality series began that stars dwarves called "Little People, Big World." I have always been fascinated by the stars, The Roloffs and how every little thing in their lives is more difficult and takes special accommodations. A big part of their lives is the organization "Little People of America." It is a club for dwarves, characterized as anyone under 4'10". A big event they have every year is the Little People Olympics. They love to play sports and this event gives them a chance to compete on a level playing field.

I hope that sports (mostly soccer) is a big part of Kaya's life and I'm sure that she would love playing in the Little People Olympics. Luckily though, with a small shot once a day, Kaya can play on a level playing field every day and will not have to wait for the Little People Olympics to come around once a year.

MIDFACE HYPOPLASIA

2008-02-10T05:37:00.001-07:00

Dr. Donaldson said that Kaya has a slightly hypoplastic midface.

def: The middle of the face is underdeveloped, leading to a concave-looking face. The bridge of the nose looks sunken in. The eyes are set widely apart and often protrude out of the sockets.

It is a common condition for children with GHD and for children with other disorders such as Dwarfism and Down's Syndrome.

MORE SNOW

2008-02-03T19:46:00.002-07:00

There has been a lot of snow this winter and more snow= more work for Lance. For the past 10 weeks he has worked 70 hours each week. It is really starting to take a toll on Kaya and I. We are lonely.

THE MRI

2008-01-31T03:25:00.002-07:00

Kaya had to have an MRI done to try to determine a cause for her GHD. The MRI would show if Kaya had a brain tumor causing her GHD or if she had a birth defect from a malformed pituitary gland. She had to have the test done at Primary Children's Hospital since they have special equiptment for children and also since she would have to be sedated.

I had an MRI on my back recently and you have to hold very still for about twenty minutes so that is why Kaya had to be sedated.

We went to Utah the day before the procedure and stayed at Tim and Debbie's house. The girls, especially Sarah, were excited to see Kaya. We had a great time and were glad to get Kaya together with her cousins. Kaya loved little Timmy and gave him as many hugs and kisses as he could tolerate. I don't know how Tim and Debbie manage four kids. They must always be so exhausted. I admire them, I know I could never have that energy. It was a nice break before the dreaded next day.

I took some pictures of Timmy in his blessing outfit. This one is my favorite.

The worst part of the procedure was Kaya getting the IV. I had lots of IV's as a child and I hate them! I felt so bad for Kaya, she screamed and screamed. Luckily though, it went in first try. After the nurse put the IV in she wrapped it all up so it looked like Kaya had a cast on her hand. That really bothered Kaya but her Dad was a good distractor and blew bubbles for her until it was time to sedate her.

The sedation was kind of sad and kind of funny. I was holding Kaya and they put the medicine in the IV. Thirty seconds later she started to bob her head and by a minute she was totally unconcious.

The MRI was done and then Kaya was put in a little bed to sleep it off. Lance and I sat next to her and got very sleepy ourselves. After two hours they took her blankets off and had me wake her up. She was very dizzy and couldn't even hold her head up. They finally sent us home fter watching her for another thirty minutes to make sure that she didn't get sick to her stomach. On the way out to the truck, Kaya threw up all over me. She continued to throw up everywhere on the drive home. I wish that we could have stayed in Salt Lake that night because I think the drive made her a little carsick but Lance had to work early the next morning.

A few days later we found out that the MRI came back normal. This means that the cause of Kaya's GHD is idiopathic, or unknown. Kaya may have genetic testing done someday to see if she has a gene marker for GHD. Many kids with GHD just have no known cause.

ON TO SALT LAKE

2008-01-25T05:05:00.001-07:00

Lance had to work so my Mom escorted Kaya and I to see Dr. Donaldson in Salt Lake. I thought the appointment would be to check Kaya out and set up some more tests to confirm her GHD but Dr. Donaldson said that he won't do growth hormone stimulation tests on children until they are 3 years old because the tests could be fatal to infants.

He said he is diagnosing Kaya as GHD rather than IGF-D because she had a severely low level of IGF-1 and her IGFBP3 level was undetectable. He said the low IGFBP3 level was more indicative of GHD.

Kaya's problem hadn't bothered me before this doctor visit. It made everything more real and final. It is hard to see your child have problems. You just want life to be easy for them. It breaks my heart.

Dr. Donaldson said that Kaya had many facial characteristics of GHD babies including a very round face and no bridge on her nose. He said that Kaya looks like she is 9 months old even though she is 18 months old. This picture shows Kaya with her cousin, Hunter. Hunter is only 10 days older than Kaya. He looks like a toddler and Kaya still looks like a baby.

It is the same in Kaya's Early Learning Center class. Kaya looks like she belongs in the younger class.

He asked me if people were often surprised at how old Kaya is and they are. Almost every time we go out, someone asks me how old Kaya is and they are always shocked at the answer. Most people think that she is a really advanced 10 month old and that she shouldn't be walking yet.

Ever since I found out about Kaya's problem, I have been researching it like crazy. I want to know everything there is to know about GHD so that I can understand all the things the doctors say and to make sure that Kaya gets the best care possible. Dr. Donaldson did tell me one thing that I didn't know. He said that growth hormone is responsible for producing muscle tone and so Kaya has severely undeveloped muscles. He said that babies with GHD don't crawl and are late with their developmental milestones.

That explains a lot about Kaya. She never really rolled over and never crawled. Babies should crawl around 7-10 months. At 12 months, Kaya finally developed a sort of scooch where she would push herself around while sitting.

It was frustrating to not have Kaya crawl. Lance and I weren't too concerned about it since she was otherwise healthy and had excellent fine motor skills. However, lots of other people were concerned about it and thought Lance and I were doing something wrong. She often got compared to Hunter, who was an early crawler. Several people told us that she would have lifelong physical problems because she missed this important step. Lots of people thought that I was coddling her too much and didn't put her down on the floor to give her a chance to crawl. I did work with Kaya on crawling every day twice a day. I tried all sorts of different methods and toys and tried letting her cry...but nothing worked. She hated to practice crawling and would really cry when she was on the ground. She often acted like it hurt her but I thought she was just a little stubborn. Now I feel a little bad because it turns out that she was just physically unable.

Dr. Donaldson said that Kaya needed to start Growth Hormone Therapy, GHT, right away. He said that without it, Kaya will only be about 4 feet tall and will have many health problems. In the near future, the effects would be that she will continue to miss her developmental milestones due to poor muscle tone and would never excel at any physical activities and be easily fatigued.

THE DIAGNOSIS

2008-01-17T03:03:00.001-07:00

In December of 2007 when Kaya was 18 months old she started getting sick all the time and had a fever of 105. We took her to the Dr. and they thought she had pneumonia. At the same time I noticed that she hadn't grown in 6 months.

Her growth was something that we had been watching carefully since she was a newborn. At birth she weighed 6.12 and was 21 inches, which is a bigger baby than I thought I'd ever have. Her weight was in the 25 percentile and her height was in the 75 percentile. At every Dr. appointment after that, Kaya dropped further down the charts. By 6 months she was completely off the charts. Dr. Jensen and I discussed this but we weren't worried because we thought she was just going to be small like her mom. The only thing that was mystifying was that I was small to begin with at 5.4 lbs and 18 inches.

Kaya got further and further off the charts until she reached the negative 25 percentile. At this point she was smaller than I had been so Dr. Jensen diagnosed her as FTT (Failure to Thrive).

Kaya got some blood work done but we didn't really expect anything to be wrong. The only reason we got the blood work done was because we had really good insurance.

Then Dr. Jensen's nurse called me and left a message to call back to make an appointment. I was really busy with finals at school and I thought that she just wanted to make a follow-up appointment. The next day I had my phone turned off for school and when I turned it back on there were two more messages from Dr. Jensen's nurse so I knew that something must be wrong.

I took Kaya to see Dr. Jensen and he said that the test results had shown that Kaya had undetectable levels of ILGF-1 and IGF-3 which indicated that she had a growth hormone deficiency, GHD.

He said that he had 4 other patients with similar problems and that he worked with an endocrinologist in Salt Lake City to treat them. He had already faxed all Kaya's information to Dr. Donaldson and we would need to make an appointment as soon as possible.

2ND ANNUAL MINK CREEK SNOW DAY

2008-01-17T02:18:00.001-07:00

Lance was kind enough to host 18 Hongs and two beagles at his nordic center. Activities included skiing, snowshoeing, sledding and lunch.

THE '06 BABIES CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS

2008-01-17T01:55:00.002-07:00

Christmas is always more fun when the Texas Hongs are in town. On Christmas Eve we stayed the night with them at Grandma Larue's house. We had the traditional clam chowder in bread bowls for dinner, played some games, watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and then some people went to bed. Kaya was too excited to sleep until after santa (is fake), aka Grandma, had come and gone.

Because of the exciting night we slept in until 11 much to the dismay of the Texas Hongs. Finally they woke us up but Kaya was not prepared to be out of bed as can be seen in the photos.

FOR KAYA

2008-01-13T02:54:00.001-07:00

This blog is mostly for Kaya. As the fourth child of a single parent, my mom was way too busy to finish my baby book and I was always sad about it. When Kaya was born, I made a goal to give her a finished first year book for her first birthday. I got that done but now I want to keep going. One of the main focus points for this blog will be Kaya's growth hormone deficiency. I want her to know everything that happened and why Lance and I made the decisions that we have.