The Walters Family

2009-06-19T15:44:00.000-07:00

Vivir Sin Aire

I wanted to dedicate a song to Jen...I love the lyrics, they hit home on how im feeling right now. I sang this song to Jen with some random restaurant singer at the Mayan about a month after we met. I felt like a total idiot, but she liked it..and we found ourselves talking about that experience for years. I love you Jen!!!

2009-06-17T19:40:00.001-07:00

Camping in Midway

Hey there family and friends. Last weekend Noah and I went camping with Jen's family, it was fun. We haven't been able to go camping in a couple of years, although I don't know how it was actually considered camping being that we spent the night in a trailer. I took Noah fishing on Friday night, but got skunked...I was impressed that Noah sat patiently for a good 45 minutes. Everyone else seemed to be pulling trout from the pond, but they for whatever reason didn't want our worm. Saturday

morning I woke up early without Noah and pulled my limit from the pond in less than an hour. It was awesome, the fishing God's finally took the lid off my ten year dry spell.

We also broke down and bought a 2008 Trailblazer, we love it. Jen and I had seriously considered buying one last fall, so I felt somewhat justified. I can just picture her riding in the passenger's seat with a big smile on her face. Life is going pretty good, we're trying to settle into what we can expect to be the norm. Thanks again to all the friends, for you love and kindness...you mean the world to us. We wouldn't know how to approach our challenges without your prayers and support.

2009-06-02T17:53:00.001-07:00

Catching up and San Diego

It has been too long. I have been meaning to jump on to let everyone know how much you all mean to me and Noah. We owe the world to you, we are so thankful to have family and friends who care so much. I was inspired to see all the pictures of Jen circulating on facebook. It left me wondering how it ever was that I landed such a popular "Hottie". She is now my eternal Hottie. I think my brother in law (Todd) put it best. In his most serious high councilman face, he walked up to me at the viewing and pointed out that Jen had passed the test....he then paused and said, boy you sure better not mess this up. Right on Todd!!! I feel that was good advise and feel the responsibility to carry on with faith. We have such a rich heritage to turn to in order to deal with overcoming adversity. I happened to read a quote from President Kimball about two years ago, I loved it so much that I wrote it at that time in my scriptures and it has continued to help me address Jen's death with hope. He said: "If we say that early death is a calamity, disaster, or tragedy, would it not be saying that mortality is preferable to earlier entrance into the spirit world and to eventual salvation and exaltation? If mortality be the perfect state, then death would be a frustration, but the gospel teaches us there is no tragedy in death, but only in sin". Enough said, all I have to say to that is Amen. On a different note, Noah and I went with the in laws to San Diego. It was alot of fun, I hadn't been there for a couple of years. We stayed in Dean and Joanne's condo, it's ocean front property with a great view. Here are some pic's we took.

2008-12-20T15:50:00.000-08:00

I wanted to take another minute and just express my gratitude for all who have posted comments. I hope that it wont seem insincere in just posting one big thanks!!! (but that is the benefit of blogging right?). We have had Jennifer back home for several weeks. Aside from the constant fatigue she is doing rather well. I have found that this scare has appropriately put us in the right mood for the holiday's. We have so much, we have hope...and as I have been recently reminded, we have friends who share common beliefs. Thank you all so much!!! For your prayers and thoughts. We are so blessed to have the knoweledge that we have. Our eternal plans are secure even though our limited sight sometimes allow fears to arise. My family has felt the strength and love of you all, we have felt of your prayers. Thank you for bearing this burden with us.

2008-12-05T19:40:00.000-08:00

Jennifer's Health

Hello family and friends, I need to take the time to sit down and give everyone an update on Jennifer's health. I am so heavy hearted, and dont even know where to begin...except to express my love to my dear wife. The latest episode in this battle began two weeks ago this Sunday...Jennifer (like always) had a severe headache for 4 or 5 days. By Sunday morning it became so intense that we had to rush her to the University hospital's ER...after consulting with the neuro surgeon, he concluded that the headache was a result of preasure being built from the tumor in the middle ventricle of her brain. His suggestion, was that we let the preasure take it's course, which would prove fatal, but that it would a realatively peaceful way to die. We quickly concluded as a family that we weren't to that point yet, and that we could not in good conscience do nothing. After some persuasion the surgeon agreed to perform another surgery where he relieved the preasure by running a release tube from the brain (under the skin) and into the abdominal cavity. This has helped, but as he stated...it is only a bandage on the problem. We followed up with Huntsman cancer hospital, and Jennifer is back on the Methotrexate, which is the same drug she was on last summer. She responded almost immediately upon having the preasure relieved in her brain.

We are still very hopeful, the chemo she is on has proven before that it has the ability to help her. She has now been fighting for 3 years, it is our faith and hope that if it be according to God's will she will yet live another 3 years!!!

In this I have been reminded of the faith of the prophet Joseph Smith...so many times during his life did his future look bleak. So many times, he was consigned to die, but he feared not because he knew that his life was in the Lord's hands. So must we stand in holy places and demenstrate our faith that if God will yet allow her to live that we will with that time, demonstrate an increase in our willingness to serve and help those who also are suffering. I would like to invite everyone to keep Jen in your prayers, that they chemo will again prove to be effective. With much love

-Ryan

2008-11-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

Hurricane, UT 2008

We lost touch for the last half of October, and it was mostly due to how much we have going on. My aunt and uncle (Debbie and Nick) own a vacation home in Hurricane, Ut. We have been wanting to get out of town to spend some time as family, Debbie and Nick were so kind to allow us to go and take advantage of their beutiful home. It is located in the perfect spot to allow access to both St. George and Zion's nation park. This time of year was just right, it wasn't too hot or too cold. One of the higlights of this vacation was hiking in Zion's. We chose to hike the river walk, and because of the time of year we had very few tourists to have to deal with. We also spent a fair amount of time just relaxing at the house. We rented several movies (always one of our favorite things to do on vacation). We were able to see The Incredible Hulk and Vantage Point. We both thought the new Hulk movie was pretty good. It was certainly much better than the waste of time that was released a couple of years ago. Our opinion of the movie Vantage point was that it was too violent, and it got boring having to watch the same scene multiple times. In St. George we took a tour of Brigham Young's winter home. I think Jen was the most impressed with the home, and more especially with the pioneer's version of a micro-wave oven, which was created by pouring hot water into a basin which sat under a dinner plate....which in effect kept the food warm. Jen has not stopped talking about how cool she thought it was for a week. Good times, we were able to hang out as a family and spend good valuable time together. When we were getting ready to leave we hesitated in leaving a heap of Noah's diapers in the garbage at the house...we finally concluded that it was best to throw our garbage away at the cheveron across the street. We had an audience of the workers on their smoke break. Why is it that smokers always hang out by dumsters :)

2008-10-18T06:18:00.000-07:00

"This is the place" Halloween

Yesterday we took Noah to "This is the place" Utah state park. It was alot of fun. And it not only presented a good oppurtunity for us to enjoy the upcoming holiday, but we were also able to learn a little bit more about the early pioneers who settled Salt Lake City. They had booth's set up in different locations where the kids could do different crafts. None of which peaked Noah's interest. He was more interested in the candy (which the park was handing out to trick-or-treaters). They invited parents to bring their children dressed in costumes, which ended up being alot of fun. Noah initially had decided that he wanted to go dressed as a cowboy/pirate, but Jennifer with her never ending foresight thought it best to bring the Batman costume, for the "just in case" back up plan. As it turned out, we needed the back up plan. After walking through a couple of the old buildings and taking a train ride, we headed over to see the animals. Noah was able to take a pony ride, which lasted about 30 seconds. At least Jen got a couple of good pictures. We then let Noah run free with the dangerous baby goats and lambs (the horns actually were kind of scary). He was sure to correct a girl who looked to be about his same age, that the animal she was calling a goat, was in fact a sheep. He was right!!! He got a little nervous around the pigs but managed to pull off a smile for the camera.

New addition to the Walters family

2008-10-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

Jaden Colton Walters 10-2-2008

The newest addition to our family joined us on Thursday at around 4 p.m. We went as a family today to go and visit Noah's newest cousin, Jaden. He weighed in at a whopping 7 lbs and 13 oz. and was just shy of 21 inches long. The kid is a spitting image of his daddy, Colton seemed to be proud to now have a complete set (son and daughter). We got a chance to visit for a little bit, it's always good to be with family. I think most would agree that there is a special spirit present when a new born child enters the world. Noah seemed a little timid around the kid, he seemed to realize that we needed to be soft around the baby. Of course, when we broke the camera out Noah had to put on the monkey face, I think he gets that from Jen (just kidding).

September 27th 2008

2008-09-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

Our 6th Wedding Anniversary

This year I took Jen to "The Roof" for our anniversary. Located on the top floor of the Joseph Smith memorial building. We have both eaten there before, but it has been so long that I think we had forgotten how good the food is. It was worth every dollar. In addition the view of the temple is amazing, this setting really helped us reflect on the last 6 years. We both agreed that it has turned out so differently than we ever had imagined, but for our good. My mom had originally agreed to watch Noah on Saturday ( which was our actual anniversary) but because of some responsibilities she had involving womens conference, she agreed to watch him on Friday instead. This ended up being much better in hind sight when thinking of the crowd's we likely would have had to deal with on Saturday night in down town SLC. Jennifer and I had such a good time. We were able to just kick back, eat plenty of REALLY good food and just talk. On Saturday I did the usual weekend stuff (yard work). We also took Noah to the pet store to look at all of the dog's and birds. Last night we decided to take a drive down Legacy park way (which is amazing). We drove to Bountiful pond and let Noah run around. I tried to show him the fish jumping, but I dont think that he saw them. When Jen broke the bad news that we had to leave due to the mosquito's Noah threw a fit. He wanted to go fishing!!! (LOL) How often do you see a 2 and 1/2 year old brought to tears over not being able to go fishing? Some where in heaven, you could almost imagine a smile crossing Grandpa Walters face at the display of his grandson kicking and crying at being pulled away from the chance at having his line in the water. We finally were able to pacify him by going to Grandma and Grandpa Smith's to get in the hot tub. It was a really good weekend.

Family get-together

2008-09-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

Nick's Birthday

We celebrated Nicks birthday on Sunday. I think I remember him saying that it was # 62. It was really good to see the family, it had been some time. I think that it only took Nick a good second breath to blow out all the candles. Debbie quickly put Noah to work on the fly swatter, although I think he ended up sucking on the gross side of it more than he tried to swat the flies. He did however give it an honest effort and should be commended for at least keeping the bugs in the air, and away from the food. While we were there I took Noah on a stroll through the back yard. Debbie warned me to watch out for the dog poop, even though Nick had picked it up. Well, I think Noah must have stepped in the only piece that had been missed. It ended up going from his shoe to my pants and causing a mess. I had to run home to quickly change, but was able to make it back by the time we had cake and ice cream.

Jackson Hole Wyoming

2008-09-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

Jackson Hole 2008

We took our annual vacation to Jackson Hole Wyoming in August. To say the least after our very long summer it was a much needed break. It is amazing to me, that as many times as we have been here on vacation, it just doesn't get old. Even after doing the same thing year after year, it seems to rejuvinate our lives. I think this year I came away from Jackson with an increased desire to look at the simple manifestations of God's hand in this life, and to not allow the confusion or the complication of each day to dictate weather or not I can accept his involvment in my own life. To explain how this is wrapped up into our vacation. We went to the Bar J corral one night and heard some true cowboys sing old western songs while we ate a chuck wagon dinner. It seemed for whatever reason that a good number of their songs spoke of God. I remember commenting to Jen that night that it was amazing that in today's world there was still the ability to not over complicate the existence of a supreme being that is directly involved in our lives. I was very impressed with how simple living with this faith can be, if we just make time for it. But, enough with the Sunday sermon and back to the vacation. We hiked both hidden falls and string lake in Grand Teton national park. The hikes were not too demanding. Noah was able to accomplish both of them on his own with the help of a hiking stick that grandpa made for him, and with a little help from being carried on daddy's shoulders. We also found ourselves taking alot of walks through town, looking through the local stores. We have also made it a tradition of ours to see a movie each year while in Jackson. Some of the movies we have now seen there include, The Village (OVER-RATED), The skeleton key (scary), The Borne ultimatum (awesome) and this year we saw Batman (very good). Aside from all this the only other major activity was going rafting down the snake river. We had not planned on doing this, but Dean was a last minute cancelation and didn't want to lose the money he had paid into it. He approached us and asked if we would like to go instead of him and Joanne. We accepted and I'm glad that we were able to do this. It was alot of fun. The water was so cold, and during the "mellow mile" our tour guide invited those of us who would like to jump in to do so. After some discussion, Andrew and I decided to go for it! We were only in the water for a few seconds before we were begging to be pulled back into the raft. Andrew was pulled in first, and then turned around to help me. After making sure that I was in and safely sitting, Andrew (being the funny guy he is) pushed me in again. Whatever energy I had preserved by the first swim was completely exhausted by having been pushed back in to the freezing water. Everyone got a good laugh as I was pulled back in, I slid across the bottow of the raft like a fat seal on ice. I think that the family would agree, we had a good time. We were given a good chance to spend quality time together, and to enjoy the beautiful landscape of northern Wyoming.