Monday, August 31, 2009

Silly Miss Kylie

She says the funniest things...the other day she was drinking a SOBE. She showed me the lid and asked me to read it to her (they have wierd sayings inside the lids) So I read it to her and she's like HUH? "what does that mean?" and I said, "I don't know it's just jibberish." She said, "I'll ask daddy because he knows Spanish." I said, "It's not in Spanish, it's jibberish." So she said, "Daddy do you know jibberish."

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Are you happy for me??????

I finally did it!!!! This is the first time ever that I've made bottled jam and it has actually set-up. My "Jam" is usually referred to by my family as pancake syrup. It was still good though...and we had a lot of pancakes. I had just enough peaches off of my new peach trees to put up 35 jars, that's 10 batches.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Now for the sad part, Powell 2009

If you'll read my 2 earlier posts, you'll see that we did actually have some fun at Lake Powell this year.


But the sad part is, Mike's mother passed away while she was with us at Lake Powell this year. She has always loved family vacations, she's always planned one every year. So it was sort of fitting that she died doing what she loved, with her family. It was a blessing for all of us that she died the very last day of our vacation, so that we were able to have fun and spend time together all week. She's been in pain for 10 years or more with neoropathy, which is severe nerve damage in your hands and feet, so I am happy that she's finally out of her pain. However, she didn't die from that. We still don't know how she died and I don't know if we ever really will.


Last Friday, I brought her lunch and she seemed completely fine. Then about 10pm Mike came and told me that she wasn't taking her pain medication, which she can't go without. She felt like she had a fever and was kind of acting dilerious. Early the next morning, I was woke up about 7am with them trying to get her to take her medicine, but she still wouldn't. She couldn't walk or talk and she had a high fever. Anyway to make a super long story short, we (Mike, Dad, Colton and I )took her by speedboat 45 minutes to the marina, while everyone else packed up the houseboat. When we got to the hospital, they said she had a temp of 108, and her white blood cell count was 20,000, which is way high. Anyway, after 4 hours at the hospital she passed away. They wouldn't release her body to us, because of the high fever she had and they sent her body on the Flagstaff for an autopsy. It is so difficult to lose someone, but having them die out of state is a bundle of red-tape. I would hate to see what it would be like out of the country. I think, I'll think twice about that before going out of the country.


We just got word today that they are not going to do an autopsy after all that, so she went down to Flagstaff for nothing. They are going to just sign-off that she had a heart attack, which she also did. But I still think they should have found out the cause of the high white blood cells and sudden fever of 108. I just want to know in case, its a sickness that she died from. Anyway, the Layton Mortuary is going to go down and get her body tomorrow (Wed) and we'll be having her funeral on Saturday. This has been such a hard experience, to be in the room and to see someone die in such pain. Someone that we all loved. Mike especially is having a really hard time. Surprisingly the kids are doing really well. I'm just so glad that she didn't die on the houseboat in front of the kids.


Anyway, thanks everyone for all the love you've shown to us.


We really appreciate all of your love and concern.

FUN AT POWELL 2009

Kylie's getting ready to try water-skiing, she's fearless (not like her mother)

Miss Ky, going down the slide for the "thousandth time"

This is a slot cave that we took our kayaks in. Taking our kayaks was the best thing ever, you can go so many places that you can't go on a wave-runner. When we went in this cave in the daytime it was nice and cool and we got out of our kayaks and made sand castles. But if you go in there at dusk, it turns into not such a friendly place, the bats come out and they fly all around you and they give off a humming sound, which echoes throught the entire space. C-R-E-E-P-Y


I'm working on getting rid of my nice farmer's tan...good luck. I'm not out in the sun enough, without a shirt on. I'm glad I have my Dad's skin, I will actully tan if I show my skin to the sun.


Mikey, having fun on our hike.




LAKE POWELL, THE FUN PART


I call this the patio, it was a rock that was under the water about a foot or two and we would swim over to it and play. The water was always a pleasant 75 to 80 degrees.



Mike's brother Mark found the most beautiful spot to park his house boat this year. However, we weren't so alone when we first found this spot. There was another house boat parked right over this hill, we both had a perfect view of each other. Which if you've ever been to Lake Powell, you'll know that that's totally "taboo" to park so close to another houseboat, because the Lake has got to be bigger than the entire state of Rhode Island. So when the other houseboat could tell that we were totally serious about parking our boat there, they gathered all 25 or so of their occupants and they all got up on their top deck, folded their arms and sat Indian style in a silent protest of our parking spot. I guess it was kind of a show of intimidation. It would have made me leave, thats for sure. But Mark, being the seasoned expert knew that the 24 of July week was way overcrowded and that was the best we were going to get. So by the next morning, I thought we would have been sent a drift by all the protesters, but guess what, they were gone in the morning. Well, they turned out to be really tame compared to the group that showed up later that same day to take their spot. Now they were a bunch of recklass hoodlums. These guys had 2 houseboats, which they tied together, and they must of had 40 people. They had a bunch of young men/boys who thought they were cool. They would take their wave runners out and do doughnuts in front of houseboats, they did it a houseboat down from us and the lady came out and yelled at them. Then they came and did to our boat, I yelled at them too. I don't know who taught them to ride a wave runner, but they missed the part about staying wakeless by other boats. Jerks. Anyway, they were gone the next morning too. Yay.


This is a picture of Marks houseboat, parked in a nice little cove, I was standing on the patio rock when I took this picture.

This is a cute picture of Jordyn. This is one of my favorite parts of going on a houseboat, that is travelling the 4 hours to find a great spot. The scenery is amazing.


Is Kylie really in charge of steering the ship????? Yes she is, she's driving the boat.



This is a picture off the back of the houseboat, looking at another boat coming up the channel.




Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Peas and Pigs in a blanket




No it's not a recipe



Yesterday the girls and I went into Maceys to buy our traditional (little kid) type fireworks for the 4th of July.

Kylie (my 5 year old) said in her regular loud voice "Where's a garbage can, I gotta pee (pea)." She opened up her hand to reveal an empty pea pod. [she'd been eating peas out of the garden all day and I guess she had one in her hand.] Now anyone who was in earshot of that comment, would have thought... that child is going to pee in a garbage can??...what kind of mother does she have????




Then only 2 seconds later we rounded the corner and a sample vendor caught Kylie's eye. The sampler was a nice older lady and she was cutting up huge pigs in a blanket into bite-size samples. There were several bite-size weiners sitting on the tray and 2 huge ones (that she hadn't cut yet). Before I could even react, Kylie had grabbed one of the huge ones. The old lady was nice and just giggled, she said "It's okay". It was embarrassing, but I was glad that the lady didn't get mad. Kylie is so funny, she always makes sure that she gets the largest portion, I guess this time she really did.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Girls camp

Girls camp was a lot of fun this year, we went to Heber Valley Camp. It's a brand new, very nice camp. The picture above is when 18 of us got lost for 2 hours on a trail that took us all over the mountain. We took this picture when we were at the top of the mountain and we finally saw our camp below. We were pretty excited.

This is the kitchen crew that I worked with, from the Stake for 5 days hard labor.


This is the moose that ran out of the woods, when we were on the lake. The church owns this lake and it's beautiful.

Heather and I went on a hike which was really hard, because the priesthood leader was going at world record pace. HUFF HUFF PUFF PUFF



This is the beautiful lake that we hiked to before we got lost...Girls camp was fun, but I'm glad its done.




Sunday, June 14, 2009

MAX

Look at those smiling faces....Tyler has been begging for a puppy forever, since we sold Hannah our Jack Russell, almost 2 years ago...because she was a spaz.

So with him doing so well in school these past 3 terms, we decided to get him his hunting dog. This pup is named MAX or Maxi (as the girls call him) My nickname for him is Maxamillion. He is such a sweet dog, he mostly just lays around the deck and relaxes. Our only problem with him is that he likes to roam around in my flower beds, and smash things.

Mike is off to Sams Club in the morning to buy some Cayenne Pepper, I heard that may keep them out of where you don't want them to go.


A rare, huge smile...