And They Lived Happily Ever After ...

The very next day ...

2011-04-18T15:51:00.010-07:00

... was cold and windy and we had two soccer games.

#12 is Nathan!! Woot woot!!

And he's got the ball...

Someone in a red sweatshirt in my way.

And that was the day. First game played against Casper was tied 1-1 and the second game they won 2-0 against Sheridan. I don't really know much about soccer but I can take a few pictures. I felt he did awesome!

Cancun April 16th

2011-04-18T15:07:00.003-07:00

This is the last day we are in Cancun. It was a sad day so we didn't take too many pictures.Jenna on the beach one last time.
Nate has his carry-on and ready to go.
Jason and I one last time.
And the two of them together.

I should add that on my previous post I said that we took a cab to and from Market 28. Not once in that whole time did I feel unsafe. I wondered about it before we left but there were several other families headed in the same direction and several other families had went there the day before so I felt safe enough. Upon arriving there we were treated very kindly and the cab driver showed us the way to the BEST store per his recommendations. All of the vendors spoke a lot of English and we had no problems conversing with any of them, including the little girl. On the way back to the hotel we saw some police/military people with their big huge machine guns, etc and asked about them. He said that they came when the gangs had started and he said that they have put a stop to it. That was about 9 months ago but he says that they have no problems at all now. So needless to say I felt safe going there, safe at all times. The only time we were treated unkindly was at the airport and it was Jason. He went into the bathroom and a man handed him a towel and requested a dollar. haha other than that they went out of their way to make sure we were happy. After every time that you said thank you, they always responded with "My pleasure" Our maid was even pleasant. The service there (not only at our motel but on the tours and just generally out, on the boat, snorkeling, scuba diving) every one went above and beyond what Americans would do who would be working in that same position. We will definitely be going back to Mexico for another vacation. So worth it!

Cancun April 15th

2011-04-18T14:49:00.004-07:00

On the 15th we decided to go shopping. We noticed a shopping center with a "mall" in it but there were vendors on the sides so that was our plan until a group of others said that they had went to a market the day before and a bunch of people were going there today. So we got in a cab and went to Market 28. A swan pastry the chef made us.
Jenna got her hair braided.
Market 28.
I am a big sucker for a little 4 year old girl and a handful of friendship bracelets selling them to me for a dolla! I can't say no. She was so sweet and so little. I know, I know, if you buy from them you are just making it happen even more but I couldn't turn her down. So I have a few friendship bracelets. She picked them out for me even.
For dinner that night we ate at a hibachi grill. This was our chef, I don't remember his name. He was good.
More hibachi grill fire. I'm glad I already had my food ... glad that it wasn't burnt crisp. haha

Cancun April 14th

2011-04-18T14:18:00.006-07:00

Nathan and Jason went fishing. Jenna hung out at the pool and in the room. I went to the spa!
The front of the boat as the sun comes up.
Nathan getting ready to catch some fish!!
Jason and one of the guides with his bonito fish.
Nathan with his bonito.
Oh look, he's got something ... His pole bent almost to the water. The guide had to hold the pole for him or else the fish would jerk him into the water.
Nathan and his sailfish!

Nathan caught a sailfish and a barracuda and a bonito.
2 guys on the end are others that chartered the boat with Jason.
Nate with his barracuda.
The barracuda has extremely sharp teeth and that's what Nate liked the most.
Nate with the crew. Freddy, Iguana and Francisco.
This is what the sail fish will look like when we get it back. Right now it is in Florida being mounted.
We watched a couple being married on the beach.
Nathan at the steakhouse. Of course it is outside and every table has a view of the ocean.
Jenna at the steakhouse
View from our table
Another view from our table. Actually our room is about 2 or 3 floors right above this restaurant.
Another show that the hotel put on. Can you guess who it is? It is the mexican version of Michael Jackson. It was okay. He had an Spanish accent to go along with his singing which was comical.

Cancun April 13th

2011-04-18T13:16:00.010-07:00

So on the 13th we went to this island called Isla Mujeres. Its about a 10-20 minute boat ride to the island. The first couple of hours we hung out on the beach. You had the chance to swim with dolphins, snorkel or just hang out on the beach. They all cost more money to do and Jenna wasn't feeling real well. So we decided to just hang out on the beach and eat at the buffet.
Jason and I getting ready to go to the Isla Mujeres.
Jenna, Me and Nathan waiting for the boat to arrive to take us to the island.
It was really bright in that super white sand. Jenna, Nathan and I.

Our boat is the one with the yellow on it at the end.
Nathan and Jason on the boat.
Me and Jenna on the boat. The crew did a skit that was pretty entertaining. Nothing like a few 10 Mexicans dressed up and pretending they are the cast on the Titanic. I'm wondering if they hadn't been drinking before we got on. Just kidding. haha
The water looks like a light shines up from the bottom in areas. It is soooo pretty.
More pretty water.
The first time we saw a manatee. They are kind of cute, kind of ugly. This one was by the dock. They have a dolphin discovery place and he was part of it.
Dolphins put on a show.
Jenna and I in our beach chairs.
The underneath of our umbrella. You might think it is stupid to take a picture of this but I really wanted to remember what they looked and maybe be able to somewhat feel that way again by looking at this picture.
Coconuts on the palm trees are still green.
BEAUTIFUL!!!
Jenna taking another siesta.
Jason must really like the birds. He took enough pictures of them.
These are birds that are not afraid of anything. While flying they tuck their wings in and dive into the water like a bomb ... even if you are right there in the water, they dive right next to you. They are very weird critters.

This was the bar on the island. They had swings.
Jenna and Jason at the bar.
Jenna, Nathan and I on the hammocks.
Jenna taking another siesta!
My view on the hammock.
Isn't this just relaxing.
So we got on a boat to go to the other side of the island. Here is some more photos of the island.
Big boats docked on the side of the island.

So after docking on the boat we arrived on this little shopping area. This is Jenna and I relaxing on the steps of some little hut.
The streets of Isla Mujeres shopping district. Pretty huh? I had a little girl about 6 or 7 try to sell me (as I'm boarding the boat) a handkerchief for 44 dollars, american. I said no I couldn't do that but then she kept bugging me and placed it in my hands and when I tried to place it back in her hands she walked backwards and told me 2 dolla, just 2 dolla senora. Oh I felt so sorry for her and I was boarding the boat and Jason finally gave her 2 bucks and the whole time her little friend on the beach was just giggling and giggling. She was the cutest little girl but very persistent. She got another lady right behind me too. haha Oh well. I hope that she was able to have a candy bar or something special for that 2 bucks of embroidered handkerchief.

Cancun April 12th

2011-04-18T12:59:00.005-07:00

On the 12th Jenna and I did manicures and pedicures and laid by the pool. We then went up to the room and had some room service and took a nap. Ya, that's right, we took a nap! haha
This was our view while Nathan and Jason were scuba diving.
Nathan and his scuba instructor. Nathan and Jason are now shallow water certified to scuba dive.
The boat they took.
Nathan on the boat ... it must have been bright.
And look at what Nate found! A real live star fish! He is always finding stuff. Of course he couldn't take it with him but I'm sure he wanted to!

Jason took our underwater video camera down with him but apparently it's not made to go that far below the water and it will not work any longer. However we did get a DVD of Nate and Jason underwater. I will try to upload it but I'm not sure it will work. I will try later.
This was one of their guides. They were always around Nathan, making sure he was doing ok and that he was safe.

This is one of the ruins that they saw while down there.

Cancun April 11th

2011-04-18T11:46:00.012-07:00

This is the day we went to Xcaret. It's kind of a zoo/slight amuzement park with a beach.
In this "park" they have underground rivers. There are 3 rivers that you can go down. We chose the one that is 50% open and 50% underground, through caves, etc. You rent the scuba gear and life jackets and float the river. It takes a good hour or so to get through it but on the way down the river we found a Mayan warrior. There were fish that could be seen in this river. They were the bright blue Dory-like fish. Very pretty however I tend to panic when I snorkel, I don't like being able to not breath out my nose so it's not a lot of fun but I did enjoy floating the river.
Market area
This was a show. Those are performers at the top of that pole.
A better picture of the performers on the pole. They twist around and around at the top of that pole and then some of them drop down and swing around on ropes.
Nathan and an iguana. He was walking along and one of these great big guys ran across the trail and he jumped back. While jumping back a leaf touched the back of his leg and he let out a yelp and took off behind us making us lead the way.
Nathan climbed the top of the man made ruin inside the park.
This was the buffet. You sat up top under the umbrellas and then the bathroom/showers were below.
Nathan, me and Jenna relaxing beside a little trail.

Nathan, me and Jason relaxing again.
Jason and I relaxing.
An iguana sitting beside a trail. They ran wild all over the place in Mexico. We saw several of them at a different resort.
A "puma"
Cheetah
Jason and I inside the butterfly pavillion
Beautiful flowers
They had thousands of butterflies ... most of them were not resting like this one
Trees blooming
The top of the butterfly pavillion
So excited we found this one.
Jenna and Nate in the butterfly pavillion
Ole ... after awhile the kids got bored ... so did we but we had to wait for the bus and it didn't come back until after the show (9:00 PM)
So on the way to the show they had Mayan Warriors. These people were painted from the tops of their heads down to the toes (even between their toes)
Jenna and a Mayan princess

Some of them were painted as animals. Of course this one is a snake.
This was a "bridge" over the walkway into the theater. These are real live people up there.

This was an owl. This is him with his "wings" open.
And him with them closed.
Alligator
Skeleton
Buffalo
All around the theater were waterfalls. It kept the theater cooled off.
Jenna, Nate and Jason inside the theater
A game that the Mayans used to play. They had a "ball" that they would hit with their HIPS, no hands or feet and they had to get it into these little holes up the side of those walls.
Some kind of Mayan warrior. He scared me from clear up in the stands.
Mexican dancers

So on the bus we start back home and this guy reclines his chair back all the way. Jason has NO ROOM to do anything. So I snapped this picture and the guy got mad at me for the flash on my camera. He didn't speak English so I couldn't understand him.

Cancun April 10th

2011-04-18T11:17:00.008-07:00

On the 10th, we had a meeting to get our free trip to Xcaret.

Sunrise

Jenna & Nate shell searching early in the morning. The brownish stuff is dried seaweed. We found lots of seashells. Big and small. This site is down from our hotel quite a ways away.

Nathan looking for seashells.
Cruise ship in the sunrise
Jenna, Nate and Jason (Some other guy) in the pool. The pool looked like it met the ocean but it didn't.
Nate in the pool
Jenna lounging around
View from my lounge chair.
Paragliders above the beach.
Jason and I (taken by Jenna) ... sitting by the ocean.
Jason and I sitting on the beach. Ahhh ...
Jenna on the beach
Nathan, Jason and Jenna playing in the ocean.
Nathan, Jenna and Jason playing in the ocean.
Jason and Nathan getting beat up by the waves.
He looks so small out there ...
Jason must have liked the birds ...
Jenna and Nate making MORE sand castles.
The hotel invited vendors in and they set up their booths by the pool.
Jenna and Nate at dinner. We had MEXICAN BUFFET!! The food at this hotel was excellent and all-inclusive.
Show the hotel put on. This was the Mayan warrior/princess part of the show.
This was the mexican dance part.

Cancun April 9th

2011-04-18T08:38:00.005-07:00

We had to get up really early on the 9th...4:00 AM!! Our plane left Casper at 6:00 AM and it was cloudy. We arrived in SLC and it was snowing.
This is Jason and Nate in the SLC airport before we get on our flight to CANCUN! It is snowing outside in this picture. :(

Our flight to Cancun. Jason sat in the aisle seat across from the rest of us.
Nathan, Tanya and Jenna on the airplane to Cancun. We are ready for some sun and relaxation!
Jenna took a few photos out our window. It looks like little islands and a reef ... very pretty.
Cancun from the air!
Nathan, Jason, me and Jenna at our hotel. When we arrived at our hotel they gave us complimentary wine and the kids got fruity drinks with umbrellas (nonalcoholic of course). Jenna and I received flowers.
Our view off the balcony of our room.
Another picture of our view. This is the pool and then of course the ocean.
The very first time my kids have touched the ocean! They loved it even though it was dark. As soon as we got to our room the first thing they did was put on their suits and run to the beach! We spent a few hours making sand castles and playing in the waves even though it was dark.
Up the beach at night. It's hard to see but those are all hotels alongside the beach. Our beach was the cleanest by far. No trash at all. It was beautiful. We stayed at the Cancun Palace.

Video is of our room

Video from Nathan ...

Video of Nate and Jenna playing in the ocean

Pictures of our project

2011-03-26T15:11:00.006-07:00

Because I have a sister who refuses to get a facebook account... :) I'm posting some pictures of our addition project for her to see.
This is when the sliding glass door came out and they shaped the door way into the addition.
Looking from the french doors
Looking from the front door
Looking at the arch way ... see that treadmill with all the hangers on it... isn't that nice.
The room is getting mudded.
Looking from the french doors
The guy that that finished it for us. This is him between the hours of ... oh about 12:30 to 3:00.
Looking from the sliding glass door.
French doors.
All mudded and textured.

And the color ... orange! Actually Mulling spice from Baehr
Jenna and I working hard
Jenna's paint job.

Arizona Trip Day #1

2010-12-30T21:18:00.006-07:00

And we are off!! Headed for our trip to ... well we really don't have a plan but we do plan to get to Arizona.

Jenna hiding and Nathan eating and listening to his music.

Roads in Utah ... still snowy

Hills/mountains near Zion National Park

A lot of the mountain peaks/hills remind me of Dubois.

You might think I'm crazy but I found this road fascinating ... it's red!

Another cool mountain creation.

We stayed the night in Springdale, Utah just on the border of Zion National Park. It is a beautiful little town. They have a cafe there called Wildcat Willie ... we were almost done with dinner when we realized that it was Willie Coyote and the Road Runner's cafe! It was delicious too!

Jenna and Nate with Willie Coyote and the Road Runner is trying to peak in the picture too!

We've been elfed!!

2010-12-01T23:14:00.001-07:00

A Day of Swimming ... and a buck deer!

2010-11-13T19:35:00.009-07:00

Well folks, Jenna is now in Jr. High and a swimmer! Just a few photos of the day ...

First race of the day!

Jenna swimming the 200 Free

Jenna swimming the 50 FreeThe relay team. Jenna is the second from the back.Getting ready to go ...

And ... GO!

Posing ...

Cheering teammates on!

And a pretty little buck we saw on the way home. :)

End of the 1st Quarter ...

2010-11-08T13:20:00.003-07:00

The end of quarter one ... I can't believe that it's the end of 9 weeks for my 7th grader and my 4th grader! They did so well. We went to both of their parent/teacher conferences. Nathan got 3 A's, 3 B's and 1 C. Jenna got 1 A+, 4 A's, 1 B+ and 1 B (her B was in PE). We spent may be a total of 5 minutes with Nathan's teacher. Which is AWESOME because usually we are there for 15-20 minutes. Jenna's was a little longer because we had to go around to each of her teachers. Her math teacher told me that she was one of the brightest homeschooled kids that he has ever met! What a huge compliment for me! All in all I am so proud of these two. They have worked so hard and now it is paying off for them!

Jenna and I in front of the Tetons

Happy Memorial Day

2010-05-28T12:34:00.002-07:00

Every Memorial Day, my mom would go to the cemetery in Thermopolis and spend the morning there setting up flowers on the graves of her loved ones. We would then listen to the ceremony that the VFW would put on and the gun salute with the bone chilling sound of the bugle playing Taps. I miss those times with her ... so here is to all those fallen soldiers that have fought for my freedom (even if they didn't die in battle) and for the ones who are continuing right now. God Bless them all.

*Make sure you go to the bottom of the page and turn off the music player before watching this*

Day 5 Expedition Yellowstone

2010-05-21T16:25:00.003-07:00

Looking at geysers.

More geyser gazing.

A log that was thrown into one of the hot pools.

Jenna and Alex

An otter on Yellowstone Lake.

A rock by/on Yellowstone Lake.

Yellowstone Lake thawing out.

Ice formations on Yellowstone Lake

The otter again.

A spider in the hot pools

Alberto on the ride home.

Nesto on the ride home.

Sean on the ride home.

Tetons

Day 4 Expedition Yellowstone

2010-05-21T16:00:00.003-07:00

Is she happy or not?

Jenna R., Jenna P, and Reid listening to more instruction.

Another hike to the unknown.

Still hiking.

Another Mountain Sheep.

Dead buffalo.

This is a buffalo that has been attacked by wolves. He has a big gouge under his right leg that has been bleeding and his tail has been chewed off. He was laying in the river bottom and pretty much kicked out of the herd and left here to die.

This is our group. Bottom row: Mrs. Lloyd, Jenna Patrick, Mark McConnell, Nick Krassin, Sean Davis, Ms. Donaho

2nd Row Kamden Sandall, Jenna Redman, Riley Newman, Annika Poitras, Kami Deromedi, ?, Jason Redman.

3rd Row: Mr. Morris, Val Morris, Alex, Reid Leemon, Nesto Lowham, Bradley Malek, Mr. Deromedi.

4th Row: Bob "The Bear Guy" Waits, Zoe Owens, Alyssa Logue, Kobey Simpson, Alberto.

Black bear

Nick and Kobey part of the "Jungle"

Sean dressed as a 4 year old little girl.

Nesto got his hair done and it made his face permanently like this.

Nick and his Extreme Makeover.

Sean and his Extreme Makeover.

The group playing FARKLE!!

Day 3 Expedition Yellowstone

2010-05-21T15:47:00.003-07:00

Looking out the Camp Robbers groups door of their cabin.

View out Camp Robbers door.

A formation at Mammoth called "ET".

Almost lunch time!!

Jenna after lunch

Visitors again to our cabins.

Traffic jam Yellowstone style.

Mountain Sheep

At the top of Mammoth.

A new geyser spring that had just formed that week.

Side view of Mammoth

Just another bear.

Some of the kids being goofy on the bus. The one with the glasses found them somewhere on the road.

Day 2 Expedition Yellowstone

2010-05-21T15:30:00.004-07:00

The Rolling Stones ... Mr. Morris, Jenna R., Reid, and Jenna P. at Old Faithful.

Talking to a Park Ranger.

Listening to the Park Ranger (sort of) Annika, Jenna, Riley and Kami.

On the bus again. She don't look to excited.

Elk in the area where lunch was supposed to happen.

Grizzly bear.

Buffalo in hanging around where our cabins were.

Jenna working on a project.

Jenna and Reid on a hike.

Old Faithful.

Mammoth.

Coyote

Day 1 Expedition Yellowstone

2010-05-21T15:03:00.005-07:00

On May 13th Jason and Jenna went on a trip with Jenna's 6th grade class through Yellowstone. They had the best time. These are some of the things that they saw the first day. Train derailment in the canyon between Shoshone and Thermopolis.

Two members of Jason's group. Nesto and Sean. This as they are headed out on the bus. They were singing rap songs.

Alex, Jenna and Kami on the bus.

A house that EVERYONE liked that was in Cody.

The "crew" taken at the Fishing Bridge in Yellowstone.

Jenna and Alex at the Fishing Bridge.

Jason's group is called the Camp Robbers. In this photo are Nesto, Sean, Riley and Annika.

Jenna at the lower falls in Yellowstone.

This is a ball made out of rock at the visitors center. It weighed approximately 800 lbs. and the kids would get the ball to stop. In this photo are Nesto, Sean, Annika and Riley.

This is Jenna's group. They are called the Rolling Stones. In this photo are Mr. Morris, Jenna P., Jenna R and Reid. The 4th person of their group could not make it.

A big mud hole in Yellowstone.

A muskrat at the Fishing Bridge.

A Buffalo.

The lower falls.

The emergency exit on our bus. haha.

Happy Mother's Day to my mom ...

2010-05-09T00:22:00.003-07:00

IF ROSES GROW IN HEAVEN, LORD PLEASE PICK A BUNCH FOR ME, PLACE THEM IN MY MOTHER'S ARMS AND TELL HER THEY'RE FROM ME. TELL HER I LOVE HER AND MISS HER, AND WHEN SHE TURNS TO SMILE, PLACE A KISS UPON HER CHEEK AND HOLD HER FOR AWHILE. BECAUSE REMEMBERING HER IS EASY, I DO IT EVERY DAY BUT THERE'S AN ACHE WITHIN MY HEART THAT WILL NEVER GO AWAY. I MISS AND LOVE YOU, MOM. HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO YOU IN HEAVEN....

OYI

2009-08-15T18:53:00.005-07:00

My kids, in case any of you don't know how they act ... here's a nice sequence of photos to really show off their talents.

Oh wait, I have to give a little history at this sequence. Jenna and Nathan are real big into scaring people and/or spying on them (especially Nathan). He wants to be a spy. So I'm sitting in my bed looking at some paperwork, and trying to get some peace and quiet for 5 minutes when all of a sudden I hear some giggling outside my window and then I heard this rustling noise and a sort of thud and a sound of someone in the lilac bush and some muffled busting out laughing. I choose to sit back and watch what they plan on doing next. I notice that our big FAT cat Hercules is sneaking up on the window from the inside, he's trying to figure out what's going on. About the time he sticks his big head up to the window, Jenna and Nathan jump up and yell scaring the cat half to death. He went scrambling out of the room and into the kitchen ... it was too funny. So come to find out, Jenna tripped over the lilac bush and kind of ended up in it I guess and grabbed Nathan's mouth to stifle his burst of laughter. It's never boring here.

So here they are outside my window, acting all tough and stuff. Trying to get along for 1 minute to get a nice decent picture.

Not for long ... Nathan sneaks in a big sloppy kiss on Jenna.

Still wrestling her for a kiss ....

She broke free ....

I'm not sure what happened here, I think she tripped him and is making her move to get back at him.

And she's got him in some kind of wrestling move and he has her head ... I'm not sure what kind of maneuver this. This is a typical day in our house. Now you know. :)

CFD Day 6

2009-08-02T08:11:00.003-07:00

Day 6 and the last day of our vacation.Nathan flying off the wall of the camper.What happens to mom when Nathan flies all over the camper ... and so happy to be headed home.And these next two were actually taken on Monday the day after we got home. This is Bella enjoying her new home. Hercules actually really likes her and is careful with her. He kind of didn't know about her at first but now he's come around. Pumpkin ... she don't care. Just as long as Bella doesn't chase her, she don't care. The other two big dogs we have don't really care about her either. They sniff her and then off they go. So either they are ignoring her or she's not a real threat to them right now haha. Bella and me after I got home from work on Monday. Thanks Jenna! :) haha

Daily Quote:

Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.

Unknown Author

CFD Day 5

2009-08-01T08:04:00.003-07:00

Day 5 of our vacation ...The newest member to grace our family. This is Bella. She is a Japanese Chin and Shin Tzu called a Chin Tzu. She's 8 weeks old and a fun girl to have around. She loves to run and play and sleep and eat and pretty good about going outside to potty.

Daily Quote:

Happiness is a warm puppy.

~Charles M. Schulz

CFD Day 4

2009-07-31T08:00:00.003-07:00

Day 4 of our vacation ...

Our family old time photo ... Jenna and Nathan ... Nathan wanted to point his gun at his sister and we almost had to take it away. This thing was born while we were there. Mom is a miniature horse, dad is a miniature donkey so he is called a ponky. He's really small ... smaller than our yellow lab Molly. Still we liked Rosebud better. The day after he was born every single night we had to listen to the dad heehaw all night long ... he missed his soul mate I guess. The warden left the jail doors open and he has escaped ... if you have seen him please do not apprehend yourselves ... call authorities!
Nathan, me and Jenna waiting impatiently for Jake Owens to hurry up. BRING ON THE KENNY! This was right before Nathan handcuffed the old ladies behind us to the rail. Oh. yes. he. did. *sigh*

Jake Owens. He's okay.

And there is Kenny ... and so are the rest of these photo's in this post. Sorry.

Kenny on the big screen.

Kenny and some reggae guy ...

Kenny and Jake Owens.Kenny and Uncle Cracker.

Daily Quote:

“I love living my life in flip-flops,” he says with a laugh. “I met a guy in the islands a while ago [who] told me he hadn’t worn a pair of shoes in three years! I thought, ‘Man, that’s the life!’ ”

Kenny Chesney

CFD Day 3

2009-07-30T08:00:00.002-07:00

On Day 3 of our vacation we went to the rodeo and Kellie Pickler/Taylor Swift concert. Jenna, Nathan and Jason at the rodeo. We were right behind the chutes. I honestly think those were the best seats in the house, not only did we get to see the bull riders/bronc and saddle bronc riders ride up close and personal but they have misters through those seats. It was great.This shot was an accident on our part. The photo was taken by Nathan just at the right time. Too funny heh?At this particular day of the Daddy Of 'Em All was the Tough Enough to Wear Pink for cancer, specifically breast cancer. They raised 5000 dollars just from that rodeo and after that money was raised several of the bull riders, bronc riders, saddle bronc riders, steer wrestlers, Bill Cole who is the coordinator for the rodeo and the rodeo clown all cut their hair. It was pretty cool that they did this kind of thing. Also for every cowboy/cowgirl that participated in the rodeo and who wore a pink shirt that day, I believe the PRCA put in 5 dollars. Almost every cowboy/cowgirl had a pink shirt, that was pretty awesome too! The National Anthem was sung by a little girl from Cheyenne with a very rare female disease found in girls younger than 10. It was very humbling and emotional. Guess who this is? Brenda Seely (Ruby). This is her first time with PRCA and her first time in the Cheyenne Frontier Days. She didn't do so great (better than I could obviously) but she is a very lucky girl getting to do this kind of thing. It takes a pretty good rider to be in the PRCA and that she is! Jenna wanted me to take a picture of the rodeo clown. She laughed and laughed at him. This is him after his hair cut. He had long shaggy hair and now it looks like Elvis. hahaJenna and Nathan right before the Kellie Pickler concert came on. Jason hadn't shown up yet. We arrived at 5:00 concert started at 8:00 and there were no parking whatsoever except for at the Park and Ride which was about 20 minutes away on a not so busy day. Today it was a few more minutes than 20 ... more like an hour. It was packed. The record for that many people (tickets sold) to a female artist at the Cheyenne Frontier Days was broken that day. It was amazing how many people where there. The noise was unreal. I've never seen anything like that before. Kellie Pickler ... umm ... we'd rather see Rodney Atkins I think if we had a choice. Oh well, that's not who we were there for. Jenna getting excited for the concert! And Taylor Swift from here on out. The concert was amazing. She had 8 semi's full of stuff. Rodney had 1 and I think Kenny had 2. The back drop was a screen and constant changing images. She changed outfits almost every song. She talked mostly to the preteens and teens (girls of course) and how it's okay to be different and how not to let someone else tell you who you are or not. Be yourself. That is the best concert I've seen YET. Each song tells a story and she plays the story in each one she sings when she is in concert. Jenna AND Nathan loved it! The last song she sang water came down out of the top of the stage and drenched her. This picture and the next two pictures are ones that our neighbors at our campground gave Jenna. They were an older couple and friends of whoever is in charge of coordinating the entertainment at Cheyenne Frontier Days and had touching distance floor (party zone) seats to her concert. He took these pictures and gave them to Jenna because he knew how much she liked Taylor Swift. Wasn't that nice? He was from Saluda, North Carolina.

Daily Quote:

My partner and I won the race, and I threw my hat into the air and bent to pick it up. Everyone started laughin' because I had split the back end of my pants out, and I wasn't wearing shorts.

by Chris LeDoux

CFD Day 2

2009-07-29T08:00:00.004-07:00

Day two of our vacation. While vacationing in Cheyenne, Wyoming we stayed at an RV park called Terry Bison Ranch. They are an actual working ranch/rodeo/RV park. It's always an adventure to stay there. Here are some things that happened on our second day.

This is Nathan and Jenna with the newest addition to the Terry Bison Ranch. Her name is Rosebud. Her momma didn't want her and so they bottle feed her and she just hasn't done that well with that. She has needed a blood transfusion among antibiotics and various other things. She was like a pet puppy. She'd follow you and demand to be paid attention to. If we could have we would have brought her home. The kids were often found around where ever Rosebud was.
Nathan in the cardboard cutout of a man riding a buffalo.Jenna in the cutout of the man riding the buffalo.From the moment we arrived at our camp spot (which by the way was right next to where the train came through mind you) Jenna kept pestering us to ride the train that talked about the ranch history and rode through the buffalo herd. So here are Nathan and Jenna on the train. They do have a few one hump camels which is weird to me ... especially in Wyoming.Nathan, Jason and Jenna on the train out to see the buffalo herd.
This is one of the big bulls of the herd. At this ranch they have also experimented with crossing a buffalo with a long horn cow. I'm not sure what they called him but he was very interesting. His coloring was very cool. He was dark like a buffalo but then had horns like a long horn cow and then a white strip down his back like a long horn Texas cow would have. Out of all of the cows/buffalo he was the one they said you could touch ... but he never came over to the train so we never got a real good look at him. So we had to settle for the others including this big bull. His head is said to weigh around 450 pounds and around 3000 pounds altogether. He was ginormous. When we first got on the train they SOLD you treats to throw out to the critters and I'm sure that this big fella gets his share of treats. :)Jenna and Nathan on the safe side of the train. The buffalo they are pictured with is a smaller one but still kind of scary to me. It was interesting some of the things that they had said about these guys.This sign says "Welcome To Colorado". We traveled by train to Colorado (haha) and were there a whole 4 minutes. The ranch goes into Colorado also. Also at this place they train trick horses. This one is a picture of the son of the owner and one of the trick horses. The horse played dead and was snoring and so the guy got on the ground with him (it was kind of funny actually.) The owners name is Ron and he has trained several horses to do some funny things that are out of the ordinary, like how to steal stuff and count, etc. The owner came around to our camp and invited us to come over to his little barn and he put on a show for about 5 or 6 of us families. Nathan got to get a horse to do a bow but he did it so fast I couldn't snap the picture quick enough. UGH. But he did great! Now he thinks that our horses should be able to do that kind of stuff. :)

They have a "catwalk" over the top of their feed lots. In one of the areas was some cows. Instead of eating where the rest of the cows eat, 2 of them somehow squeezed their ways into the feeder and decided to get comfortable. Not sure how they got in or got out but apparently it wasn't their first rodeo at this. haha

And some silly goats. The goats love the treats that the buffalo get so you have to save some for them. They follow you all along the cat walk and often look at you through somewhat sad eyes like this. Poor little guys, looks like their starving huh? They also had some pigs and stuff but I didn't think they were worth wasting my precious time taking a picture of and they smelled. (Not a real big fan of pigs - can you tell?)

This baby llama and her mama were over by where Rosebud was also. This one was tiny but not real friendly. We didn't spend much time with her.

These are the coolest little things ... This is ROCKSTAR! Their hair kind of falls over their face and is shaggy. And Baby Rockstar ... look how tiny her legs are. Too cute.
Jenna blowing one of those weed things into the wind.
Nathan blowing one of those weed things into the wind.

Jenna, Jason and Nathan at Rodney Atkin concert. He wasn't that great. Don't think we need to see him again ... we like some of his music though.

Rodney Atkin live and in concert.

This picture is a picture of him on the big screens. Just a closer view of him. Plus every time I would take a picture somebodies head would somehow end up in it.

Daily Quote:

Inscription on Mr. John Wayne's headstone:

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learnt something from yesterday."

CFD Day 1

2009-07-28T16:56:00.005-07:00

Even though we are home now I thought you'd want to see how our trip panned out. We left for Cheyenne on Tueday July 21st and came home on Sunday July the 26th ...

So here is a few pictures of day one ...

Nathan sitting in the truck to go. We were waiting on Jason to decide he had all he needed. It took him awhile. And of course Jenna taking a nap.

Okay, that's it for day 1. Sorry ... we were traveling and sitting up the camp most of the day that day. Check back tomorrow for more CFD photos.

Daily Quote/song:

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys

Don't let 'em pick guitars and drive them old trucks

Make 'em be doctors and lawyers and such

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys

They'll never stay home and they're always alone

Even with someone they love.

From Willie Nelson

My mom used to sing this song to me when I was a kid, it reminds me of her when I hear it. :(

2009-05-20T18:53:00.002-07:00

'BE KINDER THAN NECESSARY.

EVERYONE IS FIGHTING SOME KIND OF BATTLE ..'

Author unknown ...

However this has crossed my mind a bunch of times but no more than this week. It's just been one of those weeks (and its only Wed.)

All in one week

2009-04-19T14:39:00.004-07:00

Now, all these things have happened in a little over a week. Also I have a request of ONE picture and I'm sure you'll figure out what that picture is when you get to it. This is Charlie's new dog Bruiser. He's a 5 year old Beagle that he adopted from a humane society. He's cute huh?

This is Debbie making the mints for Theresa's wedding.

So sorry Tecia ... Tecia and baby M 35 weeks PG

Theresa and Tecia making mints. I was not very good at it so I didn't help. Jenna did though and actually she was pretty good at it.

Jenna coloring Easter eggs ... even though it looks like she is actually coloring it with a crayon, we actually did have food coloring that we used that dyed the eggs. :)

Same thing with Nathan. They write secret messages in white crayon and then dye the egg to reveal the message.

Jenna and Nathan dying Easter eggs.

Easter morning sunrise out our living room window. It was cloudy in the morning but at this particular time, the sun peaked through the clouds. It was beautiful.

Jenna and aunt Barbara eating Easter dinner.

Jenna and Monte and Debbie's dog Lily hunting Easter eggs at the Richardsons' house. The eggs were hard to find.

See? Nathan had to climb a tree to find his eggs. Here he is with his Dad giving him a boost to find one of the eggs.

This is Nathan's dog's paw stuck in his kennel door. The bottom pad is stuck in one of the small squares. It was quite a dramatic day. My car battery was dead, Payton was at my house and was not feeling well, Jason was in Riverton working, the dog's paw was stuck, I had no way to get the kids from school and I had patients meeting me at the office after school. Thankfully Drew went to work with Jason that morning and had a bolt cutter in his truck ... lifesaver or should I saw pawsaver!! :) I'm glad that day is over at any rate. :)

The diaper cake that Debbie, Barbara, Jenna and I made for Tecia's baby shower on the 18th.

The baby shower that was put on for Tecia and Ben.

A close up of the decorations.

The cake that Barbara made for the shower.

One of Tecia's friends, Tecia and Debbie at the shower. I'm disappointed that this picture is so dark.

Tecia and Ben at the baby shower.

Spring Break?!

2009-04-10T12:36:00.009-07:00

Spring break had a couple days of yucky weather but we still tried to make the best of it. We went swimming in Thermopolis at the Teepee and here is the proof ...Nathan

JennaAnd of course, Miss Payton and JasonI love this picture of Jenna and Payton, her eyes crack me up!Nathan and PaytonNathan in the baby's inner tube ... his behind almost got stuck!Payton playing in the toddler pool ... she loved it!JennaPayton, me and NathanJason, Payton and in the background Jenna & Nathan fighting. Everytime I tried to get a picture of Jenna and Nathan together one was trying to drown the other ... it was endless so I stopped trying.Nathan, me & Payton walking along the terracesJenna, Jason, Payton and Nathan on the big huge bridge

Jenna at the boiling water pool

Nathan taking a rest

Payton swinging in the park

Jenna swinging too!

The buffalo that Nathan and Jenna crawled on at the park.

Nathan on top of the buffalo.You really don't need to know why we stopped at the Wind River Group Area but we did and while I was busy, Jason took pictures of the kids playing there, Payton was sound asleep so that's why she isn't in the pictures below.Nathan's one and only speed ... running.Nathan JennaJennaand Jenna again ...

So you can see that spring break wasn't a total loss. We still had fun at least one of those days we did! :)

Snowy Saturday

2009-04-04T16:12:00.005-07:00

Did you know that my kids have never had the luxury of building a snowman. Sure I think they've made some at school or by themselves but I don't think that Jason and I have ever done anything like that with them. Isn't that sad? Well today is no different because the snow would not stick together to make a good snowman so what would have been a nice easy going day in the snow building a family of snowmen ... it ended up being a snowball fight. I won. Nathan and Ivy ... Nathan fell down and Ivy ran over and licked the side of his face, making it more difficult for Nathan to get up because Ivy would not quit licking him.

Nathan thrown a snowball at Jenna.

Jenna getting hit with a snowball.

Jason doing the doggy dig on Nathan filling him with snow and making him really mad. :)

Jenna trying to give Jason a snow bath and Jason trying to dance with Jenna.

Me trying to make a snowman, Jenna and Ivy wrestling.

Nathan and Ivy.

Jenna tried making a snow angel, Ivy came running so Jenna turned over on her belly and Ivy wouldn't let her up. She got on her back and started kind of jumping on her. It was funny!
Ivy getting Nathan again.
Here is the tongue that is keeping the kids down.
Molly wanting to play fetch with a dummy duck.
Jenna getting pegged again with a snowball from Jason.

What we had after a snowball fight. My mom's chicken noodle soup recipe! It was so good. The only thing that was different was that we had some noodles, they weren't homemade but they were just as good. I can't remember what they are called but they were delicious. Carrots and celery added to boiled chicken and a can of chicken broth ... YUMMY!

Not much else to do ...

2009-04-02T09:36:00.003-07:00

Well, for the past 2 weeks at one time during the whole time one of my kids has been sick if not both of them. Jenna started with it last week, got well, Nathan got sick, got well, Jenna came down with fever, cough, body aches, low energy ... 2 days later, Nathan got the same thing. In talking with a nurse at the doctors office ... sounds like influenza but the time frame has passed for the medication to become effective. So ... Jenna has been homebound since Monday, Nathan since Tuesday. It's driving me a little cranky and I need to get out of the house even if it is just taking the garbage sack to the "dump truck". In my cabin feverish time home alone with these kids, I found a really funny guy on youtube so I decided to add some spice to this entry and put it on here. I hope you enjoy it too ...

*Before you start this video, go down to the bottom of the blog and stop the music so you can hear what this guy's favorite Bible verse is ... *

It's About Time ...

2009-03-25T12:08:00.008-07:00

It's about time for an update wouldn't you say? Well ... get prepared because it is a long one ...Ms. Payton kissing on her babydoll.Nathan, Tim, Jonathan and Nathaniel hanging out for awhile.Nathan, Jonathan and Tim getting ready to go on a 4-wheel ride. Debbie, Theresa, Barbara and Jenna finding Theresa's wedding flowersJenna found an accessory to go with her dress for Theresa's wedding.The flowers.Theresa and Jenna showing off in the Hobby Lobby store ... I'm totally embarrassed!

Payton walking! Nathan acting goofy!

Jenna, Jason and Payton

Payton's 1st horse ride on Sonny.Payton, me and Jenna at the swinging bridge on my birthday

Jenna, Nathan and Payton at the swinging bridge on my birthday

NathanJennaWhat we did for Payton's birthday ... ice cream at DQ in RivertonJason and Payton having Nathan's dipped ice cream cone from DQ for Ms. Payton's birthday Nathan messing around in the hot tub

Jenna in the hot tub

Jenna of course

Nathank me, Payton and Jenna for Ms. Payton's birthday

Me and Payton hot tubing

Me and Payton

Nathan the "fireman"

We burned the field in front of our house last weekend.

Nathan being a fireman

Jason being the pyromaniac

So that is what has been happening in pictures anyway.

2009-02-13T16:49:00.001-07:00

Nathan and his new Go-Cart.

Hercules and his usual laying position

Debbie and Monte stuck ... hahahahahahahaha

More Debbie and Monte stuck

And even more of Debbie and Monte and Tecia and Ben stuck. They tried to baha it through a snow drift ... just didn't work too well. :)

Car

2009-02-11T18:16:00.002-07:00

I have to park my car on a hill at work because there is not sufficient parking at my work. So today at work, like every other day at work, I park my car, put the emergency brake on and go to work. At about 11:00 AM I get the message that someone hit my car. I go out and there is a trailer right up next to the front of it. They have me back up and look at what I see, except the fender/bumper part is up against my BRAND NEW tire on the drivers side. Well I guess a guy was driving his truck and trailer down the hill and he looks over and his trailer had passed him and slammed into my car, moving my car back a ways (skid marks are on the road). The trailer had wood and metal (trash) in it and apparently it was heavy and apparently it came off the back of the truck. These pictures don't do it any justice but if you had seen the stuff that the cop and whoever else was digging out of the front of my car you wouldn't think this was an easy thing. My grill is gone, the inside is broken all to bits, the bumper has cracks in it and the fenders on both sides have been broken on the inside. All those lights are broken. Now I get to drive the green dump truck. Lucky me. :)

Brain Scans and Jenna's Report

2009-02-07T18:20:00.007-07:00

Well, I finally got around to taking pictures of my mom's brain scan so I can post it on here ... I'm sure she won't mind. :)

This one is a picture drawn by Dr. Perry Cook at the Lander Regional Medical Center (in case any of you don't know who she is) explaining what an aneurysm is. It is a hernia in the wall of a blood vessel. They can happen anywhere. My Grandpa Shaffer had a AAA which is an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Anyway, to the next picture ...

This is a picture that Dr. Perry Cook drew of what a normal brain should look like without blood etc. The dark outside circle is the skull. The next circle would be the dura (hard) mater (membrane). Blood that gets inbetween the skull and the dura mater is called epi (above) dural blood usually caused from an outside injury. The next circle would be the arachnoid membrane. Blood that is between the dura mater and the arachnoid membrane is called the sub dural blood. Blood that collects on the other side of the arachnoid membrane is called the subarachoid blood. The blood vessels and arteries that have aneurysms are in the subarachnoid space. The center would be the brain.

This is an angiogram of someone else who has an aneurysm that hasn't burst yet. Can you tell where it is? HINT it is about the size of birdseed and it is in the center upper portion of the brain. Here is a closer picture of what it looks like. Very tiny.

The top photo is a photo of mom's scan and the bottom is a normal brain scan. Mom's has a lot of dark color and you can't see the lines in the brain too well meaning a lot of blood in the brain. The blood is dark in the scans.

Again the top photo is mom's and the bottom is someone elses. She had said that mom must have been moving a little because her head is tilted a little.

This is Jenna's grade. She did very well in my opinion! :)

2009-02-06T16:22:00.002-07:00

Your Name - Tanya
Four letter word - toad
Boy name - Tanner
Girl name - Taylor
Occupation - transcriptionist
Color - tan
Beverage - tea
Something found in a bathroom - towel
A Place - Tetons
Reason for being late - tired
Food - Tacos
Something you shout - That's It!

Miss Payton

2009-01-17T19:21:00.005-07:00

We don't get to see Miss Payton very much but I wanted to show you all what she got from Jason and I for Christmas ...

She got a rocking horse that makes lots of noise. She can get it rocking so we have to hold on to her. She slides off it and she don't like it when that happens.
And here she is when I actually got her to stop rocking and look at me ... she really likes that thing. When you put it away, she crawls over to it and pulls herself up and tries to climb on. You have to put the whole horse away. She has fun with it anyways.

Also, sorry this post is just about Payton and not MY family. I have a lot of stuff I have to show you all but only a short time to do it so I will post more tomorrow ...

A few things ...

2009-01-03T16:28:00.005-07:00

First of all ... Jenna and Nathan had a swim meet today. They both did well considering the fact that they didn't swim pretty much at all the month of December. Jenna got first place in 2 of her events and second in the other two. I'm not sure what place Nathan got in the two that he raced. He's very good at swimming, he just lacks the confidence. One time last year he was the first one in his event to get to the other side and he got out. However he needed to do a flip turn and come back to the starting blocks. It is my opinion that he is worried about if he is doing it right. When he got to the other side he was first, turned and started back but stopped because everyone was behind him and he thought he was supposed to get out. So that added a ton of time and then when he tried to catch up he was too busy looking at everyone to see where they were instead of just sticking his head in and swim, he had his head completely out of the water. He did well though. I think he took 5th or something like that in the 50 Free and I'm not sure what he did in the backstroke.

Jason doing his officiating.

Jenna waiting for her turn.

Nathan with the few times he wasn't looking around, it still looks like he is looking underwater to see where everyone else is.

So then we got home and somehow the back door to our house was opened. Both of our labs (one is still a puppy mind you and chews on everything) came bounding out of the house just so happy that they got to spend the whole day in the house. I was afraid, very very afraid. At the backdoor lay a wad ... and I mean a wad ... of my yarn with a big string leading into the kitchen. A dog leash was tangled in it (somehow). The leash was in the dog's toy basket and my yarn was in my yarn basket before we left the house. Following the string of yarn into the kitchen, into the computer room and finally resting in our living room and tangled with a bunch of bird feathers, rabbit fur, shoes, slippers, dog toys, etc. We had a pheasant wing that my husband uses for the dogs to play fetch and etc so that is what the bird feathers were (scattered all over). The rabbit furs came from Nathan's room. Shoes/slippers came from my closet. I was so ticked! They ate all of the cat food (so now they will be sick all night long). AGH! I just had this vision of the show Beethoven when that big St.Bernard gets into their house and gets mud on their bed. (Which I'm pretty sure they got on my bed because the bed is all rumpled (but they weren't muddy) They apparently wiped their feet upon entering the house (it has been snowing all day here, lucky dogs) because nothing is dirty like that. But here is a picture of the mess they made in the living room. It was nice and clean before I left. Dang dogs!

It's funny how they brought all of the stuff to the living room rug and their bed.

And after we cleaned all that up, the family (minus me and add Payton) sat in the hot tub!

Jenna relaxing after a hard day of swimming

Nathan after a hard day of swimming and having fun with his friends.

Payton after a hard day of being cute and cuddly.

Nathan, Payton, Jenna and Jason in the hot tub and it is snowing. No Payton wasn't cold in this picture, it was after when we had to run back to the house. But she warmed up quickly and had fun. No the hot tub was not that hot either. She liked it.

And on a different note ... our little dog Ebony has died. We found her last night in the garage. Yesterday morning, Jason let her out, we didn't see her all day, although that isn't that unusual because she sneaks in and out of the house and often times she so small that you don't see her. She'll lay on one of the chairs and just lay there all day without you ever even knowing she was around. So I just figured she was in the house in her spot although I never looked. When it started getting dark we realized that neither one of us had seen her all day. We went out in the garage and there she was laying on the pellets where the cats and her sometimes lay together. It didn't look like she had been mauled or hurt by anything. It looks like she just layed down and died. There was no look of pain on her face at all. She was about 6 or 7 years old. But she will be missed. It was a sad night and weird day for sure without her around.

Ebony with the crown that Nathan had made her. She definitely was a princess.

Good-bye 2008

2008-12-31T17:27:00.010-07:00

Well, 2008 is almost over ... only a few more hours and it'll be long gone and part of our history. Do you wonder if any of it will make it into your kids' kids' kids' history books? Was there anything memorable? Well, here on sagebrush hill (that's what one of my friends calls my house because that's all you see ... and she's from Florida so it's acceptable) there has been lots of memorable stuff, it might not make it into the history books but it's our history so it matters to us.

I'll sum it up in some photo's for you all ...

~ Jason took Jenna, Nathan, Molly and I half way across this continent to buy his spray foam machine and thus ending his 14 year career with Fremont Motor Company.

The kids and Molly standing on the edge of Wisconsin (at a rest stop for Molly)

Jasons' truck and trailer with the business logo ...

This is a photo of a building with foam insulation in it that Phat Foam (Jason's business) did.

~ Ms. Payton was born in March. As you might have figured out, she's a precious part of our lives and holds a special part of each one of our hearts. She's not one of our kids, she belongs to one of our friends but we still love her just the same. So here is a baby picture of her ...

and a picture 9 months later ... Don't you just want to kiss that face?

~ Jenna and Nathan played baseball/softball. Jenna was #23 and Nathan was #7

Nathan

Jenna

~ Jason played basketball ... believe me, it was memorable. He played against a group that (I can't remember the name of them) but they were like a knock off of the Globetrotters. They were good and funny and yes they did do some humilating things to the players ... I'll never forget the dance that my poor husband had to do in front of our small little town!

Jenna & Nathan with one of those players.

~ Nathan's little dog Lizzy came up missing in February. In late August we found him another little dog (not so little anymore) but her name is Ivy. She's a black lab and it is very true that dogs act (they say look, but in this case it is act) like their owners ... if you know Nathan, you know what I'm talking about.

~ Nathan, Jenna, Debbie, Tecia and I all passed Hunter's Safety!!

Where's Nathan in this photo? He's not there ... us girls were not cool enough for him and he hung out with some cooler people (they were just boys)

Here he is target shooting with a handgun.

~ Jenna adopted a cat from the Casper Humane Society. His name is Hercules.

~ 2 weeks later we adopted another cat named Si from the same place.

A few things that I don't have any photos of are:

~ New baby is on the way! Tecia and Ben are expecting in May and you can bet you will find pictures here!

~ 2 new engagements! Theresa announced her engagement to Jason and that is set for June and Charlie announced his engagement to Jennifer and that is set to happen in August.

~ I have some sad things that happened this year but I don't think I want to remember them too much so I am not posting them here.

I'm truly thankful for everything that happened this year, good and bad, sad and happy, weak and strong. It has made me a stronger person and our family a stronger family unit. So my last picture is a family picture of my family - there are several of them. We were at Sweetwater the day after the 4th of July. And as you can tell, Molly was in every single picture but not where she was supposed to be. So hope you find it as comical as we did.

Finally ... a photo without that dang dog!

So my next post will be from 2009 and so we'll see you then! Goodbye 2008 ...

Molly fetching a dummy out of the water.

Hello 2009 ...

The Longest Post EVER ...

2008-12-28T12:14:00.010-07:00

**Before you watch the videos scan down to the bottom of the page and pause the music and then come back up and watch the videos. That way you can get the FULL effect. **

The above video is proof of cheating going on between Charlie and Nathan on Christmas Eve.

The next video is the kids and Jason playing the Wii. They have not let that thing rest at all since Christmas Day.

Charlie and Monte making Christmas Eve dinner of PIZZA!
Shanay and Jenna waiting patiently to open presents and waiting for THE PL (pickle licker) to show up! (That would be Jason W.)So we played a game of 31. I didn't win. I can't remember who won. I think it might have been Jenna. and this is what Nathan did ... And this is our family of "grandkids". Every year we do this and this photo keeps getting bigger and bigger. Left to right would be Benjamin (sitting)-he belongs to Tecia, Jason - he belongs to Theresa, Charlie and Nathan, Shanay and Jenna, Tecia & Theresa.Ben and Tecia with the baby gift. Jenna and the hat that her Aunt Barbara knit. She's wore it almost every day to the skating rink now.

Barbara and Joy having a holly jolly time.

Jason getting a tattoo from Nathan.And this is what Santa left for Nathan. A full sized drum set.
And Jenna got her own camera.

**I do have actual footage of Nathan playing his drum set but when he is home he only wears half of his clothing and it is just not appropriate material for the internets ***

2008-12-23T12:35:00.002-07:00

Continuing on with my 1000 gifts from above ...

~ This morning I woke up to singing. Not like when I was younger and I woke up to my mom singing to the AM radio station. No, this was not really in tune. Not really quiet either. But Nathan was belting out roasting chestnuts on an open fire and then added some drumming and a cymbal noise (with his voice, not actual drums or cymbals). He is really talented in his own way. He makes up his own music and then adds words that someone else has already wrote. He later told me that it was hard to make up your own songs, you just gotta listen to the music and let it get inside your head and then you make up the words, they just kinda come to you. That's pretty genius if you ask me for a 2nd grader wouldn't you say? So, even though the music wasn't what I was used to I'm sure it was glorious music to Jesus' ears and it was a gift to wake up to early in the morning.

~ Sunday night, Nathan and Jenna spent the night at their grandparents house (Jason's family). Nathan took his phone with him. At 11:00 PM our phone rings. Jason flies out of bed because we are sure that it is an emergency (isn't it always when it is at that time of night?). It's Nathan making sure that he told us goodnight. He remembered us, even though it was probably pretty chaotic there with 9 people staying the night in that house. Yes, it was an emergency, but it was a different kind of emergency, one that was a total gift of love.

~ Cats. Have I ever said how much our cats make us laugh? We have a HUGE cat and a normal sized cat and then a kitten (6 months old). Hercules chases our middle sized cat (Pumpkin) around the house because he likes to torment her. When he gets done tormenting her our kitten (Si) will crouch real low to the ground and then sneak up on him and pounce on him and grab him by the neck and try to wrestle him to the ground. A lot of the times, Hercules will just get up and start walking off, and Si will just be hanging on and biting at his neck and eventually fall off. Imagine a 2nd grader attacking a professional football player and the football player could just walk off with the 2nd grader hanging on for dear life continuing the fight. That's kind of how this scene is played out and it happens often. This is something that can make even the saddest person crack up. We find laughter in our house a huge gift from God.

~ This year Jenna made a gift at school. We always get the gifts of pottery or whatever else and this year (on her own doing) she has decided to give it to someone else who is more deserving of it apparently. It is a gift of God that she has continued to have a heart of giving.

I have many more and I really should write them down as the day goes on but I always forget. Old age ... is that a gift? I can't remember.

Si ...

2008-12-20T20:31:00.003-07:00

As in Siamese ...

This is our other cat, Si. She's about 6 months old and very hyper. She hoards this ball all the time ...

And Hercules. He's quite a bit bigger (OBVIOUSLY) but he has lost weight. Now he is only 10 pounds!And Payton ... no explanation needed.

Clarinet Player ...

2008-12-19T13:33:00.002-07:00

1st band concert and it went well. She did awesome!

Exciting happenings at the Redman's...

2008-12-17T15:27:00.003-07:00

Jenna finished her science fair project last week (or so). This is her right before her presentation in front of the judges.

Nathan has his lips sticking out ... this was last night at the singing concert.

This is half of the kids that were there. You can't really see Nathan.

I don't know what he was doing here but it is a good picture.

Payton and her uncle Jason. She's moving around so much (crawling) and now has TWO teeth!

And this is a rooster pheasant in my car. Today while I was driving I saw 3 rooster pheasants in the middle of the road all standing around something. As I got closer they scattered and I was able to see this guy. A car had hit him and kept going. He was still alive and was trying to walk. His whole left wing was ripped off and bone was showing. You can kind of see how the wing is gone. He had kind of flipped over and was frozen (by the blood he was losing) to the ground. He let me pick him up and put him in the car and he had no problems at all with being in my car. Anyway he got a ride up to the Game and Fish Office and from there I don't know what happened to him. He was gorgeous. I hate it when people hit something like this and then speed off. They could look in the rear view mirror and see it flopping around. Plus it was HUGE. As you can see it took up a good share of the front seat floor. Jerks.

So that has been our last couple of weeks. We've only got 2 more days of school and then we get 2 weeks off ... that could be good or bad, depending.

More Hercules

2008-12-04T20:20:00.003-07:00

I think he finally likes us. He has always liked Jenna but he finally has decided that we are okay.

And a picture of Payton. You can kind of see her first tooth in this picture. In this picture she has crawled/scooted (she does this thing where she is on her hands and knees and goes forward just to kind of crumple to her tummy and then back up on her hands and knees again and so on and so on) and she's done this until she got under the printer table. Now comes the fun part, since she is mobile.

Meet Hercules ...

2008-11-29T20:28:00.004-07:00

This is Jenna's cat Hercules. He is a 13 pound cat from the Humane Society in Casper. He is a Siamese, they say he is a ragdoll and he does have some characteristics, like big boned. He doesn't necessarily flop around when you pick him up but I think he would if he wasn't so chubby, I think it hurts him to be picked up.

He is very shy, moody and we have seen him for approximately 4 minutes all day today.

Here he is on the bean bag.

He got lost earlier today and it took us 2 hours to find him. How do you lose a 13 pound cat?

He loves his belly rubbed. He drools when you do this.

He hates to have his paws touched at all. He will swat at you if you touch a paw. I'm not sure if he had a bad experience with a groomer or what.

His paws are huge. He's huge. He's afraid of our other cat and she is a third of his size. At first she was all hunkered down but now she doesn't even care where he is. He is having a little bit of a hard time getting used to the noises of our house but our black cat takes off and finds a quiet spot when there is a lot of racket too.

So he just hangs out and sneaks around and when he runs, he doesn't run like a normal cat. He runs with his front paws first and then his back paws catch up. So he kind of hops instead of runs and he looks like he is a polar bear, his hair moves like that when he hops around.

Hope You Had A Great Thanksgiving ...

2008-11-27T16:18:00.005-07:00

We did ...

Jason and his onion chopping goggles ...

Jenna doing her job

Nathan AFTER doing his job ...

This is Nathan's job ... the pumpkin pie!

Jenna and Nathan with our table full of food. YUM!

Nathan ... see his black eye. It happened at school when he had a run in with the slide. I'm not quite sure what happened.

Nathan again.

Jason, Nathan and Jenna. Eating our Thanksgiving dinner.

Jenna eating. She ate so much she was sick.

So that was our Thanksgiving Day and we have so much to be thankful for. After dinner we watched a movie, had a tickle fight, watched another movie and took a little nap and had seconds! I'm just wondering where the maid is ...

GOBBLE GOBBLE

2008-11-26T08:55:00.006-07:00

Are you ready for Thanksgiving?

More importantly, are you ready for the day AFTER Thanksgiving?

(I think I might've been in this picture ^) -- I've seen this scene a lot.

The next picture, I want you to take a real close look and see if you recognize this person ...

IT's MONTE!!!!

... really it isn't but it sure looks like him. I think he has that same coat. I have no idea who it is but we could call it a picture of Monte. I think it is his twin.

And the next picture I had found and I thought it was so sweet ...
Nathan was a little over a month old and Jenna was 2. Look at how scrawny his legs were and how curly Jenna's hair was. She was bugging him I'm sure and see his hand already at that age he was thinking he wanted to make her knock it off. Poor kid got tormented from day one. She's the best big sister. (sometimes)

2008-11-23T21:38:00.005-07:00

* Amazing moments. I had an awesome amazing moment tonight. My son, whom the school psychologist is trying to get me to medicate, just proved her wrong once again. He has proved her wrong time and time again but today, it was so bittersweet. She said that he can't focus on anything long enough to read a book ... baloney. He read a book, knew the words and all, of a 65 page book ... I'm not talking one of those books with 5 words on each page. It had probably 15-25 words on each page and he read every single page without hardly any mistakes. He wouldn't stop until he read it. He was so proud of himself. I'm so proud of him. So that was an awesome gift ...

Here's a picture of Jenna too ...

* Science fairs. Even though it is a royal pain in the backside ... the girl is learning a lot. The beans are under their lights and kind of growing. Funny thing though, Nathan gets up early this morning and you hear him trying to wake Jenna up. Finally he and Jenna come in and here is this bean sprout (it once was quite tall) bent and half of it gone. Nathan said that he came out and stood by the fire place and the cat had a piece of bean sprout in her mouth. Jenna was about ready to cry. Luckily we did 6 plants instead of just 5 and we need 5 so it worked out okay. Note to anyone out there doing science fair projects ... don't do plants. They are a pain and especially if you have secondary things that disrupt their progress. There is no way to make sure that they all have equal growth opportunities before they are actually to be started in the science fair project. (It'll be a gift when this will be over.)

SWIM

2008-11-22T21:47:00.003-07:00

Another swim meet today. The kids did great. They each swam 5 events plus a relay and they had qualifying times in the majority of their swims meaning that come spring time we will be headed to state!

Jason has 2 more meets to go to before he officially is an official and then he can work on his ref position. He said he liked it and it was pretty easy but we have timed the meets so much that it's pretty easy to spot something "illegal".

Time for more noticeable gifts from God ...

* Quiet. The quiet after a meet in the car is such a blessing. It's that time when everyone is settled into their spot and are relaxing and it's great to have some time to reflect on the day.

* Friends. Every year Nathan has this one friend who is a girl he sees every single time and they haven't seen each other in a long time but they sure do remember each other. They don't know each others names but it's kind of cool how they remember each other. He also has another friend that is the same age as he is but he towers over Jenna and is a bit rounder and then Nathan is short and thin. It's like a giant and a mouse but they are the best of friends when it comes to the meets. I believe his name is Zack. It is a gift for Nathan and in return a gift for me for these friends to know him and be good friends to him.

* Friends. I better put Jenna's friends in here too because she has friends from all over the state too and it is a true gift to have them in Jenna's life.

* About half way home we turned on the radio. Of course Jenna is still awake, Nathan is out like a light. We have Serius radio and we had fun listening to the different channels. I just don't like it when the radio says "Classic Vinyl" and it is something that I really like and know all the words to ... however it is a gift from God these moments we get to spend with each other making each other laugh and sing and bop around (yes Jason bops around).

Well, that's my day. I don't think I took any pictures. I had my camera but I was busy with timing and looking for everyone else's kids to get them where they had to be. I didn't really have time for pictures. We have more meets coming up so I'm sure more pictures will be coming! :)

1000 Gifts ...

2008-11-19T16:17:00.005-07:00

I started a list of 1000 gifts on my previous blog and never finished it. I also didn't save it so now I have to start a new one. The idea of this is to make one stop and really be thankful and content and think about the many many gifts we are given daily by God. We often don't stop and think about it enough and it's time I start especially during this time in my life. So here we go ...

* Yesterday, when not feeling so great about things, our cat (Pumpkin) decided to take it upon herself to sit right on my chest and lick my face. I let her because it felt good to have love from a cat -- sometimes you don't get much love from the cat unless it's her idea.

* Rain. The neat design the rain makes as it drizzles down the window and the sound it makes as it hits the tin roof outside. I'm not sure why but it makes me want to sit in our big reading chair and read a book with some hot tea for the rest of the day.

** The fact that I have not listed God, husband, kids, family, friends, home, etc. doesn't mean that these things I am not grateful for. I am extremely grateful for them but those are the OBVIOUS things, I'm looking for the not so obvious, it makes one stop and think through their day what they missed because they weren't looking at the more important things that happened because of what God, husband, kids, family and friends might have done, make sense?**

Random things ...

2008-11-15T20:15:00.002-07:00

From November 2008

Nathan, Payton and Jenna getting ready to eat dinner last night.

Payton and Jenna getting ready to eat dinner.

In this picture, Payton was getting a little tired of the kids trying to make her smile. (Never really succeeded with that) So Nathan has a look of disgust because Payton is starting to fuss, Jenna LOOKS like she is flipping me off. (She is snapping her fingers) ... take a look at how far over Jenna is leaned and then look at the next picture ...

Yep, she hit the floor! (She's not hurt) but take a look at Nathan's face. You can almost hear him laughing. Payton was not sure what to think it looks like.

Even dinner is never dull. You can try your hardest to have a nice and quiet time and the harder you try the more chaos seems to happen. What would life be without all of it though? I read somewhere that chaos means ... Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome ... that's us! I think I read it on FlyLady.

Payton having to take a bath after the exciting dinner. She had sweet potatoes and bananas and then she had a banana in one of these mesh things and she had it squished all over the place. She loved it though. She also loves to take a bath as you can tell.

The next photo is from today ...

This is Jenna's science project ... notice the fire extinguisher (smart girl - or sarcastic I should say). She is seeing how plants do in different light and how deep their roots will be after some time. Plants have still not been acquired. Not sure what to do about that. Hopefully Sprouts will have some bean plants.

It's November 14th ...

2008-11-14T15:21:00.004-07:00

It's November 14th and I still haven't told about the kids' Halloween.

From Halloween

Nathan carving his pumpkin.

From Halloween

Jenna carving her pumpkin. The one she picked out froze and rotted so she carved the extra one we had.

Jenna and Nathan with their masterpieces.

Ms. Payton the Princess ladybug

Nathan and Jenna the rockstars

Jenna and Nathan in their costumes (minus Jenna's wig) and pumpkins

Apparently rock stars don't do chores or smile ... haha. See his tattoo's. This will be the one and only time you will see Nathan with a mohawk while he is under our roof! :)

Wondering what this is? These are the candles aunt Barbara gave us that were ghosts. We lit them and went and lit all the other candles and came back to take a picture of the ghost candles and they were half gone! And then they went all over ... so Barbara, here's our proof that we used the candles you gave us in my "surprise box of knitting stuff". More on that in a later post.

And this is our Halloween dinner. Our traditional dinner on Halloween is McDonalds ... my kids have finally outgrown McDonalds and now are hooked on El Sol de Mexico (especially Nathan, see him scarfing his down?)

Halloween was fun for the most part. We ate dinner and watched some "scary" movies. Ghostbusters 1 and 2 and Goonies and Gremlins. Nathan fell asleep during Ghostbusters and so we changed it to Gremlins. Jenna was jumping around and shrieking and yelling at the TV during that movie so we decided not to watch Goonies. I don't remember Gremlins being that scary (it's not ... it's just my kids don't get to watch scary movies). In fact our TV has been broke for well over a month now and we haven't watched any movies except in our bedroom with everyone piled on our bed.

Last weekend ...

2008-11-08T11:17:00.005-07:00

What did we do last weekend? We put insulation in our new addition finally! Here are a few pictures of things that were done ...

From And They Lived Happily Ever After ...

Jason and Nathan with their iPods on and their rags on their heads. They did an awesome job on the addition!

From And They Lived Happily Ever After ...

This is Ivy in a hut that Nathan made out of a box. He forgot about the "hut" but Ivy didn't and loved it in there.

From And They Lived Happily Ever After ...

Nathan working away.

From And They Lived Happily Ever After ...

I'm getting old.

From And They Lived Happily Ever After ...

Why? Because all I remember old people doing in my family was making banana bread and then wrapping it up and handing it out. This is what Jenna and I did, make 3 things of banana bread ... except I didn't have time to give it out. Jason and the kids ate it before I could give it ... sorry to those of you who might have been looking forward to some banana bread.

Another thing why I'm getting old ... I can't remember the recipe to put it on here for you all to try.

2008-11-08T10:49:00.005-07:00

The next few pictures are from Spook Splash 2008 ... 2 weekends ago.

Nathan waiting for his events to come up. He is building a masterpiece I think.

This is a picture of most of the kids in the swim club. I can't remember how many kiddo's swam their first swim meet that weekend. It was pretty cool seeing all that green.

Nathan trying to splash his mom. His poor mom ... don't you feel sorry for her?

This is Tiger Sharks.

Jenna and one of her friends.

Jenna warming up for 200 Freestyle. Does she look nervous?

Jenna, Aana and Jenna ... wasting time before their next event.

I haven't gotten the results yet of this meet. From what I saw, they did awesome!

Why O' Why

2008-11-08T07:30:00.002-07:00

Nothing is ever as it seems. Have you ever noticed that? We had reservations to come to a town not far from our town for a swimming clinic and some meetings that Jason and I have to attend this weekend. We made reservations at the Hampton Inn here. We needed a room with 2 queen beds or doubles we didn't care just as long as four people could sleep in it. Checked in, got ALL of our luggage hauled up there and the beds were the size of twins. Jason called the front desk and they said that was the size of the double beds. WHATEVER. They were not double beds. They were twin beds. They don't have any rooms that will sleep four that has 2 beds in it that are bigger than the bed I slept in as a toddler. I bet Jason's feet would hang off the end of the bed, they were that small. But the room was really nice and clean. (I would have taken a picture but I was too mad to even think about it at the time) ...

Anyway we had to move. So we moved to a motel with "queen beds" the size of what is really a double bed. The room is not the nicest ... I would take a picture but I'm a little embarrassed. I won't let Nathan and Jenna walk around bare foot because who the heck knows what's on the floor. They did let us bring in our dogs and I think we got the dog rooms in the back which is fine. But they are kinda gross. Like the chair has had something spilled on it and never cleaned it up. They are circa probably 1920 ... and so are the beds. Hard as a rock. I'll take a picture later. The wallpaper looks like a circus rolled through here.

Oh and get this, we were walking in here and there was a guy that was coming in at the same time. He has a trailer behind his truck (like we do) and he went and asked this cop (who had been sitting in his cop car behind the hotel) but he had asked him if it was ok to park back there with his trailer. Of course the cop said yes but park underneath the lights because the homeless people come up from the river to sleep on/in your vehicles. Nice.

The neighbors we heard all night long. We had room service brought to us (scary huh?) and it was actually pretty good. My kids thought it was cool to stay in your room and have them bring dinner to you. They think it is cool that they have TV with Disney Channel. (We haven't had TV for almost a month. Yes I paid the bill ... the lamp went out in our brand new TV. We ordered a new one right after it burned out and we still haven't gotten it. It was due to ship on the 5th, as of yesterday at 4:00 ... still not there.) Anyway, they like it.

Nathan is sick. He's got a bad cold and coughs all the live long night and kept us all awake. He then proceeds to wake up at 6:30 and makes all sorts of loud noises and talks to himself and turns all the lights on. Then he comes over and gives me a kiss and how can you be mad at that? Then he reads his book and wants you to look at the pictures from his bed because he likes to hold them up like the librarian must do (I remember the way our librarian used to). Then if you say uh huh and not really look, he goes mom. mom. mom. mom. until you can't handle it another second. I told him he needed to go back to bed and rest because he was getting a cold and he lays there for like 2 seconds before he is up and trying to get something else. I think he's had too much sugar. That's what I think. When he eats, he smacks his lips so loud (he was eating something this morning) that I think it could wake up the people in the motel across the interstate. I have had a lack of sleep .... can you tell ... it might not be the best day in the world.

May be I'll go get him something to knock him out tonight ... or at noon.

I'm kidding about the noon part of course ...

2008-11-06T19:19:00.002-07:00

Here are some random pictures of Payton ... Payton playing her bongo drums.
I put polka dots on her pink toenails ... too cute.

Banana face.

She loves her booster chair. You sit her in it and she gets happy and waves her arms around.

Random photos of Nathan and our pets (some)

2008-11-05T22:15:00.002-07:00

Meet Ivy. Ivy loves our gigantic bean bag and she will often try to sneak in the bedroom and lay on the bean bag. They are the same color and if you don't have good lighting, you hardly can see her. She blends in really good.

See how well she blends in? She loves her owner too.

This is our cat in the rain gutter ...

2008-11-05T21:36:00.004-07:00

I wanted to tell of all the things that have happened in the last few weeks, months, DECADES ... not really decades but some in the past weeks and months. So I will put in the photo's with explanations.

First set of photos is with us at the Pumpkin Patch this year.

This is Nathan ... instead of walking around the stack o' pumpkins, he walks through them.

Jenna with her stalk of corn and ear of corn.

Nathan with his EMPTY wheelbarrow ... he had a heck of time when it was empty maneuvering it through the rows of pumpkins.

Here is Nathan again. He FINALLY found his pumpkin. In this picture he was saying, "Dad I got it." It nearly broke him in half, it was so heavy. I think he has a hernia now. (Just kidding)

And of course, Payton. This is the one she picked out. She liked the feel of the pumpkins.

This one is my favorite. She had so much fun with the pumpkins and the kids.

She would get so excited and do a belly laugh. We were cracking up.

She just loved the feel of them. Some were soft and smooth and others were rough and bumpy.

Jenna, Payton and Nathan poising on a pumpkin that looked like a chair but you can't see it in this picture. The sun was in their eyes and Payton was sick of having her picture taken I think. She has a nonamused look on her face. Ha-ha.

Anyway, that was a few weeks before Halloween. Most of the pumpkins were frozen because we had a really bad snow and frost but we did manage to get 3 pumpkins picked and brought home.

Starting over ...

2008-11-05T21:33:00.002-07:00

Well, I'm back starting over with this blog thing. When I decided to quit blogging (about 1 week ago) I had made up my mind to go to Shutterfly to do a photo blog. But upon trying that and deciding I like this better I decided to learn how to modify the look of the blog and be better about it. I don't really have a whole lot of time to do the blog thing with searching for new gadgets and widgets and this and that so the only thing you might see changed is the slideshow and the heading. Other than that ... It's just me. Plain and simple (sort of)

So here we go...

And They Lived Happily Ever After ...

The very next day ...

Cancun April 16th

Cancun April 15th

Cancun April 14th

Cancun April 13th

Cancun April 12th

Cancun April 11th

Cancun April 10th

Cancun April 9th

Pictures of our project

Arizona Trip Day #1

We've been elfed!!

A Day of Swimming ... and a buck deer!

End of the 1st Quarter ...

Happy Memorial Day

Day 5 Expedition Yellowstone

Day 4 Expedition Yellowstone

Day 3 Expedition Yellowstone

Day 2 Expedition Yellowstone

Day 1 Expedition Yellowstone

Happy Mother's Day to my mom ...

OYI

CFD Day 6

CFD Day 5

CFD Day 4

CFD Day 3

CFD Day 2

CFD Day 1

All in one week

Spring Break?!

Snowy Saturday

Not much else to do ...

It's About Time ...

Car

Brain Scans and Jenna's Report

Miss Payton

A few things ...

Good-bye 2008

The Longest Post EVER ...

Si ...

Clarinet Player ...

Exciting happenings at the Redman's...

More Hercules

Meet Hercules ...

Hope You Had A Great Thanksgiving ...

GOBBLE GOBBLE

S*W*I*M*

1000 Gifts ...

Random things ...

It's November 14th ...

Last weekend ...

Why O' Why

Random photos of Nathan and our pets (some)

Starting over ...

SWIM