And she's off!

Bright and early on June 2nd we put Missy on an airplane headed for the MTC. She was SO ready. On the way to her gate she said I just want to bypass the good-byes and get on the plane. She had been saying good-bye to family and friends for the past week and she just wanted to move on. I made sure that OUR good-byes weren't long and drawn out so she could get on her way.

There were very few tears. I wasn't sad to see her go, it's what she's been preparing for for a long time. I wasn't worried that she was going to the Philippines half way around the world...she's in good hands. I know as long as she is obedient, whatever challenges come her way will not be by accident. I am so proud of her I can hardly stand it. Any tears that were shed were for that reason...pride spilling over.

This was the night before after she was set apart. It was supposed to be of just my girls but my sister was standing in just the right spot of two mirrors. She's kind of creepy.

These next pictures bring a lump to my throat.

Especially this one

In her first email home she said she is loving the MTC. She is in a companionship with 2 other sisters, one she gets along with very well the other has presented a challenge, but she is up for it. There are 14 in her district and she was made district leader because her last name came first in the alphabet.

Falling Up

So for about the last 2 months or so I've been walking the track at Mesa High and running the bleachers. As I steadily approach 50 the elasticity in my body has sprung and gravity is taking over, I had to do something. Running was never an option because I hate it but running up and down the bleachers doesn't feel like it beats me up so much and it keeps my heart rate up.

Well, running bleachers comes with risks. I have been fearful that I would mistep and fall down them and break a few things in the process. Apparently I was worrying about the wrong direction I would fall. I mis-stepped alright but on my way up! I would much rather fall up than down, I mean seriously how far UP can you fall? However, not only was my pride wounded as there are many people who run/walk the track but I skinned up my left shin pretty good and had to get 8 stitches in my right ankle which Dr Frost did for me the next morning when I got to work. I hope I don't start growing teeth out of my ankle since he's a dentist and not an MD.

A week later Christy who I work with and who is also my cousin gets stitches in HER ankle... compliments of Dr Hamberlin...she was doing dishes the night before and dropped a knife. I don't remember if it attacked her on the way down or if it hit the floor and bounced.

Mission Call

I keep getting in trouble for not updating my blog. Mostly by people who don't have a blog and try to live vicariously through mine.

Missy's mission call is a month old but the video is still fun to watch.

This first one is just panning the room so we can remember all the people who could be there and who love her. The dude with the goofy smile at the end of this one is my baby brother...he makes me laugh.

This one is self explanitory.

Apparently.....

The apples don't fall too far from the tree.

I am sad to say my 17 year ticketless run has come to an end.

Stitches, Staples and Splints

November was an interesting month. It started out with Pat working on a roof and getting into a fight with a power saw. You should never fight with something that has more teeth than you do..you will always end up on the losing end of the battle. A word to the wise, power tools have saftely sheilds for a reason, taping them to stay up is not such a good idea. I should note that it was not his saw, his had the saftey in the proper position.




OUCH!

I'm proud to say he kept his cool and got himself off the roof without further injury. He and a co-worker checked out the damage and decided that the blood flow did not keep time with is heart beat and 911 would not be needed. They administered on the scene first aid and he drove himself to the doctor who is also his friend.



With one of these......





A litte of this.....





And one of these.....





Wah-lah! A millipede is born!

The next morning found him a bit lame from his injury and he had to send Alec into the attic to retrieve the crutches. He took the day off to nurse his wound but went back the next day and did what he could. He reported having to walk around the cul-de-sac to loosen up his leg first.



3 weeks later I didn't think it looked so good.

He thought he would save himself a trip back to the doc and remove the staples himself. It didn't take him long to decide that was not a good idea. Why do guys think they can do such things?


As of this very day his leg continues to heal but will no doubt leave a scar that his grandchildren will ask about.



Fast forward to Thanksgiving day. The feast had been devoured, Pat and his brother were doing dishes the rest of us were in the backyard enjoying the beautiful weather. Alec and I were throwing a football.......I can throw a pretty mean spiral.....catching requires a different skill altogether. One particular catch attempt caught my middle finger straight on. I was afraid to look at it. When I did I didn't like what I saw. Dr Alec examined it and told me it was jammed and to quit whinning. HMMPH! I iced it off and on for the next couple of hours, bending it everying now and then to make sure it still hurt.


Over the course of the next few days I was called a baby multiple times by my son and was told that he had jammed HIS fingers many times and they always got better. Yeah, but did your fingers bend weird at the knuckle? This question was met with and eye rolland an "oh my gosh!" So after 5 days of pain and persecution I decided to take matters into my own hands. I remembered I work in a dental office...we have x-rays...we have an x-ray machine. When I got to work the next morning I snapped a couple of pictures...the same finger on both hands...I needed a point of reference.

Normal finger, right hand





Broken finger! Left hand...Validation!

Dr Frost was kind enough to email the x-ray to his orthopaedic friend who said it needed surgery. Crap, how much time off work would THAT require? You never want to be off long enough for the bosses to figure out they do just fine without you. Besides, while he'd never admit it Dr H always misses me when I'm gone. I was given the name of a hand specialist, who told me that these kinds of injurys rarely need surgery...


And put my finger in this.

I'm pretty sure I could have saved myself $370 bucks with a popsicle stick and some duct tape! I'm stuck with this on my finger for 2 weeks at which point a new x-ray will be taken to see how it is healing. I took another x-ray myself today and it looks no different to me...but I'm no doctor. The official diagnosis...mallet finger...what the?!. Swell, not only do I have a wrist that looks like it has bunions from breaking it 2 years ago while ice skating New Years Day (I'm sticking to board games on Holidays from now on) I now have a finger that is a tool for pounding things....hmmmm, has anyone seen Alec?

A Few Years Ago....

These two people got married

November 9, 1956

After 6 kids, 34 grandkids, 9 great grandkids and 53 years under their belt they are still going strong...albeit a bit slower.

My dad once asked me if I knew how they'd lasted so long.....why no, no I don't...well, said he, I don't try to run her life and I don't try to run mine. Haha! Mom says she keeps him around because he still makes her laugh. Whatever their secret, it has worked well.

I think they are still a cute couple.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad

Love you!

Professional Photos?

I've never been very good at getting family portraits or individual portraits of my kids. I think the last family photo we had professionally done was when I was pregnant with Alec...he is 16, so technically he is IN the picture you just can't see him.

It would appear that he decided he wanted his picture taken so he and a couple of friends set out looking for a photo op. They choose to go with a black and white picture which are nice if you get the right exposure. Once I saw the picture I could tell whatever he has to pay is too much. His face is not clear and there is a beam of light across it....and it's not because he's an angel. His friends...well, I had to touch them up myself and they still look washed out. I don't know, what do you think?

If you're interested in having your photo taken you can find this photog on US 60 at mile post 180 although it's a little pricey and you only get one picture.

I'ts a Dog's World

Last weekend we had a furry visitor for a few days while her mom was visiting a friend in Texas. I'll let her tell the story of her visit in her own words.

HI! My name is Macie. You can call me....Macie. So you don't get me confused with the other dogs in the story I'll introduce them.

This is Kia, AKA The Flea Bag, she is a shih tzu just like me! That alone should have made us BFF's, I would soon find out this was not the case. Everytime I would get near her she would growl at me and everytime she would growl at me Kim would say "pipe down ya flea bag!" So I would walk by her often just to hear her get yelled at.

This is Cricket, AKA The Mom. It didn't take me long to figure out why she was given that nickname. She was the only dog in that house that was nice to me. If one of the other dogs was growling at me she would come from where ever she was and stand between me and them to protect me. She played with me and let me lay by her. When I would get the zoomies she would too but after a minute she would have to stop and hack because she is old. I love her.

This is Coco, AKA Coco. Mean little chihuahua dog. She belongs to Kim's parents who were in Utah(does that make them sisters?) She whined a lot and I enjoyed annoying her, she didn't scare me like Kia did.

She hated when I did this, so I did it everytime she wasn't paying attention. What you don't see is her turning and snarling at me and me running around and then flattening myself on the tile. I thought it was a fun game, she did not. I thought she was telling me to do it again when she would snap at me, I guess not. I don't speak spanish.

Here The Mom is showing me around the backyard, it was a huge place and I wasn't so sure about it the first time back there. Once The Mom showed me around I didn't know what to sniff out first! Notice all the leaves on the ground? By the time I left half of them were on the floor in Kims house compliments of my long lucious coat.

I don't know if you can tell but I am running full boar! There was something about the great outdoors that always gave me the ZOOMES!

It always required a period of panting and resting.

In this picture I am getting ready to pounce on Coco and she is telling me that if I do she'll roll me like a taco.

Go ahead and try chica, I've got The Mom as my bodyguard!

When we were in the backyard I would zoom past Kia and she would charge at me and growl but I was too fast for her. Here she is telling me that if I zoom by her one more time I'll be sleeping with the fish.....I hate that dog!

Here me and The Mom are getting ready to rumble!

I'm trying to get her in a headlock

Body slam!



OK, OK, Uncle already! I loved playing with The Mom

I had a great time at Kim's house I hope I get to stay there again sometime!

A smile in an unlikely place

So! After a long absence from my blog I'll attempt to redeem myself with two posts in less than a weeks time.

As some of you know, I had my hair cut off the beginning of summer. Well, I get a bit anal where my hair is concerned and continue chopping and hacking on it my own self. It drives me nuts when it's not symmetrical and I make feeble attempts to make it so. Sometimes I cut it wet, sometimes dry. I always clean up after such attempts but sometimes clumps go un-noticed.

Several weeks ago I was attending to some business in the...uh...ahem...bathroom. Since the toilet paper didn't need changed and with lack of decent reading material on hand my eyes began to wander around the room until they settled on...

THIS little gem!

Yep! that's MY hair smiling at me!

Smiles come in all shapes and forms and in the most unlikely places. This one brings a smile to my face every time I think of it.

Anyone still there?

Have I been a total blogging slacker or what?! Does anyone even visit my blog anymore? I hope to be better, until then I'm resharing.....

The following is a repeat of last years post on this very day. I've made just a few changes that apply to today, like her age, but everything else is still the same.

Monica was my parents first child to be born…but also the first to die. She died on January 3rd, 1997 of lung cancer. She was 37 ½. Today she would be 50. She would probably do something crazy like run down the street in the rain (if there was any) rain, trip and fall, trash her leg (she did all this once) and then have a fit over the need for first aid. Her daughter Brittanie gave a wonderful tribute to her several Christmases ago and if you want take a minute and go here and read about her from her daughters perspective (warning-get a kleenex) http://nbakbeautifullife.blogspot.com/2006/12/that-holiday-feeling-for-some-reason_15.html#links

And her latestest post remebering her mom Beautiful Life: Happy 50th To My Mom



Oldest of 4 girls and two boys. She was an energetic, full of spunk, kind of kid. To me she was the one with the boyfriends. The one that lived to be social. She loved to dance. She loved to sing. She loved the young women in her ward. But most of all…she loved her man and her children! She thought her kids were the only kids that were in the room. She would sew and sew and make all kinds of things for her babies. She loved to be crafty. She would make stuff to sell and make extra money for Christmas. She saved and saved so she could buy herself a ticket to see Phantom of the Opera. She would start to tell you a funny story-usually about Stan and before she would get to the end she would be laughing so hard you couldn’t understand what she was saying…but you would be laughing equally as hard because she had a way of getting you involved in the story. She would tell equally funny stories on herself as well. One thing is for sure, where ever she was, that is where the laughter was.

As an adult Monica had numerous friends. In fact everyone she met-she considered a friend, whether they were 20 or 82-age didn't matter. She didn't waste time on others shortcomings, life was to short for that, she just loved people and they loved her back. If you were her friend you were her friend for life. Her funeral was standing room only at the stake center. I think every person she had ever known from grade school on up, was there, people we had long forgotten but had somehow learned of her passing and wanted to be there because she had touched their life in some way.

I think of Monica often, but today I think of her especially. I wonder what she would think of her daughters? I wonder what she would think of her only son-Joseph? I wonder what she would think of her grandbabies? And then I know!!! She would be amazed at the beauty of her girls! She would be thrilled with their life choices. She would remind them they were daughters of God who loves them by how she felt about herself. She would be in awe. And Joseph-she would think...this is Stan in miniature. This kid is so funny and goofy and smart and so reminds me of why I married his dad!

But....we cannot just give a sentence in a paragraph to what she would think of her grandbabies!!! She would eat them alive! She would start talking in their voices-like she did when her kids were little people! She would be sewing them dresses, making them things for their rooms, she would be spending her summers with them-nothing stopped her from going on a road trip. She would load up whoever was going in the car that was functioning the best and off they would go.

Oh there are many stories of Monica, and really you can't post about someone and give them justice in just a few short paragraphs...but this I know. She was my older sister, my friend, my confidante, my favorite comedian, life of the party, my teacher by example. Thinking of her does not bring sadness, only the fondest of memories, I love her and I miss her!


Happy Birthday Sis!

(A thank you goes out to my sister, Shaunna, for helping me with this post and providing the pictures)

This picture was taken just before all of her hair fell our from Chemo.




Thanksgiving Day 1996, it would be our last with her.....sniff




Her kids at her funeral