Thursday, July 31, 2008

Off to Hick-town

Wow, it has been a long day. I have worked tons the last two days since it was the end of the month. Glad that is done. Jon and I have been pretty bummed for a few weeks after trying to get the jet ski in the back of the toy hauler and not having any success in getting it to fit. The actual ski is short enough to fit in but adding in the extra length of the tongue on the jet ski trailer was too long. It was a big disappointment since we love camping at the lake and were back to thinking we would have to drive 2 vehicles to get the camper and the jet ski up there. So I was looking online last night and had thought if we could get the jet ski trailer pushed up the ramp so the tongue of the trailer would go through the garage door it could fit, but that's a REALLY heavy trailer. So I was trying to read how other people were able to haul theirs. One guy was talking about a trailer dolly and having him pull and 2 other guys pushing from the back they were able to get it in. So my big idea today was to go get a trailer dolly and see if we could manage it. Jon wasn't having that, he just said it already has a wheel on the end lets just push it. After trying to do it by ourselves I bowed out since there was no way I could muscle the huge trailer up the giant incline on the ramp. After enlisting the help of a neighbor we tried again. Jon pulling from the front and Luis and I pushing from the back. We got a bit of a running start and pushed with all our might. I don't think I have ever worked so hard in my life. Once we got about 1/2 way up the ramp the bottom of the ski was at my neck because it was a big incline and we got stuck. After a second Jon said "you guys got it, I can come help push in the back" when we both yelled, "NO!" I thought I was going to die, and the trailer was going to run me over falling back down the ramp. After 2 times of all 2 pushing and pulling at the same time we finally were able to get it up there. Wow. It took me a few minutes to catch my breath after that. Next time I think I will enlist the help of 2 big neighbors or friends and have them do it. My 115 lbs. wasn't cutting it. But good news is, it's in the camper and we get to take the ski this weekend! Yipee! So here are the pictures of our efforts this evening. Here it is all inside!

See how the ski fits perfectly up to the garage door?

Then the tongue has to overflow into the hallway.

Good thing there will be other people to help us get it out when we are up there. When Jon and I got back inside Alex was watching her new "old" favorite movie, Free Willy. This chick is a big time animal lover. Obsessed with horses, dogs, cats, and now whales. She is overjoyed that we will be getting to meet a whale just like this in Oct when we visit Sea World. Check her out. This is the favorite position to watch TV.

What a riot she is. I just started my pork in the crock pot to cook overnight so we can have the delicious sweet pork burritos tomorrow from my knock off costa vida recipe. Yummy! I can't wait. It is supposed to be 100 degrees both Saturday and Sunday so the water will be so nice to play in. No snow this trip, that's for sure! And hopefully I will be able to find my book on the planet mars, otherwise known as NE.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

What planet are you from....oh, Nebraska?

Ok seriously folks. We all know I am obsessed with the Twilight series and when I found out yesterday morning that Jon wanted to plan a trip to Lake McConaughy this weekend I was on the phone today looking for a local bookstore in Ogallala that would be carrying it. Slim pickin's, wow. I was down to Safeway and some place called Hokes books. Called the Safeway and she was like, huh, a book? I am not sure we would know until the day before, we aren't really a book store. Hhmmm....could have fooled me. Safeway, never heard of you. But come on, we all know the grocery carries books. I even know King Soopers here is advertising it on sale at 7am on Saturday or something. So I try the actual book store which I am like, they have to have heard of this series. I mean it is on a huge display at every Barnes and Noble I have been to in the last 3 months plus it is a #1 NY times best seller. Not like we are taking about some unheard of author and series of books, right. So this older woman answers the phone and, bless her heart, I had to repeat everything I said at least once plus yell into the phone.

Me: explaining we will be at the lake this weekend and looking forward to this book release wondering if you are going to carry it...
Her: What book?

Me: Breaking Dawn. It is in the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer.

Her: Hm, I have never heard of her or those books. What type of book is it?

Me: Um, fiction (I'm sorry, is this a book store or a thrift shop?)

Her: Fiction....ok, well we can possibly order it for you.

Me: Yeah we are just on vacation for the weekend and the release date is Saturday.

Her: Release date?

Me: Yeah, it comes out this Saturday.

Her: Oh the book?

At this point I thought I would cut my losses and just say yeah, don't worry about it, thanks for your help. I wonder if she forgot where she was working. You think a book store would know the lingo of "release date", "NY times best seller", yeah apparently no.

So I guess I am going to have to wait until we get back to get my book and deal with the suspense of not having it the moment it comes out. Stupid, dumb, hick town. :-)


On to more exciting news. Olivia lost 2 teeth in two days. Her bottom 2 front teeth. One came out on Friday and one came out the next day on Saturday. Here she is with no front teeth.



I am excited to get away for the weekend since work has been seriously crazy the last few days and Jon has been working non stop either at work or on the basement. The Basement is coming along great. He has finished all the closets and is working on all the doors and trim. He is doing a great job!

Saturday, July 26, 2008

The Butterfly Pavilion

On Friday we went back down to the Denver area to visit the Butterfly Pavilion. I made my niece this CD with some of her favorite songs on it and I had to get this on tape. This kids knows the words to more songs than I do I think. Here is some video of her singing songs from Enchanted. This movie has some really cute original songs.

Seriously could she be any cuter? So the butterfly pavilion was an interesting place. The kids seemed to like it but it was all about bugs, spiders, and insects. Not so much my #1 interest. (I am having an all over body chill) Yuck. They have a live specimen of tons of different tarantulas including the one used in the movie arachnophobia the bird eating tarantula. And no I did not make that name up. These things can grow up to a foot long and have one inch fangs. GROSS! Here is Alex standing right by it but you can barely see it because it is camouflaged in the dirt.

They had an area where people could hold a "normal" tarntula they named Rosie and Olivia actually did it. I couldn't believe it. Here she is temping her fate...

I also got some pictures of Mason and my little niece Marnie doing it. The twins were with me and wanted nothing to do with it!

Gives me the ee-bee gee-bees. Here are Alex and Cody touching the star fish and the crab.


Then they have this green house area where they have thousands of butterflies flying around. You go in and see all of them and all the different kinds. That part is pretty cool. Here the kids enjoying that.

They had this little beehive area all the kids liked to play on also.

On the way home Olivia finally lost one of her teeth that has been loose for about 2 weeks. It was pretty funny. All of sudden she started screaming and crying. I turn around and she has a tooth in her had. She was freaked. My mom and I both started saying yeah you lost it but she was still upset. It took a little convincing but she finally calmed down and got excited about the tooth fairy visiting her that night. Of course my camera was out of batteries so I have to wait for those pictures from my dad.

Since yessterday was my sister's last day here I went back over for dinner. Here is Cody and Marnie in their usual mode of holding hands. Too cute.

We had a picnic outside since it was cooling down a little. Here is O and here missing tooth.And grandma picnicing with the kiddos.

Amy swinging with Marnie.

Amy and I since we are always the one taking the pictures so we are never in them :-)

Seems a befitting day also that uncle Mason found a snake in the yard with all the other creepy crawling things we saw yesterday. The kids were so into it. What a cool uncle!

Here Aunt Eliza and Marnie Moo. She bonked my nose. Ouch. Kiss me better baby!


Cody and Alex helping grandma water.

Well Am-er it was a fun few weeks with you. Wished you lived closer. I love you!

The Urban's Visit

My aunt Holly and her daughter Katie were here for a few days this last week for the funeral and also to go to the Denver temple. They are from ID and the temple there is closed for remodeling for a few weeks so she came here to go through the temple before leaving for her mission next month. She is going to be serving in San Diego. It was so fun to get to see them and spend time with them. My parents, Amy, and myself were able to go through the temple with her on Thursday and it was a really neat experience. Here are some pictures of us afterwards.
Cousins..


The Group

The group again..

After we got home we all just hung out. The kids did some puzzles and then we had a family dinner with all my brothers and sisters (except Toni, we miss you!).

Here is Cole, Brooke, and Alex working on a puzzle.

Katie and Marnie in the swing.


Here is my aunt playing with all the kids and trying to cool them off. It was so hot!


I tried to take a close up of all the kids present...so here they are.

Yikes, 10 grand kids at one house!! What a bunch of cuties!

Cody is doing pretty well overall. We managed to lay low with him on Wednesday but he was also pretty uncomfortable and not wanting to move around very much. Thursday and Friday were a little more tricky because he wanted to be jumping on the tramp and playing with the kids. He seems to be doing pretty well and the site looks really good. I think the doc was right about having a minimal scar there, I think it is going to look great. Just have to still be careful for the next week or so not to get too crazy.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Inspirational "last lecture" professor dies today of cancer

I saw this man on Oprah last season and he of course brought me to tears. He knew he was going to die and in preparation for this he have his "last lecture" to his students. He was a professor at Carnegie Mellon. It was really neat and touching. If you're interested in reading the article and seeing the lecture on you tube click here to read the article.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Our first major trauma

We have had a long few days here. We found out last week that my aunt passed away. She was suffering from advanced stages of Huntington's disease. I am glad that she is no longer suffering but sad that she has now left my 2 cousins, that are both close to my age, with no parents. Their father, my uncle passed away 17 years ago from an accident. It is just not fair sometimes. The funeral was on Monday so all the "grown ups" traveled down to Colorado Springs to attend the services. It was nice seeing family that I haven't seen for awhile but the circumstances were crappy. In part of a tribute my cousin had wrote for her mom she said something along the lines of "I must now learn a lesson that I try and teach my kids everyday, which is to share. I can only imagine how happy she must have been to return to my father's arms and see him once again." I love you guys!
My aunt Holly and cousin Katie have been here since Sunday and I haven't seen them for awhile and have been able to visit and catch up with them which has been fun.
Today Amy, my dad, and I took all the kids to the $1 movie, Arthur and the invisibles. It was pretty cute and most of them really enjoyed it. I brought my nephew Cole home with us to play for the afternoon with Olivia. They enjoy each other's company but are just into playing different things so they hung out together but seemed to be playing their own things, which was funny to see.
I had the missionaries over for dinner this evening. Members of our church take turns feeding the missionaries dinner every night and it was my turn. After the kids finished they were being crazy so I suggested they go out to the back yard and run around. Before I knew it Olivia was up on the porch saying Cody scratched himself. When I came around to the door I could hear him screaming and thought that sounds a little worse than a scratch. I saw him bend his knee to step up onto the porch and there was a gaping hole in his knee. I could see the white fatty tissue. yuck. Of course I ran down and scooped him up and put my hand over the gash and yelled to Jon we had to go to the ER immediately and to run get the neighbor until my mom could get over with the kids. I wasn't about to strap Cody in a car seat and hope he didn't bleed to death or bend his knee so knew I was going to have to have someone drive me there. He went to get the neighbor and her father, who was an EMT, was in town today so he came over to check him out to tell us if we could just go to the urgent care of if he though he tore a muscle and we would have to go to the ER. He was able to bend his leg and move his foot and toes so thought it would just need stitches. When I called my mom, all I got out was I have to take Cody to the ER NOW, I need someone to come over. I was quite impressed. My dad got there as we were leaving the neighborhood so seriously about 7 min. Good time, dad! I remembered in the car I had my camera in my purse so I decided to take a picture, but it turned out kinda fuzzy.

You can't really see how deep it really is, because I didn't want him to keep bending it but seriously you could see the muscle that was UNDER the fatty part of the skin, it was huge. When we got to the urgent care they put this numbing stuff on a big piece of gauze and set it inside the wound and taped it down. The nurse said that it would really help when they started to give him the shots to numb it up. It took about a 1/2 hour of sitting there for it to set in so we had some time to hang out. Here is our trooper in the mean time.

He wasn't sure that he wanted to eat the sucker, but he did want to just hold onto it. He was seriously SO brave. When the doc came in there was only once or twice where he could feel the needle with the numbing medication when he had to do the really deep part and he kept saying Ouch mom ouch, but never cried and never screamed. Jon was there to hold his leg still but he didn't even move that. What a good patient. The nurses even walked by and said, I thought we were having stitches in this room? They were so impressed he wasn't screaming or crying. The doctor was great too. Jon and I were like kids all interested in what he was doing and how he was stitching him up. He explain the step by step processes of what he was doing and why. It was very interesting. He spent awhile cleaning out out. There was dirt all over and even some grass. They had to do 5 stitches that are under the skin to keep the tissue together under the skin that will dissolve. They also did one stitch on the skin called a running stitch that is just one piece of thread that goes in and out of the skin and knots on each side of the cut. The doc thought that it would heal better and leave less of a scar. Our instructions are to try and not have him bend his knee back too far and try to keep him resting tomorrow and the next day and let it heal. They are a little worried about it tearing since it is on a joint. Well that is going to be a fun task to try and keep my 3 year old sitting on the couch. Oh and no swimming either. Fun. The dead heat of summer and Cody gets to sit out of all the pool dates. We were planning on going to the outdoor city park pool in Fort Collins tomorrow, so I guess he gets to sit at home instead. Poor guy. Here is a video of him in the car afterwards. What a trooper!



The daddy of 'em all...Yee-haw

A few weeks ago I won 4 rodeo tickets to Cheyenne Frontier Days. Winning contests is great!! Jon was on call this weekend and so I invited my sister who is in town to go with her husband and oldest son, Cole. I have been to a few rodeos before, but haven't been for a few years so I was looking forward to it and also to taking Olivia. Amy and her family have never been to one before and they really enjoyed it. I have to say they keep things going the whole time. It goes from event to event in a moments notice, plus they have all sorts of side stuff going on at the same time. They had these stunt riders that did tricks on moving horses that the kids really liked. It was a really hot day on Saturday so thank goodness that our seats were in the shade. Olivia lost interest about 3/4 of the way through, especially since there were fair rides there that she thought would be more fun to be on, but all in all I think she enjoyed herself.

Here is the Lucas family..

I was trying to get a good one of the kids and instead captured Olivia's newest smartie pants thing she is doing....rolling her eyes at me. WHAT!?! It drives me crazy, apparently she is learning how to push her mom's buttons.

Okay, here is a cute one of them.....cousins! They got these little pins they are wearing on their shirts for free from a guy throwing them out to the crowd. Alright, free stuff!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Discovery Center Science Museum

On Wednesday we took the kids to the Discovery Center Science Museum here in Fort Collins. It was a little on the older side for my kids but they still enjoyed themselves. It was in an old school building and I don't think they have AC so we were all dying. I would recommend going in the morning. Here is Cody driving the train. You sit in the booth and there is a screen that follows the track and makes noises. Kinda cheesy, but he liked it.




They also had these pulley chairs. You strap in and use a pulley system to pull your chair up to the top of the pole. Olivia and Cole tried it out, but O was a little bit of a wimp and had to have mom pull her up :-)


Even uncle Mason had fun trying to figure out how circuits work.



Here they had a voice delay thing going on. You put the head phones on and talk and then 3 or so seconds later it would come through the phones. My niece Brooke loved it and was singing her favorite primary song. What a cutie pie!




My mom made chocolate covered strawberries for dinner and the kids all got chocolate everywhere! What a cute bunch of dirty kids!