Count your blessings.....

I had a most terrible weekend. Nothing I can really get into, but because if a misunderstanding or miscommunication at church I had some very unpleasant experiences. Mike was trying to be supportive and he was wonderful. But to come home to that after the rough and emotional 2 weeks with my parents. I was wiped out. We woke up Monday to snow. It ended up being a record snow fall. Mike was heading out of town, I tried to get him not to go just call the people and tell them he got snowed in. He laughed and said ho would believe that this late in May! Mike refused to wear a coat because he said it wasn't cold anywhere else he was going, and he didn't want to drag it around.

Mike felt bad to leave me. He ask how I was feeling and I told him, that I didn't want to be living my life right now. He laughed and said he knew the feeling himself. After I dropped him off I decided I need a quick reminder of the good things in my life. So I dropped in on the girls!

This is Issy talking to Papa.

Elizabeth was a little shy with me when I got back from Texas. But she warmed back up Monday morning.

It sure is nice to have a grown daughter whom is also a dear friend. As Erin was growing up, I used to think how awesome Heavenly Father was for letting us create our own best friends! So I told Erin of all my whoa's and troubles and she was protective and made me feel better. Then I had to leave. Did I mention it was snowing? Well it was a little chili and as they walked me to the door, their heater popped on and this is what Issy did. It was so cute, she said "I get my feet warm!"

Yesterday Chris and I were out, and met up with Erin and the girls. We grabbed some lunch and went to a park. Just as we got there. We had some cloud cover and it cooled down a little and everybody else left. So we had the park to ourselves.

We played and played.

Chris was a good uncle and played with the girls too.

Issy was so funny. she made everybody yell "squirrel" as they went down the slide. None of us could figure out why.

Elizabeth was loving the slide. She was so happy!

I loved  this shot of Issy she looks like she has had a bit to much fun.

But I do count my husband, kids, and grandkids as my most amazing blessings. They can cheer me right up!

a scary moment....

I am a little worried and decided it would help to write it down here. While I was in Texas taking care of my mom. She was so weak and shaky she couldn't take her blood sugar. I started taking it for her, I got quite good at it. But I absolutely hated jabbing mom with the lancets. They are these little plastic things with a sharp end that pokes them and draws the blood out. When Aunt Brenda came she taught me to put the lancet in a pen thing. Then you just push a button and the lancet jabs them quickly. I liked using that much better. But a week ago today after I drew her blood, I was pulling the lancet out, it slipped and I poked myself pretty bad with it. I immediately ran into the bathroom and poured hydrogen peroxide, then alcohol, then soap and water, then did it all over again. Plus I prayed hard. I was worried but there was nothing I could do. Gina was worried so she called the doctor and the nurse told her, I should do exactly what i did. So that made me feel better. But it is possible that she was very wrong.

Fast forward to Monday. I thought I sprained my finger, it was so sore and shooting a little pain like a little muscle up to my elbow.  I told Chris that I must have pulled my finger some how, I was trying to think how I could have done it. Then it hit me late that night.  As I was washing my hand I noticed that finger had a lot of pain coming from one spot. The spot I poked myself. I hadn't felt anything for days. I didn't even remember I had poked it. I called a doctor friend in Arizona to see if I needed to rush to the ER or anything. Because my mother had on of the scariest kinds of staph infection, and a blood infection. He told me to just get to my doctor in the morning. Well my doctor was gone until the 7th. So I had to see a back up doctor. He had no patients for a reason! His nurse told me she thought I was going to need something to help me. He was really odd. He gave me a prescription and said to take it if my finger started getting red and stuff. Then he started asking me about mammograms and pap smears. I got out of there and went and filled the prescription. I decided to start it, because even though it wasn't "red" yet. It hurts and the hurt came out of the blue.

The scary part is I read a little about MRSA staph. And it can lie dormant for years. I hope my antibiotics will knock anything I might have out. And plenty of prayers. If you get exposed to something from doing a service for somebody. Don't you think the blessings can knock it out? I do I am thinking positive!

catch up......

I had a very short sweet Mother's Day with my family. Erin and Jon gave me this fun frozen hot chocolate cookie jar. I loved it and it won't make me sick or fat!:-) The boys got me great cards and a movie I really wanted. Leap Year, it's a cute movie. Steven got me cute sunglasses. It was fun. I dropped a hint, before they left. They always get me flowers. But I was leaving first thing in the morning, so I would have enjoyed the flowers for 20 minutes. But the movie has already been watched twice.:-) 

Long story a little shorter, I had to go to Texas last minute to be with my mom. Mike got me a flight a few days before. I got a new suitcase and purse for Mother's Day also. I was supposed to fly out at 1:40 pm, but got a call from the airlines at 4 am telling me my flight had been delayed. So Mike had to get up and get me on an earlier flight. So I left the house at 8:30am, with a 4 hour layover in Phoenix. But that was a good thing because Ana came and got me and we went to lunch. It was a nice break in my very long travel day.

Then and I wish I would have gotten a picture of it. My brother picked me up in his super high big pick-up. The floorboard was past my waist! He keeps a cooler in the back to get you up into the truck. We got back to Gilmer at about 11 that night. Mom had been sent home that night.

My apologies to my mom for this picture, she was eating and at that point that was the only time she was setting up. I told her that her half foot looked like a special effect to me. Like somebody had painted it out of a movie.

She was happy I was there, and trying to have a good attitude about everything. But got very sick and ended up back in the hospital. I got to ride in the ambulance, she wanted me to go along. She got a very dangerous kind of staff infection in the hospital, the time before. And the doctor went back and did the amputation of her foot trying to remove it. Then while I was there she got so bad receiving the treatment from home health care for her staff that we rushed her to the hospital and found out she had a blood infection.

Mom had lot's of good company at the hospital. But she hadn't seen her sister in almost a year. Aunt Brenda decided she was going to come and see my mom. Her last name is Griswold, and her vacations follow the name. She was delayed in Denver with a blizzard and then Dallas was  not allowing people to land because of severe thunder storms. So she made it to Gilmer at midnight.

We got up and headed to the hospital the next morning. /My mom lit up like the sun when she saw her.

 

We spent lot's of days in the hospital and enjoyed each others company. Mom had lot's of visitors, and it was fun to visit with them.

                                                  Gina is like a second daughter to my parents. Her support through all of this has been amazing.  I had to come home,  mom was still feeling bad. Dad had to rush her back to the hospital on Sunday. But that was a good thing, she is getting more care in the hospital and they have found the mother load of kidney stones in her. She had a surgery today to remove some of them and they plan on another surgery soon to get the rest. One is the size of a thumb. I continue to pray for her, this is such a difficult time for her and dad.

Last week....

Mike went last week and visited his dad for a few days. Nathan and I where headed to get him and Nathans friend called and wanted to hang out. So we ended up meeting Erin and her family for lunch.

Elizabeth makes the funnest faces!

Me and my girls, this is how I ate my lunch with a lap full of babies:-)

When the girl where finished Erin went and got them an ice cream. she gave Issy hers, then realized she didn't have a spoon for Elizabeth, so she walked away with Elizabeth's ice cream. I almost died at that cute little wrinkled brow. She was not pleased her mother walked away! But she ended up with her ice cream and was very happy! 

Issy made me go to the play place with her. She brought her friend Stuart with her he is a bird. He is blue and has green eyes, and he was sitting on her head. She is showing him to me in the picture below.

Also Issy is very friendly she made friends with this little girl. Issy would run around and call out "friend let's slide" and the girl thought she was cute and was her friend.

Then she and her mother came to the Airport with me. She got some big yummy pretzels.

Papa, Issy with a pretzel in her mouth, and Grandma.

Issy wanted papa to ride in the back with her. When Mike was filling me in on his trip she said, "Papa I want mom to talk to Grandma and you to talk to me." So Mike had to look at Issy and tell me about his trip. Issy came home with us and spent the afternoon. All the way back to our house about 35 minutes, she kept telling me to talk to her. So I would look back at her, make eye to eye contact. and tell her about my week! Plus she made us sing lot's of songs. We all sang the itsy bitsy spider, popcorn and various other songs. Mike is a very excellent papa!

A momentous weekend.....

We had Mike's sister and brother-in-law come and stay with us this weekend. They based here but where in and out being with different people. Well Saturday night Erin and Jon where headed out of town to have a little Family/Work trip.  They came by our house on the way out of town to have a little of my cabbage lasagna and so I could kiss the babies. Issy found her uncle and made him play with her the entire time she was here. She was eating a yummy blue M&M cookie her mom made.

Then the momentous thing happened and Elizabeth decided to crawl! She has been content to just sit and play. Not wanting to go anywhere. The doctor told Erin not to worry that she would eventually crawl, and she finally did. She did one little crawl on Friday night for her parents. Then on Saturday night at grandma and pap's house she took off crawling! We were all so excited and cheering her on and I didn't take a picture:-( but this picture was taken immediately after, if that helps.

Then off the kids ran to drive to Saint George and then on to Vegas the next day. they had a very happy fun trip.

Having family in town it dawned on me to have a family dinner so Sunday night we had everybody over and had a great time.

                                                               Mike and Char

                                             Kristen playing with one of her grandchildren.

                                                 Mike and his 2 sisters Kristen and Keven!

Cammon, Lori, Scooter and 1 on the way!

People taking pictures:-)

After the weekend Keven and Stephen headed over to Stephens family to stay. And Ophey was sad because she loved Stephen those are her ears next to him.

Keven and Elise getting ready to go move Elise into her new apartment.

I tried to make my own power bars.......

There are ton's of "healthy" nutrition bars out there. They have some protein and a healthy dose of calories. They have ton's of different kinds. And they are so very confusing when trying to choose. I got the bright idea to make my own. There is a food storage store in the area and I stopped by and bought all kinds of seeds and nuts.   I started out with an old candy base of- peanut butter, honey, and powdered milk. Then I mixed in flax seed, sesame seeds, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, rolled oats, almond meal, coconut, walnuts, raisins... You get the picture. They all had good nutritional value. Except for the unsweetened coconut, I don't know if there was much nutrition in that.  And I recently found out that raisins have more potassium in them than bananas. I mixed it all together and pressed it into a 9X13 pan. It was a beautiful thing.

Then I sat down with the amounts of ingredients I used. One cup of oats, 2 cups peanut butter, etc... When I figured out the calories there were 9,000 in that 9x13 pan. So I have to have a tiny little 1 inch piece for like 150 calories! Yikes, I learned that the protein bar business is tough!

On a good note, the boys LOVE them. It really does taste super good. And they are really healthy.

I think it needs some tweaking. In the mean time at least my boys will gobble them up:-)

A year ago.....

I went and spent a week with Mike in Vegas. It was a very fun get away. I did things I wouldn't have done. This was Mike and I last year.

And this was us last week. I bit of a difference:-)

Mike took me to all the dinners he had to go to, and we split a meal every time. It was great we even left extra food on the plate. One of the dinners I went to had a lot of men from Japan and 1 from China. I sat be the very nice guy from China but one of the guys from Japan was talking to me across the table. At one point when he wanted to ask me a question he called me "Lorenason." Mike said that was a sign of respect. It was my first time being called that and it was fun.

Mike worked a lot while he was there. I on the other hand took it easy and played. In years past Mike and the other guys have stayed across form the convention center in a Marriott. But this year they had to stay at the Wynn. Oh bummer,  but it sure was fun for me:-) I love staying in a hotel, because people clean up after you, it's awesome!

Jon had to go and Erin came out for a couple of days. They went to a show in our casino, so when it was over they came up to visit. Mike was dead and in bed he joined in in spirit,  but I was up and enjoyed their visit.

Then my dear friend Janie introduced me to the pool. I learned to sit in the sunshine and just sit back and relax. Of course, my skin has not seen the light of day in a million years. So I was lying in the sun wearing number 50 sunscreen! But it was so great! I almost felt guilty, because Mike was working so hard.

We also took a day to see the sights. We had done it last year and it was a blast. So we took a colder windy day off from the pool and hit our favorite spots, again it was a blast.

Mike and I fit some fun in in the middle of all his work!

I could have used another week of relaxing, but we had to leave. So we stopped in St. George and spent the night there. We went and walked around the temple. I hadn't ever seen it up close, it was beautiful and it was a drastic difference from Vegas!

It was a great week and I really enjoyed being with Mike. We enjoy each others company and love to spending time together.