Catching up on Summer Stuff

Yesterday I went and picked up Peyton, A.J., Kelly and Emma and took them to see Ponyo and to lunch. They spent the night except Emma, she stayed and her Grandma Rugg's house. They were so much fun. I had to finish painting a few things in the back yard and they all helped me.

Before we began painting. Peyton wore a big shirt of Bill's. She was cute.

Whoops. This picture somehow got turned the wrong way. It is a very good picture of Kelly posing.

I believe she is eating some leftovers from lunch.

Kelly loving to pose in front of the camera. I love this picture.

This is a milestone on Anthony's life. He is terrified of the bathtub. This is the first time he took a bath. He saw how much fun Samuel was having and wanted to get in. Now I can't keep him out.

Samuel loves to look at the camera.

Today the boys wanted to play the piano. Samuel reminds me of when Anthony when he was that age. They were having a blast.

Anthony was very patient with Samuel. Anthony loved that Samuel was playing the piano with him.

This picture reminds me when Forest Gump was by the lake fishing with his son. I don't know why but I love how this turned out. Sweet

The big event this summer; getting a back yard in. We have been leveling the yard and put sprinklers in last year now the grass. This is Gabe and Shawn and Bill. Bill did a lot of supervising

I thought this was Bill but it is his nephew Josh. His wife Katie is standing next to him. In the background in Gabe petting Junior the dog next door. Josh is fixing one of the sprinklers that was not in line very good.

Mr. Shawn admiring his work of putting the lawn in.

This is what was left of our apple tree. We later got a chopper thing and took the stump out. It is now covered up with grass.

Gabe and Shawn working hard and Bill doing ???? well something.

Gabe working hard. Thanks

These pictures were of a really weird storm that we had and these are the clouds. They were so beautiful

This one was my favorite one. The whole sky looked like this. It was a little eerie.

Lovely.


There are many more pictures I will add of Georgia. It's late and I have to start my first day back to work tomorrow.

Estes Park

I have such a hard time figuring out where the pictures are going to be when I post them. I guess I'd better figure out how to make it look better. These are some pictures that we took in Estes Park. We had a condo there and my friend Jami and her husband Paul met us there and we enjoyed a full week of cool bliss and beautiful scenery, great food, and wonderful relaxation. This first picture is of Jami's sister Shawn her husband Raul and her daugher Katlyn. She was full of energy. Raul owns an Italian restaurant in Estes Park and the food was fabulous. He made us several different meals from the menu and just brought them out to us to try.

One of our excursion was driving up to 12,000 feet and this was the snow bank at the top. It was a horrifying drive. Jami and I kept hiding from the view straight down.

Jami, my friend from Portland and who joined us in Estes Park, and her neice Katlyn again.

Jami, Paul and Katlyn at the restaurant that Katlyn's dad owns.

The elk was plentiful. There was even a great big herd that was on the golf course and the golfers couldn't golf because the elk just took their time. Some even laid down.

More elk. These aren't the ones in the golf course. We were coming down from the 12,000 foot drive. It was very hard on my head and body. In the course of a week we went from Sea Level to 12,000 feet. We went to California for Andrew's blessing came home and drove to Colorado.

This is a difficult one to see. It was closed because of so much snow.

We were able to see some big horn sheep, bear and the elk.

Jami and I at the summit, 11,700 feet. It was really cold but I was loving it. I used my scooter to get around. We went into the lodge and had some refreshments and purchased a few things.

We had a lot of fun. The weather was so perfect for me. I was cool and yet it wasn't so cold we couldn't do things. I was sad a little because there was a lot to do and I couldn't do them because of my ankle.

Surgery Pictures

These are my new additions to my ankle. I have 5 screws that are fusing my ankle together. It made me sick when I saw them for the first time. I almost threw up. They will be there forever.

My lovely cast. Anthony chose the color. The signatures are from all of my students. They had fun signing my cast.

The tape on the left side of my knee, that you can hardly see, is where they took some of the bone and used it to sort of glue my ankle joint together. That wasn't too sore.

I passed out when they were trying to get some blood from me. It felt awful but it made everybody laugh.

After sugery things went well. They kept giving me pain killers, which I needed, but one time they gave me some morphine and I threw up buckets. I stayed home from teaching for a month and when I went back I lasted two days and was totally exhausted, so I took another two days off. I had my full week back last week and I did great. I have a little scooter to get around on and it's pretty slick. My students want to ride it and see how fast it goes.

I am so frustrated that I can't do the things I want to do. I have been watching a lot of T.V. which drives me crazy, but I have discovered a program I like to watch. It's called Clean House. I am now able to stand longer and not have my toes swell up so that they feel like they are going to burst. I don't teach my nursery class yet. I probably won't resume that until the latter part of June.

Bill has been a nurse, housecleaner, yard upkeep, he even has to wash my hair and get me out of the tub. For the first 3 weeks or so he even brought me breakfast and dinner in bed!! He has listened to me cry, throw up and many other unpleasant things. He has to now help me up and down the stairs to get anywhere. I can drive but he has to put the scooter in the car and I use his arm to help me hop down the stairs. He deserves a medal of patience. It has been an adventure that I want to end NOW!!!!!

I get my cast off on Thursday May 29th at 9:45 a.m. I have 3 days 4 hours and 35 seconds left. Ha.

I will have a walking boot for 6 weeks and have physical therapy. I hope it all works.

I am hoping to get some video of the cast removal and pictures of my scar. Grose!! I can't look at it yet or I'll throw up.

Spending time with good friends

This spring break we went to Phoenix to see our friends Stacey and Charlie Kingston. This is a picture of our car we rented which we didn't like very much. It was gangster looking car. The color blinded your eyes. In the back ground is their house. It was really nice. We played rock guitar and bowling on the wii. We sat around and talked and enjoyed dinners and lunches together.



Amazingly enough this is Heather. The little tiny girl that we used to babysit and saw all the time. She has grown into a beautiful young woman. She is married and her husband, Dominic, is in Korea. He is full time military. He won't be home until September.

This is Stacey and Charlie standing in front of a little green area across their house. . We got to go and see one of his radiation treatments at the cancer center. He was pretty amazing. We went to see old cars and went to a antique mall. Stacey was funny because she gave to the good will a piece of furniture and she saw it at the antique mall for sale for 145.00. She was amazed.

When we said goodbye on Saturday we gave hugs and it was extremely hard to know that when I hugged Charlie it might be the last time I will see him alive. It was a hard goodbye.

When we got to the airport I had made a mistake on our return date and we weren't on that flight. I made the return date for May 9th. We had another adventure. We just got a hotel room and came home very early on Sunday morning. We got up at 4:00 a.m. and we were at the airport checked in and sitting down waiting for our flight by 4:25. Simply amazing!!! I sat on the plane between two really old men who fell asleep right away. Bill sat in front of me between two women. One was really young the other about our age. It was a bittersweet trip. I loved seeing Matthew their son which I forgot to get a picture of. He is about 6'4" and very handsome. He is a very respectful young man and is about to graduate from High School. We pray for Charlie and his family to help them endure what is ahead of them. We love you.

2008 Christmas

I have been having a hard time remembering how to do video's. Bill helps me and I told him that pretend I'm a 7th grader. He said, "I can't, they would get it by now!" Ha. Ha

A visit from Gabe and Val and the kids

Jordyn is so tiny. She is crawling now and is such a happy baby. She was performing for us in the frontroom today.

Enjoying the Grandkids

This reminded me of when A.J. used to love to play with string and attach an army man or something and hang it over the banister. He would play with that for hours. Anthony was having so much fun with the box. Cheap toys.