Broken Bones and Summertime

School starts in exactly one week. I am SOOO looking forward to a nice regular school schedule and, hopefully, less fighting amongst the siblings.

We have had a packed summer and lots of family time. We had intended to go to Oregon to visit my parents and spend a few days at the beach, but Parker broke his arm pretty badly right before we were to go, and the doctors told Parker his summer was officially over. No swimming, no skateboarding, no rollerblading, no bike riding, etc etc... The only activities allowed were reading, video games, and t.v. watching. It was hard to spend so much money on a trip that would require a lot of time in a lawn chair for Parker, so we postponed our trip to next year. Besides, I had a lovely trip to the ER myself for a gallbladder attack. I meet with doctors about that next week...I might be having surgery for that in the near future....we'll see.

Here's Parker's cast. He broke both bones right above his wrist. He was riding his rip-stick when he broke it...he had gotten his rip-stick for his 9th birthday from us back in June. He is actually a very good rip-stick rider. I've even taken him to a near-by skate park. But, just an unlucky fall that day. He'll have this long-arm cast on for another 10 days, then he'll get another short-arm cast for a couple more weeks. It was a pretty serious break...I'm looking forward to getting the bill from the on-call Orthepedic Surgeon:) Luckily, he's left-handed.

A good chunk of our summer was spent with Rob's family. His sister was expecting a little girl with a congenital heart defect, and we spent a bit of our summer preparing, and wanting to support her family thru the upcoming birth and life of their daughter. As most know we have also lost a young daughter to a serious birth/brain defect, so we knew what it could be like to have an unhealthy baby and some of the trials that come with that. We were blessed to enjoy our young niece, Merideth, for a few days, and we took our family to visit her and spend time with her and her family.

Garrison with Grandma and Merideth.

Addison, Parker, and Merideth.

Me holding Merideth

Rob with Merideth

We all enjoyed being able to spend time with her during her 9 days here on Earth. I also have to say, that although it was difficult at times because Merideth's circumstances were so close to our own when we lost Paige, it was a real blessing to feel able to give support and love to someone else. We had felt such love and support from our family and friends during our time with Paige, and it was nice to be able to turn around and give what we once received. In some ways it was healing for us. Like being able to hold Merideth and pass her around and truly enjoy spending time with her, something we really couldn't do with Paige because of her health issues, and also being able to be a splurging aunt and buy some cute little outfits for her to wear, again something we really couldn't do for Paige. I am grateful that Merideth's family was so willing to share her and allow us to be a part of her short life.

Although death can be such a difficult and sad time, it's also a time when family draws close together. Though, there were many tears, there was also time for laughter as family was able to gather together and cousins were able to play together.

Here are the terrible two's! I mean the adorable two's!! Senika, Natalie, Garrison, and Bethany. Cousin's all born in 2007!

Addie and Kira enjoying snow cones.

Parker eating a snow cone in the tree....and after seeing this picture is it REALLY surprising Parker broke his arm???

Rob and his sister Julie. Such silly siblings!!

All the cousins playing around the tree!!

And staying at a hotel is ALWAYS a vacation for the kids. The kids LOVED playing in the pools at our hotel stays!

And of course we had a wonderful 4th of July! We did our usual activities of parade, and fireworks. We also got to enjoy time with my family, as my sister's Julie and Sallie (and their families) came and spent some quality 4th of July time with us.

The cousins doing snake/worm fireworks

Kylie, Emily, Matt, with Uncle Reid (Garrison in the background)

Parker and Addie at the parade

Garrison at the parade

Another fun summer activity that we were a part of was the local production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". Rob played the part of the oldest brother Rueben, and Parker was a part of the kids chorus. It was a very time consuming activity as the boys had to attend a LOT of rehearsals. But it was a great show and they had a great time being a part of it.

Parker with some of the other kids in the chorus

Rob with his parents and grandma after the first show. Yes, Rob made the "Reuben" sign all by himself...very creative:) Also you can see grandma has some of the confetti from the show around her neck. Rob loves to talk the producers into making confetti a part of the show. It is a real crowd pleaser, as you can see Addison enjoyed it very much.

Did I mention that I helped with the stage make-up? So, even I was a part of the show. Rob has tried to convince me that I should be on stage with him...but that is SO not gonna happen! But, I do enjoy being a part of backstage:)

We also got to "host" our nieces and nephews for a couple of days as they got ready to attend the local EFY.

They were a bunch of crazy teenagers!!

I realize this was a really long blog entry, but wanted to catch everyone up on our summer activities. But, what we did the most this summer was just "hang out" with our friends and family, eat lots of popsicles, and play in the yard.

Garrison

Addie

Parker and friend

Parker and Carson

Addie and G

Even I got to hang out with some of MY bestest friends!!!

Fun Family Visit

Our computer broke down a couple of months ago, and so I got way behind in my blogging.  Some of our best friends from Utah came up for a weekend visit back in April and I'm finally blogging about it.

Tina and I go WAY back from our country and horseback riding days at Ricks College, so that means we have been super-great friends for 16 years.  Amazing!  And she happened to marry a super fantastic guy and had super fantastic kids, so we absolutely love hanging out with there family whenever we go down to Utah, and occasionally they come up here to visit us.

Brady and Garrison were fast friends, and that's saying a lot for Garrison who is such a momma's boy.

All the crazy kids!!

Addie and Sadie  (the rest of the kids at the top)

Even though it was only 50 degrees outside the kids BEGGED us to get the water slide out.  They were crazy and cold....but brave, because they all did it!  They had a great time freezing together.  They would go down once or twice then grab a towel and head for the warm cement pad or trampoline to try and warm up for a few minutes, then do it again.  As we, the parents, watched and laughed in amazement as they all did it.

Colton in-action picture.

Then we moved onto warmer activities.  There's a new local Go-Karts place that opened up here, so we went to go and try it out.  Here's Abby, Brady and Parker trying it out.

It was such a fun weekend!  And we just LOVE Tina and her family!!!

Flashback Moment

Tina and Elizabeth 15 years ago!!  Our young and single days...heading out to go country dancing!!!  YeeHaw!

Parker's Ballroom Dance Recital

Here are a few pictures of Parker's Ballroom Dance Recital.  He has finished up with his ballroom dance for the season.  He really enjoyed it and is planning to do it again next year.  Yeah!!

He preformed three different dances, the Samba, the Mambo, and the Waltz.  The other pictures didn't turn out at all, so I'm only able to post his Waltz pictures.  

Our Easter Weekend

So...here is all our Easter weekend fun. We had to decorate our Easter Eggs...of course. We did it during Garrison's nap time because he really wouldn't have enjoyed it since he's too young to really care and probably would have made a little more hectic for those of us who really appreciate doing it. Little Natalie came to try it out for the first time with Addie and Parker.

We also had our annual Easter Egg hunt in our own backyard with friends and family. We enjoy this much more then the crazy-out-of-control community ones.

I really only could capture pictures of Addison during the hunt...Parker was too fast! Here is Addie and one of her friends checking out their loot.

And Garrison...he really didn't care about the Easter Egg hunt at all! All he wanted to do was jump on the trampoline with his cousin Natalie. In fact he thru a lovely temper tantrum because we wouldn't allow him outside sooner because we worried he would pick-up all the eggs...but nope, he could have cared less about the eggs...he just wanted on that trampoline!

Scouts

Not the best pictures....but here is Parker with his Pinewood derby car, and another picture of him earning his "Wolf" badge. When they earn a rank they get to give their mother a pin for helping them achieve a new rank, so it's actually a picture of Parker pinning a pin on me. How do you like my Cubmaster shirt? Oh yeah, I'm the Cubmaster for Parker's pack. I know now more about scouts than I ever thought I would. It was always in the plan that once our boys were old enough for scouts Rob would be in charge of all things scouting. But, that planned changed quickly since I am now the Cubmaster.
Parker LOVES scouting! And now that I understand it, and am involved, I think it's pretty cool too.

Horsin' Around

Here is Addison and myself.  She has shown to be a real horse lover...like me.  While we were in Utah we hopped on Tobee to go ride around for a little.  These pictures were taken just moments before Addie and I got bucked off.  Yes!  It was a real bummer!  Gratefully Addison had a pretty soft landing in a big pile of dirt...until I landed on top of her and knocked the wind out of her.  Poor kid.  I've been bucked off a handful of times, but this is Addie's first experience.  Tobee has never bucked before, but he got startled and with Addie squished in the saddle with me I didn't have a good seat.  I tried to turn my body so I wouldn't land on Addie, but I couldn't completely do it, so I unfortunately hurt her.  If I wouldn't have landed on her I don't think she would have gotten hurt at all...so I felt pretty bad about that.

Anyway, luckily no one was seriously hurt, I was a little bruised, but I was so concerned about Addie I didn't really notice 'til the next day.

I took Addie into the house and gave her some Advil and she was fine.  I went back out and Kirsten and I went on a short little trail ride, but it was pretty short since I was worried about Addie.  She was fine though.  I tried to get her to come back out and ride Tobee again for a few minutes, but she refused.  Tried teaching her that when you get bucked off...you get right back on.  Well, she'll just have to learn by example this time since I showed her that I got back on Tobee for my little trail ride.

What an adventure!

Addison's Birthday

I'm finally adding Addison's birthday post.  I haven't had much time for blogging lately, so I have to get caught up.  Addison turned 4 in February.  She had a nice little family celebration, shared with her dad as their birthday's are only a few days apart.  Then because at age four they now get to have "friend" parties on their even numbered birthdays....family only parties on odd numbered birthdays.  Just a little tradition of ours.

For Addison's "friend" party she and a cute little group of other 4 year olds, went to a "Build-a-Bear" type of place....sorry, we are too small town for an actual "Build-a-Bear" place.  The kids all got to pick out and stuff, dress, and name their own stuffed animals.  Afterwards they played with a Thomas the Train set-up at the party place.  The girls seemed to really enjoy.

Here's the party girls!

Here's Addie and dad sharing a birthday cake....although it was pink and heart shaped!  So not much of a "daddy" cake...but he got his own homemade German Chocolate cake earlier in the week.

Sea World

Not many pictures today.  We took it pretty easy today since we were so exhausted after a long day at Epcot yesterday.  We loved the dolphin and whale shows.

I return home tomorrow...I'm excited to see my family again.