A Taste of Spring

Mother Nature is oh so fickle.  I took these photos last Saturday. In case you can't tell that's a banana Creamie in Barrett's right hand.  It was so warm last week that almost all of the snow melted.  The kids were playing outside in shorts and t shirts (it was in the upper 50's).  They had a lot of fun playing with sidewalk chalk and just being outside.  Ruby was in heaven.  She could dig and sniff and lie on the deck in the sun again.  She hardly came inside during the day.

Barrett taking a spin on his bike. 

The warm weather and the fact that I could see my flower beds, made me a little crazy and I had Justin pick up four pony packs of pansies for me to plant.  The ground was the consistency of chocolate pudding.  I basically just stuck the spade in and wiggled until I had a hold big enough to slip the pansy's roots in.  

Here's a close up of my newly planted flowers.  I wasn't delusional enough to think it wouldn't snow again, that's why I chose pansies.  They are very cold hardy, in fact I even had two plants that survived the winter.  It did snow the next and the next and we had a little break on Tuesday before more snow on Wednesday, but the worst was waking up on Thursday morning to about a foot and a half of snow.  It took Justin 45 minutes to snow blow the driveway.  My poor pansies are buried so deeply that they are only a dim memory.  I'm so glad I took some pictures of them.  I'm considering this an experiment, because usually by the time I get some pansies planted the weather has turned so hot and dry that half of them wither up and die.  I'm hoping that by getting them in the ground so early this year that the roots will be established enough that they will survive the summer.  Time will tell.

Blythe's Surgery

Just in case anyone doesn't already know, Blythe had her tonsils and adenoids taken out a week ago today.  She had to check-in at Primary Children's hospital at 6:30 a.m.  Luckily, Justin was able to take her down and I met him after I got Brynne off to school and Barrett dropped off at my Mom's house.  She went in to the OR about 8:15 a.m., which was about the time I was leaving Park  City.  I didn't have wait for very long after I got to the hospital  for them to call me back to the post-op area to see Blythe.  She was already awake when I got there.  The surgeon met me there and told me that her tonsils were huge, but they didn't bleed at all when he took them out.  The adenoids weren't as large, but he did take them out as well.  I thought it was really cool that they let Blythe wear her hat during the surgery.  Anyone who sees Blythe often knows that she wears her hat whenever possible, basically not to church and not in class. It almost qualifies as a comfort object like a security blanket or something like that. 

Here's Blythe watching T.V. and sipping Sprite.

A close-up of Blythe wearing her hat and her hospital gown.

I took this just after they took her I.V. out shortly before

they let us go home.  I had her in the car by 10:30 a.m. I 

could hardly believe they would let her go home so soon.

Here she is resting on the sofa later that afternoon.

She's spent on a lot of time on that sofa in the past week.  She's been doing quite well.  She never was in terrible pain and now she's down to taking her liquid Lortab only once a day.  She has had a couple of nose bleeds and we are still waiting for the scabs to fall off her throat, which is when there is some risk of heavy bleeding.  She still prefers to eat ice cream, mashed potatoes, pudding, fruit smoothies and other soft foods, although she is going to try to worry down part of a cheese quesadilla for lunch today.  I'm hoping she'll be back in school on Monday.

Pay it Forward

I saw this on my cousin Nancy's blog and decided it would be fun.

So, here's how it works:  the first 3 people to leave a comment on this post will receive, at some point during the year a homemade gift from me.  What it will be and when it will arrive is a total surprise!  The catch is that you must participate as well.  Before you leave your comment, write up a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going.  Then come back, let me know you are going to play and sit back and anticipate the arrival of your gift.  Come and play!

(I changed the word handmade to homemade, because anyone who knows me, which should be anyone reading this blog, likely knows that chances are the gift will be edible.)

Spring Skiing

We've been enjoying some warm, sunshiny weather lately and we went skiing as a family on Saturday.  Brynne was a little less than enthusiastic about skiing, "I just don't get what's so fun about skiing.  You are just going down a hill."  We told her too bad.  The family is going skiing so you have to come with us. 

Barrett did great.  He is now skiing all by himself.  We still have him wear his harness because it's helpful to have that handle on his back to get him up on the chair lift and to help pick him up when he falls down, but after a couple of runs he didn't want Justin holding on to the  straps anymore.  So far he is cautious skier and doesn't like to go too fast.  I'm sure by next year he'll be a ski demon.   One funny thing happened though.  He accidentally skied between a woman's legs because she turned right in front of him and he's not that skillful at avoiding people and either turning or stopping quickly.  She of course fell down, but luckily neither one was hurt.  Barrett was a little freaked out, poor boy. 

The kids didn't have school on Monday.  It was a make-up snow day.  I was brave and took all three kids skiing without Justin.  Peter, Brittney and Hannah skied with us too.  Hannah is still learning, but she made some good progress yesterday.  I did remember my camera this time so I took a few photos and some video of Barrett skiing.  However, I cannot get the video to upload on here so you don't get to see Barrett in action.  I had never skied without using poles before and it was a weird feeling at first.  I did a lot of snowplowing behind Barrett and my thighs got a great workout.  I was pretty tired by the time we left even though we'd only skied beginner  runs all day.  

Blythe in her ski gear. 

Hannah, Brittney and Brynne.

My cute little skier with his cool sunglasses on.

The Many Faces of Barrett

I snapped a bunch of photos of Barrett yesterday morning before I took him to preschool just because he was looking so cute.  I get nice morning light in my bedroom, so I stuck him in front of the wall in there.  My flash was turned on for the first photo, but I turned it off for the rest of them.  He was not overly cooperative, which made for some funny shots which show his personality.  

Which one is your favorite?

A Retreat in Mesquite

Last weekend Justin's company treated us to a retreat in Mesquite, NV.  All the office guys (and one gal) and the superintendents were invited.  We drove down Thursday morning and took a scenic detour between Cedar City and St. George up Kolob Canyons, which is a part of Zion's National Park.  It was a short drive up and the scenery was gorgeous.  The contrast between the red rocks, white snow and green vegetation was stunning.  We ended up taking the only photos of the whole mini-vacation at the top of Kolob Canyons.  

Justin reading the plaque.  His parents would be proud.

Apparently, when Justin was growing up when his family 

would travel they would stop at every roadside historical

monument and have to all get out of the car to read it.

Justin is continuing the tradition with our family.

Me enjoying the sun and warmer weather.

We stayed at the Oasis Casino and Resort.  The economic downturn has been felt in Mesquite and our hotel (motel) had apparently been closed for a few months and then reopened.  The rooms were serviceable, but in need of some renovation and the lighting was inadequate.  We were very glad we'd brought our own pillows.  At least it was free!  We took a short driving tour of Mesquite, which is not large and Justin showed me the tennis courts he worked on two years when he was working for the Tennis Company.  They still looked great.  

Dinner wasn't until 7:30 p.m. and considering that Nevada is an hour behind Utah, it was kind of late for us.  There were about 40 of us and we had a buffet dinner in the building right across from our room.  This was only the third time I'd ever seen any of these people and socializing is not my forté, but it was fine.  The food wasn't any better than I expected.  Justin and I both agreed that the baked potatoes were the tastiest part of the dinner.  At the end of the dinner, Justin's boss Jason gave a little speech and talked about the coming year and the challenges of the economy.  Justin works for Kilgore Paving, which is an asphalt paving company and with the money the state is getting from the federal government for new road projects they should be in good shape if they can get awarded some of the UDOT bids which are coming up in the next 6 weeks.  Jason said that he used to think that over 10 bidders per project was a lot of competition.  Now they are seeing almost 30 bidders per project.  Everyone is in need of work. Justin and I are very glad that he was able to get hired on so quickly at Kilgore last spring after he lost his job at D.C. Transport because his boss found out that he had interviewed for a job with Summit County.  We are now realizing what a blessing it was because Kilgore Paving is currently in a better financial position than D.C.  Transport. Kilgore is a young company having been started about 2001 and Jason Kilgore is younger than Justin.  After his speech Jason gave everyone a box of double dipped chocolate mints from C. Kay Cummings.  I'd never had them before, but they were good!  We had pretty much finished the box by the time we got home.  

The next morning Justin had breakfast at 7:00 a.m. followed by a meeting which was supposed to end at noon, but ended up lasting until 1:00 p.m.  I was given a voucher for breakfast at The Casablanca, the casino across the street.  I also had a 8:30 a.m. massage scheduled at the spa at Casablanca.  I was a bit dismayed at the early hour until Justin reminded me that it was 9:30 our time.  I ended up getting up in plenty of time and had a leisurely breakfast followed by a delightful morning at the spa.  I've decided that an hour spent on a massage table is the most quickly passing hour ever.  After my massage I sat in the eucalyptus steam room and chatted with the wife of one of the junior estimators, then we went outside and soaked in the mineral warming pool and chatted some more.  Then we got our books and helped ourselves to the juice bar and sat by the pool ostensibly to read, but really chatting with three of the other wives.  Before I knew it, it was time to get ready to meet Justin.  It's too bad I didn't know that Justin's meeting was going to run late, because I would have rather spent another hour by pool instead of sitting in our hotel room.  

I checked my cell phone when I got back to the hotel and found a message from my Mom saying that she had gotten locked out of the house.  There went my relaxed mood.  Fortunately, when I got ahold of her it was to find out that Brittney had used my van to take all the kids to swimming lessons the night before and still had my house keys so she was able to unlock the door.  Whew!  After Justin showed up we grabbed a quick lunch at McDonald's before heading over to the Oasis Gun Club for some skeet shooting.  I could have participated but weather had turned a bit cloudy and windy and I opted to sit in the car with my book instead.  It was only the second time Justin had ever shot a shotgun and he ended up hitting 9 out of 50 targets. Shockingly, he didn't have the worst score as another guy hit only 7.  I got out of the car and watched him shoot at one of the stations towards the end.  

Our next activity was going over to the Casablanca and redeeming our $10.00 in free slot play. Neither of us had ever gambled before and it was amazing how quickly our combined $20.00 vanished.  I'm proud to say we didn't spend a dime of our own money.  Dinner was at 7:30 again on Friday night.  The food was better that night.  I think it's pretty hard to ruin prime rib, although the chicken breast I also had was dry.  That night Jason gave another short speech and explained that the retreat was mostly intended as a thank you to all the spouses for supporting his employees, especially when they have to work long hours.  The spouses each received a watch as a thank you gift.  Jason's wife Amber had all the different watches that she had purchased set out on a table and we got to pick out the one we wanted.  

We decided to join some of the other couples in seeing the 9:50 showing of Confessions of a Shopaholic, since we could sleep in the next morning.  We had the theatre to ourselves.  I've read all the Shopaholic books and was a little disappointed that they had changed the setting of the film from London to New York.  I enjoyed the movie anyway.  The next morning we slept in and then attempted to have breakfast at the Casablanca.  The line for the restaurant was so long that Justin proposed getting breakfast at a bakery in Santa Clara that Peter and Britt are always raving about.  We took the back way into Santa Clara, which is a cute little town with lots of pioneer vintage homes.  We found the bakery, Grandma Tobler's without any trouble and I had a delicious orange roll and raisin filled cookie.  Justin opted for a cinnamon roll and some chocolate chip cookies.   We then drove through Snow Canyon, which is a state park.  It's amazing to see the ancient lava flows that left black rock scattered over the red sandstone.  Our next stop was the Mountain Meadows Massacre memorial.  The short trail, which dips down into a gully and then back up, was snow covered and icy, so I turned back  and waited in the car. Justin did the required reading and then we set off for home.  We got back about 4:30 p.m., in plenty of time for Justin to take Blythe's Jr. Jazz team to see the 7:00 p.m. Jazz game.  It was so nice to have a little break from our every day routine and spend some time together.  I'm hoping we get to do this again next year. 

Excuses, excuses

I thought I'd been doing a fairly good job at keeping up with my blog lately until I saw my blog listed on Jess' page indicating that it has been two weeks since I last posted anything.  So what's been keeping me from blogging?  Well, for one I had the kids home for a whole week and we were literally home the entire week.  I have had the worst sore throat ever for two weeks now.  It started in earnest the night before President's Day, which was the first day the kids were off of school.  I was sure I had strep because I was in so much pain.  The rapid strep test at the clinic on Monday morning was negative, but I asked them to please do a culture because Justin had strep in January that was initially negative, but did turn out to be positive after doing a culture. 

 Surprisingly, it was kind of nice to be sick when all my kid were home.  The girls kept Barrett busy and I had absolutely no where that I had to be all week and I got to sleep in every morning.  I got all sorts of advice on how to ease the pain of my sore throat, which I found out on finally on Thursday at 5 p.m. still was not strep, but the only thing that helped was taking 2 ibuprofen every 6 hours or so.  I think I've ingested more Motrin in the past two weeks than I usually take in a year.  It's amazing how it stops my tonsils and glands from feeling swollen and sore and it stopped the stabbing pain that was radiating out my ear.  I started worrying a little about how much medicine I was taking so I tried waiting until the pain was really bad before taking another dose. This really only made me miserable and grumpy.  It'll be two weeks tonight since the pain started and it's definitely getting better, it's just taking forever.  

The week before that I had Brynne home from school for the entire week because she had a fever all week and a really bad cold with lots of sneezing, runny nose and congestion.  I made her a Dr.'s appointment on a Wednesday after she had had a fever since the previous Saturday.  She didn't find anything obviously the matter with Brynne: no strep, no ear infection, no pneumonia, etc.  She told me to call her on Friday if Brynne was still running a fever.  On Friday she was indeed still feverish so I called and her pediatrician did decide to prescribe an antibiotic for her.  Once she got the antibiotic in her the fever went away and never came back.  My guess is she developed a sinus infection, but I don't know for sure.   So it's been a long month and I had higher hopes for March. 

 However, the first thing Blythe told me this morning was that she threw up during the night.  Bless her heart she didn't wake us up and we didn't hear a thing.  It's so nice that she's old enough to stay home by herself.  The rest of us went to church and left Blythe on the sofa.  I called to check on her between Sunday School and Relief Society and she reported that she had thrown up a couple more times.  I'm already keeping my fingers crossed that the entire family will be well when we go to California and Disneyland for spring break in April.  I don't think I'll ever a plan a trip over winter break after how sick we've all been this February.  So now you all know in gory detail why I've been neglecting my blog.