Marty's Stroke

Right after we went on the Nature Trail Marty had a stroke. It has been a long haul. It has been seven weeks and he is still in the hospital. When he came in they had to remove the right part of his cerebellum to keep it from closing off his brain stem. There should be no effects on his mental abilities, but his coordination and balance was severely affected. He is improving quickly, but still has a very long way to go. Marty still struggles with speech and swallowing. He also cannot sit or stand unaided. We are all hopeful that he will make a complete recovery. I thought I would include a photo of him with the kids. This was taken in the ICU about four weeks ago.


The kids visiting Marty on his birthday




Neilson's came for his birthday too. Amber helped the kids make this great banner for him.




Peter wanted to snuggle up with his daddy while he napped.

Summer Fun

I am finally adding another post. I am just not cut out to be a blogger I guess. We have had a very interesting summer. I thought I would start out our adventures with our trip to the Cress Creek Nature Trail on Memorial Day. I got online and found a nature trail nearby. It was at the South Fork of the Snake River right by Heise Hot Springs. The kids were excited to go, but I didn't have a very good map and it took way too long to get there. Fortunately I had put a movie on for the kids so they didn't care. The trail was very deserty at first, but the view of the river and surrounding farm land was incredible. Rachel whined for the first part of the trail. It was hot and dry and she wanted to go home. Eventually we got to the creek and the trail became very green. At that point she perked up and we had a great time.

A New Entry At Last!

That's right folks. I decided that seven months was long enough to wait between posts. I think it is my new record. So much has happened in that time I will have to figure out where to start the update. Since I last wrote all three kids have had a birthday, we remodeled a library, a bathroom, and repainted the exterior of our house. There was Halloween, Christmas, and the winter soltace, not to mention Sharon's wedding which resulted in a very exciting trip for Peter and me.

Let's start with before and after photos of the exterior of the house. I think most of you have seen these so you can skip past this part if you want. Here we go.





Now for the more interesting part of our lives: the kids. Let's start with the first birthday since the last post. Sophie turned 9 on June 24th and had a great party. It really helped that we already had friends here so there were lots of kids to invite. She chose a water theme so it was good times for all; particularly for those who like mud. Sophie also had one of her life long dreams fulfilled. She got a hamster that she named Zippy. Zippy was the beginning of a pile of pets that have entered the home since we moved to IF.






The next big month for us was August. My sister Sharon was married on Peter's birthday so we celebrated his birthday a week late. Fortunately he was two so he had no idea that we celebrated late. If he were older maybe we would have to try to convince him that the wedding party was really his party. The trip turned out to be a real party for both of us and I found myself sobbing on the way home. Okay, I wasn't really sobbing, but I was sad to leave my fun vacation. I don't have any photos of the wedding on this computer so I will have to add them later. That leads us to...

Peter's belated birthday. Peter had a great birthday. We all had a fabulous time and he got a big police car and a space ship. It was a great success. Mom and Dad were particularly happy that Toys R Us had their HUGE clearance sale right before his birthday. I think he was ultimately happy about that too.






After Peter's birthday we bought a new pug. Her name is Dinah and we are still getting used to having a puppy around again. She and Lucy are thick as thieves now and Lucy is definitely a much happier dog now that she has someone to dominate.



Next comes Rachel's birthday and Halloween. Rachel got to go on a treasure hunt go find all of her birthday presents and loved it. Rachel finally had an official friends birthday party this year. It was her first because we have never had enough kids her age where we have lived to do it before. Good times for all.







Next was Halloween. The girls chose their costumes and fortunately Peter was happy with the one I chose for him. Rachel was a Persian princess, Sophie was a pirate, and Peter was Darth Vader. All of the kids really enjoyed their first experience trick-or-treating. Well, technically Sophie and Rachel went when we lived in Idaho before, but neither of them could remember going. Peter really loved it. He was in awe that all of these people were just giving him candy. He also always remembered to say thank you. Because Sophie is diabetic se bought her candy from her with a toy. Rachel thought a toy sounded better than all of that candy and she opted for that too. Peter ended up opting for the toy option as well without realizing it because he is a disaster when he gets candy.







Well, that's a lot of material and I am beat. I am sure you are all very tired of reading this by now too. I would love to promise to do better, but my track record isn't so good so I will promise to update whenever I think about it and have time. Have fun.