Summer Fun

It's amazing! Another post and it has only been a day. Well, we have been having a fun summer. The week after Rachel's baptism was Marty's birthday. Some good friends of ours, the Neilsons, invited us to go to their cabin in Island Park for the weekend. We had Marty's cake up there and had a wonderful time. Sophie and Rachel floated down the river in the canoe with Virginia and Micah and all of us spent some quality time at the river by Mack's Inn.









We have also been exploring the Snake River and have found some really neat places along the way. Unfortunately I never remember my camera so I don't have any pics. I will have to take some next time we go. We also took a day trip to Logan this week and ate tiny spicy chicken and Aggie ice cream. We had a great time. Alas, I forgot my camera for that one too.

One Year Later - Rachel's Baptism

OK, OK, I am finally making another post after a year. It has been quite the year, as I am sure you can tell by my last post. Marty is continuing to improve. Of course, we would all like it to go faster. However, I can't complain because the improvement is steady. If we can just convince his body that he is not on a boat in the middle of a hurricane we could probably make a lot more progress.

Marty came home on October 17th of 2009. This was Rachel's 8th birthday. He went into the hospital on my birthday, and came home on Rachel's big day. Everyone but the dogs had a birthday while he was away. We asked Rachel what she wanted to do about her baptism. I told her that she could have her grandfather baptize her, or she could wait until her dad was well enough to do it. She was determined to have her dad do it. She had to wait a while, but finally Marty was ready. One June 5th 2010, Rachel was baptized and confirmed by her father. It was amazing. Most of Marty's family was able to be there and several friends who live far away came for the occasion. We filled the font room and it was fabulous. Rachel was so excited that so many people came. Sophie felt a little gipped because only Grandma made it to hers (we lived in CA at the time). My wonderful sister-in-law, Karlie, had the presence of mind to snap a photo of Rachel on Marty's lap right before the baptism. I will be eternally grateful to her for taking that photo. I know that I would not have remembered to do it. This was one time that I wished I could take a photo of the actual baptism. Marty's brothers Karl and Brad and his brother-in-law Nate Haws all helped Marty into the font and kept him standing so that he could baptize Rachel. It was amazing. Marty has come so far and this was a huge accomplishment for him. Rachel was beeming and so excited. Afterwards, Marty confirmed Rachel. We were a little worried because his speech is still a little difficult to understand. I understood every word and just about everyone else understood at least most of it. The blessing was short, but beautiful and very tailored to Rachel. It was an amazing day and we are so grateful for everyone who helped make it possible. We feel so blessed.





One of the highlights of the weekend is that Marty was finally able to go downstairs and sit in his beloved library for the first time in over a year. His dad and Nate helped him up and down the stairs. Marty loved it and the next day he kept asking when he was going to get to go upstairs.

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.

Fun Field Trip

That's right, we have another post. There are so many photos to share. This set is from Rachel's field trip. I had the opportunity to go with Rachel on her field trip to the planetarium and the children's museum. Even though it was the beginning of April it was snowy, icy, and absolutely freezing outside. Fortunately there was only a little bit of walking outside. There are no photos of the planetarium because we were rushed out so quickly. I did get some great shots of Rachel at the children's museum. Is it just me, or is she amazingly photogenic. The fact that she loves to dress up definitely makes it easier to get good shots.

Marty Finally Graduated!

Wow, another entry in less than 24 hours. Who ever would have guessed. Today I thought I would blog about our recent trip to California. We went to California for about a week right before Memorial weekend so that Marty could officially graduate. It was happy times. Marty was busy with school stuff most of the time so the kids and I did some pretty fun stuff all by ourselves. We went to the Fullerton Arboretum, but I forgot my camera so there are no photos. The next day we went to Balboa to play at the beach and take a sea lion watching tour. Unfortunately the sea was pretty rough that day so we didn't get to go out of the harbor much. We did make it out to the buoy though so we did get to see some sea lions after all. We did all have a fabulous time at the beach. You will notice from the slide show that Sophie was in classic form and is the only one playing in the water. She was also the only one who brought her swim suit. It was a little chilly in So Cal that week. The next day Marty was able to join us and we went to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. We had a ball. Well, all of us but Peter had a good time. He liked it at first, but after a while he became very frustrated that we would not let him run amok like a mad man through the aquarium. He did a lot of crying after he came to that realization.

The next day was graduation. We had a lovely graduation outside in the wind and rain. It was really cold. I was sitting there in the freezing weather being very grateful that I had just gone through a very cold Utah winter. Otherwise I would have been miserable. The Californians were not handling it well. Graduation was really nice with very good speakers. The fans (oops, I think I meant families) were rather interesting. It was like a cross between a graduation and a sporting event. Some of the people were dressed very nice and were on very good behavior. Others were in jeans and tank tops (yes, in that weather). I saw a few banners, blow horns, and even a foam hand with a photo of their graduate pasted to the palm. We were all relieved to hop into the car after graduation and leave that chapter of our life behind us.