Winter Damage

Here are some pictures of the winter damage down at our cabin. At least it will be more firewood.

Wordless Wednesday

Happy 2008

Happy New Year to everyone!
I know it has been forever since we last updated the blog. Life has been busy, yet non eventful. Ever have times like that? We had a fun Christmas, it was quiet and slow. We had Jessica and Josh home and everyone else was away. We had the sister missionaries over for dinner and had turkey stuffed with citrus and cranberries. It was yummy!! After Christmas, Jackie and Zach and kids came down and it was Christmas take 2. The kids weren't feeling too good, so the next few days were spent in front of the fire watching football. We rang in the New Year at 9pm with Keegan, then played games and watched Lord of the Rings 3. Someone around here had some really good fireworks and so we went outside in the freezing cold and watched for a while!

The new year will bring lots of changes. The new kitchen should start the beginning of February. We managed to get the temporary room painted. Over the next weeks we will start getting a kitchen organized out there. Should be interesting. Just after getting the new kitchen done and getting moved back into it, I will get a new knee. At least it is scheduled, we will see if I go through with it. I am very nervous and scared about it. More on that later.

Enjoy the pictures. I especially love the one of Reed as a Romas soldier. Doesn't he have cute legs?

Christmas is Coming!!

After our wonderful surprise from Jayme and Virginia for Thanksgiving, we spent the next week with Jackie and the boys staying with us while they had bad colds. Jayme and Virginia surprised us by showing up Thanksgiving morning. We loved having them. We finally got the decorations up. I love the new entertainment center. It has lots of room for displaying my creches (nativity scenes). I love putting up my decorations. Now I need to get the downstairs decorated. Jess and I will head out tomorrow to look for a tree, in between appointments.

Josh heads for the orthopedic Dr. tomorrow. He has horrible grinding in his knee and will probably need surgery. Better to get it done now, before he heads off for college and then a mission. I am beginning to think that something with knees runs in the family! I will head for my specialist in Salem next week. There may be a new knee for me in the next year!

We took everyone to see a Trans Siberian Ochestra concert this last weekend. What a great time. Reed absolutely loves their music. I took him last year for his birthday. This year we took Jackie and Zach and Jessica and Josh. Jessica and Josh had never been before. It was fun to watch Josh during the concert. He was facinated watching them play. I am sure our basement will be rocking as Josh tries to gain inspiration from this band.

We are so happy that the Beavers won. Especially that Josh won his friendly bet with Justin. Josh has been growing his hair out since summer. If the Beavers lost against the Ducks, he was going to have to dye his hair black. Since the Beavers won, Justin had to color his hair orange!!! And Josh got to get his hair cut. Note the before and after photos!!

What to do after a Cortisone injection!!

So I had another trip to see the knee Dr. this week. Basically, the knee is gone and it is time for me to see about getting it replaced. I am being sent to a knee replacement specialist. We will see what happens from there.

At the Dr., since I was in so much pain, he gave me another cortisone injection. The knee feels better, not great, but at least I can walk and be on my feet and then load up with pain meds and ice packs at night! So, what would you do? I decided to paint the bathroom. Might as well get it done before the knee gets really bad again. The last injection only lasted 3 months, so I figured I better hurry and get this done before I was laid up for a LONG time!!

Here are some pictures. Jessica made the pretty swag that hangs over the lights and mirror!

I have also included a picture of my "Gratitude Tree". We made these in YW. Basically the idea was to come up with people you were grateful for and acknowledge them in some way. These names were hung on our tree and each week, we send one of these people a note, or do something special for them. This passed off a value experience in YW and Jackie wanted to see it for her Activity Days.

Halloween Fun!

Halloween is lots of fun even as you get older. Of course, having grandkids certainly makes it more enjoyable. We loved having Keegan and Kayden here to go trick or treating. But first we had to carve our own pumpkins. Reed takes his carving very seriously. Can you guess which pumpkin belongs to Reed, Peggy and Josh? These were even home grown pumpkins, hence they were still green!! But they are still hanging around. Don't you just love fall weather?

I have also included a few pictures from another trip to the coast. I know we are really obsessed with the coast. But I have a really funny story about this last trip. Everyone went. We were actually heading to the outlet malls to do some shopping. We even took the dog!! He is not the best traveler and many times will get car sick. This was one time we were very grateful. For his birthday his litter sister (who is owned by some friends) gave him a rawhide bone. Now he has had these in the past, but I tend to give them in the house where I can keep track of things. Well Riley received this one outside and promptly ran off and it disappeared, or so I thought. Anyway, we go to the coast and the poor dog lost it after Eddyville. We made a quick stop at my sister's place to clean up the mess and lo and behold, the dog had thrown up an entire rawhide bone, WHOLE! I know this is gross, but I can understand how he got it up after it sat in his stomach for at least a week, it was soft. But how the heck did he swallow that huge thing whole?