5 and 1/2 years too late!

Okay so here is a story for you!

In June of 2006 (5 and 1/2 years ago) my boyfriend and I decided that we were going to take RaLee and two of her friends to SunSplash. For those of that don't know what SunSplash is it is a huge water theme park in Mesa. My summers where spent there as a kid and have many, many, many memories from there. Some of them I would rather forget, but moving forward. That summer they opened up this brand new ride called the "Sidewinder". It is a 5 story tall 1/2 pipe that when you hit the bottom you are doing "G-Force". They tell you when you get on the ride they tell you "Put you chin to your chest. Don't let you chin come up".

So Rae, Chris and I get in line to try the new ride! We made it up the five story climb and when we got there the only had a tube big enough for 5 people and not three. They put us on this tube going Rae in front, Me in the middle, and Chris behind me. This is BAD! My legs weren't long enough to support my body weight and RaLee's weight. They tell us Chin Down and away we go. INSTANTLY I slipped and I could feel RaLee starting to slip. I wasn't about to let go of my little sister and let her body roll down a 5 story half pipe. I adjusted and when I did I lifted my chin. My head whipped back and pain shot through my entire body! I yelled to Chris, I need a hospital!

We got off the ride and I stumbled off the raft. I made it to the closest shady spot and a sat down. Chris asked me if I was alright and I said " I think I broke my neck." Of course he said I didn't break my neck, but I might have a small case of whiplash. We rounded up the girls and decided to call it a day. Of course it was a Friday, and after 6pm, so I went home and suffered all weekend. I should have gone to the emergency room, but I didn't. Monday I went to the chiropractor. I had no idea that my insurance covered chiropractors so I paid out of pocket. They skipped the x-rays because I paid from pocket. The Doc at the time said he was surprised I didn't break my neck.

FAST FORWARD: Every 6 months I go to the chiropractor and get my neck adjusted because of the tension and tightness. We thought this was from a should injury I got in Spain.

FAST FORWARD to yesterday: I threw my back out by sitting in John's broken office chair! I was in pain and aching for an adjustment. I went into the office and for the first time I wasn't pregnant and they were able to do x-rays.

FAST FORWARD to today: I went back to the chiropractor so that we could talk about my x-rays. We chit chat about different parts of my back, and after a few minutes he says "Let's talk about your neck. Yesterday you mentioned a water park accident." "Yes, I hurt it really bad. I could have sworn I broke it, it hurt that bad, and it's never been the same." Well you see this" He points to a spot on my x-rays "this is a healed break. You see how your neck looks like this? Well it shouldn't. It is a complete 180' from what it should. They should stair step down and yours go up. I can't believe you can hold your head up!"

Needless to say that I KNEW I BROKE MY NECK! I knew I wasn't just being a baby! Stupid, stupid, stupid! 5 and 1/3 years of tension and pain because of the dullest water slide! I'm so excited that I got those x-rays! I knew that my shoulder couldn't be causing all the issues in my neck!

So that's the story how I broke my neck, and found out nearly 6 years later!

New Year 2012!

Holy Cow! Has it really been 12 years since the world was going to come to an end when all the computers weren’t going to be able to function with a 2000 year date? Wow! Time sure does fly by! Aren’t we glad that world didn’t come to an end then?! Instead it’s going to end December 21, 2012! Ironically that is my husbands birthday! Why is it ironic you ask? Well, I don’t know for sure.

This year we actually stayed up to greet the new year. We played a game called “Quelf” and it was HILARIOUS! This is a KEEPER! Like Uno, Pit, Skip Bo and Racko! It will always been in our list of games we play!

I’m not one to make new years resolutions because I always come up with stupid resolutions and then feel like a failure when I don’t accomplish them. This way I can accomplish something and feel good about it instead of feeling stressed that I didn’t get it done!

Like Yesterday for instance I found one of Nolan’s missing shoes. Not the one I wanted or knew was missing, but by golly I found it! The day before I got the curtains fixed because the dogs tore them off of the wall.  I got all the laundry done, underneath all the couches clean, the stairs mopped, the bathroom a once over, and all my laundry put away. YAY! See I’ve accomplished something! If I resolved to do all of those things, if I wanted to skip mopping the stairs I would have felt bad!

Anyways I have been in a “WhoaAsMe” mood since my sister-in-law had her baby on Monday! Nothing makes you more homesick than a new baby you want to hold! I am so happy for them!! Ladigo Dean, I can not wait to meet you and give you hugs and kisses!

So funny story: I was walking out to the garbage last night and the sky was SO CLEAR, but it was butt cold outside. I could see the neighbors breath from our porch it was so cold. Anyways I had this urge to act out the scene from Titanic where the ship workers were looking out for icebergs. The sky was clear, and you could see their breath! So was playing though the scene in my head “I can smell icebergs you know?” when all of sudden I nearly slip on the ice and I’m doing these half splits holding onto the garbage can. Perhaps I should concentrate on walking instead of daydreaming huh?  It’s my Docs! They have ZERO traction on the snow and ice! That’s what I get for having 6 year old docs!

Anyways, my why child is ready to go read a book before bed!

Thanksgiving

Our time here in Utah has gone by so fast! I cannot believe that I am looking at a Christmas Tree and stockings! Halloween and Thanksgiving have come and gone! Noln turned ONE back in October and it was a fun day. We smoked a pork butt and had a fantatic dinner. Nolan was as cute as can be. My mom hasn't sent me Nolan's birthday pictures yet, but I will post them once I get them. 

Thanksgiving was fun. It was the first Thanksgiving that we spent with the Griggs family. We have lived in Arizona out whole marriage and I'm not a fan of traveling on holiday's so we never made the trip. It was hard not being with my family, but I was determained to make it a good Thanksgiving and not be grumpy because I missed my family. This year we bought 2 turkeys. John smoked his turkey and it tasted fantastic. I got him a smoker for Fathers Day and he has made great use out of it! It has caught on with his family. His brother Kevin, and his dad have both started smoking meat.  With the 2nd turkey I made the turkey that I have grown up eating my entire life. It's the recipe tht has been handed down for generations. I had never baked a turkey before in my life but every Thanksgiving I woud get up at 4 or 5am and help my mom get the stuffing ready and get the turkey in the oven. It is not Thankgiving without the smell of butter, celery, and green onions cooking! My turkey was 28#'s and it went in the oven at 6am. Can you believe that stinking bird was ready at 10:30am?!?!?! It cooked at a low 325 degrees and it was still ready in 4.5 hours! I couldn't believe it!!

We got the potatoes going, the brocolli, the rolls, 2 green bean casseroles, the gravy......every hot dish was being cooked. In no time the entire family was there and dinner wa ready! Even though the turkey was ready before we expected we ate on time, and the turkey wasn't dry! I was so worried that it would be, but thanks to the 500#'s of butter in the turkey I was saved!

The day before Thanksgiving I made 2 peanut butter pies, 1 hazelnut chocalate pie, frog eye salad, 1 cherry pie, and a pecan pie. John made his first from scratch apple pie, and it was GOOD GOOD GOOD! We had so many pies!

Even though I missed my family like crazy I was so glad that I had my mom's stuffing. With that I felt like they were there with me. All in all it was good Thanksgiving!  Great food, good times.

Cache Valley

WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW!

John and I have been in Cache Valley for nearly 3 weeks now. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous since we got here. Then again we packed up and moved on a 118 degree day! Anything is better than that.

I have loved it here so far. The people are super friendly and always willing to help you out! The only person I met with an attitude was the postal worker. . . GO FIGURE! The kids have played and played since we got here! Izzy will crawl into bed and sleep 12 hours straight since she played so hard the day before. In fact it's 9:30am and she just crawled out of bed. Yesterday she got on a power wheels 4 wheeler and rode on that thing all day! Up and down the side street. It made my heart sing seeing her with her big ole pink boots on, her dirty shirt with dirt smeared from one ear to the other racing down the street at a comfortable 2 mph, just laughing and smiling!

I have been soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo busy! Don't get me wrong the house we are in is perfect for us, but it just needs some TLC. I have painted, pulled baseboards, killed spiders, and tomorrow we are getting new carpet! The carpet that is in it now stinks like cat spray when it gets wet. I'm not sure if it's the glue on the floor or actual cat urine, but either way it's got to go.

The furnace leaked at the end of last winter and got the wall wet. Over the summer it molded. Last weekend Vaughn tore it out and today we are tape and texturing the remainder of it. Hopefully tomorrow or Sunday I can start painting the living room so i can get some decorations up on the wall.

Yesterday was my sisters birthday and we all called to sing her a happy birthday on speaker phone. I really got teary eyed hearing my nephews in the back ground, and Wayne talking to me about the 'crazy' weather! I am loving it here, but I miss my family. I'm excited to visit them. I'm thinking it will be January after Charlee has her baby so I can meet my nephew and visit at the same time.

San Diego 2011 Part 1

John and I have been planning our San Diego vacation for quite some time now. We were really excited to take the kids to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Wildlife Safari Park.  We planned the trip where we were going be gone on my birthday. I really wanted to go whale watching. I looked into it, and researched which place would give us the best deal for our money.

I found a place out of Newport Beach, CA called Davie’s Locker that charged a fair amount for our little excursion. The kids were able to go, and it was only $30.00 a person for a 2.5 hour tour.

I loved every minute of it! We saw a pod of dolphins, Fin Whales, and the largest mammal on earth, The Blue Whale! A blue whale has veins that are so large that a full grown adult can swim through them! Their heart is size of a small car! Their tails weigh as much as a full grown elephant! They measure over 30 meters long! These animals are BEASTS, and we saw 3 of them! A momma and her cub, and another adult that was swimming with them.

It was a neat experience!

Momma and Izzy watching the dolphins

 

A fantastic pic of the dolphins!

A Fin Whale!

The baby Blue Whale!

Momma Blue Whale

A Pelican picking on the whales!

A group of Sea Lions

It was such a great experience that I am thankful I was able to have and to give my children! Isabelle loves animals and since we have gotten him all she does is play with her whale and animal book. She points and shouts WHALE! MOMMA WHALE until I acknowledge the whale and ooooo and ahhhhhh over it! More pictures and stories to come!

The Golden Year

When I was 13 years old I had a friend namd Jason Hicks are he talked and talked about turning the golden year. I thought the golden year was 50 or 60, but he corrected me. The golden year is the year you turn the same age as the day you were born on. Jason was turning his golden year at 14, and now 14 years later I have reached my golden year at age 28! I have no idea what is so special about it, but I still remember the converation with Jason like it was yesterday, and I have finally reached my golden year- this should not be confused with the golden years which is still a ways off for me.

I enjoyed my birthday very much this year! It started out with me joking about having a marathon birthday! Starting at midnight and partying 24 hours! I was totally joking, but Little Isabelle took it seriously! It was the first night we slept in a hotel on our vacation and she thought it was time to party! She refused to sleep. Up and down, up and down, up and down allllllllll night! At 3:30am I took her and strapped the little fart in her car seat and sat in the front seat. The next thing I knew it was 6am and she was sawing some zee's in her car seat. I took her out and went back into the hotel room. She looked at me and said "I sorry momma!" She slept another hour after that the marathon birthday began!

We picked John's sister Tanya up at LAX and headed to Newport Beach to go whale watching! We all get motion sickness so we were all hopped up on bonine and a prayer that we wouldn't giving the sharks any chum on our journey! It was quite an amazing trip! We saw Fin Whales, Blue Whales (the largest of the the whales), a pod of dolphins about 40 in size and also a  bunch of Sea Lions! We were about 20 miles off shore and it was a beautiful perfect day! I am proud to report that none of us donated any chum!

It was a fantastic birthday! I couldn't have asked for a better day!

Bear Rock

As a kid I always looked forward to seeing Bear Rock on our many trips to the Valley. We knew that once we saw Bear Rock we were almost to the Valley It was always one of my favorite things to see, except if we drove down at night then the city lights were my favorite part. Anyways, Bear Rock has been around FOREVER! I am almost 28, and it has been a landmark since before I could remember. Every trip we would come down out of the winding mountains of the BeeLine and there he sat in all his glory. If it was around the holidays he proudly wore a red velvet bow around his neck. Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving he always had some sort of bow on to match the season.

John and I drove up to Payson a few weeks ago to go and pick out our puppy and on the way home I had Isabelle all pumped up to see Bear Rock. John slowed down as we approached and right when I said "There's Bear Rock, Izzy LoooooooooooooWhere did Bear Rock Go, John? Did you see it? Did we pass it? "

Bear Rock is gone. Missing. Torn Down. Vaporized. I was so sad. I have no idea what happened to bear, but I'm assuming that when they finished the last of the construction on the Ol' 87 that they didn't care what landmarks they knocked down. Don't worry if you get a flat close to where Bear Rock was you can stop on the shoulder, but you won't have Bear Rock to look at. You will just have to make due with Sugar Loaf Mountain. Even with a shoulder I wouldn't be stopping on that shoulder.

So long Bear Rock. Thank you for the fun time trip after trip after trip, you were such a fun rock! You will always be remembered.

Izzy caught dancing

Isabelle loves to dance, but she is so easily embarrassed that it's hard to catch her in the act, let alone catching her on video! I love this little girl so much! 

Watch "Isabelle dancing" on YouTube

I stuck!

The other day I was folding laundry and Izzy was playing on my bed while I did my chores. After I was done folding the clothes  I left my room to put them up. I was only gone for a minute and as I was walking back into my room I heard

"Momma..... MOM-MMA?  Help? Help, Momma, I stuck!"

I walked into the room to find this

Smoking!

This years 4th was fun. We didn't go to Heber this year, or get out of the heat, but it was still a fun holiday. On Saturday we decided to smoke the 25lb pork shoulder and have the family for dinner to celebrate the 4th. John was up at 4:30, and had the pork in his new smoker by 5am. He was up ad down every 20 minutes checking the temperature on the smoker. By noon he had an understanding on how to control the heat in the smoker and instead of every 20 minutes he was up every 40 minutes or so to add more wood, and charcol.

Saturday was so hot! The theometer here at the houe was reading 117! The family was supposed to be here at 5 for the bbq, and at 4 O'clock I looked at the thermostat and it wa reading 78 in the house, and John had set to 75 since he was running in and out all day. I reset everything, and turned the AC back on, but the temp was not dropping, instead of was getting hotter! We called stopped the family from driving out. We decided to pack up and go to Crystal's for the night. When we left it was 83 in the house.

The pork was fabulous! It was perfectly smokey, and tender! John did a wonderful with it! I felt bad that it was such a hot process! Hot inside and out, all day! That makes for a long day!

Our landlord got the air fixed Sunday morning. I was grateful that Crystal and Spencer had a place for us sleep and that we didn't have to go find a hotel for the night!