Christmas Eve!

We had a lot of wait time to go through the Layton Commons park via vehicle. Being a cold night, everyone petitioned to wait rather than walk through it. I think next year I'd prefer to walk since the walking path is closer and goes through the lights instead of the long way around them. It was fun to enjoy the lights! 

                                       The blue tunnel!

We were on speakerphone with my uncle Steven, so it helped to pass the time away while we waited in line. He was a couple of cars ahead of us. 

 I'm not sure the significance of dragons and mythical creatures.

                                                                          Dragon

                                                                     Dragonflies

                                                                          Peacock

                                             Bear and salmon in the river

Humanitarian Quilt Finished!

Whew!! What a busy day! I've been fighting getting a cold for the last week. Yesterday at church I wasn't feeling the greatest. I was feeling colder than normal and was sneezing a lot. So I sat in the library where Mom was filling in during Sunday school with Ruby. I slept until 12:45pm today. Longest I've slept in in forever. Hopefully the extra sleep will help me fend off the cold. I got the baby quilt tied this afternoon for the humanitarian center inside the D.I. It looks pretty nice--almost hard to give it back! haha We don't have true quilting stands, so I carried in plywood 8' boards and we strategically set them up with our dining table chairs and C-clamps.

I didn't sew the strips of fabric together. The front and back were already assembled. I was given the kit and a bundle of batting. I pinned it together, sewed around the edge, and tied it. I think whomever assembled it used scraps, because most of the strips aren't the equivalent width from end to end. Some strips were sewn upside down, but I guess in the end it is a colorful blanket for a child. 

I worked with "J" for Jets this afternoon after he got home from school. We are nearing the end of "Freckle Juice" by Judy Blume. I'm hoping to find "Ralph S. Mouse" for his next book. It is hard to find books that are low enough reading level, yet engaging for an older teenage boy. We made ornaments for him to give as gifts. They are the glass bulbs with a digital picture printed on overhead projector sheets. Cut down and inserted into the bulbs. We went to Walmart to finish off his gift by purchasing bows. 


I get to make up about 16 hours of staff work before January that hadn't yet been implemented earlier on in the year after "J" was placed in my parents home. I'm pretty stoked. So I will have 28 hours in Staff pay, and 18 hours in Jets pay. Same job, just 2 different pots of money the pay comes out of. 

 Sunday night we made gingerbread houses. The pieces were put in the refrigerator to assemble closer to Christmas when Elizabeth is home from school. I decided to make a castle instead of the traditional gingerbread house. I ran out of dough, so my castle will only have 1 tower instead of 4. 

                            Antonio cutting out his gingerbread house.

Ruby is enjoying life! A few days ago we went to Walmart. I found a ball and kicked it down the aisle. Ruby went nuts over it. It lit up and had flashing lights. Turns out it is a stocking stuffer, as I saw it this evening when we were looking for bows for "J". Anyway, she kept looking up at the cart to make sure that we still had the ball. It seemed we weren't going to be able to leave the store without it. So we bought it, even though $5 seemed high for a plastic ball. She has LOVED it! She can catch it in her mouth, and it is big enough it is not a choking hazard like her tennis balls we've taken away from her. I chase after her and she has her routes under the table and around the kitchen. Quite a work out for both of us. 

5 Year Soap Storage

We read online that if you want your soap bars to be extra sudsy and long lasting that you need to store them unwrapped inside a shoebox for 5 years. So we are going to try it out! 

I have 6 Lever 2000 bars (blue), 2 Deseret bars (large rectangle), 1 Dove sensitive skin (oval), and a bar of deodorant soap from Dad's recent hospital stay. I labeled the outside of the box with this years date, so I will give you an update in 5 years of how it works out.

Playing with Ruby

We played with Ruby and tuckered her out. This is a clip before she  wore out. Elizabeth has taught her a new trick and she gets pretty excited about it. She tosses the ball to her, and Ruby catches it in her mouth. She is getting better about returning the ball, though she still favors her version of "keep away."

Saturday Chinese Feast!

We made homemade chinese for our linner lunch today! I have to say I wasn't as coordinated with the rolling of the egg rolls as I remember being. My first roll was going to be square, but Elizabeth promptly made me undo it and start over following her explicit directions...Simplified she claimed. 
Afternoon lunch was scrumptious! 

                                     Arial view of heaven!

Elizabeth is coming home today!

I haven't posted probably in an eon. Ruby is keeping me plenty busy and growing like a horse. She is 40 lbs. I could barely lift her to weigh her. 


I've found solace and refuge in my heart. Working really hard to keep  stress at bay. Taking each day at a time and being super excited and grateful for the few days I feel absolutely AMAZING! 


I'm pretty excited that Elizabeth is coming home today. I've definitely missed getting to do fun activities with her since she's been away at BYU-Idaho alone this semester. We got pretty creative some days at what we found to do. 


I'm also PREPARED for WAR!!! Antonio recently bought a NERF gun w/6 bullets. Elizabeth and I already had ours from years ago. Even our foster sibling purchased his own gun so we can have a war. I said I'd even have it outside in the snow....that is if we got any snow that stayed. I'll definitely get some pics posted of our war and festivities.


I'm hoping that we can get some family pictures taken since 3/4 of the house was contaminated with the flu last Thanksgiving. We are desperately lacking in recent complete family photos. 


My brother is currently residing in Afghanistan. He'll be there for 6 months. I got to hear his voice on Skype as well as the sounds of planes taking off in the background. It was like a LIVE Google World experience! :D  


I got our hotel reservation for Antonio's graduation taken care of in December. He will be getting his teaching certificate and Bachelors degree. He has been thoroughly enjoying his student teaching experience at Centerville Jr. High, here in Utah. We are hoping the job market is fruitful and we are blessed with whatever the Lord has in store for us.

Picking Grapes!! A Spooky Adventure!

After I helped clean the church building this morning we drove over to the Relief Society Pres. house and picked grapes off her vine. It was a lot of fun! I love picking produce from trees and vines! Antonio has been gone and keeping himself busy at school. It is a teacher work day so the kids get to enjoy Halloween festivities at home. Later this evening I picked 7 1/2 gallons of green grapes from our vine behind our shed.

Motivational Video - Overcoming Adversity

September 11th, 2011

I have to say that I am sick and tired of seeing everyone's posts about commemorating 9/11. First of all, why does it take a tragic event to be patriotic? What about the victims of the Holocaust, Vietnam, WW1/WW2, Desert Storm, Iraq ect. 
I know I'm a bit cranky today and not feeling the greatest, but really people. If you aren't waving your flag year-round, then what right do you have to call yourself patriotic on a specific day!   {Stepping off my soap box.....}


Today was a relatively good day at church. We has a small debate during Relief Society about the Spirit World after we die. I didn't realize that we will be in an adult form during that frame of time. Interesting! The main debate was ridiculous. None of us are dead, so it is not like one person can adequately declare another's salvation or lack thereof. The point I brought out in argument is the fact that we aren't perfected until the resurrection. I guess ignorance is bliss for some people. I actually stayed in my church dress until the afternoon. I went to Choir at 3pm. It seems like a nice song. We are going to sing it next Sunday. I sing soprano, but not old lady style as I told the choir director. I re-located my seat since I was getting agitated by the little kids around me making a ruckus. This evening we had a nice cool breeze outside. I never saw any signs of the thunderstorms we were supposed to get, but it was a nice breeze coming through the house. I've mostly parked myself on the couch with a small blanket as I have not been doing a good job at managing my body temperature lately. Sometimes I'm scorching hot while others are clearly fine, and other times I'm freezing when people around me are soaking up the breeze of the swamp cooler. I'm hoping things get resolved soon as I'm tired of biting my tongue as to not flip out at people because I'm so easily agitated and don't feel good. I sure hope my future beholds better health. I know everyone has challenges that are fitting for them individually, but it seems like mine have been really far fetched and lengthly. I guess I just feel really overdue for some good health. 

Time Has Flown!

So I can't tell you how quickly time has flown by.  But I'm sure anyone who follows my blog has probably noticed the huge gap in time since I posted last. I don't really have any excuses except to say I think I'm finally experiencing healing and life. 

Graduation was great and a huge burden lifted from off my shoulders. The few days leading up to graduation were still tough for me to battle through as I caught an intestinal flu bug from someone. Probably better that I didn't know who...as I was pondering how to kill them. I had a fever of 103, yet somehow was still attempting to pack boxes so that we could clean our apartment and move out. Our apartment was sparkling clean even though the management ripped us off on our deposit. University Courtyard is close to school, but I can almost guarantee you that you won't see your full deposit regardless of how you clean when you move out. Growing up in the military I learned the meaning of "deep cleaning". So I will step down off my soap box now. 


My parents came up for graduation including my foster brother. He is special needs and a ward of the state. So he had to get special permission to be able to go out of state for my graduation. I'm glad he was able to come and tour the campus. My mom helped me administer my first dog vaccination. I'm sure there is a reason that I did not go to school to become a veterinarian. I succeeded and actually it was kind of fun to mix the vials together and suck the medicine up in the needle syringe. Ruby cried a bit. She is our little drama queen. We then proceeded to shave her fur down so that she would look nice walking with me during graduation. ****Wow....you'd think we were trying to kill her or something. She yelped, cried, whined quite loudly for an apartment complex. People would intentionally get out of their cars and walk past our door to see what we were doing to the poor dog. I was assisting in the pinning down of her since she was throwing her dog legs, arms, and body around trying to get away. I will definitely include some pictures of this great memorable experience at another time. ***********

I'm not entirely sure where the last 7 weeks has even gone, but little by little I'm starting to feel more human and healthy. It has been a LONG and SLOW journey. I've learned a tremendous amount along the way. I have absolutely no idea what Heavenly Father has in store for me. Other than I've had the thought that in the future I might be a Relief Society President which completely terrifies me. It truly feels like I got a crash course in medical school without the certificate. Through the 7 week break I've only had 3 seizures which is an absolute miracle. 1 was provoked by dental work, as I do not do well on meds. The other 2 were provoked by not eating lunch on time. As I was attending a SOAR class (also known as Take Down) for kids that are out of control. I figured we were almost done and that I would eat soon enough even though I was getting the low blood sugar headache along the left side of my head. We eventually finished and I quickly went to the water spicket to fill up my cup of noodle soup that I had brought for lunch. I couldn't get the hot water spout to work. It had a tricky push down and slide mechanism. As I attempted to follow the instructors instructions I noticed that my arms were shaking. So it was probably a good idea that the boiling hot water wasn't actually coming out. I'm not sure how much time passed, but at a point I realized that she was now holding my full soup cup and told me to let go that she had it. I slowly let go and attempted to sit on the rolling chair at the table. Things were slow and a little foggy. I felt my torso tensing up and I'm not sure how much time passed but I had a seizure, and barely was able to come out of it before a second one started. I can usually tell if I will be done with one seizure or will have a second one, because my head will either feel clear and done or it will still feel like a refrigerator motor is alive in my head.    I was a little mortified when my seizure ended and I found myself surrounded by the RISE staff and head director lady. I was hoping that the job I was applying for to become a respite worker wasn't about to be jeopardized. Thankfully it wasn't. After an additional hour quick training, I came home and slept on the couch. Ruby must have known something was up, since she wasn't her normal rambunctious self and actually laid curled up behind my legs and slept on the couch. Apparently my family members found this to be a photo shoot time, because I now of pictures of myself sleeping. *These too will be posted in the future. * I am leaving way too early tomorrow morning to go to Idaho for a dentist appt. in St. Anthony, Idaho to have my crown done on my tooth. Elizabeth will be moving into Perkins hall for her 6th semester at BYU-Idaho. She enjoys living in close proximity to everything on campus especially when winter is close around the corner. 
       So what have I been doing this past 7 weeks?? We'll lots of weeding around corn, and tomatoes. Unpacking, attempting to located clothes and odds and ends that got packed in places I didn't imagine they'd have been packed in. Helping organize a neighborhood block party. Drove to Orem to pick up DNA/Fingerprinting kits for the neighborhood kids. I arranged for the Fire Department and ambulance to come for the kids to climb on and get a tour of all the nifty buttons and switches located on it. Went to the University of Utah hospital Rheumatology clinic and also had a Sleep study done there shortly before the end of the Spring semester. By the way....at this point I have declared myself petitioning to refuse to return back to the hospital for a follow-up. I'm fed up with doing hundreds of tests and coming up with no answers, but odd little insignificant facts that I'm a unique individual. I have hyper-mobile joints, but clearly don't have Marfans disease. If I'd known that was the reason I was going to the Rhuematology clinic to be evaluated for I would have cancelled the appointment or been a "no show." A complete waste of money and time. So since I have my results of NOTHING...I have ZERO interest in following back up at the headache clinic to discuss my zero results. In addition...I also have not followed the headache clinics instructions to take certain medication, and have on my own figured out a way to stop my migraines. So I feel no need to take medication when I'm not having migraines anymore. This is just a sampling of the ignorant doctors I've dealt with in the past 1 1/2 years. Also, a small Delta flight into the H E double hockey sticks that I've been to and don't plan a return flight to ever again. I know life is about challenges, trials and testing, but I don't think living in outer darkness is part of the plan. 


So a great friend of mine pestered me until I caved to go to a chiropractor. Rarely happens by the way. I'm pretty darn stubborn! Growing up I've always thought of chiropractors as quacks, so I was reluctant to go. Probably a good thing I had no idea what was coming and was pretty relaxed. He tweaked my head to the side and a series of loud cracks and pops could be heard by the receptionist in the front lobby. Then knowing what was coming next to the other side, it was hard to relax. I have not had a single migraine since June. On average they would last 6-7 days, and usually resulted in me going into the E.R. for I.V. medications to stop the migraines or at least dim the pain. The fewer seizures I had, the more migraines I'd have. So it was kind of a devils advocate deal. I grew more accustomed to having more seizures and felt that was the least of my problems in comparison to the migraines. So that is a tender mercy that I've been very grateful for and celebrating! No migraines for 2 solid months! 
Holy smokes...It is quite late, and I'll have to be awake before my body signifies it is the proper hour to be alive. Going to bed. 

Rexburg 4th of July Parade

                  Ruby eating breakfast. She scarfs her breakfast. Holly usually eats her kibble throughout the day piece by piece. Ruby just eats in one spot until she is satisfied. 

 The old setup didn't allow for us to have air flow at night time. Having the bedroom door open helps tremendously. We don't have air conditioning, so our future beholds the investing of fans. 

Bagpipe players. 

 A little hard to see, but Elizabeth and Chelsea are sitting on the ground in the very front. This was actually an intersection we were sitting in. 

 Salt Lake Express. The main mode of transportation for students going to and from the SLC airport at the beginning and ending of semesters. It is about $47.50 to go from Rexburg BYU-Idaho to Ogden, UT.

 Oliver Twist drama group advertising their future showings and production. 

This is the new setup for Ruby. Baby gates are so amazing! The front gate by the refrigerator wasn't long enough, so I improvised. That little detail didn't occur to me at the store. Plus, I wouldn't have wanted to pay the $25-35 for the larger gates. These gates were $10 each.