Hi remember me?

I know that it has been forever since I have posted on this blog. I spend quite a bit of time reading things on facebook (even though I don't comment very ofter I like to read what everyone else says). Anyway, I am sitting up in the hospital watching Gary sleep, very restful I might add, and so I decided to post on my blog. I think I am in for a long night. I didn't want to leave Gary tonight so I am probably going to be very tired tomorrow because I am not planning on getting a lot of sleep tonight. Gary went into surgery at around 4:30 this afternoon and Dr. Stucki came out and talked to me at around 7:30 after it was all over with. He said that Gary did very well. They were able to get all of the cancer and his heart and breathing and bleeding all came through with flying colors. He is just very tired and VERY VERY hungry. According to the Dr. he won't be able to eat for some time except for ice chips. I feel bad for him because he won't even be able to have a pepsi. We feel very blessed and fortunate and thankful that everything went so well. Emma and Elli have been staying at Grandma's this week while we are here for the surgery. I have talked to them daily and they are anxious to get back home to Alamo. Grandma will be bringing them to St. George on Thursday and we will get them home somehow. Either Angela will take them or I will run them home and then come back to be with Gary. School starts next week and I will be glad because then maybe I can quit having nightmares about the way things go at school. Every summer I have horrible dreams about not being ready for school to start and I hate that. I think I have everything ready for the most part for both mine and Gary's classrooms. Gary thinks he will be attending school on the first day but I highly doubt it. Well, I am going to try and get some sleep (just little catnaps, I am sure) I will try to do better about blogging. Bye for now.

monthly news

I can't believe it has been a month (actually a little more than that) since I have posted on my blog. It is probably because I am a little overwhelmed with all the activity in the late summer - early autumn of my life. I am finding out how much energy I don't have with trying to keep up with two girls. On the average there are usually 7 - 8 children at my house on a daily basis. I am learning to just let them run circles and as long as no one is getting killed it is ok. I just don't have the energy to keep up with them. This week there have been only 4 or 5 at my house at any given time because Angela and Aaron and the kids are on vacation but guess what it is still just as active around here. We put up the pool outside and put portable corrals around it for the protective fence and the kids want to be in it all the time. It is a great cooling off activity for them and they have learned that as long as they follow the rules it is good. So far we haven't had much of a problem except they want to jump in off of the ladder and it just isn't deep enough for that. We are excited that we are getting a trip to the temple on the 11th to see Jason, Leslie, Brock and Jaylee all sealed. I can hardly wait. It is so exciting !!!! I think it will just be Gary and I and grandma earlene and Jeremy and Andrea there with them from our side of the family and then whoever is there from Leslie's side. It will be a wonderful day. We are going to travel to Richfield on Friday the tenth, Gary will be in the truck pulling the camp trailer and I will be in the car. We will stay at grandmas on Friday night and leave the girls there with Cathy and Vicki while we go up to Bountiful for the sealing. We are going to go back to Richfield Saturday and spend the night at grandma's again and then get up on Sunday morning and head for the hills to camp for a week. I am really looking forward to the camping because we have not been at all yet this year. The girls are looking forward to it also. I am not sure if they are good campers but we will find out.
Changing the subject, Gary had an MRI last week on his kidney and they called him today and said that they need to get the biopsy done as soon as possible, so we will be going to St. George on July 6th. We have to be at the hospital at 9:30 a.m. for the procedure. I think it is just an outpatient thing so we won't be staying in St. George overnight. Andrea has graciously agreed to watch the girls for me. I am so glad she is willing to do that for me. I know it would not be easy to haul them over there and have them just sit all day with nothing to do.
Well, I hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July celebration. It is always dear to my heart because I was able to give birth to my oldest son, Michael, on that day 32 years ago. I wish I could see him for his birthday and give him a big momma hug but that isn't going to happen. Anyway, I love him and wish him a happy birthday.

Finally!!!!

Well, it finally happened! We now have Emma and Elli living with us. We went to Grand Junction this weekend and picked them up. They seem to be doing ok. They have certainly had to deal with a lot in their young lives. They are happy to be here and had their first church experience today.
We had a lot of time spent in the car the last couple of days. We left on Thursday at noon and headed to Richfield and spent the night then we got up early and headed to Grand Junction on Friday, not knowing for sure if we were going to get to bring them home with us, but the judge came through and signed the court order Friday morning. We then headed back to Richfield with the girls and our car loaded to the max. We had some family time with grandma and vicki and cath and kids and spent the night in Richfield. We got up and went to decorate the graves of Gordon (Gary's dad) and Maxine (my mom) and then we went to Michaels and Tonias and spent time with the grandkids ( I got lots of loves). Kaia was not sure about us but she warmed up to us kind of and let me hold her. Michael came home from work and barbecued us hamburgers and hot dogs and then we headed home. Four and a half hours later we finally made it back to Alamo. I am so glad to be home.
We so appreciate all of the help we are getting from the family as far as the girls are concerned. Everyone has stepped up to the plate to help make this as easy as possible for them to make the adjustment. We have the best kids in the world to be so helpful to us.
I will post pictures of them later.

Hello again

Wow, I think it has been a month since I last posted on my blog. I would like to say it was because I was so busy having so much fun tooling around the world in my private jet, but you know, that isn't true. Quite a few little changes are taking place around here.
School is almost over for the year. We only have a couple of weeks left and they are really mostly down time as far as the classroom is concerned. We have some fun days planned and field trips so the teaching is really over with now and we are just babysitting til the end of the year.
I had to take a quick little jaunt to the hospital last week. The dr. here thought I might be haveing appendicitis so he sent me over to St. George. As it turned out, it was colitis. Everything is fine now.
Gary was thinking ahead for the summer the other day and decided he couldn't get through it without his ice so since the ice machine on our fridge was not working (it leaked too much and was ruinging our floor so we had to disconnect it) he bought a new fridge and dishwasher (mine wasn't cleaning at all anymore) and with the wonderful help of Aaron (we don't know what we would do without him) he got those changed out last night. It was wonderful. Angela and I have been washing all the dishes by hand for months and already I have run 2 loads through the dishwasher and they were clean!!!
Speaking of Aaron, what a sweetie, he always steps up to help us out. He is very willing to mow the lawn, pull weeds, or do whatever else needs to be done. You can't believe how thankful we are to him for all he does for us.
All of the grandkids are great. I actually am going to be sad to not have Tyson in my class anymore. I love seeing him so much every day and he is a great kid and a wonderful, smart student. I know that in a couple of years we will get to repeat the process when Ryan is in 5th grade. I am looking forward to that because he is a math smartie. He already knows a lot of his times tables.
We finally got the phone call we have been waiting for for so long. The girls are coming!!! We have a meeting with them and their therapist on May 22 and I think we get to bring them back at that time. Yeah!! I know it is going to be a long, hard road, but I know these girls are worth it and I can't wait to get them here.
Well summer weather is finally on it's way and I love it. I love to sit out on the deck and rock little Kaden and sing to him. He is so cute but getting big fast. Also he was blessed last weekend and we had fun seeing Brock and Jaylee and Jason, and Leslie. We were really excited to have Tonia, Jercie, Blze, and Kaia here but they decided with the flu raging they better not come so that sweet little Kaia didn't get sick again. We are going to stop and see them when we go to Colorado. I have to get Blazes' birthday present ready for Jeremy and Andrea to take to St. George tomorrow when they meet up with Tonia. All of my grandkids are getting so big. I want to just hold them and squeeze them and kiss them a lot but some of them are to big to like that anymore.
Well, I better stop for now because I have to get ready to take Gary to the Dr. today. I hope everyone is doing great.

I am just lazy!!

So it has really been a long time since I last posted a new blog. I read the blogs everyone else posts and I do that often, I am just too lazy to post my own, so I decided I needed to update a little. Really not much ever happens around here. We had Spring Break like two weeks ago and we didn't do anything to celebrate our week off from school. Gary has started gung ho again at the ranch (this is the beginning of his busy time) I probably won't see much of him until October. Hopefully he will still give me one week during the summer for camping. I joined facebook but I have never posted anything there because every time I click on something it tells me that I need to give permission to yet another site to access my info so I just don't hardly ever even go to facebook. In my opinion it is just a glorified version of yahoo messenger. As everyone knows we now have 10 beautiful grandchildren. Jaylee Ann was added to our family on March 23rd. We now have 7 grandsons and 3 granddaughters. We are so proud of them all and love each and every one of them tremendously. As I have said before we feel bad because we don't get to see Jercie, Blaze, Kaia, Brock, or Jaylee as much as Tyson, Ryan, Ben, Jacob, and Kaden, but we love them all equally. One of the main reasons like I like to read the blogs because Tonia and Leslie post pictures and tell stories involving those sweet kids. We are getting to where we are winding down the school year. This past year went by really fast. We only have 24 more days left of school but 7 of them aren't teaching days, so there really isn't much time left to teach. I have learned to enjoy my summer months off from school more and more all the time. Next year will certainly be a whole new challenge for us because of all the changes that are being made at our school. We still do not have Emma and Ellie. We have passed all of the clearance obstacles, but now we are waiting on the judicial system. They are backed up in Colorado and they can not place the girls with us until they get a court order to do so. We really do not have any idea when all that will happen. It seems like it has taken forever so far and I still do not see a light at the end of the tunnel. We will just learn to be patient and hope that we will get a phone call soon. Well, I have ranted and raved enough for now. I hope everyone is doing fine and keep up the blogging because even though I am lazy about blogging, I am not lazy about reading what others have posted.

Time flies

Wow, it has really been a long time since I have sat down and written a new blog so here goes. A lot has been happening around here. Gary has been back to the heart doctor and has received good news that his heart is recovering nicely. Each time they let him quit taking another pill so his daily pills are reducing. He goes again in June and at that time they will take him off of the cumidin, hooray. Then we can address the mass in his kidney. Anyway, he is doing great.
We have also gotten grandchild number 9. If you read Angelas blog you will know all about that. He is a cutie and he loves to snuggle. They are a really cute little family. Angela and I loaded up all three little boys yesterday and left here at 5:30 a.m. to head to St. George so that Kaden could go to the Dr. and get circumsized. Traumatic for Angela because she had to stay in with him while they did it. Mother and baby are recovering. Ben, Jacob, and I went to Dad and Dockies and played while we waited for them. The kids love to go see great grandpa. They played on his swingset and we played chase and run for a while. I got my exercise yesterday. Next, we finally got our phone call from the child welfare people telling us that they finally got back all the paperwork and by the way, we passed the background check. They are forwarding everything to Colorado and we should be able to get the girls in the next couple of weeks. I will be glad when this is all over with because those girls really do need some stability and good home life. We went to Colorado on Valentines day and visited with them. We took the girls to the dinosaur museum and also out to lunch and then took them shopping at the mall to pick up shoes which they both needed. We also visited with Troy and Tula (their parents) and they are not doing well at all. They really need to get their act together. I really don't think they will ever get the girls back because they are not even trying to do any better.
Finally, I was on vacation this last week. Not really, but I did take the week off to help Angela with the kids. She has her hands full and I can sympathize with her because I know what it is like to have several little boys all 3 and under. Anyway we got through the week and I am going to go back to work this next week. I really kind of missed being at school even though I went every night and got things ready for the sub for the next day. I miss being with the kids in my class.
Hopefully by the time I get around to my next blog, we will have added grandchild number 10 which is due on March 26th. We are excited for that event to take place. I hope everyone has a good day. My love to you all.

Pay it Forward

Pay it Forward

I just read about this on one of my friend's blogs. I thought that it would be fun to try it out!Here are the rules to Pay It Forward!

1. Be one of the first THREE bloggers to leave a comment on this post, which then entitles you to a handmade item from me.

2. Winners must post this challenge on their own blog, meaning that you will pay it forward, creating a handmade gift -anything!- for the first THREE bloggers who leave a comment on YOUR post about this giveaway!

3. The gift that you send to your 3 friends can be from any price range and you have 365 days to make/ship your item. This means you should be willing to maintain your blog at least until you receive your gift and have shipped your gifts. And, remember it’s the spirit and the thought that count!

4. When you receive your gift, blog about it! If you are not one of the first three to comment on this post, you can still play along. Go ahead and start your own Pay It Forward chain, and encourage your blogging friends to do the same! It's all about paying it forward.