Kickin' it Mo Tab Style

At the last minute, Marlo invited me to a Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert with her & Jill Cook in Ogden. It was good, a few songs were awesome, the company was questionable, the conversation seemed to go down hill as the night wore on.

We did a little shopping at the Layton Hills Mall before the concert. I'm not sure why we had to escape out the back door of the mall and climb down a rock wall rather than just use the front door and side walk like everybody else, but it seemed to really set the pace for the rest of the evening.

This is Marlo's "connection" to getting back stage passes to concerts. Lucky for us, he was able to get us All Access Passes to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. :-)

The humor in these photos is the people behind us.

No wonder the guy was shaking like he had MS when we finally turned around and asked if he could take a photo of us. He was laughing at us.

The most bizarre thing... this morning when I finally rolled outta bed, I felt like I had a hang over. What the heck did they put in those midnight pancakes at Village Inn?

MUD VOLLEYBALL

I officially retract any and all statements I made to anyone about not wanting to play in the mud volleyball tournament at Sandy Downs on Saturday, July 11th. In fact, if I ever hear of another mud volleyball tournament, I will be the first to sign up!

Unfortunately, we got our butts kicked, but our whole team was going into this blind. We were clearly under qualified for a tournament of this magnitude. This was SO not a time to play by the rules. In fact the only rules I recall being enforced was 1) The serve had to make it over the net without touching & 2) the flags represented the out of bounds lines. But other than that it was all about putting on a muddy, redneck show!


Tello was thrilled to be the unofficial winner of the unofficial wet T-shirt contest!
We got Shon to join us in the tournament. He was great! The best part was when the ball was coming right to him and he was preparing for the perfect spike. Too bad for him though, when he went to jump & spike the ball he got absolutely no where and the ball fizzled to the ground. OOPS! Ya can't jump when your feet are suctioned into a foot of mud.

Tello so totally fit in at this whole shenanigan. He was totally in his element. The only difference between him and the other hundreds of rednecks participating in this filthy sport was that while he definitely talked the talk he didn't walk the walk. (He looked just as wild as the rest, but he was not drunk... or drinking :)

Shon was shocked to find out all these tall, hot chicks were barely 16 years old. In fact only 1 of them is, 2 are 15 & 1 is 13.

I love my little nephew Shon! He's such a trooper!

And although we may have puked our guts out, we never puked our hearts out & that's what really counts!

4th of July

4th of July this year was spent in Challis at my parents place with Angie and her family & Terri and George (Angelea was not with us, she was at her Aunt Kathy's in Preston)

Me & Angie were inseparable when we were in middle school & jr. high. It's been awesome re-connecting with her! Our babies are 5 months apart. Francine was 2 in February and Ellie May will be 2 the end of July. (Ellie's potty trained, Franny's not even close)

These are Angie & Jared's 4 beautiful daughters; Hailey, Lexie, Kami & Ellie

These are the men of their family; Cody, Jared & Tyler. I'm shocked that as big of a smart mouth their dad is, all of the kids are amazingly quiet and well mannered.

We spent Saturday afternoon at Challis Hot Springs which was hot :)

Ben was having a difficult time trying to decide which of the two older girls he should focus his time on trying to impress.

Andy, of course, was just trying to get a laugh out of everyone.

Franny was having a blast jumping off the side of the pool into daddy's arms, until he let her go under once. That was the end of jumping & she just clenched to his back the rest of the time.

George forbade me to bring a T.V. But our poor T.V. addicted children couldn't handle a day and a half without watching anything so they broke out my laptop and watched videos on that.

Nakia thinks Tyler is HOT, and it bugged her like no other that he wouldn't talk if his parents were around, but Nakia is no dummy & she figured out a couple ways to get him alone for a few minutes here and there.

We actually didn't see much of Terri & George. George spent the majority of the time out swathing hay. We really only saw him at meal times & he was loving the elaborate meals Angie & Tello cooked.

Meal time is not what brought Terri out of hiding, in fact that's when she went into hiding :) But the little girls were drawn to her for some reason and we found them numerous times sitting in her room with her admiring her beauty!

Puppies Drive Me Crazy!

I'm a huge sucker when it comes to baby animals. So to replace (which I swore I wasn't going to do) our dear sweet Daisy dog, we got not just 1 but 2 Stupid Dogs.
First we got Duke, who drove me up a wall!

There is nothing out of his reach! He has shredded the lawn swing cushion, chewed up countless shoes, rearranged the garage numerous times & jumps on Francine every time she steps out side. You would think that would have been enough stress, but I'm pleading temporary insanity because a month later when Nakia approached me about a puppy I instantly caved and agreed to another. Not only did I take her to her friends house to pick it up but I paid the little creep $25. "Bear" is as big of pain as Duke is. Not only is Bear now Dukes partner in crime, but he likes to torment the 8 kittens we have.

This is the warm welcome Bear received from one of the mama cats. Kung Fu Kitty gave poor Bear a bloody ear.

IT'S A ZOO AROUND HERE!

Granny

"No, Granny, We are not going to butt out of your business so you can just die."

"I don't care if you are 86 years old, you still have a lot of life left."

"Just let the doctors do what they need to, take your meds, & let someone know when you are having a hard time breathing"

"Quit being a brat, do we need to have an around the clock baby sitter for you?"

"Ok, I will be to the hospital in a bit to see you."

"Love you Granny, & I'm so glad you are still blessing us with your presence."

I never thought I would have that kind of conversation with dear, sweet Granny. True, she's feisty & stubborn as a mule! Always has been, always will. But it is NOT her time to leave.

On July 2nd, 2009 Granny went to the Hospital in Blackfoot for a simple in & out in one day, hernia operation. The operation went smoothly, but coming off the anesthesia didn't. At first the doctors thought she had suffered a stroke during surgery and were preparing for the worst. Thankfully that wasn't the case. She was actually having a bad reaction to the drugs. That first night she was in ICU, not really coherent, strapped to a bed with a tube in her mouth. Granny doesn't remember much of that day including our 10 minute per hour visits we were entitled. Probably a good thing because we caused her some pain and suffering. But it was all Marlo's fault.

When me & Marlo went into see her Marlo, of course, had to make a wise crack & said "good news, Granny, it's a girl" The only thing I could think to add was, "The bad news is she won't take a bottle so your going to have to nurse her". That actually made Granny chuckle, which caused all sorts of beepers and alarms to go off. We were encourage not to overextend our visit.

By the next morning Granny was looking much better.

She was talking and even sitting up a bit, so you can imagine my surprise when I got word the next day she had been sent to the Idaho Falls hospital so she could be close to her Cardiologist. There she spent a couple more days. They were much more aggressive with the physical therapy, but I don't think Granny was going to complain :)

Granny spent 2 whole days in the luxury of her own home before being sent back to the Idaho Falls hospital. Granny took Annette to a Dr. appointment on Tuesday, July 7th & caught the attention of the nurse who didn't like the way she was breathing or looking and insisted on checking her out. Unfortunately, she showed signs of congestive heart failure, fluid in the lungs & a blood clot so she was shipped back.

This also happened to be Auntie Annette's 51st birthday, so we did a little celebrating at the hospital.

Granny gave us all a right good scare that night when she refused any help, luckily Jerica showed up just in time to rescue her before she suffocated.

The next few days were filled with nothing but waiting and wondering for Granny. After an Angeogram on Thursday they put a stint in her chest to drain the fluid out, and she had 2 more long, grueling days of waiting.

Saturday morning Granny finally got discharged & we are all praying her health improves, because we all want some more Granny time!