Snowboarding Clutz

The first day of spring is just around the corner (March 20th) and there is a nice fluffy 8 inches of snow on the ground :-)
Growing up living in the mountains was a lot of fun. There is usually a good bit of snow on the ground for most of the winter......which makes for lots of fun 'winter memories'. Yes, most of you have probably been reading my blog long enough to know whats coming.........

• Me (at age 10) and Wray (at age 12) are trying out his new snowboard in our backyard. The house we lived in at the time had a backyard that started on a small slope that led in to a large yard that also sloped....right into a cornfield, and then a rather steep bank and deep ditch. Wray, who was pretty good at snow boarding was able to keep it under control and stop before ending up in the the corn field. Wray takes a few rides down the hill and then decides to give me a turn. I get strapped in and am feeling pretty confident....that is until I start down the hill and realize I have no idea how to stop this thing! I fly down the slope, through the yard, across hundreds of cornstalks, down the bank and land face first in the ditch! Put me on a stage with lights, and I've been told that I can be very graceful......but don't ever ask me to go snowboarding :-P

• My family and a few of our neighbors used to go sled riding in this big field every winter. Corn field by summer, sled ramp by winter. One time we decided to go at night, so my neighbor put up these huge lights that lit up the whole field. The hill was a sheet of ice that night. So icy in fact, that me and a friend didn't even need a sled. We just slid down in our snow pants :-) We tried a sled but about killed ourselves :-) It made for an easy walk back up the hill!

• My home school group went on a Cross-Country Skiing trip one year. We had an instructor with us who took us way back in the woods on some pretty nice trails. Now, I'm a bit more stable on skis than on a snowboard so I had a lot of fun. We got to this really big hill, and I remember not many of us made it down the first time without falling. At one point I think about 5 of us were piled up in the middle of the hill. We were all so determined to make it down without falling that we climbed back to the top to 'try, try again'.

• Just a few years ago, mom and I ( and our car) ended up in the middle of a cow field. We came over the top of a hill and slid right through a fence and into a mud pit in the field (at least, I've always told myself it was just mud :-) ) Good news: it was right at the top of our friends driveway. Bad news: Their driveway is a mile long! It was really cold that night and really really windy. The driveway had so much ice on it that I just stood there and the wind pushed me the whole way to the house :-)

• Another home school group trip, only this time we were going snow tubing. You know the big wires that you hook your tube to that pull you up the hill? (If you've ever been snow tubing you know what I'm talking about) Anyway, there was this big line of us being pulled up the hill when the tube that was closest to the top came unhooked from the wire, came flying down the hill and pulled several friends along with it :-) Tsk, home schoolers causing trouble on the slopes.......

I am determined to get my skis out this winter! I've been avoiding them because of my hands, but I really want to go skiing...so, I'm going to! Probably by next week this time I'll be posting a story about something weird that happened while skiing this week :-P Don't worry, lots of gloves will be worn with hand warmers stuffed inside. But I'm sure that the thrill of being back on my skis will be worth some extra hand therapy........

A Mouse in the House

Blog world, meet Wynn....the most recent addition to our family :-)

My Little Friend

I took my camera up to Joel and Jaime's tonight hoping to get some cute pictures of Cosette and Eli......success! Cosette loves to have her picture taken............

My little friend was quite happy that I had my camera with

me. She wanted me to take 'lots and lots of pictures' :-)

"What do I look like when I do this, Aunt Kristin?"

Posing for the camera........again

"Take one with Eli too!"

(Eli looks thrilled :-) )

"Ok, I'm tired of taking pictures now"

Our little man

How cute is this little guy? :-)

No, he wasn't laughing.....I asked him to smile for the camera

and this is the expression he made.

Smile! You have crazy grandchildren :-)

Hi Grandma! I thought you might need some cheering up since you're stuck inside with this silly weather. I'm sitting here at work trying to decide what I could say to make you laugh........then it hit me.....the one thing that I'm sure will bring a smile to your face is your 3 youngest grand-daughters, Damara, Kristin, and Skyler :-) The three of us always seemed to do something to make you laugh.....I think it was because you were trying not to cry, but thats not the point :-P Anyway, I'm sure you will remember all these occasions......

1) Sky, Mara, and myself were all spending the night at your house. We insisted that we could all fit in the bed in your guest room, and you agreed that we could stay in there ( what fun would grandmas house be if you actually had to go to sleep, right ;-). You sat up with us for a while and told us stories....and we quickly discovered that all three of us could not all fit in the same bed. The idea occured to us, for some odd reason, that if we put the matress on the floor we would have more room. I still can't figure that one out, but I remember how much fun we had trying not to wake pap up while we basically rearranged your guest bedroom so the matress would fit on the floor. The next morning we tried to convince pap that Sky had moved it by herself (I think we picked her because it was believable that she would have actually tried :-) To this day, I still don't know if we convinced him or not ;-)

2) The occasion: One of many 'birthday shopping trips'
The place: Riding down the highway in your red Tracker
The goofiness: The entire ride from my house to the mall, Sky had her head out the window singing,
'99 bottles of coke on the wall' I think we all walked 10 steps behind her the rest of the day :-P

3) There is this one other story that I could tell, but the 4 of us have sworn to secrecy. All I will say is that it involves a red light.............ok, you can stop laughing now........:-P

4) I will apologize on behalf of Skyler for all the gum wrapper that ended up in your hair from the backseat.......it was trouble to put the two of us back there.....

5) Did you know there is a sign in the store in the mall now that says, "No cameras allowed in store" ? Just kidding :-) There should be though; I thought that lady was going to kick us out!

6) We came out of "Long John Silvers" and you discovered that you had locked your keys in the car. We were there for about 15 minutes trying to figure out what to do when you suddenly remembered that you had an extra key in your purse:-) That time you made us laugh!

7) Its Easter Sunday, and we're all eating lunch at your house. Wray, Damara, Syler, and I all have a game of ping-pong going in the basement. Sky and I were on the side of the table facing the steps, Wray and Mara on the other. Mara hits the balls towards Sky who whacks it as hard as she can.....right through the curtain and into the toilet :-) I'll never forget the look on her face as she says, "I'm so glad nobody was in there!" Pap came down and made her put on big rubber gloves and fish the ball out of the toilet......after that we made her stand on the other side of the table when we played ping-pong.

Well, thats all for now. Hope this made you smile :-D

He first loved you.......

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
--John 15:13

Anybody home in there....?

I hadn't seen Cosette in about a week due to my work schedule and being quite sick for several days. So, she came to spend the night last night since I didn't have to work and am feeling better. She came running through the front door and squealed her 'little girl squeal' and gave me a huge bear hug. "Aunt Kristin, I am so happy! I'm spending the night at your house tonight!" Those hugs from my 3 year old niece always make my heart melt.....
Anyway, we had a fun night of reading books, singing songs....lots of songs......and eating ice cream cake :-) The real reason for this post, however, is to tell you this story....

Those of you who know Cosette know that she likes to get up at a pretty early hour of the morning. I was prepared for it this morning when I heard her come down the hall to 'see if aunt Kristin is up yet.' I'm not exactly sure what time it was, but it was still dark outside.

If I don't open my eyes, she'll think I'm still asleep...
"Aunt Kristin.....are you awake?"
Just don't move a muscle. She'll give up eventually
"It's morning time! Time to get up"
Think invisible. Think invisible.
"I really do think you should get up now."
Maybe if I started snoring......
I hear her leave the room.....
See, shes gone. That wasn't so hard......here she comes again
This time she puts her face right in mine
"WAKE UP!"
Hmmm....she had banana for breakfast
She then hops onto my bed, takes her two index fingers and opens my eyelids.
"Good morning! As long as you're awake, you might as well get out of bed!"

L1, R3, L2, R1......

The right combination has to be here somewhere! It feels like my families lives are going in circles right now.
In my last (very short) post, I said that my Grandma was facing surgery this week. However, in the few hours since that post, the circumstances have changed. Her arm was still to weak from that surgery she had on Friday, and her blood pressure wasn't right to do surgery. So the doctors decided it was in the best interest of all involved to send her home for a few weeks to get her strength back. Please continue to remember her in your prayers as she will have several more weeks to think about this. And also remember my mom...its only been a year since her heart surgery (which was done at the same hospital and by the same doctor that is doing grandmas) and its difficult for her to be back in that hospital.....too many memories.

Prayers

Please remember my Grandma in your prayers. She faces major open heart surgery this week....

1 Ice storm, 200 cookies, and 1 nervous little sister

Wray and I had an 'ice storm' adventure on Friday. Our area had freezing rain all thursday night, and by the time morning came around everything, including the road, was covered in a nice sheet of ice. When I pulled myself out of bed I called and cancelled hand therapy and then found Wray in the driveway chipping about an inch of ice off my car. If you could have lifted the ice off you would have had a perfect ice sculpture of my car :-)

Then, we watched a movie in the kitchen while I baked a double batch of chocolate chip cookies.....we have enough cookies to feed an army :-P We then decided to 'live on the wild side', as Wray put it, and take some cookies to Joel and Jaime on the snow covered roads. He went out to warm up the car and I discovered when I went out a few minutes later that when he said 'live on the wild side' he meant taking my car! Funny how that worked out, huh?

He drove so it also included taking the back way home, "to test your car in the snow." I was perfectly happy with never finding out how my car did on the back roads with snow, but we had fun :-P Or rather, he had fun laughing at me everytime I would cringe or cover my eyes. We took the back way with the agreement that he would pay for any damages that occured when we slid into a ditch and I would drive his Sunfire until my car was fixed.....he laughed at that too, so I'm not sure if he realized I was serious :-)
Wray is a pretty good driver though, and he parked my car safely back in the driveway at which point he turned to me and said, "See, no reason to worry." I then pryed my fingers off my dashboard and exited the car silently
:-)

So that is the story of our ice storm adventure

Late night reading

Hi Mom! I thought you might like some late night entertainment while you're staying with Grandma. Hope the night goes quick for you and that Grandma is feeling better by morning.

Wray and I took cookies up to Joel and Jaime this afternoon ( since we had around 120 cookies, we thought we could spare a few :-) ) We stayed for about an hour I have a cute Cosette story to tell you.....
We all sat for about 10 minutes and watched Joel and Cosette play 'football' in the middle of the living room. Cosette would get in her football position, (one hand on her back, backside up in the air, and the other hand resting on the floor), then she would say, "One, Two, Three, HUT!" And then they would tackle each other :-) She was doing all this in the dress she calls her 'beautiful wedding dress." Maybe you had to be there, but it was pretty cute.

The electicity was off for about 5 1/2 hours today. Wray and I played cards for 3 1/2 hours of that. And of course, I creamed him :-) The power came back on around 7:30 and now we're eating hotdogs with leftover sloppy joe sauce ( I made sloppy joes for supper wednesday night )
Cosette called tonight and told us that we could, "borrow our electricity until yours comes back" :-)

Everybody told me at hand therapy on thursday that my hands are looking great. I found out that I'm the first person with raynauds that they've tried this on. Bethany told me I'll probably end up being their 'spokes person' for anodyne. :-P I didn't get to talk to Laura about AC because it was a little crazy back there, but hopefully it won't be as busy when I go on Monday.

I wish I could come down with dad tomorrow, but I'm supposed to work at 3. Baylee said she will work for me but I need the hours. I'll be sending something for Grandma though. Think hard enough and you will figure it out
:-) I'm sure it will make her smile

I guess thats all thats been happening around here since wednesday. Well, one more thing, but thats a surprise and you have to wait to you get home to see it :-)
I'll keep my phone under my pillow tonight....text if you need someone to talk to.

Goodnight, hopefully I will see you tomorrow night. Love you........