Random Thoughts and Camera Surprises

I wanted to get a few thoughts out of my head...I've got way too many floating around in there. Maybe if I write them down, I can sort them out better.

First off, I have been thinking about Cole. He is my dear friend Eve's little boy. He and Braiden are the same age, although Cole is a year ahead of him in school. He is always coming over to my house to look for bugs and water snakes in my yard and in the field behind me. He is quite the kid...so full of life! Almost three weeks ago now, Cole was hit by a cement truck on the way to school. He was badly hurt and flown to Primary Children's. It was very upsetting and I have worried so much about Cole and Eve. Fortunately, he is doing much better, considering the circumstances. Amazingly his head and internal organs were OK, but his legs were badly damaged. He has had major surgery to repair the muscles and tendons in his leg and foot. He will eventually regain the full use of his legs, but it will be a long, hard road.

I love Eve to death. Whenever I am down, I can count on her to cheer me up. She is so funny and has a fantastic outlook on life. She is one of the neatest ladies I've ever known and has such an amazing presence about her. My heart aches for her and her family, but I know she is strong enough to not only endure this trial, she will come out of it even stronger.

This experience has really got me thinking about the fragility of life. It easily could have been Braiden riding to school and been hit. Why was it her child and not mine? Every single day of life is so precious. Why do I take so much for granted? Each moment with each child is a gift. Why do I get frustrated at my kids so easily? Why can't I be more patient with myself and them? Why do I worry so much about the little things that don't really matter? I wish I had the answers to these questions, but I am trying to be better...Thanks for your wonderful example and friendship, Eve! You are in my prayers and I love you tons!!

Another thought is about my shoulder recovery. I was having a pretty hard time a few weeks back. I was hurting so bad, and I was really getting scared that I had either re-injured my shoulder, or that the surgery didn't work. The pain was as bad as it had been before my surgery and was just not getting better. I was very discouraged, frustrated, and feeling pretty bad about the whole thing. I was even a little angry that I couldn't do the things I needed and wanted to do. I wondered if I was just being too wimpy, and that I just needed to suck it up and deal with it. I returned to the doctor with these thoughts. He was quite concerned about my discouragement. He told me the shoulder itself was perfect, that it just needed more time to heal, and that the problem was that the soft tissue in my shoulder was extremely inflamed and we just needed to calm it down so it could heal. He gave me a shot of Cortisone in my shoulder (which hurt like ----) and sent me home. I didn't move it for a few days and I started to feel a little better, both physically and mentally. I think I finally figured out what I can and can't do at this point. I was just being impatient (me??? impatient?? never!!) and I needed to pace myself and my recovery.

This whole experience has taught me several things. First, I need to be more patient...with my body, with myself, and with others. Now, I'm not saying that I AM more patient, just that I have learned that I need to be. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I will ever learn to be more patient. Second, I have learned to rely on people to help me more. I am pretty independent and not being able to take care of myself has been a huge blow emotionally. It has been hard to let people help me do everyday things like my laundry, vacuuming, and dishes. My job is to be the mom and not being able to do my job effectively is really hard on me. I have neighbors and friends who will just drop in and clean something for me, or drive me places, or take my kids. I really appreciate their thoughtfulness and I'm trying to get better at accepting their help without feeling like a failure. This experience has also taught me to recognize the people who truly care about me. I had no idea that I had so many GREAT friends! That sounds bad, but when you have an experience like this, some people are really there for you whenever you need them. They really showed me and my family charity and I learned a lot about how to try to be in the future. The most apparent example of this is my mom, Janis. She literally dropped everything for me these past few months, including taking care of her two sick mothers. She has helped me with the kids, driven me to therapy, done the grocery shopping, made me dinners, scrubbed (and I mean scrubbed) my house from top to bottom...the list goes on and on. Words cannot express what that has meant to me. You are wonderful, Mom, and I love you so much for your outpouring of love and service!!

I'm happy to report that my shoulder is doing remarkably well now. I just needed to take it easy and let it heal. I still can't do everything, that will take several more months, but I now know my limits and I'm looking at the positive here. So, these are the mile stones that I'm very proud of:

• 
  
  I am sleeping much better, and waking up relatively pain free (HUGE improvement!)
• 
  
  I can tuck in my shirt and fasten my bra all by myself! (TMI, I know, but I had to brag because this one has been really hard!)
• 
  
  Driving doesn't nearly kill me anymore (or my children, for that matter). It was turning the steering wheel that was the kicker (steering is so overrated!)
• 
  
  I can sort of fix my hair without having to ice my shoulder for an half hour afterwards! (It's the round brushing thing--kills the shoulder every time, but it's getting better)
• 
  
  I can reach up, back and behind without extreme pain (but I'm still not supposed to do this very much)
• 
  
  I can lift anything less than three pounds! What is less than three pounds, you ask? Coke, of course, but not much else!

So there you go...my accomplishments over the past two months. I can't believe it has been that long. I keep telling myself to hold on until Christmas and by that time, I should be able to do almost everything again. I can't wait!!

My third random thought is just that...random thought. It seems that more and more that I can't seem to keep anything straight in my brain. I'm forgetting things left and right...dates, important info., things my kids tell me, you name it. It all goes in, then goes right back out! I completely forgot to take a quiz in one of my classes the other day. OOPS! How did that happen? What is going on with me? Is this normal? I'm a control freak, and sometimes I feel like I've completely lost any control I ever had. Fortunately, I have an extremely patient husband who knows I can be a freak of nature every now and then, but still loves me anyway. He is a huge reason I feel even half way normal, what an absolute sweetheart! I think a lot of this can be blamed on the fact that I have dealt with chronic pain and lack of sleep for well over a year now. That can really wear on a person. Thankfully, the pain is subsiding and the sleep is coming back. Hopefully, as my mother always says, "this too, shall pass". I'm waiting, Mom.

One last random thought. I just finished praising my mom for being the greatest thing ever, but now I have to scold her. She went with me to Costco the other day and exposed me to a very great evil....Chocolate Macadamia Carmel Clusters!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!!! They are SO good! Dang you, Mom!! Why did you have to go and show me those little nuggets of joy? Why, when you know I have absolutely no will power when it comes to chocolate? How could you be so uncaring to my waistline? Maybe I will forgive you, but it may take a while!

Last, but not least, I wanted to share with you some surprises I found on my camera...I was downloading my pictures from Jackson and found these little nuggets...

Are you kidding me with this!!??!?? Apparently, my children do all sorts of weird things when I'm not around. I thought they just watched movies when they babysat, but obviously not! I don't know if I should be more upset with Lauren for dressing up my little boy, or with Ethan for allowing his big sister to dress him up AND put make-up on him! He is really going to kill me in later years for this! But I promise to not show these pictures to his high school prom dates or anything like that! I just thought it was both funny and scary at the same time...please tell me if I should be worried!

Wait! I need to add one final random thought...several of you have told me that you can't comment on my blog. I didn't know what was wrong, but I think I finally fixed the problem. So, just for experiment sake, please leave just a quick comment to see if it works. I'll be waiting for your feedback while I eat yet another cluster of goodness from Costco!

JACKSON

Out of all of the places I've been, I have to say Jackson ranks right up at the top of my list. To me, it is one of the most beautiful places on earth, although I had never been there until I got married. Ryan's family has been going there every year for decades. So, of course, we kept the tradition going after I joined the family. I absolutely love it there. We go in September when the summer rush is over and there are very few people around, the weather is very fall-like which is a welcome change after the brutal Utah summers, and the scenery is spectacular. We didn't go last September because we strayed from the formula and took the whole family to Vail instead. Great trip, but I'm glad we are back on the Jackson track.

We loaded up Thursday evening and headed up. We stay in Teton Village which is just outside of Jackson and just South of Grand Teton National Park. Friday morning, we headed off to the parks. We only had one day to spend in the parks, but I think we did a pretty good job of packing a lot in. While driving through GTNP, I took these great pictures of the mountains. I think the Tetons are the prettiest mountains I've seen. I love how the mountain is reflected in the lake.

The trees were just starting to change their colors. I love the contrast of the fall colors.



We stole my niece, Kerah for the day. The girls love her to pieces. They had a great time watching out for critters in "Critter Watch '09". They did pretty well, especially in the Bison and squirrel categories.

After lunch, we walked down to Yellowstone Lake. We had never been to this area. It was neat and the kids had a blast playing in the "salt and pepper" sand and skipping rocks.

This is my first attempt at downloading a video, so we will see how it works. I caught a cute moment on video where Ry was teaching Ethan how to skip rocks.






Next, we headed to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We love this part of Yellowstone, but don't always make it here every year. Now that the kids are getting older, we can go on more hikes, which we love to do. We first went to the upper falls. They were beautiful.



Then we took a short walk to see the lower falls. Apparently, we needed our binoculars for this excursion.

Lauren found a tree stump, so she HAD to pose...

And, of course, then Ethan had to do the same thing...


We came upon this sign...



And, of course, we had to try it. This is what the trail looks like from the other side of the canyon:

All of those tiny little lines are stairs!! There were a whole lot of them. Going down was pretty easy (though a little rough on the knees), but I kept thinking that what goes down must come up! About half way down, we spotted a rainbow in the mist...if you look really hard you can see it in this picture.


So this is the view from the bottom of the trail. It was so cool!!

And looking down the canyon the other way was just as neat...

But then, we had to go back up! Katie got a good head start...

My thighs and butt hurt just looking at that!!

We all did amazingly well. It didn't take us very long at all to climb back up, and the kids were great!! I didn't get winded, but my legs sure felt like Jell-O when I was back at the top! But I'm very glad we went on that fun hike!

So now, here's a recap of "Critter Watch '09". We saw lots of Bison. Most of them were in the fields, but one was walking in the road about 2 feet from our car! It brought back not-so-great memories of the year we got stuck on the road from Norris to Old Faithful behind a herd of slow moving buffalo for 2 1/2 hours!!! Fortunately, most of the bison stayed off the roads!


We also saw quite a few elk. The males spend this time of year trying to impress the females so they bugle a lot. It was neat to listen to and watch.

And the best part of "Critter Watch '09" was the beautiful moose and her calf we saw each night as we were coming home to our condo in Teton Village. I tried every night to get a good picture of her, but this is the best one. The calf is on the right side of the road and the mom is out in front blending into the darkness. Use your imagination, OK? I'm not making this up...

On Saturday, we celebrated a wedding!!! Ryan's brother, Jason married his girlfriend, Tanya. The wedding was on a balcony in Teton Village. It was nice and I'm happy for them.


The whole family together after the blissful event...

Tenille took this picture of me with the girls at the restaurant. She thought it was so funny that the background is of the bar...I fail to see the humor in this, but she wanted me to put it in my blog, so here it is...and no, I didn't have anything but apple juice to drink.



Lauren and Cora celebrating after the wedding. I think she's going for your glasses, Lauren!!!



After the wedding, we were all excited to float the Snake river. We haven't done this in a few years because the kids were small, but we were determined to rekindle the tradition. Unfortunately, our boat had other plans. Grandpa and Jason had spent several hours getting it spruced up and ready to go, but when they were pulling it out of the truck, something else broke on it which grounded us for another year. Bummer!! There's always next year! I'm coming for you, Lunch Counter!!


So we did the next best thing, we went shopping in Jackson! We had a ball. We shopped so hard, that Grandma had to refuel all of us with ice cream. Thanks, Grandma!

Uncle Jason enjoying his cone

The kids thought this one of me was so funny and that I just had to post it. What can I say, I love my ice cream!!

We tried to get a picture of all of us at the antler arch, but it was really sunny and so everyone had their eyes closed, so we got this one of just the girls. Good enough!

Saturday night, we decided to head back into Teton and fit in another hike (yep, even after Uncle Tom's trail! Hey, what can I say? We are highly trained professionals!!) It was a beautiful evening and a very lovely hike. I have to say, we were very lucky in the weather department this year. It was gorgeous the entire weekend!!

We walked to this lovely bridge and stream where we snapped a few photos.



But then Braiden fell off a rock and got hurt...a little...but being the tender-heart he is, he was pretty sad.


But then Dad made it all better!

All in all, what a great weekend!!! We were sad to go home, three days is never long enough to spend in my favorite place. On the drive home, unfortunately, we were cursed with puke issues. This is becoming more frequent when we travel. It seems it is our destiny to have at least one "I need to throw up!!" incident every time we get in the car for long road trips. The curse was passed on to poor Katie this time around. But Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to let her lay down in their back seat for most of the trip. I wonder who's turn it will be when we head to Wisconsin next week...hmmm.

But the rest of us had a great time heading home. We stopped for lunch in Idaho Falls right by the temple. We had a picnic and fed the ducks. It was a lovely day.

This weekend really recharged my batteries. It was so nice to get away from school, homework, dishes, carpool, etc. and go someplace peaceful and beautiful, if even just for a little while. I'm looking forward to going back next year all ready! Until then, I will have these wonderful memories to look back on.

A Hiking We Will Go!

As a family, one of our favorite things to do is hike together. We love it! So, a few Saturdays ago, we headed for the hills again. This time we decided to try and find Waterfall Canyon in Ogden. We parked the car and headed up, but ended up hiking in a canyon next to Waterfall Canyon (we obviously got confused!) That's OK, it was still a pretty canyon, and it gives us an excuse to go back!

The kids love to climb on big rocks, so I took this picture from down below...

We eventually found a pretty cool waterfall. Relatively small, but neat all the same. The kids enjoyed it.

We will be sad when it gets too cold to hike, but until then, we are looking forward to cramming as many hikes in as we can and enjoying the fall colors!

Blast From The Past...or...Technology Is Great!

I'm am trying to join the tech age, and I'm not very good at it. When I was in high school, I learned Word Perfect 5.1, very few people had cell phones and if they did they were as large (and as heavy) as bricks, and there was no such thing as e-mail. We wrote each other notes, called our parents on pay phones, and typed our school work on computers that were little more than glorified typewriters.

I have always loved taking pictures, but didn't get a digital camera until after my last kid was born...I'm pathetic, I know. So now, I have taken on a new venture. I am going through all of my old pictures and converting the negatives (do some of you even know what those are?) onto CDs. It has been quite the trip down memory lane, to say the least...


I have only completed my wedding pictures (our photographer gave us all of the negatives!) and some of the time when my girls were tiny. I can't wait to get them all organized and saved so I will always have them on file. It is an expensive project (like I said, I take a fair amount of pictures) so it will take me a while, but I'm slowly getting the hang of this stuff.


So, in honor of the anniversary post from a week or two ago, I am posting some of my wedding pictures. Some of you have already commented on this picture from my post about my grandma...

Some of the comments were things like... "Jen, you look like you are FIFTEEN!!!!" and "Wow, Ryan had a lot of hair!"

If you are in agreement with these statements, buckle up, because there's a lot more where that came from!!!

So, here we go! Try not to laugh too hard, OK? Remember, these are classic mid-90s hair-dos, clothes and colors...I have to remind myself that I was quite in style back then...

First, my bridal portrait

A lot of people have asked me if I was standing on a box or something...the answer is no. It just looks that way with my huge train and all black background.

Temple Party

We had so many friends and family come to the temple to support us! It was a wonderful sealing and it was great to share it with so many people!

Temple Pictures

I'm glad I have this picture because that tree is no longer there. Sadly, it was ripped out by the tornado that came through Salt Lake in 1999.

Wedding Reception

My baby sister, Kaylee was my little flower girl. She was only four at the time...isn't she so cute?

Family Photos

Denise was my Maid of Honor

My Grandma made my beautiful wedding cake

Which I forcefully (but lovingly) shoved in Ryan's face...

And then he returned the favor...

My bridesmaids got really bored standing in my line

And the shoes came off and the polka-dot slippers went on

There you go!! Did you enjoy the ride? Definitely a blast from the past!! I'm so glad I have these pictures and my memories to go with them!! If you didn't get enough here, there will be more walks down memory lane to come....