Kevin and Sandy

things that make me smile

2011-04-27T05:59:00.000-07:00

Life as I knew it has changed. Of course for the better. I look at things through the eyes of my grandkids and just have to smile.

Bridgette went in to check on Michael after putting him to bed. She turned on the light to take this picture. He must like a hard mattress

A box is a great investment

You'd think that by the 3rd sibling Michael would be a little more interested in holding the baby. Ha!He kept asking others if they wanted to hold her while bridgette was trying to do something.

Jake and Jared and both fit in here. Trust me.

My favorite superheros

Grandparenting - can it get any better than that?

$2 fish

2010-11-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

1. A perfect day in Wyoming
2. No pressing commitments
3. A great guy for a date
4. Only 1 lost lure

What a great day. I caught the smallest and the largest. We each got 4. 7 rainbow and 1 lake trout.

Kevin got his limit so he started cleaning the fish. He thought it was dead and had cut open the lake trout to clean it and it jumped out of his hands into the lake. He called me to come try to snag it with my pole. It wasn't moving, just out far enough that we didn't want to wade out. I had just thrown out my line so was reeling it in really fast when I realized I had another fish on. I was able to get it in and snag the other fish and call it a day.

So $6 for a day liscense and 1 lost lure makes for $2 fish instead of the $53 fish my first time out.

Michael and Jake maybe next summer it will be you holding the fish.

The End

2010-09-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

Well, it's done... at least from a distance. We still need to paint the trim around the windows and doors and build a rock mailbox
to match. But we are
really happy with it.

a few years from now we'll change the

shingles to a brown, but they don't need it yet.

almost there

2010-09-01T21:33:00.000-07:00

I really have come to understand how Extreme Makeover can do what they do in a week. After a minor setback over the weekend they moved right along. On Friday they hit a wire but we didn't find it until Sat. night after they had left. So Monday morning Kevin and our neighbor ran a new wire from the garage through the ceiling and down the kitchen wall. As Kevin was putting the cover back on the panel. It popped again and he came running out saying "No mas, No mas!!. They understood that and he had hit another wire. That was a little easier fix. But Monday was a little behind. Tues the thought they'd get the trim on. But lo and behold this is what they had done on Tues.

Today they thought they would finish. I got up early and started watering the yard at 6:30 thinking it would be done before they got here at 8. But at 6:35 I heard the dog bark and a drill run. They were rearing to go. I made them some muffins which they pretty much ate on the run. By about noon they had the all the stucco and trim done and started on the rock.

It looks great. They ran out of rock so will have to finish Monday. But here it is so far Michael will you recognize us? Now we have to paint the shed to match.

our new house

2010-08-29T21:16:00.001-07:00

Well, we finally decided to do it. We are getting stucco and rock on our house. They weren't supposed to start until Monday, but on Wed. they said they'd start tomorrow. So when we got home on Thurs. night. they had all the old off and some of the boards nailed on.

This is what we see when we look out the backdoor to the deck. I don't think it would pass safety issues at FMC. Now we just need to figure out how to make it come to the house again.

Friday brought us this far. I have never seen such hard workers.

Even Grandpa was helping. Sat. they started on the primer base.

I told Michael he wouldn't recognize our house when he came. He was the one that noticed when we got a new front door. I'll keep you updated

week with grandpa and grandma

2010-08-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

We got to have another week this year with Michael and Jake. We had a great time. They got to play in the pool. and run through the sprinklers. As you can tell, Jake doesn't like to get his head wet.

They loved to dress up in costumes. We got a great deal at a garage sale. A box of 6 different costumes plus a couple masks that change your voice for $3. sorry for the side view. I don't know how to rotate it.

We went to the splash park.

Again, Jake didn't want to get his head wet, but Michael loved it all.

We painted rocks to put in Grandma's flowers. Guess what color Michael chose?

But my favorite was watching them just be them. What a great way to watch TV. We look forward to next summer so we can do it again.

2010-02-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

I missed last week, so here's the update. Tamika won last week with the biggest loss. Kevin won this week with the most time exercising - 8 hr. and 54 min. I put in a whole 25 min. Yeah, exercising, not my favorite thing to do. I got a good e-mail from a friend that pretty much sums it up. On Monday I'm pretty motivated, by Sat. - if I make it that long without pulling something - no interest at all. But I did get a new step aerobic video. I tried it out this morning. Not too hard - 15 of my 30 min. was listening to the intro. Maybe tomorrow I'll make it past the warmup. Anyway, we have lost a total of 71.3 lbs. I'm down 12.5#. Allison has the best percentage loss with 7.204 so far. Tamika won a subway card and Kevin won a JC Penney's card. Next week it is a Hastings card - maybe I can win and get another DVD

I think I'm starting to look a little like her.

lessons learned

2010-01-25T20:18:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are after week 2. This week was a little less weight loss, total of 13.7 lbs. Bridgette had our best weight loss this week. Still we worked hard. But I did learn a good lesson. Don't wear sweats that are a little big when you plan on running on the treadmill. Yah, not a good idea. I'm sure the man behind me got a good laugh. As a matter of fact, I'm surprised he didn't fall off his machine from laughing so hard. If you didn't figure it out, I about lost my pants. I was walking along at 3.5 mph and doing fine. I decided to crank it up to 6 mph as I had done other days. Suddenly my pants are down under my bum,(it's good I had a long shirt on - but then it made it really hard to get ahold of them without lifting my shirt. So there I was, trying to pull up my pants with one hand and slow down the machine with the other. Didn't work. So I just had to hang on to them until I could get it stopped. I wish I could say I lost so much weight my pants just fell off. Not so, just lesson learned.

2010-01-19T21:56:00.000-08:00

Well, we finished our first week of the biggest loser. It didn't go totally smooth for me. I ordered from Whole Sale Foods the last week of Nov. and my order came last Tues. Of course I didn't remember what I ordered that long ago (I am over 50 now). Anyway, one item was a case of Otis Spunkmeyer snicker brownies. 400 calories each. That's all I'll say on the matter. Anyway, our group started the week at 1476.20 lbs. We lost a total of 38.90 lbs. That's a lot of fat. I came in 3rd with a loss of 6.5 lbs. I felt pretty good about that. I really did try hard. Kevin had the biggest percentage loss with his 11.5 lbs. Way to go Kevin. He won a Wal-Mart gift card. Next week's incentive is a movie pass.

New Year/New Me

2010-01-18T06:12:00.000-08:00

Well here it is 2010. It's only been 6 months or so since I updated. New Me - I'll do better this year. There's a number of things I want to work on this coming year. One biggy is to lose weight. This is probably one of my favorite pictures of me. Not at when I weighted the least, but probably when I looked the best. I could put in a picture of me at my worst, but why would I do that?

Since a number in our family would like to do the same, we are doing the Biggest Loser competition to help each other. My goal is to look like I did 20 years ago - minus the hair-do.. and with a few more wrinkles...and a little more gray...So here I am now, or at least 3 months ago

Keep up with our blog, give encouragement and see the transformation in me.

Dakota has a new friend

2009-07-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

Derek and Tamika brought home a new dog. I guess you can call her a dog, she's almost big enough. As you can see, after a few days of Dakota mostly trying to ignore her, she gave up.

Dakota is so patient. Regan loves to play, Dakota is pretty happy just sitting there...until yesterday. Now Dakota gets into it too. It's almost scary as Dakota opens her big mouth over Regan's tiny body, but Regan loves it.

After a session of rough-housing. They were both ready for a nap. Regan has definitely brought some life back into Dakota. I guess all us older people need a little youth to keep us from aging too fast.

The $53 fish

2009-03-17T17:51:00.000-07:00

Fishing license $36
Gas $10
Lost lures $6
Hand sanitizer $1
A perfect day, with a perfect guy -priceless

So after years of being away, I finally put other things aside and spent a great morning with Kevin down at Flaming Gorge Lake.
My first catch of the day besides moss was this great stick.

The 2nd catch of the day, besides more moss was my glove. I tried to leave it on while cleaning off the moss. Not a good idea. I couldn't get the knack of just flipping it off in the water. Kevin said he remembered as a kid watching a couple old drunk guys flip it off their poles without having to touch the yucky stuff. I guess I wasn't drunk enough :)

Ah, but the 3rd catch was a good one.

The time just flew by. Then the wind came up and

it was time to call it a morning. Kevin got more bites than me and got a couple close to the bank before they wriggled off his hook. It reminded me of fishing on the Kenai in Alaska with Bridgette. Got the big one right up close, but couldn't get the net under it.

But there will be more perfect days

A week with grandpa and grandma

2009-03-13T10:50:00.000-07:00

We were able to have Michael and Jake spend
a week with us. We took them to Allie's college to see the dinosaur displays and the wildlife museum.

Michael's explanation of why the animals were not moving was

"They're broke, the batteries are dead."

Jake wanted to check out the fish Kevin & Derek caught, but Michael didn't want too close.

The boys got pretty involved when Kevin was opening his birthday presents.

They played together really well.....

Most of the time (Michael must take after Todd in that he can stay calm in tense situations)

They had a couple days at the park.

Brother see...brother do.

No one took a picture of Grandma taking a 3 hour nap after they left , but
we had a great time and look forward to summer when they can come and stay again.

A day of fishing

2009-03-04T21:38:00.000-08:00

To celebrate my birthday, Derek took me fishing..sort of. Here's the first fish of the day.

Look at the color

Here's my first catch of the day.

My second one. It felt good to finally outcatch Derek.

We called it a pretty good success

you know your pet is part of the family...

2009-01-18T11:54:00.000-08:00

when she needs surgery and you cry hoping she's make it through then give her plenty of treats when she does...

It's hard to write a blog when pretty much everything worth writing about we do as a family and everyone else writes about it in their blog, but here's a new one. Hope you have a strong stomach.
As you know, Dakota is our 10 yr old chocolate lab. She's been getting these fat deposits on her shoulder and neck and they are bothering her when she walks too long. You can see them in the picture on the left. Oblivously, she is fine here.
Anyway, we decided to have them removed.

I guess this is like liposuction. 5# of fat. I think I like the old fashion way of dieting to get rid of my extra.

She looks pretty sore here

We worried that she'd be mad at use like when we had her fixed. But she has done really well. Now look at her, she looks pretty lean and mean, but she still knows she's good for a treat when she wants one.

Our first experience at cutting our own Christmas tree

2008-12-16T20:10:00.000-08:00

So...after 26 years of being married, we decided we wanted to cut our own tree. Last year we bought a real one and worried the house would burn down from lighting a dead tree each night. Sad to say, the day after Christmas, leaving most of itself along the way, we drug the tree outside. So this year, with the price of gas going down, we could make the trip and buy the tag for about the same price.

Now we just needed to decide on a tree...and agree.

"How about this one?" Kevin asked.

"too small" was my response.

Here's the one I want" I said. Kevin said "Do you really think it will

fit?" He's sooo realistic.

We searched high and low. We walked and drove for hours. Well, not really. As you can see the truck in the background we didn't walk far. But we found the tree.

We both agreed. It was a little taller, but Kevin tried to shake off some of the dead before he cut it down. Notice there isn't a top on it? Wonder where that went. But still, just right.

So I watched him work so hard to make the perfect cut. Thank

goodness for power tools. It was over before we knew it.

On our way home we saw one or two really, that someone had decorated.

But ours was way better. We just had a bit of a time trying to find the top center for our star. Did you know that a real Douglas Fir can't hold as heavy of ornaments as a fake one?

We had to find a lighter weight topper, and it's a bit crooked

but it's beautiful. We're already planning on next years trip.

I finally gave in - sort of

2008-11-14T19:48:00.000-08:00

Back in October Allie and I went to an enrichment meeting where they showed us some computer/web page info. I got lost so while the guy was teaching, I got motivated to start a blog, so Allie got me set up with an account and password. Now it's the middle of November. I forgot my password so had to set up a new one. Tamika is here helping me get it really set up. We'll see if I can keep it going.