My Surgery

So for months now I have been dealing with a true "pain in the ankle".  This isn't even the ankle that I did a wicked number to on the tennis courts last year.  This is the other one.  It's been bothering me not so much when I do my Group Ride class in the mornings, not a ton when I do BOSU, but when I just do plain walking, that's when it starts to burn like crazy.  Every night it swells up like a balloon too.  So I visited the Dr., got an xray - the doc sees nothing.  So I go to Dr. Murdock, a podiatrist and he orders an MRI - a spendy deal, but I needed to have something done!  So on we went.  Dr. Murdock found a bone chip and surgery was scheduled.  Last Thursday was the big day.  I set up my life for everyone else to run for the next two weeks since I will be laid up. 

It's been interesting living my life with basically one working leg.  Amazing, really, how difficult it is to take a shower on one leg.  And shaving on one leg?  It's a talent I am really working on. 

Today I went into Dr. Murdock for the post surgery check up.  He uncovered the incision - this was the first time I'd seen it - I wasn't going to look at it myself - ick!

 Mike just says he'll call me ZORRO from now on.  Lucky me!  :)

I'll keep you posted!

Mother's Day 2011

What a great day Mother's Day was!  My family treated me like a Queen!  I had a great homemade breakfast that I didn't have to make.  We all know what that means - it was delicious! 

Brigam made me an awesome bookmark and a magnet.  He was the only one that got to make a bookmark.  The other kids made two magnets, but he told me that he asked the teacher if he could make me a bookmark because he knew I loved to read.  Wasn't that thoughtful?

Then he made me this I heart U magnet.  See the little lines around the heart?  He told me that he made his magnet complete with "sound effects".  So dang cute!!!

Jeremy worked his little fingers to the bone (with a little help from Brigam) digging this hole and putting this pond form in for me.  Now I just need to get a ton of flat rocks, landscaping plants, water plants, an electrical cord running....blah, blah, blah....  It's something I've wanted for a long time and I was so happy that he did it.

Mykalyn made me this cute as heck box at young women's and filled it full of chocolate covered fortune cookies complete with my own "fortunes".  Very sweet.

Mother's Day was great. Oh, and one more present I got was a long ol' phone call from this incredible guy.....

It was great that all my kids made me feel so special (an my wonderful hubby too).  They are great!

Daddy Daughter Dance

So Mike and Mykalyn's professional photo came in the mail from their dance.  It looks so nice.  We've had it for a while, but Mike has now chagrined me into putting it on my blog.  He was disappointed it wasn't already there!

Our trip to Silver Mountain

So, because Mike misses Tyler so much, he couldn't stand the thought of doing the annual General Conference/Snowboarding trip to Utah. He decided that it would be better for our family to take a trip to Kellogg, Idaho and visit Silver Mountain for a little ski & swim. At the resort there they have a big indoor water park complete with 3 tubular slides, a lazy river, a surf station, a kiddies' play area and a couple of hot tubs and more. We showed up on Thursday in the late afternoon. After check-in, Mike and the boys went down to the water park while Mykalyn and I had to make a "stuff forgotten" trip to the nearest Wally World. We came back, made up Jordan River Mud Cake and threw it in the crock pot to cook while we hit the water park too. It was fun. Mike was brave enough to do the surf station and he wasn't half bad! We stayed and played for a while, but then it seemed to be a little stuffy in there and we went to the outside hot tub. It is amazing that a 15 minute gondola ride away there is a whole mountain for them to snowboard on because the weather down in the resort was pretty dang mild.

After playing we sat down to watch Tangled which was a pretty cute movie. I am glad that the kids still like Disney movies. I'll be bummed when I have no one left to buy them for but me. Maybe by the time that Brigam thinks that they are ridiculous, I will have grandkids to buy them for and watch with. It could happen, Brigam is 9, Jeremy is 16 and still watches them. I wonder what Tyler will be doing in 7 years.........

The next day was April 1st. Better known as April Fool's Day. For breakfast the kids had cereal with milk and these great bacon and egg concoctions. It was great to call them to the table for this little "surprise" and start their day off with a sugar high!

The 4 of them were so happy to come back on the gondola at lunch and eat their lunch in this great room we got. It was super nice with a full kitchen, bedroom with a king sized bed and a couch that pulled out for a queen sized bed. They were toasty and the lunch made them refuel for another round on the mountain.

When they came home for dinner, I had a crock pot chicken dish cooking all day and they said they could smell the deliciousness of that smell all the way down the hall. Their tummies were going to be happy. Little did they know that I had another April Fool's food choice on the menu. It was fish sticks (rectangular wafers covered in peanut butter and corn flakes), peas (made from Laffy Taffy) and potatoes and gravy (made from a scoop of vanilla ice cream and hard shell chocolate topping). This type of meal is a traditional April Fool's Day happening in the Nelson household.

Last year Mykalyn helped out by making a sugar cookie "pizza" with candy toppings. She was very creative. But this year she made my day when she said,  "Mom, I didn't even see the April Fool's breakfast coming. I thought, 'Maybe she'll do the dinner', but then I was like 'we're on vacation. She's not going to pack all that stuff.' Mom you are so cool." Ok, forming all 120 peas from Laffy Taffy just got "worth it" with that comment.

After dinner, we went to the hot tub again. Then they played in the water park some more.

You know, I enjoy going on vacation with everyone, but the kind of vacations that Mike likes to take - well they aren't really for me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being with them, I just enjoy my vacations to include at least one or more books, shopping (which includes buying stuff - not food), classes and stuff like that. Mike likes total ACTION and MOVEMENT. I enjoyed my time with all of them, but they are concerned that I didn't have fun. I did! I just like to do my own thing.

A little bit of catch up from January 2011 to the end of March 2011

 So this is a picture of Me and Jeremy up in Walla Walla where Jeremy FINALLY got his drivers license.  It took an extra week to get because he failed the first time, but the second time was the charm. 

Jeremy finally gets his license on January 25. 2011

 This is one of our great elders that we were privileged to get to know.  Elder Joseph (Seph) Smith (I am not kidding) was so green, but had the strongest  testimony and was so courageous.  He was the one that asked Kim if she would take the discussions.  He was awesome!  And had the same birthday as our Tyler, so it was fate.  He spent his birthday with us.  We had turkey dinner, cake and his parents sent a video of them singing Happy Birthday and a bunch of letters.  He was so happy.

Elder Smith in the middle of birthday wishes



Elder (Seph) Smith and Elder Boren celebrating Elder Smith's birthday - same day as Tyler's!

 This is part of our downstairs.  I bought us a game table for fun in the fun "Broncos" room.  It will be a lot of fun in the future!

New game table downstairs

 

So this was the Southridge Rock on Jeremy's birthday.  His friends got together to put their birthday wishes on the painted rock.  Unfortunately for someone else whose birthday wishes were on the rock first, Jeremy's name got placed over theirs.  Bad boys!  But happy Jeremy.

Jeremy and the rock of birthday wishes

Jeremy and the back side of the rock

Jeremy's friends love him

Valentines Stuff!

Valentine's Day for Brigam's teacher

My Valentine's Day gifts from Mike.  Beautiful Roses (yes, Mike broke down and gave me dead flowers for the special day) and a Cricut Cake cutter.

Valentine's gifts.  Brigam's valentines - Dum Dum suckers as crutches.  Water as Love Potion.  Sugar cookie hearts, yummy!

Valentine's Day gifts



Valentine's Day gifts.  Pop the top in case of a chocolate emergency.

Mykalyn's first Softball Tourney March 2011.  She was having some fun there!

Mykalyn working on pitching, I mean posing.



Mykalyn as shortstop and Sara as pitcher at their first softball game.





Mykalyn's Diamond Buster Team singing the taco bell song?



Mykalyn at bat

 In January, a local church put on a Daddy/Daughter Ball that Mykalyn attended with her dad and two other girls and their fathers.  They went out for dinner and had photos and everything.  It was to teach the girls just how they should be treated on a date.

  

Mykalyn all ready for the Daddy/Daughter Ball





Mykalyn and Dad ready for the Daddy/Daughter Ball





Sara and Brea at the Father/Daughter Ball



Mykalyn and Sara at the Ball





Mike's prepared for snowboarding.  Yes, I am serious.



Jeremy placing his very first wrist corsage on Emmy Vaughn

Did you know those run $20 a wrist?  I think I'll be making the next one!

Emmy and Jeremy ready for the Priest/Laurel dance

My kids LOVE Cool Whip!



I told Brigam to go get a spoon for a spoonful of Cool Whip - this is what he came back with.  Smart boy.

I had a free Saturday (yes, odd I know) so Mykie and I made crown cookies.  We wanted to stress the importance of the upcoming Young Women's General Broadcast.  It brought back great memories of last year when a group of us were lucky enough to attend the broadcast in person.  LOVED IT!

Crowns packaged for my Young Women as an invite to the YW General Broadcast



Sugar Cookie crowns for the Young Women.  Yummy

Funny, funny MONDAY!

Here's a joke to start your Monday off with a laugh.............



An old man lived alone in Idaho. He wanted to spade his potato garden, but it was very hard work. His only son, Bubba, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament.


Dear Bubba:

I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here, all my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me.

Love, Dad

A few days later, he received a letter from his son.

Dear Dad:

For heaven's sake, Dad, don't dig up that garden. That's where I buried the BODIES.

Love, Bubba

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local Police showed up and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left.

That same day, the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Dad:

Go ahead and plant the potatoes now. It's the best I could do under the circumstances.

Love, Bubba

Hee, hee, hee!

Elder Nelson - Phone Home!

So Christmas is always something to look forward to, but this year it was special because I knew that we would be able to talk with Tyler.  We were so excited when he called about 10 am our time.  We had some trouble because he gave us a number to call back to, but it was pretty hard to get through.  We finally did it though and we all talked to him for like 2 hours.  It was great.  We all just hung out on a phone and said whatever we wanted when we wanted.  It was like having him in the house because we were all walking around and hearing his voice wherever we were. 

He is doing so well.  We are so proud of the things he is learning about himself.  And the Christ-centered life he is trying to live. 

He told me in an email the week before that he was really looking forward to our phone call and that he "freakin' loves me".  Now I am really not a fan at all of the word freakin, but if he is going to use it in that way, I'll take it!

We had sent him two packages before Christmas.  It's hard to send stuff to a missionary because they don't really have a lot of room to pack a lot of stuff around.  But we found some stuff.  Luckily he did get both of them which I was concerned about because they say that Mexico is pretty tough to get packages through to their intended recipients.  There are others that think that I am actually sending boxes to them, even though they say CLEARLY  to Elder Nelson  So that's what his picture of the boxes are.  He was pretty happy to get some stuff from home.

We did find him some stuff he'd enjoy.  Just some stuff from the States that he couldn't get there.  I made him a Denver Broncos stocking and filled it with all of his favorite Christmas candy.  He was thrilled with his packages and felt the love we wanted him to feel sent from his family at home to him.

Just to the right of the center/top of this picture is a little black book that I made.  It was based on this video on youtube.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAjZ8mfoYw

Its from Elder Busche and it's a great uplift for anyone.  I made one for Jeremy after he introduced me to the video on line.  So I decided to make one for Tyler as well.  He was so appreciative of it.  He told me that he loved the book and told his companion, "Look!  My mom made this!"  He's never been so proud of my crafting before!

This is a picture of Elder Nelson with his Mission President.  His name is President Alin Spannaus.  Tyler really loves him.  His testimony has grown so much because of the experiences that they have had together.  It's been a great experience for him.  

So our Christmas was complete with Tyler in the picture as well.  We miss him so much, but we know that he is doing something that will benefit not only him and his future family, but many others in his future.  He's already been out there a little over 300 days, so we are almost 1/2 way to a Homecoming Party!