Olympic Hangover and Memory Musings

Well, the Winter Olympics are over.  It was nice to be recuperating at home during this time; it was a nice distraction.  Although I'm feeling better I was disappoint at how much I did NOT get accomplished during the convalescence.  I didn't anticipate how tired I would be, so most of the things in my bucket list are still in my bucket list.  I've been looking back at all the wonderful things I've been part of in recent years and decided to just randomly post some of those memories. 

I tried to put captions under each picture but after 30 minutes of frustration, I've given up.  You'll have to refer back to the pictures from these comments.

1.  Kissing cousins Drew and Anna at Marissa's wedding in Phoenix

2.  KD holding forth about something.  I love this picture

3.  Cierra acting WAY too grown up

4.  Drew asserting himself

5.  First look at Eli

6.  On the canals in Venice.  I sang at the top of my lungs

7.  Viv in Copenhagen in a rainstorm

8.  The Archepelego (sp?) sailing into Stockholm.  24,000 islands, each a picture postcard.  Beautiful

9.  Chuck's gift presentation to Dave - Caribbean Cruise

10. Kristin swimming with the stingrays

11. Karen with her turkey towel in the room on ship

12. Caribbean memories

13. First look at Caden

14. Beginning of hike up Timpanogos with moose on trail

15. End of hike up Timpanogos with Viv in sled

16. Reunion gig with Nobody's Children in Gallup

17. First look at Carter Bruce

18. First look at Mikira

19. Christmas in Dominican Republic. Nice and warm

20. Family reunion talent (?) show

21. Singing in Mormon Tabernacle Choir

22. Chuck's graduation

23. Family picture at Grandpa Brown's funeral

24. Tyler in the hospital.  In memory of all the RSV hospital patients this year.

Happy Sunday Evening

Well I've been "fasting" (no solid food) since Friday and taking cleansing agents and antibiotics until I begin to wonder if the curse is worse than the disease.  I'm nervous about tomorrow morning and getting poked a million times and waking up with the pain (I hate pain! I know, I'm a woos), but in another way I can hardly wait to get this over with.  It seems forever ago that I started down this road.  Thanks to all of you who have been so kind and called or written to tell me I'm in your prayers.  It's kind of humbling to me and I appreciate it.

On another subject, I've named the new guitar and Karen wins the prize.  Her name is officially "Vicki".  There's a story there, and my hat's off to Karen for remembering it.  Very good.

Well, I'll see you all on the other side of my hospital stay.  I love you all.

My Grandkids Are Awesome!

OK, for all of you "other" kids and grandkids that may look at this, let me disclaim: "All of my kids and grandkids are awesome".  Now, no one should be offended.  But you have to take a look at this gorgeous 18 year-old (well, not really, but when you see the picture she looks 18, which scares the heck out her mom and dad) model named "Mackenzie".  This is her new Valentine's dress for next week's 6th grade (I know, it's scary like I said) school dance.  You can understand why her dad told her mom to buy her the ugliest dress in the store.  Of course she didn't.

 

Cierra had a fun day at school today.  They had program, "A Journey Around The World" and only Kristin was able to attend but here she is for all to see.  She took video, but I'm so techno-challenged I can't get it to upload on my blog (Heather, help!)

 

And, surprise, Caden came home exhausted from the whole ordeal and fell asleep just inside the door, with feet in the air.

 

Oops! Dang it, I deleted my blog!

I was finally blogging after all these days, and after I got it all finished I pushed "view blog", and the darn pictures were cut in half.  I couldn't figure out how to fix it and I was too mad to call Heather and ask for her help, so I tried to fix it myself.  Whoever said this web site was "user-friendly" doesn't know what they're talking about!  The only "delete this blog" I could find deleted more than the current blog; it deleted ME.  Everything!

I don't have the time or temperament to fix it all right now so I'm just going to re-enter the last blog, and it won't be fancy.

I was reminiscing about what makes everyone's blog interesting is their pictures and stories of their kids, so I decided to included my own latest addition to the family; strait from the Fender Stratocaster Family, an American Deluxe model.  I would like some input from everybody on what we should call him/her.

Here's a picture of the new arrival:

 

And here's a really cool feature:  check out the nut.  It employs roll bearings so tuning is unbelievably smooth!

But that's not all!  Check out the locking tuning gears.  And what, you may ask, does that exactly mean?  Well, it means no more turning and turning and slipping.  Just push the string through the hole, pull snugly, and twist the lock down.  Walla!  1 simple turn and it's tuned.  And never slips.

 

But wait, there's MORE!  Check out the volume switch for the three pickups.  What's that, you say?  Do you see the little depressed switch that's pushed down?  That's called the S-1 switch.  And what does it do, you ask?  Well,  it overdrives the pickups to create a "phat" bluesy sound.  Totally awesome!

 

So, fam, help me name this latest addition.  Thanks!