Yankee Meadows

Oh, my poor, neglected blog. I've got to do a better job at posting. I recently read Stephanie Nielson's, Heaven is Here, and she talks about starting her blog when she moved to New Jersey with her husband. She would get so excited about each post, and would check multiple times a day to read all the new comments she was receiving. Those were the good old days of blogging. Now that everyone's moved on to Facebook and Instagram (myself included), blogging has really been left behind. But I do love to look back at everything that was going on in our lives, so I have decided that I'm going to try to blog once a week. That should be doable. 

A couple weekends ago, we went down to Yankee Meadows to go camping. Just a few minutes from Brian Head, it was a good meeting place between Orem and Las Vegas for a family campout.  My parents, Pat and Heather's family, and the Alofipo's were all planning to go. At the last minute, Wayne's dad died and they couldn't make it, but the rest of us went on without them. 

The kids had a BLAST with their cousins!

Heather was nice enough to let Kyla do her makeup.

The kids thought a dip in the lake would feel nice. They were only in for a few seconds before they took off for the warmth of this tree trunk.

McKay, Carter and Beckett formed the "little boys club," and their motto must have been "get dirty," because that's what they did. One night they took a bag of chips into their tent. We should have known that was a bad idea, but we were busy singing songs around the campfire and playing games. We'll know better next time...

Cool action shot of Damon jumping over the water

Nude boys that we tried to hide the best we could. 

Fun times everyone! Let's do it again!

Threes

For us, it seems that accidents and injuries happen in threes. It certainly was the case while Jeff was in China (of course. Another given, that Jeff would be out of town when these things happened).

First, McKay cut his foot on a broken jar in the garage. It didn't bleed a ton, but it was pretty deep, so I cleaned it and wrapped it up. It was still looking pretty bad the next day, so I took him in to see if it needed stitches. They decided that it would heal on its own and we kept it wrapped for several days until it finally did heal.

A couple of days later, Carter fell in my shower and hit his nose on the tile ledge. It swelled up immediately and he looked pretty funny for a couple of days.

Then, after the swelling went down, he had a couple of good black eyes. No pictures did it justice. It looked painful!

Finally, we went to St. George for Memorial Day, and took Bex with us. I took her outside in the park to go to the bathroom. Sitting about 100 yards away, there was a boy with his pitbull on a leash. Bex, who has no fear of other dogs, ran at it, barking. I chased after her. The boy tried to keep the pitbull away, but he wasn't strong enough. And I wasn't fast enough. Once Bex got close, he latched on and wouldn't let go. I jumped on the pile, fighting back. Bex was being thrown from side to side and whimpering. I thought the dog was going to rip her neck open and that I would watch her bleed to death. It was awful!

Finally, after a terrifying amount of time (probably 15-20 seconds), the dog let go. And thankfully, he didn't latch on to me. I quickly checked her out, and she wasn't actively bleeding, so I took her back to my mom's, visibly shaken. At first, the wound didn't look that bad. It looked like she had been scalped, but nothing more.

But as the days went on, she started scratching at it a lot, and it started to smell. I washed it, kept neosporin on it, and wrapped it in a bandage. I went and got a collar so she wouldn't try to pick at it...

...but it kept getting worse. The skin was pulled away from her body, and the more she scratched at it, the bigger the wound got. It got about five times the size it started out as, and I finally took her to a vet.

My neighbor suggested I try Coleman's in Provo, as she said he was an older guy who was really only in for the animals, not the money. Even though they were full for the day, they had me bring her down to get checked out. And, as we expected, she needed stitches. The lady quoted me $100, which I thought was a steal! I left her there at the vet's office for a few hours while they put her under anesthesia, cut away the dead skin, and sewed her closed.

I went back to pick her up a few hours later, and they gave me my invoice. $75. Total. $65 for the anesthesia and stitches and $10 for her antibiotics. Amazing, and such a huge blessing! I am still dreading the bill from Instacare for McKay's foot, where they did absolutely nothing but look at it and wrap it back up. I'm sure it will be a whole lot more than the $75 I paid to get my dog all fixed up!

We counted 11 stitches, and it was obvious that the wound was a lot worse than we had originally imagined. She took her antibiotics like a champ (in a hot dog, like my dad suggested) and she was back to her spunky self in one day. She gets her stitches out this week, and I sure hope she has learned a lesson about other dogs. I doubt it, though. She's not a quick learner. And she's going to have to be on a leash in public from now on, even when she's just out to go potty. 

We survived the curse of the three injuries. And I know it's just a matter of time before we are struck with another set of three.

Kyla's birthday

For Kyla's birthday this year, she wanted to do a makeover party with her friends. Sound familiar? It should. It's the same thing Allie did for her party last year. 

Kyla invited 10 friends and 9 were able to come. Jeff was in China for her birthday, so luckily I found some good helpers to pull off the party. My neighbor Megan and Jonny's friend Kenzie both were free to help do hair, makeup, and even paint nails! Kyla thought it was the best thing ever! The girls put on a fashion show. Here's Kyla's pose:

She also wanted a pink Skittle cake. Just like Allie had last year. Simple enough, and quite tasty!

She had to blow out her candles twice, because Damon blew them out the first time. This is the second time, and she is holding Damon off with her hand!

Her friends spoiled her with Barbies, dolls, makeup and everything she loves. What a lucky girl!

On her actual birthday, she opened up her Kyla doll (Journey Girl doll actually named Kyla). It wasn't a surprise, but she still pretended that it was. Gwen was here to share in the excitement.

Kyla is such a fun girl. We have really had some challenges with her this year (especially with honesty), but she has been so much fun to be around. She loves sugar with all her heart, and has the cavities to prove it! Hopefully she will be faithful in brushing and flossing, because the baby teeth are starting to fall out and she will have big problems with her permanent teeth if she doesn't take care of them!

Kyla has such a tender spot in her heart for animals. She cries nearly every Sunday when we watch nature shows, because animals are being eaten. She still loves Bex as much as anyone. 

She had a really good year in kindergarten, although I'm pretty sure she was extremely bored. She started telling me toward the end of the year that she didn't want to go anymore. I'm hoping the challenge of Spanish in first grade will motivate her a little more! She is an excellent reader, but really needs to work more on her handwriting. She just wants to get things done and I can't read what she's writing half the time. She loves to write notes to her friends, especially to Gwen when the boys are coming over in the morning for exercise. She also put a letter in the mail to Santa Claus at the North Pool (that cracks me up), and I meant to take it out of the mailbox before the mailman came, but I didn't get it in time. I'm sure it will be returned in the days ahead. I asked her what she said to Santa, and she said she asked for an iPad and a phone. Good luck with that one, honey.

Kyla can get extremely giggly during church or other inappropriate times, and it's hard to get her out of those moods. She has also had some anxiety recently (nothing like Allie's but still unusual for her). She says she's worried that I won't pick her up from her class or that she'll get lost or other things like that. It doesn't happen often, so when it does, it's a bit of a mystery. I'm sure it's just her age and learning to deal with changes. 

I sure love my Kyla girl! She is boy crazy, makeup crazy, and fashion crazy. Nothing like me. It will be fun to watch her grow up. I hope I can KEEP up!

Allie's Baptism Day

My mom happened to find the dress she made for me when I got baptized. It was also worn by my sisters and a few other lucky girls. Allie decided she wanted to wear it too. It's too hard to tell, but the picture in the top left corner of the paper she is holding is me wearing the dress when I was eight.

Some pics from the day

Yummy food afterward

Allie was so funny when she came out of the water. She was squealing because she was cold. I don't usually think of her as a dramatic person (at least not in public), but she had us all laughing. She and the other two kids in our ward who were baptized sang When I am Baptized together for the closing song. Allie had a bit of a cold and wasn't able to sing as well as she wanted to, and she got a little giggly. Sunday morning, when the bishop introduced the three children as the newest members of the ward, he mentioned how nice they had sounded when they sang. Allie, unbelieving, rolled her eyes on the stand. Again, she got a lot of laughs. My little comedian.

It was a great day and I'm so happy for Allie. She told me she didn't feel any different, just cleaner. I told her that's the way it's supposed to be. The gospel doesn't necessarily change who you are, it just makes you better and more worthy.