Birthday and Bethany

Well, as most of you know, I celebrated another birthday this last Friday. I am now at the point where I really don't want to even acknowledge that I am a year older, but I still loved having all the birthday wishes. This year, my birthday was eventful, but not for me. I spent most of the day taking care of the next step in our continuing quest for answers for Bethany's height issue. In June I took Bethany to the hospital for a glucagon test. This was a stimulation test for growth hormone deficiency. They gave her a shot of glucagon (suger water essentially) and then drew blood at 1 1/2 hours after the shot and at 2 1/2 hrs after the shot. We finally got the results back from that.....not very promising. The doctor told us that any result that was greater than or equal to 7 was considered normal. Bethany's results were at 2 and 6. So not good there. We are scheduled to meet with the endocrinologist again in August were we will find out even more about what we are going to do, but for now we had one more step before we can do that. The endocrinologist had told us when we met with him in May that we would do the glucagon test and based on those results we might have to do an MRI. Well, because her results weren't good, we had to do the MRI. I wasn't thrilled about this, because I knew that she would have to be sedated to get it done. They tried to do it without sedation, and of course it didn't work. She held really still, but I guess that even one little twitch can throw the results off. So we ended up having to go back a second time and lucky me, it was on my birthday. I was really nervous, because Bethany has never been sedated before, Katherine had to be for her surgery, but I didn't have to watch that one and so I really didn't know what to expect. The nurse put an IV in and then they injected the medication to put her to sleep into that (I was thankful because Bethany is becoming aware of those needles and really doesn't like it). It was amazing how quickly she went to sleep, but little did I know what would happen next. They sent me back to the waiting room and we waited. It didn't take long and I was able to go back and see her, but she didn't wake up right away. As a matter of fact she would have periods of wakefulness of about 1 to 2 minutes but slept most of the morning. We were in Lander (where we had the procedure done) for the whole morning.....I didn't get home until about 2. Gabe was working in Lander that day, so we took him back to work and I hung around until after lunch, as we were being careful.....we didn't want to have to rush back with a bad reaction. Gabe and I were able to go to lunch and then because she was starting to come around, I went home. When I got home, I found that my babysitters (I had three sisters from church come) had made me a cake and some birthday cards. That was sweet. The rest of the afternoon was spent checking on Bethany and making sure that she would wake up. Dinner was nothing special as Gabe and I had decided that we would do a movie instead of dinner this year.
So we left the kids and went to see the new Harry Potter movie. I was excited to see it, but a little disappointed in the movie itself. As a Harry Potter reader, it was diappointing to see how much background information was left out and how much they had changed. I understand why they do it, because if they put everything in the movie from the book, it would be a 4 hr movie, and then they have to keep you engaged, so therefore they change stuff to be visually appealing. But Gabe has never read the books and throughout the movie was asking me why this was happening or who that was, because they didn't do a very good job.
Overall I had a wonderful day. Thanks to all who wished me a happy birthday. And we will continue to keep you up to date on Bethany and her status.

Summer is "Slip 'N Sliding" away

For Bethany's recent birthday she was given a slip 'n slide. This was a great gift for our family. About a month before we were at the neighbor's birthday party and they got a slip and slide and my kids went "We want one.". Well thanks to Uncle Eric and Aunt Mindy and Bethany for having the next birthday, we got one. Today after much bugging from the kids, I set it up and let them have at it. The fun thing about it was that we had cousins over to play too.
This one is Amanda as she is sailing over the end.














It was really cute to see Wyatt with Katherine. She really wanted to play in the water too, but didn't understand the concept of running and sliding on the plastic. So Wyatt put her on the blow up boogy board that came with the slip in slide and pushed her down the way. Wyatt also had fun. He was just running and sliding as much as he could. He would even cut in line, because he didn't want to wait for them to decide whose turn it was next.








This is Mariah pushing her self down the slide. She didn't like to run and slide like the bigger kids.














This is Bethany's way of doing the slide.















Now some may ask where's Jacob in all this. Well this is the story. This particular model of slip and slide has a spray of water down the side that keeps the main part of the slide wet and then at the end has a bigger spray that forms a pool of water to splash into. So Jacob takes on step onto the slide, Wyatt was going to try and push him like he did for Katherine.....feels the spray of water and steps right off and tells me that it is too cold and he doesn't want to play. Then he goes into the house and changes his clothes, he was finished playing. He wouldn't even let me take his picture.

Harry Potter Madness

I just had to laugh about this whole incident. For his baptism Wyatt recieved a pocket knife from Grandpa Lyle. I was a little worried about an 8 yr old having a knife, but I don't think that I have much to worry about. I know that he has taken to carrying it around and making sure that he has a pocket to put it in. But I didn't realize how for he had actually gone until yesterday. I discovered that he had a huge piece of stick and had whittled all the bark off of it and fashioned into what he told me was a wand. I didn't think much of it. Later I saw both Amanda and Wyatt had a "wand" and learned that they had cut the bigger "wand" in half so they could each have one.















This morning I was working on the computer and thought that the kids were in their rooms cleaning and doing their morning chores when I hear lots of shouts and things like "cruicious" and "expeliramous" and such. Then I hear Malfoy and Longbottom and it dawned on me that the kids weren't cleaning, but in fact playing a game of "Harry Potter". The smaller children had found Wyatt's Light Saber and were using that as a wand as they didn't have a fancy stick, but give them time and I think they will convince Wyatt to make them a wand too. I snapped a couple of pictures of the wand itself, but then thought why not get its maker too. So I asked Wyatt to hold his wand so I could take some pictures of him and his wand......and this is what I got-his Harry Potter poses.

But I now know that he won't cut his finger off while using the knife. As for where he got the branch in the first place, well I am glad to say that he didn't cut one off the trees in our yard or the neigbors' either. We actually had several trees that didn't make it from last year that we pulled up and then one that the neigbor's dog chewed up last year that have just been sitting around. We kept them on purpose so that the dogs wouldn't chew up the new apple tree that is a replacement for the chewed cherry tree. He took his wand from those trees.

Birthdays and Baptisms

Yesterday was a special day in our house. We were able to baptize Wyatt a member of our church. We were thrilled that he had made the right decision and also that things went smoothly for all involved. On top of that huge event we also decided that since a bunch of family was going to be here that we would celebrate Wyatt and Bethany's birthdays with some cake and ice cream. Neither one had, as of yesterday, had a chance to blow out candles on a cake and what better chance to do that than when you can have a huge bash. It was a very uplifting day and the kids had fun seeing the relations.







Beth and Wyatt holding the cake. For some reason when I was making the cake I was thinking that I had an "8" candle......I have all the others, but no 8 so I had to make do with the others.














Not really my favorite picture of me and the family.....Jacob isn't even in it as he fell asleep during the services and wasn't quite awake at this time. The pillow that Wyatt is holding is a gift from our primary president. She makes each child a pillow with their name, date of baptism and the CTR logo on it. She asks them for their favorite color and I learned yesterday that Wyatt's favorite color is red, hence the red pillow. On the back side of it, it has red "cowboy" material.....looks like a bandana on the back.













Over all we had a wonderful day, lots of good company and LOTS of food. I now have at least 2 meals of chicken noodle soup in my freezer thanks to Gabe's grandmother, and ended the night with 2 full cakes and a batch of cupcakes because no on was hungry for them last night. I was going to send the cupcakes with Amanda to Young Women's today, but last night they had an untimely demise. Gabe and I went for a walk before bedtime and left the kids watching a movie. When we got back several cupcakes were gone and the frosting on the remaining cupcakes was missing. No one will own up to the deed, but that means no cupcakes for the Young Women today in church.

Bethany

Well, here it is the next in a series of birthday posts. Having such a large family it is almost a constant thing that someone is having a birthday or celebrating something special. I can't believe that she is now 6. Part of me wants her to go back to this small little being that was dependant on me....but then I am also enjoying her spit fire personality. Yesterday the bishop was asking her how old she was and I had to laugh because she told him that she was five. (Our ward gives each birthday child a card to take to the bishop for a bag of jelly beans.) She has grown a lot over these last five years and I am amazed at the things that she knows how to do. She is going to be in the first grade and her favorite thing to do now is read. This morning she came up to me and I have a shirt on with words and asks me "mom, does your shirt say 'remember'?" (it did). She is always trying to read the words that she knows and wants to have help with those that she doesn't. We love her to death and hope that she had the best birthday a little girl could hope for.
This picture is one of my favorites. We had Bethany on the floor trying to get some pictures to put on a birth announcment and Wyatt laid right down next to her. From the get go he was pretty protective of her.





This next picture is the one that we used on her birth announcement. She was so cute.
This is Bethany showing off her monkey at the library. They have story time every week and this time happened to fall during her spring break and so she got to help sing the song "5 little monkeys" (with the Alligator).

The end of the vacation

Originally we were supposed to leave here on Sunday and not come back until Friday. But we developed a slight snag. We got to Rapid City on Monday and started seeing the sights Tuesday. By Wednesday afternoon we had seen what we wanted to see and we deicded that we would come home. The reason for this decision was two fold. First we had seen all the we wanted to see and second that Katherine was becoming a bit unbearable. I can't imagine how hard it was for her because everything was different. We weren't in our house, we weren't with things that she knew and even the times that we would eat were off from what she was used to (not by choice on our part). So I can say with as nice as having a schedule is when I am home, it is hard when we are away because then the kids get cranky. Everything that we did was wrong....she wanted picked up, then when she was up she didn't want to be there anymore and it was everything that we did. And I guess the third reason that we came home early was because Gabe and I were done too. But the main reason was that we came, saw what we wanted and so therefore what reason did we have to stay? But this time instead of coming home the way that we arrived we decided to drive through Spearfish and then Gillete. After getting on the road we saw that Devils Tower was on this route......so we stopped there. We didn't go all the way into the tower because we didn't feel like spending the $10 to get in the gate. They had a campground right before the gate and we stopped in their parking lot. The kids and I walked around a bit and took some pictures while Gabe took a nap (he had been driving the whole way there and was tired). I took a picture of all the kids in front of the Devils Tower sign in their new Mt. Rushmore shirts. We decided while we were there to get the whole family matching shirts. It was a pretty sweet deal as we could get 2 shirts for $15 dollars and they had the right size for everyone in the family in the same shirt!

This last picture was one that I took at the campground. It was pretty cool. Around their main gathering place they had this giant chess set. By the time I got around to taking the picture it was moments before we left and someone had been playing the night before and didn't put it away (wouldn't their mothers be ashamed of them). So this is the one that I took. The campground was really nice and big. It didn't have a lot of trees, but it did have 2 playgrounds for the kids, and 2 laundry mats besides the pool too. We didn't use the pool because it rained almost every night that we were there except for the last one and then they had someone get sick in the pool and had to close it for cleaning.

I really had fun on this trip. I don't think that I had fun because of the things that I saw.....it was more because we were together and doing stuff as a family. I am hoping that next year we can go somewhere else, even if it is just to someplace like Yellowstone to camp for a night or two.

Bear Country

What can I say about Bear Country. Well, it is different that most zoos that you go to, in the fact that instead of walking around to see all the exhibits you drive your car, through at least part of it. The animals are free to come as close to you as they want whereas in a zoo you can only get as close as the fence and usually there is a moat or something else seperating you from the animals. We came here only because everyone that we talked to said "go there, you can't miss Bear Country" and so we did. I was more impressed by the amount of bears that they had in the one enclosure over anything else. Gabe really liked that the elk were all in velvet and that is something that you don't get to see very often in the wild. They did have a "baby" section that you walked through and looked more like a traditional zoo. By the name you would think that they would have all the babies from the animals that they keep in the adult section, but there were a wide variety of other animals there too, they were just the smaller ones like the foxes, beavers, skunks etc. It was fun to see all the animals and by the pictures you can see that it was raining, so it was nice to be able to see them and still be dry. By the time that we got to the baby section it wasn't raining any more.
The most exciting thing that happened here was in the bear's enclosure. We were intructed to keep the windows up, doors closed and if something happened where you couldn't drive to turn on your hazards and honk your horn for help. Well while we were driving through the park we let the kids out of their seatbelts so they could see stuff on either side of the car. Well Jacob took it upon himself to open the door while we were driving through the bears. It wasn't very far and thankfully nothing happened because of it, but I was thinking that he was going to head right out to the bears and try and play with them. Needless to say, he was instantly told to get back into his seat belt and wasn't allowed near the doors for the rest of the ride. We were very thankful for my mother on this trip, because of her efforts we were able to get a little something at each place that we stopped for free. Here we were able to get some Christmas ornaments, at Old Macdonald's we got the pony rides, at Mt. Rushmore we got some pictures and the kids got rubber snakes at Reptile Gardens.

E-I-E-I-Ouch

This is actually a continuation of our Old Macdonald trip, but a story in itself, hence the new post. While we were there they had some chickens that were able to roam free around the farm. Gabe had caught a couple right away for the kids to touch and pet. SO, I think you might be getting the idea of where I am headed with this, while the older children were riding the ponies we had a little bit of a problem. Katherine for some reason won't pet the horses or cows here. Actually she won't pet anything that is bigger than her, sometimes I don't blame her. But I digress. As the older children were on the ponies she found something to entertain her, the chickens. I snapped this first picture because she was so cute. She was chasing a chicken around, I believe trying to catch it like her daddy, so she could pet it. What happened next was a scene from one of those shows where you send in your movies.....you know when animals attack. As she was chasing the chicken she fell down, as young ones tend to do, and that is when this rooster just jumped on her. He started attacking her, and luckily Gabe was close by and was able to get him off before she got really hurt. But she did get one of the roosters spurs into her neck and a couple of bruises on her back. I will have to admit I was a little scared watching it happen, but can laugh about it after just because of the way Katherine was acting. She would hold her neck and say "chicken" anytime you asked her about the farm or say the word chicken. Even now, several days after the incident, when you ask her where the chickens are she will hold her neck instead of pointing out our back door. So....if you go to the farm, just be careful. When told of the incident, the attendents told us that it was mating season and was pretty common for the roosters to do that if given the chance.

Old MacDonald's Farm

Now growing up where we live this farm isn't a big deal. We live so close to chickens, cows and horses that we probably could have skipped this and been just fine. But when you have kids and are on vacation I found that sometimes you just have to do something that is a little more kid friendly and this was just the place. We had a free certificate for pony rides for all the kids and so we decided to go. I think that it was well worth it as everything on the farm was able to be touched and petted and even fed if you came at the right time. I took a lot of pictures here, but I am only posting a few. Why? Well I don't think that you want to see every last one of my children on the ponys or holding the baby goats or any of the other things that we were able to do. I will tell you about it though.
When we first got there they had a "train" that would take the kids on a ride through the farm. I say "train" because it really was a riding lawn mower that they had hooked up to a bunch of barrels that had seats for the kids to ride in. So we waited around for the train rides and all the kids loved that. They thought that they were in hog heaven during that. Then because the sky was looking really nasty and the ponies were going to be going to lunch shortly, we rode the ponies next.

The look on Jacob's face as he came around riding that pony all by himself, was just priceless. That is the other reason why I won't post all the pictures.....all the kids had the same look on their faces. They had a ton of baby animals that they would let you feed, if you came at the right time (we weren't there at that time), baby goats, sheep and cows. They had horses and goats and chickens......just all the animals that you would find on the farm. This picture of the older kids was cute, they had a couple of these cut out boards, this one of chickens and then they had one of a troll underneath a bridge that had a couple of huge goats on it. We just had a great time and I don't care who you are, whether you were raised on a farm or near animals or not, this was a great place to go for the kids.

Mt. Rushmore

This was the destination that my kids kept talking about, just because when we told them we were going on vacation we said we would go to Mount Rushmore. As adults we know that means that we will also see the area and other things, but for the kids the whole trip was about this place. I will have to admit it was amazing to stand at the base of the mountain and look up to see the faces of those men whom are considered great leaders for our country. I am really glad that I didn't have to be the one that decided who to carve there----I don't think I could have done that.



In the area leading to the viewing area they have flags from all 50 states displayed. Each flag has the name of the state it represents and the year of admittance to the union. It was pretty awe inspiring to look at all those flags and know that truly we are a united nation. Of course I did take special pictures of our state flag and the dates underneath, but I thought that you would all much rather see the general impression of the flags than my personal state flag.















This last picture of the kids is of course the one that is probably the one you all want to see. We were hoping that this vacation would have been with my parents, but they were unable to come. So I had to take a picture of the kids in front of the monument for her. I actually took one with my camera phone and sent it to her via a picture message---just to rub it in---but also because it is a great picture. (Of course I am completely biased for several reasons---1 I gave birth to those children and so I think that they are the best in the world and 2. I took the picture).








We had been told that we should go to the night lighting of Mt. Rushmore, but we decided that we wouldn't because 9 PM is a little late for our youngest. Overall I was just amazed at the monument and all that it represents. I have been to this area before, but it has been 10 yrs since I was here. The last time I was there for a wedding of my old roommate and wasn't able to get to the sights. And when I was able to drive by Mt. Rushmore, it was so cloudy that you couldn't see anything. I am grateful for the chance to go, and in hindsight glad that we went first thing in the morning.......it rained all afternoon. And at this time of year I am grateful for the men on this mountain and their courage and strength to do what they felt was right. For if they hadn't we wouldn't be able to have a 4th of July to celebrate it would be just another day.

Reptile Gardens Part 3

So I figured out by trial that I can only do 4 pictures at a time....so here are the last pictures from Reptile Gardens. They aren't of course the last of the ones that I took, but just the last that are interesting enough to share. In the same building that they had Maniac, they also had some mirrors that one would see in a fun house. This is the best of those pictures. One, because I am not in it, two because Gabe is actually looking at the camera when usually he doesn't (see the picture of the turtle) and three because it is funny to be seeing the kids look like this.


The third show that we saw was the bird show. They had this amazing bald eagle (most appropriate for the season right) and we were lucky enough to be sitting in the front row when they brought him out. They had another one that was injured and therefore wouldn't be able to live in the wild again, but this one must have been able to fly as he was tethered.
This last picture was one that should have been one of the first that I posted as it is the front of the park, but I just thought that I would throw it in for good measure.
We had a coupon for a free gift from the gift shop that we also redeemed. It allowed the children to pick a rubber snake to take home. They thought that was really cool and so therefore didn't bug us about getting anything else. I think if I were to recommed this to someone I would. It was fun to go and see all the things that they had on exhibit.....although I thought that the shows were more infomative than anything else. I would also have to suggest that when one visits to time it like we did, so that you can see all the shows without having to wait for huge periods in between. Although we did notice on the map that they gave us that if we would have asked that they would have given us a Vacation pass that would have allowed us to return for mulitple days during our visits---I guess to ensure that we see the whole park, or spend more money on food, drinks and gifts. But we decided that we had seen what we wanted to see there and were going to move on to bigger and better things.

Reptile Gardens 2--more pictures

This turtle is a giant turtle that they have named Methusala. He is 128 years old. The kids were thrilled abou this one (or the others) because they were able to touch the turtle and feel his shell. Gabe discovered that the turtle is really cool inside it's shell. They are really rubbery feeling too.














This alligator was actually too big to fit in one frame of the camera. If I stepped too far back it wouldn't even get him as he was in his pool of water. Across the hall from him they had his name and how long he was painted on it. I was just appalled at how massive he was.

Reptile Gardens

We decided that the next day we would visit Reptile Gardens. But the day started with us finding a KOA to camp in and then also making the decision to rent a car to make travel around town a bit easier. After renting a suburban we went out to spend the afternoon at the gardens. Without even knowing it we went at just the right time as we were able to go right in and see the first show that they have and then only had to wait about 20 minutes before the next show started and then about 45 before the last. We were able to see all the shows that they had and then see the rest of the exhibits and finish out the tour with a free gift from the gift shop with our coupon. Of course Gabe would say that it wasn't free because we had to pay to get in, but they did give each of the children a gift (I thought it would be one). So these are the highlights of our trip to Reptile gardens. These are the pictures from the first two shows that we saw. The crocs and alligators were the first. The "guide" was Drew and he showed and told us about the crocs. He showed us how to wrestle one and then brought a baby (he said about a year) out for everyone to pet. I was surprised as Katherine even touched the baby....usually she won't pet any animals held by strangers.























The next show that we caught was the snake show. This guy's name was Lance and he had a few snakes that he showed us. This one was the most unique as it is an albino. This was also the one that we were able to touch after the show.