Lessons from Gracie

I have been following a blog about a baby born with a heart defect for about 11 months now. She had surgery and eventually a heart transplant. The transplanted heart didn't work right and she came out of surgery on life support. Yesterday they took little Gracie off life support. I don't know this little baby or her family. Yet throughout the day, as I have gone about my business, I have thought of her often and thought of her family and what their day is like today. After my brother passed away I remember wondering why people didn't stop their activities for just a moment to think about the great loss that had just occurred. That when you are hurting that much surely the whole world should be able to feel that pain as well. I am sure they felt that way about Gracie. But because of Gracie I won't freak out because the house was a mess when I got home tonight. Because of Gracie I will get on my knees and thank my Heavenly Father for my family, intact and healthy, and because of Gracie I will hug my kids a little tighter as they go to bed tonight.

(Thank you Gracie for reminding me whats important.)

"Star Gazing"

Me, my sister Kristy and 3 Friends went to Park City to do a little Star Gazing. We had so much fun. My job was to take pictures. Since I don't watch TV, many movies or read about the "Stars", oh and don't forget that I am blind, I didn't know who I was taking pictures of. I just took the pictures and then asked my friends "Who is it?" Below are some of the pictures. We then went and ate Middle Eastern food, which I was a bit nervous about, but it ended up being good. Then we went and saw "Bride Wars". The movie was ok. Sorry if you really liked it. I am just really critical when it comes to movies. It was a great day we had a lot of fun just acting all dorky and making friends with the other dorks, like us, up there.


This is Mo'Nique, she is a comedian. I thought she was Queen Latifah. I think I blinded her when she turned around. She was very nice to everyone.

This is Samatha Brown? Yeah, I didn't know either. I guess she is from the Travel Channel.


This is the singer from "Counting Crows" You can just see his "Locs" in my pic since I didn't know who he was until he was past me. I have included a pic from the internet also. I didn't take that one.


I wasn't going to include this one cuz this is Chet from "Real World". I have no idea who he is and frankly he was a bit creepy. but the fact that my sister snuck into this picture with these strangers without them knowing was quite funny. As we left she yelled out "We love you Chet". It was very funny.
This is Hulk Hogan's Ex wife and her boy toy. I really don't know how my friends knew all these people. I guess it has been quite the drama.


Last but not least...This is Ashley Judd. She was so nice and would stop whenever anyone asked for a picture. Once again I didn't know who it was everyone was taking pictures of. So me and my friend, Pam, just ran across the street and I started taking pictures. I asked Pam, "Who is it?" and she said, "I know but I can't remember her name... umm It is umm..." and I said "They are calling her Ashley". and that is when Pam remembered.
I guess we missed Tim Daly, Uma Thurman, Jody Foster, Tom Arnold(he was running from people), Ashton Kutcher early in the day.
It was fun.
Here are pictures of us.

Catch-up

It is about time I did some catching up. We had a great Christmas. It was full of family. Both Steve's and my parents are divorced and remarried so we had 4 sets of Grandparents to party with. It is always crazy but it is always fun as well.

Tyler got a new snowboard and Dallin and Devyn got new Ipods.

Anyway here are some Christmas pics.

Christmas is a bit chaotic at our Christmas parties. I kinda like it that way.

Thanksgiving

3 years ago we took the kids on a cruise for Thanksgiving. We had so much fun we decided to go again. We left from San Diego and sailed to Cabo San Lucas,Mexico and Ensenada, Mexico. There were easily over 400 kids on the boat so needless to say ours had a lot of fun. They have activities for the kids until 1:00 or 2:00 am. every day. We went with some friends and some cousins and they got along great running around the ship together.
On Wednesday we were in Cabo, that is where we did the zip line tour. It was the highlight of the whole trip. I think all would agree.
Thanksgiving dinner was good, not the same as a big home cooked turkey dinner but it was sure nice to sit down eat and then just walk away. They served turkey and pumpkin pie and all the trimmings... but I had fillet Mignon as well.
We did eat well. The kids tried all sorts of food they never had before... lobster, escargot to name a few.
I am just really thankful that we can go on trips like this as a family now and again. I looked at the poor mothers in Mexico with their babies in their laps begging for money and it is very obvious how blessed I am.
Anyway here are some more pictures of our adventure.
Thanks Clarke's and Paskett's, We had a blast. We are already planning our next trip so save your pennies.

Just the Beginning

It took me soooo long to figure out how to do a slide show that now it is bed time. We took a cruise with the family and had so much fun. This zip line is just one of the fun days we had. I will add more tomorrow. Goodnight.

220 hotdogs

Our 6Th annual Hot dogs for Halloween is over. We grilled 220 hot dogs this year. I am not sure how many we did last year but I think I was a bit more than this year. We had 80 hot dogs left over.... so you can guess what we have been eating for days now. he he just kidding, can't get my kids to eat them after Halloween. It was pretty busy from about 6-8 pm. I think it is so fun to see all the kids and get to visit with friends and neighbors. It is really the only thing we do for the neighborhood. We don't really do much for neighbors at Christmas sooooo, I hope you enjoyed your hot dog.

We have a great neighborhood. So many of our friends and family that come that night are so surprised at the amount of families, not just kids but parents and teenagers, all out and about that night. It really is fun to be a part of. Thanks for coming over and we will see you next year.