It’s been a while

Apologies to all because life has gotten pretty busy since I have settled here. The holidays were filled with family and visitors. So, my usual place was in the kitchen cooking up a storm. I have enjoyed putting together meals that would feed up to 20 people that have come. About two Sundays a month we have Randy’s children and Marlene and Stephen for dinner. That’s 10 adults and two children right there. Thanksgiving was 17, Christmas the same, basketball party 18 attended, New Year’s Eve 17 people. I have enjoyed meeting new people and having people over. Randy and I have attended 4 funerals and two wedding receptions. My daughter Mallory and her husband Wendell came to see me after the Christmas holiday for three days. That was really nice. (Also I do have to say that shopping for Christmas for nine children and six grandchildren then relatives was quite a challenge, but a good challenge. Because I had time to shop during the day which is a huge luxury for me.)

My parents visited for a week due to my uncle (Mom’s brother) passing away. They got to see my new home and we enjoyed having them here. My father upon coming into the home inspected my refrigerator and saw that my Thanksgiving turkey needed the meat taken off so he started in on my turkey carcass right away. Then made some soup with all the Thanksgiving leftovers. We also enjoyed seeing my Utah cousins.
We have had guests since Thanksgiving-The Kenyons (Gayle’s brother’s family), my parents, Kurtis (Randy’s son from Alaska), Mallory and Wendell. We would love to have more.
Then Randy’s daughter added to the family on December 1st with a granddaughter, born 8 minutes after arriving at the hospital. So, I took care of Josh and Maia while my parents were here. Talk about double duty.

I have also had problems with my house that I am selling. Thanks to those friends who were my eyes and ears to tell me what was going on. It is not fun trying to get repairs done on the house when you are 2000 miles away.The cost was enormous and I did have to fly out for a week mainly to have a planned visit with my daughter Leah and my grandchildren, but I had to extend the visit to supervise fixing the problems that occurred when the work got done on my house. Everything has settled and it is fixed up. Does anyone want to buy a home in a really nice town in a really good school system?

I have also found that writing takes a lot of time for me to do and I haven’t had the time or should I say inspiration to write. I will try to do better.

Christmas was good, but I really missed my girls. I bought cardinals to go on my Christmas tree. Decorating the tree was great to go through all the memories of all the ornaments that were put up. My sister Rachel gave me a cardinal ornament to hang on the tree. We had two trees in the home. One to represent each of our families. We also got together with my sister and brother to have a “Christmas breakfast dinner” at my brother’s–in law’s house. We enjoyed the lobster that Aaron brought along with all the good eats I am used to. It made it feel like home.

Randy had been wonderful to me -Helpful, we enjoy conversing about almost everything, He just knows when I need him. Sometimes I think he can read my mind. But he claims he can’t. It just shows how insightful he is. We are glad to have love and joy in our lives once again. We like going to the temple together. We have gone maybe 5 times so far. I have gone twice with a new friend from my ward. It is so nice to have the temple and church resources so close now.

One thing I haven’t been good at is trying to see all my Utah family members, also keeping in touch with all my Connecticut friends and family. Randy and I sent out 150 Christmas cards between us. I still didn’t send all that I wanted to send to people because I didn’t have addresses. Gratitude is the word that I can say for all my friends and family where ever they are.
Okay—-New Year’s resolution—- to update my blog more often. Please be forgiving if it’s short and to the point.

What I am looking forward to in 2010: Ashley’s daughter due February 2 and Mallory’s daughter due March 19. I love being a busy grandma.

This body ain’t big enough for the both of us…

Well, my third trimester hit me like a freight train. It’s like one day I woke up and suddenly I was very uncomfortable and sore and waddling around like a penguin (very attractive, I know). It didn’t do much for my ego when someone at church finally asked if I was pregnant and said, “You were walking like you were pregnant, but I didn’t know for sure, so that’s why I asked.” I’m just lucky I guess that that pelvic ligament thing that is supposed to stretch during pregnancy is stretching in such a way that it is severely painful. And you never knew I bet how important that muscle/ligament was because apparently you use it to walk, lift your legs, turn in bed, etc etc.

Things had been going very well until one day Pat wasn’t feeling too hot and apparently spread it to Lydia. So after a few days of waking up at night, having a fever, and just feeling crummy, she finally started to improve, but then I got muscle soreness from head to toe. I never felt full blown sick, but I’ve never had literally every single muscle group in my body be so incredibly sore (without having the flu or something). I was afraid it was due to pregnancy, but the doctor said it wasn’t and thought I had H1N1 (swine flu) even though I never got full blown sick. I found out yesterday that she discussed it with the pediatricians down the hall (because I had this weird throat thing) and it was probably another virus that I forget the name of. I’m very thankful the full body soreness went away (I was on Tylenol 24 hrs just so I could move without excruciating pain), but during that 1-2 weeks I stopped being able to exercise and was not up on what I was eating. So now I’m 7 lbs ahead of schedule which is depressing, but thinking about it just makes me want to eat chocolate (thus not helping the problem). Here’s a picture of me at 30 weeks. I figured it was about time I put one up because Mallory already posted 2 and Auntie Rachie 1 and they’re way behind me. As you can see, I have both of them beat (Mal and Rachie – don’t feel bad. It’s not a good thing. Stay small for as long as possible!!)
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Other than that, things are going well. Our baby girl is jumping all around regularly. It’s always my favorite part to feel the baby’s feet and elbows and knees. Pat and I have resorted to getting a name book because we just can’t agree this time around. Pat comes up with all these names he loves (and I like too), but I feel like he named Lydia and so I want more input with this one. Apparently he hates all my names though and on top of that we have a huge combined family so a lot of the names I like are a relative’s or a relative of a relative’s already.

Halloween
Horribly belated I know, but better late than never! So I wanted Lydia to have a creative costume (not just one of those jumpsuits you buy at Walmart now for every child), but it had to be less than $5 and require little to no effort on my part :). Fortunately, my friend Eliza offered an old costume her little girl wore in the past and I loved it. So, for Halloween Lydia was a chicken. I thought it very fitting because for a while her nickname was Chicken Lydi. (In truth, Pat brought up that he thinks it’s actually a duck because of the flat bill and the webbed feet, but I like chicken better so we’re gonna go with that).
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Lydia was going through her “stranger” faze at this time so we thought she’d just cry on any attempts at trick-or-treating and Pat would just have to carry her everywhere. So we practiced at home, where she would knock on the laundry room door, I would open it up and put some candy in her bucket. Although we tried, she never ended up saying “treat” (we tried to shorten it to an attainable goal), but she got VERY excited seeing her bucket fill. She even got to the point where she’s knock by herself…it was so cute. So Halloween night we set out with our friends the Fairbanks to go trick-or-treating down our street. We’d put Lydia on the top step and have her walk to the door by herself. And she did so well! Not one tear – not even close. She actually loved it and would have gone on to another street if Kambria (their 3 year old daughter) hadn’t pronounced she was freezing to death and had to return. Below is a movie of Lydia trick-or-treating. It true Reality TV fashion, I completely staged it. I didn’t want any of our neighbors thinking how weird I was whipping out the camera to record Lydia so it’s at my house with Eliza answering our door. And I know I’m biased, but I think she’s just the cutest thing in the world doing this all by herself!! (the giant chicken costume helps too). And even if she was being pushed to the side by bigger kids, she would totally inch her way to the door on her own; she was holding her own ground for sure). Oh, and I kept having her say Thank You in sign language (touch your hand to your chin and bring in straight down) and you can see that a tiny bit. Unfortunately our neighbors need to know sign language to know she was trying to say thank you. I think one woman thought she was blowing kisses or something.
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Afterwards we came back to the house and made doughnuts. This was a tradition in Pat’s family (to make them instead of going trick-or-treating) and we thought it’d be a fun one to adopt. Having the Fairbanks over made it more fun too – and there was less pressure for me to consume ALL the doughnuts. I found a recipe that was supposed to mimic Krispy Kreme and it totally worked! Here’s Pat with his AMAZING doughnuts.
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I’m usually against certain homemade foods, because I actually prefer the store/processed ones, but I was so completely impressed with these. Don’t they look awesome?! Instead of the classic Krispy Kreme glaze, we decorated with frosting and various toppings. It was fun and very delicious :).
Pat even successfully made a giant doughnut to celebrate Eliza’s birthday.
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I have more updates on day to day life, but I think this post is long enough for now!

Blog Reminder

Just a reminder for everyone. We (the Fackrells) have our own blog now. It’s funwiththefackrells.blogspot.com. There is also a link on the left of the screen. If you want to know the on-goings of our life in Memphis, then just go there. I’ll be making it private sometime, but as of right now, it’s still public. So enjoy!

Wild West

A week and a half ago we received the news that Randy’s mother-in-law (Gayle’s mother) passed away. I was able to visit with her twice. Zoe, being 93 years of age along with her husband, Karl, who is 91 showed how being married for 70 years can be really precious or cute. My first visit was a really sweet scene of them sitting up and leaning towards each other touching heads while they both slept. I wish I had a camera to freeze that scene, but it will stay in my mind forever. Karl cared deeply for his bride and did everything he could to make her comfortable.
We traveled to a remote town of Ely for her funeral. That’s where they lived most of their married life. We traveled 3 and half hours with only passing maybe seven remote towns along the way. Lots of sage brush, dry lake bed, pinion pines and the beautiful mountains that bound the land. I compared it to my three hour trip to New Jersey to visit my grandchildren- huge difference in people, population, cities, and scenery.
The funeral was very touching. Randy and Gayle’s two brothers, Terry and Reg, spoke. Laura, Randy’s daughter, played a beautiful piece on the piano. Other friends spoke and did musical numbers. Terry’s family did a beautiful job with the display of quilts, funeral programs, family pictures, copies of family recipes to pass out, and cookies to munch on. Family gathered together for prayer-there was not a dry eye due to the great love for their mother and grandmother.
But something happened during the burial services that should be written in the family history for posterity’s sake. This helped lighten the mood and really created lasting memories that will never be forgotten. I don’t know all the reasons why this occurred. Maybe it was because it is a small town. Townspeople are usually in charge of certain things and maybe this part did not get done. This experience made a good story and the family laughs about it to this day. They also think Gayle and her mother were laughing during the whole ordeal.

When the hearse arrive and the family gathered near the grave site. They noticed that there were no bars to set the casket on or straps or machine to lower the casket after the dedication. There was just a real deep hole about 8 feet deep with the plastic cover to seal the casket off to the side about 10 feet.There was a problem-there is no way to lower grandma into the ground.
The wife of the graveyard keeper was calling her husband to tell him there was nothing available to lower the casket. She started talking on the phone while the grave was being dedicated, so she was politely asked to leave the area while she tried to see what needed to be done.
But, one the sons, Ronnie, took charge and found someone to go home and get three twenty five foot straps and three two by fours. A few minutes later they were brought to the site. The boards were put across the hole and casket was set on top. A fellow in his thirties was lowered down to place the bottom half of the plastic cover before the casket was lowered. He got everything set and tried to get out of the hole himself, but he dislodged rocks on the side that landed on the cover bottom. He was lowered again to clear all the rocks. They moved the casket out of the way put the two by fours across the hole and the fellow hiked himself up like dismounting parallel bars. The casket was lowered by the sons and grandsons, but someone noticed that the spray of flowers were not removed from the top. So, one of the light and agile grandsons who was 10 years was lowered upon grandma’s casket and retrieved the flowers. The straps were removed and the plastic cover to seal the casket was lowered with the straps to cover the casket. The same grandson was lowered again to jump on the cover to make sure it was sealed. There was a jovial mood about the whole thing and all the family members said they now have a story to tell that will be passed down through the generations.
These small towns produce resourceful people who take the situations as they come. They try to solve the problem, laugh about it, and get on with life without complaining.
Welcome to the wild west!

Improvisation and Surprises

I feel like I’ve been dead to the blog world for a while and Ashley’s the only one really posting. Sorry guys.
Life has been same ol same ol for the most part. The first round of midterms are over and I enjoyed a small break from the craziness of study, eat, work and sleep and not much else. Now the second round is approaching so the pattern of life is coming back but hopefully this time won’t be quite so stressful.
As I said in an earlier post(or meant to if I didn’t) the grounds crew for our complex pruned our sun blocking tree letting me have some sunlight for my plants. I still need to move them around to keep them in the sun but it’s much better than nothing. I know it’s WAY too early but I planted some seeds in my little seed starter. I have some flowers and cilantro growing. I spilled mustard seeds from our spice rack in the soil so those are about to take over the universe. Seriously. They sprouted like the next day and I can’t bring myself to kill them. Maybe they’ll be pretty. I’ve never seen a mustard plant before. Yesterday I thought that maybe I got a plant from the Little Shop of Horrors. In the morning there was nothing in that spot and after they sat in the warm sun all day that evening I had two leaves thick and sizeable ready to eat whatever came too close in proximity. I had NO idea what it was and it was cool but weird. I dug down a little this morning and found that it’s a resurrected squash seed….so I’m not entirely sure how I’ll keep that alive over the winter so we’ll see how that goes. The seed starter
The mysterious seed

Last night we watched the movie Chocolat and of course we had to have some air popped popcorn. Usually I’ll make one bowl for me and fill our colander for him but that was getting annoying and since we don’t have any big bowls I decided to improvise. Stephen has an empty drawer in his nightstand so I washed it out and put the popcorn in there instead. It was perfect! It fit everything and was soo easy to mix because of all the extra space. We will still look for a big mixing bowl but it looks like this just might end up being our popcorn bowl. Oh and by the way, yes we did have chocolate afterwards. A must for that movie.
It was a really good movie. I originally saw it in DC with my family years and years ago and we lamented not having chocolate afterwards but it was still a really good movie. It’s a movie about a woman and her daughter opening a chocolate shop in a super religious french town just before lent. It has a nice message and I definitely recommend it.
Our popcorn bowl
That’s just about everything exciting on this side of the island for us. Until next time.

Las Vegas

Gosh, I’m beginning to think this is the “Ashley” blog. (Mal, you don’t write on your blog enough to have your own!) ANYWAYS…

Pat and I have not had the chance to go anywhere “vacation-type” since our honeymoon, especially not on our own. So when our friends the Fairbanks suggested a trip we thought it’d be a great idea. It was actually supposed to be a surprise for me, but I’m quite good at figuring things out and Pat isn’t the most secret about it either, so I ended up guessing where we were going and thus was able to help plan the trip. Things were a little tough though seeing as Pat had, like, 1-2 vacation days (HP forces him to take all of it during Christmas) and finances as always were very tight, but I worked extra and we’d been saving for a super long time so we were able to work a budgeted trip to Las Vegas. Mom had just moved to Utah so it worked out too that she was able to watch Lydia and thus Lydia was able to get some time with her Grandma, which I thought was good.

This tunnel was part of the “Fremont Street Experience.” It’s where the original casino and Vegas experience started. The roof of the tunnel is actually all lights and lights up every night at a certain time
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The theme of Fremont Street this year was a 60’s/70’s theme (there was a new Beatles Cirque de Soleil show in Vegas I think they were trying to promote). All the workers wore tie-dyed shirts.
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The Fairbanks and us at Maggiano’s on the strip. It was our first time there – it was delicious!
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Pat and I at the Wynn just before seeing Le Reve (pronounced La Rev). It was a Cir de Soleil show all done in water. It was our giant splurge for the vacation, but I really wanted to see a Cirque de Soleil show. Watching those performers made me want to recommit to exercise – they were in such good shape!
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This was inside the Venetian, which I believe was my favorite hotel/casino. The whole thing is set up like Venice, Italy. At this part it looks like you’re outside…but you’re not!
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Every night in front of the Bellagio there’s a water show set to music. (This is the same hotel with the fountain at the end of Ocean’s 11 or 12 – I forget which one, if you’ve seen it).
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In front of the Luxor, the hotel we stayed at. It’s a black pyramid with an Egyptian theme. We probably spent way more time though in other hotels (especially the Venetian, so I don’t feel like I got to know the Luxor very well). One this though, the Luxor actually had a McDonald’s in its food court with a dollar menu! That saved me when I just wanted to chill and eat cheap food.
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We saw a lion exibit. There’s a tunnel that you can walk though that goes through the lion habitat. This is the female lion sleeping right on top of the tunnel. The male lion was with her too. They just layed there the whole time. Lions are so incredibly lazy.
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The New York New York hotel. It’s cook they make it look like a bunch of buildings when it’s just one.
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The M&M store. I was majoring craving chocolate walking through there. You can make your own custom bag with any color you want for a mere $12/lb… I don’t think so.
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One day I left a note for housekeeping asking for more shampoo, conditioner, etc. This is what I found that afternoon. I thought it was pretty funny.
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Each hotel had it’s own “theme.” This was at the MGM Grand. There were lots of waterfalls, flowers, etc.
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Oh, and did I mention every hotel is a casino too? Wouldn’t be Vegas without that!
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Posing with the Blue Man Group (actually just a statue in the Venetian)
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In the Venetian we went on a gondola ride with our very own gondolier. I didn’t get the picture I quite wanted because we were on the side of the boat opposite the gondolier, but that’s ok. We rode on the river inside the hotel and he even serenaded us.
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At the Venetian right before Phantom of the Opera (we got tickets for $10 by going to this awful 4 hr long Time Share thing. They say it’s “no pressure sales” but oh my gosh, but by the 4th level of sales people I couldn’t even understand what the heck they were even talking about - throwing all these numbers around and writing literally nonsense on paper. But hey, we got to see another show and for a 10th of the price Le Reve cost.
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The conservatory at the Bellagio. They made a giant garden with flowers covering the grounds and even a little greenhouse with parakeets in them. When we went in the greenhouse all the birds were all curled up in their own feathers asleep – it was really cute. I have a thing for hot air balloons and they had a bunch of them hanging from the ceiling. The lady bug and other decorations were also made of flowers. And there was this really cool fountain that was a sphere (which I also really like – it’s one of the reasons I have a pearl for a wedding ring instead of a diamond). We tried to get a picture like we were holding it.
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The Eiffel Tower outside the Paris hotel. There’s a restaurant at the top or you can just pay to go to the top, but we decided to pass on that one.
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We took a tour of Madame Toussaud’s (pronounced Tooso) Wax Museum. We had fun going through getting our photos with all the “celebrities.” Many look really good in the museum, but unfortunately our flash makes them look quite waxy. Can you guess each one??
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We’re blocking his arms, but Pat and I were copying his stance. Notice how they changed his “terminator” look to a more appropriate “governor of California” business suit. ;)
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I didn’t like this one of Matthew McConaughey because I though his hair just made him look fake. They could’ve done better I think.
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Overall, it was good to get away but the photos don’t show the ridiculous amount of walking we had to do! After Le Reve we had a 2 hr walk back to our hotel (because we hadn’t discovered a free mall parking lot at the other end of the strip at that point), which just about killed me and I don’t know if I ever fully recovered after that. You must remember I’m pregnant and get tired easily! Plus, I don’t think Vegas is my kind of town. The big appeal is night life, gambling, and being able to smoke EVERYWHERE…which I do none of. So I think next vacation I’m visualizing a beach where I do absolutely nothing!

Living My Next Chapter

Life looking back had so many-challenges, blessings, joys, sorrows-all for me and my family’s growth and progression. Now I am living 2000 miles away from my home state. Because of the emotional support I receive from my new husband I almost feel emotional and physically normal. He has told me he feels back to normal too. We both understand each other very well since both of us lost our spouses.
The majority of the time I am-going through boxes, changing addresses, getting a new driver’s license, and other official business. Also I have been organizing my new home so I know where things are and seeing what there is already. While I was living alone I did not cook too often for myself now I am back to baking and cooking and giving away the leftovers to our young married children. Helping to raise two more girls has been great too.

I love being with my youngest daughter Marlene since she is lives the closest to me. She is super busy with school, a new married life, so its great to be with her when I can. I miss my grandchildren so I booked to flight to see them. I am excited. Seeing Ashley and Lydia was such a treat. And I can’t wait till I get to see Mallory when they comes out for her husband’s internship working as an optometrist.
Making friends is on the agenda. We have gone on dinner dates with other couples and we will be inviting people for dinner soon. Missing my east coast friends dearly though. All those years of experiences will never be forgotten.
Randy’s oldest daughter, Laura, is expecting in December, Ashley is expecting is February, and Mallory is expecting in March. Last year was the year of marriages and this next year is the year of babies. So, I will be very busy being a grandma helper.
Peace has entered my life once again. My soul feels at rest. I know there is much more for me to accomplish and hopefully with the guidance and promptings from the Lord I will do what I need to do while I am here. –Off to live my adventure.

20 Week Ultrasound for Baby #2

On Friday we had the famous 20 week ultrasound (baby’s first physical). With Lydia we had such a horrible experience because of our ultrasound technician that we asked the doctor specifically who she would recommend for a positive fun experience. The place I go is such a large clinic that they have 12 doctors you can see and 2 office locations. We ended up having to go to the office that’s further away from our house (because that’s the only place that technician worked), but it was well worth it.

Our technician talked through the whole thing telling us what she was looking at and what she found. She said the baby looked perfectly healthy so far. We told her we wanted to know the gender of the baby too (I can’t handle surprises), and of course in the beginning the baby had their legs crossed right where you need to see. Luckily the ultrasound is really long because later on the baby moved and we found out we’re having another little girl!! I must admit I was a bit surprised because I totally thought it was a boy. I was WAY less sick this time around and it just felt different (plus Leah predicted on her Chinese calendar it would be a boy ;) ). But I was secretly hoping for a girl so I’m happy about it (I won’t have to get a bunch of boy stuff and Lydia will have a friend to play with - of course they’ll probably be complete opposites).
Pat was secretly hoping for a boy because we’ve noticed a serious lack of boys in the grandkids on both sides of the family, but oh well. He’s also said he was hoping for a boy with Lydia, but he has SO much fun with her and he just loves her so much, that he’s really excited for a girl too.

The only thing is that the technician said the baby was measuring a week ahead of schedule and it’s up to the doctor to see what to do about that. And because of scheduling conflicts, I have yet to see the doctor yet. So either my due date will move up a week (which is doubtful since I had an ultrasound to determine it in the first place and the earliest ones are most accurate) or I guess the baby is just REALLY big (which I’m dreading!!).

But overall Pat and I are excited for our little girl and now just need to start thinking of names! :)
Profile shot
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Little foot
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This is my favorite. Do you see those 2 “bubbles” to the right? That’s her tiny hynee!
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Chuck full of cuteness

I got to care for Lydia last week. Ashley and Pat planned a vacation to Las Vegas and asked me to watch my granddaughter who is 15 months old while they were away. I was a little apprehensive having her for 6 days with her being so young. Ashley has put her on a schedule that works well. She goes to bed about 7:30 pm and doesn’t wake up till 9 am. Now that’s a dream in itself. Then she goes down for a nap from 1-3 pm. Her facial expressions are so cute as she plays with you. She loved our dog, Katie, a small Yorkshire Terrier. Katie didn’t like having a baby around bothering her, but Lydia took it all in stride and followed her and played with her. Lydia would say da, da woof, woof or cat, cat, cat or duck, duck, duck. She loved playing with the neighborhood kids-she would go up and give a friend a toy to share and try to play.
We took everyone to the cabin along with Lydia on Monday-Labor Day. Last minute we decided to hike Donut Falls. All of us took turns carrying her on the mile long hike. She enjoyed it. Lydia does not like the car ride, so Ashley has a portable DVD player to keep her occupied. We now know Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Shrek, and Shining Time Signing very well. Randy, Natalie and Michelle were a big help with caring for her. We enjoyed having her.
She is so cute and sweet I can’t complain about taking care of her. BUT, it took a long time to recuperate.

The Beast Again

So sad that those who have known my husband Kevin know more about pancreatic cancer. I guess it takes celebrities’ hardships to get the word out about this cruel cancer.
My thoughts and prayers go to the Swayze family as they try to start a life without someone that that they love dearly. Why does pancreatic cancer takes such good people?
All those that have contracted the cancer in the three years since my husband’s diagnosis and passing are gone. My husband would have turned 52 this Saturday. He never got to see his 50th birthday. Can I be mad at pancreatic cancer? YES!
I just pray that more funding and research is done to help slow this cancer, then cure it. Scientists have made huge breakthroughs in breast cancer and prostate cancer because there is a huge money machine behind it. There isn’t for PC.
This task is so daunting. I don’t want to see anyone lose their loved one to this cancer anymore. I don’t want to see the look on doctor’s faces when you tell them you have PC anymore.
Is there hope? Yes! My faith still tells me this.