Father and Son campout

This past Friday, Chance, Connor, Theron, Adam and I went on a Father-and-Son campout. We camped at a Scout camp about 25-30 miles away. There is no lake at this campsite, but alot of trees and hills to hike through. Friday night, the Bishopric supplied hotdogs and buns for all of us to eat. Then around 8:30 we had a great fireside lesson by the First Counselor of the Bishopric. It was a great fireside, his use of the lanterns and the glow sticks to show the younger kids how their light can shine, was a great lesson. Afterwards, he gave out glow sticks to the younger children, 5 and under. Theron wanted his flashlight more than he wanted a glow stick. The older boys played capture the flag until 11:00pm, when they finally decided to call it a night. The next morning the Boy Scouts provided breakfast for everyone, Egg and sausage burritos. One of our High Priests made pull aparts, over the fire, in Dutch ovens. MMMMMM, they were good. We then all participated in a race to find all of these notes left around the campsite. Apprx. 2.1 square miles with 25 words to find. Adam, Connor, Theron and I came in second. It was much more fun than the last few, where we all just hung out, with nothing planned for the group. Theron did real well on his first campout, without Mommy. He had a lot of fun, got really dirty. All in all, everyone had a great time.

Really makes me wonder.....

As many of you know, I grew up sick most of my life. I was talking with my niece earlier, through email. She has one son, but the subject went to "She couldn't imagine what my parents had gone through, those many years." As most of us never think of this, until it is too late. It reminded me of the time I was in Intesive Care, in a coma, and there was a CODE called for a room next to me. My parents had just left to go get something to eat, when they heard this. They rushed back to my room, not remembering the room number I was in. When they got there, they found it was an elderly woman next door to me. They were relieved, but the toll it took on them was tremendous. I had never seen my father cry, but my mother later told me when they left the room that day, he walked a ways, then leaned up against the wall, sunk down in tears.
Maybe it is because we are parents now, that this hits closer to home, than it did back then. It has made think how great a parents love is for their children, how great the sacrifices are of a parent to their children. I wish I could tell my father the love I have for him. I know he knows, and come this next January I will show him, by doing his work in the Temple. I know this does not compare if he was alive and I could tell him face to face, but he will then know how much I really do care for him.

Kidney Walk

The Kidney Walk has come and gone now. Thank you all for you thoughts and donations. I know alot of you weren't able to donate, but your thoughts were with us. We started out prior to the race with at least 10 members on our team. Friday night we lost two of them, Connor and Chance had a Merit Badge College on Saturday. Much to Connor's dismay, he was really looking forward to running against his mother in the race. We picked up two members, one Friday when our dentist joined the team, only in donations, and a friend of mine walked with Sara and me. Rebecca went on to win the All Around Womens run and a $50 dollar gift certificate to Luke's Locker. She posted a great time of 23 min. 45 sec. run. I think the best was Theron walked the most of the 3.1 miles with Ivy. He got tired of riding with cousin Abby, so he got out and would run a bit then walk. Adam and Elizabeth were both there as well. Cudo's to Elizabeth for taking on such a walk so close to her due date. All in all we raised close to $600 for this walk. I am not sure how much sure how much my friend Ash donated, but knowing him it was probably a good amount. Thank all of you who donated, for those of you who participated, and for all of you who had us in your thoughts and prayers. Next year I hope more of you can join us. I think we all had a good time, and it went to a cause that has helped our family out quite a bit over the past year and will again help over the coming years.

Remnants of Hurricane Ike

This week, on Wed. to be exact, we welcomed friends into our home, from the Houston area. Christy Burdin and her two sons, Joe and Oliver, came to stay with us after Hurricane Ike knocked out all power in their home area. They have been told it could be weeks before power is restored. They were lucky enough to have had water and gas for cooking and cleaning, but Christy told us the water was becoming iffy. Water was being pumped by an electric motor, which in turn was being powered by a generator. People were warned that the generator was on its last legs. Anyhow, it is nice to know we are able to help those in need.
I think along with food storage and 72 hr kits, we also need to have a plan of where we could go and stay, in a Natual Disaster. I am happy that Christy and sons made it through the Hurricane safely and that, even though our house is not the largest, we are still able to open it up to them.

HyperMilers

Now I do not mind people trying to save gas, especially with the way prices fluctuate. My issue with all of this, I drive a standard transmission vehicle. Not that this is bad in itself, but when a person is trying to save on their gas, they usually trap someone like myself between gears. What this does is puts me in a position where I do not have enough power to go up a hill in one gear and over revs my engine if I have to run in another gear. Not only are they doing this, but I am finding alot of these people's driving habits have gotten worse trying to save a little gas money for themselves. These people do not want to sit at their stop sign, so what they will do is pull out in front of someone, then crawl to the speed limit, while I am already at the speed limit, have to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting them, while their is no one behind me for over half a mile. This morning on my way to work, this happened to me. I was at the speed limit of 45 mph, works good for me in 4th gear. This idiot TEXAS driver pulls out in front of me, no more than 50 yards, and procedes to HyperMile up to the speed limit. I left blackmarks trying to slow down and not hit them or the on coming traffic. The worst of it today, I know the person in the car heard my tires screeching, so they gave me the bird for pulling out in front of me. This person then drove at a speed limit that put me between gears again, to low for my higher gear, to high for my lower gear.

I was reading a story in Readers Digest

About this man who had cancer on the back of his tongue. The story followed through what he went through with all the different treatments. It told what drove him to beat this cancer, even though the pain of his throat and the sickness that came with the Chemotherapy. I have never given it this much thought, as to how I was going to beat an illness. My question to whoever reads this, is, What would it take from you to beat an illness?

What a weekend this has been!!!!

Like all weekends I worked till 1:00 pm on Saturday. Then I go to Dialysis till around 5-5:30. Pretty regular stuff. While I was on Dialysis, Sumo called and said there was a leak, where water was dripping through our ceiling. I ask if she could tell where the water was coming in at and she thought she found it. Needless to say it was wrong, not her fault, we do need to replace some shingles. Instead what we later found was the idiot who put in our A/C up in the attic, put an emergency overflow on a pipe that goes to the sewage system, not the catch pan underneathe the A/C unit. This happened to overflow, with nothing below it except for a wood walk way and the ceiling over our hallway. Everytime the A/C would run, this overflow would, will, overflow. So Sumo and I worked on it to try and correct it on Saturday night, after our date night. Needless to say that didn't work either. Then Sumo called an old friend in Colorado who owns his own Heating and A/C company. She told him what was going on and he gave her some ideas to try and fix. So this morning I went to HomeDepot to get the parts and started some repairs to the drain as she was running. When she got home, we ran a fish tape through the line as far as we could. Then sealed everything back up. So far so good, no leaks as of yet. Now all we need to do is fix the ceiling in the hallway, where the paint has come off.