Buried Treasure #1 ~ Hawaii style

When I was cleaning out the kitchen a few months ago, I stumbled across some old film. You know, the archaic kind that you had to load into your camera, use a whole roll, take it out, take it to the store, wait for it to be developed, and pick it up before you could actually SEE how the pictures turned out. We are talking ancient stuff here!

Well, I found 5 rolls. F-I-V-E. And we had NO idea what was on them. They had been up on that top kitchen shelf for quite awhile. So then I had to decide if I wanted to go through the trouble to develop them, which, of course, I did, and then I had to hope that they would still develop. So off to Walmart I went.

Did you know that you can no longer do one hour photo for old-school film? They don't even develop it there anymore. Talk about times changing! I had to send it out the really old fashioned way. Then I had to wait 6 days for it to come back. I seriously forgot about it. This really showed me how I have become use to "instant" things in our society. Luckily I kept the little tags from the envelopes in the car and I found them one day. So back to Walmart I went to get my buried treasure.

3 of the 5 rolls didn't develop. We will never know what was on those. Kind-of sad BUT we did get some good stuff from the others.

One roll had pictures from our trip to Hawaii we took with my parents in 2007. When I saw the first picture and realized it was from that trip, I was praying that there were some pictures of my mom with the kids. That would have been so awesome but there weren't. Bummer.

But there were pictures of this adventure in Hawaii:

Kurt and I did a trail ride on these ATV's. To this day Kurt still wants one. And wants one BAD.

Here is me being the "cool" wife that I am. Those goggles were HOT! And by HOT I mean they completely covered my whole face. Look at the size of those compared to the size of my face. Crazy!

Like our "dirt" apparel? They were clothes loaned to us by the company so that our regular clothes didn't get dirty. Mine were about a billion sizes too big. I felt completely ridiculous but we had a great time. And, I am proud to say, that my husband was not the husband that rolled the ATV.

So fun to find buried treasure!

Stay tuned for more buried treasure reveals.

Including the one about the time the Mexican Mafia was after us!

Living Book Fair

A few months ago the kids' school but on a Living Book Fair. Each grade level selected a novel that they had read so far and then they decorated their classroom based on the book. The kids loved it!

I had signed up to work the book fair that was going on that week and picked the evening shift thinking "perfect, Kurt will be home to watch the kids" but it turned out to be the exact time as the Living Book Fair. Apparently my brain didn't put 2 and 2 together to figure that out! Oh well. I missed going to all the classroom but I did get to see the kids' quickly before my shift started. Plus, I got to work a cash register with a bar scanner - so FUN!

The upper grades did a flash mob several times in the book fair room. The first time kind of scared us but after that we knew what they were doing. It was so great to see even teenagers get excited about books.

Evan's class:

They then had butterflies that the kinders had made all hanging from the ceiling. It was really cute!

Hailey's class:

Miss Honey, the librarian:

Isn't she the cutest librarian ever??!!

Kayla's class:

They did Sign of the Beaver. They also had a huge tent in the room with crinkled paper bags to look like a hut-thing. It was really cool.

This was the wall that they could do their own cave wall drawings.

Over all the night was a huge success. Everyone enjoyed all the classrooms and the book fair was crazy busy. We were swamped the whole night! I think their goal was to hit $4,000 but they exceeded $7,000! Woo Hoo!

Woo Hoo Hoo! And Look what I created!

I am so excited for Kurt! I wanted to jump up and down on the bed last night at 12:30 but I managed to refrain myself.

So, many of you know that Kurt has dyslexia and reading is really a challenge for him. He has been loving all the new technology that has been coming out to help him. Now that phones can talk to him and he can talk to them, it is great. He can text and email people so much easier than he ever could before.

iPhones, iPads, and Apple computers come with a feature called Voice Over that reads the screen to you. This has been really helpful to him but it is also very frustratingly limited. You have to remember different finger swipes for different features and it isn't very easy to use; especially if you want to go back and re-read something or start somewhere else. It is in "chunks" and you can't start in the middle of a "chunk" so Kurt would get frustrated having to re-listen to stuff he didn't want to.

Well, he wanted to be able to read books on his iPhone or iPad so we got an electronic book app. But what we didn't know was that the books that you download in those apps come in as, I don't know, pictures??? Maybe that is the right way to describe it? But what happens is that Voice Over sees the book as a picture (or something) and not as text. So even though the text is right there, it can't read it. Very disappointing. We have tried a few different apps with no luck.

Then we found iBook and wa-la. It reads the books! Yippee Skippee! So he has downloaded a few books to read. Well a few weeks ago I was telling him how The Hunger Games book is coming out as a movie and I said "Oooooh, you should read it and then we can go see the movie together. It would be so fun!"

So we went to download it and wouldn't you know, iBook doesn't have it!!!!! Urgh! They have every companion book imaginable but not the actual book. From what I could gather by googling it, it has to do with licensing ya-da, ya-da, ya-da stuff. So I went on a quest to find a way for him to read the book.

Idea #1 - the library! They have electronic books. Sweet . . . . except there are 76 people on the wait list. What? It's electronic - send it to everyone.

Idea #2 - purchase the books on CD. To get the trilogy it would be $80-$100. Urgh!

Idea #3 - ummm . . . google for help. So I did and after much searching and reading on different things, I found Bookshare.

Bookshare is an organization that has books electronically and it is only for people with disabilities. I think it is mostly for students because they have a lot of text books but they also have a lot of other books. So we filled out an application and then had to submit a "Proof of Disability" form. I faxed that in on Monday morning and we waited. I really thought this was going to be "the one;" the program that finally worked for him. By Monday afternoon, I was frustrated that we hadn't heard back so I called and they said it took a couple of days to process so we should hear back by the end of Wednesday.

So we waited some more.

And then last night at 10 pm, we got THE email. Woo hoo! So I logged in and paid the membership fee and started trying to figure out how the program worked. At first, it looked like it would only work on the computer. What? How frustrating because then he can't listen in his truck, which he really likes to do while he is driving.

Then it looked like it only worked on Windows, and we have all Macs. What? Wish I had read that before I paid the fee. I started to get discouraged. I was tired and ready for bed and, by this point, Kurt had already fallen asleep but I decided to continue.

Then I found a download for Mac. Ok, now we were getting somewhere. So I started the download and it was going sooooo slow. So I decided to blog-surf while I waited. I spied on the lives of random strangers for awhile until my eyes didn't want to stay open. I went back to the website and decided to search around some more. I found a link about phones and other mobile devices and, lo-and-behold, there was an app for the iPad/iPhone! AWESOME!

So I got up, found his iPad, bought the app, waited for it to download, and crossed my fingers as I found the book and downloaded that.

Oh man, come on, WORK!

I opened the app, opened the book and . . .

IT TOTALLY WORKED!!!!

It read it just like he wants it to. Finally, a program that does EXACTLY what he needs it to do. I was so happy I wanted to jump up and down on the bed. I wanted to wake Kurt up and say "Here, READ!" But I didn't. I let him sleep but I was on cloud 9.

Then I tried to go to sleep. I was too wound up to fall asleep for awhile but I finally did. And this morning I said "Guess what I did? I got it to WORK!" He was way excited too. Well, you know, as excited as a guy gets about anything.

And now I have created this:

We are finally getting rain around here so he can't work and so now he has a new hobby to pass the time. I think he's addicted. Ok, it's only been a couple of hours since he started using it but I think after sitting by the fire while it rains outside, he may not ever want to go back to work again.

But that's ok. I'm am just so happy and excited for him!

So, if you are interested or know someone who could benefit from this, here is the info:

www.bookshare.org

The App is: Read2go

Monster Trucks

2 years ago (I think - time is flying too fast!), Kurt and 2 friends took their boys to the Monster Truck Show here in Sac. This year they decided to go again.

But now their Monster-Truck-Loving-Posse had grown.

5 dads and 6 boys went this time.

From farthest to closest:

Marty and Nik

Dan, Zach and Brody,

Doug and Lincoln,

Erik and Hunter.

They had a great time.

We decided last minute (of course, do we ever plan anything in advance? NO!) to do dinner at our house for everyone. So 5 families (10 adults and 16 kids) were in our house. It was a bit crazy but I think everyone got fed.

Then the girls shooed all the boys out. And while the boys were away, the girls must play. At least that was the title of the text I sent everyone. It was more talking, watching the little ones and cleaning than playing but we got girl talk in so it was fun. But of course we didn't take any pictures! Bummer! O-well, I guess we need to do it again =)

Bed Bugs

One night the kids had a great idea:

"Let's all (the 3 kids) sleep in one bed!"

And so they did.

Too cute.

It was so fun that the next night, they wanted to do it again.

But the next morning they all woke up cranky and grumbling:

"She hogged the blankets"

"He kicked me"

"I was squished"

So that was the end of that.

Big Brother Rules!

Trevor loves Evan. He loves his sisters too but I think Evan is special to him. I can't wait til he is older and I can watch my boys be boys together. As it is right now, they have fun together but I think when Trev is riding bikes, scooters and skateboards, it will be so cute. Evan can't wait to teach him all the "cool things" boys do.

I can't believe Trevor is 8 months old already. He is just growing WAY TOO FAST!

He is a crawling machine now. He is so fast and is all over the downstairs. Last night we lost him for the first time. Someone left the bathroom door open and he was in there playing with the shower curtain (and thankfully not the toilet). He just disappears so quickly now.

He is also pulling up on things. He suddenly seems to be determined to try to walk because he keeps trying to crawl but he wants to use his feet and not his knees, silly boy.

Here are some videos of my boys having fun together.

Big brothers are the best!

Ok, after 3 failed attempts to load the videos, I gave up. So sorry, no videos for you. Bummer! To make it up to you, I will post more posts. Which by this point, you have already read, so just know those were consolation prizes =)

Well that totally FLOPPED!

Have you ever tried to do something good only to have it totally flop on you? That was me last night. Here's what happened:

A few weeks ago a sign up sheet went around church to donate blood. Usually I just pass it along but this time I felt prompted to sign Kurt and myself up so I did for a 5:45 appointment. A few days later I mentioned it to Kurt and he was not happy. "WHAT? No, no, no, I won't do that! I worked hard to make this blood and I would like to keep it."

I have been married to the guy for over 12 years and have never known him to be squeamish about needles. But when I thought back on it, the only time I can remember him getting poked was when I had to take him to the ER for his neck and then he was in so much pain he didn't even care if they poked him. Interesting . . .

Well, no mercy here, I told him he would be fine and to just do it. I told him to think of all the people he may help by donating and that some day if any of our family needed blood, we would be very thankful to that person who had donated. He would just kind of roll his eyes at me and say he wouldn't do it and I would tell him that he would. He tends to like to tease me about things and I figured this was one of those times.

So I dragged him kicking and screaming (ok, maybe that's a LITTLE dramatic but he was still whining on the way there and walking in the parking lot). "They are going to take too much blood out and I won't be able to walk" he says to me as we are walking in. "Look, there's a 70-something year old walking out and he seems just fine. Your a strong, healthy adult male, I am sure you will be fine too." This was seriously our conversation. Sheesh.

Anyways, we show up at our 5:45 appointment time. Now Kurt had a meeting to be at at 7 pm so we were a little tight on time but I figured we would be ok. Here is where red flag #1 popped up. The appointment time meant nothing. It was first come first serve and it was going to take about an hour. WHAT? Why did you have me sign up for a time slot if it meant nothing???!!! Urgh!

Side note: I have decided that I can't do anything during the week because it really messes up with getting homework done. It just really kills any hope of being on top of it. So I knew going during the week was going to be hard but the girls didn't have that much so I thought it would be ok. So we had left the kids at home doing homework and told them we would be back in 1/2 hour.

Back to the story - so now we had a decision to make: leave and not donate or wait and see if it would be faster and Kurt could still make his meeting. Hmmm - well you know what Kurt voted for, with a big ol' smile on his face I might add, but in the end we decided to wait and see if we could donate and still have time for him to make the meeting. So we waited with Kurt smiling the whole time thinking he was going to get out of this. Well we ended up running into our Bishop who informed us that Kurt didn't need to be at that meeting. Smile quickly faded, poor guy. We now had plenty of time to donate.

Now I know how this sounds. It sounds like Kurt was the problem but he wasn't. I am very happy to report that he was a total STUD through it all and donated no problem. Turns out, I was the problem child.

We decided that I would go first and he would hold Trevor and then he would go while I held Trev. So I am finally called and go sit in my chair. Now, I have been poked more times than I can count. Anyone who has been pregnant knows that they take a ton of blood several times during the pregnancy, then at the hospital you get the IV and plus with all my labs for my doctors, I have been poked A LOT. It doesn't phase me at all anymore and I totally watch and everything. Well, have you seen the needles they use when you donate blood? They shouldn't be called needles, they are more like pipes. The are stinkin' HUGE!

So she goes to stick the pipe in my arm and she can't get the vein. It is a huge one right there but, for what ever reason, she can't get it. So she is digging around in my arm with the pipe and I am like "hello, that is a pipe you have shoved in my arm!" She finally gives up and calls a co-pipe installer over and she gives it a try. A little more digging and presto - she got it. Whew! I wasn't sure I was going to take much more. Ok, so now I'm flowing. Awesome.

But then the lady notices that my bag has stopped filling up. She has me roll the thing in my hand, then she pulls on the skin trying to get the flow going again, then she un-tapes the needle to try to adjust it and POP out comes the needle. Not expecting this, she is not prepared for the flow of blood that comes pouring out of my open main line. It would be fun to be dramatic and say it was squirting everywhere but it wasn't. She quickly put a gauze over it and tries to contain the needle that is flying around on the end of the tube. She has me raise my arm over my head.

No biggie, I think. They can just re-insert it (not looking forward to that but o-well). But they can't. That bag is done. Ok, just do another. It looked like that bag was maybe only 1/4 full. Nope. Can't do that either. Turns out they got enough that I can't donate again for whatever the time frame is. Then, and this was the kicker, they didn't get enough blood to use. WHAT?!!! Too much for me to donate again but not enough to use - are you kidding me?

I felt like telling the lady: do you know what I went through to get here tonight? Suffered (ok, dramatic again) weeks of a whining husband, dragged him through the parking lot, waited an hour to get up here, had a pipe shoved all over in my arm and now you are telling me you can't even use it! URGH!

Another side note: this is coming off a week of very little sleep because Trevor got a major cold and ended up with a double ear infection and hasn't been sleeping for obvious reasons.

So I was not the happiest camper, as hopefully you can understand. So then it's Kurt's turn. I looked at him and said "we can go. You don't have to do this." I didn't feel like dealing with him passing out, throwing up, whining the whole time or anything else that might happen so I thought we should just leave before any more drama. But as I mentioned, he was a stud and had no problem. In fact he told me that he was just messing with me and had no problem with giving blood. Awesome.

So by the time we left it was 2 HOURS later, now 7:45. Kids are at home having had no dinner, who knows what the homework status is and now it's time for bed. Urgh! And it was still "flopping" this morning as I was trying to help Hailey finish the homework she didn't know how to do last night.

Let's just say that I probably won't be signing up to donate blood again for awhile.