My body sucks!

Needless to say, I am extremely frustrated with my back! I wish I could just rip out my spine and get a replacement! (wouldn't that be nice!) I have been walking 6 days a week, doing my PT(physical therapy) stretches 6-7 days a week and my PT exercises 3 days a week. Now here is the frustrating part, in the 6 weeks that I have been totally dedicated to this, my physical therapist has only been able to add 2 lame exercises to be plan. And due to my high pain level my doctor has now told me NOT to walk 6 days a week! He wants me to walk no more that 3 days a week, and do non impact for the other 3 days. That wouldn't be too bad if my back would allow me to bike, but NOOOOOOOOO! And going to the pool to swim 3 days a week is just not going to happen. So looks like I have to do my elliptical machine, which kicks my trash, 3 days a week.

I do have to tell this funny story though. Last Saturday I decided to go swimming at BYU with Steve and the boys. But, I just couldn't help myself! Eric wanted to see if he is faster than me. And I really really couldn't let him win, even if it did hurt my back. So we raced and I totally won! Oh Yea, I've still got it baby!!! Of course, I could barely even walk the following Sunday and my back was a real problem for 2-3 days, but I really couldn't stop myself! :-D

Now here is the more disturbing part of the whole back problem, I have gained weight. The weight gain was really annoying, but I still fit into my clothes. Then my doc put me on a nerve medication to help me get some sleep. Prior to this new medication, I had gone 7 months without a decent night's sleep! Now that I am sleeping and working out, I was SHOCKED when I got on the scale and saw that it went up another 8 pounds! I knew I hadn't been pigging out on my favorite food (CHOCOLATE) or anything, so I did some research and found that the medication that I'm on is notorious for making people gain weight really fast. Not Good! So I talked my doc into lowering the dose from 25mg to 10mg. I hope it will still work, and I'll be able to lose this weight. Cross your fingers everyone.

WHY??????????

Why, OH WHY!!!!! Do my kids take such bad school pictures... This is why I never spend the big bucks on school pictures. Now, granted, they aren't terrible, but those are not their normal smiles at all, not even close. Allen looks like he got into my pain meds, and Ryan..... well, maybe he just needs to wait until more of his permanent teeth come in.

Cousins

I was just thinking as the kids left for school today, how lucky they are! They have cousins that live so close to them, and grandparents just a short scooter or bike ride away. And every Sunday we get to spend more time with even more cousins!

Watching Allen and Ryan go pick up Tayson and Luke for school today made me realize how big they are all getting! Allen will go to Jr. High next year and I was thinking about how sad that is. Well, I'm sure it won't be sad for him! :-D They are going to have some great memories about going to school together when they get older. I know they won't appreciate those memories for a decade or two, but I'm glad that they have them now anyways!

Emotional Weekend

The craziness started with Friday night. We had Eric's court of honor! It was so exciting to see him earn his Eagle Award! So many people helped out and made it a total success! We loved seeing some of our Spanish Fork friends again! And having so much family around was wonderful. Although, that eagle came close eating little Sophie! I doubt I will ever forget watching the bird tracking her. YIKES!

Saturday was very special. Ryan was baptised along with his cousin Tayson! It was really cool that we could do it on the same day! Kathy made all of the arrangements, which was amazing! That way I could just enjoy everything. Although, having my oldest get his Eagle, then having my baby get baptised on the same weekend was a little much for my emotions. I was a cry baby on Saturday. LOL

Finally, Saturday night we went to Chucky Cheese with the kids and all the cousins to celebrate Ryan's 8th Birthday! It was so nice to just sit back and let all of the kids just play. It was very relaxing. I loved it!

Since Being Home....

Life has been BUSY BUSY BUSY! My doctor and I are trying to nail down what needs to be done with my back, so that I can have a life again. So in other words, more testing. I'm getting my least favorite one done on Thursday (an EMG). For anyone who has not heard of them, they shoot electrical impulses through your nerves to see how well they works. I do NOT like the feel of that at all. This might all lead to surgery, but I won't know all of the details of all the testing until next Monday.

Today, I'm starting BYU's Education week!!!! I LOVE it! Eric calls it EFOP (especially for old people). I can only go a few hours each day because of schedules and my back's ability to hang in there. But I'm excited. They only real bummer is that my sister Andrea can't come with me. Stupid cancer! Hopefully next year she can come.

Oh, Allen has started tackle football this week. There are about 20 kids on his team and there are only 4 kids that weigh less than him. And to top it off, there are many kids that outweigh him by a lot! I mean, they are double Allen's weight. When I think of that, I get nervous for him! And all I can think is, "you better run fast Allen!"

The 2,681 mile drive home!

We left Maryland on July 26th, one day earlier than planned, to escape another day and night without air conditioning. We drove to Cumberland, Maryland. Stayed at a really nice hotel. Then we started the real journey home.

Our first major stop was at St. Louis! Steve grew up near there, so we have both been to the Gateway Arch. We thought the kids might like it, so we stopped there on the way home.

We watched the video about how they made it. And all I can say, is that those construction workers have LOST THEIR MINDS! Watching the film gives me heart palpitations! Scary!

I love the crazy pod like elevator trams that take you to the top!

We then stopped at St. Peters so we could see the house where Steve grew up! It looks so different since they painted the siding! And the volleyball pit is gone. The girl that lives there said it took all summer for her and her brother to wheelbarrow that sand, one load at a time and dump it in the woods.

Our next stop (yes, the Arch, Steve's old house were also all on the same day), was Nauvoo, Illinois. Basically a city in the middle of nowhere! We were a little too late to go to all of the daytime activities. So we had a meager dinner, consisting of lame sandwiches, then headed over to the fun little fair they have before the pageant began. We all had fun on the little handcarts, and the stilts and all of the other activities they had. The pageant was amazing! And I was so glad we made the stop! I didn't get any pictures of it though, because it was held at night, and frankly, to get a decent shot would require a fancy camera, which I don't have.

Our final, real stop....... wait, I should explain the other stops...

OK, so this is how it basically worked. We would have a drive day, usually around 550-700 miles. Stop and sleep in a town we have never heard of. Then get in the van the next day drive a little to our "destination". Then sleep near there. Next day, drive, next day, have fun, etc.

So, back to the journey. We stopped at Mount Rushmore. Now I have to say, I had no interest in seeing a mountain with peoples faces on it. It was in South Dakota, and who wants to drive there? But Steve had been there as a kid, and wanted to show the kids. Plus they had Mount Rushmore in the National Treasure 2 Movie, and the kids thought they might find the "City of Gold"! LOL

I will admit, that I actually enjoyed the little hike around the site. We even saw a mountain goat just hanging out near the trail. The visitors center was pretty cool. They have a great film about how and why it was made. I actually learned quite a lot. Actually, to be frank, I learned a great deal of American History throughout this summer. I hope the kids have too!

Our LONGEST driving day was our last. We drove from Rapid City, South Dakota to Provo. Boy was it a LONG drive! I think we had all started to lose our minds a little. Which brought up some strange discussions. One of which was, why do they stack hay in all the shapes that they do? They make round ones, stacks and rectangles. I posted that question on facebook, and finally Kerry sent me a link that explained it. LOL

If you ever wondered the same thing...... not sure if that has happened to anyone except for people who spend 6 days driving across the country, the answer can be found on Yahoo answers.

So the kids got a little crazy that last day. I thought I would be sneaky and try to film how nuts they got, but they kept catching me!

Last Week In DC

Steve can NOT just relax. We had a Saturday to clean and get ready to leave. When we were done, we had a little time to just chill. Well Steve just couldn't stand staying home. He wanted to go see the National Cathedral. No one wanted to go, because we were just so tired of touring around. But he talked Allen into going with him. The gargoyles on the National Cathedral are truly unique! There is a Darth Vader one! They added it when they were doing renovations.


The last Sunday, we went to church. Then they were having the National Boy Scout Parade on The Mall. Eric, Allen and Steve wanted to go, so we drove down there and dropped them off. I drove home and 30 minutes later Steve said they were going to head back on the metro. They said it was just so hot, they didn't want to stay any longer. So I headed to the metro to pick them up.
While driving to pick them up, it was hot and humid (like usual). From the house to the metro stop is about a 10-15 minute drive. By the time I got there, I had to take off my sunglasses because it started getting extremely cloudy. They got in the car and on the way home things started to look eerie! Then the wind started blowing tree branches around. Breaking some of them off. And the rain was POURING down! What looks like clouds in the photo, is actually just rain and wind!

When we were about to get to our neighborhood, two transformers blew! And one scared me so bad that I screamed. We were very close to it when it just exploded. So I knew when we got home we would have no power. And boy was I right. We looked in the backyard and one of the branches broke off and fell into the backyard. I didn't take a picture of it, but that branch made a very deep hole in the ground! And the neighbors house had one of these branches go through their roof. It was crazy! So we were out of power, and it was still hot and humid. We couldn't make dinner without heating up the house even more, so we decided to go out for dinner. Now that was an adventure! The traffic lights were out all over the city. So it was nuts! Those people have no clue what to do when a traffic light is out! So many people just drive full speed right through the intersections! We had to drive about 6 miles before we found anyplace that had power.

On Monday, we decided to just load up the van and leave. We were scheduled to leave on Tuesday, but we had no power. So we couldn't do our laundry or anything else we had planned to do that day. The decision was easy when the neighbor informed us that the power company had said the power wouldn't be back on until Thursday or Friday. Heat, humidity and no power...... forget it! We left early and went to a nice air conditioned hotel room! Plus we got 120 miles out of the way.

Kathy & Taysons Visit

At the end of our stay in DC, Kathy & Tayson came. It was so fun to see them! We went over to the hotel where Todd was staying and the kids loved playing in the pool. Todd taught them how to play marco polo.

Ryan and Tayson were so excited to see each other! Kathy bravely took them to the spy museum. Apparently, they weren't all that interested in it, they just wanted to goof off with each other. So she cut the museum short, and took them back to play in the pool.

Since we had gone to all of the Smithsonians on The Mall, Steve took the boys, along with Kathy, Todd and Tayson to the Air & Space Annex Smithsonian. They really enjoyed it.

While there, Steve noticed one of the missiles that he worked on while he was at Raytheon.

Williamsburg & Jamestown

I have been procrastinating my blog update, so I'll just add the last weeks at DC.

We had a trip planned to Jamestown and Williamsburg so we could see the first cities in the colonies. But the morning we were suppose to leave my back decided to completely flip out. I could barely walk across the room. So I couldn't go with them. I was really sad, but they said that they had fun there.

Their absolute favorite thing in the two days they were there was stomping around in the mud, making bricks. They are constantly doing restoration to the buildings, and they use the bricks that they make the old fashioned way to do it. They also make everything there using the techniques they used back then. It sounds very cool.

Segway Tour

In June Andrea sent me a link about a Segway tour of the DC Mall area. I looked at it briefly and just said, it's too expensive, I could just walk it. Then when I got down there, I saw people in groups rolling around on these crazy rolling thingamabobbers. Apparently they are called Segways! HA HA HA. I had no idea that is what those were called. They did look like fun, so I changed my mind and Andrea and I signed up for a Night tour of DC.

This was a great plan, but mother nature had a little something up her sleeve. The day that Andrea and I had our tour, it was 102 degrees! Add the humidity, and it was just about unbearable. So I drank plenty of water, and half way through the tour I bought an ice cold pepsi, to keep me going. Andrea did point out that I had a major wardrobe malfunction! I was wearing these tan capri's. And I was sweating like a pig! Seriously! But since the capri's were very loose in the waist, all of my sweat was dripping down, down down. I ended up looking like I had had a bladder accident. Oh yea, I totally looked like I had peed my pants! I really wanted to enjoy the segway tour and not be self-conscience of my wardrobe problem. So I just kept telling myself, I will never see any of these people again, so I just don't give a crap. That mantra helped me quite a lot.

They had to teach everyone how to ride them, so they had us practice in an alley. We looked so funny on our little parade of the newbies. But it was better that we practiced there before we were let loose on the streets of downtown DC!

The sun was slow to go down because it was in July, so when we ended our tour, it was still too bright for all the the lights to illuminate the buildings. Too bad, but at least we had fun.

Fourth of July

I have no idea why I just have not been very motivated to keep this up to date. I'll just blame it on the hot humid weather, since it's the root of all evil. LOL

I have loved the visitors we have gotten! In mid June, my nephew Shad came for a 3 week stay. My sister Andrea came in July for a week. And Kathy, and Tayson came for a few days (to see Todd mostly), but we got to see them too. It's kept me from getting too homesick. But now that everyone has left, I want to take off too. We are leaving next Tuesday, for our 5 day cross country adventure. I hope it's fun and the van holds up.

Anyway, the fourth of July was pretty cool. Steve's work (NRL) opened up the pier for families to watch the firework show. It is across the Potomac from the Mall. One funny thing..... the security guard asked me if I had a drivers licence, and I said yes, then he looked away, so I started to drive. He stopped me, and said, can I see it? LOL..... I started laughing so hard. He said, it's like, if I ask you if you are a terrorist, I'm sure you would say no, but we have to still check. hee hee hee. Major blond moment!

(my camera didn't take very good pictures)We were pretty far from the actual firework area, but it was still cool to watch it. However, I never realized that part of the fun of fireworks, is all of the sounds that they make. We could hardly hear any of it. :-( But, driving home made up for that in a big way! In DC, they have firework shows EVERYWHERE!!!!! Along the freeway, there were fireworks going off in just about every direction! And I am not even exaggerating! Many of them were really close to the actual freeway. A ton of cars were actually parked in the emergency lane of the freeway, and people were just watching them. Not exactly a safe thing to do, but I could see why they wanted to.

(Ryan, Andrea, Eric and Steve)

(And the rest of the gang, Allen and Shad)

Various DC Pics

We have been many places while here. I couldn't possibly go over all of them, and trust me, no one would want me to. So here are a few highlights.

Arlington Cemetery (One of Steve's favorite sites)

Air & Space Museum
Lincoln Memorial
Vietnam War Memorial WWII Memorial