My Dad Turns 60

Today was my dad's 60th birthday. It has been one that he has been struggling with. We wanted to make it a fun day so that he would associate it with happiness and not sadness. We started planning his birthday about 3 weeks ago, we were going to kidnap him in the morning for breakfast and then a game of bowling. Followed that night with a get together with more family and friends. However, earlier this week my dad was admitted to the hospital with chest pain. He underwent another angiogram, however, no more stents were needed. He was then discharged on Wednesday, with a strict no lifting more than 10 pound rule. We thought that due to the surgery he would be a little tired, and probably would only be up for the get together in the evening. We cancelled the morning brunch and bowling on Wednesday. Well, Thursday I received a call from Lindsey stating Dad was doing better then the first time and he wanted to have breakfast and bowling too. So we went back to planning a full day.

Today we had Dad and Kel, along with Lindsey and Carter over for a nice brunch. Nothing too fancy a baked omelet, fruit and bacon. This is also were, we gave him his gift of a Kindle. He was so excited about the Kindle and being able to take just one item with him instead of multiple.

We followed up with a game of bowling. The kids had a great time being with Papa and Bana. It is hard to say who had a better time the grandparents or the kiddos. After bowling, we all went home to nap and freshen up for the party.

The party this evening was a lot of fun. The get together was a Hawai'i tiki theme at Lindsey and Dustin's home, with a nice meal and GREAT company. We had a group of about 20 people, The Canon's, Aunt Tammy & Uncle Craig, Papa Lynn, Shane, Hailey and Griffin, the Adams Family, Us Hansen's, Nathan, and Kel & Dad. We missed the family that could not be there. All in all I think that my dad had a nice birthday. Happy Birthday Popoes! Here is to many more birthdays and fun memories.

The 3 Musketeers

You all know that Carter spends a lot of time with us, since I take care of him during the days while his parents work. As you would imagine, the kids end up doing a lot of things together and getting into things that they should not. Usually, when they are all around, where you find one you will find three. Here are some of the pictures of the 3 Musketeers from the last little bit.

Making Irish Soda Bread

Watching a movie

Climbing the mountains

Being Super Heroes with swords

CERT Trained

I post about 8 weeks ago, how I was taking the CERT classes. Well, I have actually completed the course and I am officially a member of CERT. They even gave us the hat, vest, gloves, goggles, and mask. We had our mock disaster tonight, this was our "test" to see if we had really learned anything in the past 8 weeks. They did not give us a letter grade, however we did seem to do well. We needed to evacuate a building in 10-15 minutes, triage people and treat them in our treatment area. Well, we rescued all of our victims in 11 minutes, triage and treated them. The instructors stated we did very well. We did loose 2 CERT members to a trap, but all in all we did good. I am glad it is over and I have this certificate, but in the same breath it was fun to get out, meet new people and I am going to miss interacting with them. Here is the graduating class #117.

If you are at all interested in becoming a CERT member, you can do it several ways. There is a program on online, just google it or you can take the classes from Sandy City Fire. If all you do is learn to take care of your family that takes so much stress off other resources. Plus, if you are prepared you won't have to use it.

The DPA

I don't know if many of you remember, back in 2009, Brian won the Distinguished Performance Award (DPA), we were supposed to go to Atlantis for almost a week. Then after, we had obtained our passports we received notice that we would not be going. They did give him a cash incentive and so we took Coly down to Las Vegas and had our trip there.

So, this year Brian won this award again, with the trip being Washington, D.C.. However, due to our past experience, we were a little apprehensive that we would be going on this trip. We were told when Bri won this award, we would be gone from June 9-12. But then about 6 weeks had gone by with no other news. Yesterday that changed. We got notice of the scheduled events, how to make our reservations, etc. This morning, Bri was able to book our flight to Washington. So, it looks like we are actually going to get to go. YAY! This will be so much fun, Bri and I have not had a kid less vacation ever. We have gone away for a night, but not days. Grandparents are taking the kids while we are gone and we soo appreciate that. We are also, trying to extend 2 more days, so we can jet up to Pennsylvania for a night.

I just want to say to Bri "Good job honey, you worked very hard for this!" I also want to thank again Grandma Debby, Grandpa Steve, Neeners and Grandpa Garry for taking the kids so we really could go on this trip.

The 3 D's

This past Friday night, Carter slept over at our house. (A side note, Carter's first name is actually Dustin, so he is our first D.) Coly and Lou love having Carter here to play. In fact, Coly could not stop talking about it for 2-3 days before. We wanted to make it a fun night, without spending a lot of money. So, Bri came up with ordering Papa Murphy's pizza (no cheese on the kids), which they loved and quickly ate about 1/2 of the pizza all by themselves. After dinner, I had rented "Despicable Me," which we had not seen. The kids thought that was fun, but the thing they thought was the most fun was the homemade donuts. Now, I don't know why the thought of making homemade donuts has never occurred to me before, but it hasn't. I was thinking last week, I should really learn how to make donuts so Colin could have his first true donut. So, for the sleepover that is what I did. Homemade, fresh donuts. Not as good as Krispy Kreme, but they will work for Coly Kai any day of the week. So we had Dustin, "Despicable Me," and Donuts. It seemed the perfect start to our weekend.

The Case of the Missing Blue Shorts

Even with my attempts to keep my children clothed, my darling son still likes to run around without pants on, this past Tuesday was no exception. Now, my sweet daughter is a twister sister, and Coly has this to look forward to all his life. (I know this because I too have a twister sister.) What is a twister sister? A sister that makes a mess everywhere she goes and takes stuff that does not belong to her - this does continue into adulthood. Anyone that knows Lou would attest to her "twisterness."

Tuesday afternoon, I had an appointment for Coly to get his hair cut. I knew when Bri got home we needed to be pretty much ready to go after lunch, since we only have one vehicle, we had to take him back to work. As I was making lunch, I asked Coly to go get his short on. At this point I knew that Audra had been using his shorts as a hat, it was so cute that I had to get a picture.

After, I had no idea where they were, but our home all 957 square feet of it, they could not be too hard to find. Coly came back stating that he could not find them anywhere. I said to him Coly you really need to look. (As my fellow mom friends will know kids and husbands tend not to be too thorough in looking for the missing items.) So, when he returned I told him that I would help him find them, but if it was easy he was going to a "kick in the shin" (not really but the kids think it's funny). I helped him look, several minutes later I knew that we were running out of time and had to get back to making lunch. I told him that he would have to wear different shorts and we would find them later. This made him cry, at this point Bri walked in and I enlisted his help. We asked Audra "where are Coly's shorts?" Her reply "don't know." Bri continued to look through our home, coming up with nothing. We started looking in cabinets, toy boxes, you name it we looked. And still nothing. I again asked Audra, "where are Colin's shorts?" She raised her hands palms up and stated "don't know." I give one more attempt and still nothing. As I walk by my 2 children eating something catches my eye. I yell to Bri, "I found them." He wonders where. I point to Audra eating her lunch, with her little dress up just a tad, revealing Coly's shorts. She had put them on under her dress. No wonder we could not find them. We laughed, at that point, grateful we didn't need to call a plumber to pull out a pair of shorts from the toilet.

SeaWorld Day

About once a year, SeaWorld makes a special stop at Grandma Debby's work to give the employees and families a very exclusive showing of some of their animals. We have been lucky enough to attend them all since Coly was born. Yesterday, it was SeaWorld Day again. This year Coly was so excited about the animals, he couldn't wait. In fact he bugged me ALL DAY long to take him to see Grandma Debby and the animals. Grandma Debby saved us some awesome seats, the first row and so we were able to see the animals close. Lindsey and Carter also joined us for the fun. The list of animals we saw: Armadillo, Toucan, Alligator, Spider Monkey, and Penguin. They also did a small presentation on JJ the grey whale they saved back in 1997-1998, with that came an inflatable whale, so they think they saw a whale too. Thanks Grandma Debby for saving our seats and letting us come to a fun event.