Thanksgiving Late

I had a really nice, fun, relaxing thanksgiving. Maybe wasn't that so much for Jenny and her family since I basically just crashed there fun. Have I mentioned what an awesome family I have? I've crashed Nathan and Neita's party a few times, and this is the 2nd Thanksgiving I went to TX. I know mom misses me (well at least I hope she does) but I feel like since I go home for Christmas, Thanksgiving gives me a chance to see and spend time with some siblings in their natural habbitats. Also when I was in school in ID, and on the mission its not like I went home for turkey.


Anyways, enough of that. Here Melanie blogged about our trip, and here too. Jenny already blogged about Thanksgiving too, so this will be repeats, but I wanted to write about it anyways. I sure wish I had taken more photos, as I didn't get pictures of everyone, but its ok since they know they were there. Like I said before, it was a great Thanksgiving and I am so thankful for all the blessings I have, including the chance to be with family.





On leaving the airport there was something imediately different. it was WARM! I just sat in the sunshine and felt so good. After Jenny picked me up we had to get some nice pie plates for the culinary masterpieces. I got Jenny an apron. I wanted to get her the one that said she was queen (or this "sexy" one) but the one we picked out had better fabric. Here you can see Jenny using it, and Melanie doing something silly.






Jenny also treated me to some tasty noodles that night at an asian diner thingymajig.





Tom did a smoked turkey and boy was it tasty! We had all the usual fixins and they were all extremely tasty too. Also did some "appetizors" in Jenny's fry daddy. I always get appliance envy, but its probably good if I don't endulge in this one, but boy are fried things tasty! Speaking of kitchen appliances, Jenny needs an apple peeler, corer, slicer!

We ate a good lunch/ dinner, and due to the appetizers there was plenty of left overs for turkey sandwiches, etc the next day!

We had pie too, later of course when we could enjoy it better.

Jenny and Tom spent lots of money and warmed up the pool. It felt so good! We swam during the day and soaked in the hot tub at night for a couple of days. I didn't spend as much time in there as Jacob did since he saw rainbows around all the lights that night.

We went to belly dancing on Friday morning. We woke up late and Jenny was very stressed out... One of the girls said, "my mom is crying in the car." when I was taking the time to brush my teeth. So although it was stressful getting there, the lady had waited and we had a good time. I'm not coordinated but it was fun as it was just one other lady, and Melanie, Jenny, Megan, Carly, Sarah, and I.

We did lots of other fun stuff, and even went to a football game. Football really is big in Texas. There were more people there and the stadium was bigger then some college games I've been to. Wow. It was really fun. I was a bit onry on our way there but once I got a couple of brats in at the "tailgate" party the evening looked up considerably.

Monday morning I joined Jenny for some belly dancing again. I was sore in wierd places for a couple of days later.

Before it was time for me to go I got to help a little at the nativity display thingy that Jenny's stake does. Its a huge undertaking and is very impressive! (This is Jenny's honkin big tree- I'm standing up on a table to reach the top branches)

So I wanted to again say thanks to Jenny and Tom and the kids for letting me come and hang out.

I was not too happy to be back to the cold and to work. It didn't help that I picked up a cold somewhere, but I'm mostly better now. I still need to blog about my lasik and some other things since then, but we'll see.

last 3 weeks or so

I'm sure many great and wonderful things or cute, funny things that I can be witty about have happened, but right now can't think of any so this will have to do.


Angela had a performance in SLC with her orchestra and so Melanie came up from Vegas and we had a fun short visit. Oh and we watched Angela, well not really her so much since it was difficult to see her (thats what happens when you are really short) so more like listened to her. It was a good performance. I liked it and Melanie and I discussed it on the way back. I would give a link to Melanie's blog but as she posted a short video that was not for public viewing I'm not going to. (for those of you who already did, the finger licking and neighing is from when Megan and Carly were little and making a documentary of sorts while visiting grandma (and Me, and some other aunts and uncles)).

This guy kept getting in the way, Angela is right behind him.



















Poor Melanie wasn't feeling real well but I was still happy to have her here. I cleaned the bathroom and my room all up for her :) The funny thing was I got a roatisary chicken from costco and Melanie was amazed at how tasty it is. It is mighty tasty!











Speaking of other loves from costoc....



This is my new lover. Always available, always warm. There have been some funny quotes too since it came to our home, mostly along the lines of my lover not being being completely monagamous.









I am finally rescheduled for lasic. Its expensive but I think I'm ready to go ahead because I am SOOOOO tired of my glasses! I also got the bill for having that eye surgery. wow.







Basketball season has started! I love watching my friend Cathy. When they win we go out for icecream/frozen yogurt. This year I'm sitting all by myself but its ok cause I text Jamie (who listens on line when she can) when Cathy stomps her foot. this only happens when things don't go her way so don't get the wrong idea!

I grilled up the tomatillas and hot peppers from my garden, canned tomatoes, apple sauce, and tomatillos, and made a sort of hot sauce with the peppers. I didn't get many cans from all of this but I will enjoy what i've got. Now its time to start planning and dreaming for next year.

I should make another post, but because I'm lazy here are some halloween pics.

orange lights and lots of spider webs, jack-o lantern in front plus a caldren with candles and dry ice.

I forgot to take a picture of my trunk or treat. I put spider webs, glow in the dark decals (spiders and jack o lanterns) on my car, had my bubbling caldron set up and a chair for me. I also attempted to have a black light but as it was still light out for the trunk or treat that was a failure. I went as a witch and here is my costume (again forgot to take a picture). I was very eclectic.

this is all the candy we had left after trunk or treat. its a cooler completely full! No worries its almost all gone now. Aparently around here the kids just go around the cars once (maybe twice for a few kids) and then head off to other fun activities. So I had way over calculated the amount needed! I also had passed out spider rings and glow sticks which were way popular. So I'll have to play better next time...

And lastly a picture of a giant zuchini just cause. I was thinking of saving this one to get seeds off of because this plan stayed healthy while the others didn't fair so well, but it got a little frosted after this picture and disintigrated.

eye yi yi

so. i'm not getting my eyes lasered in two days. I got one lazerd today but still have my glasses on. boo.

Last Saturday had my pre-op for the lasik and they found a hole in my right retina. For those of you who don't know thats not a great thing. Then the doctor found fluid under the hole. This is worse. So they made an appointment for me with a retina specialist because changing the presure (which lasik does) could cause the fluid to increase thus detaching the retina.. That is very bad.

Side note on the weather to ease any tension:
It was snowing today, that was nice, but not fun to drive up to SLC. I brought in what was left in the garden last night. It is hard to find tomatoes, etc. in the dark. I pulled out the tomatoes, brought them to the porch, realized it was still going to take forever so enlisted helpful roommates. Then I would walk back to the garden and step on something that would pop and say, "darn!" cause I squished a tomato or tomatillo. So that was actually kind of fun.

Hope that was a nice break, back to the story at hand:
So the retina guy was very fast at looking at my eyes so I wasn't worried and thought everything was fine. Then he told me that I had latice degeneration or something like that. 4 patches of it in the right eye with one big hole with fluid, and another smaller hole with fluid. and a couple patches in the left eye but no holes... yet. So with the holes and fluid the doctor indicated I have a 1 in 10 chance of retinal detachment. ummm thats not good.

apparently for us blinder people our retinas can stretch out and get really thin and then go away somewhere leaving just the support structure (ie veins, etc) and so it looks like just a latice. Hence the latice degeneration thingy.

So he said they would lazer around the fluid stuff to glue the retina back down, basically cauterizing it so fluid can't spread. then he talked about the anethesia required. Seemed like a good idea to me. didn't expect that to happen today though...

Few minutes later I signed a form moved into another room. They deadened the right eye, and then stuck a needle in it. Then I fainted. oops

-there goes my strong tough image.

Then he lazered my eye. That didn't feel good either even though I couldn't feel much, and took quite a while too which I didn't expect since lasik would take less then a minute for each eye. He kept telling his assistant to up the lazer. That made me worried too. I think I was still a bit out of it from fainting which actually made it go better since I was used to it while he was doing it.

then I couldn't see and thought my eye was closed but it wasn't. Just over loaded from the green lazer. the first thing that came back was purple which was odd but pretty. I felt shaky but no longer sick, and my limbs went where i told them to which is always helpful for walking out of an office.

Then i paid my co pay ($35 for a specialist) they gave me a piece of dark plastic to put behind my glasses to shield my dialaited eyes and a cold icepack for my eye and suggested i take some ibprofin.

I got out to my car and called mom because thats what you do when you have unexpected eye surgery stuff.

Then I drove back to work to take care of some stuff then I started feeling icky and my eye was hurting so I came home. My eye feels stiff and sore. Its red where the needle went in. It feels odd deep in there, not really hurting just odd. Guess thats either the retina or where he missed and got my brain.

Anyways i go back in 3 weeks to see how I'm healed and if everything is fine could do lasik. But, i'm a bit worried now that i would faint again. I guess they give you a valium which i could've used today. Also i'm stuck in my glasses for at least 3 more weeks if I want to do lasik. I guess i should've asked if i can even where contacts while i heal because it would be a moot point.

So I strongly encourage everyone to get their eyes checked out regularly. This is something I will have to watch for the rest of my life. I wonder if I had gotten lasik like a couple of years ago when I first started thinking about it if my retinas wouldn't have degenerated like they did? What if I had gone to my regular eye doctor for a check up instead of the lasik proceedure would they have done anything? probably. but still even though my eye is sore and I am still stuck in annoying glasses its good that the problem is fixed for now with no loss in vision that I can tell.

Well I'm tired even with some napping and my eyes hurt so goodnight everyone!

long post for fun times

so, i've been doing some fun things but haven't posted. So here are some comments and photos. hopefully not too long of a post!

Winter was well on its way, killing off the garden. I covered up flowers and tomatoes, peppers, even the zuchini plant. And got up early before the sun to spray things that I hadn't covered so they could survive. And it didn't warm back up for winter for over a week or so, so I felt stupid going out every night but didn't have time to actively harvest. Eventually I stopped getting up to spray and then stopped covering some of the flowers. and then joy of joys it warmed back up and has been worth it for the last two weeks or so!

Of course the squash was gone after the first night. Some of the squash got frosted but seem to be keeping just fine. I pulled the rest in as it got colder. Here is Angela displaying some fruits of my labor.

While the bannana squash are huge, the spaghetti squash is definately the winner as far as production goes. Unfortunately they got in late and didn't have a chance to ripen before frost.

I had a picture with Angela and some of my other veggies but lost that one. Here are three giant carrots I picked today with a regular store carrot on the far right for comparison.

My box of huge red tatoes. Nuff said.

Like I said earlier, I covered the zuchinni but as it hailed one night the ice sitting on top of the sheet was enough to freeze it. Guess I had enough zuchinni anyways.

So, a guy at work brought in a huge moving box full of organic apples (ie from a tree in his backyard that they didn't do anything with). I had one for lunch and then being the last one who left for the day, took down the sign he put up (free apples) in the office and took the WHOLE BOX. Kate and Mama were so happy you would've thought it was the latest boy band showing up to a teenage girl sleepover. I have made many many many batches of dried apples (which have all disapeared strange enough), some fresh applesauce, and yesterday apple butter due to Bethanie's inspiration.

I got my haircut short again. Its not as A-line as last time and a little shorter. I look cute. Too bad you can't tell from my photos.

Went to the Rooster restaurant with Angela. It was very tasty and her face was clasic when she got her first "zhen zhu" or Boba. This is Andy and Simi's new restaurant in Provo. My favorite is the chocolate lava cake.

I went up to park city with Cathy on a last fling before bball starts in ernest. It was beautiful weather, we toured the Heber Valley Camp (girls camp run by the church but wouldn't really work for our family reunion), saw amazing clounds, checked out the olypmic venue and had a fun, easy time. Cathy didn't want her picture taken, as you can tell but I got her in the car talking to Malinda.

My Maxmillian sunflowers are only starting to bloom and most of them fell down. I'm really hopefull for next year! My regular sunflowers seemed to not be as healthy this year. I'm not going to be able to mulch a lot of flowers and veggies due to disease.





I think these dahlias are perenials. I got some really pretty ones and so I'm excited for next year. I do want to get some of those giant ones just for fun.

This post is all mixed up, so just to clarify Angela came up conference weekend. She even managed to score some tickets. I don't know if she had that much fun hanging out with an old lady like me but it was fun to me to spend time with her. After Sat afternoon conference we went to petsmart to get Thorpe groomed but apparently its by appointment only. So he is still stinky but he got to pick out some toys. He likes the squeeker in this rubber ball but didn't like to pick it up. It made me laugh.

Last week is when I got my hair cut and then went to Park City. I also made an appointment for Lasik. I'm a good canidate thanks to my thick corneas. Whoohooo. I've got a pre-op next week and the following week I may get my eyes lasered. I say MAY because I MAY whimp out.

Melanie's Triathalon

I went down to St. George to watch Melanie do kokopeli. I had some trouble getting to St. George but once I was there everything was great. I always like looking at the lavendar fields on my way there, as well as for the big hawks nest. A fun call from Bethanie made the ride go quicker.

Melanie had found a great condo that was so much nicer then a hotel room. We laughed and talked and went to see the flowers at the temple. The St. George Temple is so pretty. It looks very little from any where else in the city.

Here is a picture of Melanie sniffing the cotton. Its interesting because unlike most textiles, cotton is exactly that out of the plant. its cotton!

Isn't she cute and all ready for her race!

We had a great dinner (melanie, mom, and i) then met Melissa back at the condo. We walked around that night and turned in early since Melanie had her big day. (Well Melanie turned in early, the rest of us talked till much later, and then mom and I kept talking after we went to our room). I've decided I really like king beds.

Now for the big day. Melanie got up bright and early. I had to get up early for me, but I was still a pleasure to be around! Unfortuanately none of us remembered to grab Mel's camera so mom and i resorted to camera phones. Melanie did awesome!

Mom is sure cute! I don't know why I didn't end up with any Melissa pictures till the end....

The swim start:


The Swim: (this one is pretty boring)

Coming Out Of the water she looks great: (sorry about my loud squeeky voice)

Here she goes on the bike!

Here she comes back on the bike

Transitioning and into the run (notice my awesome phone camera skills!)



And now for the big finish!




Isn't she cute! Still smiling:

Here is Melanie getting her award!











It was a beautiful day, and Melanie did awesome. We did the Cafe Rio lunch and then hung out some more. We ended up staying in St. George for that night, watching the BYU game and then the general relief society meeting. Grabbed some delicious shakes and then went to bed. Next day hung out some more, went to church and then I drove home :(

It was a quick fun vacation. I'd love to see Melanie do another triathalon this season as she did so well in this one.... I'll always come cheer her on!


See this link for her take on the day
http://msmarthelm.blogspot.com/2009/09/around-triathlon.html