Thanksgiving....

I have many things I am thankful for in my life, but most importantly I am thankful for family and friends and any opportunity I have to spend time with them. This Thanksgiving we had the opportunity to spend time with my sister and her family. This is the first year in a while that they haven't had to travel for my nephew's football games out of town, so they invited us to their vacation home in Victor, Idaho. It was Lori, Len, and their 3 kids... Len's brother, Rich, and Nikkie and their 3 kids... Us, and 3 of our kids... and Len & Rich's mom, Judy. So we had 16 of us in this house. We had a blast and all the kids did really well together. It was nice & relaxing just to get away and enjoy the country life and good company.
Besides the fact that a few kids got sick (it never fails in our family, someone is always sick over the Thanksgiving weekend), we all had a blast. Us adults went out on the last night to a restaurant we found in town called "Cafe Luna". If anyone happens to ever be in Victor, Idaho, I highly recommend that place, it is some of the best food you'll ever eat.
Here are a few pictures I took. We were actually having so much fun, we forgot to pull our cameras out alot. And you'll notice there aren't any pictures of any of the 5 boys that were there. Yea, well that's because they were either on the 4 wheelers and no where to be found, or in the basement playing Guitar Hero, or WII, or X-Box for hours on end.




The house...

The range...

Len, the turkey chef....

The fantastic company....

Madison the cowgirl rockstar

The Drama Queens

The fun slumber parties..

Mr. Dude finally has a name....

I was informed today by Maddie that Mr. Dude has a name.... His name is Jake. Let me explain......

When I get off work every day at 5:00, I go pick up Maddie at her school at about 5:30. We drive towards home, and for as long as we both can remember, we pass this man walking down 146th towards Redwood Rd. around 5:45 every day. He must take a shuttle or something to work every day, and must be walking home from the dropoff point. He's always walking down the street, and we see him in the exact same spot each day, walking and texting on his cell phone. We always wave to him, and he sees us wave, whenver he is not looking down at his cell phone. This is something we look forward to each day on our way home. A few days out of the year, we haven't seen him, and Madison wonders 'is he sick today? I hope he has a family that's taking care of him while he's sick.'
She looks forward to seeing him every day to know he's ok. And since we didn't ever know his name, we named him "Mr. Dude"
After calling him Mr. Dude for quite a few months, I was informed today by Madison that he has a name. She said to me after we passed him, "Mom, you know Mr. Dude really has a name." I said, "Oh, really? And what is his name?" She thought really hard, and said, "Well, his name is Jake". Oh, so that answers that... We now know.
Little does Jake know, he has people who look for him each day to make sure he's ok. We worry about him when we don't see him. We hope he has a family who loves him. We hope he has a warm house to live in and food to eat. And we hope he has kids that hug him each day. Jake --- we love you.

Pictures from Russ' 40th Birthday Party...

The party I missed...

Part 2 ---- of the birthday surprise....

Today was a day that was supposed to be filled with surprises for Russ. I had been planning for weeks his big 40th birthday bash... So along with the surprise of his family flying in yesterday, which that in itself would have been the best surprise that he could have dreamed of.. I had been planning a surprise birthday party for him. With the help of my sister (Thank you Lori!) we planned for the party to be at her house, otherwise I don't think I could have kept it a surprise very well. I had sent out the invitations, planning on about 40 people to be there. This included some of his closest friends from work, their spouses, and his family from out of town, and on a whim, I planned for 3 of his friends he worked with at America West when we lived in Arizona, to fly in. I had arranged with a local restaurant to cater it, my awesome friend & neighbor Turia, http://www.sugarkissescakes.com/ , made two cakes (one for Russ, and it just so happened that today is Rich's birthday too, so one for Rich), and everything was going to be perfect. Boy would he be surprised. I really think that last night when his family showed up at our house, he thought if I had been planning anything, that THAT was the surprise. Little did he know... haha! I love surprises! The only thing that he knew was our plan was that him and I, Lori & Len, and Nikki & Rich were all going to sushi for dinner and meeting at Lori's at 8:00 p.m. tonight. Now that he knew his family was here, he knew we were adding 3 more people to our dinner plans, but still the same dinner plans....

WELL ---- that was supposed to be the plan. But last night I tossed and turned all night with the worst stomach pains and didn't get one ounce of sleep. I woke to the sharpest pains ever, and just wanted to stay in bed all day, but I knew I had a big day in front of me. I had told him, and his sisters and mom last night, that I had a few errands to run this morning, and wouldn't be going to breakfast with them. I had a few last minute things at Costco to get and run them over to Lori's house. As I was standing in line at Costco to check out about 11:00, I was feeling worse, but forced myself to finish up and get the stuff over to my sisters house. Then I ran into a store to see if I could find something new to wear for tonight. Around 1:00, I didn't think I was going to make it anymore, I called my sister in tears saying I didn't know if I'd be able to go tonight. She thought maybe I had gotten food poisoning and maybe I should go home and drink water, and fall asleep for a bit. Somehow I deep down knew, it was more than that. I drove myself to urgent care and after they took blood and urine, said my white blood count was really high, and from where I was having the pains, he was 90% sure it was my appendix. But for me to head straight over to the hospital and they would do a CT scan to determine for sure. I bawled... No one understood, I didn't have time to do this today. Couldn't it wait until tomorrow? I called Russ, and met him at the house, and he drove me to the hospital and they of course said yes, it was my appendix and I needed to go into surgery now. Even my poor husband didn't understand my tears, that I couldn't do this TONIGHT of all nights. He said he'd stay with me, not to worry, everything would be ok. And here I was saying to him, 'NO --- you need to still go to dinner with everyone tonight!' Of course, he wasn't going to leave my side..... Ughhhh! I said to him before I went into surgery around 5:00 to please just stick with the plans, please go to dinner. He didn't understand that a house full of people were going to be at my sisters house at 7:30 for HIM... The surgeon said to him, 'Listen --- just tell her to make her happy, that you're going, then when she's out for her surgery, you can stay here' I felt like saying --- you don't understand.. But I didn't want to give it up to Russ. So when they wheeled me back to surgery, I said to the surgeon and the nurses, "Listen, this is very important you are on my side.. I have a big surprise party planned for him, tons of people going to be there at 7:30, I have it catered, etc. etc... please --- help me-- tell him to go to dinner as planned" Then they understood. So when I came out of surgery an hour later (at like 6:00 and so close to game time) --- the doctor went in to talk to him in the waiting room and said, "She's doing good, but listen, she's going to be out of it for like 4 hours, sleeping and groggy, you should go to dinner with your family, she'll be fine, then you can come back" Yes! Thank you Doctor Cavin! That was the only important thing to me, this day was about Russ. So with all my surprises that were unplanned, I wanted his night to go on 'as planned'.

I looked at my clock as I sat in my hospital bed, at 7:30, thinking 'ok, all the guests are arriving', then at 8:00, thinking 'ok, Russ should be walking in her door right now', then at 8:15, thinking 'ok, he's been surprised by now, and now I know my phone's going to ring any second', then at 8:16 --- sure enough, my phone rang, he was so surprised, and at that moment -- KNEW what my determination was for in getting him there.

I will never forget this day ---- November 15th, 2008 ---- I don't know why God planned for me to sit in a hospital bed after having my appendix removed, but working so hard to make sure the party still went on ---- but I'm thankful for my health and my family.

PS --- Obviously since I wasn't at the party, I have no pictures to post from my camera, but Lori took tons, and Sarah took some, so I will get those pictures from them, and post them in a few days. And no, I wasn't sitting up in my hospital bed entering this post (haha! I'm sure a few of you were wondering since it's dated 11/15) --- I posted it a week later, but back dated it to 11/15 ---- :)

Part 1 -- of the birthday surprise...

For weeks now I've been planning Russ's big 40th birthday surprise. I've been very successful in keeping the plans from him. Originally when we talked about his 40th birthday, he said he only wanted a party if his family could come. At that time, since we're all going to be together at Christmas with his family, they couldn't do a second trip also during November so close to the other trip. So I told him they wouldn't be able to come, and then he decided he just wanted new Ping G-10 golf clubs.
So that was going to be it. After thinking about the whole thing for a while, me, along with my sister, Lori, and friend, Nikki, decided it would still be fun to have a little surprise party for him on Saturday night anyways. So with lots of work, that was our plan. Also, some planning with his mom and sisters, we decided they would still fly in and surprise him. His mom, Barb, and sister, Karen, both flew in today from Minnesota. And his other sister, Lisa, flew in from Sacramento. They flew in around 3:00 in the afternoon, and since his surprise party wasn't until Saturday night, and they flew in today, we wanted them to surprise him a day early, and he would think that was his surprise. So our plan was when Russ got home from work, they would just come over to the house and knock on the door. So around 6:00, they knocked at the door and Russ answered it and was so surprised to see his family standing there. We grilled steaks and had an awesome night.... He wasn't expecting them at all to show up, so I was very excited we pulled this first part off without a hitch... Stay tuned for Part 2....

Happy Birthday Russ...

Today is Russ's 40th birthday (yes, he did marry a older woman!) I want to tell my husband how much I love him and appreciate the hard work he puts into our family on a daily basis. I KNOW he'll have the best birthday ever this year.

I wanted to share just a few of the many things I love about him.....

* I love the father that he is to our children and the great example he's been to his step-children.

* I love the way he can make me laugh even when I'm being stubborn and don't want to laugh.

* I love the work ethic that he's had his whole life, starting from childhood, and that's carried into his adulthood. The hard work he puts into supporting our family, and the dedication and 'nothing but the best' attitude he has in regards to his work.

* I love the way he has dreams and goals, and the way they mold in with my dreams and goals.

* I love the way he always thinks of me, and asks me what I think before he makes even the smallest decision.

* I love the way he allows me to be me, and encourages me to spend time with my friends, and never complains.

* I love the sensitive side of him.

* I love the amazing person he is with everyone around him. His unconditional caring attitude he has with his friends and family.

Russ --- you are an amazing person. Thank you for being the person you are, I love you from the depths of my heart!!

The countdown....

All I have to say is ---- if you are not as excited as I am for the release of this movie, well then, I may have to re-evaluate our friendship... haha! Just kidding. But I really am excited and I understand it's hard for anyone to completely understand if you haven't read the books. So for me and my die hard vampire friends, we will be there on opening night...

Happy Halloween!!

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