How Tall is Your Child

At our house, we keep track of Tanner's height my tracking the dents in the walls made by his head. Over the years there has been a succession of random forehead marks up and down the hallway. Aside from dents differing in height each year, the dents become more and more pronounced and deep. This is the first year that Tanner has actually hit hard enough to break the sheet rock and make a full blown hole. We are SO proud of him! Our little boy is growing up.

First Fish at Fun Fieldtrip

Picture This:

A beat up fishing pole with no reel, just a 3 ft string on the end.
A hook but no bait
A pond packed full of stupid fish
Tanner catching a fish by its belly simply because the fish just happened to run into the hook

Next, Tanner realizes he has something heavy and wiggly on the end of the string so he proceeds to pull the poor fish out of the water, swing it around a bit and then he throws it back in the pond, loving the splash it makes. All the while, the unfortunate fish has a hook stuck in it's belly and is flying in and out of the water multiple times while Tanner giggles.

Then I rescued the poor creature from a confusing but agonizing death and made Tanner hold his fish....he gagged.



We also took a stroll through the haunted corn maze where every few yards Tanner would take a tumble into the corn because of the precarious footing. Then I'd have to hoist him back on his feet so that he could trip again, every time he would giggle as I growled at him to watch his feet.


It was a beautiful fall day

You'll Like This One...

A funny thing happened at work the other day...

I was working in the Emergency Room, you know, where all the sick and hurt people congregate, and was called to do a bedside chest x-ray, which is quite an ordinary thing for me to do. As I pushed my x-ray machine down the hall to an awaiting patient, I noticed an inordinate and unusual amount of men in suits with those curly wires coming out of their ear. Also, IMC's security force was out in the halls whispering to each other.
I raised my eyebrows and said to myself ," There must be somebody important in the ER tonight". Then I continued on down the hallway, stopping at the particular room where I was to do the particular chest x-ray. I parted the curtains and professionally pushed my machine in. A very nice gentleman commented on how pink my scrubs were, for they were, indeed, a very nice shade of Pepto-Bismo (not that he said that , of course). I responded with my well rehearsed "I'm just trying to brighten the place up a bit". To which he replied, "Well, your smile does that."
Smiling some more at the compliment, I x-rayed this man's ailing wife and then returned to my area, noticing along the way, all the well dressed people standing around.
As I was completing my paperwork I happened to notice that my patient had the last name of Monson and then I recalled seeing a few missionaries in the waiting room, so I innocently asked my co-worker, "Hey, is there somebody important in the church with the last name of Monson?"
With an exasperated response, she said, "Yes, the Prophet". So then it hit me that the nice man who complimented me was indeed President Monson, the Prophet of the LDS church!!!
How did I not recognize him, you wonder. I guess I'm just not very observant.
Now, when I think back, I definitely don't deserve to be in the same room with a man who has the powers of Moses.

Goodbye Mud

Five years ago our yard looked like this:


With a lot of creativity and hard work, the yard was transformed step by step into something amazing.


A rock wall here, a boulder there, a tree, some bushes, a bunch of flowers
and most of all......

GRASS! Green, soft grass.

It wasn't easy making the backyard a paradise. Rain water seemed to create an unwanted pond, so Dave put in drain lines, dug holes to install pumps , contoured and shaped the slopes. He dug trenches for sprinkler pipe and electrical conduits. He hauled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of rich fertilizer. He constructed a waterfall, made a fire pit, and layed stone pathways.



------------------------------------Spring 2000-----------------------------

land drains

putting in a water pump

ISN'T HE AMAZING!!!

There is one problem though; what will Tanner do now?
---no more mud clods
---no more sitting in mud puddles
---no more muddy water



Sorry Buddy

Upstate NY 2009

The Waterfall Tour of 2009
---Taughannock Falls
---Montour Falls
---Niagara Falls
---Ithaca Falls
---Watkins Glen

All of us at Taughannock Falls----the highest waterfall east of the Rockies
-----------------yes, even higher than Niagara!

Niagara Falls--the most powerful waterfall in North America

The Canadian Side

The Erie Canal
--a 363 mile, man- made waterway connecting Lake Erie to the Hudson River
we biked from Pittsford to Fairport (7 miles)

But really, the kids just wanted to get back to the hotel for a swim

and some exercise

Mom and Pops nodding off at the airport...we had to get up at 4:00 a.m. to catch the flight out


What a great time we had with all the kids. We drove from one small town to another amongst beautiful hard wood forests and green pastureland. Big red barns dotted the countryside. Every few miles we would pass a little farmers market offering crisp apples and sweet corn. Rivers and lakes were plentiful. And then we flew back to our home in the desert.

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