A Spoon Full of Sugar...

A year ago the girls made a deal with their mom. They would both quit drinking soda pop for a year if they were each paid a $100 dollars. I'm not sure how this even came about. Maybe it was a New Year's resolution gone bad and somehow mom was conned out of money? I'm guessing it went something like this:

Daughter 1.      "My New Year's resolution is to quit drinking pop for a year." 

Lois.                 "You won't do that."
Daughter 1.      "I'll bet you a hundred dollars right now!"
Daughter 2.      "Oh, me too, me too!"

Whatever happened, a deal was made and it looks like the girls will be receiving some money come New Year's Eve.
It has really been nice, though. We have probably saved ourselves a lot of money between buying pop and dentist appointments. And I am pretty sure we've made fewer dental appointments for them in the past year.
The other day while Lois and I were driving into work, Lois told me that Aly asked her if she could get her money early. She said Aly wanted to use it to buy Christmas presents. This made me smile. Aly has always had a good heart and she is always thinking of others. Whenever she does something like this it always melts my heart.
At Christmas time she is always the first to run up to the Salvation Army's Santa Claus to drop change into the bucket. In the summer she will ask if we can give the guy on the corner a buck or two. The other day while walking through the grocery store Aly asked if she could buy a couple cases of food to donate to her food drive at school.
I have always admired this trait of hers and I am moved by it each time she does it.
As we drove into work on that one morning Lois went on to say: "Do you know what your other daughter is going to buy?"
"What?" I asked.
"I don't know, probably Hot Cheetos and clothes. But I'm pretty sure she'll spend it on herself." Lois said.
And we both laughed because Lois is right. And I love her just as much but for different reasons.

Weekend Photos and Touch-ups

There is no post here today, just some pictures. I promise I'll write something sometime soon. Even if it's one of those twenty things about something. I might be able to come up with 10.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.

The Fishing Trip

And you're searching for this why?

The other day I was looking at a google search that someone did trying to find my blog. Actually they weren't trying to find my blog at all; they were looking for something else and ended up at my blog. 
The search query was "forced to smell teachers feet." I looked at Lois and I told her that someone had just found my blog by that query and she laughed. "How weird is that?"

I didn't really give it much thought until the next time it happened, which was only a couple of days later. So I clicked on the link because I couldn't understand how my blog kept coming up with that search. It turned out that a story I wrote during Halloween carried the line, "forced to smell feet" and there was another post that I had written that had something to do with teachers. My blog has since then come up numerous times under that google search.

The other night I ran across yet another query for this and Lois once again said, "How weird is that? Why would anyone even think about looking for 'forced to smell teachers feet?' People are just bizarre."

I shrugged my shoulders and agreed.

Tonight when we came home from buying the girls some winter boots, I turned on my computer and looked at my blog and, yes, there was yet another search for "forced to smell teachers feet."

I of course told Lois and then listened to her jump out of her skin at the mere creepy thought. She said she was going to google it right then and see what came up.

A minute later she said, "Well, you're not in the top 10."

"That's good." I thought.

"You're number 12 out of 2,710,000. Huh, you should read number 13."

Or maybe not.

Moon Rise

Beautiful moonrise tonight.

 

 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Kregarious

When Lorrie Veasey from Our Name is Blog first said that she was going to send Krëg our way, I was a little apprehensive...what with the children and all. I thought my girls might pick up some bad habits. But as it turned out, I think they all swapped some ideas.

Like there was the time when I caught the girls showing Krëg how to fill up water balloons to throw at people. I was going to talk to them about it and tell them not to encourage him, but then he decided to show them it was much easier chasing people with a water hose.

When we first picked up Krëg, he had just stepped off the fun bus from Wendover, NV. We asked him how he did but he just held his head down and seemed a little reluctant to talk about it. Somehow he overshot Salt Lake by over a hundred miles and wound up in a casino.

Krëg said that he was really starving because he hadn't eaten anything for three days. He asked if we could go Red Lobster. We were sorry to inform him that we didn't have a Red Lobster. 

First night out on the town
 

After dinner we took him out to see an NBA Jazz game. He seemed to really enjoy that. By the time it ended it was pretty late so we took him home and showed him the guest room.

 Jazz game

The following day we took Krëg to the Great Salt Lake, unfortunately the seagulls kept attacking him. Later we decided to take him river rafting up on the Green river and he thought that was pretty cool.

 River rafting

 The next day Aly had a field trip and he decided to hang out with her and her class because Lois and I had to work. I thought that was real nice of him.

 Krëg on the school bus.
 

 Krëg telling the school kids where to go.
 

When they got back, the girls talked Krëg into rocking out with them for a jam session. They even talked him into wearing their band outfits. I think he was a real good sport about it.

Jeni and Krëg

Alyson and Krëg

We were going to take Krëg around town and show him some of the local sites, but even we realized that letting Krëg loose in downtown Salt Lake City was probably not a good idea. So we did the next best thing and took him up to Park City. Krëg wanted to go to a bar but I explained to him the alcohol content is only .032 percent.

Park City, Utah

"Are you sure you want to go that route?" I asked, "You may have to drink 23 beers to get a buzz. Plus, I guarantee they won't let you on stage to play in the band in this state. You need to have something like a business license to get onstage. And, if you get caught drinking while you're playing, you will have to pay unbelievable fines."
"That's just ridiculous," he mumbled, "I think I want to go back to Dallas."
Five minutes later Krëg was gone. We went looking all over for him but we couldn't find him. One person said they might have seen him hitch-hiking with a Colorado sign in his hand. But then they changed their mind and said it could have been Canada.
We had a good time though, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your vacation, Krëg, and make it home safely.

Random Weekend Shots

A Real Live Pumpkin Head

Girls being crazy

Going into Hibernation

Girls rock climbing in sandals

Lois waiting for girls to tumble off of big rock

 

Snow and Autumn

My Beautiful family

The Dark Night.

The warrior looked at the woman and grimaced. He could not quite understand why she smiled at him. Her face was grotesque and it almost sickened him to look at the protrusion that stuck out on her face between her eyes. It had to be three inches long and there was some sort of lump on it. He wanted to use his laser sword that he carried on his side to remove it. It would only take him a moment, he thought. And that tall black thing she wore on her head was very strange to look at. The pointy thing hung down like it was some kind of animal and it moved every time she cackled. He saw no function for it. These creatures were so primitive.
Now she was holding a large orange object in her hands and when she set it down on the ground she reached inside of it and used something to start a fire. He did not understand how she did it. The fire seemed to jump out of a magic box. That device could prove to be functional. When he returned this way he would stop by and remove it from her hand. He was itching to use his laser. But for now he was only here to observe.
As darkness started moving across the sky he began to see them. They were everywhere. They looked like bugs crawling out of nowhere in masses. High shrill voices made him grab his ear. They were small creatures but they were different from the woman. He almost recognized some of them. But he couldn't understand how these creatures came to be grouped together. It was as if they were in alliance with each other. He had not expected this. All of them carried some sort of satchel with them and they all traveled from one lodge to another chanting the very same thing.
He stood by the corner of a lodge and watched as a group of creatures went to the doorway. In unison they screamed those same words when the door opened.
"Trick or Treat, Give me something good to eat."
It was the same thing every time and more creatures would line up behind them screaming similar words. The people inside their lodge would fill their satchels and the creatures would run into the night.
Suddenly the warrior became tense. He had never seen such a thing in his life. Somehow these creatures made him tremble for his life.
He saw more of those women; only they were a smaller breed. They all had that same protrusion hanging between their eyes. There were furry covered animals and there were men in black capes with very sharp teeth. Some of them said, "I've come to suck your blood".
There was no way his clan could wage war on this planet. The way these creatures moved together showed a sense of unity unparalleled to his planet. And the awful shrieking noise they made hurt his ear. He suddenly found himself walking in the shadows under the cover of darkness. He didn't want them to notice him. Again he heard the chanting as he passed by their lodges.
"Trick or Treat, Smell my Feet, Give me something Good to Eat!"
This was just unbelievable. They wanted food and it seemed as if you didn't abide with their demands you would have to smell their feet. He gagged as the thought occurred to him. They were all sick from disease or something. There were more creatures now. Tiny looking nymphs and angelic creatures. Robotic automatons. There were walking dead things. He would die before he smelled their feet.
"Trick or Treat!" The chanting came from the lodge behind him. He turned to look and he saw that more orange things lit up the night. They all seemed to have eyes that flickered. This was like a ceremony. There would be blood tonight. Lots and lots of blood.
The warrior was done scouting this particular pathway. He'd already seen hundreds of soldiers racing through the night and he wondered how many had already been forced to smell feet. He wondered what kind of gifts were thrown into the satchels to ward off these demonic looking creatures and how much blood had been spilled for not obeying.
"Trick or Treat!"
The warrior grabbed his ear and turned to see a small creature standing below him. It had little wings that came out of its back that appeared transparent.
"I'm a fairy." The creature said, in a quiet voice.
The warrior placed his hands over both his mouths and ran down the street snorting. His snout flung from side to side as he raced to the field where his ship was hidden. He didn't want to call attention to himself. He just wanted to leave.
There would be no battle here. They would look further.
Earth was a scary place.

By Beaux Kyle 
© 2009

Back in the Game

After months of anguish involving our insurance and a drug called Prograf, getting my adoption records opened and trying to register with my Native American Indian tribe, we have finally found some relief. It looks like we will be able to get our Prograf.
Our family started a journey a few months ago that has been both painful and heart-wrenching. We have gone down roads that I never expected I would ever have to travel on. Searching for my adoptive parents was one of them. This was something that I was not eager to do.
As most of you know, our insurance coverage changed when the economy went all crazy, and as a result the anti-rejection drug Prograf came off the table when the new plan went into effect. This backed us into a corner trying to figure out how we were going to be able to come up with the thousands of dollars a month to pay for this one drug alone that I will have to take for the rest of my life. We were told by the transplant center that there would be no transplant if we couldn't get aftercare drugs -- something our insurance plan originally covered.
This past week we were notified that our insurance will offer an option that will cover Prograf. The insurance will be expensive, but nothing compared to the cost of the drug without insurance. We were overwhelmed, to say the least. Over these past months we have been blessed to have so many people step forward to help out in whatever way they could. Some offered advice, some legal counsel, and some offered friendship. There were many prayers and many thoughtful wishes. Lois and the girls and I are thankful to everyone who has helped us along this journey.
While all of this has been going on, it has also opened up some questions about my adoption records. We have court records showing that I have two sets of names for my parents. How does that happen? Well, we aren't sure, so we are still going to try to figure out all that. It also suspends any hope of trying to get registered with the Indian tribe. We were asked by a representative of the tribe to get the original birth certificate so they could run it against their membership. We did that, but that individual never responded when we tried to contact her to let her know. Most of that problem can be attributed to just one person who doesn't seem to care about our request. Maybe we will have to talk to someone higher up in the tribal council or make a run to Arizona. One step at a time.
Again I have no words. We thank you all.
And YEA, Prograf!