Bear-ly Lake

We were able to go to bear-ly lake (as Alivia calls it??)

My mom's good friend has a cabin she lets our family stay at.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU!! I am not really a tent person, o-kay!!

It is so pretty up there and the kids love it. We went on 4 wheeler rides, played on the beach, (or played at the Ocean as Cooper refers to it)

Cooper sat in the same spot digging, splashing and just having a good time for about 2 hours.

Alivia loves to make mud cakes, which she likes to throw at her mother.

Bauer just loves to play who ever and where ever he will join the crowd.

The only downside, but still fun was both of my sisters and some of you know have been fortunate enough to adopt.

Jennifer has adopted 3 and Stephanie has adopted one and has adoptions date set for the other two.

The really neat thing is, when I was pregnant with Alivia and after I had Alivia Jennifer found out she would be getting a little girl born 5 months after Livi, and then Stephanie ended up getting a little girl. So the pattern was set. I had a boy, Jennifer adopted a boy. Stephanie got a little boy ( in foster care you don't get to choose, who, what or when just the age range)

I had another boy and yes both sisters got boys.

So now my mom after YEARS of no grandchildren has 10 grandchildren under the age of 5.

AND YES they were all there at bear lake and it was BUSY!!!!!

Glad to be HOME!!! and I only left with 4 out of 10 wheeeewwww........-

A side note of funnies.

The other day I told Alivia that her hair had a lot of fly-a-ways and she said, yes my hair does get flys sometimes:)

And Bauer at Bear Lake, we would see quite a few deer and he would say "Mom, Mom, look a beer"

5 years ago...

WARNING THERE ARE SOME CRAZY PICTURES OF BEN'S LEG.....DON'T SCROLL too far IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH:)

5 years ago, this next week. Ben got a job at Target and about 3 months later we had a big trip planned to Lake Mead. We were going to take our wave runner with us so we took them to Utah lake to test them out.

Ben's friend from Target came with us, (he had never rode wave runner before)

They were out on the lake they went so far east we couldn't see them anymore and then I noticed about 20 minutes or so them coming back. Ben was slumped over the handle bars, and knowing Ben, that just seemed weird I went running down to the dock and yelled at him, asking what was wrong.

He told me that he had broke his leg, I looked down and saw that his leg was bruised really bad, and said okay let's go to the hospital.

His brother Jared who was in town from Canada to go with us on the trip to Lake Mead. Jared put his arms under Ben and tried to help him off the wave runner and that's when we all saw how bad his leg was.

It had broke through both bones, he had part of a bone in the middle of his shin sticking out and and a big cut down by the top of his foot. It was then I realized we would need to call 911. We did and they didn't understand where we were. We were on the west side of Utah lake at the nice marina they have over there, but 5 years ago it wasn't nearly as busy as it is now. They transferred my phone call at least 4-5 times to different dispatchers trying to get me to the right person.

Finally a first responder came and she was trying to stabilize his leg, she wanted to move his leg, we told her it was broken all the way through, she moved it anyway. But it lite a fire under he butt to get people out there to help us.

Ben was then in so much pain, he had been in shock and now he was in a lot of pain. The ambulance got there and they gave him quite a bit of morphine, to get him in the ambulance.

The ride to the hospital was a joke. It was rush hour, we had to wait for a train at the round-da-bout. The ambulance driver said to his co-workers. We should have called air-med, (you don't say that with a wife sitting next to you)

So about 2 hours after the accident we made it to AF hospital.

He then went to emergency surgery about 2 hours later ( I know all of the OR rooms were full)

He got out of surgery about midnight. He had a titanium rod placed in his leg, and they left the other bone broken.

It gets worse. Ben was in SO MUCH PAIN, overnight we all just thought it was because of what happen. That was the LONGEST night of my life. They kept upping his pain meds and that would make him breath really shallow, and at times would stop breathing for 30 seconds to 45 seconds. I finally put my hand on his chest. (come to find out, they should have put a pulse oximeter on his finger)

Finally the doctor came in about 8:00am and unwrapped his leg. The look on his face was horrifying.

He looked at the nurse and told her to call and clear the OR, he needed to rush him in to emergency surgery again.

He had what was called compartment syndrome. His muscles and tissues was so traumatized that they swelled up so bad that his skin was tearing and he had huge blisters of fluid from his leg being 4-5 times it's normal size.

So they took him in they "filleted" his leg is what he called it, no joke.....

so here are the pics from the surgery after they cut it open to release the pressure they left it open for 5 days and then after 5 days he went back to surgery and then sewed it back up.

The things that I am grateful for, Ben had worked at Target 93 days. His insurance kicked in after 90 days of employment. 35,000 is what his bill came to and we owed about 20% of that.

Also the other lesson I learned. If you ever experience something traumatic and you are traveling in the ambulance you can INSIST they take you to a bigger hospital, I did ask them to take him to the U. But they said he was so unstable. I found out you can ask for more, air med etc.....

Of course now it is all 20/20 and I would have done things different.

He had a lot of and still does have nerve damage in his foot, because they took so long to do the surgery and the nurses all night long never checked on his leg and realized what was happening.

So what actually happen Ben and his friend were riding by each other and the friend fell back. Ben couldn't see him anymore and turned around to see where he was and he was right behind him, following to close and had no time to stop the whole force of the machine hit ben's leg and hand.

~First day of school~

Yeah the first day of school for little Alivia.
She was so excited she had her backpack on this morning at 8:00 am.
Her teacher is Miss Gurney and she is SO cute.
The pics below Bauer was pouting because he didn't want her to leave and he wouldn't smile for the picture???
Cooper has this really bad habit right now of holding onto the front of his pants and it DRIVES me crazy, so it is actually funny that I got a pic of him doing that..because we constantly say to him ALL DAY long..... let go of your pants....ughhhh










Also a unnerving story that happened the other day. I had made the kids lunch and Alivia was eating a BBQ beef sandwich, and I took some stuff out to the garage and walked back in and saw this horrified look on her face and saw her trying to breath. SHE WAS CHOKING......oh my gosh I ran over to her and hit her on her back and the meat came flying out.....
She took this huge breath and started crying, "mommy I couldn't breath" I started crying and just hugged her so hard.
After we both calmed down I seriously couldn't even stand up that feeling of the adrenaline in your body and the shaky feeling you get. I felt like I was going to throw up..... all was well she was off playing and having fun a few minutes later;)

Lagoon

Lagoon, what a fun place.We had a really great time with some of our friends.The kids were more brave than I thought they would be.

There are some really cute kid rides and not very long lines. So here are a few picks from our day.

All mixed up...

Alivia LOVES parties, who doesn't love a good party when you are 5.

My mom had a party at her house for all of her co-workers from the U of U hospital.

Alivia was entertaining a few of my mom's friends, by talking their ears off well a few nice people were asking her how old she was....when she starting kindergarten....did she meet her teacher yet.....someone asked her if she had a dog and she said yes we have a dog named incredible.

This lady smiled and said, what a great name, what kind of dog is he. She then said Oh he is all mixed up......

We died laughing. She is so cute,

Incredible just in case you are curious, what originally a "puggle"

a beagle and a pug mix, but when I took him to get his shots etc... they said he looks more like a chihuahua mix and a beagle, we still really don't know.

He is also camera shy.....

Build it and they will come....

Ben is a really big push over when it comes to buying, building or making things for the kids to play with.

So one day when he had a wild idea, (I personally thinks he get this trait from his father) he decided to build the kids a play house.

So by the seat of his pants, he got some wood and started to build, yes I will admit it might be the fanciest thing on the block, ( i will get a hold of it and try to add some cute touches).

I will also admit I was skeptical, but the kids love it, a few boards some cut outs for windows and voila'.

He then decided to add a slide, some monkey bars, a disc swing, mini climbing wall with a poll to slide down and a rope to climb back up.

Alivia got to choose any paint color on the wall at home depot, except for pink and she chose the color called asparagus.

Some touches that will be added some trim, shutters, and window planter boxes.

So any neighbors that have maybe drove by and said what is that giant green thing in the Whidden's back yard, it is a playhouse in progress:)

Also we had to re-engineer the deck the wind, when it comes was reeking havoc on the deck and so we put (or should i say Ben) benches around the deck. I got to paint them.

And our car is going to be okay, hallelujah, we were semi-car shopping and it was expensive. So the Saturn lives for now.

While we were carless we borrowed my mom's car to drive around for a few days and Ben took it to his softball game and yes you guessed it, it got hit by a softball. It shattered to sunroof window. Every place quoted 700$ and so my dad to a pick a part place and found a sunroof glass for 160.00 YEAH!!!

We have been blessed though lately, it all could have ended up being a lot worse....

Summer almost over???

This week or last week should I say of course has flown by......got me thinking of the song by Trace Atkins, about making sure you don't wish the days away.....I will try and find it and put it on the blog.

The list of events our car died, or is on the on the staircase towards heaven. We are having it looked at tomorrow and it is not fun to be a one car family again. The main reason, driving a suburban around town AIN'T CHEAP!!!

Ben's parents are in town, YEAH.......the kids were so excited for them to come, we jumped the gun and told them they were coming a few days earlier than planned. They decided to take a detour to San Fransisco and so the kids couldn't understand what was taking so long and when they say them they were so excited. Alivia especially I really have never have seen her like that, she wanted to impress them so much. As we were getting ready to go to the airport, she got her new dress on with her nice black shoes, she wanted me to curl her hair (and she does not like her hair curled often).

She was so excited and she had such a great time with them here. She thinks her papa is so funny, he made the kite go over the fence and he loves to horse around with them. We love having them come all the way from Canada, I always feel such a loving spirit when I am with them and appreciate who they are and the example they show to us. I appreciate the talks we get to have, the human pretzel we get to witness;) and the love they show the kids....

So just a few more random things, I was walking through the airport the other day and saw a familiar face, Louis Van Amstel he looked at me and I looked at him and smiled he smiled back, like "oh she recognizes me" . He was adorable!!! A few people I have had on my flights....

Margo Kidder (from the first superman with Christopher Reeve)

Glenn Close (she wasn't very nice, I think it was because I did not recognize her and she knew I didn't)

John Stockton ( he was SO nice, and had a really cute family)

The Subway guy that lost all that weight Jared something, he had way to big of an ego if you ask me.

A few apostles. All really nice of course, most of them sleep.

A few popular athletes, I had no idea until my crew told me.....I still don't even remember their names.....

The blonde triplets, that posed in playboy, I didn't know who they were OF COURSE....but my crew did and they were freaking out:)

Christie Turlington, a super model, she was eating a cinn-a-bon I thought that was so funny for some reason.

One funny story though, one time I had a full flight of Japanese tourists and they were all flying to Jackson Hole and the interpreter asked me as we were descending into Jackson said, they would like to know where is the hole in Jackson....

Also Ben told me a funny story about someone who came into Target. Marie Osmond was paying for her items and her credit card didn't work, so she told the cashier to put this number in starting telling her a credit card number. The cashier told her she couldn't do that and she said, don't you know who I am, I am Marie Osmond.........um yes, but we still can't do that.....(it probably was Donny's card;)