Jackson hole 2009

We made our annual trip to Jackson Hole the weekend of August 21. It was also my birthday on the 22 so we decided to kill two birds with one stone. I forgot to take my camera and so the only pics I have are on the river trip. Suzette, Glade and Jordan came with us this year and Suzette bought a disposable water proof camera for the river and gave me copies of her pictures. (thanks Suz) We had a great time. The kids surprised me with a birthday cake at dinner the night of my birthday. They had the cake specially made for me. (thanks Lynette) I won't describe it here but it was a big surprise and a lot of fun. We all stayed together in a four bedroom condo, did a little shopping and ate tons of food! Kelsey and Brady came up for the day on Saturday and they and Jessica stayed with the kids while the rest of us floated the river. We had a fun time and look forward to next year.
This is my favorite picture. I love the look on Suzette's face!

We look ready don't you think?

Middle of the Night Phone Calls

This morning at about 1:15 AM, my sweet little five year old grandson Jaxon called me. When the phone rang, I was dead asleep and so was Brooks. I answered the phone thinking, who now is hurt or sick or in the hospital? I hear this little voice sobbing, "grandma, I'm here all alone, can you come and get me?" I tell him I'll be right there and then Brooks and I bolt out of bed and run to the car. I didn't even put shoes on. I'm not sure if Brooks even did. We pull up in Kara's drive way and most of the lights are on. We walked into the garage and Jaxon came out the back door. He was still crying and I just hugged him and told him that he did the right thing by calling me. We walked into the house and Brooks started calling for Kara and Phil. He yelled their names a couple of times and then we heard a very sleepy "what?" from Kara. Jax immediately ran into their bedroom, Brooks and I waited in the front room for a few minutes and didn't hear anything else so we called out that we were leaving and then left. Around 8:00 AM Kara called me and wanted to know what had happened when Jax had called us. I told her and she wasn't sure why he had called because he was still sleeping. After church today, I called Kara back and she had of course then talked with Jaxon. Last night the kids had a babysitter at their house and had put them to bed. When Jax woke up last night, he thought it was a lot earlier and he thought that the babysitter had gone home after putting them to bed and that his mom and dad weren't home yet and so he called me. Kara said that she was going to ban him from the phone but I told her to please don't. I'm glad that he knows he can call me or anyone else in the family if he needs to. He has already called me a few times today! Getting phone calls in the middle of the night really scare me. I don't know any other way to describe the feeling I get when the phone rings during the night. It has happened to us quite a few times in our married life but only once was it something bad, but everytime it happens it lets me know that I'm still alive. Really alive!!

Family night at the "Bees"

We had our annual Bee's outing this past Monday night. We started out with dinner at Tepanyaki's (yum), then on to the game. We stayed until the very end of the game. It wasn't a great game, the Bee's got creamed, but it was still really fun.
Grandpa and Molly waiting to be seated for dinner. I can't ever get grandpa to smile.

You can tell the kids are excited. Jax and Bryn love to hold Molly.

Dinner Time

For some reason, Bryn thought that Brady bought his ice cream only for her.

Kade always seems to sense when someone is taking a picture. We had a lot of fun, the weather was perfect and the kids were really good. I'm not sure how I missed getting a picture of Jessica. Next time I will make it a point to get one.

Aging, gracefully? (graphic, read at your own risk!)

Today was a headliner for me. I had my first colonoscopy! It is recommended to have a screening by the time you are age 50. I put it off for a few years and I probably would have waited indefinitely except for one thing. I visited the GYN last spring, (another one of my favorite things to do) and she told me that I needed to go have a screening. I told her that I would and then promptly left her office thinking "it'll be a cold day in you know where when I actually do it." Well, last week, I got a phone call from the gastro-enterologists office asking to set up an appointment! I had already dodged them once about a month ago. Anyway, the result of that second phone call ended up in today's activity.
I'm not really sure why I decided to post about this but here goes. After getting the phone call from the office, they did a very brief medical history and then told me that they would send me information for the "prep" in the mail. By Monday the 3rd, I hadn't heard anything from them and so I thought that maybe I was going to dodge this bullet, but being the responsible person that I am, I called them and picked up the info and Rx's for the upcoming event. I've still never received anything in the mail. Once I looked over everything, about four pages of instructions and four Rx's, I was ready but not really willing to start. Those of you that have done this before will understand my hesitancy.
I started Monday night, Aug 3, with just a few fairly powerful stool softeners. No big deal. Until Tuesday morning. Then all day Tuesday I could only have clear liquids. I'm a big fan of diet coke and diet coke is a clear liquid so I was pretty okay with this but about half way through the day, I started to get pretty hungry. I then changed to a little juice and orange pop so my blood glucose didn't get too low. Controlling my blood sugars was really quite simple and didn't cause any added problems. The instructions that they give to you are quite specific and I was to start the hard core prep at 5:30 PM that same day. I had a Relief Society Pres meeting at 5:00 and we usually visit some sisters first and then meet for an hour afterwards. As you can guess, we met first and then I went home to do my thing and the Presidency went visiting after. When I got home, I started drinking the massive gallon of colyte prep. (thank goodness I had mixed it earlier and put it in the fridge to get cold) After about an hour of drinking this nasty stuff, the real fun began. I was to drink half of it at 6:00 PM and the other half 5 hours before my exam. I found that if I held my breath while drinking the colyte, and then breathing with my mouth open for a few seconds afterwards, the really strong taste would disappear and it wasn't quite so nauseating. So, right on schedule, everything started to move! Have you ever felt like you were peeing from somewhere other than your bladder? I'm sure you can get the idea. About another hour into this and after changing my underwear a few times, I had decided to never do this again! Things eventually calmed down but I had to start this over again at 2:30 AM. I think I slept about 30 minutes that night. I was worried about waking up late and I sure didn't want to repeat this another time so I just stayed up. I would have had to anyway since I couldn't stray too far from the bathroom.
By 7:00 AM we were ready to leave for my 7:30 appointment. Here's the great part. You think that it's going to be really miserable with that garden hose placed where you don't really want it but I really don't remember much. They give you some really great drugs. (versed, fentanyl) I didn't even feel embarrassed. I don't know what I said or did and I got a really great nap out of it. There was no pain involved at all. I remember them talking to me at the end and I even remember watching it on the screen but that's all I can remember. We left about 15 minutes after we were done and stopped at Burger King for breakfast and then I'm pretty sure we stopped for gas and then went home. I took a really long nap and now I feel pretty good. I still don't want to do this again but it's over and the prep really is the worst part of it all. Oh yea, after all that you go through you don't even loose any weight.

Trek 2009 "Be Thou an Example Through Faith in Jesus Christ"

Well, we made it through another trek to Martin's Cove and Rock Creek Hollow this year. I think that this one was better than the one we went to four years ago. As much as I hate camping, (and I mean I really hate it) I still really enjoyed myself. Brooks and I along with another couple from our stake were called as the Grand ma's and pa's for the trek. Our main responsibility was to train all of the ward ma's and pa's. We started this task in January and finished in May. June was reserved for the unknown. Once we arrived at the Cove, we also had a few other responsibilities, mostly minor things, but it was a special opportunity for us to be able to mingle with the other families a little. We were also fortunate to be in the same camp ring as Kara and Phil's family, along with the family that we were a part of. We had tons of fun and the kids in our families were really great kids! We had some really great spiritual experiences and we were fortunate to have a choir and a lot of other pre-recorded music.

Here is Brooks and I when we first arrived at Independence Rock.

You can actually walk right up onto the rock and walk all over it. The group had a great time here.

Kara and Phil in front of Independence Rock.

Kara and Phil getting their handcart ready to go.

I thought that this was an inspiring picture of about one half of our trekkers making their way to Cherry Creek camp ground.

Kara, Phil, and Mark (our Pa) early the next morning getting ready for the days events.

Grandpa Brooks catching some last minute reading (along with a diet coke) in preparation for our testimonies in the Dan Jones Cove.

Kara was loading their cooler into the wagon to get filled with our sandwiches and lunch stuff.

Breakfast time. We were fed well. Once again, I'm pretty sure that I gained weight this time around.

Kara and Phil's family heading into the Cove.

Our family heading into the Cove. We tried to keep each family staggered so we could remain reverent and enjoy the spirit and beauty.

Me inside the Cove. The hair is starting to look bad, just wait until tomorrow!!

After a really fantastic eventing devotional and an okay nights rest we up early again with the buses loaded and ready to travel to Rock Creek.

We had 35 families and these are all of the babies that the families had to give up when they arrived. It was pretty hard on most of them, they weren't prepared for this event. (they did get them back after the devotional)

If you look closely, you can the see our group in the amphitheatre where we had our devotional. This was the end of our trek. After this, we had our lunch, loaded the buses again and headed for home. Today I finally finished up with the was and I'm starting to feel clean again!

Fourth of July

We had another fun Fourth of July celebration again this year in Lewiston. The weather turned out to be really nice, no one was sick, and no one got hurt. I hope everyone else had a great celebration also. Kara and Phil were in charge of the softball tournament. They have volunteered this job for the last four celebrations. They put on a really nice tourney and I think that for the most part, all of the entries really enjoy it. It's really supposed to be family teams but a few teams try to stack their teams. The past few years, the Tarbet/Foster team has only had to add one non family player. They won the tourney last year and lost the championship game this year. Here are a few pics of my kids.

Brady

Phil

Kelsey....She had the winning hit for one of the games.

Kade......A little tired after just finishing with the 3 on 3 basketball tourney.

Molly was soooo good for the entire day. She looks like she's really enjoying the games.

Kade and Eric working hard at the 3 on 3. These two volunteered to do this event this year.

Jaxon was able to make quite a haul from the parade candy. I think he's doing a little victory dance in this picture.

Brynly really wanted to have a chance to hold Molly while watching the parade. Molly doesn't seem to care either way.

My favorite picture of the day. We pulled a flat bed trailer and parked it on the parade route (everyone does this) and put chairs on the trailer and in front and then blankets for all to sit on. We had somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty family members there. It's kind of like one big reunion except better because you don't have to try to make small talk with people you barely know because there is so much going on. Now don't take that last statement the wrong way, I love spending time with siblings, parents, nieces, nephews, children, grand children, in laws and even some extended, this is just a good way of dealing with some of the others.

Lagoon Fun

Fun at Lagoon. This is my idea of a really fun day. The whole day with my kids and grand kids! It can't get any better than this except if Brooks was here also and Molly was old enough to come. Jessica had a really great time on Puff!!!

Rattlesnake Rapids

Notice Jax helping Bryn into the ride. He can be such a cute older brother. Brynly really wasn't too sure about this ride but she was really brave about it. Jaxon loved everything that we went on. He even loved the old roller coaster and the haunted house. We went to lagoon today and had a great time on the rides. Jessica's mom kept Molly for us and Grandpa Brooks stayed home. He said he needed to stay home to work but I think he secretly didn't want to go.

This summer (as with most other summers) we went to the semiannual Tarbet family reunion at the Logan Aquatic Center. I really didn't take pictures of anything but at the pool. We had fun watching the kids go down the slide and just watch Molly for her first swim experience. I think she handled it quite well.