Las Vegas Dec 2009

We had the unfortunate experience of losing my great-aunt Melanie 10 days before Christmas. We packed up the family and drove to Henderson, NV for the funeral. We stayed with my mom and Bob at one of their time shares. My grandma Booth was supposed to fly in from Washington, DC, but the east coast was hit with a massive storm and she missed the whole viewing, funeral and burial. It was her youngest sister that died, so it was sad that she had to miss her opportunity to say goodbye. We took some time while we were there to hike in the Red Rock Canyon. We found a pool as we hiked down and the kids were trying to gauge how deep it was by throwing rocks in. It must have been pretty deep because we never did figure it out! We were able to swim at the condos (in the outside pool) despite the cold (55 with no sun). We didn't want to miss our chance to go in the lazy river and the HUGE hot tub. Some of us didn't bring any flip flops or other foot apparel for swimming so we ended up RUNNING back to the room every time we were done swimming because the ground felt icy cold. I'm sure those life guards thought we were insane as they sat bundled in sweaters and scarves making sure we didn't drown ourselves. It was an unfortunate reason to take a small holiday trip, but it ended up being a very nice relaxing getaway. I'm glad we got to see family that we rarely get a chance to see.

Journey of a Thousand Miles

I have not updated my profile in a long time because I got behind and then the task became overwhelming! But here I am today putting up a post because the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So here goes...

Hiking the Big Cottonwood Canyon (cont)

Hiking the Big Cottonwood Canyon

We went for a family hike up Big Cottonwood Canyon. We had a good time and got Megan coughing which was the goal. Megan was not happy about hiking since she thought some animals might attack us or something so I don't think there are any pics of her frowny face :0( Once she realized that we were safe, she enjoyed herself a lot more.

Aly made friends with a couple of caterpillars (anyone remember Sammy?) so I told her I'd take a picture of it.

I let the boys decide how far we would go, but they were up for the whole hike and I had an IV to administer so we had to turn back after about halfway. As you can see by the very top picture the halfway we did go wore them out! We promised to go back next weekend and see the leaves changing color and probably do the whole hike. It's probably a 1 1/2 - 2 mile hike. Just perfect for the kids (and the mom ;)

10 days of Prison

Most of you know that Megan's been in the hospital the last week or two. We checked in on the 9th of Sept and checked out on the 18th. She is still on IV antibiotics at home. I took some pics of her just coming out of anesthesia from getting her PICC line. Apparently she doesn't remember me taking them, but she was just too funny when she was waking up. The PICC line in case you didn't know is similar to an IV though it is capable of staying in place for weeks to months at a time. It goes up her arm from the inside of her elbow into the main vein of her heart.

As always, she was bored out of her mind, so we painted a big fire on the window which you can probably see in the background. The bottom pic is of a fish that Megan made out of a paper plate and some tissue paper. She grabbed a straw and bit off a pretzel so it would look like a hook grabbing the fish. We did countless other things to keep busy like painted a bullseye on the glass picture and then squirted water from syringes at targets such as "hospital", "PICC line dressing changes", "Hospital food", etc.

Other than that, the stay was fairly uneventful. GLAD TO BE HOME!

Labor Day CO trip (cont)

Labor Day CO trip

We went to see Dad, Diane, Vicki, Chuck and Kyle in Colorado. We went to the park, we went to visit Kyle at McDonald's, we had a couple of family dinners and then we turned around and drove home. It was a quick in and out trip, but we had a good time.