Sunday, August 26, 2007

Priorities

Three AM and driving home from the emergency room. It was a Saturday EARLY morning and I had been out all night helping a member of our church. Her husband had fallen in the parking lot after the football game and so I volunteered to drive her to the hospital and sit with her. Thinking it surely couldn't take too many hours. It was nine thirty when we got to the hospital. He was in immense pain, tied down to the board that they strap you to. We talked and got to know each other better during the long night. I had a ten dollar bill in my pocket and decided to buy a bottle of water for $1.25. I put the bill in the change machine and it gave me the correct amount of change - $10 in quarters!! I only had my pants pockets - no purse. So I walked around jingling the rest of the evening. At 2:30 they had finally decided they were taking him to a hospital in the valley and so we decided to head home as soon as he left.

Six-forty AM - brie brought maddie over as she had to work. I tried really hard to open my eyes as we started the DVD of Finding Nemo for her. By seven thirty it was obvious that any thought of sleep was far gone. So I got up and tried to get something accomplished. Eleven AM and finally we could take a brief nap.

One-thirty PM - time to get ready to go to the temple - we were going with the rest of the bishopric for the 4 PM session. The nap we had at least was a reprieve for awhile, and so I was awake during the session and the meal afterwards. By the time we got home though I was ready to sleep.

Priorities- what comes first? I managed to fit it all in, and I really didn't think that was possible at the time. I guess when we have the right intent we can accomplish miracles.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Just some pics















A birthday phone call















A ruined visit to the Besh Ba Gowah ruins. Can't complain about the rain in Arizona though.















Keeping cool in the desert.















Pioneer children sang as they walked.....















Feeding grandpa's fish

HD


We have been looking at TV's for the past few months. Our current TV has been trying to die, making weird noises and you can only turn it off and on with the remote as the on/off switch broke sometime also. Flat screen, LCD, High Def, etc. All pricier than were willing to pay. Last week we spent a few hours in town and stopped to pick up Season 10 of StarGate SG1 that had just been released. (yes, this is what we do for fun) We walked through the TV section and again looked at all the offerings. Abe decided that we didn't want anything smaller than a 32" TV. We noticed one in a box with $100 off tag on it. We looked at the model on the wall, it of course wasn't marked down. We asked one of the salesman if this were the same model. It was, so we asked if they had to charge the reduced price. Yep. So we went ahead and took the plunge.

We got home just before a huge dust storm that was blowing through the valley. We carried our 400 lb old monster TV out of our room and uncrated our new 32" wide screen HD LCD TV. Plugged it in and attached our lovely antenna - no we do not have cable. We let the TV program itself and it found stations we didn't even know existed. We get all of the stations from Tucson and Phoenix. There are four PBS stations, all different all the time. Everything is clearer than it has been for years.

Is this a good thing? I don't know, but last weekend we could finally let Rhayn watch Shrek 3-D with the 3-D glasses. Best of all abe can actually work the remote!!!

Sunday, August 12, 2007

August desert pics






We have finally had a monsoon season. Here are some pictures of the area outside of San Manuel, toward Peppersauce. These pics are for LVH, except for the one Ocotillo - that's for leaner.



Flew the coop

Our third pair of mourning doves this summer hatched just fine. Their parents had determined that our plant wasn't good enough for them, so they tried a different place. A few days ago I was outside putting some plants on stands that we had purchased (clearance at Loews). I went in the house to do something and Blue walked over to me. I looked down and saw that he had brought me a baby bird. It was still alive, he had carried it very gently in his mouth. I couldn't put it back in the nest so just put it in the plant which is about fifteen feet from where it's mother sat with the other baby bird. JVA came over later and he tried to put it back in the actual nest. But the nest wasn't made very well and the two babies wouldn't fit. So JVA put both of the birds in the plant and we hoped for the best. The next morning I looked out and there was the mother bird with the two babies. They both flew away today. Our retriever had saved their lives. I tried to get a picture of the last baby as it sat on the fan blade, but it flew away.