Laughter is the Best Medicine

As part of our Christmas Kyle's parents gave us tickets to go see Bill Cosby. It was a lot of fun.  He is hilarious and we had a great time.  It was a great gift and we appreciate it.  Did you know that Bill Cosby is 72 years old?  I know I say this a lot but I had to wonder again where the time goes.  For being as old as he is he's still in great shape.  He was rolling around on the floor and carrying on like he was still a kid.  The Cosby Show was one of my favorites to watch as I was growing up and I hated when it went off the air.  It was a good, clean show and there aren't a whole lot of them on the air anymore.   Bill Cosby came at a great time.  Sometimes you just need to laugh and it felt great.

Happy Valentine's Day

Sunset in Yellowstone

I'm back to blogging about random pictures.  Both of these picture were taken in Yellowstone this July on different days at sunset.  I think Yellowstone is one of the most beautiful places in the world.  I always hate it when we see an area that has been burned in a fire.  It leaves such destruction behind.  But then in another year or two when we come back the area will be filled with wild flowers and new trees will have started to grow to replace the old ones and even with all the dark stumps still there, it will be beautiful.  I think one of the reasons I love it there so much is because it always reminds me of my Heavenly Father and the amazing things he has created for me.  It also holds a lot of memories for me of people who have passed on.   I have memories of spending time fishing on the lake with all of my grandparents.  Memories of Howard, Venice, and Kaye race through my mind when I think of Yellowstone.  

I love that I can make memories there with my own family now.  It was so much fun to take Kyle there this summer and spend time falling in love with him as I got to know him better.  We were talking the other night about how good things are in our relationship right now.  The first month or two after we got married were not easy.  It was a struggle to learn how to maintain our independence but yet be a couple as well.  Learning to account to someone else for the money we spent wasn't easy either.  But with time, love and patience on both our parts we are learning.  We are happy and we are loving being together.  There are good days and bad days, but there are by far more good days than bad and as time goes on the bad days get fewer and farther apart.  I love Kyle with all my heart.  He was definitely worth the wait.  He is my prince charming and I thank my Heavenly Father for sending him to me.

There were times over the years when we easily could have met.  We went to several of the same concerts and were even in Yellowstone at the same time the last couple of years.  He drove by our accident on I-15 with his parents before the ambulance was even there.  His Mom said there were lots of people helping and they could hear the sirens coming so they didn't stop.  But the sight of the blue cooler sitting on the side of the road has always stuck with her and she always wondered how badly the people in the wreck were injured.  When I posted the pictures last week and they saw them then we knew for sure it was the same accident that they saw.   Heavenly Father has a reason for bringing us together when he did.  I am grateful for the experiences I have had over the years as I waited for Kyle to come along.  I've done a lot of fun things and been a lot of great places.  I think the maturity I have developed and things I have dealt with up to now make me a better wife.  My Heavenly Father has a plan for Kyle and I and I am so excited to see how things evolve in the coming years.

In The Blink of an Eye

The last couple of months I have somehow been finding blogs of people who are enduring unspeakable hardships.  As read of their trials and their hardships it makes me realize how grateful I am for my own life.  I will take my trials anyday over what they are dealing with.  Life can change in an instant.  Maybe the reason I have been led to their blogs is to teach me to be grateful for what I have.  I hope I never have to experience the things these amazing women have dealt with.  But should it ever happen I hope I can handle it with the grace and faith these women have shown.  What an amazing example they all are. 

Stephanie Nielsen was severely burned in a plane crash.  The fact that she survived the crash is a miracle.  The pain she endures everyday is more than I can even bear to contemplate.  She is an inspiration to me.  I read her blog everyday: http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/ She is currently in Arizona undergoing a procedure to help create skin to reconstruct her neck and chin.  She is an amazing woman.

Katherine Wolf suffered a brain aneurism.  The doctors said she shouldn't have made it.  She has had to learn to do everything again.  Talk, walk, eat, everything.  She is still struggling with walking and some other things.  But the fact that she has come as far as she has, is again a miracle.  I feel for her and I am in awe of her courage.  http://www.katherinewolf.info/

Alexa has the most positive outlook on life.  She woke up in the middle of the night to find her husband, Chellis, having a stroke in bed beside her.  His right side was completely paralyzed and he is now learning to walk again.  She has the funnest personality and amazes me with her great attitude.  I love to read her blog: http://chellisandalex.blogspot.com/

Bronson Staker drowned in his bathtub on January 30th.  This is his mother's blog about the nightmare she has been living through for the past 11 days.  If you read it I suggest you start on the February 1st post and read forward to now.  What a horrible thing for a family to live through.  I can't even imagine their pain.  Luckily things are looking better for them today. http://stakerzxposed.blogspot.com/

I'm sure there are hundreds more blogs out there sharing the trials of amazing men and women.  You don't have to look far to find someone worse off than you are.  Today I think I will hug my loved ones a little tighter and thank my Heavenly Father for the blessings I have.  Life can change in the blink of an eye. 

Change In Plans

Kyle's knee surgery has been postponed.  The anesthesiologist doesn't want to put Kyle out until getting the okay from Kyle's cardiologist first.  It wasn't all able to get done in time so the surgery has been postponed.  We will reschedule it on Tuesday and go from there.

February 5th Photo of the Day

Have any of you taken my challenge to post a random picture and blog about it?  Work has been really boring lately so I could use some new posts from you to read and help pass the time.  It's the least you could do for me, don't you think? 

Today's picture is from a trip my family took to Yellowstone in August of 2004. Tyler stayed home and so he missed out on the fun.  We camped at Bridge Bay in a trailer we rented.  It was a great trip and we had a lot of fun. We took a ride down a random side road and were able to see a black bear down in a ravine right off of the road. We sat and watched it eat berries and bugs for a long time.  It was a really neat experience.  Everytime it made a move toward the road we would all start to back up towards the car.  We had the doors open and were ready to make a run for it at any moment.  We love Yellowstone and make a trip up there as often as we can.  Except for 2007 we have been there every summer since this trip.  I remember fishing here with Grandpa and Grandma in the old blue boat and having picnics on the beach with my aunts and all my cousins.  Yellowstone is my happy place.  Some of my most precious memories are from trips there over the years.  It was so much fun to spend a week there with Kyle this last summer and share my favorite places with him.    We have all changed a little since this picture 5 1/2 years ago.

Here We Go Again

So we found out today that Kyle is having surgery this coming Monday on his right knee. He had a CT scan on Monday. It was supposed to be an MRI until we remembered that because of his pacemaker it is generally not a good idea to put someone with a piece of metal inside their chest inside a machine that is basically a giant magnet. So they did a CT scan instead. It showed that there is no cartilage in his knee. It is all bone on bone. There is also a bone spur that they will try and do something about, but it is back where the ligaments and tendons are so they may not be able to do much with it. They don't want to risk weakening the knee. They are going to go in with a scope and repair some things and put something in to act as cartilage in hopes it will help. The best news is that the left knee is the same way and will need to be done at a later date.   Dare I ask what's next???

February 4th Photo of the Day

I decided to carry on my idea of yesterday and this is the random picture that I came up with today:

This is a picture of the inside of the truck after the accident Dad, Marijka, and I were in in April of 2008. We were coming home from Mexico. We were in the truck and were pulling a bumper hitch travel trailer. The tire came off of the trailer while we were driving on I-15 just past Fillmore. We rolled 3 times. I was laying down in the passenger seat with my feet up on the dash at the time of the accident. My knees went through the windshield and were both cut open all the way down to the bone. Dad was okay and Marijka had a little scratch on her hand.

This picture actually makes me sick to my stomach because it shows that if I had the seat sitting up instead of laying down at the time of the accident I probably would have received severe head injuries and most likely would have been killed. Had I been sitting up my head would have been right where the roof is smashed in the most. My Heavenly Father and guardian angels were definitely watching over me that day. We were all very blessed to walk away, or in my case limp away from the accident.

For thos of you who didn't know us back then here are a couple of other pictures. You can also view my scrapbook pages on Marlee's blog at: http://marleesmemories.blogspot.com/2009/03/blog-post.html

The aftermath:

Waiting for help:

What was once our trailer:

February 3rd Photo Challenge

Our life has been pretty boring lately. Other than Kyle being sick and miserable (he does not handle being sick well) there isn't much going on in our life. The last few days I have been organizing my computer files. Since 1993 we have taken a total of 28,772 digital pictures that are stored on my computer. I am going through and deleting the bad ones or ones that I will never do anything with and then I am going to tackle the job of scrapbooking them. Each picture has a story to go with it.

That got me thinking and this is what I came up with for my new blog post. Since today is the 3rd day of February I am challenging all you fellow bloggers to go into the computer folder where you store your pictures and open the 3rd file folder and select the 3rd picture and blog about it. I actually had to go into the 3rd file folder several times before I came to a picture. This is the one I came up with:

The Christmas of 2005 was the first Christmas we celebrated without Grandma Ila. She passed away in May of that year. Grandma would always pester us every year about performing something at the Christmas Eve party. So in memory of her I collected a bunch of large boxes and wrapped them up as gifts. All of us grandchildren used them to re-enact a performance we did at the party many years ago when we were all much younger. Everyone was a good sport and participated and it was fun. Unfortunately you can't see everyone who was on the back row in this picture. Brooklyn wouldn't wear her present so Brian being Brian he ended up with it on his head.

I think maybe tomorrow I will blog about the 4th picture in the 4th file folder. Who knows what I might come up with.