There's a Man in the House

Happy Birthday to Nick! Here is the man on September 22

I came home Friday night from a 2-day board meeting for TSSA and here is what Dustin had to show me:

It turns out that he was running down the driveway as Nick was driving away, Dakota was chasing Nick, and Dustin quit watching his feet! Dakota does not realize that humans can't leap over obstacles (particularly when they are not looking) like dogs. Dakota tripped him while they were both running full speed. Poor guy, he was swollen about an inch out. Yes, it hurt about like it looks. We thought he broke his hip!

BJ and I are headed to Phoenix early in the morning. The fact is, we were headed out today until this odd object impaled itself on his tire. It turns out that the apartment maintenance guy who moved out their refrigerator today managed to handle the appliance in such a way as to pop off one of the feet! The assembly landed directly under BJ's tire such that as soon as he drove off, he ran over it. Naturally, there was a bolt pointing directly up at his tire. By the time we were able to deal with that, it was time to go see a movie!

Last item, another wild creature. Nick saw him and Zac caught him in the theater room. I have no idea how he got in there!

Nick rocks!

Saturday morning, with a day planned full of activities, Nick came in nearly doubled over in pain. He had been fighting whatever this is for a few days, but finally said he needed to go to the doctor. Laurie takes him to Baylor and the rest of us nervously await some news. We thought it might be some kind of kidney infection. Melanie said it sounded like appendicitis to her. Whatever it is, we all got a little nervous. After some blood work and whatever they do there for all that $$$, they concluded that he did not have appendicitis, but most likely kidney stones. For any of you whose lives have not included a run in either first hand or vicariously with kidney stones, those who have will tell you they are not your friends. If they are, they are very bad ones, ones that will cause you much pain and suffering! For now, we assume he has kidney stones that he will have to pass in the next week or so. If that does not happen, they want to do some kind of cat scan to narrow down further the possibilities. Bishop Ayres and I gave him a blessing. He can't be too bad off--he decided not to cancel his 18th birthday party we had scheduled for that night! So with his mind swimming in the morphine from the hospital and the codeine from the drugstore, we went ahead with the bash! Good thing--we counted over 50 people from school that came. No way we could have canceled that. It was wild but fun. I designated Dustin to be the official photographer. If any of you need a wedding photographer, (can you say BJ?!) Dustin might be the one. I have included some of his photos below. BJ & Katherine were there too, since, after all, it was actually BJ's 23rd! Nick's is not really til Monday. We had a bonfire in the back, heated the spa, put out the 100' slip n slide in the south pasture, played basketball and volleyball, had the ping pong table going as well as air hockey, ripstiks, green machine, and just about every contrivance we could come up with (except the motorized ones). It was great fun. Laurie cooked the weiners, I made rootbeer. All in all, quite a good night. 7--midnight or so. Thank goodness for church at 1 PM!

Earlier we went to the MacDonnell's fundraiser for cancer at Applebee's. Then we went to the gun show and wathched every kind of person buy, sell, and carry around weapons of all kinds. It gave us pause and cause for thought for sure.

Get ready for some football posts! Zac is No. 40. Tuesday night was his first game. He is on the 'A' team. He got one near sack and caused the QB to miss his toss. Way to go, Zac!

Well, I decided I needed a new car. The old one had 175,000. What a deal! Here it is:

Had ya going, didn't I ! Didn't really know what else to post, but it was time for a new one:)

Bailing Out-Carrie & Kai Left Today

Carrie and Kai have been at the casa for the past few days. They left today. Thanks for the visit! Like the sign Susan has in her kitchen, "I have learned that being with the ones I love is enough." For sure! What a pleasure to have them around. Kai is like a machine when he starts the leg squats--he just keeps going and going! Next visit, we expect he'll be running all over. Right now he can crawl about as fast as we walk. Thanks again for the visit, Carrie.

What's the Buzz

So we come home in the garage and Zac says, OUCH! I hate dragonflies, as he takes a swat at his attacker.

The wild pet week continues. It turns out to be a wild and crazed humingbird!

So what happens is the little guy flies into the garage, but as you can see his cranial cavity is not large enough to let him figure out how to fly OUT (even with the 8' tall doors wide open). So I go get the swimming pool net to capture him, very concerned about his health, since one false swish of the net and we have killed the dragonfly.

I was able to get him in the net, but just as I went to release him into the wild, he took off into the garage again (can you say moron?). Well, he buzzed and flew, flew and hovered until "Houston, we have a problem, we're out of gas!" He just sank down onto the bed of the big red truck like Chances flying saucer running out of batteries. I think I laughed right out loud. "Sucks for you!" I thought he was dead.

So then I went over and picked him up. No, I did not administer mouth-to-beak. I took him in and stuck that little hyperdermic into some peach juice. After a few beaks-full of that, I took him outside and AWAY he flew! I should have been a vet

We expect to see a kangaroo or an ostrich next...

Labor Day Post

OK, I have been away for a week or two. Just too many things to keep up with to post, but here we are again (smile).

Today we (all but Nick) loaded up the horses and went down to the Johnsons to ride. Rebecca leaves to BYU-Idaho on Wednesday morning. Laurie has wanted to go ride with her pretty much all summer. We borrowed Leon Baker’s 3-horse slant trailer so we could take Ozzie, Blackie and Tootsie (maybe mom's new soon to be re-named horse, this is her in the pic). Tootsie is what she was trained to be—a barrel race horse. And is Laurie trained to be a race horse jockie? Uh...maybe not...Gee whiz—she is fast!!! Her stride is 50% longer than Blackie’s. Rebecca was on her and me on Blackie. She took off and left us in the dust.

Dustin & Robbie, me on Tootsie in the pond...

Bro. West’s funeral is this Wednesday. We are all very heavy hearted about this. I have felt this way: he has a very important work to do that he can’t do on this mortal earth. How do I conclude that? Well, he has 3 beautiful daughters under 3 years old. The most important work he can do on this earth is to raise them and be a worthy husband. If he, being a good and righteous man, was called away from work that important here, think how more important the work is that he is being called out of this mortality to do! That is clear to me. I don’t even doubt or wonder about it.

We had a really good sacrament meeting yesterday. Stephanie Weber (Zac's age) gave her first ever talk. She talked about integrity, quoted from Job, and told stories about keeping one’s integrity notwithstanding peer pressure. Although she was shaking with her nerves, she gave a great talk. Sister Weber spoke next on faith. Wow! She is a giant I didn’t really know. Her great-great grandmother came from England in 1856, joined the Martin Handcart Company, and lost all of her family including a step son whose valiance saved her life while trekking to SLC. She told the entire story of her ancestry from that woman. That was wonderful faith. Brother Davidson (you may not remember them, but they moved here from Roseville where BJ’s mission was) spoke on missionary work and it was great, not your run-of-the mill talk.

Well, we had lots of animals visit this weekend. First, Dusting screamed like he was being attacked Saturday morning. Mom had him washing the sliding window in the kitchen, he was standing outside, when a large snake slithered across his foot into the house! They came and got me, I caught the rascal. He was in the kitchen by the dishwasher and smelled like skunk! He was about 4 ½ feet long and fat. And mean! He kept striking so much that he ended up with his fang stuck in his own side! I let him go in the neighbors’ pond...

Saturday night Dustin couldn't sleep in his room so he slept in between mom and me, too many bad snake dreams. I finally retreated to his room to sleep once he crashed, which is much cooler anyway.

What was funny is that we were running after the snake just as Scott & Julie drove up to visit us for the day. I think they thought we were going to hide from them, or that I had forgotten to tell Laurie they were coming. We had a great "just hang out" day. We built some target holders then went shooting. Here are the newest NRA members:

We had lots of laughs doing just about nothing. It's been too long!

So last night, Cosmo is barking his head off. A small skunk is evading him and ends up in the garage at my office. Oh boy! Then he finds two more of them under the pool deck and crawls under to get them. He comes out yelping and rolls in the grass trying to get the smell off his nose! It was hilarious to watch.

Finally, we found a 2 pound bullfrog in the pool and scooped him out. Laurie kissed him and voila, her prince charming appeared!

(gag me, like that's ever gonna happen (flushing toilet in background)). So charming went and threw him on Carrie (who is visiting with Kai). She did an imitation of the exploding bird (Shrek) (just before exploding).

So there you have it—no dull moments here. Audrie and Amber Skyped me from Denver—it was great to see everyone. Except for the large vertical crack I was exposed to!!! My eyes will never be the same. Kinsey and Chance were there as well as Travis, Conner and Kenedi. Oh, and I can’t forget Figuero, Chance’s new victim, I mean kitten.

Since Bop posted some Galveston pics, I won't put too many, except she did NOT look like a cow, so here she is with JALEI:

And here she is with me!

Here are a couple more:

1st solids video:

About 100 mph...

Here's the responsible (haha) driver!
Isn't she beautiful! I did good when I married this one!

Here's Dustin and me at Six Flags for his birthday outing (about 3 months late)

And here's Zac and me, same place about a week later!

Finally, we did our annual (Craig & Chance, you were with us last year) Ranger's game where we have personalized seats at 1st base thanks to our SIZEABLE contribution to Clay Ellis' orthodontist business...

So there you have it—a week in the life of the Youngs. Aren't we blessed!!!

Hope all is going well. Just keep swimming!