A Terrifying 20 min.!

Yesterday evening we had a very scary 20 minutes! I had just gotten off the phone with my grandma. Abby wanted to go over there and see her sisters who had been there helping all day. So Ruben and I drove over to my grandma's, pulled up and let her out. Well, we usually make sure, before we leave, that someone is there. But I had just barely got off the phone and they knew we were coming over to bring the bacon they needed for BLT's. So Abby got out and we drove away. Ruben and I drove out to the shop to check on the chickens and we were on our way back into town and my cell phone rings. Well, it was Whitney and she was calling from my mom's house! I asked her if Abby was with them and she said no. OMG!! I freaked out! We just dropped off our 4 year old all by herself at my grandma's! We drove quickly back to her house and NO ABBY ANYWHERE!! Ok, so we check in the backyard, next door neighbors, across the street neighbors. NOTHING! I went back in the house and checkded my grandma's caller ID to see if someone had called to say she was at their house and no one had. By now 10 min. had gone by! So I decided to call the police to help look. Well, not only the police were looking, but the fire department, my mom, Mary Alice, and several others were looking also. They were about 5 minutes away from calling search and rescue and we found Abby! She was 3 houses down from my grandma's on the same side of the street at Jean Wardell's house. She had walked straight to Jean's when she had seen that no one was at my grandma's and told her that no one was home. So Abby just stayed there and was watching Sponge Bob and was perfectly safe! It was a very terrifying 20 min.! That was the WORST FEELING EVER to think that you may have lost your child and that you may never see them again. I wanted to throw up! Sharon Cornwall decided to walk down towards Judy Ferron's and stopped by Jean's to see if possibly she had seen Abby and there she was! Thank you Sharon and thank you to our quick responding officers for helping locate my precious baby! I love you Abby!!

Splish! Splash!

Abby enjoying the sun rays and water.
Our little friend Payton

Addy sunbathing

Carter taking a snack break

Addy and Abby enjoying the water

Last Wednesday, the 24th of June, Mary Alice called and invited us to go to the Kiddie Pool. Her grandkids were here visiting and wanted to go swimming. So we sent Whitney, McKenna, and Daxton to the 'BIG' pool, and we took Abby, Addy, and Carter to the 'Little' pool. They had a blast! Addy and Carter had never been to the Kiddie Pool, so it was a new experience for them. I still need to learn how to do a collage. I always have lots of pictures!

Bench Dancers

Bench Dancing has been a lot of fun this year! Candida Jones was 'Team Captain' this year again. She as always has outdone herself again. Candida has an awesome talent of dancing and making up dances. They are always so cute and fun to dance to. This year's song is "Cotton Eyed Joe" by Crazy Frog. It's not your normal country song. We got a little techno goin' on! Thanks to Candida's family and to all of our families for letting us take time out of our busy lives and enjoy this time together! The last several years, we have performed in black lights. It's been a big hit. We are the best act of the Lovell Mustang Day's Follies! LOL!! We get comments every year how cool and awesome the bench dance looks in black lights. We hope to continue this for years to come. Next year will be a whole new surprise!

Members this year are: CaMee Nicholls, Jessica Rusch, Tara Jones, Candida Jones, Jill Hitz, Jaime Luna, Tashie Lundberg, Desiree Allen, Adrienne Mangus, Ann Hinkley, Kelly Steenbakkers, Aubry Walker

Happy Father's Day!!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to Ruben and my brother in law Ray! (Ray is a professional barbecuer:) He makes the best barbecued meat ever!
Ruben is such a great father to our girls.
This is what the girls think of their dad!
He is always making us laugh.
He is always fixing our bike tires:)
He is the handiest dad to have around. He knows how to fix everything! And if there is something he doesn't know how to fix, he will figure it out, however long it takes.
He is very kind.
He is learning patience:)
He will help anyone at the drop of a hat.
He goes without, so we can have everything.
He is the hardest working dad we know.
He works so we can enjoy all of the great pleasures of life.
He is always taking us on new adventures.
He has taught us everything we know.
He is a very smart dad.
He is our best friend.
WE LOVE YOU!!

We love to be with our daddy!

We love Grandpa Luna too! He always makes us smile and laugh! He is always teaching us new spanish words!

This is my Grandpa Smith and my girls' Great Grandpa Smith. I am so lucky to have such a special grandpa. He has a very kind heart and is so giving. He is a great example too and has taught me so much! I am truly greatful for him and his love for his family! We love you Grandpa! Happy Father's Day!

Shoshone River!

This is the Shoshone River flooding out the entire land around it! This picture shows a road that was completely washed away by the water. Ruben and I drove out to see the river today because he came home yesterday and told me about it. I didn't believe him that it was that high! These pictures are out by where he works at American Colloid. I wanted to journal about this and have it for my kids when they get older, so they can look back and remember how old they were when this happened. The last time this happened was back in 1981! Water scares me! I think I would rather have a tornado or something, rather that flooding.
This picture was taken just past the bridge and I was standing on the highway. As you can see, the barbed wire fence is almost completely submerged underwater! You can see a little of the post left sticking out of the water.

A road that was completely covered.

Another view of the fence length-ways.

Just showing how the water is covering everything.

The water is rising fast...SCARY!!!!!!!

Mr. and Mrs. Leonhardt!

Scotty and Chelsey are now Mr. and Mrs. Leonhardt! We had the opportunity to attend their wedding on Saturday, June 13th, 2009. It was held in Joel and Lori Peterson's back yard. It was a beautiful yard and a gorgeous day! Everyone looked very nice. Scotty is the son of Michael Leonhardt, who is one of Ruben's very good friends. Ruben has known Michael for about 17 years. Michael has been very good to our family. It has been fun watching his kids grow up. Scotty is the oldest of the five kids. Poor Mandy....4 brothers! :)
Mandy, Julie, Riley, Chelsey, Scotty, Mallorie, Michael, Joey, Casey
(Mallorie is Chelsey's little sister:)

Scotty, Michael, Joey, Casey

Abby made a new friend

Casey, Joey, Riley

Mandy and RaeDawn (Chelsey's other sister)

Walking his daughter down the isle

Mallorie and Riley

Flower Girl and Ring Bearer

Father of the groom!

Too cute for his own good!

Miss Kenley Rae Wilson

Isn't she adorable!

(Just woke up from her nap:)

3 Pretty girls waiting for the wedding to begin!

Whitney is growing up too fast!

McKenna all dressed up!

Abby strikin' a pose!

Here's the 3 most beautiful girls in the world!

I had to take some pictures of them while I had the chance. They never get too excited to pose for me for pictures.

Walk For Bridger

These are all of Bridger's cousins and friends that walked for him on Saturday! Bridger Gustafson is the son of JanaLee Moncur Gustafson and the grandson of Brent and Darlene Moncur. He is battling Chronic Granulomatous Disease, a rare genetic immune deficiency disease. With CGD, Bridger's white blood cells don't create hydrogen peroxide and are not able to fight off the typical bacteria, molds and funguses that people encounter in their environment every day. Bridger is going to have a bone marrow transplant at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. The family is trying to raise funds for the families expenses that their insurance won't cover.
So, my brother, my daughter Whitney and I walked for Bridger. It was a beautiul Saturday morning for a walk. We were so glad that we took the opportunity to do that together, and to help out a family friend.

Awwww! :)

The girls love Piggy Back Rides from their Uncle!

My Friend Susan

Susan came to visit me last Friday. It's been about 6 or 7 years since we have seen eachother! You know how it goes, life gets busy with family and everyday happenings, and your friends are last on the list. It makes me sad that I have missed out on a lot of things in her life. We have been friends since we were about 10 years old. Then she moved away just shy of our Freshman year, I think. Then years later she relocated in Worland, Wy with her 2 oldest daughters, Whitney and Anna. I would see her on and off whenever I would go to Worland or she would come through Lovell. She got married and had 2 other beautiful daughters. We both have been busy with life, and recently we have gotten back in touch with eachother. I was so glad when she called me and asked if she and Anna could come and see me. We had a good visit and I am looking foward to seeing her soon so we can get caught up on things we have missed in eachother's lives. Thanks Susan for coming and seeing me! :)

My poor little Abby....

...is SICK!!! She woke up Monday morning with a 103.6 temperature! YIKES!! Abby has a bad sore throat and tummy ache. I tried to get her to eat something all day. But she didn't want anything to do with food. I couldn't even get her to eat popsicles! Finally, about 4 pm, Whitney got her to eat one. But that was it. Then at about 7 pm, she decided she wanted a bite of a pear that her sisters were eating. Literally, that is all she ate....a bite! At about 8:30 pm, I finally got her to drink some sprite. Not a whole lot of it though. She fell asleep in the recliner about 9 pm and slept till 10:30. Everyone else was in bed asleep and Abby and I were up watching TV. She also decided that Cheddar Cheez-it's sounded good. So she ate a few of those with her sprite around 12:45 in the am! Then finally she was ready for bed at 1:15 am. I took her temperature again before she fell asleep and it was 103.9! I gave her Tylenol and she fell asleep. She wore her jacket the entire day Monday! I could not get her to take it off. Which probably didn't help with the fever.

Well, Abby woke up yesterday morning and was still feeling yucky! Her temp luckily had gone down but she still had one:( She ate 2 popsicles and drank some more sprite. Which is a big step compared to Monday! I decided to take her to the doctor in Powell. They did a strep test and it was negative. So the doc took a culture and we will find out Thursday what the result is. The doctor said it is probably some type of the flu bug. I always wonder what's going to be next in our family. Maybe I should quit thinking that and maybe we will stay well! LOL!!! We have just had a bad year with the sickness going in circles through everyone. Abby is feeling lots better today, even though she still won't eat much. She has had some cantolope and sprite today. I just hope we can get better and stay better!

FHE

Last night for Family Home Evening, we hauled the huge pile of branches to the trailer, that we had trimmed of the lilac bushes the Saturday before. We also mowed our lawn and Loretta's lawn. Here is McKenna happily working!
Whitney working hard.

This is only a fourth of the pile of branches! There were many!
They had to haul them a pretty long ways too!

My poor little Abby was sick all day long. She decided to come outside and sit on the tractor and watch.

Whitney is all smiles!

I wish they were like this all the time when we ask them to help with yard work:)

Team Work!

"Princess Luna"

Yesterday in Primary, Whitney was the 'Spotlight of the Week", which they called her 'Princess Luna'. The Primary Presidency compiles a list of things about the person and has the other kids try and guess who the next Prince or Princess may be. It is a pretty neat thing they for the kids. McKenna got it about 2 months ago and I never documented it. Oh, I forgot to add that Whitney is by no means a princess. She is the complete opposite! So she was not at all thrilled to pose for this picture, but she sure did smile pretty!

Dumb Birds!!

Last Saturday, we decided to try and move our chickens to this cage and get them out of their box. Well, this worked all for about 10 minutes. These dumb chickens figured out if they flew up a little ways, they could hold on to the side and slide right through the cracks. So I spent a good part of the afternoon chasing chickens throughout my laundry room. Did I mention these birds make a really big mess!?!
Yes! When I went to feed them, they literally about attack me to get their feed! Before I knew it, not only one chicken was out, there were 5 out at one time! Anyways, as you can see in the picture, they are eating their food off of the rug. Like I said, when I gave them their food, they all jump onto the plate like a bunch of piranas and start scratching and the food flies everywhere!! Trying to catch the chickens and putting them back in the cage was a JOKE! I would get one in and another one would get out. If I would have had one of my girls recording me, I could have put it on Funniest Home Videos and won! It was a CIRCUS!!
Ruben and I cut out some cardboard and put around the bottom of the cage. Well, that worked for a day. I was getting ready to take Whitney to summer school this morning and I walked into the laundry room and 'Lo and Behold' a SWEET little yellow chicken figured out how to get out again. Soooo......guess where the chickens are? Yep! Back in the box, where they can fly up, but can't get out! Ha! Ha! I can't wait till these dumb birds go out to the shop this weekend to their new home. This weekend will be one month that I will have had these 'cute' little chickens in my laundry room. Although, it will be great when they start laying fresh chicken eggs this fall!

Whitney got her braces off!

Today was a good day for Whitney! She got to get her braces off! She has had them on since October of 2008. What a drastic change her teeth went through. We headed off to Billings this morning and had to be there by 8:50 am. Yes, very long day! Anyway, we got to her appointment and it only took about 20 minutes for them to remove the braces and take an impression for the retainer. They looked awesome! We had to be back at the office by 12:00 pm to get her retainer fitted.

Whitney's retainer is clear. The reason her teeth look gross in this picture is because of the saliva and steam that is in the retainer. But her top teeth look excellent. Whitney has half of a major milestone completed. She will get the full set of braces in a couple of years.