Jayme's latest blunder :)

Last Thursday Jayme, Leta and I where at some friends property practicing shooting our bows. I shot my arrows and then sat in the shade with Leta while Jayme took his turn. On his last arrow he shot and felt pain we noticed the blood at the same time. I asked him "what did you do?..Do you need to go to the hospital???" Which he replied "I think the string got me, and no I am fine" He told me to bring Leta and the bows up to the front of the property where there was a pump to clean up in. By the time I got up there ( which was no easy task carrying two bows and a toddler) he was visibly pale and quickly said "It may be worse than I thought" You think!! To my disgust I saw a pretty good sized hole in the top of his hand. So we got in the van and headed in. They looked at us like idiots when we where asked to describe what happened and all we could say was "He shot his bow and where thinking maybe the string got him" Well finally the doctor made it in and said the arrow got him by looking at all the carbon slivers in the wound. To spare you faint of heart to many details the bottom line was the arrow punctured through to the ligaments and cut one so he didn't want to stitch it closed due the ligament needed the wound to ooze at will to heal, but since he cut away the top skin he needed to put in what they call a purse stitch. One stitch in the middle of it to help it stay closed to heal, but open sides to ooze through. Pleasant huh. Now your asking how did the arrow get his hand in the first place, right? Well after over two hours in the E.R we headed home stopping at the target to see if we could see exactly what took place. And the final verdict is Jayme shoots at 70 pounds of pressure which apparently was to much for this poor old arrow and after releasing the string it shattered an inch or so before the fletchings (the feathers) a pretty good part. One part went on to the target and the other went off course into his hand, he jokes he is an awesome archer to hit two targets at once with one arrow, MEN!

The good news out of all this is his ligament appears to be healing beautifully and not tearing completely as they feared and no infection another concern, Yay

**The pictures came off my cell phone so there not the best quality

Reasons to Love Summer :)

I LOVE summer it's hot and there is so much to do! Some of the main things to love about summer for me are...

• A good reason to eat ice cream


• Gardens!


• Lined dried clothes


• lots of opportunity's to play in the water


• and best of all no SNOW

Leta's List would look more like this..

• Playing in the water


• Popsicle/ice cream


• Playing in the water


• Popsicle/ice cream

On and on it would go. Leta and I are loving our summer. We spend allot of time outside and with family. With summer comes BBQ's and lazy days spent with family and friends alike. It's funny how summer/Fall is my favorite seasons when those are typically my busiest times. With summer comes the garden and eventual canning, line drying clothes and up keep required of day to day life! But the results are so satisfying. Nothing beats fresh Vegetables and sun fresh sheets :) So I say Long live summer!!

**Blogger wouldn't let me download pictures so heres this for now :)

*~*HaPPy BiRTdAy AmERicA*~*

I love holidays, it means good food and friends and family!

This year started out with a BBQ with his Family on Sat and some fireworks and on Sunday was a BBQ with my mom and fireworks with some friends later that night and finally Monday was the parade, fair and a another BBQ with family with the big fireworks in Enoch. I was worried about Leta being scared, but not my kid. When they first started she was just in awe and kept saying "oh, WoW!" Then she heard the booms and would copy them every time saying "BOOM!" she talked about them for days after. We had a blast at his parents with the camera and a stack of sparklers we would try to make the best image out of waving the sparklers and we got some pretty good ones. Even though our parade isn't that exciting we decided it was better than nothing and met my family there and some friends joined us as well. So if nothing else it was fun to catch up and visit with everyone. And especially my newest niece. Leta made us proud by holding her hand over her heart as the American flag passed by us. Her favorite was the end when the horses came through, she kept signing and saying horse she was so excited.

All in all it was another great 4Th of July!

Happy Birthday America....

The full Story...

A

I warn you now this and the following posts are not for quick reading so clear your day sit back and enjoy reading the adventures of our first major family vacation. We had a few points of interest we wanted to see, but no clear schedule or agenda. Just pack the van and drive! And being the penny pincher's we are we spent the majority of the trip camping in the van and eating cheap foods we could store in the cooler. It was a blast, even though the thrill of camping out and not having regular showers quickly kicked in it was full of memories and stories to last a lifetime. Here's the whole story....

We where late getting off, no surprise there and in the hurry to get off we didn't think and gave Leta a chocolate milk, BIG mistake. You see she has a thing against milk and roads where she ends up spewing chunks. So we made it to the scenic overlook on highway 14 and had to pull over for major cleanup! I cleaned the car (it mostly stayed on her at least) while Jayme gave Leta a spit bath. Once that drama was over we got going and made our first stop at a little rock shop in Orderville which had a flinstone car out front we let Leta play in. And then it was on to Kanab. We went when we where dating and I have wanted to take Leta. They have Denny's Wigwom and a movie set museum both are free and have fun props to look at and play on. We have a picture of Jayme and I on the same chair in our dating years! At the museum she was worried about the little wooden cowboy statue but loved the creepy mannequins in the jail cell. More than once she snuck away from us to go back to him.
After this little we made it to Az. to sleep for the night...

Water and Cliffs of Az..

After our first restless night of camping in the back of the van we left Jacobs Lake and drove South to the first big stop of the day, the North Rim. It was my fist visit to the actual Grand Canyon and it was fun to hike the trails. Leta insisted on hiking the majority of the first trail so by the second trail she crashed in daddy's arms. After we conquered the trails we headed back to van for some much deserved lunch before hitting the road.
Next stop...Page Az. We drove down through Lee's ferry and "enjoyed" passing all the Indian booths along the way which I quickly realized all possessed "authentic" items that where identical to the last stop, humm interesting.

By the time we reached Page I had come to the conclusion that this was the most barren land I have seen, making for a looooong drive. We got there in time to book a tour for the next day to Antelope Canyon and they informed us of Horseshoe Bend to check out. So after dinner we headed to check it out for ourselves. While it was gorgeous the hike was miserable it was quarter mile of sand dunes that covered your feet making for slow progress and all Leta wanted was to sit and play in the sand. She hated the heat as much as I did! Once there she looked down and saw the water and screamed when mommy wouldn't let her leap off the cliff to the water.

We soon also learned something else about Page. There hotels and motels are made of Gold and cost you an arm and leg to stay there so we settled on the conclusion that we would spend another joyful night in the van. Which now brought up the question of where?! Remember this is barren land no place to privately camp. Which resorted to paying the money to camp at Lake Powell. We unloaded the van and got ready for the night then took a walk in the water, which Leta was not impressed with. Luckily we survived another night in van and enjoyed a swim in the Lake. And best of all we made use of the outdoor showers and cleaned up. ( the perks of camping in your vehicle!) And headed to our Tour...

ANTELOPE CANYON!!

You may be wondering why I capitalized the title and devoted so much into this post. Let me tell you though this was by far the most expensive excursion of our trip it was by far the favorite for all of is. There are no words to explain it! So I hope the pictures give you a small glimpse of its awesomeness.

The tour company have trucks with benches lined in the bed for the group to ride out to the Canyon in, but for the fortunate ones with small children they got to ride in the cab so the kid(s) could be properly seat belted in. There for avoiding the unpleasantness of riding in sweltering heat through sand in an open seat. Once we got there to my pleasant surprise there was no hiking required, a definite perk! We just pulled up to the start of the canyon and walked through and back to the truck. And once in the Canyon it was mostly shaded making for a pleasant break from the heat. Although the sand being kicked up left us with a gritty feeling in the end.

Leta was the star of our group as I got tired of convincing her to be good in the backpack and finally left her out to play in the sand to her hearts content. In the end we ended up with some amazing photos and a desire to come again soon when it wasn't so busy and crowded the only downside to the visit.