Soccer

I love this picture because it says so much.

It's fall and that means that our lives are full of soccer. With three children on different teams things can get pretty busy. But over all this year the schedule has been quite doable with very few conflicts. The kids love it and we enjoy getting out and watching them.

Update on Chase 9-21

Yea! After 17 days in the hospital Rashelle has been able to check Chase out. They checked out on Friday and were going to stay at Mom and Dad's in Maricopa for the weekend to make sure that he remained stable. I have not heard otherwise so I believe that he is doing well and will be going home on Monday the 22nd.

It was a long road but from my understanding here is what was happening. Chase's esophagus muscles are not completely developed and therefore when he eats instead of keeping the milk in the stomach it is coming up and going into his lungs. And as reported before, one of his lungs has some issues so I guess that the irritation creates phlegm which clogs the bronchial tube and causes him to crash. So for the time being he is being sent home on oxygen as well as a 24 hour feeding tube (which goes down the nose to the stomach and is suppose to give him small amounts of food which I guess help keep it from coming up and getting in the lungs) he is also going home with an oxygen monitor. This is a great relief for Rashelle in that she will always be able to know where his oxygen is and therefore know if he is doing OK or not.

I just want to recognize all my great family again for all that they have been doing to help out Rashelle and Travis. We are so blessed. Mom says that the ward has been helping with meals, Tracy and Rashelle's sister in law Kalyn have stepped in, Claryce has still been taking care of the kids throughout the day and that since Shurell got home she has spent many nights with the kids since Travis has to go to work so early in the morning. My heart has been aching being so far away but it is a huge comfort knowing that there is other family and the church that are helping in such a difficult time.

stock

So the stock market is down. We all know that. So Roger and I have taken the opportunity to by some reasonably low stocks and see what happens. So far we are doing pretty well. Too bad we went and bought a bunch of Goodyear stock just before the market took it's tumble. But is is OK we have just lost a few cents per stock and I'm sure it will be up soon. Everything else we bought is looking pretty good.

Roger has taken on a co worker's philosophy of playing the marker. -When purchasing a stock decide how much you want to earn from it and immediately set up a limit sale that will sell the stock automatically when it hits that price. (we figure between 15 & 30 %) So far that is turning out to be a pretty good philosophy. Hopefully it will continue for us. I took a big chance yesterday and bought some AIG stock. The price had crashed the day before, but with the government bailing them out I figured it would be a fairly safe investment. Roger would only let me buy up to $1oo but that got me 50 shares at $2.04 a share. So far it has gone up to $3.87, not much but that is almost $100! I'd say that just about doubling my money is pretty good. I just need to decide when to sell it. That is the risky part of the market. Not letting your self get too greedy... Obviously I''m not doing to well at holding to our philsophy on this one. I just have a gut feeling I should hold it for a bit

Luke's Quilt

Since Madisyn and Luke are sharing a room it has been very hard to decide how to decorate it. Maddy and I finally decided that we would make matching quilts for each of their beds. Madisyn's will be made of pink and brown prints and Luke's will be blue and brown.

Little Chase

This is a picture of my little nephew Chase, my sister Rashelle's littlest. He is about 3 months old and has been having a pretty rough time. Rashelle is a trained Respiratory Therapist and has been pretty concerned about his breathing since he was born. She has been taking him in regularly to try and find out what is going on and finally after a very severe asthma attack last week she drove him 4 hours down to Phoenix Children's Hospital to their emergency room. They admitted him and he is still there. He has undergone many, many test and has had good results from all of the scary and horrible scenarios. Currently, they know for sure that one of his lungs seems to have a development problem and it also has a very small entry hole that supplies air. For some reason he is also having large amounts of phlegm that keeps blocking this very small hole that allows air into the that lung. -So thus the oxygen tubes.

When I talked to Rashelle yesterday they were trying to ween him off of the oxygen but she was not real hopeful because in one of the tests they found pneumonia bacteria and so have started treating him for pneumonia and told her that they will probably have stay in the hospital for another 7-10 days. We are all praying that that will not have to happen. As well as that the doctors will be able to find out why he is having such trouble and how to fix it so he can go home.

Thank goodness for a wonderful family. From what I understand Claryce and her family have mostly been taking care of the three big kids that go to school and the little 4 year old Kyson is down in the Valley. At first he was in St. Johns but he was just having too hard of a time so he came down and stayed with Travis's brother and went and back and forth to the hospital to see Rashelle. Now my mom and dad have come and are taking him out to Maricopa with them and will bring him in to see Rashelle. That just started yesterday so I hope it works out well.

The Working Gals

Here is the picture of our chickens that I somehow lost from my last posting. They are a year and 3 months old and have been wonderful egg layers and bug eaters. This picture was taken after having had to keep them penned for the last couple of weeks. Sadly, they were really starting to pick on each other. They are used to roaming free all day and coming in to roost at dusk. But after I found a number of tomato's that they had half eaten and then a zucchini it was to the pen with them. As of yesterday morning though, they are out an about again. -Only because I somehow didn't get the door shut all the way when I was feeding them and they escaped when my back was to them. So far they are leaving the garden alone so I'll let them be for now.

Our Farm :)

The other day as I was coming in from doing my morning chores, i.e. feeding he chickens and gathering the eggs, picking the ripe veggies and admiring the ripening fruit in the orchard I was feeling quite pleased with my life. I was thrilled that we were being a little more self sufficient, as my mom calls it, by raising all of this food. As I was contently contemplating what a great job we were doing I had to chuckle when the reality thought come barging in that the meager bowl of food in my hand wasn't really enough to feed me for a day let alone the 6 of us. Oh well, it felt good for a moment. Here are some fun picture of our "farm" bounties and what produced them...

Our pretty eggs, yummy big tomatoes, my favorite, young tender zucchini and yellow squash, a few green chili and bell peppers and even a cucumber. Plus, we currently have a number of spaghetti squash, one butternut squash and one watermelon growing in the garden.Any farmer would be proud of such a garden!

Ha HA! Just kidding. We were so busy with the remodel this spring that we didn't get our garden put in until way into June. We kept up on the weeds pretty well until late July when the kids and I went to AZ after that we had a couple of more trips and now it is one big weed patch with some veggies trying to find their way though. We thought that we would probably not get any produce because we had planted so late, but we have been pleased so far.

Hey my chickens picture got deleted! I will have to get another one sometime to show those working gals off. They layed all winter and have really produced great all summer, although now that it is starting to cool down and the days are getting shorter they are slowing down.
Hopefully they will keep giving us enough eggs that i won't have to buy them at the store though!