School - 2 days in a row!!!

I know most of you know how Brenn struggles with migraines and has missed more school in the last few years than she has attended. Today is 2 days in a row she went to school! That is huge right now. She seems to be really struggling with the pain lately. We visited with a new neurologist (for her, he is the one who originally recommended the Botox for me at Mayo) Dr. Eross, he did an occipital nerve block on both sides of her head and a ton more Botox up her neck and into her hair - the nerve block was great, her head was numb for about a day - too bad it made her pass out and then have nausea and be really dizzy for about 2 days. She told be her head was great, too bad she couldn't walk! But it seems like the Botox, which takes 2-3 weeks to take effect, is starting to kick in.

I admire her for her fortitude - she keeps plugging away at make up work and her online class, we signed her up for the ACT yesterday and looked at the requirements for admittance to BYU and figured if she did well on the ACT - no problem - and got a 4.0 this year - no problem - she should easily get in, then I thought "WOW" this girl who makes it to class maybe 2 days a week figures a 4.0 is no problem, and she is right - I do wonder what she could accomplish if we get these headaches under control!

All in all - she impresses me to no end, and I just wanted to write about it for those to come to see what a good attitude will get you, and of course to brag a little....since this is my journal of sorts.

I have been reading 2 other blogs and am impressed by these people at well - first is a family in our stake, the parents were in a plane crash and are recovering from burns (2nd plane crash in our stake this summer - both lived- Wow) and the other is some one I do not know but am impressed by the togetherness of this couple. Here are the links http://blog.cjanerun.com/ this is the sister of the first family and you can link to several others from there. This link http://www.sccsdecker.blogspot.com/ is to the other and I admire the strength of this couple and how they are holding it together. Feel free to donate to either, as we struggle to pay for the medical expenses for Brenn I can only imagine what these families are going thru.

Eighteen part II

We had a family party on Sunday and I wanted to share some of the pictures with you.

Two Cakes - Ken had to put 18 candles on both - Scott and Jason kept saying "but she is not 36!" I love getting together and just chatting with the kids running in the backyard playing "Judge" which is a hide and seek game played in the dark with one flashlight. I am not sure all the rules but the kids line up at our house at dark to see if the game is on.

My Mom, Judy and her sister Linda

Brenn and Sonja

Jonny and Dallin

Sonja and Dave

Okay, Dallin was being funny and felt his picture should be taken, being a loving Mom I complied. Just a side note, I am amazed at the power of the media - one 15 - 30 second commercial and all the kids us this pose. Makes you wonder....

Eighteen - How is that possible??!!!!

This will wax nostalgic and probably a litte weepy! My baby turned 18 today, and I feel like it is impossible - I was just 18 and not nearly as mature or together as Brenn.

I remember calling my mom and Kathy at 8pm on a Friday night and telling them the contractions where 10 mins apart and we were going to head to the hospital. They jumped in the car and drove all night long from Phoenix to Provo - maybe that is what has cemented their 20 year friendship - They reached Payson and called us to see if they should just go to the hospital. I answered the phone at home and told them it was a false alarm (no cell phones back then!). They proceeded to help me nest and stare at me until my doctor finally started me about noon on September 12th - as soon as I was hooked up and settled into my bed, Ken, Kathy and my mom went to lunch. They left me and about 10 mins later the contractions started and I was alone and a little scared (once again no cell phones) - luckily they were not gone long and 12 short hours later she came into this world and changed Ken and I forever. She was so small, and such a good baby - we had no idea what we were in for, but do we ever?


I will be forever grateful for Shelley's parents Joe and Sandy Anderson for letting us be part of their family in San Francisco while Brenn was treated for her cancer. Really that was not the worst thing in the last 20 years, I do find that amazing but she was so good and we were so blessed that I learned what it means to have Christ carry your burdens and make them truly light.

I am grateful for such good In-laws (all of them) Ed and Kathy have been such a great source of strength and always right on advise - I am grateful Kathy told me not to worry about Brenn going to Kindergarten that first year - she missed the deadline by 13 days and was so ready to go - but the school would not make an exception (now these kids get to try) so she is a senior this year instead of graduating last year. How grateful I am she is home for one more year!!

I am grateful for my parents, Pat and Judy, they are always available and Dad is good for a computer or fun electronics. Gma makes the best cinnamon rolls and brings groceries when I am out of town!! She is a great cook and hopes that some day I will cook too. My parents are a never ending source of gospel light - their testimonies are evident in the way they live and encourage us to learn about our Savior.

Brenn has never been imitated by adults - she always spoke like one and felt she should be listened to like one. Good things most adults treated her that way, she had and still has no patience for those who do not give her credit for her intellect. I never knew how smart kids were until her - She constantly amazed me and still does for that matter. She has had such a hard time with migraines and only went to school last year less than half the time and still got the best of grades. I always try to talk to the teachers and warn them about her attendance, Mr. Bonjour was sure she wouldn't keep up and shouldn't race to graduate (he must be so old as to not remember how exciting it is to get out of High School), by the end of the first 2 weeks - Brenn attending class 4 or 5 times - he was singing her praises. He actually left me a message telling me what a great gal she is - like I didn't already know!!

I am excited to see what the future holds for her. She will be a great wife and mother, photographer, card maker, massage therapist, pianist, daughter of God, and whatever else she can dream up!!

I keep telling her I am ready to be a grandma - but not too soon. I am learning and enjoying my grand nephews once a week and sometimes I get to play with Rylee and Tyce.

Mostly, I am afraid the next 18 will fly by even faster and I will get so caught up in what I "have" to do I will forget to slow down and enjoy the little things and the beauty of family.

PINK!!!

As you can see Brenn has put pink on the bottom of her beautiful hair, well last night I was giving Ken a hair cut and all of the sudden it looked like I cut my hand or something and I realized that the comb I was using had be previously used by my darling daughter when dyeing her hair and she neglected to rinse it off.

I told Ken it probably wasn't a big deal and continued the hair cut - after a few more minutes and realizing how much dye was really in his hair I did, like a good hair stylist, invite him to rinse his hair before going any further. I could not believe how much pink came off of his head!!! He had a big meeting today in Prescott so I hoped it did not take. Of course he has dark hair and probably even if it did do a little we probably couldn't tell so I helped the picture along just a bit!!

Love you Ken!! I just couldn't resist - the idea that something like that could happen so easily was so funny on one hand and (at least for Ken) a little horrifying on the other!

The Olympics are Over!! Are we sad or happy?!

We are alive - I am sure some people are wondering but we survived but after hours of viewing and loving every minute the Olympics are done.

We are exhausted - late nite viewing is killer but who can resist the beach volleyball finals? Logan has decided that will be his chosen profession, hope he gets to be really tall!!

We are really kinda sick in our watching - we will watch any Olympic sport and enjoy the heck out of it. Any other kids watch the dressage? Or the table tennis?

My favorite moments were of course Michael Phelps and his 8 gold medals!! I also loved Dara Torres - who doesn't want to think she can do that at the young age of 41? Can I have her abs with my routine? Probably not possible! I also love the weight lifter who dedicated his gold to his wife who died last year. What about Bella Karolli the gymnastic coach turned commentator - when was the last time you saw Bob Costas speechless? I loved it - he held nothing back and was so charming at the same time.

What about the sport where the horseman or woman gets to ride an unfamiliar horse thru an obstacle course with jumps and all to prove they can ride any horse - some horses have a sense of humor because who else will throw a rider in the most comical way possible?

I did not know how beautiful China was - the countryside was so green and pretty - I thought the buildings were amazing, especially the water cube!! What a building! I hope all of the attention and building is good for China.

Luckily we still have some on the DVR if we go into withdrawal to severely.


Well, we are trying to catch up on our sleep and our life - I can't wait for the winter games in 2010 - Brenn mentioned that Vancouver was not that far away and we went to Salt Lake so....

First day of School!!!

Doesn't the first day of school bring back memories for us old people? I always planned my outfit with care and took extra time with the hair and makeup and sat excited in new classes - some lost the luster but some I really enjoyed! Here are Dallin, Kai and Brenn off to high school - Kai is a sophomore and starting high school - Dallin is a junior - And Brenn is a senior - she is excited to leave campus for lunch (a privilege allotted to only seniors). We have tried to take these pictures every year on the first day - Dallin said it was ok if he could roll his eyes! But I did it anyway - they change so much from the first day to the last.



Dallin is starting the "get in shape" part of wrestling, I love to watch him compete and see how hard he is working. I know he is not looking forward to homework, but he knows he needs to get it done.

Brenn is going to massage therapy school as part of the high school - I am excited to be practiced on! She is doing better headache wise and hopefully will continue to improve.

Logan is off to Junior high - he is in eighth grade and is too tired from football practice to be too excited. It is almost scary how fast these years are going.

Football is exciting we are looking forward to games starting and seeing how much he has improved. He is looking forward to continuing the harp too.

Mini Powell

This is our mini (totally fake) Lake Powell vacation - actually it is at Lake Roosevelt in Arizona. We took our camp trailer and the boat and the Palmer's (Kens sister and boys) and headed to a campground at Roosevelt Lake for a long weekend. Hurricane Dolly gave us some really pretty sunsets!! Luckily our campground had plug-ins and we had A/C or we would have roasted. It is different at Powell because the water is right there to cool off - here we were in a gravel lot and it was HOT!!
Brenn and Jason on the tube - Jason also skied like a demon but since most of us were in the water helping we got no pictures.
Here is Scott he tried and tried to get out of the huge wakes (when you only go 13 mph they are wide and really tall).
Jason, Sonja and Brenn.
Da' Boys!!! Jonny, Nate, Logan, and Dallin - when you camp with 6 boys things are just a little crazy!!! Poor Brenn - only girl and all.

Logan tore it up!! He skied so well I could hardly believe the change from last year!!!Nate did really great too!! He had really rough water and still did well - it is hard when the water is choppy, it feels like you are being beaten up.Brenn is an amazing skier!! She has to watch out for Logan!

Jonny skied like a champion - I got out the camera and Sonja told me to let him warm up - well he really did not need to he skied all over the lake and then rehurt his foot and did not go again!! So no Jonny pictures!!

My little Achmed!! Dallin was so burned he had to cover up - this is how he choose to do that!!Gotta eat!!Our usual Lake Powell trip was a casualty of the gas prices and the catastrophes that have befell the Cole household this summer. This is the first year in about 10 we have not gone to Powell and we are all suffering withdrawal!! I am grateful my kids understand and are up to just about anything we come up with.

Jason could not figure out the camper - he kept waiting for us to put it in the water!!! After all that is how we usually camp at the lake - on the lake!!

I read Mark and Tamara's Blog http://www.thevoiceofashby.blogspot.com/ she talks of school starting. Sonja'a kids started yesterday - thank goodness we still have two weeks. I am a little scared for Brenn to start her senior year - first because !HELLO! last year totally at home and because then Dallin follows so fast!! 2 years and I am down to one!! That is a good argument for more children (well kinda).

I have felt Tamara's pain at what is right for our really bright kids - schools have such great programs to help those who are behind or who learn differently, which is so important. But they do not do alot for those kids who are super smart. We as parents are responsible to figure that out with out a lot of guidance - and of course try to get the little buggers to pay attention and see the same opportunities we see (after about 7th grade they get a mind of their own and then we have to take a back seat and just try to motivate them). I am rambling but mostly kids seem to learn and grow, sometimes in spite of us. We have the world to beat us up we should give ourselves (the mommies) a break and realize if our kids don't live up to their "potential" they will still be really nice and productive people who will supply us with grandchildren to play with! So chin up!!

Slip 'n' Slide!! Fun, Fun, Fun!!!

Well the boys wanted to slip and slide so they came up with their own version - Lots of tarps and soap and water - what else would be so much fun?! Dallin in a picture of poetic grace!!
There goes Kai - he told me you have to keep your eyes closed or the soap stings!!!
Jake at his best!!
Whoa whoooo!!!!!
Three handsome men!!! They spent so long having fun they are all sunburnt!!! What a fun day. I came home from shopping and Logan had 2 girls in the house - they wanted to slip and slide too, hmmm is that ok with no adult home?? Grandma said she kept an eye on them but I am not sure she is the best chaperone, after all she told Brenn about seven minutes in Heaven!!!

Whew!!!

After 6 weeks we are finally done.. well almost. Still a few touch ups and putting the garage back together. But the floor turned out beautiful and the paint looks great - Ken keeps kidding me that I am going thru a dark period and that I am painting everything black.

The walls in the family room look green in this picture but they are a med brown. They look so nice with the floors. I spent days going to find the perfect rug for the family room. I found it the first day and when I went to find someone to help me (at Costco) someone else bought it - 10 Costcos later I have a different rug.
The kitchen looks so nice - the new light fixtures and I painted the table black. That table I bought when I was single at a garage sale for $8, seems like such a bargain and it looks great with new chairs and the black paint.
This picture shows the color of the wood really well - it is a cherry finish and looks really rich and elegant. Now I can go back to Spain and maybe a little about the kids - this project has kept me working long hours since Ken has been busy and the kids had finals and summer school, scout camp, and trig. Brenn has helped me so much, my Mom too, I am grateful to have such great help.

We painted Brenn's bathroom purple and all of the cabinets black - it looks really nice!!

It is nice to have it done and looking so nice - I shouldn't have to do any of this for a long time!!

Thirteen!!

Logan turned 13 on the 30th and he was really excited to open his presents!
He of course has the best parents in the worls and he love his new cell phone! We are still trying to recover from the flood and as long as there is no floor we decided to scrape the popcorn off of the final 2 ceilings and paint. My mom and I tried our hand at faux painting and this is how it turned out - the picture does not seem to do it justice.

I tried to update the light in the kitchen - it used to be gold with a white and gold fan and very yellow plexiglass. This is my favorite thing I got done!! it looks so much better! Ken and Dallin hiked Havasupai last tuesday thru sat. Brenn, Logan, My Mom and I worked really hard to get all the painting done and the lights hung. Hopefully only 1 more week and we will get the flooring in and be DONE!!!

Big hole in my garage!!

Here is the offending pipe - and the accompanying hole, at least it looks like it will be confined to the garage.
Every time the jackhammer starts I hear cha ching - cha ching and money going down the drain!

Derailed again!!

This is my Laundry room and a nice big hole into my garage. 2 Weeks ago my washer drain backed up and flooded the garage and the laundry room, ruining the laminate floor and stressing me out. So we decided to pull up the laminate in the Laundry room and replace with tile, lesson learned.

When I started to pull up the laminate - it was a whole lot soggier than previously thought and we called the insurance company.They decided since the water went into the kitchen that the whole laminate floor had to come out - I thought crap - but hey new floor and a chance to scrape the final 2 ceilings and do a little updating would be ok, I could get behind that. The timing is not great but.....

I found some one on craigs list to buy my good flooring and took it all up - isn't the linoleum underneath groovy?

But alas - when my plumber friend was cleaning out my drains he found the line from the washer and kitchen is collapsed under the concrete slab - Yikes! and then got his snake so stuck even his truck couldn't pull it out. THEN on the way home from mutual Brenn's Beast blew a tire and we had to put 4 new tires on it!! Hard to spend $600 on tires when the whole car cost $1800. We seem to be having such bad luck! Then on Thursday I was rinsing some paint brushes in the kitchen sink and the water came up thru the drain in the laundry room so no kitchen sink and no dishwasher!! No washer either. AUGHHH!

I cannot start on our repairs until the plumber is done and he hasn't even started! I have to admit when he said we had to clean out the whole garage (ours is a huge storage space) to jack hammer up the concrete and find the break and maybe even go thru my living room, which has all the furniture from the rest of the house, let's just say I am not really having a positive attitude.

The only good news is only 3 more days of school, but then I can't bug my kids to help me because they all have finals! And only 3 more days and Brenn is a Senior, that is a big YIKES!!!

All in all - i am slow to blog when every day there is something else going wrong! I did buy a lottery ticket - usually I don't even match one number so I thought if it is opposite week..._ any way I won $3, maybe things are looking up!

Fuen Castle

OK here we are on the top of the castle!! Ken, my Aunt Linda and my Mom Judy. This is a birds eye view of the courtyard - it was surprisingly big and organized. I did wonder how many people lived here at once.
Notice the skinny walk way to the tower. We started a tradition of climbing every staircase we could find and going thru every door - this was a great way to see it all but very taxing in many ways!!

Here is Mom and Ken at the door way to the tower - we figured it must have been built that way to limit the access by men in armour.




Thru the doorway is a little room - seemed nice until we noticed another door - look how small the door is...

There goes Ken - He hates this shot, butt you have got to use it!! The steps were very tall and the passage way was really skinny - again we thought a couple of men with bows could hold out for a long time - the men in armour would never be able to get thru the door or up the stairs.

This is the top door. Here I am helping my mom - it was really a hard climb because the steps were tall and no hand holds and no turning around.
Here is one of the arrow slits up close.
This is the zoomed out of the same arrow slit.

Guns - what else would interest a man?

This is the stairway to the other tower - I loved the look of the brick work. This stair way was slightly wider and had some hand holds.

View of the top of the 2nd tower - isn't the water blue!! That's the Mediterranean Sea and it was so pretty.
Top of the 2nd tower - more square footage then the first but less protected.