Laughter - The Best Medicine

Catching Up

Ok, so I thought that I would be really good at blogging...but this summer was crazy busy with both of us working, scouting things, and me being sick. So here I am, posting 11 new blog entries in one day. Since this is like my journal at the moment, I really wanted to get these posts up. Yes, they are kinda long and have lots of pictures, but there was a lot that went on this summer with lots of fun memories too. Enjoy!

Temple Square

Our last day of our weekend get-away, we went to Temple Square. Heather, Ben, Spencer and Matthew came with us too. It was such a beautiful day! We didn’t stop and look at a lot of things, but we enjoyed trying to keep Spencer occupied. We found and stopped at almost anything water related (fountains, creek, pool) that we could find and it was soooo much fun to watch his excitement. Thanks for the fun enjoyable day!

Ben putting air in the tires while Spencer shows

Matthew how to drive the stroller

One of many stops along the creek in front of the Conference Center

At the reflecting pool

"I could stay here forever, this is fun!"

Salt Lake Temple and reflecting pool

my angel

some of the beautiful flowers at Temple Square

"Hello Aunt Sara!"

riding the escalator...."can we ride it again Mom?"

After eating lunch, he had fun playing on these

"I just won the race....Yahoo!"

This represents our marriage...

Curtis, Sara & Christ

Shores' family photo
What a cute family!!!

Cahoon family photo

Weekend get-away at SLC

After a very busy summer, Curtis and I were able to finally find a weekend to get away together. To save on money, we decided to go and visit his sister Heather and use her “guest suite” over Labor Day weekend. While we were there we had fun visiting, watching college football, and playing with our nephews. When we first got there Spencer saw me and said “Curtis?” and started looking around for his uncle. Uncle Curtis and Spencer were buddies most of the weekend playing with blocks, spelling words, rolling cars and balls down a long tube, and playing horsey. I did play with Spencer some, but most of my time I was playing with Matthew. All I had to do was look at him and say “hello handsome” and he would light up with a huge smile. I love it!!

playing with the tube

Spencer tried to give Uncle Curtis a horsey ride,
then ran away laughing!

non-stop laughter

the horsey and his boy

snuggling w/Uncle Curtis

5 months old

Spencer has such strong muscles!!

Watching Aunt Sara doing morning treatments....

not really sure what to think about it...

a future missionary....so handsome!!

While we were in SLC, we went and visited my CF Camp Grandma, Carol Wood. My earliest memories of Carol were when she came up to Boise with the CF doctors from Salt Lake when I was around 6 yrs old. When I started to go to CF camp when I was 11, she was there too. Carol would stay up all night with us playing games and she participated in all of the other various activities that we had. Carol had a way to make every CFer feel important and loved. They no longer do CF camp, so I don’t get to see her as much. I think the last time I saw her was about 8 yrs ago when I was at a funeral for one of my CF camp friends. Even though I don’t see Carol much, she still sends me a card at Christmas, and other important events in my life. I was so excited to go and visit her and for her to met Curtis.

We went to Carol’s Sunday night and visited with her for about 2 hrs. It was fun catching up on how she and other CF camp people are doing and reminiscing about the fun times we had at camp. Carol loved getting to know Curtis and instantly loved him. I wish we would have been able to spend more time with her, but I know I can call, write letters, and stop by and visit her when I’m down in the SLC area.

Carol Wood & I

Sweet Corn

This year my Grandma Myers called and asked if we wanted any sweet corn that my uncle grew on the farm for the family. I was soooo excited! Before my Grandpa Myers passed way and he did all the farming, he planted sweet corn for the family every year. Since his passing, we haven’t had any sweet corn from the farm. Sweet corn is sooo yummy and it’s also great frozen. So Curtis and I went out to New Plymouth on Aug. 17th and Grandma took us to the field and helped us pick about 100 ears of corn. On Aug. 18th, Curtis’ Dad & brother Tim came over so that we could have a “corn party”. I had the men shucking the corn and I boiled it and cooled it. Then we cut it off the cob, measured it and put it into bags so that we could freeze it. It took us about 2 hrs from start to finish. We cooked about 93 ears of corn and got 33 bags that had about 1 ½ cups of corn in them. I know that I’m not in any of the pictures, only because I was the one taking them and was the boss of the whole operation. Thanks Chuck, Tim, and Curtis for all your help! I can’t wait to eat yummy corn all winter!

Chuck & Tim working hard

cooking the corn

Tim & Curtis....goofballs!

Finishing up at the end

(I was extremely tired by this point and let them take over)

The finished product

(please forgive the messy table)

Mona Lisa

Scott & Trina Martin came up to visit us again during the first weekend in August. They came up to attend a friend’s wedding and decided to stay with us. While they were here we celebrated Trina’s birthday (Aug. 7th) and their 20th anniversary (Aug. 18th). Trina wanted to go to the Mona Lisa Fondue Restaurant and so we got reservations to go out on her birthday and celebrate. Curtis and I also celebrated our 4th anniversary (Aug. 12th) with them. The Mona Lisa is pretty spendy (around $75 per couple) so it’s a once a year or every other year type restaurant, but oh, sooooo good!! It’s got a very romantic setting and even when they are extremely busy it still doesn’t feel that way. We enjoyed our 2 ½ hrs that we spent there eating cheese fondue, meat w/dipping sauce, veggies, bread, and of course chocolate fondue! It sure doesn’t look like a lot of food when they bring it out a little at a time, but man are you stuffed when you leave! Another cool thing about the restaurant is that you can write “love notes” to each other and put them in a bottle and they will keep it for you for up to 2 yrs. The last time Curtis and I were there was 2 yrs ago and they were able to find our messages in a bottle and write new ones to each other to be read in 2 yrs. Thanks Trina for suggesting that we go here and celebrate. It was so much fun!!! Happy Anniversary!!!

Looking at the outside you would never guess this is a nice romantic restaurant

Cheese Fondue

main course, meats, potatoes, veggies, bread & a cheese block

the grill & dipping sauces for the meat

Happy 4th Anniversary!

Happy Birthday Trina!

Also, Happy 20th Anniversary

The Turtle-a-flame chocolate fondue.

This isn't a great picture of the flame as it was totally

consuming the marshmallows that they are trying to

roast, but you get the idea

Chocolate Fondue....YUMMY!

Scott & Trina

My handsome husband & I

I Love You!

Babysitting Matthew

The day that I got out of the hospital, Curtis’ sister Heather asked if we wanted to watch Matthew (4 months old) for a couple of hours so that they could take Spencer to go and play with his cousins at a water park. (They were in town to attend the baptism of their niece on the other side of the family.) Since Matthew is such a good baby I was totally up for watching him, besides Curtis was going to be home, so he could help too. Matthew was sleeping when he got to our house and woke up about 5 min. after his parents left. I thought for sure he was going to cry when he woke up and saw his aunt and uncle that he had only been around a few times…but no crying at all. He woke up all happy and cute. Uncle Curtis had is first experience feeding a baby, and did a great job! (now he just needs experience changing diapers….) Matthew was only fussy for a few minutes before his parents come to pick him up. It would have been fun to babysit Spencer too, but we’re glad that he had fun at the water park. Thanks Heather and Ben for letting us babysit Matthew!!

how could you not love a face like this

He is SO CUTE!

Uncle Curtis feeding Matthew

He also learned how to burp a baby

Crazy Uncle Curtis!

Hospital

This summer it was time again for me to the hospital for my regular CF stay. It had been 2 yrs since my last visit, so really I’m doing pretty good. This year, because of insurance reasons, I had to go to St. Al’s hospital instead of St. Luke’s. This was all able to work out because Dr. Rulon, who is a Family Medicine/OBGYN/Cystic Fibrosis doctor (and part of the CF clinic here in Boise) has hospital rights at both St. Al’s and St. Luke’s. It was hard to go to a new hospital where they didn’t know my regular routine and some didn’t even know that much about CF, but I was blessed to have patience with them and we all made it through just fine. Some of the advantages at St. Al’s are that the food is really good and I was in a bigger room (the hospital bed, a desk, couch that folded into a bed and extra space to move around in) so I didn’t feel very claustrophobic in there at all. There were lots of downsides to it too, but we won’t dwell on those…With this hospital visit I have once again decided that my life calling is to educate others about CF. It is a good thing, but it does get old sometimes.

St. Al’s also has a hospital Healing Garden, so one day my Mom, Brenda and my friend Crystal decided to go exploring and find it. It was beautiful, but I didn’t get to enjoy it much. It was extremely hot outside and after being inside for a week and not having my sun glasses with me, I could hardly keep my eyes open because it was so bright.

I was blessed to be able to get lots of rest, have someone else be in-charge of all my IVs (every 6 hrs, 8 hrs, and 24 hrs), eat lots of food and gain about 5 lbs, and was able to visit with family and friends too. Another huge blessing was that I didn’t have to worry about work at all. After I found out I was going in I called my boss and he said not to worry about it and to take the time that I needed to get feeling better. He even volunteered another worker to work with my clients until I could come back to work, so that they would still be able to have a regular schedule. As long as I turned in my paperwork and told my client’s what was going on I had nothing to worry about! What a blessing!!!! Don’t worry, I took the full week off that I was in the hospital and an extra week after that to get back into the swing of things (doing nothing but sitting in bed, eating, doing breathing treatments, and taking my medication really does wear you out and it takes time to get your energy back to where it was before you went in). Anyway, I feel better and am looking forward to having another 2+ yrs out of the hospital. Thanks to everyone for the prayers, food, and kind words…they helped A LOT!

I spent a lot of time "smoking & shaking"