Sunday, November 6, 2011

a post about....everything....







Lots of things have been happening around here. Above are pictures we took of us going up with Granna and Papa to Yosemite for the day.

Below are some pictures of us carving pumpkins and enjoying 2 different Halloween festivals.























Below we have some pictures of Austyn's 2nd birthday. Can you believe he is going to be 2 already!?! My baby is growing up. We had some of our friends over to the house and had a little birthday party for him.




























I feel like lots have been going on around here. There is so much to update. But not quite sure where to start. Last time I updated it was 90-degrees and still felt like summer. Now we have already gone through our 2 weeks of wonderful 70 to 80 degree weather and have hit fall. It's now cold with an average high of 50 -degrees. We are approaching living here in fresno for almost a year. And in case you were wondering, yes, we still love it here. And we love being home owners.



I decided after Penelope had another bout with her stomach trouble to have her checked out. I have a co-worker who has a gluten allergy and when I was describing Penelope's symptoms she was having a lot of the same symptoms. After talking to her Pediatrician and then going to see a specialist we got her tested for gluten allergy and we are tring to get stool samples to check many other things. The gluten allergy came back negative. Her stool samples are hard to get. (You can stop reading if this is TMI for you and skip to the next paragraph.) They gave me a little container that would catch any droppings. For whatever, reason she is scared of it. I begged, and bargained, and tried talking her through it. She sat on it to go pee a couple of times. She even sat on it while she watched a movie on the portable DVD player. And still nothing. Someone had the idea of putting saran wrap on the toilet and she wouldn't notice. Let's just say it didn't work. She noticed and there was a big mess. Then we drained the toilet several times in an attempt to "cetch it". In about 2-3 weeks of it, we caught 1. ONE! Ugh. I was hoping once she saw that was all she had to do the other samples (we need a total of 3) would come easily. But nope. I called the doctor, she doesn't have any other options or ideas. Just keep trying. Can't move forward until we have the samples. So we are hoping, praying, that we can get on with it already.





Russell took the kids to the zoo with some friends. And Penelope was climbing on something she wasn't suppose to and fell back and hit her head really hard. I ended up meeting Russell at the Children's hospital and a great friend picked up Austyn for us. She had a "mild" concussion according to the ER doctor. Looking back I don't really know what was mild about it. She had a horrible headache, nausea and vomiting. Through the night we had to wake her up every 2 hours to make sure she was ok. Being a nurse I know the reasons why we do things. What I am really looking for is if she is having a small brain bleed. What really happend to her is that she hit her head so hard that her brain actually bouced around in her skull and caused small microscopic connections between her nerves to tear. It was awfull for me. And probably something as she gets bigger that she has a small memory of but will eventually be no big deal. She of course recuperated fine.





We are going to vacation soon. yay! Can't wait. More details of that when we get back.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Clovis farmer market

a picture after we cut Austyn's hair this morning. He held still just fine during the hair cut, but not so well after when we were trying to get his picture.

Below are picutres of the Clovis farmer's market on friday. I really enjoy going. And the kids have a blast.








Thursday, September 1, 2011

preschool and water skiing, but not together...




Finshing up our vacation we met my parents at Millerton Lake and went out on their boat. We ventured around the lake and went water skiing (something I haven't done in the longest time). My mom and I were able to get up and ski. Russ tried once but with his slightly injured ankle from earlier he decided not to push himself. Maybe next time.

my mom skiing




Russ right before we took off....the other pic wasn't much more than some water crashing. LOL

me skiing



Penelope driving the boat with Grandpapa


As for most people, come September, life has started as usual. Penelope has continued in Preschool. Her backpack zipper already broke, got to go back and buy her a new one. That's what I get for buying her a new one when she had been using a hand-me-down one just fine before hand. LOL. She is in a new class and happens to be in class with one of our friends from church, Declan. You can see him in the pictures below.




Penelope at her cubby hole
Penelope and Declan right outside ready to start a learnin'

Saturday, August 20, 2011

walking among giants

The family and I just got back from a wonderful vacation camping at the sequoia national forest. It was so wonderful, breath taking, great! We all LOVED it! Here are some of the pictures. It was so wonderful I want to go again and again.



the camp site


Russ making breakfast. Here we had french toast and eggs. YUM
on one of the shuttles that take you around the park.



we got a chance to see a couple of deer during our trip here. This one was at least holding still long enough for me to be able to snap a picture.
I believe the giant sequoia in the back is Sherman.
This hollowed out entrance is out of a fallen sequoia tree.




A picture of a the group we went on a tour with. Kind of gives an idea of how BIG these trees are.
Here the roots are exposed on one of trees that had fallen down. Penelope, Kayle, and Nathan.
the ranger who gave us a nature walk.
a sequoia seed.





this was our only real sighting of a bear. We were on one of the shuttles heading back to camp from an excursion out with the kids and at one of the stops spotted a mother bear with her 2 cubs. This to me was the perfect scenerio: behind steal and glass. LOL. We did hear our campers next to us saw a bear one night. I am glad to be back home where I don't have to worry about it.

Below are pictures of us at the camp site.



dirty boy




Here are pictures of Hume lake. It was a piece of heaven for Russ and I. We could have stayed there all day long. Ahhhhh.....





Below are pictures of Beetle rock.



okay. I could go on forever with the amont of photos I took. But I only showed you the good ones. LOL.