For Mom...

Mom and Dad came for dinner today. They stopped and visited us on their way to Wyoming to Visit Grandma Cox.  We made one of my favorite chicken recipes.  It's called Lemon BBQ chicken. I haven't made it for a long time. I think it's because you have to think about it 24 hours before you want it and I haven't been planning much in advance lately.  It was just as good as I remembered it.  You requested the recipe, Mom,  so I thought I'd post it here.  Love you.  We really enjoyed having you stop by.  Thank you for the homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers and making the cucumber sauce Daddy.  I have never been able to make it like you or Christy or David can.  I probably would practice more if Mark liked it. 

Lemon BBQ Chicken

2/3 C Lemon juice (if lemons are expensive I've used half real lemons and half "reallemon" bottled juice)

1/3 C oil

1/3 C vinegar

2 T soy sauce

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp garlic salt

1 medium onion, chopped coarsely

4 lb chicken pieces

(I 1 1/2 times'd the marinade recipe to marinate 7 breasts and about 20 legs today: I adjusted the vinegar and oil to 1/2 C each)

Mix all ingredients.  Refrigerate overnight. Turn occasionally.  Don't make this if you can't marinate it close to 24 hours.  It just won't be as good.  We did it once for 2 days and it was divine!  The recipe says you can bake it at 350 with the marinade uncovered for 1 1/4 hours but we have always grilled it. 

Youth Conference.... ALSO-- Better with cheese!

So Youth Conference was the Friday and Saturday before we left for our Family reunion. It was a little hectic as we were planning on leaving Monday.  Mark is Stake young Men's president now so he was involved in this one at that level.  It was a little different than your typical youth conference.  Since Last summer the stake has been helping the wards teach the youth how to do name indexing online as a way of being involved in family history work.  This is a process whereby anyone with an internet connection can help transcribe old records such as marriage, birth, death & census records into a typed digitally accessible format to make researching our family history easier.  The stake set a goal of 500,000 names.  That goal was reached within a few months so the stake President raised the goal to One Million names.  The stake encouraged not only the youth but all ward members to get involved.  I even learned how and did several hundred names.  I really liked it.  Made me feel like I was doing a little something when I don't feel I have time to get into the serious research side of things.  

The Stake did reach it's goal of 1,000,000 names indexed.

The Youth's efforts for the year culminated in this 2 day conference.  The stake wanted to include the 12 & 13 yr olds in some of the activities since they, also, had been involved in indexing.  

Friday The kids met at the church where the stake presidency cooked them breakfast: eggs, ham, pancakes. yum. They boarded buses that took them to Salt Lake City.  They watched the New Joseph Smith movie shown in the Joseph Smith memorial building theatre that used to show the Legacy and Testament movies.  They had lunch at a park and then the younger kids boarded the buses and came home.  The older kids went to "This is the Place State Park" where they had lessons in pioneer manners & Pioneer dance customs.  Then they had a BBQ dinner followed by a dance.  They learned about dance cards and the girls were given one and had to get it filled out before the dance started.  Mark was a little disgusted with the dinner because he had told the event planner 100 people more would be attending than actually attended.  (They had to come up with a number early and guessed a little high..)  There was another stake from Idaho there as well to participate in the dance and dinner activities at the same time as our stake. Mark was aware of that.  They had turned in their own numbers separately.  They started rationing the food near the end and by the time Mark was getting his plate at the end, they were out of meat.  He asked the server what was going on, why was the food so low.  She honestly replied "Oh we had to use some of your food for another event"  She probably wasn't supposed to tell him that.  It was very frustrating for Mark.  He hated the way they served dinner too.  They had one little banquet table set up to serve several hundred people so it took FOR-EV-ER (Sandlot voice....) to feed everyone.  Because it took so long to feed everyone they then told Mark "We're going to have to cut the dance short"  

Who knows Mark well enough to know just how annoyed he was at this moment?  

He was pretty sure they weren't going to cut his bill short.

Carly, however, was well-fed & blissfully unaware of the difficulties.  (Girls ate first in pioneer tradition) She had a great time.  She danced with several of her friends from school and she excitedly told me, "a really cute boy from the Idaho stake asked me to dance!! Guess what his name was??? CHEESE!!!!!!! can you believe that? well, it's not actually his real name, just his nickname but all of his friends call him that.  I can't even remember his real name but he was really cute and nice and more interesting than some of the weird boys from my school that were asking me to dance!" (stern look from judgmental mom: Quick breath for Carly) "Oh, I am not even kidding mom, they ARE weird! I'm not talking about Izak or Craig, They're cool but Qu*** and A*** are so weird! But can you believe that guy named Cheese? you gotta put that on your Blog okay? cuz' you know.... CHEESE.... Can you believe it?"  (*names omitted to protect the innocent)

I remembered a few dancing weirdo's from my youth and consented that she was not being rude, that there probably were, in fact, some strange boys in the stake and patted her on the back for dancing with them in spite of  her discomfort and for being Nice to the annoying nerd boys.  Sometimes nerd boys are capable of making the leap to interesting, handsome and successful given enough time....  Sometimes.

Saturday they went to the pool and swam, had a BBQ in the park and a fireside to cap it off.  All ages were invited to those activities on Saturday.  Rachel was glad she got to go & had a good time.

This is her friend Izak. She and Izak were in preschool together.  They've been good friends since 5th grade.  Nothing remotely romantic here.  He's good people though. I wouldn't mind if after his mission things changed.  CAn you imagine the cute factor of the wedding video since I have pictures of them together from ages 4 and up!?  so cute!  If she ever reads this I will get it for sure "Mother PUH-LEEEZE!!!!!"

But for now... I'd like her to enjoy dancing most with this guy right here.  The Best guy ever! Even Better than Cheese!

F .Y.I     I FIRST met Mark at my FIRST youth conference in the Palm Springs Stake in Palm Springs California.  I thought he was so funny, so nice, but I had no idea I had just met my future husband.  It was his last youth conference. I was 14.  He was 17.  He gave me and my sister and 2 of my friends a ride in his Mustang.  so cool!   I didn't meet him again til I was 19 and THEN I knew. 

ADDENDUM:  8/3/08  After reading this post Carly requested that I add some more about how cute and adoring and charming Cheese was.  I asked her if she had to choose a cheese that most described this boy and she immediately responded "pepperJack... HOT cheese!" Oh man. 

Hot cheese.  I never thought I'd hear that to describe a boy.  WE are giggling right now as I type coming up with a cheese scale for boys.  How was your date Carly? Oh this one's a keeper mom, he's a Pepperjack!'

Mild cheddar: on the boring side

Medium cheddar: somewhat interesting

sharp cheddar: sarcastic yet a headturner, you know the cocky football star type.....

Gouda: Fun, interesting, easygoing

Swiss: A nice Holy Peter Priesthood type

Roquefort: THe longest date of your life:  The stinky cheeseman

Pepperjack: The whole package baby! Good looking, I mean HOT, interesting, charming, sweet, nice, but mostly HOT! 

A little competition for my hand

When my girls were small they all wanted to marry their Daddy at a certain point. I assumed it was just a little girl thing.

At our family reunion last week (more details to come....) Mason  came up to me and snuggled up against me.  He said "I think I gonna marry you when I get big!"  "Okay" I replied.  He pulled back and looked at me with an appraising eye.  "Are you already married?" "Yep! To daddy." I said.  He was quiet for a moment and then looked over at his dad, looked back at me, and said slyly, "I think I gonna be stronger then him when I a dad!" 

 He looked over at his dad again and I think he started to feel a little guilty because then he grinned and said "weeelll... I think I'll be just as strong as Dad!" 

Take me out to the ball game...

It has been a baseball filled spring and summer for our family!  

Jacob started Little league in May.  Remember my sad story about standing in the freezing cold for HOURS waiting for tryouts to begin and then to end.  Well, it was worth it! He had a good season.  He had games twice a week and practice once to twice a week.  His team name was "The cubs" and he had really nice teammates.  Mark and I are not very knowledgeable about baseball and apparently he had a really crappy glove.  His first game he was playing left field  behind 3rd base and he caught a pop fly.  We were cheering and being proud parents when the coach noticed he was not okay.  He was holding his hand funny and she yelled and asked if he wanted to come in.  He nodded yes.  When he came to the dugout he was crying.  It was a cold night and his glove had very little padding so when that ball hit the glove. wham! it hurt. I worried he would get a lot of ribbing from his team mates for crying but you know the only things I heard were "I bet that hurt!" "Good job catching that fly!" "That was an awesome catch!" We got some good advice from another player's dad and went to Target immediately  after the game to buy him a GOOD glove and a pair of batting gloves to help cushion those catches. 

  Throughout the season all the boys were good sports and treated each other with respect and camaraderie so it was a great experience for him.  This was his first year really playing the game.  He has had 2 years of coach pitch where everybody bats til they hit it and you run the bases whether or not they tag you out or get the ball to first before you.  I think he learned a lot and was a fair player. He played 3rd base and outfield mostly.  I think he would have done better if we had known how bad his eyes were and that he needed glasses to see far away.  We've got them ordered and they should be here in a week so NEXT SEASON he'll blow us away.  His team didn't get too far in their tournament after regular season ended but they tried hard.  Their coach was wonderful.  She had a little ice cream party for them at her house after the last game.  

Cute Little Samantha Grace experienced her first year of Coach pitch.  She was on the "Tigers" and her games were always on saturdays.  One game a week and one practice usually.  Her coach wasn't one of the best we've ever had but a real nice guy and you know what he did it and I didn't have to so that's that! She wanted to sign up SOOOO badly and I almost missed the deadline.  I was afraid the only reason she wanted to sign up was because she was envious of the after game treats that she always saw Jacob and Rachel getting with soccer and baseball.  She insisted she really wanted to play so she inherited Jacob's crappy glove that served him just fine during coach pitch and she was on her way.  Her season started the last week of May and ended the the 3rd Saturday in July.  It got a little hot there at the end! 

She played outfield and often 3rd base like Jacob. She did a lot of nail biting in the outfield which is very typical in coach pitch.  The games were a little hard  to enjoy after the more exciting Little League games but we persevered.  It was just fun to watch her enjoying herself and trying so hard.

(By the way... she DID really enjoy her after game treats! )

This was the pose she thought up and I think it's pretty cute.  I don't know what happened but the 1st half of her season she batted really well but she really struggled her last 4-5 games.   She started to really scoop the bat on her swing instead of swinging straight.  Sometimes she got 12-14 pitches before she hit one.  Those "at-bat's" were excruciating to watch but she still seemed to be having a good time.  

Carly played her first year of Girl's softball.  We almost missed the deadline on her too! She ended up being on a team farther from home.  They usually divide them into teams based on what junior high they attend but the teams for her school were all full so we just picked the closest school that had openings but her friend Haley from church signed up with her so that was nice they had each other.  It also helped with carpooling for practice and games.  She had 2 games a week and one or two practices so it got pretty hectic when all 3 kids were playing. Jacob's season ended about 2 weeks or so into Samantha and Carly's season so most of the time it was just the 2 girls with 3 games a week and 2-3 practices between them.  yikes! 

Her team was called the "Mustangs". They started out slow, had a great middle and fizzled at the end.  They had improved SOOO much from their first couple of games so it was hard to see them poop out at the end.  Carly had a blast and about 8 of her friends attended her first 6-8 games cheering loud and dare I say a little obnoxiously, but all in good fun.  She didn't tell them about her last few games.  I'm not sure why.  She seemed to enjoy the attention at the beginning.  

She typically played shortstop and 2nd base. She caught a lot of balls and rarely struck out but she wasn't a really powerful hitter so her hits usually got caught as a fly between 1st and 2nd base.  It was a little frustrating for her not getting on base very often. Her team started a little tradition of putting shoe polish stripes under their eyes.  Don't know if it helped but they sure looked tough! She was not a shy player and really played with enthusiasm.  Her games were so much fun to watch. Out of our 3 players they were the fastest paced games with a lot of base stealing and just more skill overall.  

I think they all want to play again next spring so I'm trying to get ready for that.  RAchel expressed an interest in playing softball too so as long as we get her and Carly on the same team we'll be all right! 

We have a wolf cub!

Jacob's birthday is August 15th. It's coming up soon. When he turns 9 he will leave the wolf den and join the bear den in cub scouts.  He didn't have any den meetings in July except pack meeting.  His den leaders challenged all the boys to work really hard on completing their wolf badge during the break.  He has been working steadily all year but we definitely had several items for him to complete as we looked through his book in anticipation of completing it by his birthday.  

Here are some things we've done over the last month to fulfill his requirements:

1. We went on a walk around the hospital path, each armed with a plastic grocery sack, and picked up litter.  We each ended up with a full bag of trash and somebody even found a quarter!

2. Jacob planned and cooked an outdoor meal with his dad.  We just got a new backyard firepit contraption this summer so we set that up and Mark and he made tin foil dinners.  There were so many, however, that we fudged just a bit.  It would have taken too long to cook them all in the firepit so some were in the firepit and some in the oven.  They turned out great and I didn't have to cook!

3.  He had to help plan and cook a meal.  Set the table and wash the dishes afterwards.  He chose San francisco pork chops (a crock pot meal) and rice & carrots cooked with the pork chops.

4. We had a family home evening on fire safety where we discussed an evacuation plan and a meeting place when we got out of the house.

5. we visited a fire station and learned about fire safety.

6. He went to daycamp in late June "camp Jeremiah Johnson" and he said "it was the best day of my life!" He left at 6:30am and got home at about 2:30 in the afternoon. They shot BB guns, they shot bow & Arrows, they made a little boat and had sailing contests, they sang patriotic songs and just had a great time.  

At Pack meeting he received his Wolf patch, one gold arrow point and 2 Silver arrow points.  His friend Spencer also received his wolf patch.  The Pack meeting had a "wet & wild" theme and was in the cubmaster's backyard.  

There was a water bucket relay and as you can see he got really REALLY wet! There was water balloon volleyball and lots of fun.  Dessert was blue jello in clear plastic cups with a couple of swedish fish thrown in! yum!  We all had fun and I miraculously stayed dry.  Mark was not so lucky.  Jacob was pretty proud of himself for pelting his dad with a couple water balloons.  He was a little surprised however when his dad sneaked up behind him with a LARGE bucket of water and poured it over his head.   

We are proud of our Wolf! He's a good kid!

mine...all mine!!!! wah hah hah...

As I've unexpectedly been going with a Samantha theme the last week.......

We've been noticing businesses that have all or part of Samantha's name recently.  In provo we saw  "Sammy's cafe.  She laughed deliriously and exclaimed "Stop! I want to go to my very own restaurant"  A couple of day's later she heard Mark talking about  "Sam's" club store and announced "It's pretty cool that I have my own store."

Tuesday , the day after the infamous quarter swallowing incident, She was still feeling a little forlorn. Her throat was sore and her hand was quite bruised and sore from the IV.  She turned her big brown eyes on me first thing in the morning and  asked  "Momma, would there be a time today you could  just hold me on your lap?" I suggested she go visiting teaching with me, just her! The rest of the kids could stay home with Carly and that way she could sit on my lap for a whole hour.  She did.  She just snuggled on my lap. Afterwards we stopped for a few groceries.

While at the store, she started talking about the businesses bearing her name. laughing,  saying "it would be really cool if I really had my own restaurant and my own store" 

I responded, saying, "It sure would be nice to go and get whatever we needed for free!"

Samantha sighed and said wistfully "yeah.. I could get all the cheese I wanted and some chips..."

Sam's club at her disposal and what does she go for? 

.... the cheese.............

Anybody got a quarter??

Samantha Does! It's North Dakota for you collectors out there and it took 6 hours, 2 hospitals,1 ambulance, 2 EMT's,  1 anesthesiologist, 4 nurses and one ear, nose& throat Doc to help her recover it.  

It all started yesterday afternoon about 4:30pm.  I had cut up an apple for her about 4 and she would run up to the kitchen & eat a slice, run downstairs and watch scooby Doo, run up to the kitchen & eat a slice, run downstairs & watch Scooby Doo.  You get the idea...   I'm in the kitchen fixing dinner.  Mark got home and pretty soon he brings a coughing, gagging Samantha up to the kitchen saying "something's wrong with Samantha".  We kept asking what was wrong as she stood over the trash can coughing & gagging up little bits of apple and clutching her throat.  She wouldn't answer for several minutes and finally said "It feels like something is in there like a bone".  I asked "what is it? Apple?  did you swallow a big piece of apple?" She wouldn't respond to my question, only gag and cough more.  Mark & I kept asking did she know what it was, was it the apple or something else, we needed to know to help her.  Finally she looked at me with very worried eyes and whispered, "It's a quarter".  We loaded her up in the van, told Carly to watch dinner in the oven and the kids and we were going to the ER.  Samantha kept spitting up copious amounts of saliva so we grabbed a little bowl and got going.

When we arrived they immediately x-rayed her and pretty soon we could see a big white circle sitting at the base of her throat on the x-ray.  She could barely talk but she was breathing.  They said it had gone down her esophagus and was stuck.  They decided they weren't capable of retrieving it there and told us we would be transferred to a bigger hospital in Provo.  We would have to go by ambulance as there was the possibility that she could cough or vomit the quarter up and aspirate the vomit into her lungs or the quarter could become lodged in her trachea, shutting off her airway and creating a real emergency situation.  Mark went home at my urging to check on the other kids as we'd have to wait a while.  They estimated we'd get in at the other hospital about 6:30.  An ambulance came around 6pm.  I called Mark and said we're heading over.   2 kind, friendly EMT's loaded our little girl up on their ambulance bed and began to take her out when the phone rang and "same day surgery" didn't want her sitting in their department waiting for the procedure.  I guess they felt it was too much liability and they weren't capable of handling it. So back she went to her ER bed and the ambulance left. I called Mark to tell him and he was almost to the other hospital.  He turned around and went back home.  About that time Jacob called me on my cell phone.  "Mom??? how is Samantha? I just got home & Carly told me what happened."  He'd been at his friend's house since around 1 or 2 and I had kind of forgotten him.  (Sorry Amy!) I assured him she was OK and Samantha smiled when I told her Jacob called to check on her.  

 Now we were to wait in the ER til they were ready for her. During this time Samantha had calmed down quite a bit and just laid in the bed very very still and quietly.  She was coughing and gagging so much the 1st hour but now she looked so tired and just kept drooling.  They gave us one of those little pink kidney shaped bowls and a box of tissue and she'd drool into that & I'd wipe her mouth and sing to her.  We are learning "Called to Serve" in primary this month and I've been trying to memorize that so I was singing that softly to her and her toes started bouncing in time to the rhythm.   I liked seeing that as she was so still and solemn otherwise.  She kept whispering "again" when I'd finish so we sang it alot.  She started to fall asleep once but I think it was too uncomfortable when her head would loll she's wake right up.  She seemed most comfortable sitting with her head bent slightly forward.   The ER nurses and personnel tried talking to her and she would just stare back or answer them w/a thumb's up or a thumb's down.  She got a lot of annoying "eating a quarter" jokes/comments.  I mean the first one was funny but after that it got old real fast.  What was that you used to say Dad? Once is funny, Twice is ................? I don't remember

About 6:30 she was given a color book and crayons and she liked that.  We colored together.  About 7ish they called and said we would be transferred to Pediatrics to wait for the procedure.  The ambulance came again, same 2 nice guys, loaded Samantha up and off we went.  I got to ride in the back with her.  She thought it was kind of cool.  I waited until we were moving this time to call Mark.  He met us at the hospital.  When we got there, she was put into a room where they checked all the paperwork, we signed away our lives for the dang quarter and after checking all her vitals and asking all the right questions, we were off to the "same day surgery" dept.  We went to the surgery room, met the anesthesiologist and the Dr. They explained how they would put her to sleep, intubate her to protect against aspiration and then send a scope down her throat that would be able to see the quarter with a little camera and retrieve it.  They didn't expect it to take very long or to be very dangerous.  The insertion of the IV was quite traumatic for Samantha.  She was very scared and squeezing the Anesthesiologist's finger so hard that he had to do it again.  We got her to relax and the 2nd attempt went much better.  

They put a cute little hair net on her and we kissed her goodbye.  We left to wait in the waiting room.  The Dr. Came in what seemed like 10 minutes to tell us all had gone well.  He handed us a specimen jar w/the quarter and said "Looks like it was North Dakota, South Dakota, one of the Dakota's!"  He said the nurses would observe her in post-op as she woke up which should take 20-30 minutes and then they'd come get us.  

It seemed to take a really long time and so we called over to the nurse's station and they said she was  having a hard time waking up but was OK.  Finally they wheeled her to see us and we went back to the room on the pediatric floor so they could observe her for a while.  Now it was about 9:30.  The first thing she said to us was "I can breathe now!"  and "it feels like it's still in there except I can talk and breathe now".  She asked for her color book and resumed coloring and was cheery and smiling.

  About 10pm the Nurse gave her some apple juice to make sure she could swallow and keep it down.  She sucked it down greedily.  She was very thirsty. About 10:30 when they decided she's swallowed enough and kept it down long enough they said we could go.  Again with the IV, it seemed as traumatic removing it as it was going in.  It was painful for her and she covered her eyes and looked away, crying as the nurse removed the tape and tube.  I think the tape was one of the worst parts so I asked the nurse to wrap it with the purple coban (a.k.a. vetwrap) over the gauze instead of a sticky bandaid that we'd just have to rip off tomorrow.  She did.

Then it was time to get dressed ..........

And Go home!!!!!

Home by 11pm... Asleep by 11:30....Long day!