Our Little Cast-Away

Everyone kept asking, "so does the cast bother her?" And I would say, "No, she seems to be ok with it." But then Friday night we noticed her cast was loose, so I guess she had been pulling on it. Ryan tried squeezing it back up around her elbow, but the die was cast. (Pun intended, naturally.) Saturday morning I took Marielle with me to the Garden center to pick up some plants. I was pulling her in a wagon and when I glanced back to see how she was faring and her cast was sitting next to her. We called her Dr. to see what we should do and he stopped by to put on a temporary cast (he's in our ward thankfully.) Yesterday we went in to the office to get a new cast, but after the x-rays, Dr. Warnock decided she was healing so well we wouldn't need another hard cast. So we are back to splint and ace bandage, which while it isn't nearly as cute, is way more practical as I can take it on and off for baths. Here she is ringing in the new cast with the old...

Easter Pictures

We had a fun Easter and continued the tradition of the annual family photo. I thought it would be fun to look back a little...

2005

2006

2007
2008

and of course we had to get a picture of Marielle and Annalee in their Easter dresses. We didn't plan the yellow theme, but it sure looks cute!

Check out my cast!

I am sure we'll have lots more cast pictures coming, but here's the first. Straight out of the Dr's office. Anybody want to sign a virtual cast?

Lucky Was Here!

Our video turned out lame because Marielle cried for most of the hunt (she was sick), but you can still enjoy a few pictures! :) Happy St. Patty's!

The Pot of GOLD

(golden grahams, golden oreos, golden corn, gold fish and golden raisins!)

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Indiana

Ok, about that title: not true, but I did think it would make a nice title for my post. Marielle and I just got home from our trip to help Grandma take care of Marielle's four cousins while their parents are on a cruise. We had a great time and learned a few things too:
Baths are way more fun with cousins!

Marielle is a lot more capable than we thought, but she still can't drink from a cup. We cleaned up milk and grape juice on two occasions when drinking turned into dumping full cups down her front!
School lunch is cheap! I met Daylin and Bethany at school for lunch and was amazed how much food I got for $2.75. Lunch with the girls was a blast.

Playing Sorry is a lot more difficult than I remembered. Hyrum (age 5) couldn't count spaces, remember to discard, or pick up only one card at a time and Bethany (7) couldn't handle the emotional highs and lows of bumping and getting bumped back home. After two turns she was sobbing and had to quit early.

The Chinese Cultural Revolution was whacked out. I had some time to read from my latest book Life and Death in Shanghai and can hardly believe the things the poor Chinese people have had to go through.

Stairs mean trouble! Although I thought Marielle was proficient at stairs, she's not. She fell down them Monday night and fractured her little arm. We didn't find out it was broken until we got home to Houston and now she is sporting a cast. She's a little trooper!
If you put on your coat, it means you are leaving. Now that we're home she's tried several times to get me to put on her coat in hopes that we'll head out the door.

Grandmas sure love their grandkids!!!

Vote for Pedro's Chili

Saturday was our ward's 4th Annual Chili Cook-off. Last year, Mary Karlee entered her chili into the contest last year, and not surprisingly, got no award or recognition for her first ever batch of contest chili. But this year...

we entered 'Pedro's Chili' - a recipe that Mary Karlee has perfected over the last 12 months. In truth, it's a little too spicy for her taste, but it's perfect for her South of the Border husband. We settled on Pedro’s because it came with it's own built in advertising campaign. We also considered 'Ch-ch-ch-chili', but didn't know where we could buy a Chia Pet in this decade. We went to the church early and decorated with fliers designed to build name recognition.

Most of the youth figured it out, but many of the adults in the ward were wondering why the cook-off had a Napoleon Dynamite theme.

Alas, we didn't win Crowd Favorite, but we did come in second with Most Flavorful and received several compliments from various ward members. As Mary Karlee walked up to receive the certificate, she stopped by the microphone and called out "Vote for Pedro."
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The also-memorable-but-not-as-enjoyable activity came that same night when I got suckered into the 'Chili Pepper Eating contest.' I ate 9 of the 10 chili's, including the green habanero, before I realized that the mixture of peppers in my stomach had eaten a whole straight through to my colon and was now forcing it's way back up my throat! I spent the next 20 minutes at a water fountain - being taunted by two 10 year-olds who claimed I was "weak"- until my Steve Tyler lips returned to normal size & my face changed back from red to pasty white.

This would all be forgivable, except that I went through this same ordeal in my college days. Back then I ate a red habanero on a dare and again suffered 'nigh unto death.' I’m still not sure why I thought it would turn out differently this time but Mary Karlee swears she heard me mutter something in my sleep about the 'glory of Longwood ward'.

P.S. That night I suffered my craziest dream in a while: something about my Bro dating a dancing ghost while his 3 trailers of dairy milk were hi-jacked by a rogue farmer.