Heaps and Heaps of Scarbrough fun

So I am here blogging instead of getting ready to go camping
TO DO:

wash clothes
find food/plan menus
pack
clean trailer
clean house
find someone to water animals/plans

the list isn't long but I can break it into many sub lists.

And then? Scott said he might get a wild hair and take off tomorrow. Akk. I knew this day was coming, but like ususal I run from the hard stuff.


Can't wait to get on the mountains and let the kids run wild and free at the Heap reunion. I think the anticipation of it all is more fun than the being there. Then we will be off to the McCray reunion too. That sure will be different this year with all the family changes. At least this year there will be no drill seargent telling us that it is 5 am and time to start breakfast and then spend 1 hour cleaning up afterward each meal. But sadly there will be no Orna and her famous "potty" chair. ( you would have to be there and it is as gross as it sounds). I find that I miss her more than I thought I would and I wish we were closer in age. I think she would have been such a great friend. Some time I wish we could still talk.

A Pat on the Back

EAch morning I get a little girl from her bed. She is sometimes talking to herself and sometimes crying. (Ok usually crying b/c I have let her talk to herself too long) but that is unavoidable b/c she likes to get up betwen 5 and 7 EVERY DAY of the week. I guess no one told her what Saturdays are for.

When I pick her up She pats me on the back. I think it is cute and endearing. I have done it to her all her life and now she is returning the favor.



I am glad she is my last and I am glad ther is sucha big gap between her and the boy in the middle. I can't remember hardly anything he did as a baby mostly b/c there were 2 driving me crazy and our life was in transitiion- moving alot, getting new jobs, buying a house and personal things.

As school will be starting soon, I have to stop nursing her. She will be 4 weeks from her 1st birthday and I will not pump for another year. Even with that decision made as I look down at her little face this morning, I wonder how I am going to get it done. I did the same with my son, but don't remember how I did. My hubby keeps reminding me to stop, but how to you say no to a howling kid in church who is flinging herself backwards and grabbing at your shirt?

I feel sorry for the sitter.... I am just saying.

The Only Good Snake is a Dead Snake

I remember watching a not so PC western years ago and one of the characters said " The only good Indian is a dead one" That rubbed me wrong and still does, but....with snakes the only good snake is a dead snake. I have decided that I am not an animal lover. I am an animal tolirator, and the only good snake is a dead one.

I have had experences with, in the last week or so, the following animals.
dogs
snakes
horse
Each has it's lovely own story. I will get to them one day. Today as my son went out to feed the dog, the door was ajar, naturally to allow him room to get out
The baby had just crawled away from the back patio door where she had cleverly learned to open a cracked sliding door. She thought it was much fun. Minutes, literately, minutes later Wes went to feed the dogs and it was like the old nursery rhyme "As I ran out, he ran in..." but this time it was slithered. For anyone who knows me at all, they will attest to the fact that I HATE snakes.I caused hysteria and then had to take the SNAKE out! I phoned my hubby who laughed when I told him I was moving out and not making dinner first. He reminded me that I would not know where it was if I left. He told me to get a rake and let it go out. (yea right it would DIE).Armed with a red broom, a rust rake, a shovel a stick wearing my red boots, pink stripped jamie bottoms and my fearless SJ staff shirt I attacked the snake. It almost got away like a million (2) times. Then it was out the door with me hitting it every so often. I sent a pic to Scott and I think it was the owner of the snake skin I found by the honeysuckle earlier this summer.
GOOD BYE and GOOD Riddance. ( cause it is dead and I don't care if it was a blow snake.)

The only good snake is a dead sna

Hard, Harder, Hardest- Not a grammar lesson

I am left wondering about the mysteries of God today. There is a plan for us all and there are things we must do on this earth. Some of those things are hard, others are harder and and very few are the hardest. I can count on one hand how many of the hardest things I have done in life. I know there is a cliche "WHY ME? God?" but those hardest moments are opportunites to become closer to our Heavenly Father. ( or cull yourself from the pack so to speak)

Sometimes I think a situation has been the hardest ever and then time will take the edge off the situation and I have recatagorized it down to harder or hard and once in a while, uncomfortable. Like having babies seems the hardest thing I ever do at the time, but now I see that those experiences are hard/uncomfortable.

Yet the things that stay in the hardest category can be also counted as such moments of growth and opportunity to get to know what the Lord desires for us that even though they are still considered the hardest thing I have ever done, they are are so bitter sweet that I would never call for a do-over.

Those hardest things are charcter builders. They are moments when you walk with God. They test you to the ultimate limits and if you come out on the other side you are changed.

I think I am changed. But time will tell if it was only hard. I know there are others who struggle with a never ending "Hardest-ness" that they would gladly trade me 12 hours and treat it like a walk in the park.
It is then that I feel guilty for even mentioning mine in this vague way.

I might even erase it later if guilt sets in too much.

Roping Blow Out

As anyone who knows us even a little, knows that Scott is a roping fool. Addicted is an appropriate verb. And as much as I didn't know the full extent of it when I married him (and OH is It BAD), I have come to terms with it as much as a wife can who doesn't participate in it.

So, most holidays (ok all, unless HE has the Flu) we rope. A LOT. E-ver-y Where.

And this weekend was no exception.

We were in Mormon Lake for 2 days, then Scott roped in Show Low Friday night at that rodeo. We decided to go through Payson to get to Show Low from Mormon Lake. We stopped and ate lunch at a pretty good Mexi restaurant with Scott's Dad and girlfriend. Kennedy stayed the night with them, we would meet up to get her the next day. Wesie couldn't stay too; although I told him to pack 4 underwear, socks etc, and had him double check twice, and had him lay everything out so I could count ( which I didn't do it was a bluff) .they never got to his bag AND he had played in the water all day up to his butt cheeks in yuccy pond/tadpole wonderfulness.

As we drove to Show low, I decide it was pretty country, but still don't know WHY people like that way better than the canyon to get to Mesa.

He roped in Pinetop SaturDAY, while I drove to paid his fees to rope in Taylor Saturday night. In between the two ropings, we made a pit stop at the house for baths, food, and to make the ward bulletin for Sunday.

We were BACK in Pinetop on Sunday.

We put a lot of miles on the truck and saw a lot of Arizona. Taylor has the BEST, BEST fireworks show I have seen. The kids loved it. The baby was more interested in all the glow sticks waving from the stand.

We got so little SLEEP that I couldn't get us up to go to Sacrament meeting on Sunday before heading out. My eyes just felt like sand.

And Monday, fugetaboutit.

UGGH, I was re-cooping in PJs all day. I had many loads of laundry to do, floors to sweep and dishes to do. The kids were cranky and whiny all day. Scott slept because he had to work Sunday night.

I will get to cleaning out the trailer on Tuesday.

And Scott?

thinks as he was getting out of the shower yesterday, that he spent too much money for the return (What? i thought as I cleaned my ears out with the bathroom q-tips, I must have heard wrong!)

June 26th 1998

Two weeks before my 25th birthday, on this day 11 long/short years ago, I married a man that I had known only for about 2.5 months.


We met at a Saint Johns party my roommate and I held (Hello AMY!!). A guy in a scruffy, almost floppy, black cowboy hat, Caroline blue basket ball shorts and Tevas knocked on the door and said he was Andy's (Hall) cousin.

As we mingled, laughed and talked I couldn't help but watch.


He was so quiet all night, I thought that he was mad or there was something wrong with him. I think I kept trying to get him to notice me just to get some reaction out of him- to no avail. (For those of you who know him, he is still like that)

Had our first kiss while branding at the church ranch. Decided to get married that same weekend. (I think, no... I AM SURE ;)

Miss spelled his first name on the wedding announcements.

We chose a wedding early in the morning to try and beat the heat, but failed. We were miserable while taking pictures. (No one told me that you do it on other days!!) My bouquet was forgotten by a nameless loved one, so some of my pictures are with beautiful red roses and others with yellow and after all these years, I don't know which I liked better.

The boutique I bought my dress from convinced my mom that it was too low cut for the temple so they added this cheap tacky part at the neckline that ruined the look of the dress, but I didn't know it until I was in the temple, pulled out my dress, wanted a pair of scissors ... didn't get said scissors.

I am not sure Scott washed his truck or took the trash out of it for our special day. (ha ha just like him even today) Boy I sure miss that beasie tan truck with the dark blue 1/2 camper.

I remember thinking that I did the wedding part wrong when I walked in. I expected to be like the big weddings you see on TV. I felt like I had to crawl over people to get in. WE WERE LOVED (or they were bribbed)


I wonder now what Scott was thinking as I peeked in the room where he was waiting. I saw him sitting with his head down looking into his hands. Did he think he was making a mistake or thanking his luck stars OR wishing he was roping. ;)

We had a lovely reception at my grandmother's (now Josh and Annie Anderson's ) back yard. I didn't know that I had ask for the recreation of American Gothic- the painting of the stern farmer and his stern-er wife when I roundrd the corner and saw a tinfoil covered wheelbarrow, pitch fork, and shovel... Again too late to take it down . (I guess it was the cowboy aspect of the reception??)

11 years, trucks, horses, kids, 2 houses, jobs, ups, downs, and other stuff later, we are still hangin' in there. Some times it is good, others crazy and still others we grrrhhh long and hard.

He is the longest relationship I have had,

YET< I knew after 3 weeks I could stand him for all time and eternity more than anyone I had met before.
He is good for me in ways that I never knew he could be. As hard as it is to grow up and allow Jesus to help me stretch, Scott has been there helping me be the most and the best I can be.

I have never been pampered, but I have been allowed to live up to my potential

-infinitely harder but much more satisfying.

So here's to 11 years (and eternity to come),

the most sastisfying in my life. pics to be scanned in at a later date.

When you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all

To take a lesson from Thumper and everyone's mom. I have nothing to say.

Nothing about:

ingratitude

short fuses

small petty problems

not talking about what really is the matter

rudenss

checking out

no respect

thoughtlessness

no patience

screaming and hitting