The dreaded day, she survived it!

Kellie has needed her tonsils out for a couple of years now.... I scheduled it a few months ago and she has refused to discuss it or acknowledge that it was going to happen. 
We have promised prizes, goodies, favorite treats, anything... nothing made it ok...'DON'T TALK ABOUT IT' was all we got...
So, the dreaded time arrived.  We let her choose where she wanted to eat for her 'last meal'....steak was the decision, but where?  Too many choices...

Japanese won out...

Getting to surgery was awful.
 She cried when I woke her up. 
She cried when I made her get in the car.
 She cried when they took us back to the pre op area. 
She quit crying for a minute when they gave her a new soft ducky friend to go to surg. with her. 

She also rejoiced momentarily when they told us they would start her IV after she went to sleep since she was so nervous...

 She tried to convince the anesthesiologist that I should come back into surg. since I was a nurse... Scary thing is I think he would have let me but I had no desire to do that!

The doctor came out and said everything went well, that her tonsils were enormous and really were needing to come out...

Then the real  bad part began.  The nurse came to get us to go to recovery with her, I'm pretty sure she just needed back up in trying to keep her in the bed.  She was so disoriented and one minute was trying to get out of the bed and the next flopping back down screaming "watarrrr"...

A few hours later we headed home with a very miserable little girl...

The good news (at least for me) is she slept great last night. I have kept her dosed up on the pain medication and Mt. Dew.  She has set up camp in my bed and has some good company to nap with....

Her prize for being so brave...

She needed new bedding and we had been looking... I had Katie put it all one while we were gone and of course she didn't get too excited because she felt so bad when she saw it.  But this morning she asked me to go make her bed since her dad had to sleep in there last night....

Kamp Kanakuk- everyone should get to go

Getting into kamp is aways fun! 

we had a big rain the first night.  Glad I packed a poncho!

There was a new zip line at kamp this year! 

I wanted to do it and never got the chance...Katie loved it!

Katie also did the big rock wall this year! 

Repelling down the other side...

Is it terrible that I think I have as much fun at kamp as my kids?  I love having time to catch up with my cousin Janet....glad they need two nurses!

Kellie getting her "gentle and quiet spirit" tee pee award... I wouldn't have guessed that would be the one they picked for her....

I have no action shots of her this year... She avoided doing anything off the ground...I'm not sure where this fear of heights came from...

It's hard to see, but Katie was getting her 7 year award, a ring.

My sweet Kellie is getting her tonsils out tomorrow.  I'm praying her healing is quick and the pain medication is great.  She told me last night she thought of something she needed... a bell...

It may be a long recovery!

Glad to be home

The ten days we were gone FLEW by.  They were filled with wonderful time with good friends as well as the fun of Kamp Kanakuk!

We spent a couple of days with old friends in OK.  It is always a treat!  We were spoiled with wonderful food and fun while we were there.  Watching my girls spend time with the boys they grew up with was so sweet!  And getting to know the "baby" more was priceless.  The boys even let us drag them to our favorite girly restaurant for lunch...

I didn't manage one picture of the grown ups, so sad...

Then we were off to Branson...Katie dreads this part of the trip every year!

All the beautiful scenery

 produces the need for

Which causes

She has decided she couldn't live there... even running around town she was getting sick and that makes her grouchy, so best we leave her on flat ground!

We treasure our time with Deana, my best friend from college and beyond.  She has four beautiful girls that we just don't get to see enough.  I love for my girls to get the chance to know them... I wish we lived closer so we could do it more but at least we get to do it once a year!  Deana's sweet husband took all the girls fishing one night so we got to go to dinner all alone.  With no children.  None.  Just two adults.  It was wonderful!!!!

I will post the kamp highlights later when I've gotten a handle on the million pounds of laundry that we returned with.  But let me brag on my husband first...  We came home to a clean house.  Clean garage (that was a real treat for me), dinner was waiting, and he listened for hours to the girls tell of all the fun at kamp.

It's always great but there is nothing like coming home.

And we're off

We leave in the morning on our favorite trip of the year.

We spent this weekend like it was Father's Day... We watched Avitar without complaining.  We went to dinner and a movie.  We watched baseball... we did what ever dad wanted...

I hope we have everything packed and done...

• Trunks for each girl. 
• Suitcases for before camp part of trip.
• Prizes for mail for the girls at camp
• prizes for their counselors
• Coffee for the nurses
• Reading material for lazy afternoons on the cabin porch
• floats for the nurses to use in pool when the kids aren't in it
• snacks for the nurses - popcorn and M&M's are a night time necessity

think we have it all....
Now, if you will all pray for a safe week for us at camp. I've been praying for them since it started.  Last year we were there the week the swine flu broke out.... Hoping for less illness this year and we want NO injuries... and less injuries means more time on the porch...

It's a little different this year

Getting ready for Kamp is usually a chore....

Two girls, a huge check list of things they need for their week...

I guess I have been very lucky that some summers they have been able to use a lot of things from the previous summer... Not this year...

This year I made the mistake of thinking ' I shouldn't need to buy much this year, they should be pretty well set'...

WRONG

16 pairs of shorts
3 pairs of shoes
2 pairs of PJ's
2 swim suits (and hours of swimsuit shopping)
6 tee shirts
and many travel size toiletries later, I think we're close...

Now maybe I can see if I need anything...

The biggest change this year... they are packing themselves.

Kellie is packed, done, checked and rechecked...

Katie is almost done.  And I did nothing but the laundry... Just one more sign they are getting too big...

We're having an early Father's Day this weekend and then we're off for my favorite two weeks of the year.

I'll miss his snoring

Jalapeno jelly

I had found a this recipe for Jalapeno Jelly on one of the cooking blogs I frequent and decided I needed to try it. 

When you buy it at the grocery store it is over $5.00 a jar and we love it over cream cheese with crackers and
I also wanted to use it for hostess treats....

The recipe was very easy and didn't take but a few minutes to make but somewhere along the way I made a bad bad mistake.

 I think I may have placed my face too close to the jalapeno steam coming from the pot.... I have a burning pain on my face from the nose down that I'm sure is what a chemical peel must feel like...

And if the jalapenos didn't give me the chemical peel effect I'm sure the Dawn soap I scrubbed my face with surely would be helpful for my fine lines and wrinkles.  My skin is squeaky clean and feels very tight and dry now but still burning...

I wore gloves to cut the jalapenos up but still managed to cause some damage to an eye when I rubbed it.... I thought about using the Dawn in my eye but since it didn't help my face...

So, the bottom line is the jelly is worth the pain.  I'm off to search for some sort of cooling moisturizer...

I want to be Galindafied

We went to Wicked last night and it was wonderful! 

I want to play Elphaba.

I want to be green and fly up in the air.

Except the singing might not be as good...

The girls loved it.  One of them even thought to wear her green dress... smart girl...

Good time with my sweet friend Debbie

Since we are out of school and all our family and friends are still in, we got to go by our old school and disrupt visit all the friends and teachers.  It was a treat!

We had dinner with old friends... their kids shouldn't be grown... that made me feel very old...How can they be old enough for careers when I used to babysit them???

At another dinner with friends we learned what happens if you sit and visit too long and the kids get bored...

I'm sure they were glad for us to close up the beauty shop and go home...

A good time was had by all...

Toss, Toss