Good Times in November!

"The Great Blizzard of 2010" has come and gone and I should be sleeping, but I figure I'm about due for a blog post with pictures. It's been a busy couple of weeks and we have lots to catch up on!

Abby and I attended the Aggie game a few weeks ago while Garrett went pheasant hunting with Greg. The Ags even won this particular game and Abby was a very good girl. (Sorry, no pics of the mighty hunters.)

Abby is a crawling machine and likes to explore and make messes. She loves to crawl underneath the end table in our living room and eat the magazines. Does that mean she's deficient in a mineral or something if she likes to eat paper?

The past few weeks have been full of sickness for our little family. Every single one of us has had a yucky stomach bug of some sort. As previously mentioned, Lucky Greg got sick enough he ended up in the hospital, but the rest of us were just miserable for a day or two.

Garrett woke up fevered on this particular night and thought the thermometer would make a great phone. (He's really into talking on the phone these days and can turn just about anything into a phone. When we ask him who he's talking to, his usual responses are "some everybody" (my personal favorite), "Claudia," "Grandma," or "Jenna.")

Look at how red his little cheeks are in this picture. My poor little guy.

Abby has discovered a new friend and thinks that she is just the greatest! Maybe one day I'll actually get this mirror hung--until then, it provides some nice entertainment while it is propped up against the wall.

I'm afraid that Miss Abby might be just as adventurous as her big brother. Heaven help us! She is quite fond of climbing in the laundry basket and thinks it is just hilarious when she falls out. She has also discovered how to climb up the stairs. (We didn't know she knew how to do this until I found her halfway up them one day. Awesome.) We need to get a gate, but just have a box in front of them for now (W.T. babyproofing, I know). She is a sneaky little thing and watches for the box to be moved. If she sees even the slightest opening, she checks to see if we're watching and then makes a beeline for the stairs. (I really need to get a video of her doing this. It's pretty funny.)

Greg is not such a big fan of pictures of himself while in the hospital. (I wonder why.) Some pics of him getting loaded into the ambulance to be transferred from Logan to SLC probably would have gone for big money on this blog, but no such luck. (He did insist on putting on his regular clothes and looked pretty funny as he was being wheeled out in his jeans and cowboy boots. He tried to talk the ambulance drivers into just letting him walk out, but no luck there.)

The life-flight helicopters took off and landed right outside his window--much to the delight of Garrett and cousin Annabelle. We spent some quality time looking out this window!

The rooms in the hospital in SLC had these nice boards in the room for the patients to fill out. Greg's board got filled out a few times, but I never saw Greg anywhere near it even one time. It gave us a good laugh and his visitors something to do. :)

I did manage to sneak a picture of Greg in his hospital bed, just because this was so funny. He was reading a double-issue magazine (thanks to Sher) and from where we were sitting, it looked like he was reading it upside down. Another good laugh!

More fun facts about my dear Gregory...

Some lovely visitors! Sorry to everybody else who visited and didn't get your picture taken. I know the only reason you came to see Greg was because you were really hoping to get some public recognition on our blog. :) I just happened to have the camera out because I was taking a picture of Greg's board and of him reading the magazine upside down, so I snapped a picture of this crew while I was at it.

My niece did borrow my camera to take this awesome picture of her dad totally sacked out in the waiting room. (Yes, he's really asleep. Like, REALLY asleep. We're talking drool on the bench and everything. Doesn't that just look so comfortable?)

Once we were finally home again, Abby didn't waste any time getting herself right back in the laundry basket!

We had only been home for a day or two when Garrett woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me he had barfed all over his bed. Great. After getting him bathed and cleaning up the mess, I got him back to sleep and my head had just touched the pillow when Abby started fussing. I went to get her and was thrilled to discover she had had a major blowout. ARGH! I got her cleaned up and back to bed and it seemed like I had barely closed my eyes again when it was time to wake up. It wasn't too much later that the stomach bug bit me and I wasn't feeling too hot, either. Needless to say, we had a rough day or two at our house.

The next evening I was worn out and dare I admit it, maybe feeling a bit sorry for myself. Everybody was asleep and I was cleaning the bathroom floor (Did I mention that Garrett has decided to potty-train himself in the midst of the madness? Great timing, huh?) when I glanced out the window and noticed this:

Seriously the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. I've seen some good ones in my day, like the sun setting over the beach in Hawaii, but this one takes the cake. I was tempted to keep my rotten mood and just keep cleaning, but I set everything down and walked out onto the front porch. I tried my darndest, but it was impossible not to feel hope while in the midst of such incredible beauty. It sounds corny, I know, but I realized that this is life--my life--and it is always going to be full of ups and downs and highs and lows. The trick is learning to enjoy the ride and to find the good things, even during the hard times. I thought about the story I had just seen on the news about all of the people sick with cholera in Haiti. I realized how lucky we are to be sick in a house with running water and toilets that flush and tubs to bathe in and sinks to wash our hands in. I don't particularly enjoy cleaning up barf or the other stuff, but at least I can wash dirty sheets and clothes in a washing machine--and I have extra of everything we need, so I don't even have to wait for it to be washed to have clean clothes and a comfy bed. It didn't take me very long to decide that my life isn't too bad after all.

I walked back in the house and couldn't resist taking a picture of my sleepy little buddy. Notice the cute little giraffe sleeping by him. This giraffe once belonged to a very sick girl who eventually died of a brain tumor. Her family sold her stuffed animals at the Relay for Life to raise money for cancer research. Garrett fell in love with this little giraffe and we brought him home to live with us. Garrett sleeps with Mr. Giraffe every night. I often wonder what stories this giraffe would tell if he could talk to us. I can only imagine the heartache and tears he has seen. My mom would always tell us when we were growing up and feeling sorry for ourselves, "No matter how bad you think you have it, you don't have to look very far to find somebody who has it worse."

Thank you, Mr. Giraffe for reminding me that our sicknesses were only temporary and you've seen much worse.

And just like it always does, the sun shone brightly the next morning and life goes on. The kids and I are all better and Greg is working on it. As Thanksgiving approaches, I have realized this year that we have so much to be thankful for. Especially times like this: