October, one picture at a time?

I got this idea from a lady in my ward and I have missed a few days, but will stick with it and maybe November will be better…

CTH tries to stay awake during conference…awake? He said he was…

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Finally Finished!

When I was still living in Vernal (2003), I took a quilting class at the library where I was working. Even though I loved the pattern, it really was not a beginner class, and I got frustrated and stopped. The next class they taught was a beginner and I decided to try it again. It was to make a quilt out of bright fabrics. So since I had started one for me, I thought I would do this one for Christopher. I knew he would love the brights and we could really make it fun. I had to use a bunch of different fabrics, but after I had bought them and was starting to cut them to the size I needed, there were a few I had picked that I just really didn’t end up liking. So I decided to let Christopher pick out some and then in the years to come it would be that much more special to him. He picked a Scooby-Doo, Garfield, Sponge Bob and a few others. I had finished the quilt top before we moved to SLC, but that is where it stayed until the summer of 2006 when I put the pointy edging on (royal pain!) I even got it pinned to the batting and backing, but was not sure how to sew it. Then summer was over and back to school we went. It again stayed in that box until last summer here in Las Vegas. I was determined to finish it, once and for all! I got it out and had to take out some of the edging and redo it to make it fit right to the corners. Then I had to decide what I was going to do about the machine quilting. I looked it up on the Internet and just decide to go for it. I had bought the special foot for the sewing machine while in SLC, so I was ready to go. I had to roll it up to get it up under the arm of the machine.

It fits a double bed so it was big and a pain, but I DID IT!

I finished it on August 4, 2007!

Finally!

 

Physical Fitness Badge

In August Christopher started his physical fitness merit badge. This is a big 3 month one and all the boys are working on it. One of the things he is doing is jumping rope. He really wasn’t any good at it at the beginning but quickly improved. The funny thing was that his hair was so long that it would really fly!  He would do it with no shirt sometimes and then miss and whip himself in the back….see?

 

Okay, too many body parts can make that sound!

Christopher has been doing the next 2 actions for a few years now, ever since he discovered he could.  So I thought I would show everyone!

 

Birthday Bliss!

Well, Christopher’s 13th birthday is finally here. He is officially a teen. While we were in SLC at Christmas he rode “The Wave” that one of his friends got, so of course, he wanted one for his birthday. I was able to save a little money by getting one on eBay.

 

 

Bikes and Cars Don’t Mix!

Okay, most of you have heard that Christopher got hit by a car. It happened on Feb 2nd (so I will date this entry as that). Really they kind of hit each other, but the bike (his old bmx one, not the new one!) and Christopher did, of course, get the worst end of the deal. The road, coming from the school, is going down a hill, and a car was just leaving the stop sign he was coming to. So instead of stopping at the stop sign, and since his breaks weren’t slowing him down quite as much as he needed, he decided to try to cross with the car just leaving the stop sign he was coming to. Unfortunately, he could not keep up with the car and by the time he was coming to the middle of the intersection the car was already through, and the cross traffic, not seeing him, started to go. The driver saw Christopher just a split second before he hit the front fender, and she slammed on her brakes. He flew up onto the hood of the truck, slamming his right thigh and inside left shin against the side of the truck in the process, then he flew or rolled off and landed on the pavement, hitting his chin and scraping his hands to stop his head and face from hitting the ground. In the diagram the red arrow is Christopher and the aqua one is the truck.

Meanwhile, I was at home wondering what was taking him so long to get home, figuring he must be riding with his new friend. After a while the phone rings and it is a police officer telling me he has hit a car and that he has a cut on his chin, but that he appears to be all right. He then asks me if I would like to come down there. I told Mother where I was going and grabbed my purse and drove to the intersection. As I drove up I saw several vehicles with flashing lights. A few cop cars, an ambulance, a fire truck and a bunch of people standing in a large circle with Christopher sitting in the middle of this circle, in the middle of the intersection, I might add! There were a few dents to the truck, and the trucks front tire was on his bike. Because Christopher had not learned our phone number here, nor the address, the officers called the school. The principal and another lady came down to the accident with his emergency info to call.

So they all told me what happened and the paramedics thought that he might need a stitch in his chin and asked if I wanted to take him to the hospital or if I wanted them to take him. I said I would and told them I had just moved here and asked where the best place to take him was. There was actually an urgent care place not very far.

After taking him down there and waiting for quite a while the doc said, “yes”, it needed a stitch. Christopher did not want a stitch and said he was willing to live with a scar (at his age scars cool, but I keep telling him that when you grow up, they are not so cool anymore!) The doc said he might be able to use dermabond and glue it, but that if it didn’t hold he would have to put a stitch in it. I think the most pain he had through this whole thing was when they had to clean the area before they could glue it. It glued just fine and no stitch was needed. He had some nasty bruises on his legs for a while but even they healed. Here are a few pictures of his chin. The first one is the day after with the steristrips over it to help hold the glue. The other is after it started healing and the steristrips had fallen off.

 

Bikin’!

Well, for Christmas Colette gave Christopher a bike. He has only had BMX type bikes before, you know small and no gears. She Father gave it a tune up to make sure it is ready for him to ride to school and back. He loves having the gears.

So after riding around here for a while he wanted to ride up to his new school, so that he knew how long it takes to get there and back…so, the lazy soul that I am, I followed him in the car!

 

Fun and Games!

Now that we are here in Las Vegas with my parents Christopher has no friends (and no desire to go out and make any at this point) all he wanted to do was play on the computer or watch TV. When Mother gets up then she becomes the master of the TV and Christopher is out of luck! On Saturday he was grounded from the computer so it was time for me to find other things for him to do. We cleaned off the patio and opened up the Ping Pong table. Everyone but Mother was out their playing. Father was really out of practice and said this was only the second time that the ping pong table had been used since they had moved.

After we all got tired (except Christopher) his creative juices began flowing and he made a golf putter out of a rolled up newspaper, electrical tape and a chip clip! Then, using the ping pong balls he began playing!

 

Ooooo! I can see!

Christopher got reading glasses just before school started in August. The funny thing is when he was…oh about 6 or so he had a friend who had glasses he had to wear all of the time and Christopher thought it was cool and wanted glasses, too. Now I have a hard time getting him to wear them even in the classes he needs them in!

 

Woohooooo! Lagooooon!

Well, we have made it to…..

For those of you non-Utah people, Lagoon is a micro-mini Disneyland. It is the best thing for hundreds of miles.

Christie, the mom of Lacie and Chelsea who live next door to us, works for Harmon’s (a grocery store chain in Utah) and each summer they have 2 days to choose from to get tickets for a steal, and then the Harmon’s owners put on a big party with lots of free food, and employees who attend get to put a ticket in for prizes. Christie won a mini-dvd player! She was so excited! But back to the rest of the story. The girls (Lacie and Chelsea) wanted us to go with them this year and Christie even bought our tickets and wouldn’t let me pay her back. So we all packed into my car and headed off! After we headed off on a few rides we got hot and thursty. Christie and Chelsea went on this ride that spins you around…see her long blond hair flying out, and we got stopped on this sky rider ride, so I pulled out my camera and took pictures.

Thinking that the Harmon’s people had drinks starting at noon we went to the big pavillions, but we were wrong, it was 2pm, so we put down things to save us a spot at a table and took off for the rides that get you wet! I remembered last year that when we went with the Merrick’s that stuff could get wet and I did not want my camera getting wet. I really would like to get pictures on these rides that get you wet, but I was not about to use it for fear of ruining it…and then I had a wonderful, BRILLIANT, idea! I was already bringing ziplock bags to put cell phones and stuff in, and of course my camera…what would happen if I tried to take pictures THROUGH the plastic of the ziplock bag? I might not work at all or it might only be fuzzy! I mean, if I were to pull the plastic tight enough over the lens area, I might get something good! It was worth a try! We first went on the Log Flume and I thought I would try it out on that one, because the one I really wanted pictures was Rattlesnake Rapids! That one drenches you! So after we got on the ride I pulled out my camera in the bag and got it pulled tight and started taking pictures. I couldn’t tell in the sun and through the bag what pictures I was getting, so I had to wait until after we got off the ride to look at the pictures I took to see if it worked and here are the ones I got on that ride. The beginning of the ride, and at the end, with Christopher and Lacie above us on the walk way, watching us arrive.

So, since that worked I was ready to try it on the Rattlesnake Rapids!

Okay, in this next picture we are on the ride, but before the waterfall!…Still dry…

During the waterfall! I love this shot! The funny thing was that since I couldn’t see what I was getting pictures of, I just kept taking pictures! This is the best shot of the whole trip!!!

After the waterfall…drenched!

Now that we are cooled off, we can go on other rides without being too hot!

So at 2pm we went and got stuff to eat and drink, then went on them again. At 6pm all the Harmon’s people come back for the give aways and dinner. All we had to pay for was the hamburgers or hot dogs, and everything else was free! The kids got their faces painted. Chelsea got a big butterfly, but Christopher and Lacie had the skateboard company DC logo painted on them! Then Christie won the dvd player (Bob, one of the owners presented her with it and shook her hand). She made sure I got a picture!

Well, after going on a bunch more rides I wanted a picture of the kids under the water of the … fountain?

Well, Christopher and Lacie began to have fun and really go drenched, only it was getting dark and Christopher started getting cold…really cold…you can almost see him shiver in the last picture! Brrrr