Breaking Dawn better not break my heart

For those of you in the know, this background makes perfect sence. Friday can't come soon enough, and if she knows whats good for her, Bella and Edward live happily ever after as Vampire husband and wife.

Fireworks Shmireworks

This year, since the normal place we go for fireworks had cancelled their show, we decided to just stay in. Not really wanting to be out in the heat, especially since it looked like most shows would be cancelled on the count of the weather,
and getting stuck in traffic, and not really knowing where else to go anyway. I was worried about how the kids would handle not going, but as soon as we mentioned that we would play "Bears in the the night" the fireworks were forgotten. If you haven't played this game I highly recommend it. It's a twist on hide and go seek. The twist being that you do it in total darkness. You hand out cards and one card has a bear on it, that person is it, only they don't tell anyone they are the bear. We turn off all the lights and everyone hides, even the bear. You can find a lot more hiding places in the dark. After the bear hides and counts to 100, then they come out roaring and looking for everyone else. When they find someone, that person also becomes a bear and now there are two. The game continues until everyone is found. Sometimes it takes quite a while to fine everyone cause in a dark house you can just stand in the corner of a room and people walk right by you. We also played some bear hunting music, came with the game. It's a little creepy sometimes, but if my little nieces can play and have a blast in a dark house, I think anyone could.
Kirk then pulls out the glow sticks and everyone goes crazy putting together bracelets and necklaces. We start taking pictures and start fiddling with the settings until we came up with the perfect one that would capture the light of the sticks. We had so much fun seeing how the pictures would come out. And as you can see the result looked a lot like fireworks themselves. Ty was the camera man and every two seconds someone was begging him to take their picture cause they thought of something even better to do with the neon than the last person.

Sunday with all the Cluff's

Sunday was a very busy day. First we started out the morning by singing "How Great Thou Art" for my Mom's ward. We almost had all the siblings and we even adopted a new member into the group, Casy, Christi's husband, joined us this time and helped out with the Bass part. So he and Hobie sang Bass, Dad was Tenor as always, Stacy and Christi 1st and 2nd Soprano and Melodee and I were the Alto's. I think the arrangement of that song is amazing and second only to Gogies "Silent Night, O, Holy Night. All of there family was there to listen though. Next time Tyler and Michael are going to do it weather they want to or not. *I'm pointing my finger at you both right now, and wagging it a bit* Then right after Sacrament Meeting, we jetted over to my house to have a family portrait done, and this mostly was done because the Roger family is leaving the state of Arizona soon. They are heading to a Air Force Base in Colorado and we will miss them all so much. Specially the little Rogers.
After the pictures were taken, ( a huge thanks to my neighbor Leslie for coming over to help) we dug into the Mexican buffet. Of course we had to play a little Mafia after that. A friend of ours told us of another twist to the game, and that is to have and Angel that has an opportunity to save someone from the wrath of the Mafia. So in one round, Hobie was the Angel. We are playing along nice a good, and then after more and more people were getting killed and the Angel wasn't saving anyone, those dead people could not stop laughing during the killing rounds. It wasn't until you were dead that you got to see Hobie and Angel saving HIMSELF every round. Near the end he told us he was the Angel and asked who the detective was because it didn't matter if the Mafia knew who he was cause he would never die. It was only after the game that I realized I forgot an important rule, and that is the Angel can only save himself 1 time during the course of the game. But way to go Hobie awesome strategy!!!

Summer Pool Party at Grandma's

We all got together this weekend for two important reasons. First was to wish Ty a happy 35, you old fart. hee hee. And to get together one last time, all of us ,before Stacy and Jason head for Colorado. It turns out we are going to miss Jason quite a bit. This fun filled family weekend was not without it's many slip ups, bumps and falls. And believe it or not it happened to more than one person. The worst of it Grandma took. She was just walking around the corner of her kitchen and slipped on some water. She ended up fracturing her distal radius and the ulna. (Jason you'll have to correct my medical terms if I didn't get it right) this according to the doctor at the Urgent Care. Thankfully she's doing good, but she'll most likely be in a cast for a while. Poor mom. The other incidences weren't quite as traumatic thank goodness. Ivan pulled a Foosball game on his head and then baby Joey fell down the stairs. All in all everyone left in one piece, except mom. It was good fun though. More pictures of our Sunday are coming.

Isn't Pork short for Porcupine?

I do feel oddly enough like a porcupine. Thank goodness that was all I felt. This was my latest attempt at helping my back feel better. Dr. Bryce my chiropractor recommended I try acupuncture because my problems are all muscular not skeletal. My muscles just won't calm down enough to start healing so we are giving this a go and we are crossing our fingers that it will do the trick. The Chinese have been doing this for thousands of years, so I guess they've studied it enough to know all the in's and out's of it. Good thing is, if it doesn't work, no harm done.

The title came from a doctor I work with. We were having a "lunch and learn" at work and a company we order from was showing us the new bone replacement therapy or bone grafting techniques for those we do extractions on who might want to consider an implant or bridge later on. (When you have a tooth extracted you loose quite a bit of bone.) Anyway, the material they use is from a bovine extract. Someone asked what bovine was. I was like "do you live under a rock?" Well, if your not up in your animal terms, it's a cow. The stuff we use to build the bone back up is like a gelatin, which comes from cows. That's right all you jell-o lovers out there, your eating cows feet. Anyway the doctor I mentioned above, says to me after the meeting when we were laughing about the fact that "so-in-so" didn't know the term bovine, he says to me when he was young, he though Pork was short for Porcupine. Whew... that was a round about way to explain that. :)

Mon-sooner

Ahhh the start of Monsoon season. Or at least I hope it is. I love this time of year and it makes living in Arizona during the summer almost a bearable one. The mornings start out a little muggy, but by the late afternoon, the thunderheads have spread across the sky leaving a dark shadow on most of the valley. The sun still tries to break through and the temperature drops a few degrees, everyone you can feel. Then out of no where, you are drenched. It's almost like there are boundaries to this storm, a foot away and your dry and seconds later you hit this wall of water with rain drops the size of dinner plates. I love the smell after the rain and you can almost smell it in this picture. Nature is awesome!

18 years in the making

It seems like a lifetime ago and it was definitely several pounds it looks like.
I was lucky enough to marry the man of my dreams. No actually this time I was glad that the Lord stepped in and said "this is who you will marry" I wasn't doing to well in the "potential partner" department. The guys I was dating weren't exactly "eternal material" for lack of a better word. The last guy defiantly was not. And it was with him that I ran into Kirk on that fateful day back at the MCC institute in 1990. I'd known Kirk since High School, but there was no indication that I even thought of him that way. Then we he got back from his Mission in South Africa, we were re-introduced and still nothing. We even spent the better part of that summer in a large group of friends hanging out and having fun. At a dance in October Kirk and I spent almost the whole time together, cause I was avoiding someone who wanted to dance with me, and I wasn't interested and he wouldn't take a hint. He became my protector from silly boys. Then January rolled around and I was dating a guy that I knew in the back of my head of should have run screaming from a long time ago. I brought him to the institute cause he didn't want me to go alone *rolling eyes* Kirk had seen us walk in and came to taunt said boyfriend. Of course he wasn't very happy *sob sob*
I walked away to get a drink of water and it was almost like a lightning bolt hit me and I knew I would marry Kirk. I hadn't even been on a date with him at this point, but I knew it just the same. I drove said boyfriend to Phoenix to be with his brother or something and never saw him again. After I got home I think I told my mom what had happened. I have never been so sure about anything in my whole life. We started dating on Kirk's birthday, on my birthday he proposed, and of course you know the rest, and the Lord was right, and when is He not? 3 months later We were married in the Mesa Temple. In 120 degree weather, but why wait when you know it's right.
He is the best thing that has ever happened to me and I kiddingly call him my Johnny Lingo. I love you Kirk with all my heart.