Busy Times

Here are a couple of pictures from this summer's activities.  We are pretty busy right now.  School and football are in full swing and take up most of our time.  We did get to see the WYO-gparents this weekend and had a very nice time.  We will put more of an update when we have time.

Have a great day.

Happy Birthday Uncle Rance

 Happy Birthday to my big brother

 Love You.

 We are starting to harvest our garden

 Bridger was excited to see the cucumbers.

 Bridger and I ate this one right away.

Picture update on the pec, not good.

The garden is starting to produce cucumbers, peas and tomatoes.  The corn is growing but the pumpkins and watermelon look like they may be ready by December.  Oh well we are enjoying the garden anyway.

We keep thinking of things we can do today but this dang injury is causing problems.  I am on zero lifting for six weeks and then depending on how it looks will just be isometric stuff.  It makes coaching tough since I like to get in and bang around with the kids to show them proper technique.

We may go to the lake today but even boating is a challenge for me right now.  The other activity thought is a baseball game.  They are playing Billings.  Ginni likes to watch them since her hero George Brett started there with the Royals farm team.  But we are not sure about sitting in the 95 degree sun for a couple of hours.

Bridger seems like he is excited for school to start.  It is probably because he will get to see all of his friends again.  He starts on Wednesday.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer.

This is part of a quote that Rance liked using.

"You got to know my mom. She flew out of the apartment"

Great Saturday!!!

 Bridger amazed me this am and was up and showered by 6:30am.  I got going around the same time.  We headed out to the Farmer's Market which opened at 7:30am.  It took us about 20 min for me to go through $50.  We got alot of stuff for that though.  We got corn first and took it back to the vehicle.  Then we started on the fruit, namely peaches.  Bridger picked blueberries (sorry Grammy).  I got some black cherries and then spied the green beans and potatoes.  I had four dollars left and stood in line to get zucchini and a yellow squash.  I also noticed some onions.  They smelled up the car quite nicely!!!

Bridger and I stopped at Taco John's before we headed to the football field.  We got there and couldn't find Darin.  We finally decided to look in the locker rooms.  OK, we didn't look IN the locker rooms, but asked others going in if they would look for him.  We finally found him and his freshman were already done.  We missed it.  They changed the schedule that morning.  Darin hung out to help with the rest of the morning activities.

 We cleaned out the pond and some mourning doves came to watch.  Bridger took these pictures.

Bridger then went with Jason's family to "Touch a Truck".  As you can see they did lots of touching.  The other boy is Jason's younger brother Christopher.

Before we cleaned the pond we had a thunderstorm go through.  Bridger grabbed up his kite and was headed outside when I asked him what did he think he was doing?  He got a quick version of lightening and being electrocuted.  Darin went on to explain the Benjamin Franklin story.  I was happy Bridger recognized Benjamin Franklin's name.  They were front on the porch when a bolt went off over the house.  Pretty soon Bridger came in and said, WOW!

more black and blue

For Judi, this is the right side of Darin's chest and arm.  He went to physical therapy (p/t) yesterday and was welcomed with open arms by the therapists that had treated him for his knee.  They joked at his expense about numerous things making him feel quite at home.  The therapist didn't want to work with him at first and thought he should do the MRI.  Darin asked him to just do the assessment and surprisingly he still has good range of motion.  They decided he didn't have a complete tear.  The tear is felt to be the pectoralis muscle, which is the chest muscle.  They were able to tape up his arm, which around the area that the lymph system drains.  This is to help drain the fluid collecting around the muscle secondary to injury.  They asked him to come back today.  They also put a TENS unit on his shoulder area.  This stimulates the muscle (small electrodes) and in turn increases the blood supply to that area.  In a way it helps with healing by pulling the blood through the area rebathing the muscle with nourishing blood.  Got all that?

Darin has continued to make practice for football.  He got his freshmen team assignment last night and is still Black team.  He said the head coach almost screwed up and assigned him Orange coaching.  The coaches are a little territorial as they have been the same black or orange coach for the last few years.  There is a scrimmage tomorrow in the morning for each of the teams.

Bridger has been enjoying daycare.  He went roller skating yesterday.  He tells me stories of the kids throughout the evening.  It sounds like today they get to use their tickets they have earned for good behavior for treats today.  Bridger has saved his tickets all week just for this.

Not much else going on.  Looking forward to the weekend. 

black and blue

one of the photos we got from rafting

hazards of lifting 3 times Bridger's body weight.

So it was mentioned that Darin had sustained an injury on Monday.  I asked that afternoon if he had started bruising.  He had not, but this has been what has progressed since Monday.  He has alot of swelling in the pectoris major muscle (breast area).  He is a  D cup, ha!!  Anyway, I got him into physical therapy tomorrow.    It does appear he has some internal damage.  An MRI would run $1000 plus, which is still well below our deductible.  He moves it well considering.  And yes, it does hurt, but getting better each day.

summer over?

Seems like once Darin goes back to school, our summer is over....

I know there are plenty of warm days left, but the fun of the last 10 weeks is done.  Bridger went back to daycare.  He did get to go to the movies today.  It was Kung Fu Panda 2.  He also got to go to the park.  He might get to go bowling tomorrow, but it sort of sounded like that might have been done last week.

Darin had his championship game  tonight and their team won.  Darin injured his shoulder/chest this afternoon lifting.  He tried to get out of playing, but they wouldn't have had enough men to play if he didn't play.  Darin played first base since he wouldn't have to throw for the most part.  He did bat three times.  He got on base once out of three.  The time he did, it was a pretty good hit actually.  Bridger sat with me for awhile and then wandered off to play.  It was a quick game for an hour.  We are trying to have a summer storm now.  There are 3 fires going up north of Casper.  The storm seemed to going along that way maybe it will help.

back home

 Bridger and I back together at the motel in Dickinson.  It has been long weekends driving back and forth to ND.  But, I am grateful that Bridger was able to stay with Grammy and Grandpa and they were willing to meet between here and there.  Not much to do in Dickinson, but the motel had a waterslide in their pool.  Bridger wore himself out between climbing the steps and swimming back to the ladder to get out and go again.  There wasn't much talking once lights were out.  We had an uneventful drive home on Sunday, thank goodness.  Lots of bikers all going the opposite way, until we got to the Interstate, then we drove with lots of Wyoming bikers.  The wind picked up, seriously, right at the Wyoming State Line.  I felt sorry for some of the
bikers with the blasts that I could feel.

 Grammy works part-time for an excavating company.  Bridger went to see her with Grandpa and got to check out the really BIG, Big Boy toys.  I think he got to ride somewhere in a truck, also.

Bridger had lots of fun for his week in ND.  Now he goes back to daycare for the next two weeks.  He starts school next Wed.  Darin starts his teacher time tomorrow.  His coaching time is now in the evenings starting tomorrow.  Tonight we will go watch Darin play softball.  His team made it to the championship game.   Hope they win.

Grand Forks report

Report from Grand Forks is that Bridger has been busy doing little boy things.  He took his bike and roller blades and has done both.  He went to the arcade yesterday and came home with a bounty of prizes.  He has got to hang-out with each grandparent separately and together.  He tells me that he is doing his reading and math per our deal.  Grammy confirms this.  We talk on Skype every night.  He makes faces at us and enjoys looking at himself in the camera.  He reported last night he had not gotten into any trouble-so far.

I have sent postcards and letters to him.  He told Grammy that they make him sad to read.  We got a call last night late that he was homesick.  I think he did pretty good getting to 3 days.  He knows he has three more days to go.  Today is Taco John's burritos and I bet that will help alot. 

I miss you!!!

Where ever you are exactly and whatever you are doing I miss you!!!

Hope you have a great week with the ND grandparents.  They are so happy to have you there with them.  Don't worry, I don't think there are many ditches to dig.  HA-HA!!!

Don't forget to brush your teeth, read your books and do your math.  Oh yeah, have some fun in there too!!!

Peas in a pod

resisting Shasta

loving tubing

trying different position

another position

boogeying on the boat

boy overboard

peas in a pod

Full day at the lake for Bridger.  We finally got out to the lake by 3:30pm.  We picked him up from Porters and he started tubing again from our boat.  Bridger talked Darin into going in the tube.  I had to drive and apparently, I do not drive well.  Darin said it was too rough.  Bridger and I thought he gave thumbs up, but it was thumbs down-you can imagine our mistake.  Bridger was very tired and a little sunburned.  He missed some spots with his sunblock.  He bet Darin he would fall asleep on the way back to town-Darin made him pay up.  Seemed an odd thing to bet, but he is only 8.

Bridger accompanied me to work today for the afternoon.  He did really well.  We had lunch from Olive Garden courtesy of a drug rep.  I ordered what I thought Bridger would eat and we shared it.  He asked as we were leaving work if we could have subway for lunch tomorrow or would it be Olive Garden again.  I had to explain someone else bought lunch for us today.  It was nice the rep brought berries, which Bridger and I had again for an afternoon snack.  Darin went off on his football retreat.  We will see him back again Wed.