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LAST SATURDAY

Before J went to camp, we spent a day as a family playing (hiking, floating and fishing).  It was a really fantastic family fun day!  Since my one handed typing is very slow, I'll just let the photos tell the story.

It was a very good day!

BROKEN!

This morning, as I was finishing up a bike ride before work, I skidded out as I transitioned from the pavement to the gravel driveway, and I went down hard. 

These things do happen in slow motion - I think I had 100 full sentence thoughts as I was falling down.  And at one point I actually thought I might pull the bike out of the slide.  (so much for deluding myself to thinking I might have an ounce of humility in mt soul!)

Then, as my chin hit the ground I literally thought "Oh d---!  Biking helmets don't protect the face!  I'm really gonna be really pretty now."

But when I tried to get up, assessing various limbs and joints as I went, I quickly realized I had a major problem in my left shoulder. 

And I realized that Andy was gone early to Helena - he would not be able to help me.  I called a friend from church who lives close by, and she helped me out.

After I got it x-rayed, the Dr said its broken.

Right at the top of the head of the humerus.  (this is not my x-ray, its one I downloaded from the internet.)

It hurts!

I'll be in sling for close to a month.  With physical therapy in about two weeks.  And as long as the piece stays in place, no surgery.
J is gone to camp this week, so I've got aouple days to get used to one handed/armed living before full-time mom duties kick in.
 Life is nothing if not interesting. 

Oh, yeah, I admit I will have to slow down when I get back on the bike.

Typing one-handed is slow, so I'm done here tonight.  I hope I've given all those who need to know enough info, without boring those who don't.

HE'S GOT QUITE A SENSE OF HUMOR

J is away at camp again this week, and we really miss him.  One of the things we miss is his sense of humor.

For example, on Saturday we went for a fun family day trip up the Boulder River.  He took a tube to play in the river.  As he was waiting for his dad to be ready to go tubing he did a little dance walk, and said he was a sumo wrestler wearing a tutu.

I guess you can see what he was talking about.

Yep, we miss his sense of humor.  Can't wait for him to be back on Friday!

FRIENDSHIP

These two are such good friends!  On hot days they share the same spot on the hardwood floors.

Being the younger of the two, Sophie is perhaps a shorter napper and very quick to think it is time to play.  She's just that way.  Usually, Leo doesn't mind.  He just lays there and tolerates her antics.

Except when she bites his toes.

Which she almost always does!  Then he gives a quick harrumph of a growl, and pulls his toes away.

She gets the message and settles down for a few minutes, only to start the whole thing over again.

They are indeed good friends!

BLESSINGS!

As I was driving home today I was thinking about how many blessings we have here in our household.  So, it might just be time to list a few of them.

• A job that provides health insurance, which in turn means Andy can get his hip fixed after years and years of putting it off.

• We have the equipment necessary to go fly fishing as a family, and living someplace where we can do that.  So, tomorrow we head up to the Boulder River area to hike in the afternoon, and fish in the evening before coming home.  I've been looking forward to this all week.

• Our boy is very special, and other people tell us that.  I know this seems a bit like bragging, but today one of the staff at the camp J goes to three days a week sat down and just praised him and his character.  Those are pretty proud mom moments!

• I have a husband who has ethics and abilities that make him especially good at his job.  We were talking today about how so many attorneys that get involved in some of his cases really are missing an understanding of the implications of their job, and therefore miss the need to be more proactive manner.

• We have a great member of our church family and neighbor who wants the hay in our field and is therefore willing to cut, bale, and take it.  For Free!

• This boy is 10, but he still reaches out to hold my hand when we are on a walk, even when we are walking down town and other people will see.  It is so sweet that he's comfortable showing affection towards his momma, and it certainly makes me feel good!

AN EVENING WALK

I HAD A DATE . . .

with this wonderful young man.

We went down town and wondered around to various stores.  I think his favorite store was the The Chocolate Moose (candy store), followed closely by the new rock store - rocks for $2500 we a bit out of our price range, but cool to look at.

We didn't have much money to spend - just $3.00 at the candy store and them a burger for dinner.  You would be amazed how much candy a 10 year old can buy for $3.00!  He was careful to get a variety and to get things that were unique.

He confided in me that he can smell through is mouth.  He explained that it is a genetic mutation, and he is the start of a new ability in the world - he concluded this because he doesn't know anyone else who can smell through their mouth.  But, being the good Christian, Petra student, he was very clear that this is not evolution, just genetic mistake as the result of sin in the world.

Other things about this guy:

• He'd like to paint his room with brown chalk board paint - he's inspired by my use of it on the door to our garage.
• He's currently singing "Paridise City" by Guns and Roses, which I'm certain he heard on the rock station he and his dad listen to when they are in the truck together.
• His smelling mouth does not seem to have an "off" mode this day - word streams have been pouring out since he woke up this morning.  I thought girls were supposed to be the talkative ones.
• Today when we went to get the car looked at from the hail damage, and the insurance company was giving kids teddy bears, he acted all cool and everything, but he snuggled that bear the whole way home.
• He's beginning his second week without cows milk, and I see a big difference - he is much less anxious.  Not the response I was expecting, but it is a good thing.  We'll try three more weeks of no cow dairy and see what happens when he tries dairy again.  My theory is that he just generally feels better, and that is why he is less anxious.

On our date we had burgers at Burger Bob's downtown.  We'd never been there, but it was pretty good.  For a burger and fried dinner.

Just to change the subject and be totally random, this is what the sunsets have been like here the last week or so.

WHAT A DAY!

These are not photos from today - as you might guess, they are from Sunday.  But I think I'll write about today.

It wasn't a bad day, but it sure left me with a lot of things on my mind.  Poor Andy is going to have to process about 6 million of my words tonight because I've got so much to tell him.  Its all stuff that is important to me, but none of it is probably all that interesting in the details to those who don't associate with our school and our friends and my family. 

Just to give you a bit of a taste, I had:

•  Two meetings today - one very good one with a board member from our school, the other also very good one with someone I was referred to as a potential mentor, which was either the most encouraging meeting or most discouraging meeting I've had related to my job.  
• One quick  good interaction with someone who wields a great deal of political power in areas that are of great concern to me.
• One piece of good, interesting, and somewhat surprising news about a friend;
• One teary phone call from my little sister that ended well after she shared her heart about some hurts she had experienced;
• An unexpected chance to chat with someone I know, but now know even better; and
• Once chance to have a deep conversation with a long time friend who I just don't get to see very often anymore.

All that, plus the typical stuff of dropping J at a friends, working a full day at the school, including printing invitations for the ground breaking, doing Andy's office filing and some "collections" stuff for his office, and running a couple of errands before coming home. 

Whew! 

 What A Day!

HARD WORK AND GOOD FUN

On Friday we picked this guy up from a very fun week at camp.  He definitely enjoyed it, and is glad he gets to go back at the end of July too.

I was so glad to see him that I just took photos of him, even though he wasn't doing anything particularly interesting - waiting for the awards ceremony to start and entertaining himself by looking at the sky.

At the awards ceremony he was awarded the "Woodsman Award" for his camp skills performance.  It is the highest honor in camp skills that is available, and he was proud to get it. 

We spent Saturday mostly down in Big Sky with family, cutting down some beetle killed trees.  It was a lot of work to get four trees down, bucked, split and stacked, but we had a nice crew to do it with.

J brought two axes and showed is younger cousin B how to use them - they cut off a lot of little branches that would have been cut with the chainsaw easier, but they enjoyed it, and it gave them a way to participate and contribute to the days work.  those two also helped to run the splitter - a big deal to young boys, and this time a chore that really is helpful!  I also loved the fact that the boys got to work with their grandfather. 

The adults worked very hard too!

In one of the trees was a magpie nest, with a deceased momma sitting on it.  Kind of gross, but really not.  The kids (especially my boy) were fascinated by it, and curious to know what killed her (we have no idea). 

There was also the opportunity for some fun!  J loves to tramp, although we don't have one.  He was excited to learn to do a flip, and called me over to photo him!

We are off to enjoy a dinner and fireworks with some friends from church.  Happy Fourth of July everyone!