THERE IS A DIFFERENCE

The following TRUE story is the reason why my older brother just shakes his head at me in disbelief. I can't make this stuff up!

Yesterday, I had to drive to Midvale (a suburb of Salt Lake City) to buy Abby's birthday gift-Zhu Zhu Pets. I can never find Zhu Zhu pets in the store or online because they are so popular. So I found this lady in Midvale who sells them out of her house. When I got to her house, she had a whole closet FULL of Zhu Zhu Pets, Barbie cars, dolls and buses. I asked her where she got all these toys that she is selling for double the price on the KSL classifieds. Her reply was, "MY FRIEND." Well, I have NO idea where this lady came up with all these toys but I'm sure I bought some hawked items.

So, it is now 4pm. I have to be home and ready to leave again at 5pm to go out to dinner with my family to celebrate Abby's upcoming birthday and Tanner being inducted into the National Honor Society. But the truck is VERY LOW on gasoline. I pull into a gas station in a hurry. I see there are 2 gas handles - 1 green and 1 red. I place my credit card in the machine, lift the red handle and put $45 worth of fuel into the truck. When I leave the gas station, the truck is running really sluggish. I make it about a half block when I pull over and can't drive anymore. Long story short, I call a tow truck company, and a very nice but smelly guy with only a few teeth shows up and tows us to the Toyota dealership. By this time, Daren is on his way to pick me up at the dealership. I take out my gas receipt and call the gas station to ask them, "What the *!@#* are they selling at Pump #8?" Their reply, "RED DIESEL." What in the world is RED DIESEL? I thought the GREEN handle is diesel. Well apparently, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE!

RED DIESEL is for farm equipment. I think this is VERY deceiving! Is it really red? Why don't they call it WHITE DIESEL? Or CLEAR DIESEL? Because the red handle means it is GASOLINE! I feel VERY deceived and VERY stupid! Well, the Toyota dealership called and they said it would be $1800 to fix this mess but then when I handed the phone to Daren to talk about the charges, all of a sudden it was now $1200 to fix. When Daren was talking to them they said, "Oh I guess you don't need a new $600 fuel pump!" REALLY? So today we are going to have it towed to our mechanic and hopefully it will cost less than the $1200 we were quoted!

WHAT A COLOSSAL WASTE OF MONEY!!!

(Side note-Daren was SO NICE to me when I told him what I did! Seriously, I think if the roles had been reversed, he'd still be hearing it from me--WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!! But he doesn't get upset about stuff like this.)

So the moral of the story is...Don't buy stolen toys from a lady in Midvale and just because the fuel handle is red, doesn't mean it is gasoline! It could be RED DIESEL!

Anyway, we made it to Tanner's induction to the National Honor Society on time, barely! WHAT A NIGHT! Congratulations Tanner on a wonderful achievement! We are so proud of you!

CHECK THIS OUT!

I am still pretty green at this whole blogging thing so I don't know how to make a link from my blog to my friend's blog.

Anyway, click on my friend BLAINE & JAMI's blog. She has some pictures of my 2 FAVORITE PEOPLE!!

Thanks again Jami! And, I love your watch! :)

SURGICAL MYSTERY

What a week! Daren's surgery went very well. However, he has had a slow recovery starting with a difficult time coming off of the anesthesia. His oxygen levels were really low so we ended up being there longer than expected. He has yet to sleep through the night due to his pain medication wearing off. So he vacillates between being in pain and being in a fog from pain medication. On top of that, he is nauseous. He desperately wanted to get out of the house yesterday so I took him on a drive. He made it to the Wal-Mart and was ready to go back home because he was so nauseated. It's been good times around here! I feel so bad for him and it breaks my heart to see him in pain. Each day he gets a little stronger and I know he will get better but this is definitely taking longer for him to recover than we had expected.

A few funny things that happened:

1. After coming off the anesthesia, the nurse asked him if he wanted any crackers or cookies. He only wanted a shrimp cocktail and a Dr. Pepper.

2. Mystery Question-When he checked into the hospital, the nurse gave him the lovely hospital gown to wear and some paper blue boxer type shorts. When he came out of surgery, his paper blue boxer type shorts were gone. We have joked all week about what happened to the paper shorts. Who took them off? Why would they give him the shorts to wear if they were just going to take them off during surgery? Anyway, yesterday we get a "Get Well" card from the nursing staff at the hospital. Was this the same group of nurses who know what happened to the blue paper shorts? The mystery continues.

HAITI

I have 2 AMAZING neighbors who are in Haiti. And, their families are AMAZING to be brave enough to have their husband and father travel to Haiti. One is a doctor and the other is a translator. They just sent this e-mail updating the recovery efforts they are making. They are at an LDS church in Leogane and are helping there. We are so BLESSED!


We are in Leogane. We went to Jacmel first and landed with at least 12 - 15 other doctors from Houston with more expected soon. We had heard that there were a lot of problems in Leogane without a lot of doctors and Chuck's dreams were answered. Chuck was Branch President here 20 years ago. My best guess is that we treated around 30 people today. Each individual needed procedures - fractures, dislocations, head trauma (including a sweet little girl who is a member of the church - 8 years old - with exposed bone and infections all over her head).

There were a number of individuals whose infection was beyond our treatment level and needed immediate surgery (amputation) but we cannot do anything other than clean and give antibiotics and pain meds. Everyone we saw needed a lot of help. We are setup right in the LDS Chapel here in Leogane. I think there are probably 200+ people living here in the chapel - right now we are in the same room where we did all the work today, it is the chapel and multi-purpose room. There are 20 kids/people watching a church movie on a TV. There are two or three families asleep in the middle of the room and there are a bunch of people milling around - thats just in here. There are at least 100+ sleeping out in the front area or parking lot. We just had dinner - they made us rice and beans with chicken sauce!!! We are going to sleep in the Sunday School room where they put up drapes and mattresses.

Flying over Port-au-Prince and Jacmel and Carrefour and Leogane was tough. There were a lot of really pancaked houses and there were tons of people displaced. The sad thing is, it didn't look that different except the really affected houses, etc. These people have endured so much, we were all on the verge of tears so many times today - seeing the kids was especially hard. There was even a 3 month old that Chuck put a cast on his right ankle which was broken - this is almost one week after his house fell on him and busted it!!!

UPDATE

Daren is off to surgery next week to repair a torn meniscus.

The car is going to get surgery, aka a trip to the body shop later this week.

Camille went to her first Activity Days this week and loved it. She came home and exclaimed, "Thank you SO much for signing me up for Activity Days! I love them!"

Tanner started a new semester at school and wants to switch this class for that class to have all the "COOL" teachers.

Got an e-mail reminding me of my 20-year class reunion this year. Man, I'm getting old! Tanner is wondering if I went to high school when I was 9 because I always tell him that I'm 29!

And, if I had a dollar for everytime Abby asked me when her next swimming lesson is, I'd be able to buy a swimming pool!

WHO CARES ABOUT YOU?

I had to write this one down so I wouldn't forget.

The other day Camille was a little sad. I gave her a big hug and our conversation went like this:

Me: Camille, I care about you SO much.

Camille: I know you do. But do you know who doesn't care about me?

Me: Who? (Thinking she's going to say someone from school)

Camille: Robbers. They don't care about me.

Me: (Trying not to laugh) You are right...robbers don't care about you!

BLESSED

I am blessed to have 3 friends who are AMAZING photographers. One of them, Jami, took these fun pictures of the girls.

When Camille and I went to look at the proofs, Jami who is the mother of 5 boys was talking about how her daughter-in-laws will have free bridal, wedding and baby pictures for life. Camille pipes up and says, "Ok...so let me get this straight. If I marry one of your boys I get free pictures?" Yes Camille, that is one of the perks if you marry one of Jami's sons.

Camille wanted to be like a "SUPER MODEL"
I LOVE these pictures of Abby. She get so embarrassed when I tell her I think she is BEAUTIFUL but I really think she's SO PRETTY!

I love these girls and I am SO blessed to be their mom!

THANK YOU JAMI! You did an awesome job!

WAY TO START THE NEW YEAR

Let's start with the bad:

1. Daren knee is thrashed. He is on crutches and is in pain. Tomorrow we go to the orthopedic doctor to see exactly what the damage is.

2. He had an eye appointment this morning and had his pupils dilated. I had to drive him around today. I always feel weird driving with him in the passenger seat. I want to hang a sign on the car that says, "My husband has a hurt knee and his pupils are dilated...that is why the WOMAN is driving."

Which leads me to #3
3. On my way to buy scriptures for Camille's birthday, I was rear-ended in my 2-month old NEW car. Luckily I had dropped the dilated pupil guy with the bum knee off at home FIRST. Long story short, my back is KILLING me and I am in a lot of pain AND my new car is smashed in! We will need to get a new bumper and hatch.

4. I am learning VERY quickly that I do not like insurance companies. I want the car fixed at the dealer since it is only 2 months old and I get the impression that the insurance company isn't really jazzed about that idea.

5. There was a shooting at the courthouse in Las Vegas, which is 2 blocks from Daren's office. He has done several trials there. That is a little too close to home for me. It is weird turning on the TV and seeing pictures of that area. So glad he wasn't in Vegas today.

6. I have MAJOR guilt because it is Camille's birthday and well, it hasn't been a great day around here.

THE GOOD:

1. Watching Camille open her new birthday outfit. She has wanted legging for SO long. Haven't you heard...ALL the girls have leggings EXCEPT her. Well after today, that isn't true.

2. Checking Camille out of school for our traditional birthday lunch. She wanted to go to Olive Garden. Daren and I had so much fun watching her face. She was just beaming! She even talked Daren into letting her order dessert, like that was difficult!

3. Going to Camille's class with birthday treats and watching all of the kids tell her, "These are the BEST treats in the world!"

4. Grateful that I was able to buy the steak and shrimp for the birthday dinner. If only I was able to get the Sushi that she requested, the dinner would have been perfect!

5. Ate an awesome breakfast...ARIZONA GRAPEFRUIT! Thanks to my awesome brother, his wife and my wonderful neighbors who brought them back from Arizona. They were delicious!

6. Today was Abby's first day at swimming. She jumped in, bawled, got out, sat on my lap, got my favorite pair of jeans all wet and killed my back. But I loved holding her cold, scared, frightened little body.

7. Being SO grateful that my kids and Daren weren't in the car with me when I was rear-ended.

8. Thankful for a husband who feels as lousy as I do but still drives carpool, picks out a birthday cake and even did the dishes.

9. But most of all, today I'm grateful to be Camille's mom. She is the life of this family and brings so much joy to each one of us.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAMILLE! Sorry there was so much DRAMA today...but then again, you are our DRAMA QUEEN!