The Good, The Very Bad and The Insane!

THE GOOD:

Owen Douglas Felts - My older sister had her second baby! Cute little bounder!

Birthdays – Ian turned 2! I know it’s terrible of me to spoil this kid like I do, but he’s got me wrapped around his finger, and I LOVE IT! Every time he says “Pweese Ninna!?!” my resolve melts and I collapse like an umbrella. So, much to the annoyance (and frequently the ignorance) of his parents, I just WON’T say no!

Karen, my sister had her birthday too! I love her guts!!

My Grandma Ruth had her 86^th birthday too, we had a BIG family get together but I forgot my camera that day so this is one from my brother's graduation dinner.

Bug's Graduation - My little brother, the baby of our family, graduated from High School. It makes me happy and sad all at the same time. I’m happy for him that he never has to go back to Alta again, sad because I can no longer deny that he is grown up. My parent's took us all to Market Street Grill to celebrate!

Heidi’s Wedding! – Congratulations Schmeidles and Justin!!! I couldn’t be happier for you!!! You are both wonderful!

THE VERY BAD:

Cancer - Over Memorial Day weekend, we found out that my Dad's Dad, my Grandpa D has cancer... In the Doctor’s own words “It’s everywhere.” We're not sure he'll see the end of July.... The same day, we found out that my Mom’s Mom has got metastatic cancer in her liver. Her prognosis is not as bad, but is still terminal. My family and I have been spending as much time with Grandpa D as possible and my Grandma Ruth is living with my parents during treatment. This has hit my parents pretty hard. While I am still in denial that one day I will lose MY parents, the excruciating pain that I see in them, realizing they are losing their parents is undeniable and most of the time, unbearable. The only things that I have found consoling during this time have been that: (1) knowing their prognoses has allowed everyone to say their goodbyes, which I consider to be a direct gift from God. Having someone go suddenly and leaving things unsaid has been, in my experience, the worst part of death. And (2) both of my grandparents seem to have completely come to terms with the fact that they’re “graduating.” My Grandma Ruth even told one of her physicians “It’s okay honey, I never expected to live this long anyway!”

Singapore - For anyone who has known me at all over the last few years, you will know that Jared's work has been playing him like a yo-yo. They keep saying they might send him to Singapore to help get their new plant up and running. Well, they've been "threatening" to do this for years. So, when there’s this type of talk, I usually just roll my eyes. But, in the last few weeks they've been getting pretty darn serious about it. Jared now has a confirmed seat on a flight leaving July 22^nd. He will be gone “a minimum of three weeks.” While this just plain sucks, it is good that his work needs him as much as they do, especially in this economy. So, if anyone is bored during the weeks after July 22^nd, give me a call!

THE INSANE:

Family Reunion - Jared’s family (his brother, sisters, their kids and his parents = 27 people) have a bi-annual reunion. The reunion planning responsibility rotates between each individual family member. When I say this, I mean, the individual plans: the location, the activities, the food and the budget… for all 27… for a week! Well, this time it was OUR turn to plan… aka MY turn to plan. So, I’ve been planning this thing for two years. The food, the budget, the location, the itinerary and activities were all planned.

But, since NOTHING in my life seems to be working right these days… What happens exactly 10 days before the reunion is to commence? I get a phone call from the cabin owner saying “Oh, sorry, we’ve run into a problem with the County Inspectors Office, and can no longer rent to you.” WHAT!?!?!? So, yeah, we (the entire family) scramble to find a new location. We end up in a completely different State (Vail, CO as opposed to Ashton, ID) and with our itinerary pretty much blown since two of the days we were planning on being in Yellowstone. So… yeah, we pretty much just played the entire thing by ear and at the drop of a hat. It was a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation and was, in my opinion, fun, but a bit of a disaster. Needless to say, when it is my turn to do this thing again in 12 years, I may consider divorcing Jared; it would be WAY less work! But it looks like the kids had fun, right?

Yard – Jared has been promising me since we moved into our house that we could re-vamp the front yard. Mostly because the front planter beds looked like they’d been planned, developed and built by retarded monkeys. I’ve had in my mind what I’ve wanted to do for quite some time. However, we’ve never had the money to do that. But, we scrimped and saved and finally had the money to do this. So, after a lot of money and back-breaking labor, we moved all of the slate from the front yard and turned it into a nice little side-garden. Then took the new brick and put in a (hopefully) much improved retaining wall. I know it doesn’t look like much yet, but when I till the soil and get my plants put in, it will look better, I promise!

Restoring the Dresser - While Jared is gone, this is going to be my project. Unfortunately, this thing has been my project for about 6 years. Yes, I am a procrastinator! But, hopefully with Jared gone, I will have some spare time to restore this old thing. I know what you’re thinking: “Melinda, why in the heck don’t you just buy a nice, new dresser? That would be WAY easier and probably cheaper than trying to restore this old thing that has 90 bazillion layers of paint.” The only reason I’m spending so much time and effort on it, is that it was built by my Grandpa D’s father. This makes it more sentimentally valuable than monetarily, especially now.

Well, that's about all for now! Love to all!