Surgery Tomorrow!

Now that Jennie is living with Dan and Jieun, she's obviously decided she wants to fit in--so she's gone dark. Really dark!  Hyeji and Doyeon are thrilled because now she has hair like theirs.

Luckily, she cannot convince Caitlyn to change her hair color. One chameleon in the family is plenty.

We saw Adrienne's boys for a few minutes on Thursday when they got back from their trip to Jackson Hole.  We weren't here on Gunnar's birthday (and neither were they, actually), so we took Gunnar's present up to him.  Happy Birthday, Gunnar!  5 years old!  That's pretty exciting!

Jieun came over one afternoon this week because apparently the girls were begging to see grandma.  This little runt had a tomato from the garden--which I found later--all over the piano, in the little crevices of the piano bench, and various other places around the house.  She is so full of energy.  She would throw that ball down the hill, then go after it, climb the hill and do it again.  She never stops, no wonder she is only in the 1 percentile for her weight.

I couldn't figure out how to post videos from my computer.  I'll have to work on that.  This week there was a fun jumping competition between the families.  I don't think anyone was really competing, but it was funny.  First, a video came in a group text of Yuna, jumping off the table in her home.  Then, Andy sent one of Max, to show that he does it, too.  Then, Caitlyn posted herself doing a double flip on the ice.  Nick followed up with a great big jump down his stairs.  Who won?  I'm not sure, they were all great jumps!

We had another fabulous weekend at Flaming Gorge.  The pictures speak for themselves:

Double rainbow.  This picture doesn't do it justice.

It's interesting how it turns cool as soon as the calendar says September.  It was warm enough, but we definitely had fall weather at the Gorge.

We didn't plan it, but it was a granddaughter's trip.  None of the grandsons were able to make it.  This was taken at the Red Canyon Visitor's Center.

This was pretty funny.  Dan was chopping wood and all the kids were lined up in these chairs watching him, and oohing and ahhing each time he hit the wood.

Caitlyn says it best.  "Mom, I'm so glad you had 8 kids.  I love our family."  Caitlyn, I'm so glad, too.

Roy is having surgery tomorrow.  He is getting a torn tendon repaired in his shoulder.  He is very optimistic and thinks he'll be able to do everything he needs to do with his right arm.  He even asked the doctor of he could lay on it (because he likes to hug me at night).  The doctor said, "Well, you can lay on it--it won't hurt the repair, but you probably won't want to lay on it,  you'll probably be sleeping in a chair for a little while."  So, I imagine it will be a bit painful for at least a couple of weeks.

Elise requested that I tell some stories about my grandparents in some of these newsletters.  I remember all of them except my grandfather Cook who passed away when I was 3.  My dad told me a lot of stories about him, but I will have to do a little research to make sure I tell them correctly.  I was also pretty young when my grandmother Cook passed away (10), but she lived with us for the last few years of her life and I loved her.  She encouraged me in writing poetry (she was a poet), and one time I slept walked into her room, stuffed my snoopy in bed with her and tried to climb in myself, but my mother came in and led me back to bed.  I was sleep walking, but I woke up enough to know and remember what I had done.
I was 16 when I lost my Clyde grandparents.  My memories of them are also of when they were older.  I have lots of memories of their house and yard and playing with Sally Salisbury, my cousin.  As I think of memories, I will share them in this blog.
One thing I do remember is driving up to their house in my parent's new motorhome.  My mother instructed my dad to park at the side of the house and a little bit down the road because she wasn't sure she wanted my grandfather to know they had bought it.   My grandfather was wealthy when I knew him, but he was very frugal.  My older siblings remember him as being quite stern.  My Aunt Clara (his sister) said that he was stern because he had so much responsibility at such a young age.  He was the 4th child of his parents, but the first one to live and he had to do a lot of farm work, etc. when he was just 4 years old.  He also lost his first wife (my maternal grandmother) to breast cancer.  She was 33 years old.  He had a lot of hard things in his life and, .according to Aunt Clara, had a very serious personality because of it..