a little bit blue

I've neglected my blog. Sorry! :-) If you are a frequent reader, you know I never go this long. I really enjoy writing the blog even if no-
one reads it! I'll tell you about the pics then share some other happenings...some of which made me not feel like blogging.
Earlier this week, my kids and I, my father (way more on him in a bit) and my sister and neice and nephew plus Callie's friend Bethany; went blueberry picking. I haven't done this since the twins were smaller and Peyton was still in a stroller. I don't know why because it is really one of my favorite summer-time things. You get busy and put "insignificant" things aside and then poof, summers over. Don't WASTE your summer. Get outside, smell the freshly mown grass, take the kids on a pic nic, just get OUT there! :-) Make memories!
Grace had on a Gymboree outfit that had been Peyton's...I LOVE that! It's like I can instantaneously see little Ms. P little again in my mind, it's the BEST feeling! We all got hot and sweaty and I'm sure a bit stinky but it was great. Grace and Mason should probably have been weighed in when we got there and weighed when we left because they had eaten a complete belly-full before we even had a pic nic lunch under a lovely old willow that over-looked a gorgeous spring fed pond.

That's Cole holding up some plump ripe berries he picked...he let me do his hair in a faux hawk that day but you can't see it! I LOVE Taylor Lautner's hair (he's Jacob in Twilight...go to http://www.twilighters.org/ to see it, he's so dern cute! AND this is NEW MOON hair not long wig Twilight hair, by the way).

The last one is me and my Dad. I'm sweaty and yucky but it doesn't matter, I still LUV the photo!
Let me tell you about my father a bit. First, I want you to get a mental image of Joe Pesci in your

head, you know the one from the movie where he's an attorney with Marissa Tormei. The one where he uses the words YUTS instead of youths. Okay now, that's a pretty good mental image of my Dad. He's like the guy that completely got his diploma from the "school of hard knocks". He likes silk Hawaiian print shirts and doesn't tone down his "waterfront" language too often. He knows how to, believe me...he just chooses not to. He's crusty and crochety but warm and loving rolled into one. Sometimes his morals and values rival Mother Theresa and the next minute he seems to have none. I received my immense love of all animals from him. (here's a little side-bar) One time a young black cat showed up at our door step. It had rickets and fleas and you name any other ailment. The worst thing was it had pulled it's leg out of a steel leg-hold trap and it was just a complete MESS. My father plucked it up and took it to the veterinarian (complaining the ENTIRE time). Almost a 1,000 dollars later (this was when I was about 13) we brought the cat home. He stayed about 2 days and POOF! dissappeared.
My father and I talk everyday and he stops by several times a week. Often with a load of goodies from the bakery. When Peyton was little she called him "Pop Pop Wayne Cake" because he brought her a favorite cheesecake like cake called "smear cake". My sister talks to him just as often. I'm telling you this because several weeks ago, we were in for a complete shock. My father had a heartattack and had 3 splints (I think that's what they are called) put in. He was in the hospital for 2 days and then checked himself out. He didnt' tell us for 2 weeks. Normally, in this situation, our local hospital will stabilize a patient and then ambulance or air lift them to another hospital. The only time they don't do that is if the patient has less than 90 minutes to live. They did my father's surgery as an emergency. The thought of all of this just KILLS me. He didn't want to worry us, he says. I was still spending vast amounts of my day on the bed in the family room and my sister lives about 50 minutes away. He thought it would be inconvienent for us. Most important of all, he didn't want us to know because he was afraid we'd treat him different. We wouldn't ask him to fix stuff for us (the MAN CAN FIX ANYTHING) or we'd constantly ask him how he was feeling. That's my Dad.

If I didn't love him so much, I could kill him for not telling us! :-)

Much more insignificantly, my back healing is slow going. Just when I was feeling good and the pain was more tolerable, I started resuming a bit more of my normal activites WHAM I feel like I'm back to square one. I am again spending a LOT of time resting. It's ticking me off and I really have to FIGHT not to get into a funk. So there you go. A bit of an excuse for not blogging! :-)