Bucks, Ducks, and Cupcakes

The other day, I happened to look out the back door and to my surprise, I saw two bucks checking out our plants on the porch!

It freaked me out a little, but not too much since I saw a couple bucks eating the strawberries on our porch a few months back.

I was trying to decide if I should take a picture or shoo them away.  

I decided our plants were more important than a KodacTM moment.

I opened the door to scare them away (which worked last time), but instead of bolting, they just moseyed over a few feet.)

It was kind of insulting.  I made a move like I was walking toward them (all the while being rooted to the doorway), and they just glanced up at me like, 

"Ya?"  

(I'm pretty sure that's what he's saying in the above picture)

We have a bucket of little rocks (like gum ball size) so I picked one up and threw it in their general direction.

Again, their response was:

"Really?"

So I closed the door and took pictures.

They immediately came closer so I opened the door really fast.  HA!

One of them scampered up the hill, then stopped to nibble on a tree.  

The other one said "Oh.  You still?  Fine.  I'll move" and he sauntered up to join his friend.

Then, it came back and ate all the leaves off our delicate little raspberry plant!

I'm thinking that they could sense that I was no alpha male. 

 I bet if Chris had just looked at them they would have run off!

But now for some fun stuff:

Elle's friend came over and we made some cute/ yummy cupcakes

Elle said she was ready for some exercise after all that sugar so we went on a little bike ride.

We had to stop for a geese crossing.

Elle was disappointed that it wasn't goats.

The day before, she had gone on this path by herself and there were goats everywhere.  I'll have to write that story in a whole separate post!

We have also been watering our friend's garden plot when we water ours.  They have a bunch of peas so we eat one or two as "friend tax."  My friend was thanking us for watering for her and I told her about the friend tax.  I said, "We take a pea each time we water."  Then I was like, "Wait, that didn't sound good."  ;)

Since there is more sun, I'm sure there will be more fun to come!
Stay tuned!

Kidney Cake Part 2

Chris not only gave his kidney to me, he shared it with everyone!

We had a party where I served chili with kidney beans  (haha!)

The only women not pregnant in attendance were me and one other friend.

My friend, knowing us all too well, thought we were going to play "Pin the Kidney on Nanette" or something.  :)

Unfortunately, we didn't have any fun activities.  Just dinner, chatting, and an awesome

 Kidney cake!

Today, we're going to celebrate with family and partake of Kidney cake #2!

Not sure why, but Chris decided to add the ureter to this one--and some hearts

Thanks again, Sweetie!

John 15:13: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend--his wife

10 years ago today in the early morning, Chris and I were in a small hospital room being prepped for surgery.  Our vitals were checked and IV’s were placed.  

Then it was time for Chris to go.  He leaned down to my hospital bed and gave me a big hug.  I didn’t want to let go.  I cried, and we said how much we loved each other.  Then he got into his bed.  My heart sank as I watched him being wheeled away to the operating room.  I have never been so sad or scared as I was at that moment.  I prayed that all would go well and that we would be reunited again.   

Four hours later, I woke up in ICU and saw two nurses at the end of my bed.  One of them said “Your kidney is working, Nanette."

Chris called me the next day and sounded so awful!  The surgery was much worse for him than it was for me.  Later, he convinced his nurse that he was well enough to sit in a wheelchair and visit me.  When he came, he looked as bad as he had sounded on the phone.  He tried to talk to me, but he kept falling asleep!

Eventually, I was released from the ICU and Chris and I shared a room.   He wasn’t much of a roommate though because he slept the whole time, poor guy.  He was in so much pain.  (If you look closely you can tell that he’s not all there)

We were delighted when at last we could have our most important visitor of the week

It has been a long and bumpy ride, but  10 years later we are still a happy, healthy family!

Thank you Chris, for saving my life, and thank you Elle, for being our ray of sunshine.

Happy 10th, Kidney*!

*not actual kidney. Enlarged to show detail

More fun in the summer sun!

My awesome friend (Elle's friend's mom) took Elle to the beach last week!

As you can see, Elle was quite excited

She brought along our little digital camera and decided to be all artistic with her shots

Her friend's family goal is to visit as many ice cream shops as possible this summer then vote on the best.  (I think Elle said they have to write a paper on why they think it's the best, so it's actually a very educational goal)

More artistic looking pictures 

We have also enjoyed eating a couple things from our garden--

artichokes and lettuce is all, really

And we also picked raspberries!

More fun in store, I'm sure!

Art!

Check out Chris's latest:

http://charveyart.blogspot.com/2013/07/sculpt.html

Summer So Far

Here's a quick overview of what we've been up to so far this summer:

Lounging in the hammock, talking walks, playing at parks, hanging out with friends,  and cultivating our depressing garden (at least our artichokes are doing well!)

Our trip to Utah:

We had a rough start on our drive to Utah this year.  After we had gone less than an hour we had to stop on the freeway for 2 hours while they blasted rock.  At least it was a nice view (top left corner)

When we finally arrived, we had lots of fun with cousins!

We toured a dinosaur park then had burgers and a fabulous raspberry shake.

Elle and cousins played at a splash park and one of her cousins got to spend the day at grandma's with us doing all sorts of fun cousin things.

More fun with cousins! I taught them all how to play "Kick the Can" and they loved it! 

We went on a hike, looked at the construction of two temples--Payson and the transformation of the Provo Tabernacle (Provo City Center Temple).  We had lunch at Joe Vera's then painted at Color Me Mine

Our latest adventure was camping for the 4th of July.  We left Wednesday afternoon with high hopes of staying until Saturday morning, but it turns out we are not the mighty campers we thought we were.  We left Friday afternoon after a long walk to ice cream sandwiches, a canoe ride, giant slip and slide, more ice cream, then another long walk back to camp.

Before that though, we had fun hiking around on little trails, chatting with our friends around the campfire, riding horses (not doing that again!), and watching the fireworks show.   The whole camp is run by missionaries so the elders and sisters set off the fireworks!  We all sat on a hill and watched as they ran back and forth setting off each one.  It was pretty impressive!

Who knows what is in store next for our summer of fun!

Elle's commercial

Elle has a giant public awareness and she chose breast cancer research.
She made this video for it:

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