Happy birthday, Mike

Happy 65th birthday to my dear hubby. We love and cherish you. We thank God for you every day!

Special Delivery!

My dad surprised us with special gifts in the mail! The drawing has a special story. My dad was born in a small town in Wisconsin. He and my mom, however, were in WA and they stumbled on this artist. It was very ironic that this fishing boat was sketched by someone in WA who had been to my dad's small town. Dad even recognized the boat from being from his home town!!  The jacket he sent Brandon was his from his MP Army days!! Since Brandon in the Lord's Army at church and has an interest in being a missionary in Germany someday, this was a real treat. The jacket is big on Brandon but it fits me just fine. LOL..Thanks, Dad. We love you!! 

kaBOOM!!

Today, we staked out a spot and watched the implosion of the Mohave County Generating Station. Several years ago, they imploded the smoke stacks. It was fun. My video is a little long but the actual explosion is about 1.13 seconds into the recording. The BOOM, was several seconds after that.

Brave

We had a family conference at church this week. Our Pastor's Pastor came out and preached each meeting. Pastor Norwood brought a variety of musical instruments including harmonica's, dossimer's and flutes. He played a special every night and gave us a history of each song or instrument. We dug out Brandon's lap harp and Pastor Norwood tuned it up for Brandon. Among the instruments that Brandon enjoyed, he took a liking to the Harmonica. Pastor Norwood surprised Brandon and had him come up front to play a special with him. Brandon is very brave. At his age I would have been reduced to tears and would have tried to crawl under the chairs to hide. Despite Brandon's discomfort, he went up and bravely did his best. He is now the owner of a good harmonica and a tuned up lap harp (mini dossimer). I might just pluck away at the lap harp and see if I have any talent. I doubt it. No, Pastor Randall, before you ask, I will NOT play a special. LOL

Mom's Visit

Mom came to visit 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, she was sick a big portion of the time she was here. After a trip to ER and antibiotics she started to feel better. She had to delay her trip home to recover. As a result I was not able to take too many pictures of her trip. Here are a few though. She played baseball with Brandon and we went on some walks. We kept busy as much as possible when she was healthy.

Little Shepard Boy

I am enjoying our temporary visitors

The farmers have been moving the sheep around to graze. The other day they put up the temp fence and moved them into our back yard. I took these pictures from our bedroom window so I would not spook them.. It's been fun to watch the lambs run around. From our back wall to the sheep it is about a truck width. I enjoy it when I am outside and can hear them "baaah-ing" at each other. We've lived here two years and this is the first time they've moved them into our field. I think they are so cute!!

Thank you, Mike

 I went hunting for a new shower curtain and bath mat.





Then I walked down the bedspread section and found this!!

Thank you Mike, for allowing me to express my inner purple self! I love you! 

Fun Day

We spent the day in Vegas. Mike needed some rank awards for our Lord's Army youth group. We took our pastor's son with us. We went to the surplus store. Then we ate lunch and went and visted one of our church brothers who is sick and in the hospital in Vegas. After, we stopped off at Bass Pro Shop and the kids played.

We had quite a windy day in Vegas. There were gusts of winds up to 65 MPH. We saw this on the way home. If you can't tell what it is from my blurry cell phone picture,  it's an over turned semi.

A Sound Heart

A sound heart is the life of the flesh... Proverbs 14:30

Mike is doing very well with his new "bionic ticker". He still has some limitations in lifting as the leads continue to heal. The first picture is a duplicate of the pace maker. His pace maker is a dual lead. Which means the leads are attached to the upper and lower chambers of the heart. I am amazed at how small (as you can see, next to my car key remote) it is. No doubt, this PM is already out dated and the next one will be smaller.  Mike's PM is an assisted type. It picks up the beats where his heart natural heart beat leaves off. It does not do all the work for him and he does not have the type that would shock his heart back in to beat. He did not need that.

Now, look at this device below. This is his monitor. It arrived in the mail two weeks ago. In Feb, we will hook this up to the phone line, place the paddle over the area where the PM is and send all of his date to the Dr. . The Dr. will look the data over to make sure everything is ticking along like it should. Kinda creepy, huh?

This transmission of information allows Dr free visits- so long as everything appears normal. Eventually, he will need an upgraded PM. There is no such thing as needing new batteries in a PM. The life of the unit is what wears out. That is just an out patient surgery. They open up  the area where the unit is, unhook the old PM from the leads and plug in the new PM, sew him up and you're done. Well, it sounds simple when put that way, of course. It's not something that either of us look forward to, nor is anything like that without risks. At least it is simple compared to major heart surgeries.  I find it all very interesting.

Finally!!

After starting and stopping WW over many years. After, losing a little and putting it back on. After giving up, and wanting to give up, countless times, thinking it was hopeless and that I would never lose -82 lbs. I DID IT!! I made my weight loss goal (in November)  and maintained it long enough to reach lifetime status (January, 2012) at WW!!!. What that means is, that for the rest of my life so long as I stay within 2 lbs of my set goal weight I am free!! If I go over 2 lbs of my goal weight then I pay the meeting fees untill I get back to goal.

The Key To Sucess

I have received many stars, ribbons, awards, etc along the way. They seem silly to some, but they are reminders of how hard you have to work to reach your goals. They were well worth it to me. I still keep my ribbons on my fridge and my before picture in my wallet. They motivate me. I would like to be a WW leader some day. I 'get it' now. My goal now is to keep it off and keep this mind set for the rest of my life. God willing of course.