The Tuesday before we left to Australia we had to make a quick visit to the doctors office because it looked as though Doug had 'cellulitus' (sp?) symptoms again and we didn't want to end up in a country that does not like tourists needing hospital visits. Doug did have it and luckily all we had to do was take two medications daily as near to the same time each day AND without eating any dairy products 2hours before and 2hours after taking the medication. That was the hard part for Doug. (That was 8 hours each day that Doug had to worry about whether he could eat certain things or not). Long story, I know - but the real reason I'm telling you this is for this....in the lobby waiting for his appointment, I was reading this magazine and it was highlighting Elizabeth Taylor for some reason. I didn't pay too much attention to the article because I nearly broke out laughing out loud right there in the waiting room! I wanted this picture so badly that I took the magazine back to the examination room so I could tear the page out! Shame on me. But I think it was worth the theft! If you take your eyes off the beautiful Liz and look at the man taking her photo on the right hand side of the page you will nearly die - I promise! I don't know if you can zoom in or enlarge my photo I can't figure out how to make it bigger and post it, but I'll keep trying. If you can look at his bum side! Oh, my,........bun cheeks and saggy swim trunks....would you call them trunks? If you can't get a good look at this I beg you to go to your local library and hopefully they will have the Entertainment Weekly magazine dated 5.6.11 I might even have to frame this picture - I might even cut everyone else out but him and hang it by our pool! LOVE IT!!

Fast blog - and Jill and Jonathan should enjoy this one. When J & J headed off to Hawaii they left me an ironing board so I could have an extra one in my bedroom. Jill had warned me that it was broken and that Jonathan had fixed it so it should work okay. Nope. It didn't. Once it was set up, you couldn't put it down. We lived with it for awhile but one day I just broke and bought a new one with my 40% off JoAnn's coupon. I removed the old one from my room and left it in the living room and told Katie I couldn't put it down so I'm just going to put it in the back of Dad's truck and have him toss it in his work dumpster. Katie, being the Katie that we love, took it upon herself to 'brute-force' it down. And wa'la!!! Kudos to her. So, we (meaning Shannon, Katie and Allan) did the victory dance.

Wait a minute....where's Kevin....why isn't he doing the victory dance?... Oh, maybe he's still eating breakfast.....um...no.......what's that your eating Kevin? Cookies?! Are you gonna eat all those by yourself? We found out he was planning on it. But he did get up and do a little 'ditty' with Allan... But now the other kids want cookies too. They can't wait. And I heard they won't be sharing with Kevin at all!

I guess my body clock is still trying to figure out where I am. I have laid in bed now for 1 hour, keeping pen and paper close by to 'rid my mind' of things that are floating around in there, and finally decided to get up. Two full sheets of paper are filled with things to do, make, finish, or buy. I'm not sure I'll be posting every day because I get so busy during the day, I forget to make it a priority - however, if I continue to be awake at 1 in the morning, then I will take advantage of that. I still have not downloaded our Australia trip pictures, but they will be coming. Right now Katie's wedding and reception are all I can think about. Yesterday, most of the day, I used to sew these adorable material/ribbon/lace flowers onto some tulle material that will be going around the chairs at the reception. I forgot to take photos, but you know me, I'll make sure to get a picture of them and post them soon.

WE'RE BACK!

Good'ay Mates! Yep. I never heard that once while we were over in Australia. Hmm... a lot of dearies and lovies ('lovie, can you pass the vegemite?', or 'what would you like to order dearie'. Oh yeah, and a lot of ma'ams, but with their accent it sounded better).
Well, it was a massive whorl-wind of activity and I don't think we ever had one day of down time. Yes, we got to go to a free-roaming wildlife park so I guess we could consider that free time, but to get there was nearly 1 1/2 hours drive. I didn't care too much for the driving, but we did it ALOT! We drove so darn much that I kind of got used to the driving being on the left side of the road. And yes, I did do some of the driving - although the round-abouts made me very nervous....so most of my driving (or maybe all of it) was out on the divided thorough fares where I couldn't get into too much trouble. I have tons of pictures to post, but I need another day or two to get my brain back into America time. I have been awake since 2:30 this morning and read so magazines thinking that would get me tired, but all it's done is made my brain think of a hundred things that need to get done before Katie's wedding!! Yikes - 11 days!?! We are working hard on chair decoration flower things (photos to come) and these lampshades that she is covering in doilies (also, picture to come). It should be darling - my only concern right now is the weather. It only got up to 58 degrees yesterday! Brrrr...... Zip up my cardigan - throw on my super-soft socks with my flip flops! It's cold! I hope it warms up for her reception because its an outdoor one.

Happy Anniversary to Brian and Celynda!

I think it's been 8 years for Brian and Celynda! Thank you Celynda for loving Brian and especially for putting up with him. (we all know what I mean, right?...) Okay, and thank you Brian, for loving Celynda as much as we all do! We love you both and can't wait till you are a little closer!
ps- Jill, let Jonathan know he is in my blog today. I know he doesn't read them unless he is mentioned or in it.

I don't know how pretty these pictures will be to you all, but when Allan and I were driving home from a race - the sun was setting and it was gorgeous! Enjoy.... Here's how Allan felt about me taking all these pictures while driving.....
I will say that these are only a FEW of the photos. I just kept clicking away all the way home. So Allan's look probably saved you from looking at ALL the pictures I took.

Okay. Here is a funny blog. Monday night I was fixing dinner and the boys were playing games and Shannon was playing the piano when the lights started flickering and the electricity went off and on quickly a couple of times. Doug came in and asked if the lights went off and on and we said yeah, and he told us that the electical box (on the side of the house) was sizzling. I suggested rather loudly to get out there and turn it off. I was afraid it would start a fire! So he pulled the switch and when he pulled out the main breaker - it had fried right out the side of the box! This was about 7pm. Luckily, I had barbequed some steaks and salmon, but we had nothing left to eat with them but rolls. (we were in the process of boiling water for potatoes and stuffing when he pulled the switch). I told the kids they couldn't open the fridge or freezer until it was fixed so we wouldn't lose any of the cold that was in them. It was dark and so we lit candles but I can tell you here and now - I need to buy 'unscented' candles. By the time a few hours went by I had a headache from all the different scents that were burning around the house. We loaded the kids in the car and went as a family (minus Katie who was at a b-day party for Brandon's brother) to Home Depot to get a new main breaker. No luck. So, we all drove down to the shop to see if Doug could get a parts store to open for him and we get the part that night. No luck. The only place that would be able to open was Graingers and the part was about $3000! So we decided to spend the night with the electricity abscent from our home. It was not a pleasant night. The weather had not quite cooled down like it is today. In the morning I only let the kids open the fridge for the milk and they had to do it one time quickly. Doug had left early to go clear into Phoenix to get the part and then worked on it all day - eventually haveing to replace the WHOLE panel because of a broken stem (or something). We didn't get our power back on until 2:30pm Tuesday afternoon. 19 1/2 hours of no electricity. We hadn't dared to open any fridges (we have 2) or freezers (3) so we were not really sure of what it was going to be like inside of them. Luckily everything faired well. The ice cream was very soft, but other than that it was good news.

Now the funny part. I had made these special 'head flashlights' (check my July 26th blog), 25 of them, for our wards girls camp play. They came in handy once again. We all wore them around the house for the rest of the night. There wasn't too much to do, so we read, threw things at each other, and actually went to bed at a reasonable time. But here are some pictures that I made Shannon and Allan pose for because we forgot to take some on Monday night.