Hilary introduced me to a something that I must have and belongs with me (that I will be making tonight)I will love him and hug him and kiss him. I love him so much......! Please see below:

We just came back from camping on Monday, our annual Great Baisn trip.....It is so beautiful up there. I will have to say with it being so cold lately that we were all a little afraid of what the weather would be, but we packed for five and included an extra pair of shoes anyway.....

• Day One: we left at about 7:30am, and started our four hour drive to the 'mighty' Great Basin. Once there we headed to the 9500ft camp ground that we always stay at, we knew when we got there it might be a problem because the mountain was covered in snow. Sure enough it was a problem.....'our' spot was covered in almost two feet of snow.....boo hoo...so sad, becuase I love waking up at the base of the cirque.....see above.....so we move further down the mountain to another camp ground. My heart actually ached that we couldn't camp at the top. Set up tent and three air mattresses - funny story, will tell more on day two. Had tin-foil dinners for dinner.......yummy! We always eat well while we are camping.
• Day Two: Jason and I woke up refreshed on our foot high air matress and look over and both of the kids air mattresses were flat as a pancakes they might as well have been sleeping on the ground.......he he he....needless to say the one air mattress had poped and the other had a slow leak, the air pump broke, and Jason had to inflat the air mattress every night with just the air in his lungs, can't help but laugh at that one. We went exploring the west desert for nine hours.......Jason's idea......I will have to give you an incredible highlight of that day though. We, just by chance, drove to the base of a hugh cave in the Moriah Mountains. It was about half way up the 'mountain' and spectacular looking, I look at Jason and Jason looks at me and we both agreed that we should take the kids and do the hike.....after all it didn't look too bad...and I knew in my heart there would be Indain ruins in that cave. Why do things always look sooooo much easier from the bottom.....you see where this is going right? The 'little' hike ended up being about 4 miles up round trip with an elevation gain of about 3000 - 3500 feet. All of the kids cried and thought they were going to die at numerous parts of the hike, and in my heart I thought I was too. The tallis under my feet slipped with every step and one step ended up being two. The small rocks at the bottom were boulders up close and what we thought were bushes were trees that we had to crawl under and through. We questioned our judgement about halfway up but realized that we were too far at this point to turn back. By the time we finally made it up there I realized that I would do it again (without the kids), it was full of Indian ruins. I was in utter awe of what I was seeing and cried like a baby. The homes were constructed of pine needles, mud, and old wood, not much left of them but there was enough for me. Nothing was touched and it was left the way we found it. Our camera was broken but the whole thing is video taped. We stayed for awhile to soak in what we were looking at and than prayed for our safety on the way down the mountain, we knew it would be worse going down. Jason would take one kid down in his arms about fifty feet and than go up for another one, as you can see we made it! The 'little' hike took 3 1/2 hours. I thanked God for letting us arrive safely. But my heart aches that we didn't spend more time. I found out that the Indian ruins were probably of the Freemont Indians which occupied the area from 1200 - 1295 AD. The rest of the day isn't nearly as eventful as that, in fact the rest of the year won't be as eventful as that. I did have to mention to Jason a few times that I felt like I was in the movie 'The Hills Have Eyes'. We were literally on a dirt road ALL day. My sweet, adoreable Jason always takes the road less taken, how can you get angry about that unless you are on hour 6 of the road less taken. Isaac kept saying, can we go home? Please can we go home? Jason kept telling him we were taking the long way home....he he he.....Packed a lunch and treats in the car for the day....we had steaks for dinner with fire baked potatoes, why does everything taste better when you are camping?
• Day Three: We went to Ely to look for a new pump, could find a store that would sell one....he he he...still laughing about Jason having to blow one up every night. We roamed around on the other side of Great Basin, explored the remains of mines (they are ALL over) and resued a calf. Funny story...we are heading to Ely and there are cows all over, there was a calf on the side of the road on the outside of the fence and the mother cow was on the inside of the fence right next to the calf. We all noticed and hoped that it would find its way back in the fence soon to be with mommy cow. Sever hours later when we were driving back to camp we drove by the calf and mommy and they were in the same place still but no other cows were around them this time they had all moved on. Baby still on outside of fence mommy still on inside of the fence. Jason is all distraut that he calf is going to run out in traffic or starve but drives on, 10 -15 miles later Jason is still quite and looks distraut, I look at him and say, 'You want to go back and help the cow?' Quickly he says,'do you mind?' well of course I don't mind....WTH does he think, the fact he waited 15 minutes was funny, if I hadn't said anything would he wait until we got back to camp to turn around and help the cow? So we head back and rescue the calf back on to his side of the fence. Calf and mommy run into the field, we felt liekwe had saved the day......or the meat we would be eating in a year. Not to make fun, but we had hamburgers for dinner....I am still laughing.
• Day Four: It rained all night long, but we figured it would and covered everything with the two tarps we brought. When I opened the tent to go out that morning the rain was at a drizzle and fog covered the camping site to the point that you couldn't see 10 feet in front of you. It was beautiful...We went on a 7 mile hike with the kids around the mountain to the other side, after the hike the day before this one was cake. It was level and the veiws were incredible. They claim that on a clear day you can see for 100 miles, I will agree with that. Had a picnic at Wheeler Peak, the snow was almost gone and someone had taken 'our' camping spot. Jason took Isaac and Clarice and took a 3 1/2 mile hike down the mountain, Chelsea wouln't go so I headed down the mountain in the 4Runner to meet them at the bottom. I parked and left Chelsea and headed up the trail to meet them. Than we took another drive on roads less taken....fun! Really it was fun, we found more caves that we didn't have time to hike to that really didn't look that bad....you have heard that one before... :~) For dinner we had Bratwurst and fire baked potatoes.......yummy.
  Day Five: We decided to go home early. We packed up and headed home, it was a little sad but we knew we would be back. We weren't able to hike to the the Bristlecone forest due to snow on the trails up to four feet, that was sad for me the trees are astounding, thousdands of years old, literally.
  

Thoughts for today:

If you met my family you would understand.

If you move your couch and find 14 cigarette lighters, $11.37 in change, and a 6 year old TV guide......you might be a redneck...!

Saturday was the 'Holbrook' Family Reunion........

(Noele, Hilary and I wore matching shorts, very loud shorts, but sooooo cute, Hilary will have to add that picture, I don't have a camera)

Highlights are as follows:

1. I AM completely normal....don't argue with me....trust me on this one, I AM normal....all these years I thought that I was odd and a little off, nope, not anymore. Our family was the normal one here, if you must sit down to read this it's okay, I understand.
2. Colored name tags by family-helpful due to the fact I haven't seen the family in 10 years. We were orange, my favorite color!
3. I saw at least six people who added their last names to the tags....note to all, we are all part of the SAME family, i.e. last names on the tags not a requirement.
4. Jell-O, everyone had some, but us......Jell-o reminds me too much of a Jell-o shooters......good memories, great memories.......
5. Boggers...I got to see two people with boogers coming out of their noses, they were adults, not the kids......PS...I just threw up in my mouth a little.
6. All families are dysfunctional, mine included.
7. I saw some extremely large belt buckles.....why?....Why do they wear them, doesn't that cut off cirrulation to 'parts' or are they compensating for not having the 'parts'? I am so confused, can't we all just be happy with what we have......humm.....did I just say that? I'm not too happy with what I have, my breast have gone south, and the wrinkles on my forehead look like tire marks.
8. I want to let everyone know that this reunion was scheduled on my grandma's birthday, who passed away 16 years ago. My aunt looks JUST like my grandma, so she thought it would be funny to dress in grandma's old dress, her glasses, and her wig and come out and pretend she was my grandma. I was soooooo creeped out by this, WTF, I seriously thought it was my grandma. TOP THAT.......?!?!
9. One thing I did miss was that my dad and uncle are too old to run from opposite ends of the room and bounce off each others stomaches.....true entertainment.
10. All teasing aside, it was fun.....we missed not having Chris, Sharon and Jack there, it will probably be the last one we have due to the age of the aunts and uncles. I love them, they are all my family and I would walk with them always and be proud to say they were my family.

*****Remember that we all walk to a different tune, who says yours in the right tune? Sing the song and listen for something a little different, it's fun to be different, it keeps people guessing.

The reasons why EVERYONE loves Fridays.....(Oh happy day, oh happy day!!)

1. It is nap day for me! I only nap once a week and I have made that official day to be Friday's!
2. Dress-down, I don't have to dress up on Friday's.......
3. I only work until 1:00, which is still 8:00 hours for me (I am lucky, I think, to have a key to my building so I can come in as early as I want) but back to #1 it is nap day!
4. Two days until I have to go back to work. This weekend even better I don't have to back for THREE days.
5. I can watch my husband drink and act like I used too.
6. I don't have to hide my tatoo for two whole days - can't show my tatoo at work...might offend someone, I can't tell you how many people I have offended by this 'leaping gecko'.
7. I can swear like a trucker if I want and no one will care.
8. I can go 'commando' and Jason won't even question it......no underwear and bra means Friday. BTW...Who came up with the whole 'commando' thing anyway, could someone think of something better to call it?
9. I have an excuse to play this http://acne-be-gone.freeonlinegames.com/
10. Can't help this one, it is vital on a Friday......he he he....love this thought of the day: Some people are like Slinkys, they aren’t really good for anything but you can’t help but smile when you push them down the stairs.

I tried to attempt for the first time last night since my operation to do sit-ups. Well, that was very unsuccessful. I was able to complete 10, I went from 100 (a night) to 10, WTF??? I felt like my insides were stretching out of me. So I attempted to do some other things all of them as unsuccessful. I haven't worked out in weeks and needless to say I feel awful about myself. I was so sad, and I am feeling like a

big fat slug.

Oh well.....with time this too will pass, but officially I will not be doing the Tri......... :~( So sad.......sniffle, sniffle, sniffle!

Mother Day Activities:

Slept in until 9:00 - I haven't done that in years......

Breakfast made for me of pancakes bacon, eggs and toast.

Picinic on Antelope Island, all in all it was pretty fun except for the biting flies that I wasn't aware of, I did bring insect repellant but it wasn't nearly strong enough. My mom and dad went and they said they had a great time........I would go back and hike the peak but again back to those flies!

Did some PMSing about how helpful Jason is on Mother's Day. (I pack for picinic, I load for trip, I carry all food down for the picinic, I make the sandwiches, I pack everything back from the picinic, I watch the kids while Jason wanders around aimlessly - Happy Father's Day)

Stopped at Target while Jason went to Home Depot.

Took a nap.

Had Arby's for dinner.

I went back to work Monday......I was so sore by 7:00am, so I went home, called the doctor, and had him refill my Loratab perscription. The Lord loved me when he made pain killers. I have healed VERY well, and all and all am doing great!

I am afraid that I won't be ready for the Triathalon at the end of June. I can't start running again yet due to the riping of the stitches on the inside. I am so sad, I have cried and cried over this. I really wanted this. But I guess there is next year, right? I will still go to the race to support my sister and my sister-in-law, and cry with them at the end. I love my family and will support them in anything they do.

My Lilacs bloomed on Tuesday (coincidentally two years to the day that my grandpa died) they were brought here from Germany over 100 years ago by my great grandma Wegner. They are beautiful this year....I have more blooms this year than I ever have.

Last blog post for the next 7 - 10 days.....
Unfortunately, I will be laying in a hospital bed eating Jell-O

Don't get me wrong Jell-O is great when made the right way
With booze, not that I drink any more, it will be 19 months on May 2nd.
I don't need much while I am in the hospital for at least 3 days
Maybe even 5 days depending on what they find
I would like the following while I am there:

1. First and fore-most DRUGS(ones that don't make me remember a damn thing)
   
2. My husband and kids, do you think they will bring in 4 rollaway beds (does insurance cover somthing like that)? Sorry babe, you came under drugs but I am sure you understand!
   
3. Cable TV, if I have to be in there I want to be watching Law and Order.
   
4. Recover in record time and have them send me home early.


5. Poo.....can't leave until I poo, have the big BM.


6. A window with a view of more than the parking lot
   
   

I vow to smile be happy and make friends with the staff......I would like to be home for Isaac's birthday on the 29th.

Spring is in the Air.......

Who doesn't love spring?!?!

The freshly budding Lilacs

(Thanks grandma, I think of you every time I see them)

The birds singing.

The smell of rain.

Tulips, Daffodils, and Heather

The warm sun.

The world is green again.

The kids blowing bubbles in the yard.

Love is in the air.......

(Jason sang that to me on the phone, not well, but funny, he just wants to get 'lucky')

Butterflies

ME

(on the right, just in case?!?!)

Jason

(on the left)

Notice Jason's legs are a little higher

than mine, he makes me sick...JK

I am truly proud of both

of us!!!!!!!

LOVE YOU JASON

(for all of your support and true torture I sometimes put you through)

I did it......

I did it......

I did it......

I did it......

I DID IT........and I will do it again!

(in fact Jason and I are already planning on doing more)

I only threw up once the night before the race.....and why?!?!

I am so proud of myself!!!! I can't believe that I did it!

When I crossed the finish line I cried, I cried and I cried.

I never thought, ever in my life, that I would complete a 5K.

I wasn't last, there were about a thousand people behind me.

Sorry, I can't help it, this is one of my favorites!!

1. Cows
2. The Constitution
3. The Ten Commandments



C O W S

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the madcow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canadaalmost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the stateof Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.

TH E C O N S T I T U T I O N

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq . Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore.

T H E 1 0 C O M M A N D M E N T S


The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this: You cannot post "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery," and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a buildingfull of lawyers, judges and politicians...It just creates a hostile work environment.

24 hours and counting........tomorrow morning at this time we will be leaving our house for the 5K..........hold on let me vomit a minute...........Okay I am back.......HELP ME. Last night we went to pick up race stuff and I almost got sick there........Breath in, breath out! I can do this, I really can, what the hell is my problem!

Okay, enough of that! Here is my Happy Bunny for today!!!

Thought for the day: Handle stressful situations like a dog. If you can't eat it or chew it. Pee on it and walk away.

How Stinkin' cute is this bike.......?????????

I think that I want this bike for my birthday.

I have decided that to not be disappointed on my birthday I will make a list of other things that will be acceptable for my birthday.......since the bike right now is way out of our budget.

1. Bath and Body products......please nothing stinky.
2. Clothes for summer, I'm not picky anywhere is fine.
3. Sunglasses
4. Sandles
5. Aveda
6. Office supplies, cute ones...note books...colored pens, with bold tips.
7. Hair stuff, cause I have hair now.....
8. Eye brow wax, my brows are starting to crawl away.

The luckiest girl ever......ME.....no, not me!

Clarice and Isaac go outside to play on Saturday Clarice is out there for about 10 minutes and comes running in with the most beautiful, and perfect, Four Leaf Clover. I am forty, for another three weeks anyway, and have never found a four leaf clover. Of course we dried it and pressed in in a book. The best part is, that she went back outside for 15 minutes and was able to find four more. We have - four - Four Leaf Clovers. I have included some fun facts about four leaf clovers:

• The odds of finding a 4-Leaf clover is estimated at 10,000 to 1.
• The four leaf clover is a universally accepted symbol of good luck with its origin ages old.
• According to legend, Eve carried a four leaf clover from the Garden of Eden.
• According to Irish folklore, finding a stem of clover with 4 leaves will bring you good luck, but finding a clover stem with more than 4 leaves will not bring you even more luck.
• The mystique of the four leaf clover continues today, since finding a real four leaf clover is still a rare occurrence and omen of good luck.

One week until the 5K.....I am really nervous.

Two weeks from today and I go in for surgery.

(Which one should I be more afraid of, not sure yet, I will update that one later)

I KNOW that I won't be running the whole time, which is fine, it is my first race EVER, but as long as I come in before the guy in the wheel chair I will

be fine.

Jason and Hilary will be running the race with me, I already told both of them that they don't need to wait for me.

Enough Blah, Blah, Blah, let's get to the happy bunny for today!

Yep, that's me.....It is always a great ice breaker, 'Hey, did you know I am crazy?" There are so many things that you can get away with if people think you are crazy:

• It is okay to talk to your pen, and tell it how much you love it, and rub it up against you face, maybe give it a little kiss.
• Lick rocks, spit on them, want to eat dirt, in fact eat it.
• Leave $100's of dollars of jewery in the kitchen window sill, but lock up your office supplies, don't want somebody to steal them.
• Write notes on toliet paper becuase you don't want to use your cool paper.
• Throw buffalo poo to see how far you can throw it.
• Moon as many people as possible without getting arrested.
• HORDE, HORDE, HORDE.....all office supplies, pens, paper, paper clips, highlighter, sharpies, colored pencils, scissors, POST-ITS, pencils, don't share them, in fact don't tell anyone you have them.
• Walk around in the snow without shoes on, and when people ask if your feet are cold tell them, 'NO' even though your toes are purple and you can't feel them.
• NEVER, never, give a straight answer.
• Collect seeds from a plant nursery from the trees, flowers, shrubs, put them in a envelop and leave. Put them in your fridge to germinate.
• Throw utinsels down a dry well, and listen to the nosie they make when they hit the bottom.
• Build sand castles in the gutter.......as an adult!
• Make a purse out of scotch tape and staples.

Each one of these is something I have done, and NO ONE has questioned it.....would I change that....HELL NO.....I like me, you like me, they like me, everyone likes me....he he he....humility is one of my best traits.....

Well........It is offical, Isaac will be in Kindergarten this fall. My last one to go to school. I tried to be a hard-ass by telling everyone here at work that I would be fine, that I would save in daycare, that I would be excited to see him go to school. If the truth be told, I LIED I am going to be a blubbering idiot, you know the kind, the one that cry so much that you can't tell the difference from there tears or boogers. The 'rich' people on the hill (I live on the ghetto side of NSL) are going to push their kids away from the crazy lady. Do you think that it would be too much if I put a GPS devise on his ankle and track his every move? I already know that my kids will need therapy due to me, but after all isn't that my job? My little man is no longer little. I took him for his shots last week and he hits the 98% for his height.

This is where the family is headed this weekend, to get TOPAZ. Hopefully, weather permitting we will be able to find lots and lots of 'fun stuff'!!!~ We will get up early, wear warm clothes, pack a lunch, and have fun playing in the dirt, Oh, and don't forget the rock hammers and chisels, with homemade rock bags for each kid..............including me. On the way home we will probably stop to get GEODES.......I hope the weather is good.......if it is bad we will not be going.
http://geology.utah.gov/utahgeo/rockmineral/collecting/topaz.htm

The OBSIDIAN collecting is right by the Topaz so we will probably stop for that as well.......la la la.....whoo hoo

It is good to be me.......