Danny and Gwen's Wedding!

Danny and Gwen
Tuesday was the big day! The original plan was for Krissy to watch our boys while we were in the sealing, BUT, since that had changed, Gwen's little sister, and her friend volunteered to watch all (11) of our kids. So Nice!! (Did you know the SLC temple has a children's waiting room for weddings?! I think that all temples need these!)
Danny served his mission in SLC (Spanish speaking) and his mission president was Elder Richard Hinkley (President Hinkley's son) and they have remained close, so he asked Elder Hinkley to perform the ceremony. It was so special! He looks and talks so much like President Hinkley, and even referenced his father and mother several times during the ceremony. It was really sweet!

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After the sealing and some pictures, we went to Gwen's parents church building for a yummy catered luncheon. Afterward, we had some time to kill before the reception, so we decided to go the the conference center with Kenny's sisters and families for a tour. It was very cool, but a little long for the kids attention spans. One of the best parts was in one room they have all the original 12 Arnold Friberg paintings like in the Book of Mormon. We went around looking at each picture and Ryan knew the story for every single one (with details)! We were a little surprised! I guess he really is listening even when he is so wiggly and wild!


After the tour, it was time to get ready for more pictures and the reception. The reception was at a very pretty place in Memorial Park. For some reason, Mckay was not in the mood for pictures most of the day and wouldn't stand still, so he's not in the boys picture and was pouting later on!


It was a beautiful wedding and reception and we are so glad to add Gwen to the Crockett family! Unfortunately, since they have been in school at BYU, and both graduated in April, they moved to Logan for Danny's new job, we haven't got a chance to get to know her well yet, but I'm sure we will.

On the drive back to Provo, we called to check on Krissy. She had had a rough day and wanted to go to sleep, so she wasn't up for visitors.

Utah Trip - Part 1

We drove home from Thatcher Saturday afternoon, only to repack and prepare for our trip to Utah early Sunday morning, for Kenny's brother, Danny's Wedding on Tuesday in SLC. We were planning on staying with my sister and brother in law, Kristin and Taylor in Provo. On our drive from Safford, we got a call that Kristin was in the hospital after having an emergency appendectomy because her appendix burst that morning! Taylor said we could still stay at their apartment but they would both be at the hospital for several more days. I was glad we could go see her and try to help her!

We caravaned with Megan and Justin and made pretty good time up to Flagstaff. But just past Flag there was a fatal accident between a semi-truck and a mini-van, shutting down the highway. We sat for about 30 minutes when we noticed people traveling along a dirt trail a little ways off the highway. When we found out we would be waiting over 3 hours for the highway to re-open, we decided to take the trail. It took about 20 minutes to drive the couple mile stretch, and was very bumpy and dusty, but was well worth it! Other than that, the drive was pretty uneventful (thank goodness)!

Our dusty detour
We finally made it to my brother, Wes' house in Spanish Fork about 7pm, just in time for a yummy Sunday dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes and veggies! So good after the drive! We visited with his family for a bit, then Wes took us to Krissy and Taylor's house to get Kenny and the kids settled and I went to the hospital to see Krissy.

She was doing alright, but not great. She had originally gone to the emergency room on Friday morning because she had a lot of stomach pain and had been vomiting for 2 days straight. They said the tests were inconclusive and sent her home with some morphine. Of course the pain returned after the medication wore off and it got worse over night, so they went back to the ER on Saturday when they did a CT scan and found her appendix had burst. They did labroscopic surgery and actually removed it through her belly-button (didn't know you could do that!) and even gave her pictures of the surgery. She had alot of pain from the toxins released into her system when her appendix burst, as well as the actual surgery, so she was on pain medication that made her loopy, but also nauseous. The nurse on duty used to work in surgery, and looked at the pictures of her surgery and told her that her appendix looked very bad with discoloration and a lot of sores on it that were most likely leaking toxins into her body for quite sometime. When she checked in, they told her that her white blood cell count was over 21,000, and on Sunday night she was down to 18,000. The nurse told us it should be below 10,000 and most healthy people are around 6 or 8,000. He also told us about his son who was once sick and had a blood count of 18,000 and the hospital wouldn't release him to go to another hospital unless they transported him because it was so deadly! He was very surprised they hadn't found it on Friday (our thoughts exactly!). Yikes!

Krissy and our nieces Ashley and Brittany
And her yucky surgery pics
On Monday we took the boys down to the hospital to visit Krissy and TayNor (as Mckay calls him), which was a little hectic with 4 little boys and a small hospital room, so we didn't stay long. Then we went to Wes' house for a Memorial Day BBQ, Yummy! We ate and watched movies and I took a little nap. Later we met Kenny's family at Chuck E Cheese's in Orem for dinner. Kenny's Uncle Mike was in town for the wedding so it was a good chance to visit with him and Danny and Gwen before the wedding. Also to let the kids run and play since it was raining most of the day. Everyone had a lot of fun and the kids ended up with over 1000 tickets!

Thatcher and Kaitlyn's Baptism

Our summer started off with a bang! The kids came home from their last day of school at 1:00 on Friday, and Kenny came home early from work at 2:00 and we were on the road to Thatcher by 3:00 for Kenny's niece, Kaitlyn's, baptism on Saturday. The kids had a great time playing in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard and with their cousins Friday night!
Kaitlyn's baptism was very sweet with talks from "old Grandma Crockett" (Kenny's Grandma) and Kaitlyn's Grandma Armold. Kaitlyn has Turner's Syndrome and is very small, so she was a little worried that the water would be too high, so they only filled the font 1/2 way for her. She did great and she looked beautiful!
After the baptism and luncheon, we headed home to finish packing for our trip to Utah the next day.

Born on a Mountain Top in Tennessee...

I served as a soldier under General Andrew Jackson.
I also served in the Tennessee State Legislature and US Congress for 3 terms.
My hunting rifle, Old Betsy, was a reliable as the sun rising in the morning.
People say I had twice the strength of a bear.
I died while defending the Alamo.
Who am I?

As an end of the year project, Tyler had to pick a famous person from US history to research and report on. Of course he picked Davy Crockett (which we now know didn't actually go by Davy, but David). They worked really hard for over a month, then Mrs. Geisler invited all the parents in to present their projects. They each dressed up as their person, and had a "bio-riddle" memorized describing their person (one line had to be a metaphor and one a simile), then the parents had to try to guess who they were (many of us need to brush up on our US history!).
Afterward they set up their poster boards while we all walked around learned more about their projects. We learned that he didn't really wear a coonskin cap, but a felt hat. The coonskin cap was from a 1950's TV show. We also learned that nobody called him Davy until after his death when books were published about him exaggerating (and inventing) many of the great things he really did. Tyler did a great job and had a lot of fun learning all about David Crockett!

Mother's Day!

Ya, I'm pretty late getting these posted, but it's better late than never!

My boys let me sleep in and made me a great Mother's Day breakfast! Kenny makes the best french toast and my favorite sausage! They sang "Happy Mother's Day" to me (to the tune of happy birthday) so all day Mckay kept saying "Happy Mother's Day Birthday, Mom!" The boys gave me cards and gifts they had made at school and scouts. I also got to do some shopping on Saturday.

Later, we went to my mom's for a spaghetti dinner and brownies and ice cream (that the boys made). But I was too busy relaxing to take any pictures!

Update on Kenny's Foot

Although he never did go to the Dr, Kenny's foot seems to be healing alright. He says there is no pain inside his foot. The most of the pain was from bending and stretching of the sores on top of his foot when he walked. Every morning he would clean, bandage and wrap it, then at night he would unwrap it and let it breathe. He's got some funky scars, but he doesn't seem to mind that. He tells me "Dr's are over-rated and for wimps!"

Kenny's Foot

* WARNING * GRAPHIC PHOTOS ATTACHED *
Last weekend (before our Disneyland trip), Kenny went paint balling and camping with a group of guys from our ward. A couple guys brought their quads and were riding around on the trails. They offered to let him ride, but he was hesitant knowing if anything happened to the quad, it would be difficult to repay them, but they insisted that it would be fine (famous last words!). Kenny is pretty comfortable riding quads, his family had several growing up, but it's different when it's not your own and feeling financially responsible if something went wrong. Well, the other guys had been riding around a lot and were already familiar with the trails so he was trying to follow behind, but not get so close as to get a face full of dirt. He noticed they took a turn he didn't expect and tried to turn at the last moment, going a little too fast, so he instinctively put his right foot down to stabilize himself and his foot turned over and got caught under the back wheel and dragged a few feet until he came to a stop. OUCH! So the whole top of his foot is scratched up and bleeding and all badly bruised. Of course, he goes back to camp limping, but doesn't tell anybody. He came home and told me what happened (as I am packing for our Disneyland trip the next day!), but refuses to see a doctor. I bought some gauze and bandages to try to clean and patch it up then I ran to Savers and bought some crutches to take with us, but he refuses to use them. He limped around Disneyland, leaning on the stroller. Now that we are home, he insists it is getting better! I'm just afraid of any permanent damage being done, and things not healing properly. Why won't guys go to the doctor?

This is five days later!

Disneyland!!

We are just recovering from our quick Disneyland trip hangover! We left Sunday morning about 5:30, and got home Tuesday night about 11:30. Of course we had a blast, but it was a little draining for such a whirlwind trip. We went to the beach on Sunday, then went to the park all day Monday (the park was only open from 10-8), and half day on Tuesday before driving home. We met my parents and my youngest brother Jason, and nephew, Taylor there. Then my oldest brother, Wes, from Utah met us all there after finishing a conference nearby. My mom thought it was really funny that we were the only 2 girls with 9 boys on this trip. Unfortunately, this is something I'm getting used to. But, it was really fun spending time with family we don't see as much.



We stayed at a really nice hotel that used to be an apartment complex. We had a king bed upstairs in the loft with a 2nd room downstairs with bunk beds for the boys, 2 full bathrooms, 3 tvs, and a full kitchen with fridge and stove etc so we were able to cook and eat in the hotel. They had a big free breakfast buffet in the morning which also really saves time and money at the park.
(Thanks Mom!!)



Because we are such Disney freaks, we have obviously been to Disneyland many times, but there were still several firsts this trip! Mckay just hit the 40 inches mark, which means he was able to go on most of the big Mountain roller coasters (Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, etc), and WANTED to go! He loved them all! He was scared while on the rides and would squeeze my hand or arm, but afterward he would say "It was a little scary, but let's do it again!" He was actually really upset and was crying when he wasn't tall enough to go on California Screamin'! I would never have guessed he would be a dare-devil!




Also, this was the first trip Tyler and Ryan dared to go on Screamin', and several other roller coasters! Our two older boys have been tall enough for most the rides for a while, and we have dragged them on a few, but this time they actually wanted to try them all, and found out they really liked them! So it was a lot of fun for us, trading off with the little boys and the big boys! Ryan also got picked for the Jedi Training Academy, where they teach the kids how to fight Darth Vader and Darth Maul. This was a big highlight for my boys! They also got to make their own 2-sided light-sabers. Brayden had a great time being carried around all day in the baby bjorn and smiling and flirting with people!



Anyway, it was a great quick trip and we are always glad to go. It was nice to spend a little time with my family. I love being there because my kids are always on their best behavior, we are all doing something we love, and it's great time spent together. It's always hard to leave 'cause we never know when we can go back again. As we were driving home, Mckay says "Can we go to Disneyland again?" and we answered "No, we have to go home." so he responds "LATER, we go to Disneyland, OK?"