Are you ready for some FOOTBALL!

Dylan decided he wanted to play football this year. He's doing great. He plays center and kick off team.

Against my better judgement

I am posting some pictures of how my WONDERFUL family and AWESOME friends showed me they loved me on my birthday this year...go ahead, laugh outloud! I did!

On the road with the Pemberton's: Summer 2009

So we after at least 10 years of talking about how fun it would be to own a travel trailer, we finally bought a 5th wheel last year in California. With the price of gas last year we decided to park it at Greg's mom's and save up our money and Greg's vacation time and planned a month long adventure for this summer to go pick it up and bring it home to Texas where we could actually use it! Below is a glimpse into our month of...fun, adventure, family, history, and wonderful memories.

WEEK 1:

Saturday, June 27th-Dylan, Chad and I left Friendswood headed West making it as far as Fort Stockton, Tx 8 hours later. Glad we were driving mostly in the dark through the boring part of Texas.

Sunday-June 28thth-stopped in El Paso to pick Ty up at the airport since we left before he got home from Boy Scout camp. Gregs mom's maiden name is McNary and we had some time to waste before picking Ty up so we stopped for a fun photo op.

From El Paso we continued on to Phoenix for a nice restful nights sleep.

Monday-June 29th-Greg was supposed to fly in to LAX on Tuesday but couldn't stand being back home without us for the next 24 hrs so he took and extra vacation day and flew in to Phoenix and we picked him up a day early and headed to his mom's in Reedley to get the trailer ready which took the next two days.

Thursday-July 2nd-4th -to McCloud, California/Mt Shasta to camp and spend the holiday with Greg's family and hunting friends. We were all there except for Brian's wife Alma, and their two kids, Melissa and little Brian...we missed you! Thanks to Greg's friends Mark and his son Bart who live in McCloud and kept up with us and showed us an awesome time!

WEEK 2:

Sunday-July 5th-spent 10 long hours on the road. We stopped for the night at my brother's in Boise. Grandpa and aunt Jan were there also. It's never dull at aunt Joy and uncle Brett's. From the minute we showed up it at 8pm it was eat some good dutch oven chicken, awesome chocolate cake, do 4 loads of laundry while launching water balloons off the porch into the park, and watch a great fireworks show compliments of my nephew Trevor.

Monday, July 6th-eat breakfast and time to get on the road to Yellowstone for the week with my mom, aunt Donna and uncle Gary. Arrived at Yellowstone after dark.

Tuesday, July 7th-Friday, July 10th: Spent the days at Mammoth, Old Faithful, saw a baby bear cub...bison...cow elk, deer, bald eagles, had a picnic and ice cream, camp fires, smores, floating the river, driving up to Sawtel. Wonder where the pictures are? Me too! Actually, I thought I'd free up space on the camera and copy the photos from this part of the trip to the laptop...problem is I got side tracked and deleted them off the camera before making sure they copied properly...so I'm waiting for my wonderful mother, mother in law and Aunt Donna to send me copies of the photo's they took!

Saturday, July 11th-Sunday, July 12th: Hang out in Pocatello at Aunt Donna and Uncle Gary's 4 wheeling, bbq at my cousins, catch up on laundry and watch recordings of the past 2 weeks of the Bachelorette! And yes, those photo's were also part of my oops!

WEEK 3:

Monday, July 13th-highlights, low lights and a hair cut before heading to Salt Lake to drop of Greg's mom at the airport before we headed Mout Rushmore. We had overnight stays at Flaming Gorge, Utah and Sidney, Nebraska on the way. Nothing in Sidney except a Cabella's (heaven for the men...hunting, fishing, camping and camo stuff)

Wednesday, July 15th-Friday, July 17th: amazing time at Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Hill City, Deadwood, Sturgis, Rapid City, Custer State Park in South Dakota. We loved all the hills and history of the area. We panned for gold, toured a gold mine, met one of the original men that worked on Mt Rushmore and had him sign a book.

WEEK 4:

Saturday, July 18th-Monday, July 20th : heading east to Atalissa, Iowa to visit Greg's cousin Kristi and her family. They live on a farm in the country. Our family LOVED it! They had chickens, horse coral, trampoline, and the stars at night were AMAZING! No city lights. Bon fires to cook smores and bananna boats...the BEST corn I have ever had and if you ask the Dylan and Chad the most awesome dirt track around and over and through the oats to ride 4 wheelers and motorbikes. If you ask Ty...not enough soft ground to keep the remote control airplane from shattering when he crashed it!

Chad: Can we move to the country and live on farm?

Mom and Dad: That would be so much fun. We would love to. But what would dad do for a job?

Chad: We could grow plants and food and sell them to make money.

(Anyone who knows me knows I haved killed more than one cactus! I don't think we'd make a very good living growing plants and food)

Tuesday, July 21st - Thursday, July 23rd: on to Nauvoo, Illinois for a wonderful last few days of our vacation where we met up with my grandpa, Aunt Jan, Aunt Beverly, Aunt Donna and my mom. Saw several shows and took a carriage ride and wagon ride and learned alot more church history.

Saturday, July 25th we arrived back at our home sweet hot and humid Houston home! After unloading the trailer, throwing in a few loads of laundry and taking a well deserved (REAL) shower, I got a much needed pedicure!

We were gone for 28 days, traveled 7416 miles, spent 165 1/2 hrs in the truck, saw 50 relatives, 2 friends, and created priceless memories to last a lifetime! I would do it all over again given the chance!

He's Free

Of the extra weight from his cast anyway. He's moving slow...as expected. I'm beginning to think it was easier to have the cast on...getting him to stretch and get used to using his leg again is more challenging than I thought it would be. But the good news is we get to spend lots of time in the pool...doctor's orders!

Finally something worth posting

I am pleased to relinquish the title of "Slave Driver" to none other than my youngest son...

Please don't report to me to child protective services...I can explain!

Before I start, for those of you who didn't know, in February I took a new position as the school secretary for a brand new elementary school that is currently still under construction and will open in August. That meant that I would be working at a different school for the rest of the school year than the one Chad currently attends.

Yesterday Chad's 3rd grade class went on a field trip to a one room school house. Afterwards, like with most field trips in elementary school, they went to a park to eat their lunch and play. While on the see saw with a friend, the teacher announces it's time to get on the bus. So off jumps the friend and Chad's dangling leg got caught between the ground and the see saw. Immediately a chaperone called me to let me know what had happened and did I want to meet them at the school. The initial damage report is that he's got a pretty ugly bruise on the back of his calf, but no swelling. They asked if I wanted to meet them back at the school and what do I say...(keep in mind he is the youngest (and toughest) of my 3 wonderful sons) so of course I say "take him back to school and let the nurse check him out and then call me". Which they did. Then the nurse calls...remember, I worked with this nurse for 2 1/2 years and love her because she is the best at what she does. Knowing that Chad was in good hands, when she called me and said he could stay in the clinic the rest of the day with some ice, I was totally comfortable with that.

So after school I went and picked him up...yep, it was an ugly bruise, but still no swelling. He could not put any weight on it. I carried him to the car and took him home and carried him to the couch. Greg gets on the phone to the orthopediac doctor but he can't see us until noon the today so he makes the appt. In the mean time, Chad is shaking and feeling nausiated and wants the puke pan, just in case. We load him up and head to urgent care for x-rays. 1 1/2 hrs later, yep, he's broken his tibula AND fibula. Lovely! Greg heads to work and I stay up most the night with Chad who refuses to take medicine for the pain until 4:30AM.

So at noon today we head to the dr...yep, he's broken his fibula AND tibula...let's put a cast on him for 4 weeks, take and x-ray to make sure he doesn't need surgery immediately, come back Monday for another x-ray to double check he doesn't need surgery, and on June 10th (an eternity from now) come back and we'll take the full leg cast off and maybe put a knee high cast on, or a boot, or nothing at all and just do physical therapy to get him used to walking again...BEFORE our month long camping trip this summer!

Sounds like fun...I know you are all wishing you were in mine and Greg's shoes right now!

The Man Cave is complete

It's late and I have no clue how to put my photos into a slideshow! Oh well...here are a few ph