Las Vegas

Thank you Ashley for showing me how to add a slide show.

Ughhhhh!

The week I should be doing a mad dash at cleaning the house I'm nursing a sprained back. I couldn't even move on Monday and Tuesday and spent the whole time in bed on the heating pad. Wednesday was better for me. I took lots of Ibuprofen, but I didn't get any relief until I changed to acetaminophen. Strange huh?

Tomorrow we pick up Lukas at the airport. Yikes can you believe it? We are all very excited. I just hope he doesn't mind dirty carpets. There was no way I could clean them this week! I guess I'll just have to get my cleaning done while he's here instead.

Wow! The Harmors really are Kings. I knew we were Royalty!

Wow! I just found "The King Family Website" and it has Harmors listed as relatives. I haven't done any genealogy for years, but what little I did I don't remember having the surname King show up.

Computers and the internet are great tools for genealogy. Morris, you need to see this site!

Food -- Yummy Food!

Last year a bunch of friends got together and started a monthly international food night. Last night was "Irish Night." There was lots of good food! Each month I have fun looking through recipes deciding what to prepare. I like to choose interesting sounding recipes. For Irish night I made a main course, a specialty bread and soup --Blue Cheese, Zucchini and Bacon Soup. Sounds interesting doesn't it? The soup was absolutely delicious! I have to admit I wasn't sure I was even going to like it and it ended up being my favorite dish of the night.

Moral of the story -- don't be afraid to try new things!

Hey everyone, Tracey and Matt have their own blog now.

www.tracefacethegreat.blogspot.com

Add it to your list of blogs!

German Exchange Student

It's official -- we will be hosting another German student this spring. His name is Lukas and he is 17 years old. Because we are a host family for him, Andrea is at the top of the list to go to Germany next year with the German-American Partnership Program (GAPP). Andrea is excited about this; she has wanted to do this ever since we hosted our first German exchange student a few years ago.

New Snow

Yeah! We got the snow the weatherman promised us! I figure we'll have at least one or two more snow falls before the weather warms. New snow is always so pretty and fresh. Just gotta love it!

Lov-e-ly!

Do you ever get the urge to watch "old" classic movies. Well, I do. The weather we are experiencing here in Northern Utah is great -- lovely -- "lov-e-ly" and it makes me want to watch the musical My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison.

It has only been three months since my garden has been unusable. Today makes me happy because I just planted three variety of peas. Just in time for the snow storm we are expecting in three days. The snow will help toughen the peas and actually help them sprout. Yeah!!!

Last week I planted eggplant, cilantro and two varieties of basil. They will be kept indoors until mid- to late- April. I enjoy watching my garden grow. It refreshes me -- new life.

Oh goodness, speaking of new life. Two weeks ago I delivered another baby. A friend of mine called me and asked me over to her house to help with her labor; it was moving along very fast and her "preferred" midwife lived 90 minutes away. To make a long story short... it was a good thing I was there because the baby mal-presented and needed help getting out. What makes it even more special (and even spiritual) is that the specific type of presentation is one I have a lot of experience with. The Lord is very much at work in our lives!

Now go enjoy an old movie... maybe My Fair Lady!

Happy Birthday to King Jeff -- The Greatest King in the World!

Forty-nine years ago today the greatest person in the world was born. Today is a celebration of King Jeff, His Royal Highness of Powell-land Kingdom. All should take a moment to honor His Royal Highness as a tribute to the greatness he has brought to the kingdom.

His Royal subjects and his many devoted friends--Royalty and commoner alike--all wish His Royal Highness King Jeff the happiest of days and long life!

All hail King Jeff!

God Bless the King!




Submitted by his Royal Scribe on this the sixteenth day of March in the year of our Lord two thousand nine.

I'm a Big Girl Now!

It's official--I'm a big girl now. I finally broke down and bought a pair of high heel shoes. How old am I? um... well, at least I'm not 50 yet. I figure I can wear these dress shoes for the next 25 years like I've worn my old pair of low-heel dress shoes.

I feel so tall!

soy milk continued

I make soy milk every Tuesday morning. That in it itself is not very impressing. What is though, is that people in my church know and every couple of weeks I have someone at the house learning how to make it too! Apparently, I am not the only person I know who doesn't drink animal's milk. It's great too because I am meeting new people and beginning not to feel like such a wierdo-outcast anymore.

hurray for like-minded people!

Apology to my Wonderful Children!

I am opposed to the drinking of animal's milk. Think about it for a moment---humans are the only animals that drink milk after they are weaned, and to make matters worse they drink another animal's milk. The thought of that has always made me cringe. And now, with the addition of growth hormones and other additives being put in the milk... yuck! Why would anyone want to put that crap in their body? (Ok, I'm off the soap box now.)

Needless to say, milk was not allowed in my home while my children were young. They drank almond milk, cashew milk, rice milk, and the dreaded soy milk. Oh, how they hated soy milk making days. They would run and hide because they knew mom would corner them and make them drink it. I finally got the hint and stopped making it after batches upon batches of soy milk had to be thrown out because they went sour. The recipe I used was from a Seventh-Day Adventist cookbook. I thought it must be a good one after all, they are die-hard vegetarians and soy is a staple food for them.

Well I was very, very wrong -- not in keeping my children away from animal milk, but in my choice of soy milk recipe. After 25 years I have found the perfect recipe and learned the tricks of soy milk making!!!!!! It even passed the family taste test! (I must admit, however, they were extremely hesitant to taste it.) I bought soy milk ($3.86 for 64 oz) and compared the taste to my home made soy milk and the taste was comparable. It takes about 30 minutes to make and, according to the recipe information, it costs about 12 cents per 64 oz, so what a great $$$ savings as well!

So to my wonderful children I apologize for making you drink the horrible soy stuff I made when you were growing up. I did the typical "mom thing" and pretended it was better than it really was because I believed so strongly against the alternative--cow's milk. Maybe now the scars can begin to heal. Just know that I love you.

Update on Dylan and Andrea.

Dylan was miserable immediately after the surgery. His body did not like the anesthesia. Luckily for him he was only miserable for a few hours. Andrea, however, ended up with an infected dry socket and started on an antibiotic only to discover she is allergic to penicillin. I don't know what was worse for her--the infection or the allergic reaction! Well, one good thing came out of it--we now know she is allergic to penicillin! (At 15 years old this is only the second time she's taken an antibiotic; the first was after her knee surgery in May, and it wasn't penicillin-based.)

Dylan started taking an antibiotic last week for a different reason and he ended up being allergic to it as well. (At 18, this is the first time he has ever taken an antibiotic. He only took it a couple of times before the allergy symptoms became unbearable and he stopped taking it.)

Now the really good news... we saved $2900 by having their wisdom teeth removed in 2008 instead of 2009! I am very thankful the insurance company sent out their 2009 revisions to coverage in December 2008!!!

Wisdom Teeth Removed for Christmas!

A week ago Jeff learned our medical insurance coverage was changing in 2009 and not for the better. Even though our medical budget was gone by May (Andrea's knee surgery), we decided to have Dylan and Andrea's wisdom teeth removed. Doing so in 2008 instead of 2009 saved us a bunch of moolah. The only dates the oral surgeon had available were December 23 and December 31. Neither date was optimal, but at least the 23rd was d0-able. I'm just glad he had time in his schedule for both of them.

What a way for them to spend Christmas!

Going, Going, But Not Yet Gone

I know it won't last forever...
Three days of frost and gray skies have wilted what was left of my lemon sorrel. The spinach might be salvageable, that is if the sun comes out tomorrow; carrots are becoming more difficult to dig out of the frozen ground (especially since Jeff packed away the trowel and now I'm using a kitchen spoon instead).
Tonight's menu: chicken with potato-carrot-onion casserole. No, the chicken did not come from the garden!

December 3rd in Northern Utah and Garden Growing Strong!

September in Utah is the month that people clean out their gardens and prepare it for winter. For the most part I did the same thing--tomatoes, squash, green peppers, and lettuce are long gone. However, I am pleased to report that my garden is still doing well with beets, carrots, spinach, lemon sorrel, onions, and potatoes. This is the second year we have gardened using tires. I am continually amazed at the benefits--plants are contained, no weeding, water usage is dramatically less, and best of all, two and three yields of produce! I haven't even covered the tires with straw yet to keep in the heat for the plants; the tires keep the heat on the plants. Last year we just played with the idea of tire gardening, didn't put much effort into doing it, even so our crop last year was phenomenal so much so that we decided to do it "right" this year. I highly recommend tire gardening!

Tonight's menu: split pea and ham soup, baby carrots and onions, homemade bread, beets, beet greens, and baby potatoes! Bon appetite!

Pandemic Fireside

I don't want to freak anyone out, but I learned this week that the world is at level 3 out of 6 on the pandemic scale. It is that high primarily because of the bird flu. I also learned that the World Health Organization is currently preparing for a full scale outbreak of "something" estimated to be upon us within the next 20 to 30 months. Now, I have to sit back and laugh just a bit because of what our prophet and elders have been telling us specifically over the last 2 years--and that is that we need to have 3 months of food and water as an immediate reserve in our homes. Three months is the typical quarantine period. I may not have finished college, but I sure can put two and two together and get four.

On Sunday a church official whose calling is specifically to teach and help prepare people for a possible pandemic event held a special fireside at our church. She gave us a whirlwind of information. I will not put it in here, but within the next few days I will be scanning her handouts and my notes of her presentation and have them available via email for those who are interested in them.

We started our own blog.

I decided after many sleepless nights (ha ha thats funny) that i would make our own blog. I really did think about it because i did not want to leave Powell land, but i decided that i will always be a citizen. Check it out.

http://richardandmeghannbateman.blogspot.com

Love ya lots

Megs

Another day in Paradise for Richard.

Richard has had it rough with all of the medical problems over the last two years. He had a little internal bleed that had to get fixed so he went into surgery today. It was not an evasive surgery, thank heaven, but he is still in a lot of pain.

This is him waiting his turn into the OR. He was so nervous, I think no matter how many times someone goes through procedures it is still nerve racking. But we are thankful he is okay and hopefully there will be no more problems with bleeding. I love him so much, even sick he is so cute!!!

To answer your question Sarah...

That's what I wanted to do also but school is so hard to get into its just crazy. You have to have your BSN and have so many years under your belt as a nurse in critical care and there is a ton of requirements to even apply, plus school is so expensive. I work with 6 different nurse working towards it and it seems like in a few years there will be a low demand for them.

For now I want to work in ER/ICU. I am going to get my BSN and my CCRN and reevaluate from there. Since there is no more NP program (that's what i really wanted to do,) and you have to have a masters to teach, I will most likely get a masters in nursing with a specialty.

But to be honest medicine is a long career and it is already getting old. I wouldn't going in a totally different direction all together for my master either. Like human relations or family counseling plus I also really want to do sign language still. All in due time....