Army Achievement Award

I spoke with Kole this week and he told me that while he was at JRTC (the predeployment training in May) he earned the Army Achievement Award and will get to add another ribbon to his uniform. I am proud of him.

He has been taking a class this week about systems that keep ied's from exploding. I hope he studied hard. He said they are happy when they don't hear anything because that means the system is working. Sounds like alot of responsibility as those systems keep the soldiers safe.

Back to base

On Friday evening Kole and I went to to visit with family. Saturday we went to the pioneer parade and then over to Aunt Joyce's to visit while we rounded up some 22 shells so we could go shooting. I shot the 22 pistol. After shooting we went to Grandpas and made homemade ice cream and visited. I took down a hand crank ice cream maker so some of them got to crank the ice cream maker. It was fun to see alot of the family and visit. Grandma came all the way from Colorado to wish Kole well on his deployment. Uncle Esker's family all came to see Kole off and visit. Daren and Cindy and Talmadge came over and ate ice cream with us. I missed seeing Virgil and Steven.

Sunday morning I took Kole to the airport and he is headed back to base. The day he leaves is always a tough day for me. It is fun to have him home for a visit. I wish him well on his next adventure.

Water skiing with Aunt Rhonda & Uncle Brent

On Wednesday, 7/22/09, Kole and I went water skiing with Aunt Rhonda, Uncle Brent, Tracey, her three children Coben, Ali, and Redley, Jessica, and Abuela (Verna). It was alot of fun. My arms are so sore they can hardly type this. Kole knee boarded, wake boarded, skiied and then rode the tube. I have some great memories of him flying through the air on the tube by himself. I could only hold on so long and then I would fall off the tube. Kole pulled me back on a couple of times or I would have fallen off sooner. I would hold on with my hands and even put one of my feet in the loops trying to stay on that thing as it went flying through the air. Kole also rode with Jessica and Tracey and they made it look easy to stay on the tube. Rhonda, Tracey and Abuela when on the tube and they even caught some air. I was very surprised that Abuela got on the tube as she does not like water. Of course she was smart enough to stay on the tube. Coben and Ali also rode the tube and swam in the water. Can't leave out the boat driver (Uncle Brent) as none of us could get out of the water without someone who knows how to pull skiers out of the water.

I tried wake boarding because Tracey made it look easy. Well it is harder getting out of the water than she makes it look. I was not able to get up on the wake board so I went back to my two skis. I can still get out of the water on two skiis and for me that is alot of fun. The lake was very smooth and the skiing was great.

Thanks Rhonda and Brent for a great time.

Skydiving with Kole

On Tuesday 7/21/09 Kole and I went skydiving. What a blast. It was my first time. Since Kole is in the airborne unit he has jumped out of airplanes before. He did like the free fall of sky diving.
We were strapped to the front of an experienced sky diver and were given instructions on the ground of exactly what we would do when we were in the plane. I didn't follow everything exactly close enough thought that my instructor said I was a natural. Once the instructor opened the parachute they let us pull the cords to turn it. It takes a lot of arm muscle to pull those cords and make it spin. My instructor had to help me so I could get it to spin. The teach us to land on our rears with out feet up in the air. Kole landed on his rear. My instructor was able to land us on our feet and we just walked off. There were two individuals that went up with us that were learning how to skydive by themselves.

7/17/09

Kole and I just returned from Whitewater rafting in California. It was way to fun. They let us swim some of the rapids that was fun and much cooler than being out of the boat. On day 2 was the exciting stuff. We had mostly class 3 and class 4's. I did get pulled out of the boat when we went in and body surfed with our raft. I was sucked under the boat and then I got to swim to an eddy with my paddle. Swiming with a paddle is not easy. Kole didn't get pulled out of the boat like I did. He did get to pull me back into the boat everytime I wanted to get out and go swimming. He was a great sport. Kole kept telling me to use my arms when he was pulling me in the boat. Pretty soon everyone on the boat was encouraging me to use my arms when he was pulling me in. Some of us just have no arm muscles. Kole and I had the front two seats on the boat. I finally decided I should let the 17 year old boy (Zack) who was sitting behind me have some fun in the front seat. Zack was on one side and Kole was on the other and they did the majority of the paddling on our boat. The rest of us dipped our paddles in just didn't have the power those two young men did. It was fun and Kole did a good job taking care of his Mom. Although through no fault of his own, everytime we had to carry our raft they would send him of f to help some other boat and I would get stuck carry that heavy thing without him. I had it all planned out that I would be on the same side as him when it came time to carry the boat. My plan didn't work. Great memory for me.

Kole is home

Kole got into town Friday at 2:30 in the afternoon. We have had some borstch and gone shopping for shoes. Today, Saturday the 11th Rebecca is coming over to make shrimp cocktail for us. That is so yummy. We are planning to spend some time with the Sullivan family on Sunday and next week sometime. Marina has broken her foot and so we will see what she is able to do. I would like to go to the new wild animal park on the west side of town. It sounds like fun. We can be indoors in this very hot weather. The hot weather is helping Kole get ready for his deployment to IRAQ. He bought a bike to ride to and from the gym and for exercise and he is out riding it right now in this hot weather.

I prefer to get up early and exercise before it gets this hot. I did my walk and yard work early this morning. I am thinking of making a larger front porch under my mulberry tree so I dug out the grass and the cactus. It is good exercise. Then the Primary had an activity at the Temple visitor center - in the air conditioning :). The sister missionaries have scavenger hunt and other activities that they do with primary age children. Then we walked over to DQ and had ice cream.

Visit home

Kole will be coming home to visit July 11 through the 26th. We hope to go to the 24th of July celebration and see lots of family and eat some great bbq. It would also be fun to have some homemade ice cream.

I really wanted to go rafting in California by Yosemite, however, with the way things are in the economy right now decided I better not spend the money. Maybe when he comes back from IRAQ we can go.

Hopefully we can get in a hike up Humphrey's. See if he can keep up with his old Mom.