He Glows

This morning I had been on the computer checking e-mail and reading blogs and read some articles on the church web-site. Later during the day, I was in the other room and overheard Katherine and William talking. They were sitting at the computer clicking on anything and everything. Their endless "clicking" landed them on the new Bible videos on lds.org (http://lds.org/bible-videos?lang=eng).

Here is their sweet converstaion:

Katherine: "Oh, Jesus is glowing!"

William: "Yah, He glows!"

Katherine: "Jesus is going to be in Mary's tummy."

William: "Yah, Jesus is the baby."

The "glowing Jesus" that they saw in the video was really the angel Gabriel. It was so sweet, I have been thinking about that all day. Jesus glows for all of us. He Glows.

Happy Halloween

Jessie (Grace) and Woody (Peter)
Bo Peep/Ariel/Belle (Katherine--she did her own make-up),
Jessie (Grace), Rex (Clark), and Slinky Dog (Mom)

Little Green Alien (William)

Here are some very late pics from Halloween. The kids were out of school on the day of our party so they were basically my slaves while I sewed and went crazy with the glue gun. I have never used so much hot glue in my life!

The party was fun--David and the boys missed out, they were in Alaska. William stayed in the stroller most of the time because his burned leg was hurting. He perked up at the candy though. My love for dressing up and Halloween comes from my Mom--she does the most amazing parties. I have some great memories of Halloween!

Pants on Fire

The big blister--the morning after the accident.

The "pants on fire". This was just after I had drained the blister. It really looked pretty good at this point. I will spare you the other more graphic photos!

William all smiles as he enjoys his popsicle. We enjoyed lots of movies.

Michael had an assignment from school to write about a time that he was brave. He couldn't think of anything--until the following week!

Pants on Fire

By: Michael DeBry

Being brave isn't what you think. Being breave is what you feel is right. The true definition of brave is to be ready to face or endure danger or pain; or to show courage. Based on the following experience, I think I have been brave.

The danger I face was when we had a fire in our fire pit. My little brother had a stick and accidentally lit his pants on fire. I had to be brave by putting out the fire with my bare hands. In my story I will explain how I was courageous. THe next thing is how I faced the dangers.

Courage is the ability to do something that frightens oneself. I showed courage by running after him and even though I knew I was going to get burned, I put out the fire with my hands. I also showed courage by telling the truth of what had happened even though I knew I would get in trouble.

Next, I will tell you about how I was brave. I was brave by showing courage, and even though I knew it was dangerous I did it anyway. That was how I was brave.

Finally, I will tell you about the danger. I knew the fire would be dangerous, so I built a small one. I also knew that putting a stick in the fire and putting out a fire with bare hands was dangerous.

In closing, I hope you learned from my experience. I also hope you will be more careful by fires. I hope that you don't play with fire or sticks in fire. Also due to the pants on fire I learned about my bravery.

After the incident, Michael said, "At least I have something to write about now!"

This happened just before David went to Alaska--William's leg is nearly better--it has been a long and painful few weeks for him. I learned the best way to get him to take medicine--grape flavored Tylenol in Grape Crush. It was the only thing that worked after various other creative and forceful ineffective attempts at getting some pain relief for him. He had a few days where he couldn't walk and then just crawled everywhere for a while. He is now jumping and running and back to himself. Thanks to our nurse friends Raz and Joel who shared their knowledge, sympathy and gauze from their "nurse's stash". We're glad that he is doing well.

Alaska

David here.
We had a bunch of FF miles that were going to expire, so a bunch of us decided to go visit Marilyn's sister and her husband in Alaska. We couldn't take everyone and we couldn't go at the same time, so Marilyn went with Grace and Clark in late September for 1 week, and then I went with Parker & Michael for 5 days in late October. Both trips were amazing and hard to beat for $25 each. Debbie and Aaron took such great care of us and we enjoyed being with them.

See http://funtimesinalaska.blogspot.com/ - for pics

For Marilyn's trip, see http://funtimesinalaska.blogspot.com/2011/10/j-j-j-jim-creek.html, http://funtimesinalaska.blogspot.com/2011/10/iditarod-trail-museum.html, http://funtimesinalaska.blogspot.com/2011/10/create.html, and http://funtimesinalaska.blogspot.com/2011/10/hatcher-pass.html,

For David's trip, see http://funtimesinalaska.blogspot.com/2011/11/knik-glacier-adventure.html

Thanks Debbie and Aaron! Thanks Delta!

Road Trip

This was taken in Shelley, Idaho in my Mom and Dad's drive-way. Getting ready to head back in Tennessee. Grace and William are already playing their games and won't even pause to look up for a photo. Peter and Parker are losing it early on, and Eliza and Michael seem to have good attitudes!

We had such a great trip. We left here on Thursday (July 22nd) at 6 PM and pulled into Paul and Rita's driveway at 1:30 AM Saturday morning. We drove pretty much non-stop. We gassed up the van, filled our bellies and emptied our bladders at each quick stop. David and I switched off driving and napping. We drove nearly 2000 miles in 32 hours with 8 kids and lots of electronics, the cooler stocked with snacks & goodies, and lots of open road. The kids were amazingly good. We had a great set-up. David had packed almost everything onto the back hitch-haul, so the van felt "roomy"--at least for the first 10 hours. The kids took full advantage of endless electronics time. I had some great hours of Tetris in the back seat to keep me sane. I love that game. I knew I had played too long and decided to take a break. I was looking at the clouds somewhere in Kansas when I started turning and dropping the clouds to fit into tight rows. It was sure fun.

We stopped for a quick breakfast at McDonalds on Friday morning-somewhere in the middle of Kansas. We had lunch on Saturday at some gas station. It was actually really good food. Our other big stop was in Laramie, Wyoming--we actually went in and sat down and had a yummy dinner on Saturday. The other meals were from the cooler.

After a few days in Provo we drove 4 hours to Shelley--that was a cake walk! The kids were amazed at how fast it went. Then 4 more hours to Cooke City and then back to Idaho, and finally another 30+ hour drive home. We did it straight through, too. The drive home was good, just not as fun--due to the direction we were going!

My Mom and Dad sent us with some amazing loot for the cooler--frozen water bottles, juice cheese curds, rolls, granola bars, grapes, crackers, and yogurt. We also had a wad of "blue office rags" to soak up any messes and a good stock of Zip-Locks. Parker and Peter were sick. We wanted to be prepared. We really only had one bad episode--that was Peter as we were driving through Yellowstone, we had our own version of Old Faithful when he vomited! I was sitting by him when it hit and we got it cleaned up fast. He was wearing his favorite Buzz Lightyear PJs (that he wears all day). They got tossed in the trash (on accident) in West Yellowstone. I had put them in a plastic sack and when we stopped to clean up I grabbed all of the sacks and tossed them. The nice thing was that he took a good, long nap. We had a great time. Thanks everyone for all the memories.

Some highlights of the road trip: (maybe not highlights, but some memorable occasions!)

My turn at the wheel--everyone is settled down and mostly asleep. I have Grace's Ipod with earphones and some sweet music. I've got a stash of candy and am all set to put some miles behind us--when I open my Dr. Pepper and it explodes all over me, the steering wheel and windshield. I didn't swerve too bad, but was ticked because my "travel outfit" got thrashed the first night.

This wasn't quite as bad as the warm shower that Grace and Parker got from Peter. He was trying to "relieve himself" into an empty water bottle when David hit a bump and Peter's connection was broken. His urine hit Parker (who was furious), Grace (who was crying and laughing at the same time) and himself in the face. Peter was MAD--he said that it tasted "stronger than salt"!

Another time after I had driven and was tired, I switched David places--he took the wheel and we were down the home stretch. I was dozing and had just fallen asleep when he hit the rumble strips. He had just dropped his sunflower seeds or something. I dozed off again with the lull of the van putting me into REM rather quickly, the next thing I know, we hit the rumble strip AGAIN--this time it was his earphones or something that he was trying to adjust. Anyway, with a little more swerving, I was WIDE awake in fear that David was falling asleep. I reached over every few minutes and whacked him to make sure he was OK. He kept assuring me that he was fine. I finally just drove the last hour or two, because I was SO wound up. He feel asleep and I had a beautiful experience driving through Echo Canyon, looking at the stars, listening to music, thinking about the pioneers and of course shedding a few tears of gratitude.

Hanging Out

I love this picture of Clark--Grace took it during the summer--he is about 2 months old in the photo. He is just hanging out and enjoying his life--oblivious to the chaos that is constantly surrounding him. He has a fun personality and is a very sweet and loving person. He is starting to laugh and he is a great addition to our family.

I guess it is time for my quarterly up-date. We had an eventful spring with visits from my sister Debbie and her three little kids. That was a blast. We just let the kids play in the perfect weather, chase chickens around the yard, took them to a few different parks (and got asked if we ran a daycare!!), and just let the kids enjoy each other. They were also here for Easter, so we had a fun egg hunt and various activities--mostly thanks to Emily! Debbie and I had a great chance to sit and visit. One of the highlights was David getting lots of leftovers from classes that he was teaching. We ate good that week--I only cooked a few simple meals the whole time. It was nice. Debbie was here just two weeks before Clark was born. He made his debut on May 2, 2011. Rita came out for a week to help out. She is fun a lot of fun to have around. With Emily just up the street we had some great times. Then my Mom and Dad came later in May. We mostly just relaxed and ate--I'm sure we must have done something more exciting, but I can't remember that far back.

The rest of the summer seems like a blur--Girls' Camp, Scout Camp, Youth Conference, EFY, movies, swimming, Faith in God, merit badges, a few outings, lots of sweating, and few good cries everyday, and great friends and family. We rounded the summer out with a road trip--5000 miles, 3 weeks, and lots of great memories.

The kids are full-swing back to school. They have survived the first week and all seem to be doing well. It does feel good to be back on somewhat of a schedule. We are all happy and well and hope that you are the same.

Magic Treehouse

Oh No!! Peter wanted to pose like this.

Underneath the treehouse in the shed is our 3-wheeler

(A Michael Thurman original)--we are sad about that, too.

Destruction.

When Katherine walked out and saw the treehouse she asked in a very disgusted voice,
"Who did that to our treehouse?"

Inside the Magic Treehouse before the wind started to blow!

Cousins Camp 2010--Heimdals, Ernsts, and DeBrys--We used "Magic Treehouse" as our theme.

Builing the treehouse--April 2005

Eliza waves out the window.

Michael, Eliza, and David building the floor.

"The wind started to blow.

The leaves began to shake.

The wind blew harder. And the tree house started to spin.

It spun faster and faster.

Then everything was still.

Absolutely still."

(Magic Treehouse Books by Mary Pope Osborne)

We were all sad that our treehouse got knocked over by a big tree. There was a storm a few nights ago--at 11PM. We all slept through it and did not hear a thing. Guess we were worn out. A few other big trees went down in the neighborhood so everyone has been busy with their chainsaws. Thanks to friends and neighbors for their help!