Wow it's really been that long! O.K. let's get this going and maybe just maybe I'll be able to keep up with it from here on out; however I am not making any promises.
May: AJ finished out Track and Field with several awards and loving it! He has found his new love in life and plans to excel in it in every way possible. Not much more happened in May.
June: AJ was able to attend his first time ever Martin's Cove Trek; he came home a whole new person . He talked about the trek and all of the events that happened there for several months after, we could tell it was quite powerful and meaningful to him.
Russ and I celebrated our 10th anniversary! I know I can't believe it either! He surprised me with a necklace that I had wanted for ever, it was the match to the ring he gave me for our 5th anniversary!
JR discovered the instrument of his dreams. While we were at Mustang Days Follies (our town celebration week) he saw Mr. Mickelson (yes this is John's cousin for those of you who know him) playing the trumpet and his eyes lit up like a Christmas Tree! Low and behold with moms creative skills he's getting trumpet lessons! (Mr. Mickelson's son wanted to learn drums so mom suggested we swap! Russ still can't believe I asked!)
July: Hmm not much happened here we went back to Laramie for Jubilee Days and had so much fun! Oh and AJ and mom decided to take up a paper route.
August: Here goes.... to start out with we almost hit a deer out on the route, then a few days later we DID hit a deer and crunched up the front of our Nissan. Now that happened on the route around 4 am Monday morning; later that evening as we were heading home from the drive-in movie we stopped at Maverick to clean the windows and grab a drink. As I was proceeding to pull forward away from the red poles I apparently turned a little to sharp, I hit them! Only this time I was in the Suburban! So yes you read that correctly I had two accidents in less than 24hrs. with two different vehicles. Needless to say Russ wasn't so hip on mom driving for awhile.
About a week later we were blessed with some visitors! John and Nancy Mahi flew in from St. George to spend the week with us and we were so excited! We had everything planned it was going to be the best summer vacation anyone could ask for! Well, let's just say it certainly wasn't a dull boring one....
1st day: here we go out on the boat on the Big Horn Lake we were out there enjoying the beautiful weather the kids were having a blast it was great.....then the afternoon storm came in so we thought well we better get back to dock (understand we docked at Horseshoe Bend and we were clear up passed Barry's Landing it's about 10 or so miles away) by the time we got to Barry's Landing the wind was starting to come in but we figured oh going through the canyon shouldn't be that bad....(haha) Let's just say we had our adventure of white water rafting via boat style! The canyon walls created a wind tunnel so as the wind went through it whipped up the water, we were in what was like a hurricane! All of the kids were laying on the floor in the middle and back of the boat covered with towels John sat on the floor up front while Nancy and I sat on the benches up front and Russ was driving. I must admit I was scared to death! At one point I looked around to see if the boat capsized was there anywhere to take the kids for safety, and nope there wasn't just strait solid canyon walls. Thankfully everyone had on life jackets and we even had some extras just in case. After we were out of the canyon, back to land, and safe we all decided it was quite the adventure! John said it best though "That was Excellent!"
Day 2: After such an exciting day we decided to rest for a day and start our adventures on the next day.
Day 3: The adventure continues...we decide to take them Geocaching because they've never done it and really wanted to experience it, so what the heck let's go! Off to Blue's canyon we head only to discover it's closed for repairs! What!, no way. Oh but look we can take this other road, let's take it.
Here we go on the trail up the mountain...hmm the road seems to be getting thinner and thinner. It's alright though we can do it we're almost there! After much scare of all of us we finally make it to the top of the mountain right up by Devil's Canyon! We're looking around and we finally find the geocache, the kids were super excited!
We decided to call Val Russ' dad to ask if there's an easier way down. He says to Russ "so you went up on 4 wheelers right?" "Uh no dad we are in our Suburban." "What your suburban!!!! That road is for 4 wheelers not Suburbans! The only way down is the way you came but if there's a storm moving in then you either have to wait out the storm or get down before it hits because the canyon will flash flood!" "Uh o.k. so bye dad, everyone hold on tight and make sure you have your seat belts on here we go!" We made it down safe, in fact the coming down was much easier than the going up was. Once again John said it best, "That was EXCELLENT!"
About a week after the Mahi's left AJ started his cross country track season and he did AWESOME!! He took from 2nd to 5th place at every meet. He even beat some of the fastest runners from Wyoming Indian School. I am so proud of him! He has found his love in life and he is continuing to progress with it. His coach has him on a running schedule that he has to do every week.
As for September and October nothing much happened just a lot of cross country and swimming meets and that's about all.
November....yeah well the curse of my bad luck came back full force!
1st... I get sick with some sort of awful bug. I had to go to the ER on Saturday and get two shots, then all the rest of the week up till yesterday, Wednesday every time I tried to walk I would pass out it was the weirdest thing. Yesterday was the first day I felt like I was back in my own body again and I wasn't dizzy or passing out, which was nice let me tell you. Which brings up the next bad luck thing...
2nd... AJ asks for a ride to band, I decide what the heck I'm feeling rather well today I guess I could give you a ride it is a little chilly out there. We're stopped at the intersection waiting to turn left and just as it's coming up time when I can a car comes and rear ends me!!! Guess what car we're in this time, yep it's our Nissan poor little car it's been through way to much. So needless to say both AJ and myself are very sore today, but thankfully only the car is what got hurt not us.
Hopefully that will be the end of my bad luck for awhile!
I have to sit here and wonder why do I need to continue to go through these trials. I guess some day the answer will be revealed to me. Till then I'm just thankful that through all of the events no one has been hurt really bad. Till I post again everyone please have a safe and Happy Holiday season!
Love to all,
The Dicksons'
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
To Busy!
O.K. I am officially to busy but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Over the last month I have been busy following AJ around with his track (I'll post pics soon) and I must say he is doing awesome! He does the 1600m (1 mile run), 1600 relay, 200 hurdles, 800m (1/2 mile run)! I'm so proud of him first of all for running all of the events but also that he'll do the hurdles there's no way in this lifetime that I would've done that. Even when I'm up walking the track AJ keeps asking me to step over them, no way man! :) So besides driving all over Northern Wyoming going to track meets and sunburning myself and my 5 children I have been busy planning the Girl Scout Navajo Taco Dinner! Good news is that we just did it on Friday and sold over 500 Tacos again this year! Yippee the girls were so cute and they had so much fun! So for the final thing that has kept me busy...As if being a Girl Scout and Cub Scout leader wasn't enough I had to start a new organization (Wyoming Home School for Northern Wyoming we have a facebook page if anyone wants to check it out) and become the new site coordinator for Bountiful Baskets here in Lovell. We're suppose to be starting it around the 22nd of May! For those of you that know Heather Mickelson she's my co-leader, to bad her and I don't know how to say no! :)
Wyoming Home School was started because I realized that in this area we have over 27 families in our school district alone that home school; so why not get together and start a P.E. class amongst other activities. We are in the process of planning a "Day in the Park" activity that will have several water activities, relays, and some kickball games!
Now the reason why I can see the light at the end of the tunnel is because this Saturday is supposed to be AJ's last meet, next Friday is the last Girl Scout meeting, Cub Scouts is over, and the Home School event is on the 21st! At that point I think I may be able to breathe for about a week:)
Then summer starts with summer marching band (which Russ has been asked to be in charge of the drum line!) (talk about putting him on cloud 9!) along with Cub Scout camp, Girl Scout camp, parades for all the above, and AJ's trek at Martin's Cove; all of which are supposed to be done by the middle of July! So maybe for the rest of July and August we can breathe!
So in conclusion I would like to apologize for not posting as you can see we've been a little busy! But I promise to post some pics as soon as possible. I hope everyone else is doing great! We miss and love you all!
Love,
The Dicksons'
Wyoming Home School was started because I realized that in this area we have over 27 families in our school district alone that home school; so why not get together and start a P.E. class amongst other activities. We are in the process of planning a "Day in the Park" activity that will have several water activities, relays, and some kickball games!
Now the reason why I can see the light at the end of the tunnel is because this Saturday is supposed to be AJ's last meet, next Friday is the last Girl Scout meeting, Cub Scouts is over, and the Home School event is on the 21st! At that point I think I may be able to breathe for about a week:)
Then summer starts with summer marching band (which Russ has been asked to be in charge of the drum line!) (talk about putting him on cloud 9!) along with Cub Scout camp, Girl Scout camp, parades for all the above, and AJ's trek at Martin's Cove; all of which are supposed to be done by the middle of July! So maybe for the rest of July and August we can breathe!
So in conclusion I would like to apologize for not posting as you can see we've been a little busy! But I promise to post some pics as soon as possible. I hope everyone else is doing great! We miss and love you all!
Love,
The Dicksons'
Sunday, March 28, 2010
I'm a slacker!!! :)
O.K. so it's only been what two months since I last blogged! Oh my goodness I'm such a slacker! So whats new and exciting in the Dickson world.... Not a whole lot! Russ' grandmother has been in the hospital so that has taken up some of my time then we had a wonderful time visiting with cousins whom came out here from Tenn. and Alabama.
Besides all of that our life has been somewhat calm! That was at least until last week and this week. Last week A.J. decided to join track and he is loving it! His first meet is Tuesday (tomorrow) and I can't wait to go and watch him! The bummer side is that his meet is one of the wonderful new events that just made this by far the worse week ever! Russ just got switched to a different crew so this week he was supposed to have his 7 days off only now he's working overnights instead... We already had scheduled PAWS testing every morning from 8am till 12pm Monday through Thursday in Powell for AJ and JR (that was switched last minute too), dentist appts. Monday starting at 1pm till 3pm in Cody, Tuesday grocery shopping day in Cody and now a track meet at 3pm in Greybull (for those of you not familiar with the area Cody is 45 mi SW of us with Powell on the way, while Greybull is 30 mi SE of us the oppisite direction) needless to say Russ will be running on about two hours of sleep because he's going to need to drive to Powell get the boys and meet me in Greybull! Then comes Wednesday! Testing in the morning again and Russ and I have our Dentist appts. in the morning in Cody! (again Russ no sleep!) Thursday last day of PAWS yipee!!!! Oh and I forgot to mention everyday this week AJ also has practice at 3pm urgh!!!! Then Friday off to Casper for my Arthritis appt. I'm a little excited but yet nerveous. Excited because maybe I'll finally get some good medication so that my pain is limited but yet nerveous because I may have to get shots!!!! Then we go to Laramie for the rest of the weekend so that I can recoop!
As if that wasn't bad enough wait till you hear about what happened to me today in Cody.... Today in Cody they were having 60 mph winds to start off with.... While there dealing with the winds we (my neighbor and my 4 youngest children if that wasn't hard enough!) went to Wal-Mart as I went to open my car door the wind caught it and ripped it open out of my hands and slammed all the way back; thank heavens it didn't hit the car next to us! I bent up the hinges on the door, I had to force it shut, and then I could no longer open it! URGH! That was about 10am (we didn't get home till 5pm) for the whole rest of the day I had to climb through my car just to get in and out because the driver side door was no longer usable; needless to say my neighbor got a great kick out of it! What timing right! When I got home I went to my friends auto shop and they adjusted it the best they could for now. The door will open and close but the wind still blows right through it! I just can't wait to travel to Laramie with my door like that. I tell you what I would like to go to bed and wake up only to discover it was all a bad dream!
Now that I've let all that out perhaps I'll be able to sleep tonight right?! Any how I promise to be more persistent on my blogging and update more often. I hope for the rest of you this will be a wonderful week with slightly less excitement! We miss you all and would love to see everyone again soon!
Love,
Torie
Besides all of that our life has been somewhat calm! That was at least until last week and this week. Last week A.J. decided to join track and he is loving it! His first meet is Tuesday (tomorrow) and I can't wait to go and watch him! The bummer side is that his meet is one of the wonderful new events that just made this by far the worse week ever! Russ just got switched to a different crew so this week he was supposed to have his 7 days off only now he's working overnights instead... We already had scheduled PAWS testing every morning from 8am till 12pm Monday through Thursday in Powell for AJ and JR (that was switched last minute too), dentist appts. Monday starting at 1pm till 3pm in Cody, Tuesday grocery shopping day in Cody and now a track meet at 3pm in Greybull (for those of you not familiar with the area Cody is 45 mi SW of us with Powell on the way, while Greybull is 30 mi SE of us the oppisite direction) needless to say Russ will be running on about two hours of sleep because he's going to need to drive to Powell get the boys and meet me in Greybull! Then comes Wednesday! Testing in the morning again and Russ and I have our Dentist appts. in the morning in Cody! (again Russ no sleep!) Thursday last day of PAWS yipee!!!! Oh and I forgot to mention everyday this week AJ also has practice at 3pm urgh!!!! Then Friday off to Casper for my Arthritis appt. I'm a little excited but yet nerveous. Excited because maybe I'll finally get some good medication so that my pain is limited but yet nerveous because I may have to get shots!!!! Then we go to Laramie for the rest of the weekend so that I can recoop!
As if that wasn't bad enough wait till you hear about what happened to me today in Cody.... Today in Cody they were having 60 mph winds to start off with.... While there dealing with the winds we (my neighbor and my 4 youngest children if that wasn't hard enough!) went to Wal-Mart as I went to open my car door the wind caught it and ripped it open out of my hands and slammed all the way back; thank heavens it didn't hit the car next to us! I bent up the hinges on the door, I had to force it shut, and then I could no longer open it! URGH! That was about 10am (we didn't get home till 5pm) for the whole rest of the day I had to climb through my car just to get in and out because the driver side door was no longer usable; needless to say my neighbor got a great kick out of it! What timing right! When I got home I went to my friends auto shop and they adjusted it the best they could for now. The door will open and close but the wind still blows right through it! I just can't wait to travel to Laramie with my door like that. I tell you what I would like to go to bed and wake up only to discover it was all a bad dream!
Now that I've let all that out perhaps I'll be able to sleep tonight right?! Any how I promise to be more persistent on my blogging and update more often. I hope for the rest of you this will be a wonderful week with slightly less excitement! We miss you all and would love to see everyone again soon!
Love,
Torie
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
What A Wonderful Day!
Today was a beautiful day. My day was lined out and jammed packed with events. Here's a look on what was on the schedule for the day... School with the kids, Cub Scouts with J.R.(which I'm one of the new leaders :)Love it), Girl Scout (yes still a Girl Scout leader Love it!) cookie sale with Addie, dinner, Boy Scouts for A.J. (Klondike check in)(Any questions about Scouting just come to me I've got one in every part of it!), shower and bed for kids, and night time clean up. I was sure that I would not be able to finish all of the projects but I did! School was finished by 2 p.m., Cub Scouts done by 4 p.m., A.J. handled cookie sale with Addie, dinner by 5 p.m., A.J. off to Boy Scouts with all of the Klondike stuff by 6:30 p.m., kids showered and in bed by 8 pm, and night time clean up finished by 9 p.m.! How I managed it I'm not sure but I'm loving the fact that everything is running so smoothly! Not only does it help my house stay cleaned up, but it seems to keep smiles on everyone's face, and our house at peace! So as you can see life is grand! I hope everyone else had just as wonderful of a day as I did!
One last thing that topped my day off was finding out that my cousins' wife just had her baby this morning at 7:30 am! Congratulations Mark and Karen!!!! We can't wait to see her!
Any ways I should close this and head off to bed so I'm rested for another eventful day at the Dickson house!
Love,
Torie
One last thing that topped my day off was finding out that my cousins' wife just had her baby this morning at 7:30 am! Congratulations Mark and Karen!!!! We can't wait to see her!
Any ways I should close this and head off to bed so I'm rested for another eventful day at the Dickson house!
Love,
Torie
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Oh Man!
Oh man oh man how time flies. For the past two weeks I've been saying I need to go in and update and here we are almost to the end of January! So ready or not here comes KinCaid's 6th birthday, Allie's 4th birthday, and Valentines! I can't believe that my baby girl is really turning 4 this year. Oh how I miss it when she was just an infant. I also can't believe that it's almost been 6 years ago that I moved away from Beautiful Michigan. Oh how time flies when you're having fun! (or growing old)
Speaking of time flying this last Christmas I had the wonderful opportunity of hearing a story from Russ' cousin EmRee. She was telling us about this lady she knows and how she names her years of life... hmm now there's an idea right?!
So I've decided this is going to be my year of re-organization and de-clutter. In moving towards that step I also learned about this awesome website from my wonderful friend Heather Mickelson (yes this is John's wife poor girl, for all of us whom know John, understand that), the website is www.flylady.com she takes you step by step as to how to keep your house clean and organized. She also teaches you how to de-clutter and how to become oraganized again. Her first step is to shine your sink everynight. Oh my what a difference it makes. I love waking up in the morning now to see my bright shiny sink smiling back at me! Anyways I could go on and on about this wonderful website but I'll stop there.
On a side note; I've decided to make blogging as part of my re-organization, it gives me a moment to let things out of my mind and get them on the paper. So not only am I re-organizing my house but I'm also re-organizing my head. Hmm now thats a scary thought! LOL
I hope that over this next year I don't bore you with my re-organzing of my head while I blog; but please feel free to jump on board and offer some suggestions with organizing a house full of very energetic children, mom who's way to busy, and a dad that works shift work. All comments and suggestions are gladly accepted. For now I hope that everyone out there will find their name for the year and run with it and have fun.
Once again Love to All,
Torie
Speaking of time flying this last Christmas I had the wonderful opportunity of hearing a story from Russ' cousin EmRee. She was telling us about this lady she knows and how she names her years of life... hmm now there's an idea right?!
So I've decided this is going to be my year of re-organization and de-clutter. In moving towards that step I also learned about this awesome website from my wonderful friend Heather Mickelson (yes this is John's wife poor girl, for all of us whom know John, understand that), the website is www.flylady.com she takes you step by step as to how to keep your house clean and organized. She also teaches you how to de-clutter and how to become oraganized again. Her first step is to shine your sink everynight. Oh my what a difference it makes. I love waking up in the morning now to see my bright shiny sink smiling back at me! Anyways I could go on and on about this wonderful website but I'll stop there.
On a side note; I've decided to make blogging as part of my re-organization, it gives me a moment to let things out of my mind and get them on the paper. So not only am I re-organizing my house but I'm also re-organizing my head. Hmm now thats a scary thought! LOL
I hope that over this next year I don't bore you with my re-organzing of my head while I blog; but please feel free to jump on board and offer some suggestions with organizing a house full of very energetic children, mom who's way to busy, and a dad that works shift work. All comments and suggestions are gladly accepted. For now I hope that everyone out there will find their name for the year and run with it and have fun.
Once again Love to All,
Torie
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Russ still Amazes Me!!!
So the other day while we were in Billings we used some of our money to get Dance Dance Revolution 3 for the girls. Now understand it was marked wrong so we actually got it $20.00 less than what it was supposed to be, score right?! We intentionally bought it for the girls to have a game since 90% of our games are boy games. So this morning first thing AJ says to me is can we open it. Sure what the heck. I did not realize that he was going to be glued to it. As the day progresses through I'm finally able to squeeze some time in there for Addie to play and try it out. Evening is here and Russ is home so he decides to try it out, now mind you he was all against getting it..."That won't be any fun for us boys". It's now 10:46p.m. and he's been on it for going on two hours and I don't see me pulling him away from it anytime soon. The best part is that his favorite is the difficult stages where he has to move fast.... Yes you read that correct Russ is moving fast. If only this would've came out 30+ years earlier. And who would have thought that all we ever needed to do to get him moving was purchase a dancing game for the Wii. This you see is why Russ still Amazes me!!!! Oh how I love him now matter how slow or fast he chooses to move!!!!
Good night to all and keep on dancing!
Love,
The Dicksons
Good night to all and keep on dancing!
Love,
The Dicksons
Monday, January 4, 2010
I'm A Very Tricky Mom!!!
Today was a wonderful day we as a family decided to go to Billings!!! Now Russ being Mr. Budget sat down on Saturday and fine tuned our budget to figure out exactly how much we had to spend on our Billings trip. (Sure glad he's a budget stickler or we'd never have any money) This morning he finally informs me of the exact amount. I explained to him that there was no way to get everything on our list (list has been growing for over a month now) and stay within that budget. Low and behold we did it!!! In fact we came in $70.00 under!!! (Tithing works!) But the best part of the trip was the trick I played on my baby boy Donavan.
Here's the background... Now that we have reintroduced him to "Cars" we have watched it on an average of 6 times a day for the last ohhh 2 weeks now. Let me tell you everyone in the house can quote that movie line for line. In fact he is so in love with Lightening McQueen that he has rediscovered KinCaid's Lightening McQueen blanket and claimed it his! He'll every so often take a break from the movie and sit by the front windows and wait for cars to drive by then he comes running through the house yelling "Cars Mommy Cars".
Today we decided to take the DVD players with us to Billings and oh what the heck lets bring "Cars" for Donavan. The kids no sooner get in the car and it's started "Cars AJ Cars".
Once in Laurel (approx. 15 mi from Billings) we decide to get some lunch and stop at the Wal-Mart there. AJ proceeded to turn off the movie so that we could go eat and then shop but oh no the Donavan monster came out! Talk about a 2 year old tantrum in the car! So mom has this great idea...."AJ start the movie and just follow my command, Russ you follow along K; turn off the car, AJ undo your seatbelt, and watch...." I then unplugged the cord and yelled "Oh no Donavan the DVD player broke hurry we better get in to see if we can find the part to fix it!" (Donavan)"Hurry mom Lightening McQueen fix, come on mom hurry, lets go in, get part!" And we went in!!!!
Round 2; now we're in Billings and need to go into Costco and guess what, yep the DVD player quit working again funny thing is mom found another part to fix it there too.
So if ever any of you moms need a way to get a two year old out of the car and away from the DVD player just let it brake (unplug it). We know this trick won't work for very much longer but it'll be great for now!
One last thing Happy New Year! We miss and love everyone out there!
Love,
The Dicksons
Here's the background... Now that we have reintroduced him to "Cars" we have watched it on an average of 6 times a day for the last ohhh 2 weeks now. Let me tell you everyone in the house can quote that movie line for line. In fact he is so in love with Lightening McQueen that he has rediscovered KinCaid's Lightening McQueen blanket and claimed it his! He'll every so often take a break from the movie and sit by the front windows and wait for cars to drive by then he comes running through the house yelling "Cars Mommy Cars".
Today we decided to take the DVD players with us to Billings and oh what the heck lets bring "Cars" for Donavan. The kids no sooner get in the car and it's started "Cars AJ Cars".
Once in Laurel (approx. 15 mi from Billings) we decide to get some lunch and stop at the Wal-Mart there. AJ proceeded to turn off the movie so that we could go eat and then shop but oh no the Donavan monster came out! Talk about a 2 year old tantrum in the car! So mom has this great idea...."AJ start the movie and just follow my command, Russ you follow along K; turn off the car, AJ undo your seatbelt, and watch...." I then unplugged the cord and yelled "Oh no Donavan the DVD player broke hurry we better get in to see if we can find the part to fix it!" (Donavan)"Hurry mom Lightening McQueen fix, come on mom hurry, lets go in, get part!" And we went in!!!!
Round 2; now we're in Billings and need to go into Costco and guess what, yep the DVD player quit working again funny thing is mom found another part to fix it there too.
So if ever any of you moms need a way to get a two year old out of the car and away from the DVD player just let it brake (unplug it). We know this trick won't work for very much longer but it'll be great for now!
One last thing Happy New Year! We miss and love everyone out there!
Love,
The Dicksons
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