"In Stitches"

Literally and figuratively, our July was full of them. Where do I start? I guess we'll do it chronologically.

July 4th-Land that I Love!

We celebrated the fourth along with the Buckner Family. For our reunion this year we camped out at Piedmont (against Jessica's wishes--thanks for being a good sport about it Jess). It was a great few days of fun, family, food, 'folleyball', foals, fireworks, and fear that the uncles struck into the girls with their stories around the fire. While the girls screamed 'til they were in stitches, the rest laughed 'til they were. We had a great, great time as usual. Thanks to Crystal and Ben for hosting, it was a blast for the Barkers.

Mackenzee trying to pop popcorn over the fire w/o getting too hot
What a goof!

Josh and Beau, the egg toss Champs.

Sparklers!

July 13th-Boys that I Love!

Randy and I celebrated our 18th anniversary, I can't express how blessed I feel to be married to this man. I am never bored when I am with him, I am usually laughing with or at him, (again usually in stitches) he loves being a dad and is great at it, he is a great provider, and simply my best friend, it doesn't seem like 18 years, and at the same time it's like there was no life before him. Stitched together for time and eternity.

I LOVE YOU GEORGE RANDAL BARKER!

Then,

& NOW.

So as far as what we did on our day, it was spent with Will in the U of U orthopedic center. Sounds romantic doesn't it, the things we do for our kids. It was a scheduled surgery, he had his elbow 'scoped' to remove a bunch of junk that was floating around in there, causing him grief. It had been 4 or 5 years that it had bothered him. It started clicking, and locking on him, which isn't the best scenario for quaterbacking, pitching, shooting, things that Will considers to be very important in life, (who am I kidding-so do we). So we finally found out what was going on and hopefully took care of it. Will is sure this will fix everything. I hope he's right. He is doing great, had his stitches out this last Tuesday, and the doctor gave him the green light to start throwing and whatever else he wants to do with his arm.

Will wanted a picture of the IV.

They marked the "right" elbow, let's not do the wrong one.

In the jar is the junk they took out, Will asked the doctor to save it. We were surprised at the size of them, I thought it would be some tiny chips. No wonder it was giving him trouble.

July 18th-Stitches that we don't love.

It has been another great summer of baseball for Jesse. We had a great time following him around to different tournaments.

The last weekend of baseball, however, ended ugly. The last 2 ball games of the year were Saturday the 18th at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. if they won the first. Well that morning game was great, they won and were set to play for 3rd place at the Bear Lake tournament in Montpelier, ID. So we had decided to go back to our place at Bear Lake (30 minutes away) so we could swim, have lunch, nap, whatever. Jesse, however, decided to stay with the team & hang out, they were talking about batting practice and such. So we left him, no big deal right? Well as we were getting out of the pool, about 1:30 we got a call from his coach saying Jesse had wrecked at a skate park, and they were on their way to the hospital for stitches. So we were thinking dang it, they are probably over reacting, I was mad I wasn't there, a number of things went through our heads; where did he need the stitches? would he be playing at 4:00? (because Grandma and Grandpa were planning on going to watch that game) how was he really? Anyway we headed out to meet them at the hospital, on the way coach called again and said they were taking him in the ambulance, because they were worried about a neck injury. The tension thickened and I have to say it was the longest 30 well maybe 25 minute drive I have ever taken. I walked into the emergency room door and heard the most awful wailing, and thought, that can't be him, I thought they would be about done with stitches or whatever they had to do. Well it was him. The admitting nurse sadly asked if I was Jesse's mom, and said that I walked in right at the wrong time. She took me into where they were and just then they had a needle down in his split lip trying to numb it to do the stitches, the LAST bunch of stitches. I was not at all expecting to see what I saw. They had already stitched up his chin, and under his eye. It was the hardest thing I have had to see one of my kids go through in all my 16 years as a mother! Broken bones are one thing, but to see how bad he looked, the blood didn't help, and I don't consider myself a queesy person, I think it was the thought of his handsome face being scarred up, with his teeth messed up, it was absolutely awful. While the doctor carefully stitched up his lip, making sure it was lined up right, I was holding his hand wiping his tears out of his ear while Randy wiped my tears. His neck was fine by the way, THANK HEAVENS! We finally got out of the hospital at about 4:30, and slowly started getting the whole story, how it happened. He was on a bike, went up a tabletop ramp, his front tire hit the rail at the top, about 4 ft high, and he came off the top and landed on his face. He didn't have another scratch anywhere on his body. I apologize if this is hard to read. The thought still makes my stomach hurt. It was a long painful evening, he was able to sleep pretty good after the pain medication. Anyway, I have been absolutely amazed at how well he has done, and has healed. He woke up Sunday morning and said, ,"mom I guess I can go to church." WHAT?! I didn't let him, I thought he might scare the other children. We did find out too, that one of our baseball dads and an EMT had given him a blessing before they took him in the ambulance, and I cried again. I do believe that is why he recovered so remarkably.

This is immediately after stitches, already looks better, especially with the bandaids.

Jesse takes a goofy picture of himself, like he needs to try to look worse, (3 days later)

Just 10 days later!

Like nothing ever happened-even the tooth is as good as new

(1 week later he felt something hard on the inside of his lip, and pulled out

the chip of his tooth!)

July 19th-not so Happy Birthday

The day after Jesse's wreck, with his blessing and enthusiasum we left for our trip to San Diego, that we had been planning all summer. (No it could not have come at a more inconvienent time, and yes we considered cancelling). To top it all off it is also Randy's 40th birthday. With all that happened, and the trip on top of it I am officially declaring a Birthday Re-Do, especially for his 40th, I really liked Natalie's idea with their father's day re-do. So everyone keep it in mind, sometime soon we are going to have a big party for Randy. We did try to make it a good day for him, but between doctoring Will and Jesse, and packing and church and traveling as far as St. George, it was a little hard to pull of the specialist of days. Lane and Megan helped by making a cake for him that we had when we finally got to their house at 10:30 that night. Thanks guys! He claims it didn't matter, and that he preferred it that way. Well

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

anyway.

Create Your Own

July 19th thru the 25th-Trip that we Loved

We crammed a lot in, and had a blast doing it. We went with 3 other families, Walker's, Hamblin's, and Buckner's (Lane). Monday and Tuesday was Sea World, Atlantis was the big hit of course, (sorry Shamu). Tuesday night, some of the big boys went to a San Diego Padres game, just to say they had been to an MLB game. Wednesday was the La Jolla beach day, the two pregnant moms and anyone under 9 stayed and played on the beach, while the rest kayaked out to La Jolla caves, and snorkeled, then came and played with us. Jesse and Will were able to do everything, I think the salt water was actually good for Jesse. They weren't slowed down a bit, except maybe for Jesse eating the first few days, but he was a trooper. Thursday the Barker's and Walker's (those with the lego fanatics) went to Legoland, while Hamblin's went to Universal Studios, and Buckners headed for home. Friday we headed for St. George, then the rest of the way Saturday. It was such a smooth trip, the drive a little long for Mia (asking every 15 minutes "Mom, how many more hours?) but very worth it. We are glad Randy joined us too, it was questionable for awhile there if he could get away from business, but he managed to do both, enjoy himself and work

July 26th-Home that I Love

Now to conclude the longest blog post in history. It is good to be home, still catching up on laundry and housework and bookwork and Primary, but it is still good to be home, and no more stitches!