Groneman Family

Thanks Mom and Dad for the cool presents! He LOVES them!

61 Chad Groneman 566 Kim Groneman 845 Steven Nelson (Not sure if it's the Steve we know and... umm... know) 1270 Katie Groneman 1598 Christa Dastrup 2008 Brett Groneman Don't forget to enter September's contest. http://www.brainbashers.com/common.asp . Remember to log in so it's easy to find you listed in the results!

The doctor called me today to tell me the results of Lydias allergy tests. Good news is that she not allergic to Milk! It was just a huge coincidence that it happened to happen 15 minutes after the first time I ever gave her milk......which still makes me a little nervous to try it again. But, according to the tests she's not allergic...so now I have to try to figure out what she IS allergic to.

I was starting to make breakfast this morning when I hear the pitter patter of big feet coming up the stairs. Lo and behold, Brett and Katie came up to get their mail and we talked them into joining us for breakfast. First we fried up a whole griddle of bacon then made pancakes. For pancake toppings we had peaches , blackberries , raspberries , strawberries and then we had some cream cheese gooey stuff and maple syrup and raspberry syrup . Of course we also had peanut butter....and almond butter. Mmmmm....sure was good. Anyone else wants to show up on a Sunday morning we'll make you breakfast too.

If a picture says 1,000 words and this video shoots at 16 fps, then this post has the equivalent of 1,536,000 words. I apologize for such a long post

An email I just got from Keith: Dad called me last night and said, "I don't think you need to come over tonight..." He called this morning and said everything went ok last night. I went over and talked to him and he said he plans to: -try to keep her awake during the day so she's more sleepy at night -he's going to wear his hearing aid at night and keep his door open so he can hear her.. -he's going to get up twice per night to check on her.. -he's going to have her get back on her anxiety medications... The program we discussed would cost him, with "after-tithing dollars" about $32,000 a year, and it couldn't be mom's money or he'd be guilty of doing what she accuses him of....spending her money without her permission... Ann and I are both of a mind to regard what we've done to this point as service to our parents... Garth, please forward this email to Sarah and thank her for willingness to help... Marilyn again: HUMMM...I ...

I enjoyed tending little Emmy whilst Chad and Erica got a fun get-away...and now I go tonight to tend my mom while she HOPEFULLY sleeps. We had our family meeting with my siblings this week. It was decided that we would continue going over to spend the night (every other night she is still up MOST of the night). Garth, Kathy and Keith said they want no part of tending her...it's just too tough and it takes 2 days to recover every time they do it. Garth and Keith are needing to function each day to bring money in. Understandable. The day of Gordons wedding, they (dad, Anne and Keith-I was home tending mom) were discussing the problems of staying up with mom and Keith told dad that he had a client that pays $10.00 per hour to have some CNA type person come in and stay with his mom at night...and suggested that dad do that. Dad said it was a good idea. Anne then said, "well, If you're going to do that, then family should get first dibs on taking the job. Mom would rather ...

Chad and I had an awesome getaway. Who would have known we were only on the other side of the mountain the whole time? We felt like we were in a different world but without all the travel time. It was excellent! Wednesday we went to Sundance, rented bikes, and rode up the lift and biked down for 8 hours. It was amazing. Our second run down, I crashed going down a rocky road. Yeah, I was trying to go too fast on that, tried to stop, lost control, and scraped up my legs and arm pretty good and literally ate dust. :) But we continued biking for the rest of the day. My legs were hammered by the end, but it was worth it. We loved the trails and the scenery. Some of the leaves are just starting to turn, so it was beautiful. Chad got a flat tire (we think he hit a sharp rock just right on one of the turns). I watched as the air exploded out of the tire. We were halfway down, so we got to walk our bikes the rest of the way to get get a new tire at the bottom. But it didn't stop us. We kept...

First of all, a big thank you to Grandma and Gramps for watching Emmy for us so we could go on a quick getaway. We missed our little munchkin, but it was good to get away at the same time. So as to not clutter up the blog, I thought I'd just post links to things you might want to see: Slideshow of our pictures (click play to start the slideshow) Video clip of Chad biking at Sundance Video clip of Erica biking at Sundance Video clip of us trying to show & explain the Alpine Coaster Video clip of us trying to show & explain the Alpine Slide I'll let Erica talk about our vacation... For now, I'll just say it was a lot of fun.

Lydia's birthday was good. She was fairly oblivious to anything special going on. She enjoyed poking her cake (her UGLY cake) and she loved the dolly from Grandma. I need to post videos but since we have a brand new camera and have not quite figured it out yet you'll have to wait. .... In the meantime, you can have a video of the playhouse to keep you all satisfied.

I've survived my first 2 days of school. I haven't had any major explosions, or meltdowns (although I did get some gasps when I lit an assignment on fire to demonstrate what happens when someone leaves stuff on my desk). I consider that an achievement and a good start. Brett has also started up his BSN program with UVU while figuring out his application to BYUI, working a bunch of graves, and making me class blogs all at the same time.

Grandma had to go to a family meeting and Emmy's old man and old lady were up partying in Sundance/Park City so Emmy and Gramps got to spend some time together. Actually, I got home just in time to get her ready for bed and put her down...what a funny little girl. She didn't want her bottle at first....but Marilyn said that's the way she is. So I eventually got her to take her bottle after some fussing, but she needed to play with her pacifier while eating. A few times during the feeding she complained and tried to boogy down but we got her back to eating. I then put her down and she complained a blue streak for about a minute so I got her up and put the bottle in again...she drank for a few minutes then decided she was done so I put her down again...she complained for about a minute then just went on to play and squeel for about 15 minutes then finally fell fast asleep. It made me smile just thinking of her little cuteness sleeping in my house.

It's not often you get to celebrate your very first birthday ...HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LITTLE SWEETHEART!....I love you. So cute. Miss mountain goat. :) What does Lydia get to do for her birthday? Wish we were together to celebrate.

Due to the boy's school schedule, Brigham's work schedule, and Benjamin's first soccer practice being scheduled for today, I'm afraid that Jacob's birthday wasn't quite as special as I would have liked it to be, but I still think that he had a good time. I made him cupcakes to share with his class, and he was thrilled about opening presents once again. We're planning on taking him to a little go-cart race track as soon as Brigham's schedule allows. I can't believe that my Jacob is four!

Happy birthday to my special little guy! I wish I had Jacob here to climb up on my lap and give me some head hugs. Jacob is a spot of pure joy in my heart (even though I lovingly call him Mr. Trouble) His problem solving skills make me smile...he is always thinking about how to solve problems...how to get to that button..how to get mom to put on a movie, etc. Anyway, Jacob I love you and hope you have a great and happy birthday! Christa, tell us about how his birthday goes.

At least our locust trees in the valley think so. We have had some really cool nights recently...like 40's and 50's and the leaves are coming down. Kim's favorite time of the year is on the doorstep! In other news mom has adjusted to the new pills (any suggestions, Brigham?) and is staying up all the night some nights....Kathy wants to put my mom in a care center...Ann wants us to stay up with her all night every night....I want to let her go back to wandering at night (she can't get out, she can't call anyone, if she wants to wander, let her wander! ) If dad hadn't gone into the hospital that is what she would have been doing anyway. And really if we have reached the point that we have to have someone with her all night, then that means it would be a 24/7 job because right now, dad goes out and works in his yard and garden, goes to the grocery store and Dr, and leaves her alone in the day at times. If she isn't to be trusted at night, then she shouldn'...

Poor little lydia is very allergic to cow's milk. Within an hour of giving her milk yesterday for the first time we noticed severe fussiness and hives all over which went on to diarrhea and dry heaving. She still has hives today. They say that it is the most common allergy in children and that most kids outgrow it by age 3. I hope it is closer to age 1!

I've got Breanna figured out. When she likes a boy, she gets very cryptic in her facebook posts. Oh...and here are some pictures of a dirty little girl having a blast!

A couple of tidbits from Education week: "If you want to know what a woman is thinking, ASK HER! After you have been married for many years you think you know what she is thinking, and you will be right 90% of the time...it is the other 10% that destroys marriages" John Widsoe:" Whoever seeks to help those on the other side of the veil receive help with ALL their affairs in this life" (I absolutely KNOW that this is true) Bruce R McConkie: "If we chart a course leading to Eternal Life and stay on that path-then there is NO question-we shall have Eternal life". When I was a young mother I was struggling with the whole "Be ye therefore perfect" thing. It was overwhelming me...and it felt like eating an Elephant! Satan was having a heyday with the thought in my mind, " You'll never make it! You might as well give up!" My mom had been to a Stake Conf where he was the speaker and she heard him say that. She told me the same thing, a...

Today we had a first: The Oquirrah Mtn Temple was dedicated, so ALL of the Mormon regular Sabbath services were canceled so that people could come to the dedication. So Chad and Erica brought Emmy this morning and we got to play with them all day! That was great! So then she went down for her nap and we went to the dedication and Kim stayed with her. She only slept 1/2 hour so Kim had an hour to play with her until we got back. So went we got back, we played some more. Emmy was sitting in her high chair having some Cheerios while we played our last game of "Sequence" (which BTW, is a fun game for 2, 3, 4 or even 5 people). After it was done, Chad stood up and said, "Well, I guess we better pack up and go over to the Kruegars". Emmy reacted immediately! I can't make the bugged and insistant noise that she made, but while she did it, she held her breath so her face turned bright red...it was very obvious that she was saying, "HEY FOLKS! THIS TIME YOU A...

The day has finally come. Time to cleanup the playhouse mess. For some reason we've just been too busy the last month or so to get to it so today was the cleanup. I had to cleanup my shop area downstairs and the garage. I actually parked both vehicles in there about 10 minutes ago! Garbage can is full and garbage day isn't until next Friday...whoops!

Benjamin finally started school today! This morning he said, "I've waited five years for this day!" Of course he was up at 6 am and had to ask me every five minutes how much longer until he could go to the bus. When the time finally came, he did really well. He got a little quiet, but still got on the bus willingly. He came home with glowing reports of everything about school. What a relief! Now he is counting down the minutes until tomorrow morning!

So, you know how Novell has added a marketing angle to Kim's job (with his being in charge of the online social communities), now that have added yet another new job to do. He'll have to explain it...he told me, but if I tried to tell you, I would get something wrong....something about his being in charge of a new website they are going to set up... What it means for awhile is that he will have yet a new definition of "very busy" (which thankfully, won't equal Steve's or Brighams). He will come home later every day and he will have to go to Provo every day. Am I excited? Well, no. But on the positive side...I guess it just makes his job safer, and in these times, that is a good thing.

Happy anniversary to you old folks! How many years have you been married now? We are sure glad that you guys tied the knot. Hope you have a good time celebrating!

I know that you are all ready to be astounded!! Beelzebug: A mosquito that gets in your room at 3 am that you cannot cast out! There were a bunch of those, unfortunately, I cannot do shorthand! So, I was pretty much astounded at Education week today. I did 5 classes in a row at the Marriot Center. Keeping in mind that I go every year, (unless I am helping with a crisis) , There were only maybe 1/15 as many people in the MC today as usually packed in for the same speakers that used to pack them in: Susan Easton Black, David Christensen, Brad Wilcox... What is the cause of this? The economy? Fear of the Swine Flu? Knowing that you can get a lot of the classes online now for free? or people who didn't listen to a prophets voice to prepare for the times in which we now live? I don't know!!! I do know, I have NEVER seen Ed week classes SO Sparsely attended! BTW, for those of you who would like to attend, but can't ...you can get them on the BYU website and put them on you...

I think by now, most of you know that my dad went in for a stint to be put into a blood vessel going into his heart this last week...The Dr told him he would have been dead within 2 months if he hadn't gotten it fixed. They wanted to fix it 2 weeks ago, but they evidently called on one of the times that he couldn't hear so he didn't get the message. Me and my siblings are now taking turns sleeping over night there to help out if either of them need help during the night. So far, I am hearing that mom is a nightmare to tend at night. She is up with something that is terribly wrong...dad gave away her baby or someone took all her money, and she is just frantic about it and crying hysterically about it. My turn starts tomorrow night. I can hardly wait! if it is too bad, I may not go to education week at BYU after all. It starts tomorrow, but Gordon gets married tomorrow...so I will basically miss that day. So if she is as bad as I hear she is and I have to miss most of Wed too...

This is it! The week that Benjamin starts school! Thursday is the big day, and I vascillate between pure joy and panic attacks several times an hour. On the one hand, Benjamin is SO ready and will really benefit from having peers to play with every day, but on the other hand, sending him out into the big bad world (even if it only is first grade) is scary! Will he make a good friend? Will kids tease him about his glasses? Now that he is the youngest in his class, will he be able to keep up physically? These are the questions that keep me up at night worrying. Friday was "Meet the Teacher Day", so we got to meet his teacher, Ms. Zuni and see his classroom. Ms. Zuni seemed very nice, and Benjamin was excited about the class pet (a beta fish) and the M&M machine used for rewards. He's been counting down the hours ever since. Jacob starts school a week from tomorrow. He hasn't said anything about being excited yet, but I'm excited for him. His continuo...

2009-08-Monroe_Mt We're home after spending a week with our friends the Robello's camping on Monroe Mountain in Fishlake National Forest. Our camp was at 10,080 ft in the trees just above a small lake and just below the peak of the mountain. It was nice and relaxing after the hectic pace we've had for the last couple of months. We rode on our ATVs some days, and others we sat around the campfire, played games, and read books. The weather was cool....first night was 32 degrees but it warmed up during the day to the 50's, 60's and sometimes the low 70's. It rained on us real good one day/night but with our warm trailers and our rain suits for the ATVs it didn't bother us at all. All the way home I was thinking I was going to have to bale our lawn but when we arrived, Katie & Brett were just about finished baleing it for me. What great kids.

No pictures. Sorry folks. I cleaned my carpets today for 3 hours with a rented "Rug Doctor". Cost me $15 and it felt GOOD to vacuume up all that nasty dark grey water after months of potty training accidents. Its sort of like the same feeling as when you have a patient with a big nasty abcess and you (or someone else) gets to squeeze all of the puss out of it. There is something so exhillerating about it all. lydia is a little dare-devil and just randomly takes off walking places. No severe falls YET. She isn't afraid of anything. Kiera recently has been telling people that she is pregnant. I think we need to talk. She also has become the bossiest cow this side of the mississippi and tells us what we are allowed to eat, where we are allowed to go and when. Steve has been BUSY for these past few weeks. There were several days that we only got to see him when we took him dinner at school and sat with him while he ate it for 15 minutes. STEVE: WE MISS YOU.

Lydia is walkie and Lydia is Talkie. Lydia is now letting go of my finger and cruising 4-5 steps to get places. She also has a vocabulary larger than Kiera's was at 18 months. We've been outside picking dandilions a lot lately and today Lydia said dandilion! "Da-yion" I wish I had pictures to post but our CAMERA BROKE.

So here's the 411 on our vacation. After lots of flying time and a layover in Phoenix, we arrived to extremely humid conditions at the Cancun Airport. Our travel agency people had us in a car and off to the resort as soon as we walked out of customs (I was quite impressed with how well they handled all of our travel requests - we hoped on vans, exchanged to buses, and back to vans all week and never had a hangup). The Sandos Caracol resort was nice although the little rivers and ponds they created were great breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Our legs were feasted upon whenever we forgot to put on bug spray. One of my favorite things in the resort were the animals. Besides the skinny, nasty stray cats, there were turtles, herons, pelicans, peacocks, parrots, raccoons, crabs, song birds, sting rays, fish, iguanas, and a coati (which we had never seen before, and thought was pretty weird looking). The first day we spent wandering around the resort and then going to Playa del Carmen, t...

Emmy turned eight months old this past week. She's a growin' girl! Of course, y'all saw her at the reunion, so you know how big she is. This week we went fishing with Erica's dad up at Payson Lakes. Emmy enjoyed eating the dirt. We had her on a blanket, but she liked to crawl to the edge and go after the dirt. She didn't seem interested in the fish. Erica caught three or four fish while we were up there. I don't enjoy fishing, so I didn't fish. I was there for the company. We've got some pictures you may or may not have seen already. The picture at the lake is not from our most recent trip, but it's a cute one.

Yeay for taking pictures with famous people! This is the story behind the pictures... So the one you probably all recognise is Me, my friend Mike, and Nicolas Cage. We had just gone on Space Mountain and were walking out of the exit when we saw him walk by. It took us a few seconds but we all stopped and looked at each other and looked back. "Was that Nicolas Cage?" "yeah I think it was!" "WOW!" Well, it was the birthday of one of the girls in our group so she went into the gift shop at the exit to look for something to get for her birthday and Mike and me waited outside to see if we could see him come out. After a few minutes, sure enough, here he comes. I think he was with his son and one of his son's friends. They stopped right in front of us like they were waiting for something. We tried to be sneaky and take a picture without him knowing but he wasn't cooperating much... he would turn around right as I took the picture looking for som...

Hey, Gramps and I are sure grateful to have been able to see so many of our Children/Grandchildren this past week! Cambrie and little ones flew home last night...after a long delay at the airport (details please, Cambrie), and we are busily trying to get back to normal around here before we take our next trip... Anyway, I know it was a sacrifice to bring your little kidlets and travel to Utah...and we appreciate it! It was so much fun to see them all! It leaves me with a happy glow, just thinking about it!

So did you just walk up to Mr. Cage and say "Hey dude....YOU'RE NICOLAS CAGE....will you stop doing what you're doing and let us take some pictures with you?" If he did that for everyone that recognized him he wouldn't have enough time to ride the rides. Did you talk to him at all? Curious minds want to know. ......and where did you meet him...in the line to Small World?....

151 Brett Groneman 2 1 1 4 1 1 1 4 2 1 4.1373% 183 Brigham Dastrup 1 2 1 5 2 1 1 3 3 1 3.2611% 220 Katie Groneman 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 39 1 2.5307% 548 Chad Groneman 3 1 1 6 1 1 1 2 27 1 657 Breanna Groneman 2 2 1 2 6 1 4 18 1 1 939 Christa Dastrup 1 1 1 2 3 1 1 21 UR 1 1260 Kim Groneman 2 1 2 5 2 1 5 12 6 1 I'm least common of all this month!...and Brett is the most common. I knew whale was the wrong answer but I thought more people would say it. Get your August answers in HERE .

Wishing you were here.

So as has been mentioned below, I went to go see the play "Guys and Dolls" at the Hollywood Bowl last night with my friend, Mike (I still say it wasn't a date)(It WAS a DATE - Dad). We had tons of fun! He drove since he has a BMW convertible... we put down the top when we got off the freeway in Hollywood and were just cruisin' the streets... I felt like a celebrity! We parked in the far corner of some parking garage where his car wouldn't get hit by idiot drivers and ate the food we'd brought with us (I brought orange chicken w/ rice, he brought the drinks, fruit salad, and cooked vegis) It was all very tasty and fun cause whenever people would drive by us eating in the back seat of his convertible in this parking garage, they would give us funny looks. But we knew it was just because they were totally jealous cause they had just spent $50 eating not so great food in a noisy restraunt :-D Afterwards, we went and explored a bit before we caught the bus to go t...