Groneman Family

We miss Emmy :'-(  Poor Emmy has a cold and she can't come and play. Yesterday morning the Nelson ladies got up and played in the basement.  That room down there is perfect for kids to play in with all the toys and Kiera and Lydia are taking advantage of it.  They use the coffee table in the middle to set up their kitchen on and play with the princesses on.  For lunch we went to the new McDonalds and played in the play area. It's a great play area for older kids but for this age, I think I like the play area in Arctic Circle a little better.  After naps we went up again to the Dastrup house for a good dinner of Talapia, roasted green tomatoes (they were NUMMY!) and roasted Zuchini (which was also pretty good).  Since the high temp yesterday only got to about 65 degrees at our house, Marilyn and Cambrie and Kiera and Lydia decided to make Pumpkin Pie.  Wowza!  We had it for dessert after dinner at the Dastrups.  Poor little Jacob was having a ...

I heard this on KSL this morning and it makes perfect sense.  As parents, you want to keep up with new social media technology BECAUSE some day your kids will be online and you want to make sure you are one of their social media "friends".  If you don't keep up with technology, your kids will run circles around you (and without you) and that leaves them very vulnerable and you very clueless.  Just when you think you've read the book that covers everything about parenting, kids come up with a new way to thwart you.

Mom is Walking. Alone. She will not be staying here or she will be a flight risk. So, I think we better think it out again! Mom and Dad went to Sacrament meeting, and when they came back to her room, she was walking. It seems our meeting to get organized was wasted effort.

I thought that you may want a positive update on Mom. This is something that Kathy wrote to Micheal on his mission, but I was going to update here today, but this covers it so here ya go! What a week. Let me just say that it is much better than last week was. My mother is in a specialized nursing rehab center now after being in the hospital for a week. Getting her there was rather a nightmare and we were beginning to think that she would be kicked out as soon as she got there. At the hospital she clobbered a nurse who was helping me get her to the toilet for the first time. The next day when the people came to transfer her from the hospital to the nursing facility, a man asked her to put her arms around his neck so that he could lift her. She reached back and pulled his hair and then punched him in the face. Last night she returned to normal--thank heavens! Yesterday my siblings got together to outline shifts so that someone to be with Mom at all waking hours. (We have all been with ...

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Today was a rainy day this morning.  We played a lot of playhouse and jumped on the trampoline.   We went for a stroller ride to the park and swang and played on the slides for a little while.  Grandma made some NUMMY bread for us to eat!  During naptime, the big people played games (Brett & Katie came over again to play).  Grandma fixed us all some good dinner and tonight we're going to go see Toy Story 3!  Oh boy!  There are currently some big dump trucks and machines putting new pavement on the road in front of our house.  Uncle Brett calls it "Fiscal irresponsibility".  Kiera and Lydia liked to sneak up on Aunt Katie and Uncle Brett sleeping in the bean bag chair and count and yell (1,2,3) "SURPRISE!".  Lydia got tired of waiting once so just snuck up on them and yelled "Three!"   We sure wish Emmy were here to play with.  And Buff.  And Dastrups.

Guess what?  I was so busy playing with you on your birthday that I never got around to posting this on the blog yesterday.  I'm SO GLAD you came to visit my house!  You were so tired of traveling and sitting on Thursday when you got here it just didn't seem fair to make you sit in a car seat for another 40 minute ride to Gramps & Grandma's house.  You didn't like it but you made it.  However, we tortured you again by making you sit in the car for yet another 35 minutes while we drove you up to Jacob's birthday party.  But that's when the fun began....you had cousins to play with and your mom decided you and Kiera and she would spend the night at Jacob's house. Friday was your birthday and Gramps came up to pick you up and take you back to our house.....yet ANOTHER car ride strapped into a seat..it just wasn't fair!  Well when we got home we started celebrating your birthday!  We played in the playhouse and jumped on the trampoline and playe...

It's hard to believe my little special guy is FIVE YEARS OLD !  I vividly remember the phone call from Marilyn the day you were born and the concern she had for both you and Christa.  I remember the first weeks/months of your life how worried I was about you.  Now I realize every time I think of you I get a big smile on my face.   Your facination with electronics and how you'll push, pull, dig, chew, pull apart any electronic item you find just makes me laugh.  It can get expensive at times, but that's my (our) fault, not yours.  I giggle when you turn the TV over on its side to watch it.  You know exactly where the eject and rewind buttons are on the VCR.  If you find a DVD you have to shove it into the VCR to see if it will play.  You jump up and down and clap when you find something you like.  I love your crazy man face!  I couldn't love you any more if my life depended on it....you bring joy to my life even though you're a...

Today, with some assistance, mom was able to walk to the bathroom. Mostly, she did it alone though. And she is eating, drinking, talking and surprising us with her rapid comeback. It has been crazy trying to get her into a care center...first they didn't think she was high functioning enough to go into intermediate care and then they decided that she was a "flight risk" (while she couldn't even take a step). Then they thought she should be on hospice, but then we found out that she couldn't recieve physical therapy if she was on hospice, but the care center couldn't have her come in because the Dr's reports were really not good while she was crashed with the overdoses of Aettiban she had been on. So it has gone back and forth several times. They were going to release her yesterday, and then today. Now it will be tomorrow. But don't quote me on it! Ya just never know when it will pan out. We will be placing her in Orem nursing and Rehab care. It is on...

[sob] I miss Katie and Brett. [sniff]

I don't really have the time to blog right now, but I'm going to nevertheless in order to try to release some tension and calm down. As I was telling Steve tonight at dinner, with my most recent change in meds my mood has gone from extreme grumpiness to an I-can't-take-it-anymore type of very emotional mood. I'm sure that it doesn't help that I'm trying to pack for a 2 week trip by tomorrow. Packing is complicated with very expensive meds that require refrigeration that I'm stressing if I should put in checked luggage or carry-ons. I'm stressed over flights for both Steve and myself that absolutely must be on-time or it will cause me to miss appointment that are crucial to this surrogacy. I could go on, but I'll get on with my story. So after taking Steve to the airport I drove my 2 sleeping girls home and carried them in to their beds. Then I went back out to my car and loaded up my arms with the dolls, bears, and sippy cups that accumulate in our b...

Mom had a pretty miserable day. Turns out she received 7 attiban (anti anxiety drug) in the last 24 hours, which is enough to make any patient a drugged up mess. They are pulling her completely off the Attiban, and the Dr is putting her on something else that will work better for her, we hope. Today was really a slide. 2 days ago she was joking around with us and having a good time, yesterday she could only mumble incoherent stuff like having to get hometo milk the cows and do the dishes. To say nothing of her babies. Today, she couldn't speak at all. She hasn't eaten for 2 days. And doesn't seem to be able to drink . Kathy put some little liquid in a straw and released it into her mouth, but she didn't seem to want that either. She is still getting IV's. The Dr that came in and talked to us today thinks that she will do better tomorrow with the change of drugs that he has ordered. I am counting on it. It has been a challenging day. It is 7 pm now. She will be wakin...

Christa gave me her noterized signature papers...still waiting for Brett's/Chads............

I think that this is mostly for BJ's knowledge. When they got my mom up last night and asked her to take a step, with support, she could not do it. And they had to fight her for 3 hours while she was SO ANGRY because people wouldn't help her to go home. Mom cried and Anne cried. I wasn't there, as we have decided that we need to spread out the help over there so we don't leave my dad alone to deal with it for long periods. Mom also refused to eat yesterday. It is SO HARD to watch this process. We love her with all of our hearts. But she needs rehab to walk, which means a care center...so that is what we will be doing this week: arranging for that. I will be going over this morning to talk to the social worker about our options, and then we will know where to start. Cambrie arrives on Thursday...I suspect that she will need to spend some time with Christa, or be alone here while I am helping to get things settled. She leaves to go to Idaho Sept 1 and then I will be o...

This year, for the first time,I bought the M-F Ed week. I always enjoy it, but Monday when I was in class I kept thinking about my daughters who are young mother's and how much more THEY needed to fill up their buckets than I do. So I decided to give the opportunity to them. Turns out that the Dastrups were able to go Monday as well, as Brighams mom was on same wavelength and had taken the kids so CK and Brigham could go. They loved it. I took Tues and tended for CK so she could go again. Thursday was Kim and I's 34 anniversary, so I left ED week early that day so that we could go to "The Roof" for our special day. That was fun! Friday, I was sitting in the Marrriot Center and they got up to do the announcements before class and asked "if there is a Marilyn Groneman or an Anne Weber here, they need to report to the Talmage building immediately." THAT got my attention. Of course, as luck would have it, I sitting clear down on the floor, so I to get up and lea...

We had a great week at the mountain.  Only Chad/Erica/Emmy said they could go.  Brett was supposed to work and Christa was going to camp closer to their house.  I promised to provide dinner & breakfast.  Lo and behold, Brett's work schedule changed with his new job so he and Katie showed up at the mountain.  We had just finished dinner and were thinking about playing a game when a couple more vehicles showed up...it was yer mom in our car and the Dastrups in their van!  What a pleasant surprise!  The reason yer mom didn't come with me is because Grandma H fell and was dehydrated and low in potassium so was in the horse-piddle. After they decided she was OK, Marilyn decided to come up after all.  Dastrups brought their dogs to roast so they did that and some folks made smores.  B&K stayed in the old trailer, C&E put up a tent (they wanted to see how Emmy would do), and C&B stayed in Grandma's (now our) trailer.  It's the ...

What a fun overnight outing at the mountain! Sorry I didn't get pictures of everyone who was there, but here is what I have. We had a GREAT time. Emmy was asleep before we even got down the mountain (like before we even got to the main road). Poor thing! But we think she's back on schedule now. We missed you, Cambrie and Fam (and Buffy too, of course)!

Everything is more fun when it is naughty.

So I dunno how many times I've been to The Roof to eat.  Maybe 6 or 7.  The first time we went it was like $22/person and I thought that was high.   Yesterday it was $37 and it was a nice, romantic get away for Marilyn and I, but I was really dissapointed in the food.  Not the quality of the food...the quality is aways great, but the recipes they used.  Of course the salad stuff was really good and the cold shrimp with lemon squeezed on it dipped in their seafood sauce (peppery) was really good.  Deserts were fantastic as usual, especially the Key Lime Pie.  However, they had steak in shitakke mushroom sauce  that was so bland there was no flavor..tasted like biting into a fresh side of beef hanging on a hook.  They had some fancy named breaded fish in a 'citrus sauce' that didn't have any flavor and the sauce tasted more like Mexican salsa than citrus sauce.  They had chicken cordon blu (sp?) that was just.....there...I couldn't ta...

Who added the new picture to the blog header...huh?!?

Happy Anniversary to my sweetheart . I LOVE YOU!  34 years of loving and arguing and enjoying each other's company and raising kids and being together and playing jokes and buying houses and planning weddings and sending off missionaries and...and....and.....a lot of stuff. The bottom line is that every day that I see you kicking around my house I have to pinch myself to make sure it's real because I generally don't have that much good luck. I smile watching you reading.  I smile watching you fix food.  I smile watching you talk on my telephone.  I smile when you scratch my back at night.   What good fortune I have!  I wouldn't want to live without you. (p.s. the 34 years is only the time we've been married.  We spent a lot of time together before that!)

On Saturday we had a great dinner with Gronemans, Gronemans, and Dastrups. It was nice to see everyone but I was so busy doing things and had different grandkids doing different things that I didn't get to spend nearly as much time with each child as I wanted to. The net result was probably kids thinking I didn't care for them any more :-( In a world where I was king (HA!) I would probably only do big family dinners once in a blue moon where everyone is busy fixing food and cleaning up almost the entire time then leave for home. Instead, I would rather go to Walmart, get some pizza's or BBQ pork and have FUN instead of work. The food wouldn't be as good, but the company would be better. Just taking an informal poll to see your view of things. ??

Ain't she cute?  Click picture to see more. Marilyn wanted me to take some pictures of her showing what she "does" as a hobby. This is the best representation of what she does. Beautiful girl standing in a beautiful garden paradise.

My girls have no idea that there is any place other than Rite Aid that you can go to get an ice cream cone. It lacks atmosphere so we go next door to a medical plaza (after 5pm) with our cones and play on their ramps/stairs and have a great time playing tag, hide and seek, jumping down the stairs together. They have as much fun doing this as they do at disneyland if not more. Fun tradition. Oh and the great thing is we only have to get 1 cone because we can put 1/2 inch of icecream in the top of lydia's cone and she is happy for a half hour and kiera will just eat it from a cup.

FYI, our Stake is doing a swap meet today at the church by the round-about. It starts at 6:30 and everything is free. If you want to bring stuff to get rid of, that works too, but if you do, try to bring it at least 1/2 hour ahead of start time. We are invited to bring household items, clothing, books and about anything else you would find at a yard sale.

I didn't think I'd have any trouble giving myself injections. But when the moment came this morning, I chickened out. Steve gave me my subcutaneous injection (in my belly) and it didn't hurt a bit. I have no problems giving injections, and no problems with other people giving them to me, but I could bring myself to give it to myself. Bert-- hats off to you that you've done it for so long. Pretty soon I'll have multiple injections daily and some of them intramuscular. Steve won't be around for some of them so I'll have to be brave enough to give them to myself. I'm getting myself psychologically prepared : {

Which olive oil to buy and which to stay away from  HERE

We've got next weekend and the weekend after that with no scheduled plans.  Anyone want to 'plan' a mountain trip?  We have 3 trailers to use as well as grass for tent.  I'll provide dinner/breakfast.  If so, which weekend?  If not, I'll make my own plans. :-)    Cambrie, do you want/will you have time for a mountain evening while here?  UPDATE:  Based on comments, we'll do it Friday 20th and Saturday 21st (see calendar).  Bretsker, suggest another date to do it again.

So while we were eating dinner at the hospital one day this week, I told Brett to go to bed before I got home since he had to work again the next day (he works from 6:00am - 6:30pm, and I work from about 1:30pm to 10:00pm so we meet for dinner when he's done). Here's our conversation: Katie: Go to bed before I get home. Brett: Wake me up and give me a hug when you get there. Katie: Ok, but I don't want to interrupt your REM cycle. Brett: That's ok, I'll will be on spin cycle anyway, so it's almost done. (I think this was a subconscious message for me to do laundry). I'm all done working at the hospital for the summer - YAY!!!! My out-of-town sisters are both going to be here this week so I'll be spending a lot of time hanging out and quoting movies instead of prepping for school, but oh well... I keep having nightmares about not being prepared the first day - maybe I really should start thinking about it. Brett got a new job offer while we were driving h...

After a few efforts to go camping together...and after failing for one reason or another, Benjamin and Gramps finally went camping!  Grandma picked up Mr. Benjamin and met me in Novell's parking lot on Friday.  Grandmap dropped Benjamin off and he and I headed for the mountain while Grandma went back home.  It was great.  After the rain we'd had the past few evenings, I was afraid we were going to get rained out but Benjamin looked at the sky, and made a prediction that we wouldn't get rained on that day.  He was right!  We started a fire in the firepit and 'roasted some dogs'.   After our dinner of hot dogs, we made smores.  Benjamin said he made up a recipe for double/triple decker smores but we stuck with old fashioned single decker smores.    We played 'Trouble' and watched Spy Kids on the little DVD player.  After that we hit the sack for some ZZzzzzs.  In the morning it was pretty cool outside (and inside) so ...

You've read about this in other blogs, but I'm putting this here for Buff's benefit.  I'm shamelessly stealing Brett's and Christa's blog posts and sticking them here: ------------------------------- The advice we've been getting as a non-childrened married couple is: Play. More.So that's what we did earlier this week. We went with the biggest advocates of the "Play, more" ideology, my sister and brother-in-law, Christa and Brigham, and spent Monday-Wednesday playing.  We took the inaugural trip of their newly purchased car to Moab, and into Arches. Monday: We hiked. Pictures do a better job of it, so I won't try to explain it. We hit the movies for "Salt" Monday night. Tuesday: We woke up, left, and showed up to our tour company place to go "Canyoneering" where we discovered that we were very un-prepared for the trip. To our credit, we did show up the day before to verify that we had all we needed. We thought we we...

Yup. It is over time for doing this. Well, we did gather at the Dastrups for the 4th, but that was a month ago. It is time for another gathering on Aug 15. Who can come? And what time are you available? (I promised the Dastrups to have a King Crab dinner, and it still hasn't happened. Dastrups will next week work for ya?

Quiet. It is something that you appreciate more when you have children around. Right now, Jacob and Ty are in bed and Benjamin is having a "late night" (till 9pm) with a friend, Max. Imagine! I can type this without any little helpful fingers contributing to this dialog! I am happy to report that in spite of the forecast of rain in Moab today, that the Dastrups and Brett and Katie were able to do their Canyoneering adventure. It wasn't canceled. Some of you may not know what Canyoneering is. I leave it to the adventurers to post pictures (hopefully they were able to buy a water camera) to give you a better idea. All's quiet on the Western front, but SOMETHING always seems to be a crisis when you return from a vacation. And this is no exception. The water turned on this morning early and made one setting change and was still going at about 6 pm. I tried to turn it off at the box in the garage,but that did nothing. Luckily Kim had come up to spend a couple of hours ...

When the fedex guy came to the door with a box my girls started removing their shoes because the last box that was delivered to our door contained shoes. I informed them as I opened it, "Sorry ladies, it is not shoes. It is just medicine" Kiera "Is that the medicine so that you can have a baby in your tummy?" (direct quote). (flabergasted)..."um well, no but it is to help us get a baby". I couldn't believe it. We have never told Kiera anything at all about the entire situation. We only ever say in prayers "please help us to get a baby in our family". She could not have known any other way than through the spirit. I tried later to ask her what the medicine was for but all she said was "I don't know". This is the 4th time in the past year that she has had very obvious intuition about the status of future siblings in our family. Anywho, I start this mess of meds next tuesday. My surrogate started today. Our contract is d...

We spent a nice relaxing weekend in the Kirk's cabin near Scofield. ATV riding, playing games, sleeping in, and eating. Lots of eating. I took lots of pictures. During the night on SaturdayPM/SundayAM I was awakened a couple of times by the camera beeping. I'd get up...turn it off and on a couple of times then make sure it was off...only to be woken up a couple of hours later to it beeping. Anyway...got home and went to look at the pictures.....what pictures? They were all gone. Grrrrrrrrrr.

25 Chad Groneman 375 Kim Groneman 386 Brett Groneman 936 Katie Groneman