the one about the Coney Dog

Ok, it's not what you think. Allow me to explain.... Poor Finn. He hates to be groomed, but it has to be done. He is part poodle and his hair gets so curly and matted. He usually shakes and panics the whole time. My dear friend Nichole does it at her house. A couple of weeks ago when Finn was getting groomed, he was accidentally cut. It wasn't a terrible cut, but after a few days it wasn't healing so I took him to the vet. The vet said it was healing, but very slowly because Finn wouldn't stop licking it. So, you guessed it.... He got to wear a cone for a few days. And, you are right again, we called him our little coney dog. :) He hated it so bad!! It was only for a few days though and let me tell you... he was SO happy to have it gone. When I took it off, he grabbed it in his mouth and took it in the other room, as if to hide it from me! While he was wearing it, he wouldn't walk, jump or do anything for himself so we had to pack him everywhere. He is so spoiled! Speaking of spoiled, check out this picture! Ridiculous. This is a card we have at the store where I work and I think the picture is so funny! Coney Dog. Hahahaha!!!

the one about the furry handcuffs

Yes, I have furry handcuffs. Don't judge me, I have a good explanation!!

Brett has this buddy that lives in Evanston. He is hilarious!!! His name is Jerimy and He and Brett think they are both the greatest things alive. They are very funny together and quite crude (if you can imagine that coming from Brett!) I tease them about being lovers, boyfriends and soul mates. Jerimy was in town on Tuesday and I told Brett I would fix dinner for them so they could hang out. I had plans for the evening so I wouldn't be home. Anyway, after work, I ran to the grocery store to grab a few things. As I walked to the checkout, I noticed a bin of Valentine's clearance stuff. I will admit, I was hoping to find Reece's peanut butter hearts. But I found one better!!!! You guessed it! Furry handcuffs!! And they were CHEAP!
I knew it would be so funny to give them to Brett and Jerimy with their dinner. I made them a lovely dinner and gave them the handcuffs. It was funny and everything worked out just as I had planned. The next day, Quayd and his cousin found the handcuffs and thought they were super cool. They started playing with them and had a great time. They were totally clueless as to why they were red and furry, they just thought it was cool to play Houdini and cops and robbers with the new handcuffs. We just went with it. It was harmless...... UNTIL.... Quayd started telling us how they have been playing FBI at recess and how cool it would be to take the handcuffs and lock up the bad guy. OH MY HECK!!! Can you imagine??? What would the faculty think of the little Lane boy locking up naughty kids with red furry handcuffs!?!?!?! We told him he couldn't take them and he just didn't understand why. He tried to sneak them in his backpack, but I stopped him. Geez.... That was a close one! I would have been the talk of the school all because of a $.50 gag gift!

So see, it was totally innocent. A blog post about furry handcuffs turned out to be totally different than you expected, right?
Trust me... If I wanted to do the handcuff thing, Brett still has a pair of REAL handcuffs from way back when he was in police academy. I wouldn't mess around with these cheap plastic ones! ;)

the one with a helpful household tip

It's hot. Lets face it, we are in the dead of summer! I heard this little tip the other day and thought it was too good not to share. When you are running your swamp cooler 24/7 it kinda starts to get that musty smell. To get rid of that smell and also just to freshen up the smell in your house, raise one of the panels and put a capful of PineSol in there! It instantly freshens your whole house.

HOWEVER.... (you knew there would have to be a story, right???)

Don't over do it! A little goes a long way. While I was at work Saturday, Brett was cleaning the living room and decided to use this helpful tip. I am not sure how much he put in there, but he suddenly noticed bubbles blowing all over the house!!! He ran (well, limped!) outside, lifted the panel and soapy bubbles came pouring out. He had to spray out the whole swamp cooler and had quite a mess to deal with. HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa! Poor Brett!!!

the one about the pouring rain

The pouring rain, you ask? Well, it has been made clear to me lately that when it rains, it pours! That is not meant to sound negative, but in this update, every story has something to do with rain or pour. Plus, we have had so much going on lately, that.. yes. It does seem like when it rains, it pours!

I'll begin with rain/pour story #1. (Warning, this story is kinda long, so feel free to skip ahead.) As probably everyone knows already, I have some issues with my heart. I really hate talking too much about this but I have been having some problems recently and thought I would share. In January, I went in for my regular check up. My Doctor decided to take me off of my medicines because I had been doing so well. It was decided that the negative side effects of my medicine were not worth it anymore and as long as I didn't get pregnant, I was fine. The first few months were going well, but lately I have noticed things were changing. My energy was crap and my blood pressure and heart rate were getting high again. I got super sick with flu like symptoms during the first week of June. I went to my family doctor and she said I had a virus. I had been fighting a fever, aches, chills and all of that fun stuff. I started feeling a little better within 10 days or so, but still not awesome. I was up and down for a week or so, then i got really sick again. I was feeling awful and I knew it was my heart. Brett had called my cardiologist and made and appointment, but until then I was supposed to stay down and track my vitals. (Sure is handy having an EMT for a husband!) My appointment was set for Thursday July 1st. The Friday before, I could feel I was going down fast! I felt awful. I had a RESTING heart rate of 120-140. I had headaches, body aches and a sharp pain in the left side of my neck. We were super scared. We called the cardiologist and he didn't seem to concerned. He kept saying that my heart looked great in January when I had my last echo cardiogram. Well a lot had changed since then and I didn't feel like he was taking us serious. By Tuesday night, Brett was scared enough that he felt like we needed to go to the hospital. I didn't want to go to our local hospital because I knew they would just send me to SLC. We packed up everything, sent Quayd to my brother's house and hit the road. We got to SLC around 11:00 pm. When I got to the ER, there were several people there waiting to be seen. As soon as they took my vitals and heard my symptoms they marked my chart as "URGENT" and took me right back. I saw a Doctor right away, they started an EKG, blood work and a million other tests. I had a fever of 101.5. They did several different tests and scans on my heart and decided that except for the high heart rate, it looked good. They knew there must be an infection somewhere but didn't know where so they didn't dare give me an antibiotic. (BUG! What is with doctors and antibiotics these days?!?) They gave me some meds and IV fluids and I started feeling better. They released me the next day. I still had an appointment with my cardiologist on Thursday so we just got a hotel room and crashed. When I went to the cardiologist, he was a total jerk to me! He made me feel like I was wasting his time. Don't get me wrong, I was glad that he said my heart looked good but he didn't even take the time to listen to everything that had been going on. He pretty much told me that I was old and fat. OLD???? I am 31!! Fat??? Yes, but had he looked at my chart and cared a little bit, he would have been impressed to see how much weight I have lost since I last saw him. He adjusted my medicines and sent me home. He was a huge ass! We drove home and I was feeling worse than ever. On Friday, I went back to my family doctor and she said that it was obvious that I had a terrible sinus infection. I had a fever of 102 and she gave me an antibiotic. I have been feeling better, but my heart rate is still high. I still have body aches and I just don't feel that great. I guess it will just take time. Whatever. Anyway, I can't end this story without telling about the HUGE outpouring of love I felt during all of this. I have such great family and friends and they were right there, bringing us meals, stopping by bringing treats, visiting, calling and texting and it seriously meant the world to me! My pal Cara let me borrow her New Moon movie so I could get all caught up before I go see Eclipse. She also brought me some popcorn, licorice and these fun vampire teeth!

Love it! Thanks Cara! We had tons of fun with these!

Ok, rain/pour story #2. It was the Annual Galley family camp out this last weekend and it was a blast, as usual! We had a huge turnout and I love being around this great family. We were able to go river rafting on Friday morning, and even though I wasn't feeling great, I still had a great time. (There was on incident that happened that kind of put a damper on the weekend, but I am saving that for story #3.) The weather wasn't totally cooperative. It rained and poured almost the whole time. Oh well. Nothing can ruin our camping spirit!

Not even rain/pour story #3. Brett, Quayd and Finn headed up the mountain for camping on Wednesday night. I needed to stay and work another day, so I rode up with Talia Thursday night. It was so nice to get there and have camp all set up! Brett and Quayd did a great job. After we ate dinner that night, we were all chatting around the camp fire. Brett started playing around with some of the teenage boys. Not sure how it started, but they started having a fly swatter war. Some how, Brett stepped back in a hole and hyper-extended his knee. He was in a lot of pain but said it would be ok. By Friday afternoon, he was about to pass out from the pain. He decided to head to town and go to the ER. The ER doc said he tore a contour ligament and that he needed to see the ortho specialist. He said it would most likely require surgery. The Doctor put him in a brace, gave him crutches and sent him on his way. Brett made an appointment for Monday (today) at 4:30 with the ortho guy. We weren't sure what a "contour ligament" would be, so when he got back to camp, we googled it. (Yes, we had Internet on the mountain. Talk about "roughing it!") It is either the ACL or the MCL. Both are very bad. We decided to wait and see what the doc said on Monday. We went to his appointment and were told many different scenarios of what it could be. All sound pretty bad. Brett has to have an MRI of his knee so the doctor can see exactly what is going on, then we will go from there. I keep reminding Brett that he is not as young as he used to be, so playing with those teenage boys was probably not his best idea. Actually, he is suffering enough with the pain, so I have tried to keep my mouth shut. So when it rains health drama at our house, it pours!!!

Rain/pour story #4. A few weeks ago, Brett had to teach a HAZMAT class in Price. He had already been in Denver for a few days for work then 3 more days in Price. I had been feeling crappy and stressed and I just needed my hubby. Quayd and I packed up and drove there so we could spend the weekend with dad. we ended up staying an extra day and we had a great time! Brett was teaching with his friend Todd and his family ended up coming down too. One night while Brett was teaching, Todd's wife and I took Quayd and the other kids to Toy Story 3. The next day when Brett was finished teaching we went to the wave pool.

The waves were seriously pouring down on everyone! It was so much fun!

We were lucky enough to get to go boating with my brother and his family on July 4th and 5th. That brings me to story #5. We packed a nice big lunch, bought fishing licenses, caught night crawlers and got all ready for a fun day on the lake on the 4th of July. We were there for a couple of hours and guess what? It started to rain! And when it finished raining, it started to pour! We tried to stick it out for as long as we could, but we were freezing! We had caught several nice fish. We thought if we just cruised around the lake for awhile, it might clear up. We had been going pretty fast for awhile when we realized that our fish basket was still hanging off the side of the boat. We stopped pulled it in and it was empty. :( All of our fish fell out the bottom. It was raining even harder, so we packed up and went home. Empty handed. Because of the long holiday weekend, we packed a new lunch and headed out the next day! It was perfect! We caught lots of fish (and even came home with them!) and cruised around on the lake for hours.

The tooth fairy is responsible for rain/pour story #6. She has been hitting our house so hard lately, it seems like it is raining tooth fairy magic! Quayd is at that age where he is losing tooth after tooth after tooth.

It seems with each tooth comes less drama! Quayd used to freak out when it was time to pull a tooth. Last week, he lost one while eating a ice cream cone and it was never retrieved. He lost another last night and he came to me and asked me to pull it. The tooth fairy has brought "scratch and win" lottery tickets for the last two teeth lost. He thinks they are so cool. :) He is getting so big! I love and hate it!

So I guess that does it for my "when it rains it pours" blog. Kinda hokey, I know. And very long. Sorry about that. Once I finally take the time to sit down and blog, the word seem to just pour out!

the one with some updates

Lazy summer days??? NOT! It has been CRAZY summer days around here. The older I get, the more busy we get. This is what we are up to these days...

Right now, Brett is playing in a men's softball league and I am playing in a woman's league. Even though we both LOVE it, it takes up two nights of our week! Brett has played for years and he is the pitcher. I have played off and on for my whole life. I am not any kind of pro, but I do love to play. I like playing infield. Because I am a lefty, I usually play first base. The team I play with has a first base player so I have been playing third base. I have really enjoyed it! Its challenging as a lefty (I know that seems weird, but ask any lefty and they will tell you!)

We have been coaching Quayd's AYSO soccer team. It has been so much fun for us!
Our team did awesome too! They were undefeated up until the last few games, then they lost a few. At this age, they play 6 on 6. A few of our team members quit coming to games so we didn't have any subs for the 6 that came all of the time. As the summer got hotter, our boys got more and more tired. It was hard for them at the end, but they still did awesome and had a great season!

So Mr. Quayd has become quite aware of the way he looks lately. I have always been able to dress him in pretty much anything and he never complains, until now. He is very opinionated! The first day of his summer break, I was starting to do his hair. I have done it in spikes since he had enough hair to spike it. He was looking in the mirror as I was gooping it up and he asked me to try something different. I kinda flattened it on top and just spiked the very front.
He looked so cute and very grown up. He looked him self over in the mirror and finally said, "You know who is really gonna like this?" I asked who. He said, "Drew." Drew is a cute little girl that has been in his class for the last two years. All the boys love her! He was so cute about it. All day he asked everyone we saw if they could see anything different about him. He is also very concerned about his clothes and if he matches or not. So he about had a stroke when he saw his dad lounging around the house in this. Quayd kept telling his dad that he was going to call all of his friends to come see how hideous he looked. So funny!!

So that is a little glimpse into what we have been up to lately. I am trying to be better about blogging, so check back and don't give up on me!

the one about the BEACH PARTY

Quayd's teacher let the class chose a theme for their end of school party. The voted and decided on a Beach Party. I am the official party planner mom, so Mrs. Murray asked me to come up with a plan. I bought leis and squirt guns for everyone. We played some water games, had a water baloon fight, snacks and tons of fun! Quayd and his teacher Mrs. Murray)




To finish it all off, Brett brought the fire truck and sprayed the kids. They LOVED it! Everyone thought it was pretty cool that Quayd's dad was a fireman and could bring the firetruck just for them! Quayd was pretty proud to have his dad there. (Dad was a just a little proud too!!!)

the one about Brett's hairy chest

I was just thinking about this funny thing that happened on our cruise and thought I would share...

Seriously, cruising is so much fun! Whenever there is a "Day at Sea" the crew works really hard to make sure you are having fun and they schedule activities for every second of the day. Our second day at sea, they had a Hairy Chest competition. We had been begging Brett to do it. He was a little hesitant at first, but he finally decided to go for it. The only requirement was that you started the competition with a shirt on so you could take it off for the big reveal. There were 8 contestants. They had a panel of 4 female judges that could touch and feel the men to determine a winner. For round one, they took all of the men (yes, the contestants were all male! thank goodness!) to the second level of the pool deck. They had these curvy stairs and the guys had to walk halfway down the stairs, take their shirts off then go the rest of the way down the stairs. Then the judges felt the hair and eliminated a few men. Brett was super funny as he came down the stairs and everyone was cheering for him. He cleared round 1.
Here he is meeting the judges.

In round 2, the contestants had to show their muscles (or lack thereof), make their best Tarzan yell then "aligator wrestle" a beach towel. Brett may have not been the hairiest man, but he was by FAR one of the best performers!! He was so funny and everyone was laughing at him. Another guy, Rich, was also super funny, but the real crowd favorite was on old man named Bob.


Brett cleared this round too. The last part to determine the winner was a popular vote. Brett did pretty well on this round too, but like I said before, the real crowd favorite was Bob. Brett did a great job and I was so... ummmmmm.... whats the word I am looking for?? Not proud... but, well... I guess HAPPY for Brett for doing so well and for being a good sport. He got a nice medal for participating and a lot of cheers for being so dang funny!

the one about our super amazing vacation

I am sitting at the LA airport bored to death waiting for our flight that is still 2 1/2 hours away. I was wondering what I should do to kill some time... hummmm.... what to do, what to do? OH! I could BLOG!!!! I just loaded up all of our vacation pictures so to help pass my boredom, you can hear all about our cruise!

Let me start you off with a pick from our pre-cruise planning party the Monday before we left.We left last Saturday, April 24th around noon so we could go watch my nephew Brennen's traveling soccer team play in SLC. Once we got there, we met up with my uncle and brother's family and had lunch. I had a little bit of pre-vacay shopping to do and then it was bed time. My super awesome amazingly cool uncle Kim let us stay at his house that night. (Thanks Kim and Jayme!!!!) Of course I couldn't sleep worth a dang because I was SO excited! We got up early on Sunday morning to make it to the airport for our 8:15 flight. Everything went very smoothly. We landed in LA and found the Carnival Cruise people right away and boarded the bus for the pier. It was a pretty quick drive and once we got there and got checked in, we could walk around the ship, the pier and there were lots of things to do there. We were so excited though, that we just kind of hung out by the ship. It was pretty cool. We were able to board the ship around 1:30. It was so beautiful! It was shocking to see how big the ship really was. It was incredible. Our ship left Long Beach around 5:30 that evening.
It was a beautiful sight!

Our first two days were sea days. We played on the ship and soaked up the sun for 2 days as we traveled to Puerto Vallarta.
Quayd took advantage of the kids programs on board and totally loved it!!! He got to do a build-a-bear, make a t-shirt and played lots of fun games.
On Wednesday morning, we arrived in Puerto Vallarta. It was Brett's 30th Birthday!!!! And the city, the ocean, the weather, EVERYTHING was beautiful!

We just kind of explored the city. We shopped, went to Senor' Frogs and just hung out.


We had a great time there. They were having a real live bull fight in the evening. Brett thought that sounded awesome, but nobody else would go with him. He went all alone, and hated it. He said it was totally different than what he had expected. He was thinking one on one, man vs. beast. But they actually give the bull a tranquilizer first, and there were about 5 people helping the matador. I thought it was gross and I didn't really pay attention to details, so if you are really that curious, you will have to ask him. Gross. Oh well, happy Birthday to him!

Thursday was Mazatlan. Beach Day.



Amazing.

By the time we made it to Cabo San Lucas on Friday, we were BEAT! We were only in Cabo for about 7 hours, so we just went into the city and looked around. We bought some treasures and enjoyed the beautiful city. I am a BIG shopper! Love it, love everything about it, however, I hate shopping in Mexico. I hate bartering, bargaining, and listening to all of the beggers. It drives me crazy. Brett and Quayd love it though!!! So needless to say, they did all of the shopping. I pointed and things I liked and they took care of the rest. I actually forgot my camera on the ship the day we were in Cabo, so the only picture I have is this one I took from my cell phone.

The last day was another sea day and the seas were so rough!! It was a hard day and night! It kind of threw us all over the ship. Crazy. It was windy and awful too. Yuck. Anyway, it was nice to have a day to relax and wind down after a week of non stop GO GO GO!

Here are a few more pictures of some highlights of the trip.








Ok, that is all I am going to add. I don't want to bore you anymore. Plus, its almost time to board our flight!!! YAY! We are finally making progress home!!!!