Olivia vs. The Monkey Bars

The weather has started to cool off here, at least in the mornings, and so we thought we'd take advantage of sunny and 80s and meet some friends at the park. We hadn't been there 5 minutes when Olivia came to me crying (followed by several adults, which made me nervous) and saying her arm hurt. As soon as I looked at her arm, I knew we were headed to the hospital. There was a "dip" in her forearm, above the wrist, and it just didn't look right. The adults who'd seen it said she lost her grip on the monkey bars and fell, and they heard a popping noise. Poor girl.

So I left Tucker and Rylie at the park with Amber and Shauna (and all of their kids too, of course) and headed to the hospital. Unfortunately, we were leaving the park downtown in the middle of gameday traffic. I pulled to the side of the road when I saw a police officer directing traffic and he rigged the stoplight for us and we headed to the hospital. Luckily, Bro. Dunford was working in the ER today, so we got in to see a familiar face. Both he and the nurses were all impressed with how brave and cheerful Olivia was for enduring a broken arm. She got a temporary cast and we'll head back to the doctor some time on Monday to get a permanent one. Do they make waterproof casts these days? I surely hope so. The plastic bag on her arm during the bath tonight was cumbersome...

She really did great, all things considered, and by this evening she was playing with the kids outside - a little quieter and more careful, but playing all the same. And now she's sleeping her first night with a ginormous left arm.

What a day. Of course, I told myself. Of course we have a broken limb to add to a house that won't sell and a dad that lives far away...

But then I got phone calls from both women taking care of my children, then phone calls from each of my visiting teachers, then dinner and happy conversation with a dear friend...Of course. Of course, I reminded myself, my wonderful ward and good friends will always be here to help me, and my Heavenly Father will never forget about me.

Rylie's Birthday

We had a great time at Grandma and Grandpa's house! We went to Aiken's Makin' and the kids got balloons and cotton candy (which they decided wasn't nearly as delicious as they had dreamed it would be.) Then we went miniature golfing. Rylie couldn't be persuaded to place the ball anywhere but a few inches from the hole each time, so we got to see a fabulous hole-in-one-victory dance at every hole. :) Tate was proud to have his own ball and club, and Tucker was proud to be golfing with Grandpa and Uncle Q. Olivia remained surprisingly calm through the frustrations of mini golf, and eventually decided it was more fun to experiment with rolling the ball, rather than focus on "the rules." Good job, Livvy.

Then there was a super fun trip to Burger King and opening presents back at the house. We tried to take video of the present-opening, but it was too dark in the house and the camera was doing some strange things, so we didn't get video of that.

But we took some videos of other parts of the day, hope you enjoy them honey!

This one's for dad...

A tale of 2 Sundays!

You want to talk about contrasting Sundays for me (this is Dan by the way), let's look at Feb. 14 and Feb. 21, 2010.

Feb. 14: Returned from the worst trip I've had since coming to UGA. Got home around 2pm and still had not received my luggage the whole weekend. It had snowed several inches the day before and was still cold with quite a bit of snow on the ground. Tucker thought it would be fun to have a snowball fight and how could I pass that up. It was so fun to throw real snowballs and just play. Shell and I shared Valentine's, she made a sweet card and I had mailed mine on the day I left being sure it would surprise her and get there before Valentine's Day but the weather did me in and it didn't arrive in time. My bag finally arrived at 9:15pm and it was nice to finally have all belongings back. It was a fitting end to a long week! The week ahead would require buying a new car and playing catchup at work.

Feb. 21: What a difference a week makes! We bought a new car and then the weather decided to turn good. It was 70 degrees outside today and blue skies. We grilled out with Shell's parents who were visiting and played outside most of the afternoon. Shell's brother Cam and his wife Kym are on hiatus from the Peace Corps in Ghana for the wedding of Kym's sister and they have come to visit for a couple of days. It's amazing what a little sunshine and warm weather can do for you!

We're doing well and are looking forward to the coming Spring! Check out our picasweb link for pics.

Well here we are at he end of January and once again we haven't been on here to post anything new. It's me, Dan, back again for another round of updates at the end of the month. Here goes:

School started back up for the kids on January 5th and at UGA on January 7th. After an enjoyable couple of weeks off it was nice to get everyone back into some semblance of a normal routine. The kids are enjoying school and learning a lot of new things each day. Shell has picked up another evening class on Mondays and Wednesdays which has caused us to have to be much more on the ball. It seems like Monday-Wednesday just flies by because we are so busy but we're managing.

With the new year brings the onset of indoor track. We had our first meet in mid January at Lexington, KY and followed that up the following week in Blacksburg, VA. The team is performing well and so far we've kept injuries to a minimum. This period from January to June is very busy with travel to meets as well as hosting some in April and May. It puts a lot of strain on the family at times but we do our best to spend as much time together as possible and enjoy those times.

Tucker is playing basketball at a local church league and is really enjoying it. We were driving home from practice the other night and he says "I really like playing basketball games Dad. They're really fun." He's a great defender but needs to work on his rebounding, passing, and shooting skills. It's fun to watch him enjoy the great game of basketball.

Olivia is doing gymnastics every Tuesday. She loves to tumble and just be active. Rylie isn't quite old enough to join the classes yet, which she doesn't like, but she'll be there soon enough. They both love to dance around and be crazy.

Shell is adjusting to a more demanding teaching load along with her Young Women's responsibilities every Tuesday night. She says that neither of her classes have really clicked yet which makes it hard to have really good discussions. We're hoping that changes soon. We celebrated Shell's birthday on January 24th, we had a nice day.

We had to say goodbye to our green 2001 Honda Odyssey after Shell got into an accident on the 21st. The car treated us well and we will miss it. Our insurance company has been great throughout this process and now we just need to find a replacement for the van. Not exactly what we were planning on doing but not much we can do about it now. Just one of those fun curveballs that life throws at you sometimes.

We just spent the weekend in Greenville, SC at Shell's sister's house to celebrate the 1st birthday of our niece Campbell. It was in the midst of a snow/ice storm on Friday night which made it cold and slippery. The kids enjoyed playing with the "snow" and icicles. It's nice to be close to Shell's siblings and parents and spend times like these with them. It reminds me of just how important family is. It's so fun to watch our kids play with their cousin and their aunt & uncles and Grandma & Grandpa.

Well if I forgot anything I hope Shell will get on and fill in what I've missed. Check our picasaweb link for a lot more in the way of pictures. I've put a few here and some video clips, I hope you enjoy.

Happy New Year!

It's been awhile since our last update, sorry about that. You're stuck with me, Dan, this time around so it may not be quite as eloquent as Shell writes.

We spent Thanksgiving at The Tuckfields in Aiken, SC. We had a very nice weekend and it was good to get out of Athens for a few days. I love Thanksgiving...great food, good company, and plenty of football. After Thanksgiving Shell finished teaching out the rest of her semester and I finished practices until our semester ended. Tucker and Olivia had school up thru Dec. 18th so we stuck around town for a bit. Shell and I celebrated our 10th Anniversary on Dec. 18th by going to one of our favorite local restaurants, Brett's, and then went out Christmas shopping. A special thanks to Shell's visiting teachers who took care of our kids that night.

We made it to Aiken, SC on the 21st for the Christmas Break. The kids were very excited to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house. We played at the park and outside the first couple of days along with enjoying some good football games, Go Cougars!, at night. The kids were very excited to see what Santa would bring. Olivia wanted a dalmatian Rescue Swim to Me Puppy, Rylie wanted a soap and suds Dora the Explorer, and Tucker wanted a lego bionicle. We put several presents under the tree on the 24th and they were so fun to watch as they explored, picked up and shook, and tried to guess what was there.

Christmas morning came and Tucker was up by 7am but the girls kept sleeping. All the adults made it up before they did. We finally got rolling opening gifts around 8am and the kiddos were so excited as we handed out everyone's gifts. We then started opening and they were all so happy with what their family and Santa got them. Santa brought Olivia her puppy toy, Rylie her Dora, and Tucker his bionicle. Tate was rather oblivious.




Santa did have one surprise gift for the whole family...a Nintendo Wii. Tucker just about lost it, he even commented "I almost passed out!" and "What if this is all a dream?" and kept saying he couldn't believe Santa brought us a Wii. He is so expressive when he's excited...it's hilarious. So the kids were so happy and Mom and Dad were very relieved and excited for the kids. It was a lot of fun.



Of course things weren't all hunky dory...I came down with Pneumonia and was pretty much worthless from late on Christmas day through the following Tuesday. It's a first for me and not very pleasant but I am doing much better thanks to antibiotics and cough syrup.

Shell's brother returned from his LDS mission to Las Vegas on Dec. 29th and it was such a great experience to see him come home. He had a great 2 years and looks ready to tackle the world. He won't be home long before heading to BYU-Idaho this next week.


We are heading home tomorrow and back to the grind. My busy time of year with track & field is here and Shell is going to be teaching 2 night classes this semester. It's going to be a challenge but we know we can do it. Any extra prayers sent our way would be appreciated. Here's hoping you all have a Happy New Year and we wish you all the best. We hope to be able to see some family and friends we haven't seen in awhile this year...we'll keep our fingers crossed.
* for more pics check out our picasaweb link