What's Important?

My dad has not felt very good for quite some time. He was having horrible headaches and was nauseated and sick. On Monday, August 16th he had an MRI, on Tuesday the Dr. called and said that he had bilateral subdural hematomas in his head. Scary!!! He got in to see a Neurosurgeon on Friday and was scheduled for brain surgery on Monday, August 24th. The surgery went well, and he is recovering. Not a fun thing to go through. We're so glad everything has turned out good for him. On Thursday evening, my sister Shauna (she lives in Kennewick, WA) called and said that their family was almost to Pocatello. She didn't want Mom and Dad to know that they were coming, they were going to stay in Idaho Falls that night come to Blackfoot Friday morning. She said that they had decided that it was more important to come and be here for Dad than anything else that was going on in their lives. That kind of got the ball rolling with the rest of my sisters and brother and put things in perspective for all of us. As it turned out we were all here on Monday when he had surgery. I hope he knows how important he is to all of us and that we love him and appreciate him for raising us and loving us and being such a good example, he has definitely made a difference in our lives. We love you Dad! And Mom! It is never easy to see someone you love suffering and sick, I know that it has been really hard for Mom, and I know she loved the support of having all her kids here.

While we were all together, we had to get a picture. So we went outside of the hospital to take some snapshots. L-R, Lynne (came from Woodruff, UT and missed her 4 oldest kids 1st day of school), Tricia (drove from Georgia with her husband and 2 month old baby), me (I didn't have to come very far!), Randy (came from SLC and skipped work), Suzanne (flew in from South Carolina and left her husband to care for her 4 kids), Shauna (her family drove from Kennewick, WA).One of the kids watching us take pictures said "Pull a funny face", it was a very natural reaction for some of us girls to reach up and pull Randy's face! Yeah, he's picked on with 5 sisters! But he loves every minute of it!

4 Purcell kids

I like pictures of my 4 kids together. I always made them take group pictures when they were little, they didn't like it much then and they don't really like it now, but they were good sports and posed for some pictures.

This was their first silly pose.

Now, Jared and Randy are being normal, but Brian and Cindy thought they had to look tough. At least they were smiling.

Finally, we got a good one! Jared likes lining up tallest to shortest, which happens to be youngest to oldest also. Pretty nice looking kids! I'm really proud of all them! Love you guys.

Open House for Randy and Courtney

Last Saturday, August 22nd, we had an Open House in our front yard to celebrate Randy and Courtney's marriage. The weather turned out perfect!! I was so worried and had a back up plan if we had to move it inside, but was so glad to have it outside! Thanks to all those that helped make cookies and decorations! And thanks to all that came, we really appreciate it!

Randy and Courtney sitting on their stools, waiting for people to come!

Celia is showing off her cute belly, and Cindy is showing that she was in Idaho! It was so fun to have her come home for the Open House! We missed Ken and Sydney.

We used the 65 to hold the presents. My mom, Beth Chambers is leaning on it and Brian is sitting inside.

Michael Packer and Ashely Anderson sat at the book.

Randy had a surprise visit from "Elder" Curtis Vickery. They were companions 3 different times. It was fun to finally meet the "cinnamon" elder.

Wedding Day!!

Yesterday, August 15th, Randy and Courtney were married in the Draper Temple. We went down to Utah on Friday night and stayed in a Residence Inn in Sandy.

This is Randy eating his breakfast in the hotel room. He and Blake had to be at the temple at 7:00, the rest of us came a little later, the sealing ceremony took place at 8:00 am. It was really nice.

Here they are, all married!

Pretty big smiles!

Jared, Michael Packer and Brian outside the Draper Temple.

Everything was going smoothly with the pictures at the temple, then the wind started blowing and there was thunder and lightning and then it was a downpour! It also hailed for a minute. They took cover, but not before Randy was soaked clear through his suit coat! Oh well, it made a memory! At 11:30, we went to Golden Corral for a Wedding Lunch, there were 55 people there, it was a good place to have a lunch. Then there was a little bit of time to kill until the reception in Orem.

Grandpa and Jared taking a nap on the couch in foyer of the church.

Brian could only find the floor to nap on.

Blake, Diana, Randy, Courtney, Jared and Brian. These are the only Purcell's at the reception. We were missing Cindy and her family (they were home in Michigan), and Celia went home to Pennsylvania because her brother came home from his mission.

Cutting the cake!

It was a very nice wedding day! Minus the rain at the temple, everything else was really nice! After their honeymoon to Las Vegas, they will come to live in Idaho Falls. Courtney is going to BYU-I, and Randy to EITC. Real life is beginning!

Last Minute Vacation to Island Park

On Monday last week, Randy and Jared figured out that none of us had to work after Wednesday morning and thought we could get one last vacation in before Randy's wedding. So Blake made a phone call to his cousin Grant, and made arrangements to stay at his cabin in Island Park. Thanks, Grant! We had a great time! We left here about 2:00 Wednesday afternoon and got home about 6:30 Friday night. It was a fast, short vacation, but it was fun.

We loaded up the four wheelers, a little food and clothes and were on our way.

Wednesday night after dinner, we went for a ride, it was a very nice evening for riding. We rode up to Meadow Creek Lodge and decided we would go back there on Thursday to eat lunch or dinner. (It's the same place that we like to snowmachine in and eat.)

Randy wanted to rent some Jet Skis and go the Resevoir on Thursday. He had some reserved for 1:00, but the guy called around 10:00 and asked if we wanted to come and get them early, so we did and took them down to the lake.

Randy and Jared really don't know what they are doing, but they plan to have fun figuring it out.

Blake decided that he wanted to be taken out to a boat dock in the middle of the lake and do some fishing.

Jared, having tons of fun.

I found a shady spot on the shore and read my book!

After a couple of hours of riding around and fishing, the guys decided they were hungry, and they wanted to go back to the cabin to eat but we didn't know what to do with the jet skis. Blake had a brilliant idea, we could just leave the machines with the Ulrich family, who just happened to be at the lake too. We went and talked to them, and they were more than happy to use the machines while were gone. So, we went back to the cabin and changed and got on the four wheelers and rode up to Meadow Creek Lodge. While we were riding, the sky started looking more and more black with storm clouds. We hurried and ate our hamburgers and headed back to cabin. It sprinkled on us most of the way, and started to really rain about the time we got to the cabin. Randy and Jared hurried and changed back into their swim suits and we headed back to the lake, it was really raining hard and the temperature had dropped to 54 degrees. When we got back to the lake, 3 of the Ulrich family were waiting for us. The machines were tied to the dock, just waiting to be loaded up. Luckily, they had been able to ride them most of the time we were gone.

We waited in the pickup for a few minutes, hoping the storm would pass.

We could see a clearing, and thought the storm would blow over, which it did in about 20 minutes.

So, here they go again! This time, they had the lake all to themselves.

Blake is fishing from the dock, can you see Randy in the background?

Randy, taking a breather for a minute.

Now, for a continuation of redneckness -- see Cindy's blog --- Jared wanted to try water skiing behing a jet ski, he had dreamed this up before we left home and had even borrowed some skis. Well, what he didn't think to borrow was a tow rope. So, they decided to fashion one themselves. Blake found a stick, or branch and some rope he had in the pickup, it wasn't very big rope, but they decided to try it. Well, they got it all tied to the jet ski and to the stick, he got the skis on and started going, the rope broke immediately. But, they didn't give up, they doubled the rope up and tried again. That made it too short and he couldn't stay up.

Randy just picked Jared up out of the water after his second attempt at skiing.

They still could not give up, so Blake went and got the real tow rope out of the pickup, you know, the one you use in the winter to pull someone out of the snow. They tied it on with the other little rope and tried again. This time it worked and he was able to stay up while they went around several times.

There he is - skiing behind a jet ski with a hand made tow rope and bar!

Remember. the temperature was only 54 degrees, and Jared was freezing when he got back to the dock. Randy decided that it was too cold and he didn't want to get in the water and try skiing. (I think he was afraid he wouldn't be able to get up and didn't want to be showed up by his younger brother.)

One more redneck moment, Blake wanted to ride one more time on the Jet Ski, but was not in his swimming suit, so he took his shoes and socks off and jumped on in his jeans and jacket. He's lucky he didn't tip over!

On Friday morning, we got up and packed up ready to head home. We decided we would drive home through Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It turned out to be the real long way home!

Before leaving Island Park, we went to feed the fish at Big Springs. The fish must not have been awake yet, because they didn't want to eat anything.

Since the fish weren't eating, Blake decided to feed the seagulls. They appreciated the bread!

We were very dissapointed that we only saw 1 eagle, 1 elk and this herd of buffalo. Not a very good animal sighting trip.

As we drove home we saw the Grand Tetons, what a magnificent sight!

Viva Las Vegas...and Arizona and Southern Utah

Last Monday morning, we left really early to take Randy and Jared to the SLC airport. They went to see Cindy, Ken & Syd in Michigan (check out Cindy's blog). After dumping them off, Blake and I headed south to Las Vegas. The further south we went, the hotter it got! By the time we got to Vegas it was 116! That's really hot! We stayed at a WorldMark resort, about 4 miles south of The Strip.

On Tuesday, we decided to go the Las Vegas Temple, well we went there allright, but didn't go inside! It was closed for cleaning!
So we wandered around the temple grounds in the 112 degree heat!

Blake loved all the palm trees!

Then we went to visit Blake's Uncle Richard and Aunt Joann. We bought the 65 Ford from Richard exactly 4 years to the date!

They were really happy to have us visit, and we enjoyed our time there. Blake loved their palm trees, too.

The resort had 3 pools, this is one we could see out our balcony. One of the pools was a lazy river. It felt so good to get in the nice cool water when it was so hot!

On Wednesday, we went down to The Strip on the resort shuttle. Then we bought bus tickets and rode up and down the strip to see some of the sights. We went to Mandalay Bay first and went to the Shark Reef. It was pretty cool, but crowded with some school kids that were pretty noisy.

Blake touched the stingray. There aren't as many as the Grand Rapids zoo.

There were some huge Starfish, and some sharks and many other fish.

Of course we ran into Andre Agasi! (Too bad, he was wax)

Two Lady Di's? (I didn't realize she was that tall.)

Thursday morning, we left at about 8:00, it had cooled off! To 90! We drove to the Hoover Dam, then the Grand Canyon, and then up to Utah past Lake Powell, then through the southern tip of Zion's National Park. We saw some very interesting creations!

Hoover Dam

Grand Canyon

Cool Rocky Mountains from the car window, somewhere in Northern Arizona.

The short tunnel in Zion's. There was another really long one, we were amazed that it was cut right out of the stone mountain.

We had a very nice little hot trip. We stopped in Cedar City for the night, then got up in time to get to SLC to pick up the boys. We put over 1700 miles on my car, and saw many wonderful sights, and didn't even get sunburned or roasted!