First and Last

Last night Jared had his first experience of going through the temple.  It was a very nice evening and things were perfect!  It was a happy/sad experience for me.  Very happy for Jared to be taking this big step, sad because he's the youngest and I won't have that experience again.  Sorry there are no pictures, but it was dark when we came out!  I would have loved a picture of Jared all dressed up in a suit!  Since we have not done his mission shopping, he borrowed a suit from Randy, and he looked pretty grown up and dignified!  Thanks for being such a good kid Jared, I love you!

New Office

For quite a while I have been wanting to change our "office" from the little room it was in to a larger bedroom.  I went to a home tour and saw a room people were using for an office, I loved the look of the walls and the feel of the room and decided that if I ever changed my office that's what I wanted it to look like.  I never really thought it would happen though, I'm pretty good at dreaming things up, but pretty lousy at actually making them happen.  I mentioned it to Celia and told her what I wanted to do.  Somehow she got the ball rolling and on Sept. 5th we got the project started.  First of all, we had to move everything out of the room.  We took it all downstairs to Randy's old room and to the back of the family room. The room had been wallpapered so we had to strip all that off.  Brian and Celia, Randy and Courtney, Jared, Blake and I got that all done in an afternoon.  Oh boy, now we are committed and have to finish the project!

Celia and Randy stripping wallper.

Blake's stuck in a corner stripping wallpaper.

Now that the wallpaper is gone, we have to paint.  I wanted to put what is called beadboard up about 6 feet, and paint down about 2 feet.  That is what the office I had seen was like.  I went to look at beadboard, and decided that it was too expensive and way above our skill level to do ourselves.  I had seen some paintable textured wallpaper that looked like beadboard online, so I figured out how much I needed and ordered some.  Blake couldn't believe I was even thinking about wallpaper again!  The wallpaper came just before we left for Florida. When we got back, we had to dive head first into the room.  First, Blake and I  painted the ceiling white, then Blake, Jared and I painted all the trim white, then Blake and I painted a 2 foot area just below the ceiling green/tourquoise.  Now it is time to get started on the wallpaper. Brian and Blake had a couple of days off together so Brian came to help wallpaper.

Brian brought Ralphie to help too.

The wallpaper really was not that hard to do, and really looked nice!  I was loving it!  Later that night Blake and I painted the wallpaper white!  Now I'm really loving it.  We planned to put white trim at the top of the wallpaper and decided to also put some white trim above the green because our paint line was not very straight even though we had taped it.  The trim turned out to be very difficult.  Blake thought he could figure it out, but it was much harder than he thought, but with the help of a couple of experts (Jay and Ryan Miles) he got it figured out and all put up.  Brian and Jared helped too. 

Blake holding up the trim after he figured out how to cut it!

Doesn't it look nice!  I'm thrilled!

Now the room is done!!!  I really like it, it looks very much like the room I'd seen on the home tour!  I couldn't wait to move into it!  Finally yesterday, October 10th, we made the move!

Everything is all moved in!  It looks great!

The pictures don't do justice, but it looks really good!

I am really pleased and love the room!  Thanks Blake for all your hard work!  I know that you hate doing these kinds of projects but you worked really hard on this one!  It's a great birthday present!  Now, I just have to get everything put away and the other room all fixed up.

Mission Call!!!

Our baby boy, Jared received his mission call today!!!!  He is going to serve in the Illinois, Peoria mission. He leaves on January 6th.  I have to say that as his mother I am relieved that he is staying in the United States!  It will be much easier to mail things to him for one thing!  I can't really believe that this is happening, I mean is he really this old? Is he really ready?  He is a very mature, dependable, knowlegable young man, but he is my baby!  I'm really not sure I'm ready for him to be gone, he and I have had a lot of time with just the two of us and I've loved every minute.  Have I taught him everything I should have?  I don't know, but it's a little late to worry about that now!  I'm sure he will be a tremendous hard working, obediant missionary.  I love you Jared and I'm really proud of you!

Poky

Yesterday was a sad day in our family, because our dog Poky died.  He has been a part of our family for 14 years!  We got him from the pound in Pocatello, and he was not a pup, so we are not exactly sure how old he is.  There are a lot of memories involving Poke, he "helped" Brian, Randy and Jared move a lot of pipe, he was our automatic doorbell if anyone drove in, he loved Blake and would get so excited whenever Blake would come home, he loved to go for walks and bike rides with us, he saved our house from getting egged and toilet papered many times.  Those are just a few, there are many more. He was Cindy's substitute collie. Today he has left a big hole in all of our hearts.  Here are some pictures that I quickly pulled off the computer as a tribute to Poke.  We love you Poke!

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September 10, 2009

Florida

On Sept. 19th, Blake and I flew off to Orlando, Florida.  Blake had a CME, and we visited some Disney sights.  We stayed at the Grand Floridian.  The weather was wonderful, Blake loved the humidity, we had a great time.

We watched fireworks from our patio every night.

One morning I saw ducks swimming in the pool.

Monday the 21st was Blake's birthday!  He got a Birthday Sundee at Planet Hollywood.

We went to Epcot Center!

Chelsey, this is for you!  Does it look like we are in Germany?

Now we are in New York City!  This is on Tuesday at Disney Hollywood.

Now Blake is in San Francisco!  We really travelled fast!

When we came back down this street, there was a rainbow right above New York, can you see it?

These were cool parrots in front of the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney on Wednesday.

We ate at T-Rex cafe, in the ice cave, the room kept changing from pink, to blue to signify daylight and night. 

Peaches

Brian and Celia bought two boxes of peaches and wanted to bottle them.  They got ripe when Brian had to work, so they brought the peaches to our house and we helped Celia bottle them. 

Celia got all educated on the process of canning peaches.  It wasn't as easy or fast as she thought it would be, but it was a positive experience, she might even do it again next year.

Jared and Celia pealing peaches and putting them into the bottles.  (Jared looks like a giant standing beside Celia.)

If you look carefully you will see a flashlight to the left of Jared's arm.  We were a little more than halfway done with the peaches when the power went off!

Luckily, we were processing the peaches in the garage on the cache cooker!  We finished up by flashlight. 

Celia's taking some bottles out of the steam canner.  They look so pretty!  She got 28 quarts of peaches!  Good work Celia!

1st day of College

I know I'm slow with this post, but better late than never, right?  On September 10th, Jared started a new phase in his life, he went to college for the first time.  He is attending BYU-Idaho, but decided to live at home and drive to Rexburg every day.

Jared is telling Poky good bye before heading up the road.

Courtney is going to ride to Rexburg with Jared.  Normally, Jared will pick her up in Idaho Falls on his way past.  But, Randy had worked all night, so Courtney just stayed here and she and Jared left together.

Here they are with their back packs, all ready to go. Can you tell Jared is not thrilled about getting his picture taken?

There they go, off to BYU-I Adventureland.

You never know...

Last Thursday seemed to be just another normal day, until about 3:00 pm.  Then I got a frantic phone call from my mom saying that Dad had had a seizure or something, could I come quick.  I remember telling her to call 911, and she said she had.  I tore out the door and yelled at Jared to come with me.  We jumped in the car and got there as fast as we could.  Dad was in the recliner with the back of it pushed back, at first glance he just appeared to be sleeping, but as you looked closer you could tell that he was unconsious, and he was breathing weird.  Mom was on the phone with the dispatcher, she handed the phone to me and the lady asked me if Dad was breathing, I told her that he was kind of snoring weird.  She asked if we could get him flat on the floor, so Mom grabbed one leg and I grabbed the other and Jared got under his shoulders and we moved him to the floor.  Jared was then able to hold his head and keep the airway open.  The paramedics came and couldn't get much response from him, he did mumble a little.  They started an IV and got him on a stretcher and headed for EIRMC in Idaho Falls.  Mom, Jared and I left  immediately for IF, too.  The ambulance got there about 10 - 15 minutes before we did.  By then he was sitting up and talking, whew! 

They did a CT scan, and said that everything looked normal.  About 7:00, they were deciding that he could go home, Mom was with him in the room and I was in the waiting room.  Blake had come and taken Jared to go home.  But I guess Dad wasn't ready to go home, because he had another seizure!  After a while when he was just coming out of the unconsious state, when he quit breathing!  They had to come in bag him for a few minutes.  They got him breathing again and ordered another CT scan, it too came back normal.  By now they are worried big time and send him to the ICU.  They start him on some anti seizure medicine and hook him up to all kinds of moniters.  Mom and I went up to ICU, and they talked us into going and getting some rest.  It was almost 11:00 and we really didn't want to drive home, so we got a room at the Hampton Inn just down the road from the hospital.  Even though we had a nice bed, neither of us slept very much, there were too many "what ifs" and "what now?" going through our minds.

On Friday morning, when we got to the hospital, they said that he had a very quiet night and had slept good.  He could remember part of the ambulance ride and being in the emergency room, but didn't remember the second seizure or much of moving to ICU.  They let him leave ICU after doing an EEG and put him in a room on the 5th floor.  They kept him there for observation until Sunday after lunch.  He hasn't had any more seizure activity and the Drs. are pretty sure that he won't while he's on the medication.  We are hoping and praying that they are right!  He's pretty tired and worn out, but seems to be doing pretty good.  It was a very scary few hours for Mom, and the rest of us.  We love you, Dad!  We're glad you're home and hope you stay out of that dern hospital for a long time!

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.