HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRADY CARLSEN!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TASHA NOEL Carlsen HORSLEY

Well, here I am again, a day late on posting the Birthday Blog!  Always a reason you know - not because I forget the birthday day but, something weird always seems to interrupt my thought process on the day of!  Yesterday, August 18th, for example, I decided to sift the dirt out of an area in our yard that is filled with rocks that act as a drain area for all the water that washes off our concrete pad back by the garden.  It gets so clogged with the dirt that after awhile nothing will drain!  So, I muster up all this enthusiasm for the project - and diligently work at it for 3 hours!  I produced 3 sifted wheelbarrows of dirt and a pile of rocks and a pile of roots and weeds.  The rocks and dirt and weeds were so compacted together that I actually had to chop away at the ground with a pick to loosen things up well enough for me to even get a shovel in.  As if that misery wasn't bad enough, after I was done I noticed I had a bunch of "marks" on my arm - and a few looked like there were (slivers??) in them, but - oh well, I moved on and ignored it.  By about 7:30 at night I noticed how red and puffy they were, so I started looking all around my arm and noticed a deep red/nearly black spot about the size of a 50 cent piece on my elbow - so dad and I drove over to Brady's to see what his "take" on it all was.  Brilliant as we all are, we concluded I had spider bite(s) - possibly from the deadly HOBO spider - so off dad and I dashed to the ER!  Whoopee!  That's always a fun event!  As it turned out the DR.said, nope, not a HOBO - go home.  But, I was still nervous about the looks of all these little pussy, swollen, red marks from my fingers to my elbow, so I decided to clean every (bite) - I have no less than 15 BITES BY THE WAY - with hydrogen peroxide.  It took me until 2:30 in the morning!  You could actually see the fang spots in all my bites - especially the one on one of my fingers.  I think the beast got into my glove somehow and decided to bite me all the way out! YES, I DID FEEL SOMETHING - but being the persistent nut that I am, I just said OUCH and continued on.................................................(sweating like a pig)!

I've deduced from this experience that hand sifting dirt out of rock piles using a framed screen over a wheelbarrow is going to be what you get to do for eternity if you go to (you know where)!

So long story short, sorry Tasha. I will glady fold your clothes for a year (you'll have to move to Spokane though!) Dad and I love you and wish you many more Happy Birthdays!

Note to Family

Hey family! I'm so sorry I didn't start out including a picture of everyone's whole married family at the end of their birthday blog.  This has been a building, learning process for me! Please click on Older Posts to see Trista's Birthday Blog.  Obviously I missed getting her blog done on her birthday which was yesterday, but she's forgiven me and I don't owe her a year of folding her clothes! So far, so good . . . whew!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRISTA!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TALIA!

Yes, I know I'm a day late on posting Talia's Birthday Blog! Talia THINKS this qualifies her for me folding her laundry for a year. Ha! No Way! 

It's been really fun looking at all your pictures Talia! It's so fun to have you for a friend and see you as a mom and watching your creative go where ever it needs to! You're very resourceful and talented. 

Wow! A few memories in these pics!  Not to detract from this Birthday Blog for Talia - but who's REAR is that in the purple pants and weird shirt! 

I hope these picture collages speak for themselves!

Happy Birthday Jeffrey David Carlsen!

Here's Jeff's hospital ID tag - matches mine! Guess that make's him official.  Born December 11, 1977 (that must make you 32-yep!). Sorry this post is a couple days late - my Internet was broken - dad discovered an unplugged connection today.

This is your great-grandmother - Grandma Lee.  She made a trip to see every baby I had.  She was so much fun to chat with and had a ton of patience.  Grandma was always a help - folded clothes especially - and was always "game" for a candy bar or a pop or whatever. She insisted on sleeping on the floor - on a white furry area rug we had - maybe you remember.  I felt so bad giving the "floor" to grandma then - but now, some of you may know that I'm a "floor sleeper" - last night in fact when I couldn't get to sleep until 4:00 am I finally quit working on the computer and went to the living room and slept on the floor - barely made it to church on time as I didn't wake up until nearly 8:00. 

I love this little "gernel" (Journal) entry.  Check out the detail work on the colors of the writing! You were destined to be a CPA with all this intense detail!

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We've always thought that Jeff "WALKED ON WATER" and here's proof! This was taken at "Mrs. Timmons" swimming pool in Sandy, UT during July of 1986. Very cool kid! Lately Jeff has been trying to fly over water - Diamond Lake 2009.

I discovered that I don't have many pictures of Jeff as an adult. How sad! I think when we get together as a group there's so much chaos that the pictures get taken by others besides dad and I, so I had to steal this pic off of Jeff and Julies blog. Julie claims that Jeff is an amazing dad - and I'm a believer! He's always been accomplished and interested in learning.  During his Senior year at Mead High School
he was chosen to perform in Tacoma at an All State performance.  He played bari sax.  This Thanksgiving Jeff's sax playing,  along with Sean on electric guitar and dad on base guitar- "jamming" - was the background for some crazy dancing and plenty of fun!