Cole

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

*****It's now Audust 18, I just finally actually got to see this video. It basically took all I had not to cry. Hannah and Chris, you are amazing people and even more amazing parents. I hope little Cole gets better soon.*******

Visit Cole's Cause

Just a little wet

We got around 4 inches of rain between 11pm and 6 am last night. Everything that was dry is now under water. We were worried about our 'well' (aka stream and collection tanks) were all but depleted.....not so much now. Our water collecting pipe which usually rests an inch above the water line is now 6 inches under it and filled our collection tanks with muck that had been dried up all week. I had to run out in this gick to unhook the whole set up so we don't fill out brand new water heater (which we finally hooked up last night) doesn't get filled with dirt-y water. Joy! Like always these days, I have no control of photo locations so i'll do my best to tell you what's what. The pic of dry stream: the rocks at the bottom right of the pic is what you're looking at in the wet, filled stream pic. The 2 pics with the lotsa rocks, that's the end of my driveway....flowingg and filling fast where it should be and also were it shouldn't, one of the pics shows water running down our future lawn (no grass there yet). The one with the brown water and brush pile behind it is at the beginning of precourt lane, the water is pouring off ron and sue future homes lawn after coming through their rock wall and taking some of their baby grass with it which is the other pic. Wet wet wet. Oh my goodness! Poor jeremy is hanging off a train in this garbage right now. He ought to be a real 'happy' bear when he gets home. 

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Bad moon rising

Ugh! The kids and I went back to north walpole thursday. Jeremy had to work friday....or at least was supposed to until the job was cancelled thursday night after we were already home.... When we got there I unloaded all the dirty clothes we had accumulated since our last trip home and started the wash and then went to my in-laws to have some awesome as always dinner. I was there about 5 minutes and was pestered to run over to clyde and diane's house by ashtyn who wanted to see the kids. So we run across the street to say hi and give clyde his shrine on hoodie I still hadn't given him and heath tells me his mom is interested in my house. So he picks her up and I show her my house (my 3rd showing in 9 months :(  ) and then I go back to have my dinner and then back home to do more laundry and finally sleep. Friday I wake up at 6am for no good reason and start painting. I got the stairway, hallway ceiling, entry ceiling and basement stairway painted by about 10 and sue shows up with ashtyn. After a few hems and haws I decide whatever I have a ton of stuff done i'll go to keene with them. So we go to jcpenny's and sue buys the store out. She bought us all bathing suits, shorts, shirt, etc, whatever we need for our trip to punta cana in april. I wish I could still just go shopping :( , but I currently can't, so thank goodness ron and sue can and are willing to spoil all of us :) (thank you ). It was crazy shopping for clothing. Sue usually kidnaps me around my birthday and 'makes' me pick out a pair of jeans and a shirt or whatever and other than that I really don't buy clothing. I'm a packrat and if it fits, I wear it, I don't really care if it's out of style. I don't like style. I am a jeans and wife beater girl....and if it's cold out, a hoodie or my chunky hippie wool sweater will do. So anyway, back to shopping.... I have no idea what size I am. I've noticed that the more you spend on a pair of pants, the smaller your size becomes. A $14 pair at tjmaxx says i'm a size 7-9, my $38 carhartt's say i'm a size 6, my sister's $100 jeans say 0.... You get the picture. And if the dollar sign size thing wasn't enough, they've got womens, juniors, petites, full size, etc. I'm not a petite but a 34 inch inseem isn't the average girl world! I do not wish to have to cut 4 inches off every pair of my pants thank you. After attempting to figure out my size and finally picking out 3 pairs of shorts that almost don't show off my crud (which is another thing to the fashion world : if I wanted people to see my crud I wouldn't be wearing shorts, please stop making only daisey dukes and capris, there is a happy medium) and then it's bathing suit time. We go to where they are and find out that the are 6 bottoms left and 4 tops. 1 small bottom, which is too small and the rest are xxl, and the tops are all xxl. So I go back to the kids section where they had bathings suits from 2t to 18 which I thought odd but I go and realize that they are in fact kid sizes....although I don't know why we need a kids size 18 or anything above a 10 or 12 really..... I apparently and not only a 6,7,9, I am also a kids size 16-18. Can't we have one size latter. Which reminds me, sue picked up another bathing suit for me later in the day, it was european sized! It was a size 22....lol....i got it as far as my knees..... It was ashtyn's size. At least we got through it, had some laughs and are now almost totally ready. All we need to do is get sandals, sun block and some odds and ends for jeremy. And line up a dog sitter. So after the shopping fun, which did actually go well, sue took the girls and I to olive garden for lunch.....i might need to go switch those 5s and 6s for some 9s and 10s! I ate so much. I wished I had my 'thanksgiving pants' on. It was sooooo good. After lunch we headed back to the homesteads so sue could stash out vaca clothing so it wasn't touched until vaca. And I ran home to finish my painting project. I painted the porch floor and door just as jeremy arrived. He ran and did some random odds and ends around the house and then we went back to ron and sue's for dinner, drinks and socializing. Saturday came and it was off to crecent lake for my dad and linda's wedding. It was short, sweet and cute. We finally saw their cottage, which is adorable. Jeremy and I were forced to dance (there were only like 25 guests so each couple was 'demanded' to the deck for at least their dance) so after our forced dance we bugged the dj and made his playlist for him and actually continued to dance a bit. Around 7 we headed back to our house to get some food and watch the best fireworks in new england.... Rockingham old homes days.....from our backyard, but then decided to watch them with our friends and family from ron and sue's yard. It was nice. Jolene, dan, ashley, morgan, julie and ryan headed over with us. To our slight surprise there were a ton more people there than usual so we had lots and lots of kids there. A guy from the fire station, I think his name was tim, came over with a huge box full of bags of popcorn to give to the 20 or so kids, which was nice, and we all enjoyed the display. The monette crew took off after the show to get some much needed sleep before their 3 1/2 hr ride home in the morning and ryan went to our house to do the same. We stayed for one beer to say hey to everyone since we don't see them anymore. Just long enough for some 'hi' s and to see cathy's dog's 1 day old puppies and we were treated to some fried alligator (thanks greg) and then we headed up to our house too. In the morning julie and ryan treated us to some dunkin donuts before they headed on their 2 1/2 hr ride home and we frantically ran around picking up, finishing up, closing up, locking up and loading up before our 2 1/2 hr ride.....which ended up being more like a 5 hr process. We then ran over to ron and sue's to say our thanks and byes to them and the gallion crew and then ran to travis's house in c-town to get the washing machine to bring up here. After an hour there then head to home depot to get a new lp water heater since the one at camp blew up (not really, but it did die) last week.... 6-700$ later, we finally got on our way to the nek. We arrived around 5:30 and immediately started working on the heater issue. We set up and jeremy started digging post holes and we got the logs in place, filled the holes in and started the painstaking process of removing the piping and old heater. A few curse words and burns later and a lot of banging, we got it out. We opened the box to the new one and brought it into the shower building. Much to our shock and disappointment, it's taller than the old one and it runs on 3/4 pipe, not the 1/2 inch pipe we have existing and we're livid with the idiot at home depot for his 'help'... So it was another night of cold showers last night. Today I have to go out and get the fitting we need and 2x4's and hopefully we can get it done tonight. Oh the joys. 

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

This pic didn't make it to my last post for some reason. 

Also, I heard last night how my grizzly did in the maple orchard.....did ya notice what was pulling the Rzr out of the mud (last post)..... Go grizzly!

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Red-nek run pics

The new project

As if my splitting and stacking 6 cords of wood wasn't enough fun for me..... I'm now mastering the backhoe in my current project: un-rocking the lawn, putting the rocks in the stream where the driveway is being eroded and filling in the massive holes while making them look as undisturbed as humanly possible. I have no control over where the pics are going to be placed on my blog but the two of the stream are self explanitory, the two of grassy areas are where I just dug up two monster rocks and aside from a little soil, they don't look like they've been touched. Mad skillz!

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Red-nek run 2010

Ron and Sue came up for the weekend and brought a bunch of Ron's work buddies up for the 'red-nek run' which is basically a bunch of us going out on the atvs and having a cook-out, camp out and all around good time. Last year I think 3 guys came and one of their wives.....they showed up on 'hangover night' and so no one was very lively.....they had fun but not as much as it should have and could have been. This year 5 guys came up. Bruce, Ernie, Jeff, Jim and Kevin. They were probably the best crew that I could have imagined. Especially Bruce, he was totally awesome with my kids. He rode 'bitch' (for lack of a better word) on Ashtyn's 4wheeler and he even let her 'drive' his Rzr into the driveway after he gave her her own personal ride. He dealt with and played Taylor's I want up and then I want down game. And he put up with me picking on his very shiny, super purple sleeping bag all day :) and his flower power inflatable matress hahaha. It's all out of love :). Stevie ended up whimping out and bailing on his trail guide duties so Ron took over and made sure the guys still went out and had fun. Us girlies went out for a little run too this year in the morning. Ashtyn went with grandpa (Ron) and Taylor rode with me. Ashtyn's become a little pro about riding but Taylor's still very green. I felt a little, or a lot, out numbered...out of the 8 atvs, I was the only one without a polaris...riding my trusty grizzly. It made it through everything and surprisingly in 2wd the whole time which is more than I can say for a few of the sportmans (haha!). I don't know how well she did in the maple orchard since I skipped that run but i'm sure she got the stuffing beat out of her with Jeremy behind the bars :) We had some awesome and delicious as always marinaded steak tips from Lisai's and Harlow's corn which is so sweet you don't need to drown it with butter for dinner and, can't forget, Sue's stuffed mushrooms....mmmmmm.....for our noontime snack. It was a nice time. We found out the Rzr could make it through some stuff we never imagined possible and that it too would not make it through the maple orchard. It went through a lot though, so much that Jeremy, Ron and Sue all now want one :) or should I say 'two'. I know at my house that's not happening for a long while but I imagine there'll be one here in place of the 500 sportsman soon. I also kind of expect that the annual red-nek run is going to happen 2 or 3 times a year....once just isn't enough.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Omg!

Going to punta cana, with my in-laws, hubby, kids, bro-in-law and god only knows who else.....in april! Happy b-day to me and ashtyn (and no x-mas) :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Just a random update

We had a pretty fun weekend. Justin and crystal came up to visit. Crystal wanted to be one with nature and justin wanted her to not come back unless she was covered in mud. So we went out on jeremy's sport quad and I got her covered in mud, only to find out that he ment really covered.....to the point where you can't tell where the mud stops and the person begins....so we went out again, this time hitting the muck harder and faster, completely and udderly covering us and then the atv kicked out sideways and was stuck in the huge ruts, sideways. So crystal got her one-with-nature time as we tried to find our way out of the woods, in the dark. A few bumps and bruises from ditches and holes we couldn't see and scratches from evil tree branches that were equally invisible, laughing all the way as we sang songs as loud and as out of tune as we could. I blew her mind with my new kids on the block songs from childhood and we recited lines from the goonies. Good times! 
Bryan's up here working in newport with jeremy....hopefully they actually work :) just picking. Jeremy doesn't tend to allow putzing on the job. We're supposedly finishing up the wood work inside the camp on thursday and friday and getting ready for his dad and dad's friends annual adventure 'red nek run at camp crookit' this weekend. Sue's claiming she's not coming so the girls and I are apparently going to have to entertain the troops. 
I found out today that not only is ashtyn on the green mountain flyer's flier and website but she's also on their tv commercial. That's cool. She was pretty excited. I think taylor's going to be in the sammy's friends calender again too. I need to get some pics picked out and submit them, and quickly though. Taylor's been doing pretty well with her new hand. She wasn't very happy about it on saturday which i'm pretty sure was just because of the heat... She didn't want to wear the harness so I put the old hand on it and took the harness system off. The next day she was back to the harness and wanting to wear it. It's a total balancing act right now with her and her use of her new hand. She did the same thing last time too. She didn't really like the zigzag one, she wanted her antiquie dots one. I thought since she only got a new hand instead of the entire arm she'd be less weirded out about the switch but, I think the new cable and harness are still just weird to her. It's only been 5 days since she got it too, so it's still new all around. I know she'll have it figured out and mastered in no time. 

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Video link since it didn't work the other way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeQ5LZmVI7I - Jul 16, 2010 2:51 PM

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

24 hours later

Ignore me and my baby talk please :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Shrine on Springfield 2010

Where does the time go? I can't believe it's been a month since the walk. My internet access has been lacking to say the least. I'm actually using my phone to get this out and so I appogize in advance for misspelling(s) and that the end of this email is primarily lower case, I mean no disrespect it's just very challenging to get this phone to switch to and from caps and I have already taken way too long to get this out to all of you.

A quick little update on Taylor: her arm was activated on 7/14. We went to SHC to have her annual check up and left with a new hand on her arm which she can open and close on her own. It's a harness system, not hooked up to nerves like I keep being asked :) . She loves it and I know she'll have it mastered within weeks. Also on our visit there, we brought down our can tabs we've collected since our march visit.... 90 gallons (220 pounds/625,000) of tabs!!!!! Thank you to everyone who has and/or is helping to make tabs for taylor such a huge success. 

First I would like to thank: the town of Springfield for allowing us to use the Toonerville Trail, PCM Image-tek for allowing us to use their lot, Roland and Sue Irish at Sunrise Graphics for donating our euro stickers and silk screening, Ray St. Sauveur at Unique Signs for donating the shirts and hoodies, Ron and Sue Precourt for the burgers, dogs and post-walk party location ( I think I can say for everyone we were pretty excited to see the pool ), Clyde, Diane and Opal Gallion for the rolls, buns, salads and other food goodies, Candy and Dave Desrochers, Julie St. Sauveur and Rachel Harrell for drinks, chips and other snacks and last but not least the Discount Food Warehouse for donating water, napkins and plates.

Thank you to everyone who showed their support by walking with us: Travis and Zane Putnam, Chrintine Brehio, Clyde, Diane, Justin and Crystal Gallion (and special thanks C&D for cancelling your trip so you could walk with us),  Jessi, Charlie and Maebel Dussault, Kristi Morris (thank you so much for all you do to help children, it really means the world to me that you could join us), Dennis Chabot, Isaac, Alexis, Ray and Elizabeth, Tonya McAllister, Val Schroeder, Deb Burns, Alethia Ficher and Bryan Butler. The following people drove 100+ miles to walk with us and deserve extra thanks: Cindy and Bill Gravel, Candy and David Desrochers, Sarajane Peck, David Okolita, Suzie Roberts, Landon, David Burbank, Julie St. Sauveur and Rachel Herrel.

We raised $1879.38 this year! And we had 37 walkers, blowing away last years totals of $1420 and 18 walkers. I hope the trend continues and we keep growing bigger and better each year. 

Thank you to everyone who donated to Shriners Hospitals for Children - Springfield, we couldn't have done this without you: Bellows Falls Moose Family Center, Griffin Construction, Crown Point Cabinetry Charity Fund, T-Bird mini mart loose change collection, dona cass, tara todd, jackie demag, rick deschaine, joe paquette, bo hodgdon, ryan hodgman, kevin mcfarland, clyde & diane gallion, vinney croney, paul schofield, michael bryant, kim stowell, opal gallion, norde rau, tony & shawn waters, justin & crystal gallion, kirstie patch, karyne hearne, eileen czechowicz, lis schulte, ann cuadrudo, kathy connair, gwen sheehan, john tomlinson, stephaine burnham, yvette decker, rick sharron, douglas hanson, kathy kennett, bryan lantz, douglas weiss, cindy stevens, lori mcelroy, cindy & bill gravel, dave & mary gravel, ashtyn ora & taylor marie honeycutt, david okolita, dennis chabot, alexis mcallister, elizabeth & ray farnsworth, isaac, hannah welch, kristi morris, val schroeder, debbie burns, alethia ficher, korbin mcelroy, candy & david desrochers, tonya honaker, becky patten, kim wilcox, jane catalfo, paula cacede, dave reeder, jen horton, kristi couch, pauline desrochers, jay scharf, linda drew, and noel/hoffman/gravel.

Thank you all for everything. It really means the world to me that you helped make sos 2010 a success and helped our beloved Shriners Hospital. I hope you all had a good time and that you'll decide to join us again for sos 2011. Have a happy and safe rest of the summer.

All the love in my heart,
Nina Honeycutt

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi