The Patten Family Blog: April 2010

Whats up?

Rain...rain...more rain...beautiful sunny spring days...more rain...more rain...

Picture taken from upstairs window of the street in a break in the rain one day.

Beautiful Sky

A great idea!

As I was on a walk one day with the dog I came upon this great idea! A solution to the mess our garage is always in...we should build a shed in the back yard...one big enough to hold a lot of the stuff that is currently in the garage. Thus leaving space to actually walk through the garage to find things. Well as usual when I come upon one of these brilliant ideas, action must be taken as soon as possible. Sleep won't come until my idea is implemented. So off to Lowes Mike and I went to search out the perfect shed solution! We found the perfect shed. They had about a dozen sheds all assembled in the parking lot so we could make the perfect choice. They looked simple enough to put together...how hard could it be? They come in a kit with almost everything you need... I looked on the Internet and the comments were encouraging. People were saying that they were putting them together in a day or two with two people working on it. So we rented a truck, had them lift the shed kit onto the back of it and off we went. When we got home and took the unassembled shed out of the packaging and off the truck piece by piece the reality of the project began to sink in! 2x4's, 2x2's 2x everything they make...of every length, ply wood, nails, siding... Nothing was assembled at all it was just a bunch of wood...and a million page instruction book, and more nails than you can imagine. After unloading the wood and bringing it all to the back yard we decided that was enough for one day! as it turned out it took us weeks and weeks to put it together. Mike decided that nailing hurt his elbow to much so we purchased screws and a new electric screw gun...or whatever they are called and went to work. The weather did not co-operate. We had to work in bad weather and cover everything up and wait for a Saturday when it didn't rain. We finally got the shed together and I loaded it up. I finally have a garage that I can find things in and a shed that I can find things in! I just hope I don't have any more great ideas...we are getting to old for them!

Here is Mike starting on the shed. I will have to get a picture of it all finished.

Hospital visits and sickness all around!

After Kaitlyn's blessing day everyone got sick. Cory and his family started, then Jimmy and I got sick then finally Mike. Christy got a little sick but I think she was spared to much of it because she spends her time at school and work so she wasn't home to pick up all the germs! Poor Adam had it the worse. He got pneumonia and spent about 4 days in the hospital and then spent about that many days home before getting sick again and going back to the hospital with RSV. Poor Cory and Kristal, they were sick as well as all 4 other children. Cory would spend the night in the hospital with Adam. He had to sleep sitting in a chair all night beside Adam's bed. Then Kristal would load up all the kids and drive the 30-40 minutes to the hospital to relieve Cory and stay with Adam until evening when Cory would load up the kids and drive back to the hospital to stay the night again. I wasn't any good to help them since I was flat out sick myself. Adams 2nd. visit to the hospital I was able to go and spend most of the week at their house to take care of the kids so that Cory could do some work from home before going back to the hospital at night. It was a hard time for them. Poor little Adam was having a tough time. He was very glad to get back home for good. They have a wonderful ward where they are living, several people brought in some wonderful dinners for them which was a great help. It is good to all be well again!

Medical Procedures

Poor me...I had to have some medical procedures done this last month...I will not bore you with all the details but suffice it to say I was not looking forward to them and it was as bad as I thought! After the procedure they brought me back to the recovery room to recover...I suppose. Just as they got my bed all situated the fire alarm went off. I was all loopy from the anesthesia so I was confused about what was going on. I remember the nurse asking someone if it was real...the next thing I know they were putting me in a wheel chair and wheeling me to the back stairs. I am not sure about this part but I think a nurse asked me if I could walk down the stairs by myself. I remember looking down the stairs and wondering if I could hold onto the railing and walk down but I couldn't quite decide...I felt very confused. Then another nurse ... a guy this time said "no" and they put me into a chair like thing that had handles on the front and back and four people...I guess they were nurses or something carried me down and then put me into another wheelchair. We were at the back of the building, I remember them wheeling me around the side of the building and out into the front parking lot where a huge crowd of people were all standing...they had evacuated the whole medical building and here they were wheeling me out in front of them in nothing but a hospital gown with a blanket thrown over me! I remember seeing the fire engine etc. but I was just sort of drowsy so it is all kinda like a dream. We stayed out in the parking lot awhile, I just tried to put my head down and hope there wasn't anybody that I knew it the crowd of people! I don't remember too much about going back into the building. Not too long after that they brought me out to have Mike bring me home. I was glad to have this experience behind me!

So Proud...

Christy and Jimmy...they both got all A's in their last semester classes. Jimmy got accepted to Sacramento State College and Christy got employee of the month at her job as a personal trainer.

Jimmy and Christy all dressed up and home from church.