Hannah and Caleb's Spring time fun

Here is Hannah dancing blissfully in a large mud puddle. I just love her legs here, she looks as though she is doing some sort of an Irish jig! : )
Here is Caleb blowing bubbles, and if I know him at all, he is eating them right out of the air! Oh, to be a kid again...puddle-stomping and blowing bubbles, and the best part is that you don't have to clean up any of the mess! These guys are so great, I miss them a ton and they keep right on growing up with zero regard to me, Grandma and Grandpa, Auntie Jessica and Uncle Rob. It's like they don't care or something, like there is this huge cosmic force that is rendering them helpless to the growing up thing. Well I for one am sick of it! If I can't be there to enjoy it, the least they could do would be to stop growing. Sheesh! Don'tcha think? O.K., I am totally joking for those of you out there who where beginning to wonder if I had finally lost touch with the last vestages of my sanity. Nope. I just can't believe how incredibly tall they are both getting. 

Here's something...

I have wanted to post for a long time...

We had this handed out to us at one of our Bible Studies and I found it exhillerating and I hope that you do to.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the Glory of God that is within us...And as we let our own light shine, We unconsciously give others people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, Our presence automatically liberates others."
~Nelson Mandela

I think that he pretty well sums it up. Let you light shine, be the very best YOU that you can be, that is all God has ever really asked of anyone.

Well, it's nearing 12 p.m. and I have been trying to sleep since around 6:30 a.m., I am starting to feel sleepy so I am going to run with it and hopefully chatch some serious Zzzzzzzz's! Good night all, or morning to you normal people who are already half way done with your work days.

Bat Girl, signing off : )

Sophie Is Home!

After spending nearly five days on the lamb, she has been located and returned! I guess she dissappeared on Wednesday night and ran over 30 plus miles where she was picked up by a nice retired couple near a small local market. I guess she looked like she was about to keel over with dehydration and exhaustion. My mom called a local radio station and gave the discription of Sophie and they had already had some one phone in a found dog with the same details. Mom called them and was able to get off work a few hours early to go pick her up. The sad thing is that my poor dad, who lives and breathes for Sophie, had to leave for work super early for work and won't be back for the next four days. I think mom was able to get a message to him, but now he has to wait three more days until he gets to see he. I am sure he'll live through it! : )

Thank you all for your prayers, etc...they worked!

Sophie is Missing!

...Sophie my parent's dog that is, not the Schlesinger's oldest. I guess she dissappeared on Wednesday night this past week. She likes to wander the neighborhood at night a few times a week, she was out doing that and she never made it back home. We have no idea if she was picked up by somebody thinking that she was a stray, or she could have met a Mt. Lion. Another possiblity is that she may have been hit by a car or someone in the neighborhood may have tired of her sometimes annoying tendancies and poisened her. I would have to say that last one is the least likely, though possible, I suppose. : ( She is my Dad's pride and joy and he is going through tourture with worry and loneliness, the poor fellow. Please pray that she will be found and returned to us very soon and in perfect health. She really is a wonderful dog, even if she is my Dad's favorite child. : ) Just joking.

Thank you for your prayers. Sometimes I feel guilty praying for my pets when there is a war going on and people are dying, but I know that God cares about the things that we care about, so I think that it is o.k.

XOXOXOXO

Just a quick addition...

...On tuesday I took our guinea pig, Lou lou to the vet to have an absess/cyst removed. She did so great, she was very brave and extremely trusting. The vet recommended that I use some news paper pellets for bedding until her owie healed, so I purchased some from them and replaced Lou lou's bedding with it. With in four hours of putting her in her cage she started to cough and sneeze, and then she began weazing with every breath. I didn't think that the noise was coming from our apartment at first, I chocked it up to one of our many noisey neighbors. Any how, by the time I realized what was going on, she was not doing well at all and she was severely congested. Poor, poor baby! : ( I finally got so worried that I called the unfortunate veterinarian at 2:30 a.m., the poor fellow! It's a darn good thing that I did because I NEVER would have thought that she was having an allergic reaction to her bedding of all things. I just figured she was in disstress from the pain and the stress of the minor surgery she had had. Well, long story...even longer, : ) I cleaned out the newspaper pellets and replaced them with her regular shavings and with in fifteen minutes she was nearly all better, Thank God.

I don't know how many of you know the story of my first guinea pig, but he had and unfortunate and untimely demise when he met the toothy end of my (extremely horrified) sister's husky dog. It took her just one bite, and that was all she wrote. : ( Poor little Zappa, may he rest in peace beneath the garden of sun flowers. This all happened about a month and a half before our wedding, I was majorly stressed out by all of the planning, etc...when I heard what happened, I absolutely broke down like never before. I actually went into the garage so that no one would see how hard I was crying. I was honestly embarrassed by how upset I was by the whole thing. Needless to say, I am a little over-protective of my sweet little Lou lou.

By the way, the poor fellow whom I awoke last night was so unexcited to be waked up to help a stupid little guinea pig, it was quite funny really. When he asked what was wrong and heard that I was phoning about a guinea pig he said, and I quote, "Oh God, a guinea pig! Are you kidding me?" in a very tired, grumpy and heavily sleep-laden voice. He did snap out of it a few minutes in to our conversation and he was very helpful. I think that he is used to vetting real animals like cows and horses. You know, the serious kind of pets. : )

I didn't mean to make this a whole huge entry, I just wanted to drop a quick little up-date, and now look at what I have done. : )

XOXOXOXO

Up-date, July 11, 2006

Well, Hello Everyone!

Hey, sorry about not telling ya'all sooner about the MRI, etc... I finally got the results, which say they see no major changes, which is both good and not so good. I am relieved that there is nothing major going on that needs immediate attention, however, I do need surgery this summer to remove hardware in my back that is left-over from the fusion I had in 2001. It was supposed to come out a year after the surgery, but my surgeon accidentally sheared off the head of one of the screws, so he said that I should wait until I started having problems before I worried about removing them...Well, the time has come. The metal in my back is partly why I have the menengitis, it also creates a lot of the inflamtion and perpetuates the nerve pain and damage. I really want to get it out a.s.a.p. and start getting better.

Thank you to you all for your prayers and for your love, it makes such a BIG difference when I am feeling low or frustrated with everything. God is and has been so present and so faithful to me through all of this and through all of you.

Ari is doing great! He has taken up Jujitsu (I have no idea how to spell that one correctly, sorry!) Any-hoo, he is really enjoying that and he takes it with one of his co-workers and his Sensi (teacher) is also a co-worker/superviser. Also, Ari has started jogging...he is up to about five times a week and he's running around two and a half miles each time! I am super proud of him, this is some REALLY hard work up here at nearly 10,000 feet elevation! It is a HUGE difference from sea level, let me tell you. When we first moved up here we would get winded just walking from the couch to the fridge, no joke. I guess a lot of atheletes train at high altitudes to improve their endurance and stamina, so hopefully when we come to visit, he'll be like the bionic man or something! : ) (Oh brother, sorry for my sense of humor or lack there of, depending on who's listening, but apparently not sorry enough to delete it!)

Oh, back to the health stuff, I have an appointment with a local surgeon on July 25th, but I am trying to get one with a highly recommended ortho surgeon in Grand Junction, which is close to where my Mom and Dad live. If you think about me, pray that it will work out for me to get in to see one of the two doctors in GJ sooner than the 25th...I really want to get this thing over with and start the healing process as soon as poss.

Lastly, we are planning a quick trip down to L.A. to visit Ari's Mom and family the second week of Aug. We will hopefully go to Disneyland for a day, AND...there is a very small chance that we would meet up with my Uncle Scotty and his girl friend down there for the Disney day. (He lives up in Vancouver, WA. near you all.) It's been about a year since I have seen him, and I have yet to meet his girl friend, and I guess it's really serious between them! I really hope that it all works out. (the trip I mean!) : )

Well, now you are all caught up on our lives and I can stop typing! : ) I feel like this is the world's longest blog entry, sorry! Love you all and I trust you are all well.

Ari and Kristen

Some Oh-So-Cute pictures of my Guys!

My Sweet boys hanging out on a day off. I love they way Jack is sitting here. I swear sometimes he thinks he's a person. : ) I love feet! What's wrong with me? : ) I absolutely love this picture...It's from today. Ari and I alway joke about how much we need to have kids because the pictures of our cat are a little out of control! : ) Hey, at least we can admit we have a problem!
 

Some Oh-So-Cute pictures of our Kitty Jack

This first one he is snuggling with his Mousey, you can see it under his arm with it's little red nose sticking out.
Here, he had just come home from the vet's from being neutered, poor guy! He slept for two days strait after that. : (
Awwww!
I love this pic...I caught him in mid-yawn! 

Well, now we all know why they are called the "Rockies"! : )

This is our view when we go for groceries, etc... isn't it amazing!?! I still cannot believe that we live in the middle of these incredible mountains. They are always changing and they are always gorgeous!


 

This is Olivia and her Grandma, my Aunt Vicki on Mother's Day

Olivia is wearing my shoes, which are my super fancy red, pointy-toe kitten heals with sequence and embroidery...she looked so adorable, we all took pictures of her...we probably ended up getting shots of her on four or five different cameras! Emily is doing such an amazing job raising Livie, she is so well behaved and very intelligent.