Well, we took our annual trip "up to the snow" on the President's Holiday . . . not too much snow up at @ 6,000 feet - but enough to play in.  This week is when they are finally getting TONS of snow up in the Sierra Nevadas.

A little FYI for all of my subscribers (and LURKERS) who are not from CA -- these mountains are: 

• where most of Bonanza was filmed
• Yosemite is part of
• Lake Tahoe
• Giant Sequoia groves (the "Big Trees").
• We have 2 ski resorts: Dodge Ridge & Bear Valley. 

I USE to ski when my brother and I still lived at home or when Kevin Harris would take me!   Thanks to Kevin I was able to ski Heavenly & North Star also - now THAT was awesome!  I was on this HUGE mountain at Heavenly ALL BY MYSELF!  It was like I owned the mountain!  Very cool!   

Any of you like to ski??  I was never good - just went FAST and straight and usually off jumps if I was following my bro!  ha!  I was NOT a snow-plower!

This is where we went last year and had TONS of snow . . . as you can see, NO snow on the ground this year!
Ainsley & Grandpa Howard playing in the DIRT! 

OK - so we drove back up the road and found a different place to play!
Ainsley & Chloe

Ainsley & Monte

Monte feeling like maybe he SHOULDN'T have tackled Cole down to the ground since the snow was like ICE in that area!

Ainsley & Monte sledding down on a disc . . . ."Discing"!?

Ainsley found a little "Ice Chair" to sit and watch all of the activities

Me & Ainsley -- Ainsley & I

My Family

Andrew, Tammy, Jade, Molly, Danny & Michael Clark


Lane, Wade, Greg, Kendra, Rachel & Cole Branch (my sisters family)

Kendra was a wild woman going down with NO fear!  Chloe did great too!

Ainsley helping me up after landing in the brush!

Kendra, Ainsley & Uncle Greg

Went for a little hike and found that Ainsley is exactly 13 rocks tall!   

Ainsley, Kendra, G'ma Barbara & G'pa Howard

Everyone fighting over the LICORICE!! 

Braids, trees, rocks, mountains - all beautiful!   

    I was just thinking the other night how I need to scrapbook and write down all of the things that Ainsley is doing and has done so she can remember them . . . along with us!  I got to thinking that even though she has signed from an early age - I don't have any video or pictures of it!  How sad!  The one we talk about the most is how she would "forcefully" sign PLAY when someone was holding her and she wanted to get down!  I think that was about 10 months or so. 

So tonight I set out to get some "SIGNING PICTURES"!  Not so easy with a 3 year old that I'm SURE has brain damage!! ha!  A lot of the signs "we" know are in motion so thought I would stick with mostly the alphabet . . . so here we go!

A

B

C

D

E(NOT SO GOOD)

F(she's also starting to sign Family w/the other hand - 2 F's)

G(Love the enthusiasm)

K(One of her favorite signs for her Cuz Kendra!)

L("Like the shape of an L on her forehead")

M

O

P

Q

R

S

T(Shake it for "Toilet")

U(of course, it doesn't need to be ON your eye!)

W

X As you can tell she is saying "x" in this picture - I always play a game with her to help her remember the signs and this one is "X is going to GET you!" So, of course, she always has to "get" me when doing this sign.

Y

For some reason, a few of my pics didn't download - so that's why we are missing some letters!

LEAF

BRIDGE

COW

Double "I Love You"

So who else out there signs with their kids?  I know Carly signs with Gavin - he is SO FUNNY!!  I would be interested to hear how you incorporate it into fun learning or games - I forget to practice with her as much as I should.

If any of you are interested in this - I HIGHLY recommend these "Signing Time" DVD's    You can click on this link for a little intro http://www.signingtime.com/intro/  I love to watch them with Ainsley so I can learn too!!  We have them all! 

I've been able to use a little bit of it at work too when we happen to have the "right" patients.  They are really encouraging the use of ASL along with regular learning with special needs kids (Down Syndrome kids and of course with kids that cannot talk either permanently or temporarily since we get a lot of kids in with tracheostomy's.)  I'm not sure if I blogged about this or not - but the funniest thing happened a while back when my patient was deaf and her parents only spoke SPANISH!!  It was the first time I ever SINGED in SPANISH!!  ha!!  But it felt good that I at least knew a LITTLE of each to try to help communicate with them.

Happy Signing!!

OK Shannon - here's your dad and his "Goat"!  : )  

Now here are some other good people after services last night!  We had pizza, etc.

Been sick with the flu . . .  then Ainsley had a low grade temp w/cold symptoms -- thus missing MOST of our meeting at Oakdale with Don Pruitt!   Tonight was the first night our whole family has been able to go together!! 

I have a pic for Shannon of her dad to post but Lyndsay has one too so I guess I'll let her post hers first . . . my camera is upstairs in my bedroom where Monte is quietly sleeping. . . . maybe tomorrow.

Anyone else see Josh Groban on Conan last night?  I taped it for Melissa.  He's pretty dorky when he's not singing . . . ha!  Oh well - I guess I'll STILL go see him in concert . . .

Still having router problems . . . NO ONE has come to my rescue yet . . . so I will just "pirate" my neighbors VERY week Clear Wire connection and go ahead and get a few of these pics I already had uploaded on this post.

This is at Jenny's house:
Jenny's Noah, My Ainsley, Jenny's Emma, Jessica's Logan

Jenny & Rebecca

Damian & Pam - lookin' good!

And my mom got a "new to her" Chevy Tahoe!!  YEAH!!  No more ASTRO VAN!
She's VERY excited!  She got a new license plate cover that says:
Grandma's Score: 3 boys - 3 girls!

Auntie Becca w/baby Sydney & Ainsley

Ainsley holding baby Sydney for the first time! 

-------  I guess that is it for now.  Work has been crazy with tons of gastritis along w/the usual respiratory (RSV) babies!  I worked last night and am going in extra tomorrow since my sister Rachel was nice enough to say she would babysit again -- we have one nurse out for a couple of weeks after he had a stent placed after being in CCU w/chest pain and another nurse is going in tomorrow for an angiogram to see if he needs a coil placed!!  UGGGHH!   So much for nurses being healthy, huh?  That's OK - I see enough respiratory therapists out SMOKING and it DRIVES ME CRAZY!!!  But the WORST is when they come back onto our unit SMELLING like smoke and being around our little babies!!!  GO AWAY!!   Thankfully, that hasn't happened in a while.

Oh yah, want to hear something funny - last night a crazy grandma called 911 INSISE the hospital in the patient's room because she wanted an ambulance to come and pick up her 4 month old grandson and take him to another hospital cuz she wasn't happy with the care with us!   Oh man!  It was a CRAZY night!  She had her attorney's on the phone and was yelling at our hospital supervisor, telling him that she wanted to talk to the CEO of this hospital not him cuz he was just the NURSING supervisor!   . . . to say the least, I QUICKLY got out of that room and was happy to take over Mike's admit for him so he could deal with the situation since it was HIS patient!! 

Ticked at my computer and myself!

Had LONG post done - clicked submit - "bye-bye" all my hard work!  uGGHGHGHHHGHGHH!!

Thus - SHORT, choppy sentences and no details!

SUNNY CA DAYS!  64 today

Feeding ducks?  or eating moldy bread?

Surprise 50th b'day for Aunt Cynthia @ Bricktown, OKC

Xanga-Sisters!

Me & TwilAlaska!

2nd mom - Wanda Martin - LOVE her!

  Well, I've been a slacker on this xanga thing since my laptop is having "router issues" . . . I guess.  It did the SAME thing last year - when we got back from our trip it doesn't (didn't) recognize our i-net connection . . . but our NEIGHBORS connections show up!!  Go figure!  I would greatly appreciate any help from any of you tech savvy people out there!  I keep waiting for Michael Howard to give me some advice - especially since he just got that new promotion and all - you'd think he'd be up on stuff like this!  ha!  (Actually, I have NO idea of what he knows about computers - just know it's HP he works for so he's got to know everything about my HP laptop, right?)  

It was great to see the few xanganeers that I did see at the New Years meeting in OKC . . . we were only there Sat morn and Sat night (12/30) and then went to Sunday morning services in Edmond so we could see my xanga-sisters Pam & Jenny!  I have so many pics to upload - I'll have to get back to pics of them on another post.

I have a NEW NEICE!!  Yeah!  My bro Aaron and his wife had a little girl on Jan 16th! 

Miss Sydney Ann Cole was only 18 1/2 inches long and 7 lbs, 8 oz. 

Proud Daddy!

Proud G'ma & G'pa - they've now EVENED the score: 3 grandsons and 3 granddaughters!
 -

Thankfully, Jill's epidural worked great, when she finally needed it and everything went great!  (That is in CONTRAST to MY attempt at an epidural when Ainsley was born.  I had been in labor for a good 12 hours and only at a 2 so I told them to BRING ON the epidural . . . they poked me 3 times and then thought they had it in, but it never worked. . . so a few hours later they tried again - poked 3 more times into my spine while I'm TRYING to be still during contractions . . . I didn't care - I was like "Yah, keep poking, I don't care, just get it in!"  Well, it STARTED to work on ONE side of my body and that was it so they turned it off!!   AHAHAHHGGHGHGHH!!  I seriously said, "So what now?  Can you just konk me on the head with a shovel or something?!"  ha!!  So how was your epidural/pain med during labor?  Good or not?

OK - I could go on forever about that one . . . I think my pics are uploaded so I'll go ahead and get some of those in here.

Alright - since this entry is tipping the scale towards mostly maternal things - I'd better get some fishin pics up for my guy readers!!

This is Monte's 23 lb striped bass!!  VERY COOL, huh?! What do you think Kevin? Make you want to go fishin w/my dad again!!??
 

A smaller one

More of their catch

My great sis-in-law, Dana, did up a GREAT b'day party for Monte, Ainsley and I
Here's a pic of Brent & Dana with the great spread they had!

She had Monte's old Sports Illus magazines hung around - even had a Will Clark one for me!
She had our childhood favorites like Monopoly and Scooby Doo stuff all around
Monopoly $$ all over the cake table . . .


Big League Chewing gum, candy cigarettes, WAX LIPS!!

Their dog Sassy, even got into the b'day spirit!!  ha!

Thanks Dana for all of your hard work!! 
To say the least, Ainsley had a great time at Uncle Brent & Auntie Dana's playing with Sassy

 I'd better close for now so I don't wear out my welcome!  I'll try to get more pics on here tomorrow - I've enjoyed seeing everyone else's ? (is that proper) pics!!

  Soooooo . . . .  I know soo many of you are just on the edge of your seat, waiting to hear the results of our 4th Annual Rook Tournament!

#10   Howard & Barbara (my mom & dad)

cannot believe they didn't win a game!!!  My dad is a GREAT Rook player!!  Guess he just didn't get the cards!!

This is his hand in the final game against Andy & Rendi - they were fighting to NOT get the award of BIGGEST LOSER!

And this is Andy's hand . . .

#9   Andy & Rendi

#8   Myron & Robin (my aunt & uncle) who are also GOOD!

#7   Monte & Rebecca  -- YEAH!!!  : )

#6   Greg & Rachel

#5   Darren & Carly

#4   Rodney & Richelle (who stepped up at the last minute to fill in for Lyndsay and Dana since Lyndsay had to fly to TX to buy a HOUSE!!!)

#3   Ronnie & Doris (last years champs)

#2   Lane & Cole!

#1   My bro Aaron and his wife Jill who is ALMOST 38 weeks pregnant!  Monte gave her the nice soft rocker to sit in the whole time.

OK - gotta go to work and take care of sick kids!