The Great Outdoors

We went to Pinetop for a family vacation. We always enjoy it. It rained everyday and the weather was amazing, and such a relief from the valley heat. This trip was relaxing.Wade is in a hammock that he had bought on his misson in Paraguay. He had several items inprinted with his name on them, the funny thing is they misspelled it, and he did not have the heart to tell the shop owners. Oh well, it still works. My Dad does not know the meaning of vacation. My Dad, Wade, and Troy completed quite a few "projects" while we were on "vacation". At lest we got a few card games in between the work. You can tell they all really enjoy fixing and planning construction on the cabin.

Marci and Troy had a bake off this morning. Marci means business and Troy is focused on making the biggest and fluffiest pancake. I can safely say he succeeded.

Polenta is kind of a cabin tradition. This visit we made fried polenta. It took all afternoon but as you can see we enjoyed it.


Wade made a swing for the children. They had plenty to choose from between the 2 swings and hammock at the cabin.







This was the part of the trip that was not so fun. Wade must of missed the lesson in preschool about not playing with sharp sticks near your eyes. Wade and Gavin were sling shooting tree branches into the air on a contraption made of webbing. As Wade was setting it up, the device malfunctioned, and sent the tree branch into Wade's eye. Gavin came running into to tell me what happened. My first thought was "I knew that was going to happen"! But my second, when I saw Wade was, "He is going to loose his eye". It was horrible and I could barely stand to look at him. We found an optometrist on Saturday and they treated Wade. He contemplated sending us home immediately because of the amount of wood in Wade's eye. They told me that there was a huge gash in his eye, that he had ripped into the first 3 layers of eye and had completely taken off the first layer. The nurse began to flush out the wood. She told me Wade might faint because of the pain. I asked it was like labor pain and she told me "much worst". Wade did not faint, but it was clear he was in pain. It was hard to watch. The doctor saw him again 20 hours later. Wade's gash had reduced itself by 50%. The doctor was amazed. It was such a blessing. Now that we are back in the valley we are seeing our optometrist (you may know him, he is a pretty great guy). We are optimistic that this should not impede Wade's vision. So the joke of this trip quickly became,

"Sure beats a sharp stick in the eye"!