Let's play catch up

Well as you can see it has been quite some time since I logged on and updated my blog. I can't believe that it is officially the last day of summer. (wiping away a tear). Where did the time go??? Well we had a wonderful, busy, crazy, fun and a bit sad summer. So to get you caught up on the Atkinson clan, deep breath, here I go:

On May 20th Frank and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary!
He took me to Biaggi's Restaurant at the Gateway. Sorry no pics.

JUNE:

Had a garage sale and made over $200.00.

All of which was spent on school clothes for Grace.

Visited the burn unit at University of Utah Hospital. Kohen touched the pipes on Frank's motorcycle and got 2nd degree burns on his right hand. God protected him though. It could have so much worse. The doctors were amazed at how fast his hand healed. Because the burns covered his entire palm and the full length of every finger the doctor told us that Kohen would have a tendency to keep his hand in a fist and they instructed us to do stretches to make sure that he didn't loose any range of motion. Kohen never put his hand in a fist. He held his fingers as straight as a board until his hands were completely healed. It truly was a miracle.

This pic was taken about a week after it happened. Trust me it looked so much worse the day after it got burned.

Grace took swim lessons again this summer. We started over in level one because Gracie's friend Adrianna wanted to take lessons but had never been in any class and they wanted to do it together.

JULY:

Had a fun BBQ for the 4th at my parents. Not sure why I don't have any pictures?

Frank's sisters who live in North Dakota flew into town and stayed for two weeks. We only get to see them about once a year so it was a real treat to have them. Grace loved seeing her cousins. We went swimming, fed the ducks went to Chuck-E-Cheese Pizza, and had a Slurpee a day. They don't have 7-Elevens in North Dakota so Heidi and Jeremy have to get as many as they can when they are here.

AUGUST:

Grace finished swim lesson. She finally passed swim 2 but it was too late in the summer to start swim 3. Next summer. I was so proud of her. She did awesome this year.

About 2 weeks after Frank's sister left to go back to ND Frank's mom called us and told us that we needed to head out to his grandma's house. (She lived in Grantsville but had been living in Bluffdale at a caretakers house.) She had been asleep for about a day and hadn't eaten or drank anything for over a day. The hospice nurse said that she only had a few days left to live. Granny went very peacefully into eternity on August 18th. She was 79 years old. It was bittersweet to let her go. She had lived a good life and it was time for her to meet her Lord and Savior. So again we got to see Marcy, Heidi, Jeremy and the kids. Even though it was for sad reasons, it was still good to have a little more time to spend with them. They came out for the funeral and stayed for a week.

Audrey Ellen Parker Gustaveson

4/24/1920-8/18/2009

The weekend of the viewing and funeral just happened to be Robert's Craft's Customer Appreciation Days at the Jordan Landing store. Since Ellendale, ND doesn't have any craft stores I asked my crazy as me sister in law Heidi if she wanted to go first thing in the morning and try and be one of the first 50 customers in line and get a $25.00 gift card to the store. Of course she said yes. So Friday morning we woke up and headed over to the store. Much to our dismay there was quite a line already formed at 6:50 in morning. We decided to stand in line and see what would happen. Of course nobody followed the "One gift card per household" rule. There had to be about a dozen husbands standing in line with their wives. (jerks) We were #61 and 62. I asked the worker who passed out the cards what time people had started lining up at and we decided that we would be there at the same time Saturday morning. Sure enough we got right up at 5:00 am and got in line with all the other crazy women. We were # 13 and 14! We got our gift cards at 8:00 am and headed right home to change our clothes. We had to be out to Tooele for the funeral at 9:30 am. It was totally worth it. I had a great time visiting with Heidi (no kids crying or fighting). It was the only time we had to just talk. I had a blast.

Don't we look great for waking up at the butt crack of dawn!!

Man this post is getting long. Almost caught up I promise.

On August 25th Grace started Kindergarten. She was so excited to go to school. I was nervous that she would be shy and have a hard time making friends but much to my surprise she made 3 friends right off the bat. She loves her teacher and is having a great time. She loves reading, coloring and playing at recess. I just can't believe my baby is Kindergarten.

SEPTEMBER:

Grace turned 6 in September. Ever since we bought her a pair of cupcake p.j.s when she 4, she has loved cupcakes. I decided that it would be fun to have a cupcake birthday party this year. Of course I think I had more fun planning it than she had having it. But that's just fine with me. I just hope that when she is older and looks back at pictures of her parties that she will appreciate it. I love planning parties what can I say.

It is getting very late. I will try to add more pictures tomorrow.