Ewwww....

Isn't it a beauty? The scar has dissolving stitches....so, no going to have staples removed. They tell us these strips will just slowly fall off. It will be interesting to see what the end scar will look like when it heals up!

Get Ready...

for tomorrow, the bandages come off and we will be revealing the 'real' wound! Just in time for Halloween!

He Made It!

Trent made it through the surgery with flying colors. He was a little concerned about getting an IV...at the hospital they relieved all his fears by promising to give him gas before the IV. He chose Chocolate flavoring..which he thought he would like..but soon found out, by all his complaining, that he really didn't like that smell. Aside from that, the screws all came out with out stripping or breaking the head off...sounds just like they were building a deck!

A pre-surgery shot...A post-surgery shot....Another post-surgery shotThe wound... Notice the Dr.'s initials on his leg make sure they operated on the correct leg...JAC.

The Hardware..all autoclaved and sparkly clean!

Now the long recovery of keeping him down for 6 weeks while it heals. When those screws are removed they leave behind 7 holes in the bone. His leg could potentially break again during this healing process.

He has already wanted to play with the neighbor kids...oh it's going to be long 6 weeks. He did manage to attend school today.

The End....

This is the ending of a tale that began a little over a year ago! Most of you remember..on Labor Day weekend '09...while we were in the U.P., Trent had a 4-wheeling accident and broke his leg.Here is a picture from that day. It was a long day but we were well taken care of at War Memorial Hospital in S.S. Marie MIAfter Trent had surgery, this is how he looked shortly after his surgery. They placed a plate and 7 screws in his leg....After two nights in the hospital, they released him to us..we brought him camping...I know crazy..we slept in the tent that night on an air mattress. Here he is enjoying the campfire. Fast forward...Tomorrow morning he goes in at 7:30am to have the plate/screws removed. Hopefully, this will be the end of this chapter. He has to play carefully on it for 6 weeks as it can easily break again..until those holes fill back in with bone. It's going to be a long 6 weeks.

He plays hard and loves riding his bike. BTW..the other day he was riding his bike to the neighbors carrying a rake across his handlebars...what can you say!!

Leaves & Trees

Well...fall is here. With fall brings leaves. Today, we took some time to rake and mow up what has fallen thus far. Troy was using the quad & trailer to haul them across the road. He had a couple passengers...Trent and the neighbor boy, Jack. Jack loves our house, he has a little sister (4 months)....he's an outdoors man....he likes all the boy stuff at our house and the boys to play with!! Our 86 year old neighbor man (not Jack's dad..well, just in case you were wondering!) Bob asked Steve about a week ago to trim up a tree for him....so today the chainsaw came out...YEAH...that means Joanne gets her trees trimmed up too!

Here are the boys hauling some of the brush for Bob...he so appreciates it...he just can't do this kind of stuff at his age!Here is Steve, trimming up our front tree. Maybe he shouldn't be balancing in the tree with the chainsaw in hand? This is how we roll in Michigan....

Wait No More....

I know you all have been waiting for this post....Wait No More! It is here!

The Homecoming Dance 2010..the dance was on held Saturday Oct. 2nd. in the High School Gym. This was Troy's first HC dance...Tyler's fourth. Here they are all ready to go....
Doesn't Troy look cool? He looks so grown up...wow when did that happen?I went with Tyler to pick up Alisha and take pictures of them. We drove in to Rockford to take a few pictures around the town...here they are, in no particular order....This one needs a little explanation. After I took the picture Tyler realized he had is hand on Ab's leg..... What they looked like after...
Troy with his friends...lets just say, this was the best picture I have. Steve had to take Troy and his friend Tyler over while I was with Tyler & Alisha

Art Prized x2

It's all the talk in Grand Rapids! If you live anywhere in Michigan, you have probably heard of Artprize...and probably attended! This year was the 2nd annual Artprize. I attended briefly with the kids last year (Trent had a broken leg). This year I was able to attend two different times!

Now, let me just say, I'm not really a 'artsy' kinda gal. I usually don't get artists artistic minds! I also gravitate to the metal type artistic venues..I also like the touchable items. Really don't care for painted artwork...but that is just me!

The first time I went this year, a Sunday, was with Steve Troy & Trent. It was packed, you could hardly get around to see the artwork. I'm not going to give each name..simply because I don't have time! So you can just enjoy the pictures----

This one was one of my favorites right out of the box! It was made with pennies and in a penny form...cool huh? I know, I have a simple mind!

My second visit was with the girls. We went on a Monday afternoon...and let me just say, it was perfect weather and not a lot of people out...so we could really enjoy the art. Here we are in front of the Gerald R. Ford Museum. (L-R)Renee's friend Mary, Mary's SIL Tammy, Renee, Danielle, Joanne & Darica. Renee was our tour guide and she did a great job...she got us to all the Top 10's

The Elephant WalkThis was made with crayons...the bottom side of them...it's the seven days of creation. Calvary, a 28 foot drawing with 2H pencil. He drew this from a photograph.

Here I am with Chris LaPorte, the Artist. Because it took me soooo long to post these pictures, we now know he was the 1st place winner! He won 250,000. Does this make me famous? This was done with wine stained corks. Impressive

When girls get together, they have to go for lunch. We went to Big O's

Steam pig

Bohemian wave Artprize placed pianos all over town. People were encouraged to sit and play a tune..here is Danielle playing a number for us.

This was another of my favorites. From a distance it looks like a mural of Grand Rapids...as we took a closer look we realized what it truly was......It was balls in tubes...very impressive! Can you imagine sliding all those balls in that tube...and in the right order..Patience! To give you an idea of what it looked like up close....I snapped this picture.

What a great idea for GR. It was stated that there were 450,000 votes cast....WOW! Almost 1/2 million people... a great boost for the GR economy. Later.....

2 cute 4 words!

Okay, so I posted this before the Homecoming Pictures....I'll get to those..promise!

Trent plays on a soccer league in Sparta. He enjoys playing..but his team hasn't won a game..yet! He keeps a great attitude about it though. He never gets irritated or mad that they haven't won. As a matter of fact, I asked him after his game..."How do you think you guys did?"....He said..."oh, we played great!"...if we could all have that kind of attitude! As Goalie.... Sweetness!

Homecoming 2010

With Homecoming, comes Homecoming games....and boy was it loud and fun! I have never been up to the High School during games till now! There was a lot of energy in that gym. And how much fun for these kids, to have a day to bond together and work together as a team, to win for their grade! They all purchase class shirts and get all decked out in red/black/white. So much fun!These kids are watching the lip sync competition. 1 group competes, from each class that lasts a max of 4 minutes. They were all good and you could tell the kids put numerous hours in after school practicing...but the Seniors sync was outstanding....the best!Seniors pulling in the tug-o-war..always a favorite! (Tyler is not in there)Tyler participating in the wheelbarrow races.He's the barrow here....Tyler doing the three legged raceTroy watching his class compete. That's Jordan, his cousin, to the left of him. Jordan is a big boy and Troy is little for his class....lol!Troy in a hula hoop raceThe football players on a KC fire truck in the Homecoming parade! We love this about our small town.....we can shut the town down for an hour to run a parade through main street! Yes! What a great place to live! Oh....and did I mention they won!

Up next...Homecoming Dance pictures!