Another Moment

Last night Tyler and Conner had a scout court of honor. Both of them got the Emergency prepardness merit badge. Due to some dumb rule Conner did not get his yet since he needs to complete another merit badge before he gets this one. I think that is about dumb.

I still don't have my wife back from her Twilight book. She has about 100 pages left so that is good, maybe today she will show up. She has taken over the hard-expert setting on the drums in Rock Band. I was able to get her away yesteday and take one of my suits to get fixed, so that was nice. I have already been told that she will be finishing the book today.

It was 70 here last week, and then it went down to zero now were back up to 20! Gotta love Colorado weather. Our Mnts are getting big PHAT snow flakes this week;)

I will be picking up our permit to finish the basement today. I hope to make some progress with that in the next few months. We need the extra space!

I Have lost my family!

During the holidays Tyler and Conner wanted to get Guitar Hero. No way on this earth was I going to get that game with all the crappy metal songs and wanna be hoes. I had heard of Rock Band but did not really look into it. We had dinner with good friends a few weeks ago..the night I fell, and Candice offered for us to play. We did not but Matt and her like the game and It got me thinking about it.

The boys wanted to get that a few weeks ago so I checked it out and it sounded good. SO they pooled the money and we went and got it last night. The VERY INTERESTING part of this is BROOKE! She is a Rock Band Star! We got this hooked up last night at about 6pm. She came to bed AFTER MIDNIGHT. Her and Tyler stayed up and I was OUT by the time she rolled in.

Now the best part. We went and picked up another guitar tonight so now we are running full on stuff. At 8 we started putting the little ones down and Brooke washed her hair. She informed me that she was going "down" to "kick the boys off, and were going to do scriptures and THEY ARE GOING TO BED." I told her that was great. Then SHE tells me that she has to go do a "SET" in London with the boys.....

SHE HAS LOST HER MIND!!!!

Never in my married life have I seen her like this...I am all smiles and think it is GREAT! She is like a kid in a candy store! I have surround sound and a projector down there and it is quite the set up.

Anyway, life is really good here, we have had 70's for highs last week and our grass was turning green. We are putting in for a permit to finish the basement. We are at that point. It will cost us $$$ to do it with the family TV set up we are putting in. The bathroom is already there and we will put in a small L shaped desk for computers and the rest of the room will be for our family to watch movies and play games and the boys bedroom down there.
I found the sore spot in my foot this week where I hurt it. When you kneel down on the ground, your feet lay flat...that is the spot I hurt. I did that this week and for a few moments could not put weight on it when I got up. Still very sore after 2 weeks. I went to Golden for a night this week and had a great time. Got myself a DUI driver and helped on a felony drug traffic stop. I really love working out there, I really enjoy the officers there. It is my home!
The children are all healthy and doing well in school. Brooke is busy and I help her alot since I work from home most days. I did 5 loads of laundry just today.

We are kicking the idea around of heading out to Utah in Febuary, Hillary I love you, With a very deep love but your snow sucks! But I would still love to fall in it and try out "riding."
I am going out to Tahoe in March for a conference and hope to do some skiing with my buddy from LA.
We are all excited about the decision to go to Mnt Rushmore for Scout camp. They have a family site and I will go as a adult leader. That will go down in July and were going to make a trip to see Brandon and family in June.
That is what I know for now...Love to all family and friends!!!
TJ

Ohhh...you have all seen the "shamwow" infomercial....I just ordered the "slap clap" from the same guy..I am looking forward to getting that thing...it is COOL!

5 Years ago Today..Happy Birthday Taylor

5 years ago at the very moment I am typing this, my wonderful world was coming to a very sudden stop. Brooke and I started the day, heading off to Longmont United Hospital, and looking back if I knew then what I know now, I would not have had any concern during that day. Brooke was overdue with our only girl and the little girl was ready to come into this world with the help of modern medicine.

We got there and were settled in and met our Nurse, Polly. Brooke was to be induced and that is what happend. We went through a long day of contractions, the movie "freaky friday" and other stuff. It became time for Taylor to come and it went in a very interesting direction. Brooke had experienced 3 other births and we had no complications and this delivery would make up for that. If I remember right, Brooke was beyond tired and the room was full of doctors, nurses and people being busy for a new baby to come.

I have always loved watching our childs heart rate and listining to the heart beat. Soon this became my worst nightmare. Taylor's tones would drop, pause and stop and her hart rate would drop during contractions. This went on for some time and the concern was written all over our good doctors face. The feeling in the room changed and it became clear that Taylor would need to be delivered a diffrent way than expected. The doctor sat next to Brooke and told her what needed to happen and he checked her one more time and then, something changed again and it went from, "sorry" to " lets go NOW" (I am not going into details here but you get the drift.)

within a moment Brooke was out the door and down the hall with nurses and doctors moving really fast. I knew they had to move fast and I was right behind them with Polly trying to get me ready to go into the operating room. It was only a few minutes, but seemed like 10. The doc had swung into "get this baby out right now" mode and I was trying to be a good husband. Brooke was feeling no pain and was warm. Brooke could not see the doc but I sure could, within a moment he was trying to get Taylor out and he could not get her. Brooke was no longer happy and this is where it all started spinning for me. I heard the doctor say/yell that he had "cord around the neck and arm" the drug doctor was now concered about Brooke's stats and I saw her eyes roll. That is when it dawned on me that I might not be going home with a wife, or a baby.

Another doctor arrived and the tension was high. There were alot of very direct orders from the doctor to nurses and he finaly had Taylor, as blue as could be and not moving at all. I remember as though it was happining right now. I knew it was bad, Brooke was back and she kept asking why the baby was not crying. She turned to the drug doc and told him she wanted to be out, the nurses wrapped Taylor up, and showed her to Brooke and Brooke was out. Another doctor came in and took charge.....like a storm. The fury was around Taylor, her lung was collapsed, her blood pH level was way off and they could not get a "line" into her and the doctor turned to me and told me to start signing forms because Taylor was going to leave, "right now."

Being the "cop" where I fix things, I am in control, and I fix things. I could not fix this. My wife barley made it, Taylor was still blue and Iwas alone in the midst of controled chaos. I signed the forms and they performed a procedure to put a line into her belly button. I asked if Taylor would make it and the doc said she would but was not staying here but going to Childrens, ASAP and the call for the "flight for life" crew was already put in. They were en-route from Denver and Brooke was being taken to recovery. I got there and it was around 1030 at night. Brooke was not really with it when the flight crew showed up. They worked on Taylor for about 45 minutes and had her ready. The crew was very kind and I knew the nurse from my police work which lightened the load. There was my new daughter hooked up to several machines, lots of beeping things and Brooke reached out for her and put her hand into the incubator she was in. The flight nurse then handed me a black and white striped zebra with a flight for life bandana.

There I stood there with a stuffed animal in my hand as I watched them leave, Brooke was still out of it for the most part. I think some of my family showed up and I called Nelson and Trish. I can't remember what I said. I went home for a while and tried to sleep. I got up around 3am and went to Childrens. I lived in Childrens ICU for a week and went to see Brooke everyday. I remember the first time the hospital let Brooke go to see Taylor. It dranined Brooke, but so worth it. Taylor had a feeding tube that she pulled off her face and got rid of a week or so into it. Brooke was released and then we spent our time at Childrens for a few weeks.

Just typing this tonight takes me back to that night. And tonight, she is very strong, has very strong feelings and is TOUGH as nails with her brothers.

Brooke paid another price to get Pierson here, so needless to say, no more children out of this home.

Happy birthday to our one and only little girl!

The last week in review....Laugh if you want...don't let me catch you laughing...

To the untrained eye this is just a simple set of stairs leading into the garage. You can see the items heading out to the trash and some plastic things. But to me..this was the site of the closest I have come to death. See the light gray case on the floor? That is a empty case for one of my hand guns. It was placed on the top step by me when I cleaned the garage Saturday. I left it on the step and turned out the lights and went inside. Brooke cleaned out a kitchen drawer and noticed it was in need of some handy man work and asked me to fix it.

I took the drawer and headed out into the garage. I opened the door and stepped with my right foot, that was the last thing I remember...except for the man yell that came out...and I hit the floor with my head by the pink po-go stick. For the record..I still had the drawer in hand...without a scratch. I hurt in ways I did not know I could hurt...(now is when you start laughing) I was in shock and did not move...even a little. I noticed that my left foot hurt like it just got ran over and my right hand was numb. At this point my wife came to the rescue....NOT........She opened the door and asked me if I was ok and she did not know what to do so she went back inside. I was trying to tell her NOT to leave. It felt like my foot had moved somewhere close to my waistline and my hand next to my elbow. I was really glad I did not hit my head, that I figured out quickly. Brooke came back, only after the little ones had thought I died.

I began to move my hand at first..touching it and feeling for bones sticking out of the skin. Then I sat up. If I knew what it felt like to break a foot, that pain was my guess. after a few minutes I got the backbone to try and stand. It took a few minutes to get on it but I did and it was VERY sore, but little sharp pain. I had pain in spots all over my body all day saturday, we had a great evening with Matt and Candice at their place. Candice asked if I "caught air" which I am sure I did. A few minutes after the crash Brooke said I had "Rachelle-itis" from Rachelle's tendency to tumble down stairs & break bones in her feet.

So we went down to the Jones and had a very peaceful evening, excellent food and great conversation, with a very sore foot. But today it has been very good. So I am grateful I did not smash my head and die!

On Sunday I made a pork roast and it looked so yummy!

Pierson and Taylor made a mess and did not look so yummy!

and Pierce and I don't like to take pictures!

I spent the whole day in Weld County Court for Jury duty. It is tough to be seated on a Jury when you have been a cop and have several wins under the belt for child assault cases.

By the way.... the grey plastic case....it ended up across the garage......laugh it up.....

It is OVER :(

Yesterday marked the final day of the Holidays for our house. ALl the lights are down, both trees are down, it took all day yesterday to get the tree down after several breaks. Some of it is still in the garage that needs to be boxed and put up which will happpen today. We will also be going through things we dont need. The Christmas decorations take up a 4x8 deck in the garage. I built it when we first moved in. I park my DJ trailer in the gargae and so right above that is the deck. I added another 4x8 deck neck next to it last year for items from our shop when we moved. I put another deck up for more camping stuff. It will now be time to rearange the decks and THROW out the things we do not use. I have enough tools to build about anything.

SO the Children are all back in school, I am doing work stuff and Brooke is back to her normal things...I think. Here is to a different year from the rest.

Peace out

The final hunting trip and 2009 (caution dead Elk Photos)

I find it intersting how a new day and new year makes you feel.

The day after Christmas Tyler Conner and I were back on the road with my dear friends heading to Craig for one last go at getting a ELK. On Friday afternoon we got there and we got STUCK AGAIN.

Notice the Chains on the tire.....We suck. We dug our way out and went back to the hotel wondering why we went.

We got at it early and got into a large heard of Elk that had come across during the night. Tyler and I gave chase on foot while Conner hung out in the car and stayed warm, it was about ZERO freaking degrees with a wind chill of freeze your butt off. We watched a several hunters shot at the heard and took some cows out. We could see where they were at and took off. I noticed a few tracks leaving the heard so we followed those, looking for the dumb ones of the heard. We found one and Tyler got his first and only chance at a cow at about 250-300 yards. His first shot got the left rear hoof, not sure how we got there, the next one went through the lungs. I watched her go down in some deep snow and we took off and tracked her down.

Bone from 1st shot

2nd shot,

I will spare the weak, and not post the other photos I got. It was so Cold that within a few minutes Tyler got really cold and thanks to Brent, he was able to get warm and we got the elk cleaned out and taken care of. We had a great time and were glad to get home. Brent got 3 elk and it was a bit later in the day and a lot colder. I never knew it could get that cold. Tylers Elk got cut up last night into hamburger and steaks, I have pictures of it all if you want to see, even Tyler cutting up his steaks.

All the steaks are in the freezer!