My Favorite Birthday Cake

My favorite cake is not cake, it is Kake. That's what I've called this girl (okay, so technically I shouldn't say "girl") for years. This is my Kake the last time I saw her in person, which was just three weeks ago.

Karen and Caleb

Karen at Cheesecake Factory

This is Kake just over a year ago when we had her farewell lunch at her favorite restaurant. You can bet she will be going there today, but in a different location, because it's her birthday, and because it's National Cheesecake Day. 

Outside Cheesecake Factory

This is what we all looked like a year ago (Laura, look how short your hair is!). 

These are my two amazing daughters. 

Happy Birthday, Kake! I hope your day is amazing! I love you so much!

The Book is Done!

I have been majorly preoccupied with typing, setting, editing, rearranging, fixing, and finishing Bud's life history to be self-published. I finished it today and sent it to the publisher, ordering one copy so we can preview it to make sure it's perfect before we order multiple copies. The last time I ordered multiple copies without viewing it first, my mother ended up being named Eerie, and my stepfather, Waltz. So, I've learned my lesson and I will check the book while it is in my hand before I stock up. At almost $90 a book, I don't want any mistakes!
Speaking of which, as soon as I uploaded it and ordered it, and it was a done deal, I noticed that the picture on the front cover needed to be repositioned because it chops off part of Bud's hair (that was back when he had some). Drat. Too late to fix that now. If there are no other mistakes, I might let that go rather than uploading the book again, but if you know me...well, I might not be able to live with that and will have to upload anyway.
The whole point of this post is to let you know I have a life again, and might just get back to blogging one of these days.

The Bounce House of Death

Because Samuel's family was coming to my house for vacation, and because there was a great deal on it, I rented a bounce house for an afternoon. We had a big family party and everyone in the extended family came except for one nephew and one niece. Here's Samuel helping the bounce house guy set it up.

Everything was going well until I decided to get in there and bounce a bit. 

Once I did that, all the kids joined me. 

Evidently the fun thing to do was try to "take Nana down." 

And then it happened. The blower disconnected from its tube and the house collapsed. I was trying to get all the kids out, and some were trapped between the net wall and the side of the house. I was freaking out. All I could imagine was that the house was going to swallow us all up and that would be the end of the story, although I have never seen a newspaper headline reading "Bounce house eats grandmother and small children." But there is a first time for everything, right? The parents of the children came over and extracted their babies one by one while I was trying, but failing, to hold the roof up so they could get out. In the meantime, my claustrophobia kicked into high gear and I turned into a puddle of panic. 

Since no one grabbed a camera to document the disaster, I'll refer you back to this photo of the house as it was just filling with air at the start of this post. Now imagine me still inside. No, don't. Just the thought of it makes me crazy again.
I finally got out after the last kid was accounted for, and melted into the grass, trying to breathe. Instead of breathing, I hyperventilated instead. My sister brought me a cup of water, thinking I was over-heated. My other sister thought I was collapsed on the ground looking for something. Both were wrong. Long story short, we all survived and there are still no headlines reading grandmother and small children eaten by carnivorous bounce house. But you'll never ever EV-ER catch me in one again! It took me hours to recover. Now that I've relived the story again to post it here, I think I'll go lie down for awhile.

Sealed

On July 10, 2013 my son's family was enlarged to include forever. Here are some pictures of that day.

We are at the Redlands temple in California. It was a very good day!