Trip to Oregon

This last weekend Kera and I went up to Oregon to visit my parents. While we were there we, along with Uncles Craig and Daryl, got "chewed out" for being blog slackers. I am trying to make up for that today. Jared also mentioned that he was confused by all the pictures of unfamiliar children. Here is a brief explanation for those that do not know: they are foster kids. Denasia was placed with her on October 15th, and her baby sister, Kera, was placed on November 3rd, the day after she was born. Here are some pictures from the trip.

This might seem blasphemous to some to even call it snow, but the day I went to Oregon, it snowed in Houston:

Here is 5-year old Caden

We were lucky to be able to get the baby away from Aunt Tracy. She kept telling Craig things like: "he's not looking, go start the car!" It is funny how we are that way before having our own, and than after having kids, and when someone is holding one of ours, we say things like: "he's not looking, go start the car!"

It is Adaliz's job to feed the dogs every morning, and she does a great job. The dogs are not allowed to touch their food until Adaliz tells them "take it." She had some trouble this morning, but she showed Hera who is boss!

Free Ride

A couple months ago I was sitting in the back of the helicopter on a platform waiting for my passengers to do their work, and this guy flew right in! I shut the door and held him captive for a few minutes.

Only in Louisiana

I know that the quality is pretty poor because I took the picture with the camera on my cell phone. Yes, that does say "shotgun shell lights." For $15.99 (ouch) you can own your very own string of 35 shotgun shell Christmas lights! Merry Christmas!

Cake decorating class.

I took a class to learn to decorate cakes, because with so many B-days , it is cheaper to bake and to decorate our own cakes. there were only four class for the first course.

This was the second Class.

this was the third cake decorating class.

The last cake I made for the class, I forgot to take a picture, sorry.
I think they are not bad, and the most important is that my girls think "Mommy is the best and the cakes are delicious"

A Few Events

Letty with baby Kera; 17 days old.

I took my first college course in 1998 at Portland Community College. After 11 years, classes at PCC, South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, more PCC, flight school At Hillsboro Helicopters, two years of on-line classes at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and who knows how many thousands of dollars, my diploma showed up today... drum roll please....in the mail. There is a graduation ceremony in Daytona Beach, Florida; however, in true Clifford fashion, I am not going. After all, I have not gone to any other of my graduations, so why start now?

And now for the thing that you have all been wondering. I have a cast on because I broke my wrist... three months ago. In early August I was at the church on a Wednesday night with the YM/YW and I was playing bump with one of the kids. I was rushing to get the ball when I rolled my ankle and went down hard. The first thing that I heard when I was attempting to scrape what was left of my pride, and my body, off the floor was the voice of Brother Trahan, the other counselor in the Bishopric saying, "Marc, you're too old to be playing like that!" My ankle hurt and my wrist hurt, but I sucked it up and dealt with it feeling that I had only twisted both body parts. I even limped and gimped at work for a couple days. They both slowly felt better, and after a few weeks I was only left with occasional slight pain in my wrist when I twisted it wrong.

Well last week we started going to a new family doctor. He checked my pulse and all the vital signs and asked if there was anything bothering me. I said "not really. Well, since I am here, if I try to do a pushup my left wrist bothers me a little because I fell a few months ago." The doctor decided it would be wise to get it x-rayed, so the next day off I went. The x-ray was done, and it turns out that I have had a fracture in my wrist for the last three months. My doctor sent me to an orthopedic surgeon for treatment. He did some more x-rays and sent me for an MRI. He said that it appeared to be aligned and healing normally, so a cast was the best option. I was happy with that, the other options included screws and bone grafts. For you medical types in the family the scaphoid is what I fractured.




The post Graduation Party! Thumbs up!

Four blessings

Kera
13 Days old.

Denasia.
2 1/2 years old.

Nayalie.
3 1/2 years old.

Adaliz.
6 years old.