July 14, 2004

Can I just tell you all how much we love Stillwater, Oklahoma and the people that live here. A few days ago I had to go to the dermatologist because I had a few friendly zits that wouldn't leave my face and after I met with the Dr. and told him what was going on, he came back in the room with an arm full of samples and told his nurse, "We are dealing with a celebrity here so here are about $250 dollars worth of samples and we aren't charging her for anything." Come to find out the dermatologist was in East Rutherford and San Antonio so he saw Kristi and me preform live. Can I just say along with loving Stillwater I also really love the HORSE DANCE!! I know Daniel feels the same about Stillwater because he has been considering changing his home town in the starting lineup form Newbury Park, CA to Stillwater, OK because he says that this feels like home now. We also became official Oklahomans a month or so ago when we got Oklahoma license plates put on our cars. They aren't the ugly dream catcher ones they are cute Oklahoma State ones with Pistol Pete on them! We are proud to be Oklahomans as long as we can keep our teeth from turning yellow and falling out.
Daniel and I were asked to go to a couple of auctions these past months. The first one was in Tulsa and the second one was in OKC. They are really fund raising auctions for OSU athletics and people are usually pretty generous. They had a silent auction where there were a lot of really nice pictures of the basketball players, football players and coaches. And then they had a live auction where they auction off trips with the teams and things like that. While we were there they put us to work being spotters for the people that were trying to bid. Daniel got some guy to bid $3,000 dollars for a signed Final Four basketball and I got some lady to bid $2,000 dollars for a signed chair from Gallagher-Iba Arena. She was going to stop bidding and then I said, "Come on, Daniel sat in that chair." She started laughing and kept bidding to win. The auctioneers are hilarious and they offered me a job spotting at all of their auctions but um, no thanks. I told them that I was a good spotter because I went deer hunting every year while growing up and I got really good at spotting little white bums! At the auction in Tulsa they sold a lot of really nice pictures of Daniel and at the auction in OKC they had a picture of Kristi and me doing the horse dance and two "Cool Chicks Wear Orange" shirts that we autographed that went for $300 dollars. How funny is that? I remember when Daniel and I came to Stillwater for our recruiting visit the last thing Coach Sutton said to us before we left was, "It will be an adventure for you guys to be out here." To which I replied, "Oh no, Coach Sutton, it will be an adventure for you to have us here." Isn't that true! We are having the time of our lives.
Daniel has been working like crazy at summer camps. He has worked both basketball and wrestling camps and next week he is going to Ada, OK to work a basketball camp that is on an Indian Reservation. CUT YOU MONEY UP! Between camps and lifting and scrimmage games I don't see him any more than I did during the basketball season. He broke his left hand playing in a scrimmage game a few weeks ago and has a hard cast on it so that has slowed him down a little, but not much. Don't worry, he will be fine, it seems to be healing well and he will be more than ready for the season. We are both thankful that it happened in the summer and not in the season and that it was his left hand and not a knee or leg or something that takes longer to heal.
I finished my scrapbooks-yes books being plural. It is over 200 pages long and takes up 3 whole 12 by 12 binders but it is AWESOME and totally worth the time and money spent. For our children and grandchildren it will be priceless. So now I'm back to sewing and for Daniel's birthday I made him a T-shirt quilt with all of his Final Four shirts. It's really cool and it will be a keepsake. I love being domestic!!
We had a Pistol Pete party on Daniel's birthday and combined his and Jaxton's birthdays together. Guess what? Pistol Pete himself came!! It was a lot of fun, we had a lot of people show up and we got some really great pictures. I actually hired a photographer because I am sick of never being in any pictures with Daniel or Jaxton. Jaxton thought he was the coolest kid on the planet because he didn't have to share Pistol Pete with anyone; Pistol Pete was there for him!! I made some Pistol Pete cakes and we wore Pistol Pete shirts and we just Pistol Peted ourselves right out!
Jaxton will be two tomorrow and I can't believe it! His attitude gets more and more apparent each month and I can tell you that we are in for it! At his 2 year check up he measured 37 inches. he is going to be so tall! He still has to sleep with all of his stuffed animals but now along with making sure they have enough sleep he has started feeding them and making sure that they have enough to eat. Horses are taking over Elmo in the favorite toy contest and he gallops around the house saying "Ye Ha, Ye Ha". We have been taking him to see real horses at the Animal Science field they have in town and he absolutely loves that. Jaxton is the biggest fish you will ever find. At the swimming pool we put little arm floaties on him and he is off, jumping off the sides of the pool, diving board, whatever. he loves to go under the water, he loves to float on his back, and he doesn't like to have nay help doing it. he isn't afraid of anything which is a little scary in itself but he absolutely loves the water. WE have been teaching him about Jesus and prayers and he is so cute because he will go up to any pictures of Jesus and points to it and say, "Jesus" with the biggest smile on his face. he won't go to bed without saying a prayer and he also like me to say a prayer for his nap time too. It's so cute. Being in Primary has made me realize how important it is to teach children about the gospel at such a young age. Their spirits are definitely ready for it.