Parowan Gap

> Saturday Curt and I went out to the Gap for a little hike. The weather was just right for hiking. Not cold and not hot. It was really nice out there. We were looking for a spot that Curt had seen on one of his painting trips and he wanted to get a picture of it. When we finally found it, it wasn't exactly what he wanted. We had a good time anyway.
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> -Elaine
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Caleb's Eagle Court of Honor

Today November 6, 2010 Tishanna and I went to Salt Lake to be at the court of honor when Caleb, our first grand child, received his Eagle. It was very nice to be able to go and see the family. Curt wanted to go but since we were just in Salt Lake a week ago he really didn't feel up to traveling. Geralyn and Debra, my sisters, also were there. I was glad to be able to talk to Caitlyn and Caleb and see how they have grown into beautiful young adults. Caitlyn is now 12 and Caleb will be 16 in December. Curt and I hope that they will come visit us here so we can get to know them better.

-Elaine

Beautiful Fall at our pond

Curt and I sat out at our pond last evening and watched the leaves cover the pond. We have a net over it right now so we can just blow the leaves off and they won't get in the water. When all the leaves are off the trees then we will take the net off.

-Elaine
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Up to the Yankee

> Curt has been working on his little aluminum boat, fixing the trailer, putting a whole new floor in and carpet down on the deck? And getting it ready to go fishing. Yesterday we took the boat 'up to the Yankee' and put it in. All went well and the day was beautiful. The engine worked fine after a little fine tuning. The fish were not biting, but we had a good time anyway. It was nice to be able to just pick up and go. I am not driving my bus for a while so I can just go when ever Curt wants to go. I could get used to this and just retire but I already miss driving my kids on the bus. I'll just wait till January to make that decision.
> Last week Curt was supposed to see his Doctor on Monday. The VA said that in order for them to pay for his treatments at a non VA center that he would need to see a VA doctor and they were only there on Tuesday,Wednesday and Thursday. We sure didn't want to stay over in Salt lake so I kept checking on when we could make the appointment. Found out that our Huntsman Doctor, Dr. Zangari would be starting a clinic at the VA on Thursdays. We were his first patient on his first day at the VA. It worked out good so we saw a VA doctor and Curt's Doctor at the same time. Yeah! Dr Zangari told Curt that he wanted him to do another series of Chemo then he would probably just take pills. So Yesterday he went to the clinic here in Parowan and had his labs done and will go to Cedar tomorrow for his Chemo. He will do this for three weeks then we have a week off for Thanksgiving. The three sets will take him into January when we will go to Salt lake and see Dr. Zangari again. With every thing going just like the Dr. planned Curt should be able to just take pills and not have to do anymore infusions. Curt is really doing very good, but he still gets pretty tired if he works outside very long.
> -Elaine

Lost tooth

Well, what a sight. Three generations of Paulson's looking for Zach's missing tooth. He was swinging the girls in the hammock and the rope caught his loose tooth and popped it right out. We told him that the tooth fairy would still give him money if he left a note for her under his pillow.

-Elaine

Four wheeler

Matt and the family came for an extremely short visit the weekend of the 16th. The class of 1990 of Parowan High School had their 'first' reunion party at Brianhead. The party was a success but the family wasn't here long enough. I was able to spend some time with the kids the previous weekend at their home in California while Matt and Amy were in Canada. I really had a good time with the kids. They were great! I caught a cold the day I got there so couldn't talk very well. The kids would wisper to me when I would whisper. Too funny. They really helped me with everything. We even went out for breakfast one morning and they were so fun. Hope I can come again and visit soon.

Grandpa and I are planning to visit when Zach and Zoe will be baptized in January. Curt seems to be doing really well. He still gets tired a lot but can usually do what he wants. Lee came down for the beginning of the Elk hunt. No luck but they had a good time. Curt went out several more times but didn't see anything to shoot.  I am taking 12 weeks off from driving my school bus. I talked to the district and I will be able to return to MY Route with My pay scale on January 18th. I just need to spend some time with Curt and have some fun. I will miss most of the cold weather so I am happy about that.

-Elaine

Pond Pictures

Catch Up

> I checked the blog today and the last time I wrote was around the first of August. Guess its time to play catch up. On August 7th Curt and I celebrated our 42nd wedding anniversary. Wow! We didn't feel like going out so we just stayed in. Quiet time is good.
> Curt has enjoyed working in the garden. Everything did pretty well except the Indian corn. I have bottled lots of tomato sauce and we have really liked having fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. We certainly did well with the zucchini too. Curt fixes a meal with the big ones using sausage and onion and seasonings. Very good.
> He seems to keep very busy. I really wanted to go somewhere before I started back to driving bus but he had too many projects going! He gets tired easily so we don't push him too hard.
> On the 16th I got a watch from the school district for 35 years driving bus. Its always nice to be recognized when you do something good.Then school started the 19th and Curt started back with his Chemo.
> He will have blood work on Mondays and Chemo on Thursdays for four weeks, then one off and another four on. We will see Dr Zangari in October.
> Happy birthday to all the August and September birthdays in our family. Kira on the 25 of August, Daniel on the 29 of August, and Caitlin on September 24th. All my kids wished me a happy birthday the week of August 15th so it was good.
> Clint surprised us with a visit last Sunday.( Sept 19th) He came by the house and visited with his Dad for a while then saw Tishanna at work, then came right into my Relief Society class (after the prayer) and got me. What a great surprise. He took me to get my car at Tishanna's work and we visited for about 20 minutes. It was a great surprise and a very nice visit.
> Last Tuesday we went to St. George to have an exam by a VA Doctor. She just had to write on his records that he will need to continue with treatments with Huntsman in Salt Lake and Dr. Te in Cedar City. The VA should now pick up any medical bills that Curt may have. We just have to get a worker with the VA so we can call and get a number for every treatment. Sort of like a purchase order. Every time! I hope we can figure out a better way of doing that.
> Today is September 25th and Curt and I went out early to clean the pond. We actually got all the fish out yesterday and put them in a circle tank with a net over the top and a pump to keep it aerated. Tishanna helped with catching them. Curt had a big net and would get one, hand the net to Tishanna and I would pull the net on the tank back so she could put him in. Some got caught on their gills in the net and Tishanna didn't like that. She wanted a gentler way to get them in there. We did get them all there even with the net problem.
> As we were getting to the bottom of the pond Curt saw a little fish. Yeah, our first baby! We put him in a bucket and have him in the house. Curt will put him in a fish bowl until he gets a little bigger.
> We are both tired now and know where all the aches and pains are. We really are too old to be doing that but who else would do it? That is just one more of Curt's projects! We will fill the pond back up now and put the fish back later today or tomorrow. Curt got a LOT of muck out of the bottom so it should be good for another two years. We have really enjoyed having the pond area. It is always peaceful and shady. The Summer is my favorite time but it is always nice out there. When Curt and I were Foster parents the pond area was OFF LIMITS to the kids. That was our place where we could just be together. Thanks Curt!
> I will be going to Matt and Amy's on the 8th of October. I get to stay with the kids while they are out of town. Gramma time!!! I'm really looking forward to being there.
> Time to go check the pond. -Elaine

Joe's Crab Shack

Well Monday, (August 2) we left early for Salt Lake for Curt's appointment at Huntsman. His first appointment was for Labs, then we had a small break so we went to an Art supply store and bought some oil paints. We bought enough that we should be able to keep him busy for a long while. At two we went back to Huntsman for the bone biopsy. This is painful and just plain not fun. Abbie was the tech who did it and she was good. She has to actually take a core sample of the bone then take some marrow for testing. After that he had an MRI. I waited out on the terrace and took in some sun.We stayed at Ryan and Ginelle's house. It was so nice to have a place to just kick back.

Tuesday we didn't have any appointments so we went to IKEA. Curt was still pretty sore from the biopsy but we managed to get through the whole store. We bought some furniture for our front room. I'm very excited to put it together. We will wait until the new carpet is put in. We have already painted in there and it really looks great.

Tuesday night we went to the Jordan Landing and had dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. I really have never been fond of sea food but was willing to try it again. At least the place didn't smell fishy! That was a good start. I got a little nervous when the waiter came and put a bib on us and gave us these tools to crack open the crab. It looked more like an orange peeler. I really thought I could get away with getting a good steak but No.......Curt wanted to share a steam pot with me. We got 2 of everything. Corn on the cob, a whole crab, about 10 shrimp, a big fat sausage. I was really surprised because I dug right in and actually finished before Curt. It was really good. I won't give Curt a bad time about eating fish again. Well, maybe I won't.

Today, Wednesday we packed up and first went to Capitol Ceramics where Curt bought 100 pounds of clay and some new glazes. Then we went to the VA Hospital where I went in to see if we qualified for travel money. When we have to travel away from home the VA will give us gas money. Yes, we qualify and they will send it to us. Yeah!  Then we went up to Huntsman and had lunch at 'The Point' restaurant. Very cool to look out over the valley and watch the lightning show. We could see all over the valley.  At two thirty we went to see Dr. Zangari. He looked at the test results and told us that it was 'Very Good'. There were no new spots to be worried about and the cancer count was actually below 1 percent. Like point zero seven. I think. Anyway it is looking very good for him and he was very relieved. We addressed some issues and changed some drugs,and set up the schedule for the next two months of Chemo in Cedar City. Then Dr. Zangari wants to see him after that. Hope we can work around the Elk Hunt! Well, then we left!!!!! Of course we got into the afternoon rush hour traffic, but we were so glad to have that over. We got into some rain and hail but got home around eight. So good to be home.

-Elaine

The Gap at sunset.

This was just an awesome picture that I took with my phone!   It is looking toward the Gap while Curt was gathering polliwogs. I took the picture not knowing exactly what I had.

-Elaine

Cooler

This is the cooler with just a few polliwogs in it.  We took home about one hundred. Sure was fun.  I wish the grand kids could be here when the polliwogs are out.  They would have a great time!

-Elaine

Polliwogs

Last week Curt and I went out to see the frogs again. This time we saw thousands of polliwogs, so we decided to take some home to our pond. This is Curt using the little net to catch some and put them in a cooler.

-Elaine

Fishing Day

> Today Curt and I went to Pruess Reservoir. It is almost to the Nevada border. It was pretty hot but we had a good wind most of the day. Actually it got pretty darn windy and there were white caps on the water. We did catch and release on the suckers that we caught. I think we both got a little too much sun but it really was a nice day. On the way home we were watching what we thought was smoke in the distance. As we got closer we found out that it was the wind blowing on a dry lake bed. On part of the road we had very bad visibility. It was a short stretch though so it wasn't bad to go past. This little reservoir has Mirror Carp in it and we saw bunches of them together. It just made the water look like it had a dark spot. The water has a lot of alge so it looked O.D. (olive drab) in color.
> Curt had a pretty good day. He was tired when we got home but it was sure nice to be out for a while. We watched TV and then watched the Moon come up behind the mountain. I love watching the moon come up especially when it is a full moon in the Summer.

Clay

Yesterday we went to Summit mountain to get some clay.  There is a great road at Braffits Creek.  Someone was going to put in a sub division but ran out of money.  There is a road clear to the top and what a view!  We can see clear to the Gap and Cedar City. It was very nice up there. Not too much wind and very cool.  We found some clay and brought 5 buckets home.  Its in the dry state so it was easy to shovel into the buckets.  The picture is of Curt running the clay through a screen to get the rocks out.  He smashes it to make a  fine powder then he will add water.  This Summit clay fires a tan color and is really pretty.  Curt says that it is a little hard to throw, sorta like porcelain. 

Today is Fathers Day.   HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL THE FATHERS OUT THERE. ESPECIALLY CURT AND MY SONS,  CLINT, MATT AND DANIEL!

-Elaine

West Hills

On June 18 we took a ride to the west hills to check out some places that we hadn't been to in a while.  It was less windy out there.  It was nice to be out of the wind for a while.  Curt is having more and more good days now.  The edema in his feet still bothers him but he is taking meds to take care of that.  He loves being in the garden and when it gets too hot there, then he goes to his studio and works on his ceramics.

-Elaine