We're Home!!!

Well, we're back home and recovering well from our trip. It was great to see our family and for everyone to meet Beckett, but the trip home was "long" to say the least. Our first flight from Charlotte was cancelled, and they now leave it up to you to rebook for another flight. Yes, they simply hand you a 1-800 number on a piece of paper and tell you to see what you can get. Great customer service, eh? Then after we made our connections (our bags didn't) in Minneapolis and Salt Lake we were on our final flight home to Cody at 9 pm. The pilot told us we'd be landing in Cody in about 15 minutes, then about 5 minutes later the plane starts going up again and he tells us the visibility just got really bad and we'll have to head back to Salt Lake for the night. So, we're stuck with the kids at 11 o'clock at night in Salt Lake with no bags, and they once again hand us a piece of paper with a number on it so we can call and have someone find a room for us, which the airline won't pay for because the turn-around was weather related. I'm so glad my sister Hannah was with me because I probably would have lost my mind at that point. The kids were really great, and we finally got to a room and in bed about 30 minutes after midnight.

Then we had to catch a 9 am shuttle back to the airport to try to get to Cody again. Well, by this time I'm running out of food for Beckett, so I call a cab at 7:45 that morning asking how long it would take someone to get there to take me to a grocery store. The lady on the phone said someone could be at the hotel in 15 minutes and I should have no problem being back for the shuttle at nine. At 8:25 there was still no cab, so we called again and the lady said for some reason the call ha been cancelled and no one was on the way. Well, needless to say I got a little upset, but she sent someone else, but it was too late to be back for the shuttle. So, we all piled in the cab, went to an Albertson's, then had to pay the driver to take us to the airport. The good news is we made it and are all safe and sound at home, be it 24 hours later than expected. Hannah was SUCH A HUGE HELP and I really couldn't have asked my kids to be any better, so I am very grateful for that. I do not, however, have the desire to fly again for a very long time. Poor Hannah had to fly home to Portland from my house today, and we were all sad to see her go. It was wonderful to see everyone in North Carolina, so that made it all worth while. THANKS to everyone back East for a great time!!!

On a lighter note, Hannah and I had been drinking coffee all day Thursday because we thought we'd have to drive home from Cody in the dead of night. We had our cups of coffee on the plane and Natalie started yelling, "I need coffee!" We kept telling her she doesn't drink coffee and that she could have some juice, but all she wanted was coffee. The plane was small and everyone heard our conversation and started laughing. At least we got a good laugh that night! Natalie finally passed out and slept all the way back to Salt Lake! Well, here are some pictures from the trip. The weather was great for us and we got to do a lot outside...


The entire Brooks Clan at a dinner party at Aunt Carter's

Papa and Nana Brooks

Ipa (my dad) and Nana

Nattie relaxing by the pool...it wasn't warm enough to swim yet, but we played outside and let her put her feet in the wading area.

Ipa and Nattie in the pool...

Auntie Hannah and Beckett...he'll be 7 months old next week!

This is the Duke Mansion in Charlotte, which was once the "Summer home" of the Duke family that started the huge power company at the turn of the century. It's now a historical landmark and has a hotel in the top floor, and the bottome floor can be rented out for parties. There are beautiful gardens all around, and Papa and Nana have made a donation for some restoration and will have a garden named after them! It is quite a sight.

Hannah, Nana and Beckett in one of the gardens

Nana and the kiddos in the children's garden. An artist carved out the characters from "Peter Cottontail" into an old tree stump. It looks so adorable. We went with Dad's cousin Jean and her granddaughter Logan, who is four.

Hannah and Momma with the kids

And I just had to try and get a close-up of one of the gorgeous flowers! Amanda...maybe you could use it on a card?


And we also got to go to an animal park/sanctuary, which Natalie loved! They had tons of birds, small farm animals and also some exotic ones like a rhino, camels, giraffes and emu's. There's part of the park where you can drive through and throw food out, and those emu's run straight to the car and stick their heads through! They are not attractive, and I couldn't get the window up in time and Natalie had food in her hand and got pecked. She's fine, but it was a little scary!

The funny lemours...

Natalie loved this goat and felt the need to just sit and pet him a while!

One elk had to problem getting right up to the car to ask Aunt Carter for some food....

And they had so many of these adorable potbellied pigs everywhere. Some of the females were so pregnant and fat their bellies literally dragged on the ground and they could hardly walk! They have it all figured out though to just hang out by the side of the road for food.

A deer relative from Africa....

One of the many exotic birds...

Auntie Hannah and Natalie looking at the huge Coi fish

Nana and Beckett

Aunt Carter with the kids

And that was our trip in a nutshell! We really did have fun and enjoyed seeing everyone...you are all welcome to come and visit the Yellowstone area any time!!!

Here is our latest addition to the family...Natalie's new pony! A friend of our has a pony for his daighter, who accidentally got bred and had this adorable foal. They don't need another pony and offered to just give her to us so she could have a good home...Daddy agreed, so now we have "Chocolate." She's only a year old, so Natalie won't be able to ride her for a year or two, but we'll bring her out to our house this spring to get her used to us. She's all chocolate brown, so Natalie decided that's what she wanted to name her.

She comes to just below my waist

She's still a little nippy because she's a baby, but she's pretty sweet.

Well, we hope you all have a great weekend and next week. We'll head out to Hyattville for church and family dinner tomorrow. Hugs to all!

Ice Cream Makes Everything Better

Things are going much better in the Tharp house this week! Kyle is home from the hospital and recovering well. He's in the "coughing it up" stage with the pneumonia. It is so nice to have him home and returning to his old self. Thanks to everyone for your calls and prayers. We are blessed in so many ways.

In other exciting news...Beckett's first tooth finally broke through today after two months of on-and-off teething and torture for this poor boy. Uncle Tracy is visiting from California and he and Grandpa Guy brought him some ice cream today...OK, some of it was for Natalie too! It was a fun visit...they tried to convince me Kyle was well enough to got the snowmobile out, but I stood my ground and put my foot down like a good wife! Just kidding, he was not feeling quite up to it anyway.


Uncle Tracy and Beckett

Nattie finishes all of her strawberry shake

"One more bite, please!"

And here are the pictures I took off Amanda's blog of our trip to the museum last week. It was a lot of fun...

William, Benjamin, Natalie and Heidi

And Momma and Beckett...it was nice to get a picture with me in it since I'm usually the one behind the camera.

We hope you all are having a good week...Amanda and I will meet with another doctor's wife to show her around on Friday, and I plan to get mostly packed for our trip this weekend before Auntie Hannah comes! We are very excited for this trip and for all of the Brooks Family to meet Beckett for the first time and see how much Miss Natalie has grown. Ipa will also meet us there, which will be fun. I'm not sure if I'll get another post in before we leave a week from tomorrow, so if not we'll have lots of good pictures to share when we get back! Hugs to all.


"Happiness is the by-product of an effort to make someone else happy." ~Gretta Palmer, American Writer

Prayers for Kyle

Just a quick update to let everyone know Kyle's condition...I took him to the ER this afternoon when he said he had chest pains and couldn't breathe. He has been coughing and having lots of cold sweats for a couple of days and it just got really bad today. They immediately thought he had a blood clot in his lung that would have originated in his leg where his cast was (that's a risk with casts). However, after lots of tests and CT scans, they found no major clot, just some areas around his lungs that may be small clots. BUT, he does have bad pneumonia in both lungs. So, he is spending the night in the hospital and will be home sometime soon. They did give him blood thinners just to be safe, and he's on IV antibiotics and breathing treatments. He already looked much better tonight when I left than he did earlier today. Anyway, that was our exciting weekend. Please send good thoughts and prayers for a swift recovery. Hugs to all.

Fun Times...

Well, we've had another eventful week here in Wyoming. Daddy was home for a few days then got sent out to North Dakota again, so it was we three amigos once again. Other than Momma being very tired and sometimes a little crabby, we did fine. I had a couple of good adjustments done on my back this week (trying to avoid more spinal injections) and I feel much better...thanks to Amanda for watching my kiddos for me. You are such a sweetheart and a lifesaver!!! She's my saving grace when I need a little time to myself while Kyle is gone.

Anyway, Amanda and I took all 5 of our kids to the Meeteetse Museum last Friday for an exhibit on Lincoln, and we all had a blast. The kids had lots of things to touch and look at, and then we ate our packed lunch and bought dessert at the Chocolatier! Our kids were so polite and so well behaved, we were very proud of them. They all get along really well together.

Then Guy and Jill took Natalie for some play time on the ranch when Kyle got called out again, and I took Beckett to church and picked her up Sunday. I am debating leaving him home from church for a while until his nap time schedule changes because he wants to go to sleep at 9 a.m. every morning, which just so happens to be when church starts. Unlike Natalie, he is very set on his naps and does not want to be rocked or held when he's tired. ALL HE WANTS TO DO IS LIE DOWN and put himself to sleep. It's really nice when we have a place to do that. I put him down while he's still awake all the time and he's just perfect. But trying to keep him up or get him to go to sleep when he can't lie down is very difficult, and I alsways end up taking him out of church when he starts his loud fits. I tried last time laying him down on the bench with a blanket, but that didn't work. It just doesn't feel good to miss the service and disrupt it for others, so I might leave him home for a bit until he doesn't need that morning nap anymore. We'll see how I feel this weekend.

Amanda and I met with a prospective doctor's wife yesterday and had a great time with her. We spent about 2 hours with her and took her and her kids to our favorite park, to story hour at the library and on a tour of the Community Center. We talked a lot about raising kids here and the like, and we both got the distinct feeling she liked it here. They already live in a pretty small town in Minnesota, so small town life is not foreign to them. She said meeting her and taking the time to show her around meant a lot, so we'll see if they end up moving here. The hospital board supports this new approach, so I hope it makes a difference! Grandpa Guy has also been helping to babysit while I was busy this week, so another THANKS to him. Beckett is much happier around him now that he shaved his beard!

In other news, Kyle got home again last night...and was in the hospital again today. He took a fall off our front steps this morning and messed up his ankle again (the same one he hurt about 2 months ago), so we headed to the clinic with 2 patients today. I took Beckett for his 6 month checkup and Kyle for his ankle. Beckett has now grown 7 inches in 6 months! He's in the 94th percentile for height and 50th for weight. He's just shy of 17 pounds. All is well with him. However, they ended up taking Kyle over to the hospital for an x-ray, and it is not broken. But he will need it casted for at least 6 weeks! The ligaments are shot right now, so he needs to be sure he doesn't roll it again. On the up side...I'll have childcare for the next month or so!

Well, that 's our week in a nutshell. It's been so nice and warm the last few days, but we're supposed to get snow again next week. We are so excited for Auntie Hannah to come and make our trip to North Carolina in about 2 weeks! Hugs to all.



This is the kiddos' new game...Beckett rests on Natalie's tummy and they play face to face. They
really interact a lot now, and it's so gun to watch. He's learning how to pull hair really well!

"Pretty much all the honest truth telling there is in the world today is done by children." ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Days of Our Lives...

Welcome to another week in the Tharp household! Daddy got home Monday evening, and we are thrilled. Grammie got home safely from our Worland airport Saturday, and we can't wait to see Auntie Hannah in a few weeks. We then head to Charlotte, NC to visit the Brooks family and hopefully meet up with Ipa. We only wish Auntie Sumner could join us! We've had a fun week so far and have fun things planned for the rest of the sunny week as well. Friday we're headed to Meeteetse with the Shade kiddos (OK, yes I'm excited to have an outing with Momma Amanda too!) to visit a special Lincoln exhibit at the museum. It's geared for kids, so it should be a lot of fun. We then plan on having a picnic if the weather stays nice. Saturday we have a birthday party, so it will be a busy few days. I'm headed to a board meeting at the hospital tomorrow evening to talk about our plans to help recruit new doctors. I met with hospital officials last week for some brainstorming, and we're all really excited. We have a possible family doctor visiting next week and Amanda and I have been working on a productive morning with his wife. It should be a lot of fun.

This week has been full of new adventures...mainly eating for Beckett. He'll be 6 months old next week and is just starting to like cereal. He's eaten a whole bowl for the last several days and has a lot of fun playing with the new texture in his mouth. He's just such a happy boy when he gets his sleep and is not battling teeth.

Yummy?...

Yes, yummy...

More, please!

Natalie had a busy day at school yesterday but still wanted to go to the grocery store on the way home. Against my better judgement I agreed, and I learned my lesson! Since I had both kids with me, there was no room for her in the cart and all the little push carts for toddlers were gone (that really helps keep her focused and occupied). So, we ventured in anyway with the agreement that if she cooperated and listened well she could get a surprise out of the 25 cent machines on the way out. Well, I had to get strict with her every two seconds, and she kept throwing her toy horse all over the produce. Luckilly Mrs. Forshee got to see the fireworks at the end and the wonderful emotional performance put forth by my daughter in the checkout line. She asked if she could get a surprise, and I politely told her she didn't listen very well this time so we would try again next time. I knew it was coming, so I couldn't do much more than giggle at the situation when she hit the floor in full tantrum mode and tried to jump out of the cart when Adrienne graciously offered to pick her up and try and console her. Luckilly it was mid-day and not many people were shopping. At that point I couldn't give in, so Adrienne helped put the green bags in my cart while I lugged the two babes outside. I was proud of myself for going with the flow, accepting the fact that the more I pushed her to stop screaming the more she would scream, so quiet "shushing" and hugs were all I could give her. Needless to say, Nattie was asleep in her carseat within 5 minutes, and I will no longer try to avoid another trip into town by shopping after school. Beckett didn't make a peep the whole time, and the silver lining was I got to visit with Mrs. Nice-Lady Forshee from Ten Sleep that I don't often see, but that fate has thrown with me twice in the last two weeks!

Grandpa Guy is coming over today for a few hours so I can get a cleaning at the dentist and work out. Beckett is getting more used to him these days, so I hope all goes well! We hope you all are having a great week and those of you with sick kiddos can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Love and hugs to all.

Natalie with her new electric toothbrush. She likes ours and seems to brush more enthusiasticly with her new one.

"Convince your children that your love is not based on their performance." ~unknown

A Sad Goodbye

Well, we got up early to take Grammie to the airport this morning and say goodbye until we make the trip out to Portland this summer. It was a fun visit, and she was tons of help while she was here! I think I only did dishes twice in 10 days! Anyway, we went into our little Worland airport for a bit to wait, and her plane was running late and Beckett was ready for his morning nap, so we headed out about a half hour later. Natalie kept wanting to go through the security check, and it wasn't that busy with all two passengers waiting to board. We chatted with Susan from church who works there and let Nattie run around a bit, then we were on our way. We can't wait to go to the same airport in a few weeks and pick up Auntie Hannah! It is so nice to have a major connection in Denver now so people can actually fly into Worland at a reasonable price. I think we'll do that the next time we have to fly to Portland.


Grammie with the babes...

Grammie and Natalie planting the shamrock seeds Auntie Sumner sent. It should be a fun project to watch grow. Don't you know all gardening should be done in the nude?

And here is an adorable video of Beckett falling asleep in his bouncer. He's done it twice so far, and it is so cute. He's not been sleeping well at night the last week or so, maybe his teeth since that one has still not poked through! He just drools constantly and chews on anything, mostly his little hands, to the point that the entire front of his shirts are wet. Poor little guy. The last two nights he was up at least 8 times each night, so last night I finally broke down and put him in bed with me. I know we just got him to sleep in his own crib, but I needed some more rest.

I met with some people at the hospital yesterday after getting approval from the county commissioners Tuesday to form a citizen's group to help bring more family doctors to Worland. Both of our doctors, whom we absolutely loved, left Worland in the last few years, and we need a better system to keep them here. I am tired of trying to find people I trust with my kids or debating whether or not to drive 2 hours to a bigger hospital. Anyway, both the hospital and county commissioners think it's a great idea, and I'm working with our local business development asosciation to get some funding. We'll see what pans out in the next few weeks...

We're going to have a quiet weekend at home, and Daddy should hopefully be back tomorrow! He's been really busy in North Dakota, and it is not warm up there to say the least. Baby Gracie is home from the hospital and recovering well, as is her sister with a bad ear infection. I wish I could run up there and help you, Suzi! Just remember you have so much love being sent your way and tons of people near and far who are thinking about you guys. Those of you with small kids be ware of the RSV virus this winter...it seems to be especially bad this year. We hope you all had a good week and can enjoy a relaxing weekend. And to my dearest Bee, thanks so much for your words of wisdom this week. You are stronger and more beautiful than you know. Hugs to all.

"From the rocking horse to the rocking chair, friendship keeps teaching us about being human." ~Letty Cottin Pogrebin, American writer

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Happy Belated Valentine's Day to everyone near and far!

We've had a busy week around here, but we've really enjoyed having Grammie here to help and visit, and momma and daddy actually got to go out on a date night! It was super fun, complete with interesting and highly entertaining conversation. We joined the Forshee's Friday night at the Trapper Creek Lodge and Supper Club for a "Nathan/Kyle/Adrienne birthday /Valentine dinner." We had not visited with them (nor been out without children) for quite a while, so it was a blast to just relax, have a glass of wine and "talk big kid talk." We stopped in Greybull on the way home and ran into some other friends, so we got to catch up with a lot of people that night. We actually stayed out past midnight, which I told Grammie I don't remember the last time I was up that late. We thank Grammie a ton for watching the kids so late and are grateful for our time with good friends.

Our beautiful babes are doing well and growing strong. Beckett rolled over a few times again this week, and he's starting to sleep through the night more often than not. Nattie got a hair cut the other day, which was supposed to be just a trim, but momma got a little carried away and it ended up a bob cut. Regardless, she looks adorable and loves it. No matter what, it's easier to comb, which makes it all worth it!

We got back from Hyattville this afternoon after celebrating Grandma Phyllis's birthday last night and staying over to go to church this morning. We had a big family dinner that was delicious and even got to enjoy some music by Aunt Pam and Uncle Terry. It is really fun to hear them play their strings together. We also got a special visit with Uncle Nick and Great Grandpa Chauncey at Jill's this morning.




Natalie and Grammie making chocolate sugar cookies for Grandma Phyllis...

Nattie with her own special rolling pin

She started to help feed Beckett this week, and he has started feeding himself sometimes, too.

And here we are all dressed up for our date night...it was so much fun!

Well, we hope you all have a blessed week and stay happy and healthy. It's great that our friend's baby Tanner is recovering well out of the hospital now, but I just talked to Suzi yesterday and now her baby Gracie has the RSV respiratory infection, too. They have not hospitalized her yet, but they are doing breathing treatments and keeping a close eye on her. Please keep them in your prayers. We love and miss you all and can't wait to see some of you soon next month! Hugs to all.

"Close friends contribute to our personal growth. They also contribute to our personal pleasure, making the music sound sweeter, the wine taste richer, the laughter ring louder because they are there." ~Judith Viorst