Gma and trampolines

Screw the themed thingy I have been doing, I knew that would not stick long, although if I can muster the discipline I will write about kids with cancer, because they matter and so does more funding and a cure...

But thanks to Grace over at Camp Patton I had the lovely reminded why I am terrified of trampolines... yes terrified.  I will not go on them, nor will any foreseen spawns of mine in the future.  Just no.  And who is the thank for this but my lovely grandmother.  Who is now in her 90's and is a kind but firm Catholic women.  She bore 13 children and was the reason I made my first communion and confirmation because lets be honest who would want Gma breathing hell fire down their neck because there favorite grandchild is not fully received into the Catholic Church.  No hands raised??? Moving on.
As a child I was not a chicken, I was cautious but not a chicken.  After all I was the child the tried to bungee job out of the tree with a jump robe around my stomach, (let's thank God my wonderful mom caught me in time) but it was the caution that would get to me.  Once someone told me how dangerous something was I would NOT do it. It is proubaly why I am the 1% of children that D.A.R.E. worked on, and why Scruff McGruff and Smokey were "so cool" in my eyes.

Anywho Grandma was visiting our humble abode and I was about to go outside to jump on my besties trampoline.  Before I left grandma took me aside and said be careful.  She then proceeded to tell me graphically how Uncle So and So fell off one jumping too high and not only cracked open his head but suffered a compound fracture.  This was the same Uncle that almost lost his eye running with a stick.

I am pretty sure 5 year old me stood with pupils dilated and mouth feel open in fear.  I was then sent out of my way, but every terrifying jump was filled with images of injury and death.


The fear only grew when another neighbor boy feel off a lost a tooth.  Years later I come to find out that the whole story was false, and Grandma only wanted her most favorite and awesome grandchild safe.  However since then every jump has been filled with the terrifying fear that one wrong leap will lead me into impending doom. IMPENDING DOOM

September is

September starts off so many things, school is in swing, the summer heat is cooling down, and tv shows are about to start back up.  Yet it is also the month to remember childhood cancer.  To remember children like Jessie, Ronan, Lane, Ayden and Prestun. Thee of which have passed away. So instead of Sunday funnies for the month of September I will feature a story about a child fighting cancer and ways you can help, but for today I will leave you with some facts...

Cancer sucks.  It took my mom and so many other people that I know.  My hate fire is fueled even more when I see what it does to children and how underfunded it is.  Children are our future and I one day hope we have a government that see it that way, so as this month goes by and I give more information I hope that you are inspired, that you take some kind of action, and that you get behind a cause for those who cannot fight for themselves.  

What I am Reading Wednesday

Despite only having one working arm, and how goofy being on pain meds makes me I have missed blogging.  One of my new favorite blogs Clan Donaldson does a "What I am reading Wednesday" and since I am an avid reading and lover of books I decided to give it a go for no mortal surgery or injury will stop me. ( I have a feeling I will faceplam at that comment later.)

Anyway I have been in a HUGE book rut.  In the past month I have started about 10 books and have stopped because I have not been able to get into them.  A friend of mine is an avid reading and upon perusing his book selection last night I happened upon this:

It sounded really interesting and I was promised it was not a love story.  Now I am all for love but am sick of the unrealistic sappy love stories.  They end the the same and well we are going to end it their because it is just going to turn into a huge rant.  Anywho Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin is turning out to be quite enjoyable.  It is a fast read and decently written.  I also am enjoying the twist on what happens to us after we die.  Just in a day time I am about 150 pages in and it is still holding my attention.  So the award goes to Gabrielle for being able to hold my attention and also making me realize that my rut is from all books seeming the same to me.  So far she is original and I am happy to spend my surgery recovery reading.  If you have any suggestion please comment and let me know.  

Oh and since I have not done my Sunday funnies is quite some time I leave you with this gem.

Five Favorites

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This video I stumbled upon and feel in love with.  As personally seeing what a family and society does to someone who is gay through my brother and I cried right along with the main character.  I dislike how a cruel society can set what is normal, but love this video so, so much.  It is 20 min but a promise it feels like 5 and so so worth it.  

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The mass amount of picture out there of Pope Francis kissing babies.

Melts my heart every darn time

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This crazy otter picture

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How awesome science is, and how close we are to curing cancer and many related diseases

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And finally the down to earth humor and voice that the amazing Michael Bublé has

Flashback Tuesday

Today you will be sparred for the boring history lesson because there are about 400 pictures that go along with this post... ok ok maybe not 400 but well you will see...

Now Lets flashback to the time France and more specifically Paris (the place not a person) tried to kill me.

It all started when this beautiful group of people worked our butts off fundraising in all form to raise a couple grand each for a European pilgrimage.  

The lovely lady to my left is awesome, and the lovely lady to my right was referred to as my twin and by the end of the trip we just told people we were sister.  And Em some things never change hu?

We ate and were merry till the lovely Werner and Meizis families took us to the airport.  Where we waiting and stared a lot at this excitedly

And entertainded each other with stories and food and what not

We arrived in grand Paris and Lindsay, Laura and I sang this song over and over again...

However Paris did in fact not hold the key to my heart by the end of the week.  But first we had awesome events like....

Seeing this thing

And then getting caught in the rain under it...

And then it raining some more on a boat tour

And eating the best lamb I have ever had

Also an awesome bakery right next to where we were staying.  However it would be Paris baked good that would later try to take me out....

Fast forward a few days to when we were on our way to Lourdes.  The trip itself was delayed because the train workers were on strike, so we spent the night on a nonmoving train and then the next day waited to run to the train in order to board it and make our way to Lourdes.  That morning some Canadians who were Catholic and clung to our group a little bit offered us some of the yummy backed goods above.  Now when they got to me I asked, "is that chocolate or Nutella?"  They assured me it was chocolate and being a trusting human I took a piece.  Instantly upon eating I turned to Lindsay and said, "That was not chocolate, it was Nutella."  She responded with a "How do you know?"  And I calmly as day said, "Because my throat is closing up."  Now it was not that she did not believe me, but I had said it so calmly and was still so calm that it was not until I downed 8 yes 8 Benadryl and told Laura that people started to panic.  While my throat was closing I had just taking enough Benadryl to knock out a large Dog and stop it.  We also has a nurse with us and my vitals were fine and if I used my EpiPen it meant that we had 30 min to get me to the hospital where we had no idea where it was, and then attempt to get to Lourdes while there was still a strike going on.  So we waiting.  

I looked like this

Highly red and drugged.. but relief came in a comedic form when a pigeon missing several toes flew in and slid in Tom Cruise Risky Business style

So Lindsay and I gave him the very approperate name of Tom Cruise 

And because Tom Cruise the pigeon was such a comic relief I vowed to be nice to them for the rest of the trip....

Anyway about 20 minutes after popping the Benadryl we got the green light to run toward the trains and our group did... with Laura pushing me from behind yelling for me to go and go faster... we successfully made it aboard and I passed out, to wake up when we were arriving here...

Which was quite nice, but due to my severe allergic reaction I had the joy of going to the doctor twice, once for the first reaction and than again for a secondary reaction, and was quite medically high for the rest of the trip, and to this day I swear European Predizone has some more hard core stuff in it than the American kind.  

However that did not stop an awesome trip...

And some good "high" quotes from me such as "Laura can do that because she is a soccer player" when she was just waking, and quite a few assisted touring walks from Laura, Linsday and Luke because I could not walk straight.  Luke also came to to rescue several times during Mass when I would go to stand and then almost fall over.  (See what I mean about the drugs being more hard core?)  Alas it was still an amazing trip and would make it again with those amazing peps again but this time no food from strangers.  Fast forward a week and I was on the mend under my good old docs care, and finally decided to try out the chew and dispose toothbrush with Lindsay that we got on the trip.  

It was quite nasty.

Sunday Funnies

We are going to call this little gem the animal edition, not just because animals are funny but because I have started to hoard collect so many wonderful pictures... 

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Another prime example of the evil that is in all cats....

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This sassy backseat driver

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Fabio in lion form 

You know he gets all the ladies with a flick of his luscious locks. 

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This dog who is staying a step ahead of his minion master

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The real reason why Dinosaurs chased humans in Jurassic Park

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And lastly one of the many reason I am looking forward to fall

Is there something you little heart desires to see in Sunday funnies?  Just comment to let me know!

Flashback Tuesday

First, let's start out like we did last week by me telling you that on this day in history American Bombers dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.  The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure and other heath issues. Three days later,  a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Truman our president at the time has gone on record saying that he "never regrets" dropping the bombs.  This is not to make Truman out to be a bad man.  For him he was seeing the lesser of two evil, and the fact that Japan killed thousands of our men in the Pearl Harbor attacks on December 7th 1941.  

Had the Japanese not surrendered after the drop, Operation Downfall,  would have happened.  This would have been where an organized invasion of the Japanese mainland.   Joined with Operation Ketsugo, the Japanese defensive plan, devastation would have struck both sides. In a study done by the Joint Chief of Staff during the planning it was estimated that American casualties were an estimated 1.2 million, with 267,000 fatalities. Japanese civilian casualties were to be an estimated 5 million, as opposed to the 90,000–166,000 killed in Hiroshima and the 60,000–80,000 killed in Nagasaki. While the use of nuclear warfare proved to be devastating and continued to kill after the war was over, some say the cost has never outweighed the benefit, when one considers the lives saved on both sides due to President Truman’s decisive actions.  ( Source 1 and Source 2)

For me personally it is something that I pray never has to happen again.

And now if you are still with me after that long and sad history lesson I would like the Flash Back to the time I become a Godmother.

It all stated with this girl:

Liking this guy:

So they tied the knot:

And later had their first son:

Who later became a big brother:

To this guy:

Who I am the proud godmother of: 

But all that was not made officially until this awesome moment: 

Now even back before I knew Sean and Jeanly I knew I wanted to be a godmother.  It was on my life goal list and when I was asked I was delighted.   Meeting Sean and Jeanly had/ is such a huge blessing on my life in every way and I was overjoyed when they asked me.  I prayed everyday for him and his mom, started to write him letters that I will one day give him and was overall extremely  excited. Now that he is here I can say that he and his family are one the the best thinks that have entered my life.  Elijah is a constant source of joy.  He is most often my phone background because just seeing his face makes my day better.  I have even told other friends that I cannot imagine what a mother feels for their children because of how much I love that little guy and his brother.  I look forward to the joy I will one day feel when he learn to say "Rachel" like his older brother did, but I also look forward to watching him grow up with the guide of his amazing parents.  Watching him and helping him learn about his faith, spoiling him and above all making sure that he always knows how awesome he is, how is was chosen for this world even before I dreamed of being a godmother, that he is God's favorite and above all that he will always have a place in my heart and nothing he can ever do will take that away. 

Especially when you make a face like this: