Cha Cha's 28th Birthday

My beautiful daughter Charlee Ann is 28 years old today. What a joy she is to me. I love her so much. She is a wonderful person, great mother, hip sister, and good friend. Happy Birthday Baby!

We are going to have a barbecue in her honor tonight. We eat no matter what the occasion. Her request is "big fat grilled shrimp and a yummy salad". I am also making her the famous blue berry cake she loves/ It really is about the best cake in the world. Somewhere between cake and torte it is to die for (recipe available upon request). My sweet baby girl Teddi and Martin are coming out and bringing my other darling. I bought the girls a sprinkler toy that shoots out balls and they can run in it. Also Big Daddy said it's time to get out their pool, so it should be fun. Wish my Toby could be here, but I guess ya can't have everything. I am just grateful I have been able to spend sometime with him lately. He is great. Hey, have I told you about my fabulous family lately!!!HAHAHA

I am back to work and back in the swing of things. I finally feel pretty rested. I do have a bit of a summer cold or at least sinuses. I rested all weekend and just did about nothing. It felt great. We are going to take the kids to Laughlin for the weekend and see the fireworks Rockets Over the River. Should be fun. It is so HOT here. I was beginning to wonder if we were going to have summer this year but I didn't need to worry. Now I can barely keep my plants alive at 110 degrees. The next two months will be a gardening nightmare. OH well

Most of the Family

I wonder if there will ever be a time when we can actually get a full family photo. This was as close as we have been so far. Still minus Traci and Cheyenne. I WANT a picture of us all. Maybe someday.
The Mexicans
Toby, Tony and the Gouda Cheese
Teddi and My sweet Oli Bali Bay
Teddi, Martin and sweet Oli
Alecia and Sami (Sami is Alecia's friend who is here for the summer) She is a really fun girl and we have enjoyed having her very much
My perfect children
The gang
A Mexican and a Hickspanic
Toby and his sweet little cheezer
Marty Man and Olivia
Gourdy trying to get Big Daddy
Two handsome cowboys
Mimi and Big Daddy

Dad's Funeral

Dad was buried with full military honors. He served in the Air Force during the Korean War. He always joked and called himself a "propeller head". The funeral was held in Garden Valley at the LDS Church and then he was buried at Veterans Cemetery in Boise. It was a really nice funeral and I think Dad would have liked it. All his children spoke about their memories of him and he wanted me to give the eulogy. I thought it would be the hardest thing I had ever done, but it turned out to be really easy and joyful. He made it easy because I had so many wonderful memories of him and he had been such a stand up guy, Don't think he was perfect, he wasn't, but he was certainly the perfect father for me.
The honor guard presenting Mom with the American flag.
Dad's grandchildren all sang "I Am a Child of God" It was really sweet
This is Tony and Ammon leading the pallbearers out of the church in Garden Valley. Tony was just heartbroken about his grandpa. He loved Dad and was so close to him. He had been really close to Dad since he was a little baby, they just had this thing. Tony would go and stay about a month with Mom and Dad every summer. Dad built him a little bed that sat right next to Mom and Dad's king size bed. It was up high enough that Tony could reach out and hold Mom or Dad's hand. Dad didn't want him to be afraid! Mom let Tony wear Dad's favorite coat while we were there and the night before the funeral, Tony laid on the floor with his face in Dad's coat (he said it smelled like Grandpa) and just cried and cried. I felt so sorry for him, he was just inconsolable. Mom was so sweet and let Tony wear a pair of dad's boots, a hat, and one of Dad's western ties to the funeral in honor of Dad. After the funeral, she gave him Dad's boots.
This was Dad's favorite cowboy hat so it was only fitting that it was on the wreath!

This is the poem (really modified lyrics to a song) that I ended the eulogy with:

Daddy

He wore western shirts
Snapped, not buttoned at the neck
He'd sit in the yard and watch the chicken's peck
His old hand shook, but what the heck
I thought he walked on water

He said he was a cowboy when he was young
He could handle a rope and he was good with a gun
And some times he thought I was his oldest son
But I thought he walked on water

He'd tie a rope to the end of a mop
And say Deb here's a pony, keep er at a trot
I'd ride in circles while he laughed a lot
Then I'd flop down beside him

He married my Mom before I was three
And I loved him and he loved me
And Lord I cried the day he died
Cause I thought he walked on water

And if the story were told
Only heaven knows
That his hat seemed to me
Like an old halo
And though his wings
they were never seen
I though he walked on water

Richard Edward Davis "Daddy"

Richard Edward Davis, age 77, passed away at his home in Garden Valley, Idaho on Thursday June 18, 2009. Ed, as he was known by his friends and family, was born on December 22, 1931 in Carey, Idaho to Shem & Josephine Gatzmeyer Davis. Dad grew up in Challis., Idaho where he learned to love the outdoors and it was here, in the American West that Daddy began his life long love affair with the cowboy lifestyle.

Although we will miss him something awful we are thankful that he is at rest. Hopefully he is up on the range with his palomino horse Chinook, his old dog Oreo, warming his hands by the fire. We love you daddy,

Daddy

I have been gone for the past week in Idaho. My Dad had a really bad stroke and I have been there helping care for him. It is so sad. Will be back ASAP.

Sunday Morning

Big Daddy slept in this morning but I was awake at about 5:00 am. I actually slept really good as I took a pain pill last night before bed. My right leg was killing me. The kids had been here all day and between mowing the lawn and cleaning up outside and then cooking and playing with the babies all day, I had had it. The old gray mare ...................

The baby girls are growing up and getting so big. Olivia just talks and talks and is so funny. She has all her funny little sayings. She had us laughing all day. She can't say "swing" so she calls her swing a sun-in. It is so cute. Then I got these pink flamingo's for the yard and she just loved them. She called them "chickens". She wanted the "chickens" purse and was fit to be tied that I wouldn't let her carry it around. The flamingo's are pretty flimsy and I knew they would end up destroyed. Plus, she needs to learn she can't have somethings. She didn't know that it hurt Mimi worse than it did her. Gabbi just looked at them and then tried to smell the metal flowers on them. It was so sweet. Gabbi just likes to run on the lawn and chase Digger. He is so protective of her and Oli we could barely get near them without him growling at us. He takes good care of the babies

The girls played so good together, of course Gabbi tried to do everything Oli did and it was so cute to see her mimic Oli. Oliva was really good with her and shared and just "mothered" Gabbi to death. After the Mexicans went home, Teddi, Oli and I sat on the bed and watched some old vintage cartoons of the three pigs. Martin and Cliff came in and sat on the floor and watched them with us. At one point the pigs were dancing and Oli said" Shake your booty, Daddy Daddy. Cliff was sitting on the floor leaning against the wall and he started shaking his butt, when Oli saw that she jumped off the bed and ran over and sat on the floor by Cliff and started shaking her booty. It was so cute. The other thing that made me laugh was she called the wolves, wolverines. It sounded so cute.

I rearranged my guest bedroom this morning and cleaned out the closet. I am trying to make space for Alecia and her friend Sammy. They will be here friday night and I had lots of work to make some space for them. Now it looks real nice and they have closet and drawer space. We pick them up in Vegas on Friday night and I think we are going to go the the Venetian and take the gondola ride and have dinner. So now I know summer is here cause the kids are coming. Lovin it!!

Washington DC

This is my favorite picture taken in Washington DC. It shows our reflection in "The Wall". This was taken at the Vietnam War Memorial. It has always been a special place to me after the first time I visited it about 15 years ago. This was my war; the one that made me understand and hate war. I watched so many friends go off and either never come back or never come back the same. Young, strong men full of life either dead or forever broken. That's how I think of the Vietnam War in the casualties both ours and theirs . So here's to Mike; heroin got him, Danny ; a bullet got him, Gary; insanity got him, and all the ones I didn't know that fell. There is a line in a Tracy Lawrence song that goes

" Have a beer for me, don't waste no tears on me. On Friday night, sit on the visitors side and cheer for the home team. Drive my Camero, 90 miles an hour down Red rock Rd, Born to Run blasting on the Radio. And find someone good enough for Amy, who would love her like I would have, If I don't make it back."

I think of that song quite often when they show the war news at night and Cliff and I have started a tradition of clinking our beer bottles in a toast the first beer of the night in their honor!!!

The first time I went to the Wall, people had left baby photo's, flowers, letters, medals, etc. It was so sad to think of the families who missed their fathers, brothers, lovers, so much and the only thing they could do was find their names on a black wall of our fallen soldiers and leave them some small thing that would make them seem a little less distant. This time there were very few such small, sad, shrines. It shocked me to realize that all those children in the photo's are grown up with children and maybe even grand children of their own, wife's remarried, father's and mother's perhaps passed away. Time has moved on to a new list of dead. Hopefully there will be a place to remember these young men someday soon.

I love this picture of the Capital building. When I first visited Washington years ago , you could walk right up these steps and into the Rotunda. Now with 911 and all the other crap, you have to spend an hour in line and getting through security. Another sad commentary.
Cliff was so impressed with this statue that he is having it drawn and having it tattooed on his forearm. It will be a bitching tattoo. I love tattoo's they rock the house.
You can just see the top of the tent they had set up in front of the Capital building. If you saw this years Memorial Day Concert, this is where it was held.
This is the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. We stayed and watched the whole thing, So beautiful and talk about serious! They take this guarding of the Unknown Soldiers dead serious. It was a beautiful thing to watch. Very touching. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year they stand guard. Now they really don't stand. They march 21 steps in one direction, stop and wait 21 seconds, snap turn and wait 21 seconds, then march 21 steps in the other direction and do it all again. Every 1/2 hour they change guards and it is a very elaborate ceremony.
This is one of the Hall's in the Library of Congress. I could have spent a month here. If you don't know what is housed in the Library of Congress, it is everything they can collect that is print, film, or recorded. They have books, scripts, screenplays, magazines, movies, newsreels, TV shows, posters, newspapers, memorabilia, and on and on. They show case certain things that are constantly changing. One of the exhibits we saw was the Bob Hope exhibit. They had everything you can imagine. You could watch old newsreels, old TV shows, see old concert poster, read old scripts, see his Academy Award, Photos of his USO tours and on and on . It was so interesting. What amazed me the most is when we went in Traci said, "Who is Bob Hope," I almost fainted. Am I that old?????????
Arlington goes on forever...that's the bad news
Cliff and I at Arlington in front of JFK's grave. I have always had a fascination with JFK and the assassination. I am a big conspiracy theory fan on this one. I bet I have read 50 books on the subject. One thing I learned was that the eternal flame has actually gone out twice. Once when a gardener knocked over a bag on mulch on it and once when a nun spilled a bottle of Holy Water o it. Both times they immediately re-lit it.
This photo was taken in the National Cathedral , my very favorite place in Washington DC ( I think it is actually in Georgetown). Cliff wasn't too crazy about going there, but was glad we did afterwards. It is such a beautiful, old church and encompasses so much history both happy and sad. I love it and you can go up on the 7th floor and see all over the city. This cathedral is bigger than Norte Dame in Paris. In fact, Norte Dame can fit inside this place and you could walk around it. I bought my baby girls specially blessed cross necklaces and bracelets here. They look so cute in them.

Beautiful stained glass window' s with many varied themes. The alter rail is interesting also. The artist that carved it, carved the 12 Apostles each one as a vertical post that supports the horizontal alter rail. He carved each one beautifully with full facial features and flowing robes. When he got to Judas, he refused to carve him so one post is just a plain wooden post completely unadorned. Quite a statement.
The Nation's Church, non denominational and open to all.
This is the house across the street from the Ford's theatre where Lincoln was shot. This is actually the house Lincoln died in . They have the room set up as it was upstairs. Interesting.
Ford's Theatre entrance and then below the actual theatre box where John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln and then leaped on to the stage and exited stage right! JWB was an actor after all. I guess he knew his blocking.

We enjoyed the tour of the Washington Monument. I was amazed how fast the elevator got us to the top. After all my trips to DC, this was the first time I took the time to actually go up into the monument. It was fun.
Flags outside the monument
Traci and I in front of the Lincoln Memorial
Big Daddy and I in front of the World War 11 Memorial. He had to point out what he was most impressed with!!!!

Traci in front of the White House. You can see the flag is up so that means President Obama was in residence at the time. It is such a beautiful property and something for all Americans to be proud of. The last picture of Big Daddy and I with his hair long. As soon as we got home he cut it off real short. I loved that hair but he is so damn handsome both ways who cares!!!

Wild Work Week

This has been a crazy week. Things at work are so stressful. I just rack my brain for more ways to cash flow this place. I really don't know how much longer we can make it. I just pray and keep my fingers crossed. I will hate to go to Vegas to look for work. Maybe one of the casino's will need a funny old cocktail waitress. HA

I spent most of the day yesterday at Nellis Air Force Base in meetings and trying to get that job squared away. The government wastes so much money, but unfortunately they are not wasting it our way. It's like cutting teeth to get any money out of them. The average guy has to fight like hell. Unless you are someones buddy or political contributor, you just have to fight for every dime. I am beginning to realize this game is not any fun anymore. I spend all my time on legal issues and trying to prepare for the inevitable law suit that seems to be a part of every general contractors business strategy these days. Ah for the good ole days when honesty and hard work were what made a difference. Most of my meeting with our employees yesterday was to try to explain that a daily report servers two purposes. 1. It is a record for the general contractor to use to sue us and 2. It is a record for us to use to sue the general contractor. Ain't that a bitch!

Anyway on a lighter note. Alecia and her friend Sammy will be here next week for the summer and I am looking forward to seeing my girl. She is gonna kick it G-style with her Nevada hommies. She is coming and Tony is going. He leaves the same day she gets here to go to Idaho for the summer.

We will be going to Idaho for the 4th of July. We rented a cabin in the woods with a hot tub. So 4 days of relaxation. It is the 10th anniversary of the theatre and they have invited all the old cast members back for a reunion. Should be fun. Also I want to see my Daddy. He had a mild heart attach a couple weeks ago and I want to make sure he is OK. He sounds good, but I want to see him. I hope I can talk him and Mom in to coming down and spending the winter here. It is just to remote and snowy for them to stay up there in that house alone. We will see.

I am going to finish posting the pictures from our vacation this weekend. I have to get my nails done and a pedicure tonight plus it's the first Laker game of the finals so we will have to watch that, then Friday night who knows what we will be up to. But I will get it done!!!!

Weird Weekend

We had a sort of strange but I guess OK weekend. Friday night the Mexicans came over and we watched the Laker game and I made hot wings and ribs got some side dishes from KFC. AS soon as we ate Cliff made a beeline for the potty and said it "went right thru him". Everyone was OK but I just kind of felt weird and went and laid down on the bed. I finally went to bed early and woke up about 1:30 in the morning and felt like I was gonna throw up.

Now that may not sound too far out to most people but I don't throw up. I mean not when I am sick, not when I am drunk, not when I am pregnant. In fact I can't remember throwing up since I was a little kid. But sure enough I barely made it to the potty and wham. I was sick all night and then when I got up Sat morning felt a little better. I went out to mow the lawn about 7:30 am and before I made one pass I was running for the house. YUCK. After that I was OK and finished the yard work and cleaned the house.

Cliff had to help the Mexican so he had left about 6:00 (he must love that Mexican) but he got back about 10:30 and I went to the store and came home and asked if he wanted breakfast. He and the Mexican had gotten Mickey D's so I went in the bedroom and laid down and fell asleep and didn't wake up till 4:30. I did feel kind of OK but had a little crampy tummy. We had food bucks from the Eureka that expired that day so we decided to go to the Eureka for dinner. Had a wonderful dinner at Gregory's. I tried to stay with bland stuff, shrimp cocktail, lobster bisque soup and a piece of halibut. Cliff of course had his usual Big Prime Rib. We played the penny slots for awhile and then went to the Virgin River to see if they had a decent band but nope same old pathetic crap. so we went home and were in bed by 10:00.

Sunday morning I got up and made a lasagna and watered my plants. Then Cha and I took Gorda and went to Vegas to watch Olivia for Teddi. We went to lunch and then took the babies shopping for Tony some hiking boots. Oh yes I almost forgot. We also had to hit a Ross since fat ass here split her pants out and had to buy a pair of shorts. The girls said "You will do anything for a new pair of pants". True enough. Then we went back to Teddi's and Oliva fell asleep. We played with Gorda and then Marty Man came home so we lit out for Mesquite. I was so happy to see mu Olivia. She is so cute and talking so much and is such a clown. Every little thing that happens she says, "Oh, no" like it is a big deal. She is so funny.

We got home around 4:00 and Cliff was eating lasagna but my tummy didn't feel up to it so I had a bowl of cereal and a yogurt; even then my tummy hurt all night. I couldn't sleep so I stayed up till 1:30 reading a book about he Bush Family. That is probably why my stomach hurt so bad, jackasses that they are!