Looks like fun in the Giant Colon!!

Dave is down in Vernal until Friday. He is down there with his job on some assignments. I guess he decided to do a little emailing and sent this picture to me. Him and one of the young men that he works with at ATF went to the Giant Colon display they had down at the Gateway Mall. (He looked like he was having fun, huh?) Double click on the picture to enlarge it. His favorite thing he brought home with him that day was "Eneman". It was a foam toy of an enema bottle. My grand daughter Diana went down there for a class trip and I guess she brought one home also. She thought "Eneman" was a glue bottle. Really had no idea what her grandpa was showing her. When she found out, all she could say was, "Grandpa, that is gross"! But all kidding aside, the display was very educational. Colon cancer is a serious thing and I thought they did a good job in educating people about the disease.

Happy Birthday Dave

Happy Birthday to my Hubby!
Tuesday, the 17th of June was Dave’s birthday. We decided that we wanted to return to the Boston, MA area to re-visit some of the places we got to know really well while he was stationed there in the Army at Ft. Devens. We normally go camping and fishing for his birthday every year but Nathan knew we were thinking about going to Boston so he booked us a flight and we were on our way Monday the 16th. It ended up being a full travel day. Since we were flying ‘stand-by’, we didn’t make reservations for a rental car. We thought we would just get there and worry about a car then. However, we landed in Boston about 4:15 in the afternoon. We made our way out to the front of the terminal and got on the Avis Shuttle. When we got to the rental place, we were unpleasantly surprised to find out Avis did not have any cars available. We thought that wasn’t going to be a problem,. So we hoofed it over to Budget (no cars),…..then to Dollar Rental (no cars there). They did us a big favor at the Dollar place and called all the rest of the car rental places that were left at the airport, and guess what? NO CARS! So Avis shuttled us back to the airport. We then hopped on the Silverline bus which took us to the subway. The subway took us to the commuter rail. We took that train out to Fitchburg, MA which was west of where we lived at Ft. Devens. It was also the last stop on the train. We got our bags and hopped of that and went in (with rain pouring down) and made arrangements for the taxi service there at the train station to take us back to Leominster, the next town going east. That is where we stayed. We got to our room about 9:15 p.m. that night. In the morning after we had Enterprise bring us a car over, we used the rest of the day Tuesday and all day Wednesday to do our visiting and sight-seeing. On Tuesday we went to see our friend who worked with me at the Officer’s Club at Ft. Devens and her significant other. She was totally surprised when I gave her a call and told her we were in town. After leaving her place we went over to Ft. Devens (which has been closed down as an Army installation) and drove around to all the familiar places there and went and found the place we lived in Ayer, MA before we got quarters on post. Wednesday we went and turned the Enterprise car in then took the train back to Boston and drove around there and then to Concord, MA. We took pictures of both hospitals where the boys were born (Chris at the Cutler Army Hospital and Nathan at Emerson Hospital in Concord). We went to the “Old North Bridge” and stayed there for a while. Later on we headed back towards Leominster but going the old Route 2A and drove through some of the small towns we use to go through when we lived there. Thursday was another travel day. Both travel days we were up at 3 a.m. and on the road to the airports by 4 a.m. It was a quick trip but we had fun and I loved going back to the New England area. One of these days I really want to take the kids back there, especially the boys so they all can see the places they were born and learn of all the history in the area. Ashley would enjoy it also. In this post will be a few pictures we took.

1) Dave standing on the lot where our government quarters stood.
2) If any of you know Dave at all, he loves to frequent the old cemetaries. This picture was taken in the town of Harvard, MA. (We had to look at all the writings on all of the grave stones, it seemed. Some old old ones in there.
3) These are wild flowers on our lot where Dave was standing. I thought they were cute.

4) Janette standing at a marker at Ft. Devens in honor of the World War II and Vietnam veterans. In that same corner was the cannon that was shot every morning and evening. Dave was part of that. The flag pole was there also. They have that corner fixed up really pretty.
5) The Minute Man statue at the old North Bridge in Concord, MA.

I am going to close this post out for now. I have some other pictures on my computer at home that I want to share, however, I am finishing this up down in St. George at Ashley's and don't have "My Pictures" available here. (By the way, this is now Saturday, ..... not Tuesday when I started this post.

I would say this was a fun Birthday trip for Dave and myself.

Have a good day!

Congratulations Ashley!

I am going to brag a little bit about our daughter Ashley. She has made us very proud in that she just graduated from Steven Henagers College with an Associates of Science Degree in Respiratory Therapy. She is Certified and has past the first part of her Registered Respiratory Therapist test. She had been selected for a position up in Burley, Idaho and was thinking about moving there, however she was invited down to St. George, UT for an interview at the new IHC Hospital the same day she was to let Burley know if she was going to accept their offer. When she spoke with the interviewing committee down in St. George, she decided what they were offering her there was much more appealing to her not only the job itself but there is going to be more opportunity down there for Joey when he completes his externship in SLC and graduates the 18th of July. There wasn’t much hope in Burley for him getting a position right away as a Pharmacy Tech. St. George will be better all the way around for them. The hospital gave Ashley a place to live (a vacation condo) for the month of June, so starting the 1st of July, they will be leasing with option to buy a home only 3 blocks from the hospital. It’s 3 bedroom in a community that has the swimming pool right across the street from where they will be living. She is also continuing her education and is working towards her Bachelors Degree in Respiratory Therapy. If she can keep up the pace, she should have that degree hopefully by the end of the year. It will depend though. She has tried her hand at dental assisting and as a certified nursing assistant. Her last position as a CNA was at the University of Utah, Bone Marrow Transplant floor. They really loved her there, not only the staff but the patients and their families, so as you might know they really hated seeing her leave, but at the same time they were proud of her also. It's going to be hard on her Momma to have her further away, but hopefully I can come up with some good excuses to go down to see them at St. George. She's already invited me down this coming weekend so we can do some measuring for curtains and stuff. We'll have fun! Congratulations Ashley! We love you!

He's One of a Kind

I forgot to mention that we have two dogs that is very much a part of our family. We have Tucker who is a Lab and English Pointer mix and our Beagle dog, Saidie. Back in the summer of 2004 I wrote this poem about Tucker. He loves playing ball. Actually, he’ll play ball as long as somebody will keep throwing it for him. Any way, here is the poem.

He’s One Of A Kind
By Janette Sprankle - 7/2004
(Dedicated to our sweet Tucker dog)

Black and white, black and white
He hates to let us out of his site.
He loves going to the big dog park,
The sooner he gets there, the sooner he starts.
Running and romping and catching his ball
He's in the water pond and out at our beacon call.
To quit playing ball?.... it’s totally unheard of,
He hates to stop for playing ball is his love.
A sweeter dog you would never find,
He’s so full of LOVE, he’s one of a kind.

Tucker is the black faced dog coming up out of the water with his ball. You can see the back end of Saidie in the bottom left hand corner of the picture watching Tucker. I haven’t created a poem or even a story about sweet Saidie, but the day will come when I feel inspired. You can’t really call us “empty nesters” because of the dogs. They are like kids, only not as hard to manage.

Colors of Me

I was reading through some old saved emails and ran across one that one of you out there sent me. It was called "Colors of Me". I answered some questions and this is what came up about me when I was done. I'm doing this to see if this helps you get to know me better,...... I'm not so sure it is 100% right, but you be the judge. My "color" is medium orchid. Here goes: My dominant hues are red and blue. I am confident and like showing people new ideas. I play well with others and can be very influential if I want to be. My saturation level is medium - I'm not the most decisive go-getter, but I can get a job done when it is required of me. I don't think the world can change for me and I don't want to spend too much effort trying to force it. My outlook on life is brighter than most people's. I like the idea of influencing things for the better and find hope in situations where others might give up. I'm not exactly a bouncy beam of sunshine but things in my world generally look up. The flowers to the right aren't orchids, but I thought they were pretty! They were actually some trees in bloom in Yosemiti National Park I took in May when we went to San Francisco.

First Time to BLOG!

Let's see how this will go. I don't have too much in mind yet, but if I build this Blog,.....other's will come (and read it), right?

I can't tell you all how many times I have tried this (at least 2 or 3), but we'll give it another try and see what happens. Sioux has been my inspiration in many things, including getting this started again,....and again,....and again (you didn't know that, did you?).

I just want to say first of all that our family, all sides, has got to be one of the most talented I've ever seen in so many ways! Some of the blogs I have read over the last little while have been amazing! Thanks everybody for being the GREATEST! It has been so much fun to get to know all of you through your Blogs. I love all the poems, the stories, and ALL the pictures! What FUN this all has been to see!

I guess I'll learn how to add other's blog sites, my favorite music and fun pictures. Just be patient with me, ok? I'll get there!

It's Sunday night and I need to get busy cleaning my computer room so I am going to sign off for now and I will look forward to my next post. Oooops! I'm not suppose to say that,.......hopefully y'all will look forward to the next one.

Goodnight!