HB Family Reunion 2009--The Picture

I believe there were 89 actual HBs in this picture! Even though it was a rough week for our family health-wise, it was wonderful seeing so many family members that we love! Thanks Uncle Mark and Aunt Shelia for your work on the picture!

Who doesn't love raspberries?

While out running errands today I remembered Grammie Lowe offering to take us to her friend's home to pick raspberries. Today was beautiful--perfect for a family outing!
We loaded up containers, threw in some crackers and other snacks along with sippy cups, and headed out to pick. Unfortunately, the bushes were pretty picked over, but we had a fun time anyway.

Just enough berries for a taste testing by the youngest boys.

He liked the berries before I got the camera out, but this is the look I caught...just before he spit it out!

His older brother just about finished off the bucket though. Thanks Grammie Lowe for playing today!

"It will only take a short time..."

Have you ever started a project with the words "it will only take a short time"? I have come to believe saying that little phrase actually means "this project will take so much longer than you ever thought you wouldn't start it if you knew!!". We have had a few of those. In fact, as I am sitting here I see one of those projects to my left.

Really, how hard can it be to make floor to ceiling curtains out of a luscious silk stripe that matches the room perfectly? It will only take a short time. HA!

These puppies nearly kicked me around the room and I finally went over to my mom's house to ask for her help finishing them! Thanks mom! I do have to say that I love them though. I guess the work was worth it. There! That's the problem--months after a project has been completed the angst caused by the effort has worn off leaving us vulnerable for the misleading phrase to enter our thoughts again...it will only take a short time, right?

Last weekend was one of these. The Big Guy Lowe fell prey.

One trip to Home Depot, okay, two trips. One hour tops, well, maybe two, okay, almost five. Utter disbelief at the time spent and the work required, dripping sweat, sore muscles! Then the glorious backyard kiddie pool came in view. I don't know about other pools, but ours didn't come with any age restrictions!

Having daddy in the pool was not only relief for the Big Guy Lowe, but the boys thought it was great too!

I guess it was worth it... ;)

Scary Dinner

First an explanation. Back in the summer of 2000 I was able to go to Europe with my mom to pick up my sister E at the end of her mission in Portugal. We had a wonderful trip that lasted a little over two weeks. The Big Guy Lowe is convinced that we were gone for at least a month though, probably longer! When I returned he showed me a meal that he created in my absence. The inspiration for this was the want of both a salad and a hamburger and fries for dinner. He began by making a salad, cooked up some hamburger and added fries. I have to admit I was sceptical, but after tasting his dish I was hooked! Fast forward many years to our home before our current location. We often had our good friends the Hunts over. We would make dinner, they would make incredible desserts and we would have a great time! We decided to make this dinner for them one time and that was the day it was named. After seeing what we were offering, they said it looked like a "Scary Dinner". It does! The name stuck and from that day forward we have called it the scary dinner.

We had the missionaries over for dinner last night and we made this masterpiece for them. I decided to snap some pictures for posterity. :)

A basic salad consisting of romain lettuce, chopped roma tomatoes, green onions, carrots, avocado and anything else that strikes your fancy that day!

I make my own seasoned, oven-baked fries and season the ground beef with Cholula original and a few other seasonings. Then it all goes in the pool together! The final step is to add a combination of ranch and bleu cheese dressing. Looks scary, but rather tasty too!

Two creeks, One week

We needed something new. Not to say that our creek isn't wonderful, but change can be a good thing. Add in old friends for boys and Mom, beautiful sunshine, and good treats and you just can't help but have a great day!

Unlike our creek, this river was actually deep enough to swim in!

Beautiful area with huge trees.

Regardless of the location, we have our little "ham".

Thank you BG friends for letting us come and play! It was so fun to be with you all again!!

The first to go!

The last thing to happen before we left camp in Canada turned out to be an exciting thing. Our oldest lost his first tooth! After finding it was loose earlier in the day, he decided to use an apple to do the rest of the work. After taking about five bites, only using his bottom teeth, and out it came! Our oldest and his best buddy Kyle celebrated!

HB Family Reunion 2009--The Happy Memories

Our reunion theme this year was "HB Family Circus". To kick things off we had a carnival with cotton candy, fresh popcorn, slushies, baked goods and quality entertainment!

The Big Guy Lowe checking things out with our middle son.

They loved the stuff!

Just to prove that I was there, a cute shot with me and our oldest son!

Waiting for the entertainment to begin!

Rain at reunion!

A break in the rain brought all the kids out to the playground. Actually, it didn't stop them from playing at all!

There's no way I could capture all of our sites in one picture as there were so many. I haven't yet heard how many of us attended this reunion. It was smaller than usual in attendance, but I'm thinking there were about 100 of us there for the week.

Campfire activities with family from all over North America!


Our middle son learning to roast "smarshmellows" with his Grammy HB.


Our oldest with his favorite person in the whole world--Kyle!

Nothing like a campfire glow. Man, that Big Guy Lowe is one hot tamale!!


Traditional pancake breakfast with Aunt Sallie's Syrup!

One of the few shots of our littlest guy. He's not even crying!

Our favorite dog "Banjo". Our little guy even looks happy here!

HB Family Reunion 2009--Day Two...and on and on and on

Sunday morning came with a beautiful sunrise and clear blue skies...of course! While the day was beautiful and all, it just made it harder to keep the Sabbath Day holy by not water skiing or playing at the beach! We did go to church and attended the local congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--doubling their attendance! (There are quite a few of us HBs!!) In addition to the sunrise, our youngest woke with a 103 degree fever. It wasn't what we would have wanted for a vacation, but little kids often get little bugs and that's all we thought was going on. We still went to church, keeping our little guy to ourselves as not to keep our older boys from being with all their cousins at church. After Sacrament meeting the Big Guy Lowe and I decided to find a local walk-in clinic to have our little guy's ears checked. He had recently had double ear infections and we had the thought that perhaps they hadn't completely gone away--we had unfortunately had that experience with our middle son and he ended up getting tubes placed in both of his ears. We found the clinic and had our hot little boy looked at. After explaining our concerns about his ears, the doctor promptly inspected them and said they were clear and he was most likely responding to a virus. We left the clinic feeling grateful that his ears were okay, thinking it was a bit strange that the doctor didn't feel the need to check anything other than ears, but somewhat confident that our littlest would be feeling better by the next day.

Did I say "the next day"? Not so.

Monday came with continued fevers that we managed with Tylenol/Motrin keeping them between 102 and 103. Our little guy was miserable. He only wanted to be held by the Big Guy Lowe or me and only seemed to barely tolerate us even then! Oh, and the weather changed. It was now rainy and cold.

Tuesday came with fevers in the morning but finally breaking just before lunch! YEA!! We were so excited and happy. The sun even started coming out and we were planning on heading to the beach with the boys. We did notice that our little guy, while not burning to the touch, hadn't been eating or drinking much. The consequences of this became clear as I tried getting our little guy more comfortable by taking his pants off and noticing that his diaper was completely dry. Up to this point I hadn't been too worried about his fevers as he always had wet diapers--letting me know that he wasn't getting dehydrated. Upon finding the dry diaper I asked the Big Guy Lowe when he had last changed one. He hadn't. We both had assumed that the other had changed his diaper realizing that it had been over eight hours since he had a wet diaper. Can you feel my concern now?

One of my wonderful cousins, Melanie, directed me to the closest clinic in town. After a quick kiss and words of encouragement from the Big Guy Lowe, I headed out to have our little guy looked at again. I quickly found the clinic, but was soon informed that the walk-in hours didn't start until 5:00pm and it was only 3:00. The receptionist must have seen the tears starting in my eyes coupled with my screaming little guy when she added "...but we'll get you taken care of, honey". I was so grateful. A doctor agreed to see us and we only waited about 30 minutes. This doctor, unlike the first, did a full exam. After looking in his throat said that he suspected Strep because his throat and tonsils were so swollen, red and had white pustules. Because they don't offer rapid strep tests in the 'great white north', we opted to go ahead and start an antibiotic instead of waiting 48 hours for a culture to come back. Again, I experienced a slight feeling that we were finally getting somewhere and hoped that our little guy would be feeling better soon.

Did I say "feeling better soon"? He wasn't.

The Big Guy Lowe and I were a determined pair forcing fluids on the miserable little one, but the last thing we wanted was to end up in the Emergency Room. While we were successful in getting a slightly wet diaper by literally forcing the medicine and some fluids, it wasn't helping how he was feeling. Wednesday came with the same routine we had established earlier--the Big Guy Lowe and I would pass our littlest back and forth, trying to console him, hoping he would start feeling better, but never fully kicking the concerned feelings that seemed rooted inside.

Are you feeling our exhaustion yet? Are you feeling our little guy's exhaustion yet? Can you almost hear the constant cry, regardless of the hoops we were trying to jump through? We were still holding out hope that the next day would be better. We had given the antibiotic for over 24 hours, fluids seemed to be going down a bit easier even though we still fought a small battle to ensure this, and small bites of food were consumed by the little guy. All good signs.

"The silver lining of the cloud", you say? We wanted to believe so. Do I need to say that we were wrong...again?!

Thursday came with clear skies promising a beautiful beach day. We had an umbrella set up close to the water. We had brought a small blow-up pool for our littlest so that he could play in water without having the sun over him. We had high hopes. Alas, once again, our plans did not go as we had hoped. We continued our routine of passing the poor, little, miserable one back and forth, walking continuously as that seemed to be the only thing that seemed to distract him from his discomfort. A happy note, our other boys were deliriously happy playing with cousins in the water and sand! I can't imagine how difficult things would have been if the other boys wouldn't have been as happy and involved with everything going on with "Reunion". Nap time finally came and the Big Guy Lowe and I took our two younger boys back to the trailer to sleep. After a short discussion we both agreed that it was time for us to cut our losses and head home early. By the time naps were over and everyone had returned from the beach, we had our camp completely packed and cleaned. While it was sad we were leaving early, there wasn't any question that we had given a good 110% or more in trying to make things work that week.

Just before leaving, the Big Guy Lowe changed our littlest's diaper and called me over with a tone of voice that always makes me concerned and increase my rate of response. Yep, now there was a rash all over our little guy! We said good-bye to everyone that we could, loaded into the Volvo, and headed up to see a doctor for the third time before heading home.

I'm tired writing all of this! If anyone has continued reading this lengthy epistle, I imagine you are tired too, so I will close this now with an update after getting home and seeing our family doctor. The final straw was a Penicillin allergy!

How's that for a fun-filled family vacation? We did everything we could to make things work, but unfortunately things were out of our hands. Gratefully our older boys had a fabulous time, just reinforcing the happiness of "Reunion". Truly though, my house never looked so beautiful as it did at 4:20 Friday morning after driving through the night to get there. My greatest gratitude from the entire experience is knowing that the Big Guy Lowe and I do make a great team, come good or bad. Love you babe!

HB Family Reunion 2009--the drive

Because the Big Guy Lowe and I are so clever (did you pick up on that sarcasm?), we decided to get the car fully loaded and leave for Canada in the middle of the night so that the boys would be able to sleep during a big chunk of the drive. The car was packed, the bikes on, all that was left was to add the kids and we would be on our way!

All seemed to be going as planned. Our two older boys were excited, but after a short period of driving soon settled down and fell asleep. Not quite the case with our littlest! We hadn't thought about the fact that we haven't really had our little guy in the car that much when it is dark. In addition to that, we're big believers in letting kids sleep in their beds rather than cars, so nap time is always at home. So we left home at 1:45 AM with our littlest wide awake and confused and continued that way until we stopped at a trusty McDonald's for breakfast and a playland break! Those were a few long hours!

After crashing the Mcdonald playland (which didn't open until 8:00AM--two hours later), the manager decided to let us in when our middle son sat down on the ground and started sobbing. At the time the Big Guy Lowe and I were so grateful! We ate, the kids played and then we headed back to the car. Now that the sun was up, bellies were full, and some of our passengers sufficiently exhausted, this was what our car looked like.


The sleeping baby only lasted about 30 minutes, but they were a glorious 30 minutes!

Crossing the border at 7:00AM really helps to cut down the waiting time. I guess most people aren't as clever as we are. (more sarcasm) After a few more hours of driving through the breathtaking Canadian Rockies we were arriving at our destination; Summerland, BC (a small town close to Pentiction, BC).

We have been attending a HB family Reunion in Summerland since I was a teenager. Our first glimpse of the Okanagan Lake was just as amazing as we remembered!

The weather was hot and the sky was clear, the perfect combination for going to the beach. We actually did get there that day, a few hiccups before as generally is the case, but overall we enjoyed a good trip, healthy kids, and reuniting with extended family that we love and look forward to seeing as often as we can. Everything was pointing towards a great week camping with family and enjoying the wonderful local beaches. Then came the next day...

Littlest Lowe update

Lots to come in the next short while, but first we need to give the update from our little guy's MRI results. Three days after the scan our neurologist called with the results. Everything was NORMAL!!! Blood work came back within normal ranges as well--meaning that his muscles are working properly. Yippee!! She asked questions regarding his overall progress since we had been into her office, and they have been substantial, so she suggested that we continue with our pediatrician but that our little guy was progressing, just at his own pace.

Overall, we are extremely grateful and plan to keep moving forward. We do meet with our physical therapist twice a month and she is wonderful. There are specific things we are working toward and we are relieved to have competent people helping us with our progress. We have much to be grateful for.

Such a little man

We are right in the middle of preparing for our HB family reunion held in Summerland, British Columbia. What a wonderful name for a holiday destination! I've been going to this same spot for our reunions since I was an early teen-ager. Part of the preparation for this trip was getting the boys hair cut. We already know that I don't cut their hair but leave that to the professionals. We weren't planning on this being our littlest's first cut, but everything seemed to fall into place and it ended up happening regardless! Because of this, I don't have pictures of the actual experience as I was trying to distract our littlest by feeding him itsy-bitsy pinches of gum while he was sitting on the Big Guy Lowe's lap. Here are a few shots taken the next day at, where else? The Creek!




Just to show that I am actually present during these trips, a quick picture with mommy!



Okay, we can't go to the creek and not show pictures of some of the fun, so here are a few from our day.

Our oldest had a friend come along for the day and they had a great time together.

What is that saying about a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush--does that relate to frogs in any way? (Two in hand!)

Everyone hard at work!

You know a good day of creekin' is pleasantly coming to an end when the natives start showing signs of weariness.

Ahhh, another good day at the creek.

HB Cousins

This is the first complete HB cousins picture that has ever been taken. There is a huge story to be told there, but for now all I can say is--how awesome is family?