July

Ok, the summer is half over and although we have no home-improvement projects to speak of completed, we have been very busy. After our annual Fort Bragg camp trip-we drove through 9 states in 11 days!

Our first destination was Ottawa, KS to celebrate my Granny's 90th Birthday. We took highway 50 vs. I-80 through Nevada. Turned out to be a wise choice as the landscape was actually green and scenic through Nevada going this route. After a pretty successful day in the car with both kids (for the most part), we promised Leah an ice cream cone at Mc Donald's. We stopped just inside Utah and of course the Mc Donald's ice cream machine was broken. AARGHH! Luckily, the young man suggested a local joint down the road that sold ice cream cones.

This ended up being a good choice. The kids got kid-sized ice cream cones and Scott and I got rootbeer floats. While we were enjoying our treats-we ended up chatting with two grandparents who came over to compliment us on our cute, well-behaved children. They were on their way home from a 2 week camping trip with 13 of their grandchildren. Every summer they take all the grandkids over age 11 camping for 2 weeks, without their parents. We had a very nice chat with them, perhaps it was even nices since we'd been talking to a 4 year old & almost 2 year old all day! We stayed Utah the first night and went swimming with the kids to expel any excess energy from sitting in the car for 9+ hours.

We travelled through the rest of Utah and Colorado the next day. We made it to the first town inside Kansas-Goodland and stayed the night in this town. Once again we used the pool to tire the kids out. Back in the car on Friday and reaching our destination about 6pm that night-Granny's House. Several family members arrived later for a visit and it was another late night for our kids. We spent Saturday visiting with relatives and then travelling to my cousin's farm for the BIG celebration for Granny's 90th! We left the farm just after 7pm as a big thunderstorm was headed our way. On the 30 minute drive back to Granny's house we listened to tornado warnings for the towns we were approaching and pulled over to watch the ominous clouds as the tornado almost touched the ground! If my mom had not been in our van-I think Scott would have become a "storm-chaser".

We stayed for church and dinner on Sunday with family and headed out after breakfast Monday morning for Chicago. Our 9 hour drive took 13 hours because of a semi-truck accident. We were stuck for 2 hours between 2 off-ramps only 3 miles apart! Needless to say we arrived at my sister's house around 10pm and promptly went to bed. We enjoyed our brief stay in Lisa and Ron's new home and took the kids to the nearby park and the Field Museum. And although it was the hottest 2 days Chicago had seen all summer (and since-according to my sister), we enjoyed our visit and I do believe I've convinced Scott to travel to Chicago for another visit sometime in the future-just not in June!

Job Update:

No real news yet. Scott is still working for Centex-soon to be Pulte, but will hopefully have a better idea by the end of August whether he will need to look for new employment. Scott is not stressed about it at all and is confident that if he does get laid-off, he'll have no problem finding work.

Kid Update:

Nolan is Mr. Chatterbox and surprises all of us with new sentences frequently. He has started the "tumultous two's". Though I know we dealt with these with Leah; Nolan's appear to be more frequent and volatile. Head-banging, throw his whole body on the floor.....I would laugh at him if I wasn't so frustrated with him.

Leah-She is so easy right now in comparison and sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. Scott and I both try to spend one-on-one time with her. She like to write her "letters" and "read" stories to Nolan. She is such a great big sister.

That's pretty much it. We have a camping trip coming up next week and in August is the Rescue Fire Dept. Hot August Nite Fundraiser-which Scott is still in charge of cooking for the event. We'll be going camping again in October-crabbing in Bandon, Oregon.

Thanks for reading and have a great rest of summer!

May-June catch up

Geez. Ok so I’m not so good with keeping up with this Blog thing! Missed the whole month of May and now half-way through June!
Quick recap of May & June’s activities past, present & future:

On May 8th I spoke at the Go Red for Women luncheon for the American Heart Association’s annual fundraiser. I’ve included some pictures from the event. My mom, Chris (Scott’s mom) my Aunt Joanne & friend Susie accompanied me for support. We sat at the table with our MC's -Jennifer Smith from Channel 10 and Amy Lewis from KFBK-radio station-both local celebrities.


I was very nervous before the event-with almost 500 people in attendance, but once I started my speech…it just flowed and I felt that I had done well. Much better than the previous week when I had spoken at an Organ Donor Appreciation luncheon and got all choked up and missed half of what I wanted to say!
The AHA raised $11,000 in donations made after my speech and the event coordinators seemed very pleased.

We celebrated Mother’s Day & Scott’s Birthday in May and the month sailed quickly into June. A big thunder and lightening storm filled the sky on June 2nd or 3rd and although it was a really awesome light show (like you would see in Minnesota) it did fry our TV, answering machine and phones. Luckily Scott was able to come up with a new TV with all the stuff “laying around”, but we’ll be shopping for a new answering machine and phone in the coming weeks.

We left for our annual Fort Bragg abalone dive camping trip on June 5th. During the trip I celebrated 19 years with my donor heart-Chris even made me a special cake and presented it to me during our big abalone dinner.

We had a total of 22 people camp with us this year and Leah had a great time with all the kids that attended this year. She is ready to go camping again "tomorrow".




We returned on June 10th and after we finish doing laundry, cleaning the trailer, cleaning the van & packing again…we’ll be headed to Kansas for my family reunion/celebration of my Granny’s 90th Birthday.

Yes…we are driving…no we are not taking the trailer. It will be my van’s first long-distance trip, so we’ll see how that goes. After Kansas, we’re headed to Chicago for a few days to visit Lisa and family and then home again before July’s events/activities begin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Funny things about Leah (4 ½ years) and Nolan (20 months):

Leah’s favorite thing to say about 10x a day- “I love you mommy”…sigh - I'm enjoying it while I can.

Nolan’s favorite things to say “uh-huh”; “calling doctor Nolan” (while wearing his scrubs); “How are you?” and his regular repertoire of “Daddy, Grandpa, Mema, GG” He is a regular chatter-box.

Leah’s favorite thing to do: make up funny stories with mom

Nolan’s favorite thing to do: whine???? Ok…probably not his favorite thing-but he does it much more than Leah did at this age. Perhaps his favorite thing is to copy whatever Leah is doing….hmmm…that may explain the whining….LOL

Updates for April

Ok…another month has flown by and I’m finally doing another update!

First and most important news-Scott’s Grandfather passed away on March 25th. He would have turned 92 on April 21st! He is missed by many including his wife Virginia, daughter Chris (Scott’s mom), son-Steve, 5 grandchildren & 4 great grandchildren. We miss you and love you Gramps! Adios!



We celebrated Easter 1 week early while my sister and family were here visiting from Chicago. It was a crazy busy visit like usual and Lisa & Ron moved into a new apartment/condo 3 days after returning to Chicago from California!





Scott’s company was bought by another homebuilder a few weeks ago, no change in job status for Scott as of yet-but anticipate knowing more by the end of June.

Then last week, Scott was diagnosed with pneumonia (Yipee!) and actually took sick days off from work (for himself) for the first time in 9 years! (He took some off last year during Nolan’s surgery at Stanford!).

The rest of us having been battling nasty colds and poor Nolan is cutting a bunch of teeth on top of it. We are on the downhill slope of the colds and feeling much better and hoping this spring/summer we will be germ free in our household.

Leah continues to enjoy playing with her princesses and loves books (thank goodness). She enjoys for me to read ANYTHING to her and during our “sick” time spent it reading and watching episodes of Little House on the Prairie. Her last night of Awanas was Tuesday and she told me on the drive home “I can’t wait to see Heaven because there is a big castle in Heaven and there is no darkness…just light!”

Nolan loves his big sister and he too enjoys books (for awhile) and playing outside. He tries to communicate very well and mimics words-though only a few people can understand all his words. Early this morning when he called out for Daddy-I went to his bed and he was sitting up looking at the floor. “Daddy?” he called out. I told him Daddy had already left for work and tried to get him to lay back down to go to sleep. He lifted up his pillow and peaked underneath and said “Daddy?” I guess he thought Scott was under his pillow hiding? LOL

Those are the moments I truly enjoy being a mom!

Bless everyone. Happy Spring!

March 20

Well let's see what's new here in the life of the Thorne's?

1) We've all been sick with bad colds/sinus infections going on...a month? All four of us went to the doctor last week for antibiotics and seems were still waiting for them to kick in with the kids. They took 2 steps forward & 1 step back! Ugh!

2) Went to Monterey last weekend to stay with Mema & Grandpa at their time share. Leah had a great time...but still being sick-Scott and I were worn out!

3) I've been asked to be a guest speaker at the American Heart Association's "Go Red" fundraiser in May. So I finally was able to get all my photos sent to my contact for the slide show presentation and have my first "rough draft" of the speech completed.

I've also been asked to attend a Donor Appreciation Luncheon in May for my Donate Life group and I have to submit a 100 word "essay" for a book that the organization is giving to the donor families they are honoring. Still need to work on that & have it completed by the end of March!

4) Scott's Grandpa's health has taken a turn for the worse. He was diagnosed with Cancer awhile back-and being 91-declined treatment. He's gone down-hill significantly in the last week-Hospice was called in about 2 weeks ago and he is now "hallucinating" and not eating well. We visited him briefly tonight and I could not even go in his room-it reminded me too much of my Grandfather's last days and I was afraid I'd break down & I didn't want to make it any harder for Scott's grandma. He's home and he lives on the property with us so Scott's been visiting him daily since our return froom Monterey. Scott's mom is home and her brother and his wife are here too.

5)Nolan will turn 18 months on Monday. He has his "18 month" appt on the 30th so I'll post stats then.

That's about it for now. No new "news" on the job-front for Scott. He is still at Centex and will NOT be let go in March-that we know of.

I've added some new photos of the kids-and even one of Scott & I. Nolan got his 1st "boy" haircut about a month ago. Leah is so good with him (most of the time)and their favorite thing to do together is curl up in Nolan's bed & Leah "reads" to him or "tells" him stories. Too cute-I've not gotten a photo of it yet-but Scott snuck video of it.

Ok...that's really it!