Lazy Blogging?

Perhaps. I was so "gung-ho" about this blogging business even making it my goal to write three times a week. BOY WAS I STUPID! Life has been really busy ever since my ankle started giving me problems but now that I'm healing, let's hope I'll be playing and blogging more soon!

Family Pictures

Halloween

Last year, Gracyn was smurfette. The year before that she was an oompa loompa and I thought, or at least I was hoping, that she would give me an easy costume this year. BOY WAS I WRONG! Ladies and Gentlemen, may I announce...

MISS PIGGY!!

It was a lot of fun and she got lots and lots of compliments. Please give me an easy costume next year... PLEASE??!!??!!

Misc Boating Pictures

WE LOVE BOATING!!

Skinny dipping, or in my case, chunky dunking in Jordanelle......

REFRESHING!!!

Youth Parade

Our stake was invited to participate in the Days of '47 youth parade. Gracyn wasn't too happy to dress up as an apple but she had fun "hammin" it up during the parade.

Some of the other entries... Gracyn asked why she had to walk and these kids got to ride. TOO FUNNY!

Happy Birthday America

Happy Independence Day!

This was a great weekend. First of all, Gracyn and I went to Granite High School on the 3rd and they had some good fireworks. It’s starting to get a little too crowded so this year just maybe one of the last... so sad. On the 4th of July, I had to work in the morning but later that afternoon it was a BLAST! No pun intendend. A couple days before the 4th, my friend Eric called me and asked if Gracyn and I wanted to go with him and his girls to Stadium of Fire. He got me a GREAT deal on the tickets so I totally jumped on it.

I didn’t tell Gracyn where we were going just that we were going to watch fireworks with Eric and his girls. Gracyn wondered why we had to travel to Provo for the fireworks but as soon as she saw the banner of Miley Cyrus on the stadium, she started jumping up and down and so excited she almost started to cry.

The stadium was filled to capacity and there was so much excitement. As the show began, 4 f-16’s from Hill AFB flew over… wow were they loud. From those planes, 7 para-jumpers came down and landed in the stadium. Man, it was so cool. The flag ceremony was next. This huge flag was being held by service men and women who had served in Iraq and Afganistan. So touching.

Then we were all entertained by the blue man group. These men are so interesting to watch, it's amazing the sounds they could make with these big pipes. I would love to see them again.. watch out Vegas, here I come!


The part Gracyn was waiting for… MILEY!! Miley was such a little rocker girl she was running around the stage singing her lil’ heart out. She was a head-banging, foot-stomping, jumpin’ crazy 15 year old girl and Gracyn was just as bad. Both of them rocked all night!

Once it got dark, the fireworks started. Gracyn was pretty worried about Miley though, because she was told that Miley was afraid of fireworks. Pictures of fireworks can be really disappointing as you can see but here are some pictures anyway.







We sure had a great time and I’m sure glad we had navigation because we were out of there... lickety split!

Happy Birthday America!

My ticket to be punched??

Today was a real eye opener for me. I drove into work this morning as I had a meeting off-site. While taking the elevator up to the parking terrace, I hear rumors of a bomb threat at the hospital. As a level 1 trauma center we have to be prepared for all kinds of disasters, and we drill quite frequently. As I have participated in many drills, I really thought nothing of it. One of my co-workers, who works with Hospital Administration, said that it probably was just one of these said drills.

As I was driving to my off-site meeting, I heard on the radio that a case containing 1.5 million records of patients of The University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics had been recovered. The case had been stolen from a courier who had contracted with the hospital to move them to an off site location for storage. The whole incident had caused quite a stir, as some of the records had contained patients’ social security numbers. Yes, even mine! So news of the case’s recovery made for a promising day. However in the middle of my meeting, I got a page telling me they needed me at the hospital ASAP!

Shortly after 10:00 am, the hospital called a “code yellow” which means disaster. Hmmmmm...Maybe not a drill?? We all got notification to sweep our areas for suspicious packages. Soon thereafter we went into full code mode, locking down the entire hospital; no one in, no one out.
Again, as one of the Hospital Administrators has an office located near my desk, our group found ourselves in the middle of all the action as the day unfolded. It was really an eerie feeling being in a situation like this. The police had all access roads to the hospital blocked off. K-9 units, FBI, disaster personnel and emergency personnel were ready and waiting nearby. Medical helicopters and ambulances were diverted to other nearby hospitals. Patients who had been dropped off for treatment couldn’t be picked up. Family members who had come to see inpatients weren’t able to leave. Those who had clinic visits couldn’t come or go either.

Honestly, who calls in a bomb threat to a hospital? Being in the hospital or having a loved one in a hospital is stressful enough. No one deserves the added stress of a bomb threat. At one point, Hospital Administration started to discuss evacuating patients. If we had had to evacuate, to some of our patients it would have been an inconvenience but for others, it would have been life threatening.

After multiple phone calls by the guy with the fake accent, multiple sweeps of the building and close to 5 hours of being in lock down, the police found a few suspicious packages (and even made a drug bust) but it was determined that the threat was a stinkin’ hoax! We got the call to clear the “code yellow”.....Now, I don’t know who called in the threat, I don’t know if it was related to the recovery of the stolen medical records and really, I don’t care but who ever it was, really put things in perspective for me.

Granted, during the experience we all laughed and joked to make the experience a little lighter but in truth it was a pretty anxious day. It wasn’t until I picked up Gracyn from daycare that I really thought , “I was walking (running, really) around a building that could have been blown to bits at any moment.” I grabbed poor Gracyn and didn’t let go of her for what it seemed like forever from her point of view.