Sun baked and Ready to GO!

I updated the kiddos blog, i messed up before, if you want access and do not have it leave me your email so I can send you an invite.

I am making a private blog to share pics of the kiddos. If you want in, go to www.pickenkiddos.blogspot.com, and request an invite.

Scotty

Ok so I have degenerative discs in my back that are causing all of the pain. I had an epidural like mom get to reduce the swelling and block some pain. I have felt some relief, but oh my chichi wawa the pain from that stinkin epidural made me cry. The nurses were rubbing my arm and tell me how brave I was and how well I was taking the pain. I felt like a little kid and if that was not enough they gave me a "hug me I got a shot today" sticker. Well at least that is over for now.


Scotty

So last week I jacked up my back something fierce. I laid around for a day crying and then I went to the ER. They gave me some sweet drugs to make the number 9 pain go away but it just went down to a 3. After my MRI a week later I found out that I have two hyerniated disks in my lower back that are putting pressure on my never bundles. It causes severe pain and numbness in my right leg. I have to wait another week to go and see a ortho/spinal surgeon and to see the Pain doctor, no not the that gives pain but the one that takes it away. This is so lame. At least when i really starts to hurt I have some vikadine, it dulls the pain back down to a 3 or 4. I will let you know what happens next week.


Scotty

So here is my not so new, new truck. I had been looking around for a good deal on a truck like this for a long time and the oportunity came up so I snaged it. The owner of this truck wanted something that got better fuel economy to tow his wave runners with and was willing to trade truck for truck, although there were a few problems with his truck, ignition was broken, tail gate not working, rear tank not able to fill, driver side interior door handle busted, out side door lock not working, leaking hoses, bad tires, body damage, and the list goes on ............. so any way i just figured a little of my time and a few parts and I would have made one sweet deal. Jusnk yard parts - $150, used tires $160, autozone parts and fluids - $120 makes for a pretty cheap swap. Oh yea I am into it with about 30 hours of my time so far but all of the major issues are worked out except for some funny transmission behavior.



So the truck has this sweet Centarus package on it/in it. It come with illumniated exterior hand rails, sweet fender flairs, step sides, brush guard, and just look at the accoutraments on the interior.


It has mood lighting, a cb radio, a sweet over haed console, awesome wood trim, the list just keeps on going......

Well we are well into week two, week one with the three kiddos was crazy. Kari got really sick the day after they arrived, I freaked out and Mom and Dad and Angie and Justin watched them for us while we were at the hospital last Sunday. We placed them in another home while Kari recuperated and picked them back up. We have a schedule down now and things are calming down. They are great kids. Still no pictures though. Sorry we can not post pictures of them on the web. Thank you for all of the help.

Well we have some finally, three at one time. Girl C, 2 1/2, boy J, 15 months, boy D, 5 months. Can you say insane. This will be so much fun having three little ones running around. They have already had their first baths, had dinner and are now lying down ready to sleep. What if I don't hear them at night? I am waiting for that morning when I wake up and see a small pair of eyes looking back at me. Yee haa! Three under three, man this is going to be INSANE!! We have only had them for a few hours but we already love them. So cute and well behaved. Sorry but no names or pictures on the blog, you will just have to see them to believe it. Love ya. Thanks for all of the support.

So Kari and I took what will most likely be the last prefamily vacation. I am so looking forward to toting around several kiddos with us. We will most likely do much of the same stuff. We started off by spending several days in St. George. We stayed with Kari's brother. We just chilled and had a bunch of fun. We went to their community center, awesome. They have a water park there that in the summer is part inside and part outside, and in the winter they have these big garage doors that rolled closed so the park is opened all year round. We also went to the Washington County fair. We went into the petting zoo sponsored by FFA. My niece got to ride the pony a couple of times. We took he to the rides and she had fun. Kirk and I went on the zipper, his first time, we giggled like school girls and had so much fun.

On Sunday we changed locations from St. George to Mapleton. On the way up Kari and I noticed that we were getting sick, by Monday we had full on chest colds. I was a little worse than her. That really jacked up our plans. We got to see some friends, brothers and sisters. Great to see the Mechams, they cut their camping trip short to see us. Theresa stayed up late to catch us, she hooked us up with some fruit, Melanie waited until the last minute to go to a doctors appointment to hang with us for a few extra minutes. On Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday we just bummed around taking it easy. Wednesday night there was no doubt I was going riding after missing out on Mondays riding. I love riding the canyons in Utah. We went to the Hogle zoo on Thursday with Natalie and the kids. I think it was a lot of fun even though we got rained out. I was just really bumbed because they cancelled the bird show due to weather, and we missed the train ride because it was raining, man I really wanted to ride through the bison exhibit. SUCK!!!!!! Oh well some relaxing time, 2 days of riding, seeing some animals, which included ones in cages and at homes, hehehehee, I love hanging with our families. Thanks for the accommodations.






Oh yea, on one of our chill days we happened into a kitchen store and we purchased our own ebel skiver pan. The picture below. these are yummy little balls that are some where between a pancake, angle food cake, and a doughnut. I filled some with cooked apple pieces and some with Nutella. My sister in law said it was awesome to have chocolate filled yummyness for breakfast. Later she pointed out that the powder sugar shaker I was using was actually flour, man did I fill stupid. So she retrieved the powder sugar from the pantry and I just dumped a bunch on to fix the problem. Great to see you all.

So check out this sweet ride, yeup challenger, yeup General Lee. My friend and scoutmaster made this and believe it or not this is one of the legal cars. And did you notice it has working doors.





My two buses are my favorite, I made the double decker for me to race.



Yes, I actually built little bench seats to put on the top of the double decker.



So I was really impressed with how well this cars ran. They were competitive with full BSA legal cars that were similarly built. So remember the car on the left, you know the block of wood. Our second counselor brought his son that will be 12 in a month to watch. I didn't have any more built cars for him to race but I had a couple of unassembled kits. So we took the block, put on the wheels, and let him race. He beat some very well built cars including my watermelon, the bishops sweet blue demon, and one of young women's leaders car(who took second). That's right, he won it all, a plain block of wood wins. He's not even in mutual yet. Fun time. It was a blast. Thank you Jeff for loaning me the track and to Mom and Dad for the use of tools and stuff, I will explain the stuff later.

I know, no pictures how lame. I have been horrible at taking pictures of what I have been up to lately. June I spent a week with my Varsity scouts hiking the 3 tallest peaks in Arizona, Escdilla, Baldy, and Humphrey's. They were some tired boys when we were done. Two of the three hikes involved hiking in snow half way up the trail. I have spent some time working on my street bike. It is getting closer to getting done. I am working on some wiring problems before I tear it down. We have finished our classes for foster/adoption and are waiting on a reply from the state. While we are waiting I have been putting doors in our house, crazy boy says what. Didn't you have doors before? Yes, but back in June of 07 right after we bought the house I took them all out and my wife has been very patiently waiting for 3 years for new doors. Now all I have to do is remodel one bathroom and replace that door, and put in base boards, and paint, and put in some cabinet doors, and do some land scapeing, and finish the shop, and put the addition on the house, and work on the garden........... you get the idea. I will try to get some pictures on here soon.

Kari really wanted to do a garden this year, and she wanted to start it from seeds. Here are her starters for corn, peas, carrots, radishes, green beans, an some other stuff. These will hang out in here for a few more days until I can get the garden bed ready and chicken wired to keep the rabbits out. She started this when she planted a watermelon seed with her Sunbeam class.

Kari was painting our master bathroom a month or so ago, I forgot I had these pictures. she was doing some over head sanding and wanted some protection.

So she made her own, I have safety glasses and dust masks but apparently that is not good enough for her. Notice the sweet swim goggles. Maybe she just wanted to make sure absolutely no dust ever got into her eyes. I love my wife! I laughed so hard when I saw her.

Is that how you spell Roundvous??? Any way, I had the opportunity to go to Mtn Man this year, I forgot to bring my camera and totally forgot I had a camera on my phone so all I have are prep pictures from home. Black powder rifles, black smiths, trading post, tomahawk trowing, climbing tower, team wall, mirror signaling, archery, Indian field hockey, pellet guns, blow guns, fire starting, throwing knives, and the best butchering and field dressing game! yeup you heard that last part right and Varsity team that wanted to had the opportunity to clean and prep and game animal, Rabbit, duck, chicken, quail. The leader in charge killed the animal and then had the boys give hands on help. AWESOME!!


Kari making my Capote, or Mountain man Jacket/coat. We went and got two old blankets from Goodwill, one was an electric blanket so I had to remove some wires.

So this is what I have been up to in my free time. I have changed the tail section, tail light, Shocks, seat pans, foot controls, and gas tank.

Bike stripped down but mostly stock.

By the way, Kari and I were bummed that we missed the big rain storm, but we have had a few more since then. My neighbor has a digital weather station in his back yard. Since the 12th of January we have gotten 9 inches of rain at out house, in the desert. That's nuts! I love the rain!!!!

So Kari and I went to Dallas for a week in January to be with her parents. It rained a bit a stormed while we were gone. I was bummed we missed the storm, I like storms. When had several inches of rain and some serious wind the combination of which blew over our big Palo Verde tree in our back yard. This started us thinking, we wanted to get rid of the two palm trees in front as well. Here are some Pictures of Dad and I pulling out one of the trees.

As soon as we start to do something cool all of my neighbors come out to lend a hand. We have cool neighbors.

Over Christmas break Kevin and Ashley came down for a few days. Kevin brought his bike so we could go riding. After a quick 10 miles, about 25 minutes of riding, I dropped my bike in a corner going about zero and smashed my water pump housing promptly loosing all of my coolant. So much for that ride.