Christian and Another Hospital Visit

As you can tell, I haven't blogged for a while. Sorry guys! For what's been going on, read the last few posts.

Yesterday, I was at work and got a call from our friend Albin. He and Christian were doing some work and had to take a bunch of junk from a vacant house to the dump. They had to practically throw an old window air conditioning unit onto the trailer that had a railing surrounding it.

Side note - My mom and I had previously done work at this house and we had to lift the a/c unit out of the window. It took the two of us to barely lift the thing. I think it literally had to be around 200 pounds.

As they were putting it in the trailer, the a/c unit fell off and smashed Christian's hand against the trailer railing. (railing on the bottom and a/c unit on the top) Christian is still on his blood thinning medicine and so they were really worried. As Christian took off his work glove, they could see his hand swelling within 30 seconds.

They rushed to the nearest hospital for X-rays etc. I left work (downtown Boise) and drove to the hospital in Nampa where they were at. It is literally a miracle that there were no broken bones. Albin, Christian, the doctors and I do not know how he got off so lucky. However he did burst a blood vessel which is why it swelled up so quickly.

Christian believes that he had no broken bones because of the gallons of milk that he consumes. I however believe that it was our family prayers for safety etc. As we reflect back on the situation, we are amazed at the "coincidence" that the night before he forgot to take his blood thinners, which made it so his blood was not as thin as it could have been. Christian has taken that medicine religiously and this was unlike him.

He is starting to get a bad bruise...he's excited to see what it turns into. He thinks that if he gets a bad bruise, he won't feel like such a wimp. The pictures don't do it justice. The swelling has gone down due to an ace bandage that they wrapped tightly around the area.

In shorter words: Christian is good, but he only has one and a half working hands! (currently)

We are Registered at Babies 'R' Us

Now that I have gotten your attention...



We are not pregnant. However we do have some new chicks. To our surprise, our chickens have hatched three chicks and are sitting on two more eggs. They are REALLY cute and here are some pictures.









They like to lay underneath the mama's and poke their heads out.

Bathroom Update

We are almost finished with the bathrooms. It seems like it's two steps forward and one step back. If you do the math, we are technically winning the battle, although it's taking longer than planned. SURPRISE!

The tile and grouting is finished in both bathrooms! The texture in the guest bathroom is finished and almost finished being painted. We have been able to hang up the light fixture. I bought the mirrors the other day and now all we have to do is: put up the towel racks, toilet paper roll holder, mirrors, decorations and buy new towels and shower curtains etc.

It's about 98% complete! Thanks to Jenay, Mom and Dad helping us with painting and primering (if that's a word) the closet and bathroom.

The master is getting textured, and then needs primed and painted. We (meaning my brother-in-law and my dad) put in the sinks and faucets on Saturday. (This project seemed to be one of those "step back" projects!) The holes in the granite, for the faucets, were not big enough and we had no way to make bigger holes. Finally we found out where the bits etc. were and got that taken care of. Two trips to Home Depot later, we have sinks and working faucets installed!

I know it's boring to read, so I hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures! We are very excited!

A HUGE MILESTONE!

I have some wonderful news. I have finished laying the tile in the master bathroom. I still have to grout and seal it, but it's my first tiling project and I am so excited that I had to post the pictures immediately. Here they are.

Before:

After:

CAUTION! Drinking Organic Milk May be Harmful to Your Health!

On Saturday my sister, Jenay, and I were shopping at Costco. I had grabbed two boxes of regular milk (4 gallons) and one box of their organic milk (1 1/2 gallons) amongst all of my other loot I acquired throughout the store.

We were over by the meat section and a nice old lady (in her 60's probably) stopped me and asked me, "Can I ask you a question?" She was looking in my cart and so I thought she needed to know where I got something so I said sure. Here's how the rest of the conversation went:

Kendra: (I don't know exactly what words I said, but it was something along these lines) My husband and I have read many studies showing that non-organic milk has more pesticides, antibiotics, and other chemicals than organic milk. In fact, the higher the fat content in the milk, the more chemicals are present.

Old Woman: Those studies are false! She proceeded to get in my face and let me know that she was a dairy farmer and they would never sell milk like that! If my cart was not between us she would certainly have invaded my personal bubble.

Kendra: So you are telling me that all of the scientific studies I have read are not true?

Old Bag: "Yes!" Which was proceeded by more loud, angry talking.

Kendra: "Okay, thank you."

Old Fart: More angry talking (I have started to tune her out at this moment).

I realized that no matter what I said, she would still be arguing, so I walked away. However, she ended up shewing Jenay's ear off about how regular dairy is not bad etc. Jenay finally walked away.

BOY were we (basically me) fuming for the next 15 minutes. Now I find it funny. Of course only a stranger would approach ME and chew me out for buying organic milk. Since when does a complete stranger approach you and chew you out for what you have in your cart? Did she think she was going to change my mind?

I had no idea organic milk was so hazardous to my health!

What We Did on New Years!

I know that you will all think that we are crazy to start another construction project while one is still not finish...but we did! This time it's one that we had planned and we didn't have suddenly do.

The closet in the master bedroom is small and so we are combining it with the closet in the office/bedroom on the other side of the wall. We also took out the hall cabinets and that will also be part of our closet.

We will eventually build another closet in the office/bedroom and a cabinet with built-in shelves in the hallway. It will be beautiful and functional and we will also have a walk-in closet!

The Dogs!

Our dog Hope

Our dog D

Christmas with the Hunts

Outside our front door.

My mom (Paula) and sister (Jenay)
My sister and brother-in-law (Cami and Ty)

Christian wrapped my dad's present in boxes wrapped in duct tape. Dad loved it...he did it to us as kids so many times!
(Below) My parents sent Christian on a scavenger hunt throughout the house for his present.

He's like a kid in a candy shop with his new smoker!

Dad reading the Christmas story on Christmas eave in front of the tree. Those are Christian's big feet!

Christmas Pictures with the Hoopers

Christian's Grandma Verna made us comfy blankets for Christmas!

Christian's dad, Dale, cooked the turkey. He did a great job!

Wrapping paper fight...Christian instigated it!

Christian's mom, Carl Ann, was recovering from surgery but came anyway.

Some fun pictures of Christian

Sheila, Kendra and Christian

Christian and I

It looks like we were doing something naughty! We were actually really tired and were almost asleep!

Potty Update

I started laying the tile in the master bathroom yesterday. I am SO excited! Tomorrow my mom is coming over to help me finish it. I have to say that it is looking awesome. I love having a bathroom that has flooring other than just a sub floor! Oh the little things in life.

I never knew how fancy my house was until this happened. By next week we should have TWO toilets in the house again and TWO working showers. I never thought I would see the day. Happy New Year to the Hoopers!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! Christian and I have been busy and also being bums at the same time. Christian was able to take about 2-3 weeks of vacation and so we got to be home together during the holiday break. I will attempt to fill you in on what we have been doing.

As you may have noticed, I did not do Christmas cards again this year. Don't be hurt if you weren't on the list this year because no one was. I was going to try, but I am trying to listen to the General Conference talk about simplifying our lives and so I weeded that out this year. I also attempted to get goodie plates to everyone...but that ended up being weeded out as well. All of this weeding still hasn't simplified things to the way I want them!

The festivities started on the 14th with Christian and I's sixth anniversary. We can't believe it's been six years! We were informed that we are now old. :) Good thing we still like each other in our "old age."

Then Christian's birthday came on the 18th...as usual everything I planned fell through and his birthday wasn't too exciting. The highlights were: I let him get his PS3 game he wanted (even if I don't approve of it), and his favorite quick food...Panda Express.

On the 18th my brother and his family also stopped by for the night on their way through to Pocatello. It was so great to see the nieces and nephew. They are all so cute and fun to be around. The girls played with Aunt Kendra's hair for a while. (Although Aunt Kendra did NOT think it was long enough.)

On Sunday the 21st we celebrated Christmas with Christian's family. We had a yummy dinner at Grandma Hooper's house and a fun time. We forgot our camera and so I will be posting pictures that Sheila took when I get home.

My sister and her husband came into town on the 23rd and we watched (or attempted to watch) the BSU bowl game that night. I say attempted to because we DVR'd the game and started watching it after it originally started. We were at the end of the third quarter when my brother called and left a message on my parent's answering machine with the outcome. Thanks Matt! :)

This BSU football season hasn't been too great for me. Every game has been ruined and so I didn't get a chance to watch any football games this season. For every one's information...we do not watch them live. We hate commercials and so we wait for a little bit and then skip them all. Please don't say anything that might ruin the game. If you do, we will not hold it against you.

Then came Christmas Eve and Christmas at my parents' house. We had not been able to spend Christmas eve at my parents' house in about six years and so it was great to be able to be involved in the Christmas Eve festivities.

In between the partying Christian and I worked on our bathrooms (which are almost finished-I will post pictures later), worked on our closet, mastered Mario Kart on the Wii, watched movies, cleaned, cleaned again, cleaned some more, tried to de-clutter, and visited with a lot of friends that came into town.

We enjoyed seeing all our family and friends this season. We are very excited to See Katie and Robert Ormand soon as this is their last year in the Cayman Islands. We hopefully will be able to take advantage of the free lodging this year.

Right now it's snowy and cold and all I can think about is being in sunny, 75 degree weather. We will see you guys soon! Hopefully I will get to blog about a Cayman Holiday.

Christian and I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years and that if we missed you this holiday season, that we can see you soon.