CATCHING UP

Tornado season has hit Colorado. The other night I guess we had about seven tornado's here. We had gone to bed and lighting was going off like flash bulbs. It rained, it hailed, the wind blew, then the emergency sirens went off. We both got up and got dressed. Nugget was panting like a dying donkey in the desert. We had a tornado about five miles south of us. We had flashlights, Kathi's purse, and I was ready to grab some water. We were ready to all jump in the bathtub.

This photo is from an emergency drill we had with Nugget a couple years ago. Now he is trained that we get into the tub in case of that kind of emergency. He does look concerned, doesn't he!

The wind shifted just enough that we all didn't have to get in the tub. The weather finally blew away from us and we were able to go back to bed after about two hours.

This storm made us realize that we need to do more prepping. What I thought would get us through a tornado? Not enough. So, more prepping is in our future.

On another note, it's grilling time. We have cooked several meals already on one of our grills. I have two grills, one is propane, the other is electric and burns wood pellets. Then I have two other smokers and a fire pit. I need to stock up on more firewood. Plus, I'm dying to go fishing so I can smoke us some fish.

Also, I've been busy with the Colorado Patriot Guard Riders. You know, they do more than just escorting our fallen heroes. We did a pizza and ping pong social at the VA hospital here for those in the PTSD unit. WOW! What a great group of people. It was fun, and neat, to be able to talk to them and share some time together. I'm looking forward to more of these.

My son, Bryan, starts softball tonight, so we are looking forward to going to the game. He plays on an integrated league, where half the players have special needs and half don't. The half with special needs, which can be either physical or mental/emotional, are referred to as the athletes. The others are called partners.

Since he has been going to Pristine Health for brain neurointegration therapy (say that three times real fast) we have seen a change in him. He is more talkative, and has come up with several things that no one would have expected of him.

Like, at Christmas, just after my Dad had passed, he said -- out of the blue -- "You know? My Grandpa and my cousin Grant are up in heaven with Jesus celebrating Christmas." THAT is something that is totally new for him to come up with.

When he visited Grandpa at the cemetary for Memorial Day this year, he said, "Grandpa! We took your trailer to Moab. Did you see us?!"

We will see how much more improvement he has in the next month or so of treatments.

Yep, there has been a lot going on. There is just not enough time in the day to get all that needs to be done, done. Plus, it's about time for me to sneak off with a metal detector, fishing pole, and gold pan and see what I can find or catch. It would be nice to find a honey hole, with big fish, and bigger nuggets of gold. Then I can trade some gold, and our '67 Dodge Charger and get a new Harley. Kathi wants a road trip.

'Course, so do I.