Another Carrie update

So Comptyn's prayer must have worked! I got a phone call from Carrie's husband this morning about 11:30 that she was moved from ICU. Her morning labs came back much better. White blood cell count down, clotting gone, pneumonia leaving....she has "done well on her ICU and gotten better" as Comptyn prayed. So she is in a quiet, private room now. Still in a lot of pain and feeling extremely nausiated. Can't keep food down, but the doctors are very happy with her progress. Blessings and prayers work!

Carrie update

So many of you have been kind in asking about Carrie. If you don't mind I am just going to update the blog instead of sending out multiple emails. So I called her this morning and she is not doing very good. Her body is rejecting the antibiotics that they are giving her to fight the blood poisoning. The cultures they are doing on her blood to see what is acutally in her keep coming back positive, meaning everything they test her blood for, she has. So that is kindof scarey. They have told her if she doesn't have improvement soon they are going to have to do a blood transfusion. But they'd really like to find the source of all this. On a good note, her blood isn't clotting anymore. The shots of cumadin right into her stomach are helping. She is now so drugged up for pain she said that they don't bother her anymore. They are doing an x-ray this morning on her pneumonia, but she said her lungs aren't hurting her as much. Although her pain meds might contribute to that. But her respiratory therapist said she is doing better on her breathing things she does. So hopefully her lungs are healed enough now that the antibiotics are not effective. So that is Carrie. Growing up she was always sick. She had asthma really bad and had a lot of food allergies. Hopefully her body can fight this. She did get a priesthood blessing last night, so I am grateful for that. This morning during family prayer Comptyn said, "Bless Aunt Carrie that she will do well on her ICU and get better soon." It was cute! Apparently I didn't explain things very well!

My sister Carrie

I got a phone call this morning that my 'baby' sister (26 years old) was admitted to ICU last ight. She started coughing up blood. Come to find out, she has pneumonia, blood clots throughout her body and sepsis (blood poisoning). So she is in pretty bad shape! I have talked to her a couple time and snd she actually sounds good. She is on IV anti-biotics, blood thinners are given thru a shot into her stomach and LOTS of pain meds! She has 2 cute kids, Jonathan is 6 1/2 and Nicole who is 3 1/2. She will be OK. She is in good hands. One thing that makes me sad is that during all this I have family members that can't swallow pride and call her. Instead of pulling a family closer together and rallying together to help Carrie people are just acting like she got a filling in a tooth or something. I wish things were different. I wish forgiveness was easier for people to understand. It's such a better way!

Lawsuit update and other family information!

MANY of you have emailed and asked what this lawsuit is all about. The choir teacher below is suing Kevin, the editor of the HS paper, the editor of this local paper and our superintendent for defamation of character. So here is one of the many articles that was printed in our local paper. I don't have a copy (on computer) of the article that was written for the HS newspaper. But this, in a nutshell, was what it was all about. But Lauren wrote an amazing article that was better than some professional ones I've read! So here you go: (if you don't care, skip past all the italics print)


The Churchill County School District is allowing publication of a student article in the Churchill County High School newspaper “The Flash” on Friday despite a grievance filed by the Churchill County Education Association requesting the article not be printed.

“I don't control speech, and I don't control press,” Superintendent Carolyn Ross said. “I'm not stopping it.”

Student Lauren Mac Lean, 17, wrote an article about parent advocates demanding the district investigate Honor Choir audition practices after parents discovered evidence that CCHS music teacher Kathy Archey failed to submit an unknown number of student audition tapes to Susan Benefield, region head of the Nevada Music Educators Association Honor/All State Choir program.

Parents Carl and Susan Robertson discovered their son Spencer's tape was never submitted when they attempted to appeal the rejection decision. Spencer was allowed to audition in person along with another student, Dallin Nelsen.

“She said there is no reason why these two boys should not be in the Honor Choir, and in fact, they both had a very good chance to make All State,” Carl said.

Susan said Benefield told them about the tapes at the audition, and there was reason to believe Archey has pulled students' tapes before.

“Ms. Benefield suspects this practice of withholding audition tapes has been going on for years,” Carl said. “She explained that every year when they have received audition tapes from Ms. Archey, there have always been missing numbers in the sequence,”

Benefield also told the Robertsons that Archey claimed Spencer and Carl were informed and agreed that Spencer needed more coaching. Susan said Archey has a right to pull tapes if she believes the student is not ready; however, Archey is supposed to inform those students.

“It was pretty devastating for him,” Susan said of her son. “For us as parents — why? We cannot understand it.”

Ross said the district has taken the appropriate personnel action by contract, but she could not comment on specific details.

According to the high school newspaper article, Archey declined to comment under the direction of the CCEA, and Margie Nuttall with the CCEA also said she could not comment on pending grievances.

Mac Lean said she worked with an adviser at the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Reno, Nevada, a California adviser and Lords to ensure the article was ethical and reasonable for a school newspaper.

“I knew what could come from this,” Mac Lean said. “I wrote the article in a way that it wasn't attacking Kathy Archey ... It was really hard. There was so much on the line, people's jobs, people's reputations.”

Principal Kevin Lords said school newspapers are subject to certain censorship, but he worked with Mac Lean to ensure her article was fair.

“We followed all the policies and procedures to make sure that it was nothing that needed to be censored,” Lords said. “I apparently have people who disagree with me.”

Mac Lean said she has learned a lot about her first amendment rights and journalism from this experience.

“From this whole situation, I've learned my first amendment better than anyone else around me now,” Mac Lean said. “I don't think I've had to use my e-mail and cell phone as much as I have since this story ... Journalists find out about things. That's our job, even if people don't like that.”

Mac Lean said she may attempt to do a follow-up article on the investigation itself even though the district has not confirmed whether one was taking place.

“This young lady is a go-getter,” Lords said. “She really does have a career in journalism ahead of her. She really is very persistent.”



Note: Mike Nelson, the adviser, stepped aside when there was an apparent conflict of interest and deferred the article and situation to outside advisers and the school administration.

On to more happier things! :-) Ryan's neck is doing much better! He still has the neck brace on as it still hurts a little bit. So maybe next week we'll take it off. And yesterday it was a BEAUTIFUL 70 degrees in our back yard in the sun! So we changed the chicks and ducks bedding while letting them run aroudn in the yard. They just stayed right by the kids who were all sitting in the grass. They are getting pretty big! Especially QT the Duck. Feathers are starting to come in and they aren't so cute! Looking more like chickens!



I was also asked to do the 3rd year girls for Stake Young WOmen's Camp! YAY! I am REALLY excited! I had so much fun last year with them and I hope it goes well again this year! Kevin's parents are coming over to watch the kids this year for us, too, so Kevin can come up, too. They like someone from each Bishopric to come up. So we are very grateful to mom & dad for watching the kids so he can go up and experience camp!

This is a first and hopefully last!

Kevin has officially been sued! For those that have heard about the whole First Amendment fight Kevin has been going thru for the past few months, it has resurfaced again. He was given his papers yesterday. So, let the fun begin! We aren't worried about any of it. You can't fight the First Amendment! Let the fun begin! Newspapers are already calling. We'll probably start hearing from the ACLU and Freedom of Speech Organizations. They'll want to jump on the 'choir wagon'. (HA! HA! HA! This all started over a choir article being put in a paper....so that was suppose to be funny!) :-)

Since these things happened during Kevin's work related responsibilities, the district lawyers will cover Kevin. So that is good. But to segway into our personal lawyer and friend (see picture to the left) Jacob Sommer is running for School Board! I believe he will make a GREAT board member as he is concerned about the kids and also has no hidden adgenda coming in. He isn't 'pro-teachers' or 'pro-administration'. He is 'pro-the right!' So please vote for Jake! He will be a great asset to the school district!

Ryan's neck and his duck

If any of you watch America's Funniest Home Videos I am sure you have seen our families favorite video. It's the one of the dumb-dumb that puts on a dog's shock collar and yelps at different volumes to get zapped. That leads us to Monday....I took Ryan back into the doctor for his neck. His pediatrician said that she thinks 's muscle. So he got (what he calls) a shock collar!
He has to wear it for at least one week to relax his neck muscle. He is also on Ibuprofen. So we'll see how it works. Does everything in it except shower and get dressed. Those 2 things it comes of! We'll see!

On to Q.T. After a week, we had to start putting Q.T. in some water so it could swim and develope the oils needed for it's feathers when they come in. Did she like it?!?!

SURE DID! She splashed and shook and slashed some more! It was so 'bad' we had to put a towel under her! It was a lot of fun to watch her. I wish I could do video on here to show you. If anyone has the know how to get the video from my camcorder to the blog, I'd love to hear from you! But all the chicks and duck are doing fine. Growing feathers and getting bigger!

A few new upducks.....I mean updates!

So I am behind a few blogs. I didn't post the last pack meeting we had for Cub Scouts. Ryan is now a Webelos since he turned 10. It is a LOT more involved than the past dens. Oh Well! We'll get 'er done! Comptyn has completed his Wolf and a few arrows. He will be a Bear in June when he turns 9. The boys had to make a refreshment commemorating the 100th anniversary of scouting this year. I made the cookies and yellow sugar during the day. They came home from school and did the frosting and decorated them. They wrote 1910-2010 in them (second picture). THey had a pinata to break open. They allowed all the kids to participate in that. I always love to see the boys and their excitement when they earn their awards. Bryce turns 8 in April so then we'll have 3 in scouts! UGH! Thank goodness the manuals are so organized! Or I'd have to figure something out!



Here is our newest additions to the family! 6 chicks and Ryan's duck! Nathan and Daniel are holding the Easter Egg chicks. So maybe this winter we'll get some blue, green and other pastel eggs! Kids are excited!








Ryan and Q.T. Duck. Until it grows it's feathers and we can tell weather it's a boy or a girl (tail feathers will curl if it's a boy) then we'll just call it Q.T. He is BEYOND thrilled and even wished CRT testing wasn't today so he could stay home with Q.T.! He has been saving his birthday money for a long time to buy this duck! Comptyn, Bryce and Nathan want to get some turtles, but until they start going to bed better, they have lost that. Last night was good. So maybe we'll be getting some turtles soon, too! Stay tuned! :-)