Kindness of Strangers.

This week Lance and I had the unfortunate op

portunity to give several people their "last ride." As some of you may know there was a mother and four children murdered in El Reno, Ok a week or so ago. Their funeral was held this Wednesday.  B.A.C.A (Bikers Against Child Abuse) 

sent out an e-mail asking for bikers to attend the funeral to help put a buffer between the family and the protesters. Who would protest at a funeral you might ask. Well there is a radical anti war church that is based out of Kansas that protests soldiers funerals. The Patriot Guard Riders (who Lance and I also ride with) attend those funerals to protect the family. There is no violence. If there are protesters we will set up our bikes and stand in front of them so the family doesn't have to see them or the signs they have. If they are shouting we will start our bikes so they can't hear the things they are yelling. Well, Oklahoma got tired of these outrageous acts they started making city ordinances about when and where people could protest. In their eyes this made all Oklahomans evil. Unbelievably they started to attend the funerals of murdered children in Oklahoma telling the families that God is punishing Oklahoma for not allowing them to protest. At the funeral on Wednesday there were 65+ bikes that were able to show up. We were asked to assist the police with the security of the funeral procession and the cemetery. I was honored to be able to help the family lay their loved

 ones to rest in peace. Luckily we saw no protesters and everything went smoothly. I have to commend the city of El Reno as well. They took as many precautions as possible. They went to all the property owners along the main pathways the procession would take and informed them if any unwanted people were on their property, they could be arrested for trespassing. Also one of the tactics this church likes to use is burning the American flag. If anyone tried that on Wednesday they would be arrested because Tuesday night El Reno was convienently placed under a burn ban. It was a very sad thing that happened but I was awed at how many people stepped help complete strangers.

Thursday Lance and I attend a funeral for a seven year old boy who died of cancer. For several months now our ABATE group has been following his progress with his illness.  His family requested the motorcycle escort from the school where the funeral was held to the cemetery.

 

There were 85+ bikes that showed up including the Patriot Guard Riders who 

brought the flags.

Every Friday a woman in the community would send this little boy a balloon bouquet and a stuffed animal.  He decided that the yellow ones were his favorite. For the funeral several of us met early and aired up 800 yellow balloons and tied then along the fence into the cemetery. 

 

When everyone arrived at the cemetery we cut to balloons off the fence and handed them out. Everyone let them go at the same time. 

These are the ABATE member that came to support his family on his "last ride."

This was a picture on the ride home. Lance is getting pretty good with a camera.

Samson

Well the day has come. I know that no one ever thought that they would see it. Lance cut his long flowing locks. They were awesome, but they were also a lot of work. I haven't seen him with short hair since we were in high school. His hair was 17 inches from scalp to tip. He did donate his pony tail to locks for love. 

I like it short, Lance is having trouble getting used to it. I also like it long though. If he really misses it that much all he has to do it wait. 

Christmas Treats.

Twas the night before Christmas,

and all through the house,

not a creature was stirring,

not even a mouse.

BECAUSE I ATE IT!!

A hairy mistake.

Blow drying my hair makes is straight. Unfortunately, I guess that is not the case for everyone.

TWILIGHT!!!

I just wanted to tell everyone that encouraged me to read the Twilight series a big fat lot of thanks for NOTHING!!! I am out of control!!! I felt like Bella herself at work last night. I turned the radio up really loud and was trying to sing so I wouldn't think about the book. I am only in the middle of the first book so don't spoil it for me. I also don't want to read anymore until I have an uninterupted block of time to finish. I can't take all this stopping and starting. So here is a warning to anyone who hasn't read it yet, don't read it unless you have one or two free days so you can read the whole thing at once. Also I have dreamed about it everytime I have slept so I have to reread the last couple of pages when I start reading again cause I can't remember what was real and what was the dream. So big fat lot of thanks for NOTHING!!!

Non-traditional Thanksgiving

So at the last minute Lance and I ditched traditional Thanksgiving to go snowboarding. At first I was kind of sad (remember my earlier Thanksgiving post), but it turned out to be a really fun trip. I really miss snowboarding and it felt really good to get back on the mountain. We went to Red River, NM. Neither of us had ever been here before, (Lance had never snowboarded before), but it turned out to be really cool. The town is right at the base of the mountain so really you could walk anywhere in town, even to the lifts. There was actually a lift right outside our hotel, I mean 10 feet from our door, but that run wasn't open. Red River supplements their natural snowfall with snow machines which is basically all they had, but it wasn't bad. Kinda icy but still fun. Here is a picture of the town from about 1/4 of the way up the mountain.

Lance did really good for his first time. Ever since I bought him a snowboard for his birthday he has been trash talking that he was going to school me and that he didn't understand what was so hard about it... Well he learned. I was so happy to hear to exact same words come out of his mouth that I said my first time I went, "I can't do it, this was a waste of money." He was ready to give up after the first day. He fell 25 times going down the bunny hill his first run. I wasn't much help though, I yelled out tips in between hysterical boughts of laughter. He was going to rent skis and try his luck there but decided to give it one more chance and caught on. He even did a black run. He also learned the meaning of being sore.  Until you do it, you will never know the pain.

Here you can see the edge of the man made snow. Since Lance was just learning I stayed with him the whole time and took it pretty easy. It was a good ease back into it for me. I got to work on somethings that I needed to practice like 180's and riding switch. As a result I'm really not sore. Something that he didn't like cause I wanted to walk around and see the town today and he wanted to lay in bed. I won, we walked around. It was good for him to stretch his muscles though.

Rach and Carson, I looked it up it took us 9 1/2 hours to get here, it take 9 hrs and 45 min to come from Phoenix. Plus look at the name of the forest it is in! We'll meet you here next weekend.

This is my cousin Josephine.

She was born on October 22. Shortly after she was born she was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, or Edward's Syndrome. She will not live long-trisomy 18 is  genetic disorder where there is extra material from the 18th chromosome (like extra material from the 21st chromosome causes down syndrome.) About 95% die in utero. Of liveborn infants, only 50% live to 2 months, and only 5-10% will survive their first year of life.

Josephine is going strong on 1 month!

My Aunt Lucy and cousin Angelic are hosting an online benefit to help pay for medical expenses. Any bids/donations would be great! Check it out here. The auction will start November 26th and last one week. Check out Josephine's story and her amazing family here.