A LITTLE FUN IN THE DIRT

Max got a new (used) dirt bike for Christmas (Yamaha YZ 125) and went out riding with his youth group from church called RUSH. Their leader was into dirt bikes and over the last 6 months just about all of them have some sort of dirt bike now.

GOD OF THIS CITY

We sing this song at our church (Fellowship Church) and this has been the anthem this Christmas season for one of our local radio stations (KLTY), that has a program called "Christmas Wish", where listeners nominate those in need, from terminally ill mothers who don't have the money to buy their kids Christmas gifts to veteran families who need help with the rent. It's an amazing song for an amazing program.

Every time I listen to this song I think of how God has worked in my life and my family's life and how I know he will be working in the lives of all Americans in the year to come. He is the God of this city and He is the God of our country and our Universe.

May God bless each of us in the coming year, bring our troops home safely and lead an awakening in America that has never been seen before.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since we are all spread to the corners of the U.S. and we can't be together, I wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving. I hope everyone is happy and healthy and remembers all they have to be thankful for. I'm thankful that I married into such a warm and caring family. I wish I could see everyone. Hug your loved ones and know my thoughts are with you. Laura

Happy Veterans Day

Hi Gang,

Just wanted to say happy veterans day!
I also ran across a website that really got my attention and thought I would share the link with everyone. The links is http://www.miap.us/index.htm

The website is the "Missing In America Project" This project is a group of people getting together and working with the VA in locating veterans remains that have gone unclaimed. Then making sure that the remains are buried with the military honors the fallen soldier deserves. They have located several thousand cremains of soldiers that have gone unclaimed. Then they work to get the cremains buried. Take a look at the site is very informative. I just found the site so I am still looking into seeing what if anything there is that someone can do to help the organization.

Keith

1st Time Blogger - Long time reader

I finally figured out that I was using the wrong email address to sign in so now I can post comments and pix.  I would have done this sooner but about the time I figured out what my problem was my hard drive died.  Couldn't revive it or wake it up long enough to save my emails and data so I'm starting over from scratch.  I was able to copy my contact info from my Blackberry to my computer so that was a big plus.  At least I kept all my pixs on an external HD; wish I had backed up my saved emails to another HD.  Will try to post some old pixs of Howard family members for everyone to look at and possibly provide more info or even names.

hi all.

this is bryan helton out here in california. I am not on my computer and i havent much time right now, or i would maybe post up some pictures or write more. i will soon. hope you are all well!! (916)370-0272. bye!

Laura Update Sunday

I have gotten to see Laura the last couple of days. She is progressing very good. Her bowels are working and she will be starting on soft foods tomorrow instead of the all liquid diet she has been on. She was feeling much better today and they have moved her to a new room. She is now in room 210.

The Doctor told her she may get to go home on Monday or Tuesday. We will just have to wait and see.

I paid a $1.859 for gas on Friday night. It was sure good to see the gas go below $2.00 per gallon.

Laura Update

I spoke with Laura by phone a couple of times yesterday. She even called me once. She is still very uncomfortable but seems to be getting some better. They are still keeping her pumped full of drugs so at times she seems a little confused.

I hope to get to talk with the Doctor on Saturday and get a idea about when she will be able to come home.

Thank you all for keeping her in your thoughts and prayers. I believe in the power of that.

I will try to keep you informed.

Frank

Laura's Room Number

Laura is in Room 102 in the PCU. She is able to get calls. I spoke with her briefly this morning. She sounded as if she was still under the influance of all of the pain meds they are giving her. She does not have her cell phone as of yet. If I talk with her again I will post it here.

Further

I forgot to mention that the phone number for PCU is 580-531-4725 and she will be able to receive calls.

Laura update

I spoke with ICU this morning and they said that Laura was doing great. They would be moving her to PCU sometime this morning. She will be in room 108.

Thanks again for all of the thought and prayers.

Laura's Surgery

Well, Dr. Lee finally called me at 3:20 pm cdt. He said that Laura did well in surgery and that she was now in ICU. He said the reason the surgery took so long was due to so many adhesions. This was a voicemail that he left me and he said that he would call back later so that he could talk to me. We'll see what happens.

Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers.

Frank

Laura Update #2

Hi Gang,

I just received a telephone call from Frank. He had not heard anything so he called Southwestern Hospital in Lawton. Laura was still in surgery. This is all we know at the moment. I received the call at 11:11 A.M. Pacific time. Since I am in front of my computer as I hear things from Frank I will keep posting through out the day.

Keith

Laura update

I talked with Laura last night and the doctor has scheduled surgery for 7:30 this morning. Depending on if they get her cleaned out enough. When I spoke to the doctor Sunday he said she would probably be in ICU for at least a day and then be moved to another specialty ward for at least another day prior to going back to her room.

She is very nervous about this as well as might be imagined. So keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Dr Lee is supposed to call me after the surgery and I will update this as soon as I can.

Update on Laura

Laura is in the hospital in Lawton, OK. She is there to have her entire colon removed. For those who don't know she has had a problem for a very long time. Her bowel movements were on a 10 day to 2 week cycle. Not Healthy.

The problem is that her colon does not work. The doctors say it does not move. So they are going to take the entire thing out. They will leave a few inches that goes to the rectum and then will attach the small intestine to that. For a while she will have four or five bowel movements per day until they can control it down to one or two.

The surgery will be tomorrow but I do not know what time as of yet. she will then be in the hospital for 6 to 8 days after surgery. The surgery will be 3 to 4 hours in length.

As I know more I will post it here.

Frank throw Derral a rope!

Frank,

If you have not done so could you please invite Derral to be a team member so he will be able to post to the blog. He has some pictures he would like to post.

Keith

As some of you know I am on vacation in Northern California. I recently made a trip to Salt Springs Resavoir. This is a place that many of the family members used to enjoy going to. While there I found out that there had been a forest fire a couple of years ago and that the state of California has not planted trout there in the past couple of years. So needless to say in was a fairly disapointing trip. Evan though the scenery is still very beautiful. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Reunion 2008

Frank, thanks for posting the pictures. I'll have Derral post some that he took, too. We enjoyed having everyone and look forward to seeing everyone next year, although we hope we see most of you between now and then...well, maybe all of you :-) We really enjoy doing it here and hope we can do it for a long time to come. Reunion 2009 - 6 Sep 09...mark your calendars!

That's okay Keith

...because that's Candice holding the frog ;-0 I don't know how she'll feel about you thinking that was me,but I'm flattered. Love ya. Liz

Sorry Liz!

Sorry Liz I just could not help myself.

You guys look like you had a great time. I hope Frank & Kevin did not make to big a mess of your place!

Keith (Wished we could have been there)

Happy Birthday Keith!

I hope your day is very special, you deserve it.

Frank

Thanks to Darrell and Liz for opening their home to us and hosting what has become an annual event. As always it was a lot of fun. I will try and post these pictures that I took at the event. For those of you who missed it I am truly sorry. I wish more had been able to attend but I can understand the requirements of life.

Frank

Happy Belated Birthday Derral

Well I am 24 hours late! Hey that is pretty good for me!

Happy Birthday Derral. Now quit slacking and post some pictures from the reunion.

Keith

DAVID BAILEY LAUNCHES PRESIDENTIAL RUN

Update on Robin

To update everyone, Robin has been pretty sick the last 6-8 weeks with severe abdominal pains, etc. They performed a colonoscopy, endoscopy and even had her swallow a capsule camera (I'll post photos at a later date) which got stuck in her small intestine. Last Tuesday they finally decided to perform exploratory surgery to find and correct the problem. They were thinking anything from cancer, crohn's disease to a simple bowel obstruction. What they found was an adhesion from her hysterectomy 2 years ago. Apparently the reminents of one of the tubes had adhered to the outside wall of her small intestine causing a kink in her intestine. The surgeon was able to separate the adhesion, manipulate the capsule cam that got stuck in her inestine and even took out her appendix. As far as surgery goes, it was the best we could have hoped for.

The hospital stay was a little up and down. She had an NG tube in her stomach for 6 days and was on Morphine for about 3. I stayed at the hospital for about 18 hours out of each day and on the 2nd day when I went home to check on the kids and try to sleep for 2 hours she had a problem. Her oxygen saturation dropped to 30% ad she fell unconscious for a short period of time. Thank GOD the nursing assistant came by to take her vitals and notice it and called for help. She was at Baylor Hospital and believe it or not they don't have monitoring that goes from the rooms to the nurses' station, everything is done in the room if a nurse bothers to come by (that's a whole other story). Thank God all ended up o.k. and I stayed there pretty much the rest of the time until her tube was out, she was off morphine and oxygen. I figured they couldn't kill her at that point.

She came home 3 days ago and has been doing well until today her pain has returned. She's talked to the surgeon who think it may just be her intestines coming back to life but will monitor it. Hopefully she is finished with the hospital for several years to come.

That's all for now, I'll update you if there is any change other than continued recovery. Thanks for all your prayers and thoughts... keep them coming.

EDITED AUGUST 29, 2008:

Here's a photo I took of the capsule cam that was stuck in Robin until after her surgery.

Politically Incorrect

Here are the boys being hams last month.

Here's Kylie when we thought she had the chicken pox.

Prayers and best wishes to Robin on her surgery today. I know everything will turn out fine. We love you.

My New Hummer

I thought you guys might like to see my new Hummer. :-)

Picture from the past

First I have to give credit to the photogapher Ms. Peggy. Thanks Peggy for letting me post your pictures. Since Zach will be 21 in December these pictures are from around 1987 or 1988. I am sure Peggy can give us the correct timelime. I hope all enjoy the pictures, thanks again Peggy.

Keith

California Trip

Robin and I are in CA for a few days for a friend's retirement party. We spent some time just driving around today and one of our stops was at NASA Ames Research Center / Moffett Field. They are talking of tearing down "Hangar One" due to PCB's, lead and asbestos, so I thought I should take some pictures before it is gone forever. This was originally built in 1932.

A family photo

Just thought I'd share a photo of Robin and I that Madison took with his new camera. (I'm trying to train him young.)

I hope all is well with everyone. We are off to CA for the weekend and then back to town.

Happy Birthday Wanda! We miss your smiling face here in Oklahoma. Here comes the next 5 months where I get to gloat about you being older than me! We love and miss ya babe.

Happy birthday Wanda

Happy Birthday Wanda. I hope it is a great one. I don't know what to think about all these people getting older than me. lol

Red Shirt
If the red shirt thing is new to you, read below how it went for a man..

Last week, while traveling to Chicago on business, I noticed a Marine sergeant traveling with a folded flag, but did not put two and two together. After we boarded our flight, I turned to the sergeant, who'd been invited to sit in First Class (across from me), and inquired if he was heading home. No, he responded. Heading out I asked? No. I'm escorting a soldier home. Going to pick him up? No. He is with me right now. He was killed in Iraq , I'm taking him home to his family. The realization of what he had been asked to do hit me like a punch to the gut. It was an honor for him. He told me that, although he didn't know the soldier, he had delivered the news of his passing to the soldier's family and felt as if he knew them after many conversations in so few days. I turned back to him, extended my hand, and said, Thank you. Thank you for doing what you do so my family and I can do what we do.
Upon landing in Chicago , the pilot stopped short of the gate and made the following announcement over the intercom. 'Ladies! and gentlemen, I would like to note that we have had the honor of having Sergeant Steeley of the United States Marine Corps join us on this flight. He is escorting a fallen comrade back home to his family. I ask that you please remain in your seats when we open the forward door to allow Sergeant Steeley to deplane and receive his fellow soldier. We will then turn off the seat belt sign.' Without a sound, all went as requested.
I noticed the sergeant saluting the casket as it was brought off the plane, and his acti on made me realize that I am proud to be an American. So here's a public Thank You to our military Men and Women for what you do so we can live the way we do.
Red Fridays. Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing Red every Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the 'silent majority.' We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or overbearing. Many Americans, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of American's supports our troops. Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday -- and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that .. every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar, will wear something red.
By word of mouth, press, TV -- let's make the United States on every Friday a sea of red much like a homecoming football game in the bleachers. If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, coworkers, friends, and family, it will not be long before the USA is covered in RED and it will let our troops know the once 'silent' majority is on their side more than ever, certainly more than the media lets on. The first thing a soldier says when asked 'What can we do to make things better for you?' is 'We need your support and your prayers.' Let's get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example, and wear something red every Friday.

Liz,
I finally got around to sending an invitation to all of those email addresses you sent me. I hope that they will join in. If there is anyone else that I am missing that anyone knows of please drop me a email with their address and I will send them an invite to join.

family get together

Extreme kudos to Darrel an Liz for hosting the annual Howard get together. They always do a spectacular job and never get enough credit. I want to take a moment to tell them how much I appreciate it and please let me know what I can do. Even though we are moving and can not all be there this year I know we all wish we could be. Those of us that can be there are looking forward to it. Thanks guys!

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO ALL!

I apologize I missed everyone's b-days. I worked 7 days straight the last week of June through July 2 shooting photos at the Jr.Olympic Volleyball Championships and then Robin has been sick, so I've been preoccupied. We spent the 4th at our lake house in East Texas, even though Robin wasn't feeling too well. So let me say to everyone HAPPY BIRTHDAY and a special HAPPY 50th to Kevin.

I'm attaching a couple of photos from my volleyball shots as well as a couple of shots outside our dinning room windows at the lake house.

Max is off t church camp on Sunday for a week and Robin and I will be in California for another quick trip the first of August (a friend of ours is retiring from the police department - 50 years old and retiring - how nice.)