Angie's School Work

Angie~Counting the Days to Graduation

One of the great things that Angie has gotten to do is work at the "Casa de Salud" a wellness clinic for Hispanics in St. Louis. Getting lots of nursing experience and keeping up on her Spanish. She'll be graduating in May. Yippee!

A nurse is compassion in scrubs
~Lexie Saige

Snow Trips up Marathon

Rare snow at Myrtle Beach had city officials cancel the Myrtle Beach Marathon. Our family went down to see Kellee run her first half marathon. We were all really disappointed but we still had a great time getting away and being with family.

We woke up to see the words "YANKEES RULE" outside our beachfront balcony the day of the marathon. Being southerners we took it to mean that the "northerners" would have still had the marathon which is probably true. The South cancel everything, even with a trace of snow. Anyway, Kellee and Jessica went down to the beach and crossed out "RULE" and wrote "YANKEES GO HOME"

Kellee, Ready to Run
Oh well, maybe we can find another race

Throwing food to the seagulls is always fun

Brave Jessica feeds them from her hand

Dave gives it a try too.

"Running is a mental sport...

and we're all insane!"

New Information on SIDS

Today Steven David would have been 23 years old. Curiously, I went to the Internet to see if there was any recent news of the cause of SIDS and there is a new finding that babies with low levels of the chemical "serotonin" in their brains are linked to having more of a chance of being SIDS babies. Researchers are now looking into how babies can be screened to see if they have low serotonin levels.

Research has come a long way since our tragedy with Steven and SIDS. I believe it was a little bit after Steven died that SIDS organizations came out with their "Babies should be put to sleep on their backs" campaign and supposedly this prevented more deaths, even though its just one of more than a few risk factors for babies that die of SIDS.

Now, with this new research, maybe it will mean that many more families won't have to deal with this anguish. But, like Spencer W. Kimball has said about tragedy:

"...Being human,

we would expel from our lives

physical pain and mental anguish

and assure ourselves of continual

ease and comfort,

but if we were to close the doors upon sorrow and distress,
we might be excluding our greatest friends and benefactors.
Suffering can make saints of people

as they learn patience,
long-suffering, and self-mastery. . . ."

Oddly, for the most part, I've felt a sense of peace with what happened to Steven even though I 'm sad because I miss him and I wouldn't want the experience to happen to anyone...I understand it.

Video: Low serotonin levels linked to SIDS - Video News Live

Wasn't This Bad But...

We had a pretty bad storm come in our area over the weekend. Here in our area, it only snowed a few inches but because it was so cold and we're not equipped for such storms here in the South, church meetings were cancelled on Sunday and also school was cancelled Monday and for two hours this morning.

*********************************

Slow Cooker Carolina BBQ

1 (5 pound) bone-in pork shoulder roast
1 Tablespoon salt
ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 Tablespoons hot pepper sauce
1 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 teaspoons red pepper flakes

DIRECTIONS: 1) Place the pork shoulder into a slow cooker and season with salt and pepper. Pour the vinegar around the pork. Cover, and cook on Low for 8 hours or until done. Pork should easily pull apart into strands. 2) Remove the pork from the slow cooker and discard any bones. Strain out the liquid, and save 2 cups. Discard any extra. Shred the pork using tongs or two forks, and return to the slow cooker. Stir the brown sugar, hot pepper sauce, cayenne pepper, and red pepper flakes into the reserved sauce. Mix into the pork in the slow cooker. Cover and keep on Low or Warm setting until serving.

***********************************

Happy 18th Birthday

Kellee!

February 1st