Merry Christmas!!!

            I love this time of year. To spend time with family and to remember Christ. This Christmas, I spent time with my family for Christmas Eve and we had lots of good food. We had a really nice musical day at church that helped bring all the feelings of Christmas and the true meaning back into the front of my mind. So Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!!!

Thanksgiving Fun

 I went up camping this year for Thanksgiving with Tom, Skye, and their kids. It was alot of fun. I went sledding, and watched LOTS of movies. Of course we had lots of yummy food to eat and lots of pies to satisfy our cravings for sweets. I enjoyed it up there. It was so peaceful with all of the snow that was up there. On Friday Morning it was snowing alot; It looked like a blizzard. It was so Pretty!! Tom wanted to burn some slash piles up there so I went with to watch him start the fires. Watching the flames burn the wood and spread was fascinating to me. I enjoyed the weekend alot. Good friends and Good memories.

Happy Birthday To Me!!!!!!

Wow, I can't believe that I'm 18. It's really weird to think about; being old enough to vote, to potentially move out on my own. There's alot to think about. I know it's not that old and to some it might just be another year older but to me just knowing that I'm growing up and old enough to society as being classified as an "adult". On Friday I had a great time. I invited my family and we went swimming at the Aquatic center in Idaho Falls and afterward we went out to eat at Sizzlers. I had so much fun spending time with my family-those who were able to go(to those who weren't able to go; you were missed.) I got some awesome presents including a new laptop, shoes, a necklace and earring set, a calvin and hobbs book, a cute paper holder shaped like a purse + the tablet of paper and a pen, some really cute hairbows, some chocolates and a little bit of money. Very very fun night I must say!!
Then today I went to church and had a really good time. We had some good lessons about being an example to others and how, and why it is important to love yourself. Then I got the priviledge of putting her young women personal progress medallion on. That was pretty special. After church I was craving cookies so I decided to make myself birthday cookies. I made chocolate chip cookies and rolled them in cinnamin sugar. I think they turned out really good. It ended up making 4 dozen cookies so I decided to share with my sister Deneece and her family. We played Wacky Six-my favorite card game and Bohnanza. It was fun. Then Deneece made a yummy taco dinner. All in all It's been a really good Birthday!!!
Love, Kim

Grandpa Keppner

            Last  Sunday my Grandpa Keppner passed away. He passed away only 84 days after Grandma. I'm sure that they are having the best time together at their reunion. I'm so very grateful for the knowledge of Eternal Families. It helps ease the hurt of someone passing from this world. I'm so very grateful to have been honored to have known my grandparents. They were both great examples to me. Grandpa was the first one that really introduced me and got me interested in rocks. Every year we went to the Gem and Mineral show (Rock show) and met grandpa there. I remember always playing a game called "Wheel of Fortune". Grandma kept us occupied while grandpa looked at the rocks. I'm grateful for the memories that I have of those Rock shows and all the many more memories that I have of my Grandparents.Grandpa broke horses throughout his life and also made jewlery out of rock.
            Grandpa's funeral was nice yesterday. The weather held up and it was a nice service. I know that there are alot of people that was affected by Grandpa's example. He worked hard and had a strong testimony of the gospel. Once again I'm so grateful to know that he and grandma are together-for all eternity.

Blessings

Being able to go to Seminary has been a huge blessing. It's amazing how good I feel since I have been going to Seminary. Even on the days that I wasn't feeling quite up to going to Seminary and I went, I didn't feel sick when I was there. I have missed feeling the spirit everyday. I have been working on reading my scriptures every day and I have been consistent since I have been going to Seminary. I am very grateful for the opportunity that I have to help the kids in the special needs class. They are such an inspiration and reminder of how much Heavenly Father loves EACH and EVERY ONE of us. It reminds me How much Jesus Christ suffered for ALL of our sins but he would have also done it for just ONE of us. I'm so grateful for this understanding and I'm so very blessed to have people in my life who remind me every day who I am- A Daughter of God. I know that with surety and so very honored to have that knowledge. I'm so blessed to have the scriptures in my life. Seminary is such a blessing in my life. The people in there are amazing and I'm excited to see them every day. It's amazing to me how much knowledge that people with disabilities can still understand and learn. They can strengthen my testimony and help me be a better person. I can feel it already and it has only been a week. How grateful I am to have been blessed with this opportunity.

I think I can....I think I can....I think I can

I started my school year last week. It's going pretty good. I just hope that no more problems occur this school year. what else could they possibly remove from my body?... let's not go there...they have already taken my gallbladder and my appendix. I think that is enough surgeries. Two surgeries in less than two years. I think i'm good now. Now i'm just working on my school. I am behind and I realize that I will not be able to graduate this year like I would have done if I still went to Rigby. But,I have gone through two surgeries so I am just going on with the work that I need to do. It does get me down when I think of where I "should be" if I hadn't gotten sick but I did. At least I'm not giving up and that's all that I should be thinking about right now. It might take me two extra years for me to graduate but at least I'll be able to finish. Right now I'm just going to take it day by day and work my best. Pretty soon those "I think I can's" will be "I know  I can's" but it will take time.

Family

I'm so excited to go up to Tendoy for 5 days!!! We head out today! It is going to be so much fun!! All of siblings are going to be there and their kiddos! We have lots of activities planned. So enjoy your weekend everyone and I will update you when I get back!! Loves!!

chip--a-rock-away-a

Today is thursday!! I'm excited to go flintknapping again. I haven't for a while because I haven't felt good on Thusdays. I have missed all the flintknappers. They are so much fun to hang out with. I'm also excited for this weekend because Tom and Skye invited me to go up to the cabin in Spencer. I am aching to get out and go camping again. I have missed going up there and hanging out with them again. So, have a good Thursday everyone and I will go "chip-a-rock-away-a" ;)

New Goals

My Appendix Surgery took longer than I expected. It was pretty frustrating to tell you the truth. I really get tired of being sick, it's not fun at all. But, finally I am getting better and I am determined to get into a better shape than I am currently in. I haven't eaten the portions of food that I used to, but that might be attributed to not eating for a few days while I was in the hospital because I didn't feel like eating. I've lost about 10 pounds since the hospital and I want to continue loosing that wait and I also need to build up my stamina and get my body into shape. Tonight was the begnning of getting closer to that goal. I went on a bike ride. Granted it wasn't a long bike ride but it was enough to kick my butt for tonight and remind me that I need to work on this. I'm excited to see what I can acomplish and hopefully I can continue to be stronger physically each day.

Ellee

So my dad was working on a lock job for our dentist and they mentioned that they had a few cats that they wanted to get rid of. a couple cats. Dad doesn't like cats so he said no to that but he told her that we were looking into getting a small dog. Shelly, our dentists wife, told dad that she had one that she might consider getting a new home for because she travels alot and didn't want to deal with the paperwork of getting the puppies papers to take her with her to Canada when she travels. Dad met the puppy and took a picture of her on his phone. He showed us when he got home. We fell in love. We discussed it and the next day we decided to see if we could meet her. We ended up getting her that day and she has been absolute joy and a great addition to our family! It took some time for her to get used to us but after two weeks more of her personality is shining through and she trusts us a little more.
Since I was little, My Mom has not been a "Dog Person" but she is smitten with this little one. They are both smitten. Ellee absolutely loves mom and when Mom is home she is right by her side. She's still a little leary of dad but it will take some time. She has her little mood swings though and when she gets mad at you, she stays mad for a little while and holds the grudge. She's pretty quite for a little dog. She doesn't bark too much. We did find out that she does howl if she is left alone for too long though.
Ellee is nine months old and is registered with all of her papers. She has a different registered name. It is Lily Loo Rosey Blumpkin. Long name huh....that's why we desided to call her Ellee. Dad likes to call her Miss Ellee too. I have some nicknames for her too. I usually call her Ellee, Ell, Ellwood, or little missy.
We just love her so much and are excited thast she is a part of our family.

Rainy Days...

I absolutely LOVE the smell of rain. It's so refreshing and I almost feel cleansed after a rainstorm. Everything seems to be revived and the colors are more intense. I love trying to find the rainbow after the storm. It reminds me that even though I may have trials in my life brewing over my head like a rainstorm, I know that if I work hard and try my best to overcome that trial, I'll be able to see the rainbow after. Like the quote says, "Its not about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning how to dance in the rain." So let loose and DANCE IN THE RAIN!!!

                                                           Do you see the Rainbow?

Grandma, Girls Camp, and...oh yeah Another Surgery

I need to update everybody on my blog of what has been happening the last few weeks. My Grandma Keppner had not been doing too good since she had some tests done in Salt Lake. She was so strong throughout the whole process though. When she had the tests done, she found out that she had Liver Cancer. Her response to the doctor was, "Well, I've had 87 great years." She was the kindest person that I know. She did so much for others that it was just a part of her life. I remember when I was little and I went over there she would have a little cookie for me and she feed cats that wandered around her neighborhood with leftover drippings from the tuna cans and I even remember she had some cat food that she fed them with even though she didn't own the cats personally. I also remember many many hours spending with her doing scrap booking. That was one of her favorite things to do and it was fun to learn what memories were captured in the pictures. She was a wonderful example to me and I will truly miss her. Before she passed away, she did get to spend her 69th wedding Anniversary with Grandpa and that is really special. She died only 16 days after she found out that she had liver cancer but we think it was a blessing because now she doesn't have to suffer through the horrible pain that she was in. Throughout her life she loved flowers. I don't think she had a specific kind of flower. So for her Funeral my mom my sister and I went to the flower shop to pick out what we wanted for grandma's casket spray that goes on top of her casket. I think we chose a really good combination and it really did remind us all of Grandma. They even let us put some of the flowers from my mom's garden to put in the arrangement. It was so nice. When a family member passes away, it really gets you thinking differently.I know that I will be able to see her again and be able to hug her and talk to her and that gives me alot of comfort. I'm really grateful and blessed that I had such a wonderful influence in my life that has strengthened me. I realize that I have alot of great influences in my life and I love ALL of them, they are all special. So, Thanks Grandma Keppner, I love you LOTS and LOTS!!!! See you soon...
here are some pictures of the funeral...

 Paul Bearers

 The purple flowers were out of my mom's gardaen

Grandma's Casket represented her so much

Grandma's burial plot

My Grandma's funeral was on Wednesday, June, 22, 2011. Earlier that morning, before the funeral, the rest of the girls loaded up to go to Girls Camp at Island Park Scout Camp. My niece Rebecca and I wanted to go to the funeral so we decided to ride up with a leader that was coming up later on that night. Girls camp is lots of fun and I really didn't want to miss the first part of it but, in thins situation family was more important and I would have been really upset if I missed grandma's funeral. This year was officially my last year at Girls Camp(as a Young Women) It was a great last year! I had lots of fun. I got the opportunity to take the swim test at the lake and swim, Go on a gorgeous hike, do the low cope course which helped with teamwork skills and the last activity for the low cope was the Trust Fall. It was awesome. You had to put alot of trust in people to fall from a platform and trust that they would catch you. I think it was an awesome experience when I did it and I'm glad I did. We also went to the Riffle Range and Archery range to shoot some targets. I love shooting so it was alot of fun. After that we were able to go Repelling. I loved the repelling wall. I went repelling before and thought it was lots of fun and I thought it was fun this time too. Some of the leaders and girls Rock climbed up one side and Repelled down the other. I just decided to take the easy way and climb the stairs. Lame, I know but I still had fun. :) Throughout the whole Girls Camp we learned about different things that we can do to strengthen ourselves and better ourselves. Our camp theme this year was B.O.O.T camp- Building. On. Our. Testimonies. I thought the theme was amazing!! I loved it. It was great to learn the different ways that we can strengthen our testimonies and push through all of the things that Satan throws at us. For me this year at Girls camp went by so fast but I had a blast with everything that we did. There is no other way of putting it. There were great Leaders up there, great girls, and everyone was such an amazing influence and example to me. I had a Blast!!

 Before I left

 on the hike

 there were tons of pelicans on our hike

Devotional

 

And finally, My update about this past week. On Sunday, I wasn't feeling my very best but by Monday I was having severe stomach pains so my mom took me to my doctor at Upper valley.  They sent me home with some nausea medicine and other meds. He told me to be on a liquid diet and sent me home. They didn't know what was wrong. On Tuesday the pain got Increasingly worse. It felt like I had a huge cramp throughout my whole stomach that wouldn't let go. It was so bad that I could hardly move. My mom had to work so I called my sister Deneece and she came over to help me. We decided to get my brother-in-law Joshua and my dad to give me a priesthood blessing. That helped too.After the blessing I went to my doctor again. They did some more tests to see if they could find anything like a kidney stone or twisted intestine or a few other things. All the tests came out negative. They put me on an IV to get me rehydated. (I tried to keep myself hydrated but it didn't want to stay in my stomach and I ended up throwing it up).I must have looked horrible because when The IV was done, the doctor came back in and said hat I was looking a whole lot better and i had a lot of color back. I was feeling a whole lot better too. He sent me home to see if that helped and gave me another nausea prescription.
On Wednesday morning I woke up and I couldn't hardly get out of bed. I called my mom to come to my room and asked her if she would take me to the doctor. It was around 4 in the morning so they were not open yet.We debated about going to the ER but decided not to because It would take hours and they would have to start all the research over to try and figure out what I had and on top of that I would still be in the pain that I was feeling right now. So I had to wait until 8 when the office opened. I tried to sleep on the couch in the front room. To say the least I didn't get enough sleep.
It was finally 8 and my mom and me got to my doctors at Upper Valley family medical. She gets me checked in and then we go to the back to talk with the doctor. Dr. Barbo helped me and talked to me Monday and Tuesday and then on Wednesday Dr. Adams came in. They did their regular blood test, the IV was still in me so they decided to hook me up and get more fluids in me. They discussed getting me in for a CT scan and were trying to figure out when we could arrange that. DR. Adams said that if the CT didn't show anything than we would just go back and see what else we could find out. He got ahold of the doctor who does the CT scan and set up the appointment the earliest that they could do it which was at 11:30am. So I waited at Upper valley, had the IV hooked up and drank the Awful fluid that you have to take before you go to the CT scan. The drink helps the machine see the organs better in the CT scan so I had to do that. At about 11 we loaded up in the car to go to Madison Memorial Hospital to get the CT scan. Long story short my Appendix showed up really good on the machine so they asked the radiologist to come see it and he said that it was Appendicitis. They  put me in the emergency section of the hospital until they could contact the surgeon that was going to take my appendix out. The nurse there was really nice, I liked him. He got me all prepped for the surgery and made me feel comfortable. The ironic thing about the surgery is that the surgeon on call was the one who did my gallbladder surgery almost 2 years ago, Dr. Coray.  So they put me to sleep so that I could go to surgery and that was that. When I woke up I was in my room upstairs. After the surgery the doctor told my mom that when they touched my appendix, it ruptured but it was contained enough that they were able to clean it up really good. It would have been a different story if it had ruptured before the surgery. It was really close to doing that so I'm really lucky. I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to go to Girls camp and enjoy that time because it was only a week before all this happened and I would have had to wait at Least an hour  to get out of the mountains and those bumpy roads would not have helped at all. I could hardly handle the ones in Rigby. I feel so blessed. Recovery is still in progress right now but it's getting better and I'm beginning to feel more and more like myself each day and building that strength up again.

Friends

Oh how I have missed my friends. Since I've been taking my school on the computer, I haven't been able to see my friends very much. I'm so grateful today that I had the opportunity to get to spend some time with two of my best friends. I think that we all had a good time and we definetly had some good laughs throughout the day. We didn't do anything that cost money(mainly because we are all broke) but we had a blast. I can't believe how good it feels to be able to enjoy being with my friends and just letting loose. I Love my friends very much and hope to be able to get to spend more time with them. Here is a picture of the three of us- the three UM-A-NAH's we back togethter again.

Memorial Weekend

For Memorial Weekend I took my Nephew Ty and my Neice Rebecca up to Spencer. It was great being up there. It was layed back and relaxed and we had a very good weekend. We played fun games like twister, took a ride on the four wheeler, ate at the dutch oven dinner that my brother-in-laws family does every year, went shooting, and finally went fishing. The weather didn't want to make up it's mind the whole weekend. It rained and snowed and then at the end it was really sunny. It felt so good to go up in the mountains and enjoy nature. There were some great people up there that I really enjoy spending time with. I'm hoping that I will be able to get up there more often this year.

Snowing up top.

  Playing Twister

 

Becca and I on the couch watching them play Twister

 The scenery on our way to go shooting

  Me shooting clay pigeons

 Becca helped launch the Pigeons in the air for us

   Ty Shooting clays and Becca in the background

Aurie hold Becca's fish and Ty's fish (Ty's fish is the small one)

 Rainbow on the way back home

   I absolutely love this picture. (heading home)

It was a great trip.

Sisters at the Zoo

I had a really good day today. I got to hang out with two of my sisters, Andrea-who came back to Idaho to visit for three weeks. I can't believe her visit is almost up. She will be returning to Kansas on Monday. I will truely miss her. So I decided to hang out with her all day today. My oldest sister Shantelle came along too. Andrea is staying at Shantelle's house while she is up here.
It was such a BEAUTIFUL day today. We decided to go to Tauphaus Park Zoo today since it was so nice. (pictures to come). We all got sunburnt but it was well worth it. It's so nice to feel the sun again! I loved hanging out with my sisters and seeing all of the amazing animals. There were so many baby animals there this time too. It was an awesome day. Today was truely a great day!!

Mom

I am so grateful for my mom. She means more to me than alot of things in my life. She is my best friend and I love to spend time with her. She is such an amazing person. She is so strong. I don't know what I would do without her. Whenever I feel down on myself or if I'm struggling with schoolwork or anything else in life she is always there to encourage me to keep going and don't give up. She gives me alot of strength when I need it the most.
So as today is Mother's day, I just want to make sure my Mom knows that I love her so much that words can't explain how much she means to me. LOVE YOU MOM!!!!

Another Day Of Chippin'

Today is Thurday so i will be going out to Lewisville to go break more rock. It might be more of an adventure tonight because I'm tryingtp recover from a cold. Hopefully the medicine that I'm taking will kick in so that I feel better tonight. I always look forward to Thursday nights, Even if I'm sick. Sometimes I don't even notice being sick after a while. It's amazing what good company can do. Hope everyone else has a good Thurday!!!

Remembering the Savior

Truthfully when I was little, I never really realized the true meaning of Easter. With all of the candy and talk of the Easter bunny, It never really sunk in. Yesterday my family had a get together and we had an Easter egg hunt for the kids and then had lunch. We all had a good time with good company and made more memories together. Yes, It was focused more on the candy and more of the worldly aspects of Easter but we enjoyed our time together and that's also important. Today was a good day for me, I was reminded of how much the savior loves me and all that he has done for each one of us. It finally clicked and I was spiritually fed. I am privileged to know that my Savior lives and that he suffered for my sins. He would have done it just for one person. I'm so very grateful for that knowledge in my life. We might get caught up in our day to day life. I know that I need to remember Christ more in my life. I'm going to try my best to improve in that area. We can make it through our toughest times, just as long as we remember what his son, Jesus Christ, did for us and that our Heavenly Father is waiting for us to ask for his help, we just need to ask.