sNow What?

Smithfield made it on the news...we received 18 inches of snow on Christmas day! The photo above shows my Honda Fit stuck in our driveway the morning of the 26th - and I'll have you know that we swept about 10 inches off of it and had the entire driveway shoveled before we went to bed the night before. We decided to buy ourselves a little something to celebrate the occasion...

About a week ago, Cadyn informed me that he had a loose tooth and was going to pull it out so he could get some money. I wasn't even aware the tooth was there because it was hiding behind his adult teeth. He pulled the tooth and was putting it in a ziploc baggie to place under his pillow when he made a comment that he wondered who the Tooth Fairy was. I told him that it was a little fairy, of course. He said "Well...I don't think it's dad...'cuz he can't get up for nuthin'!" It gave me quite a chuckle. The funnier part to the story is that the very next night he pulled out another tooth! Kids these days!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and that you all received everything you wanted. I asked for a clean house...maybe next year :( The boys had a great time and Cadyn even said that this was his best Christmas ever.

Gina the Human Smooge-Picker...(I new you would laugh, mom and Aubs!)

I'm such a bad blogger! Well, it has been quite some time since my last post and way too much has happened to try to catch up on everything. I can say that crow season is finally over...and thank goodness for that! Here is a taste of just a few of the crazy occurances that took place during these last few months: My laptop took a poop and was down for about 4 weeks until I took it in for repair (one reason I haven't posted any updates for so long), three people that I'm close to had major health issues that were cause for great concern, my laundry room and downstairs bathroom were flooded with sewage, and one of my employees was hit by a car as he was crossing a road and was life-flighted to a hospital in Ogden. The good news is that all of these stories have fairly good endings and that the 9 months ahead should be a breeze!

I've posted some pictures of the work being done to our basement since the sewer backed-up, which of course happened on my birthday. I was quite excited (after spending my day off trying to clean up the mess - which was WAY worse then I ever could have imagined) to find out that homeowner's insurance covers such incidences. In a way, our sewer problem has ended up being a "blessing in disguise"...the disguise being a lot of smelly sewage-soaked clothing, carpet, and drywall with globs of dried up toilet paper stuck to everything...the blessing being a remodel of our laundry room and bathroom, new carpet for the entire basement and stairway, and a bunch of money to buy new clothes! What was I thinkin' trying to do the job myself? Well, Mike Rowe would have been proud anyway!

My Voo-Doo Blessing

So, up until a week ago, I've been trying to keep track of all the negative happenings in my life that I can link to my crow curse.

Here are a few:

1) I accidentally stabbed myself with an exacto knife at work.

2) One of Cadyn's buddies did a face plant on my driveway while trying to bust a move on his scooter.

3) I had to take my new car to the shop to see why a light on the dash was randomly coming on (Billy had over-filled one of the tires).

4) Billy has been working in Nephi (about 3.5 hours away) for the last 3 weeks (it's either that, or unemployment).

Four minor happenings is not bad! I owe it all to one of my great friends and co-workers, Rachael Wentz, who found the opportunity to reverse my crow curse with a voo-doo blessing. Two weekends ago, Rachael went with a group of her friends to Vegas for the weekend. In one of the hotels she happened upon a shop where voo-doo blessings were being performed. Out of curiosity, she went inside to discover that these voo-doo blessings could be performed on people who have been cursed by animals! Instantly she thought of me (bless her little heart). She asked the store keeper if she could purchase something in the store to have blessed since she didn't have anything personal of mine with her (I don't understand why she wouldn't have a lock of my hair with her in Vegas???). She happened upon a couple of crow figures...they even have feathers! The voo-doo-ist placed a blessing upon the crow figures and told her that she needed to relay a message to me. The message was that I needed to place the crow figures in a peaceful place and that I need to release all of the negative feelings that I have toward them so that I can come to peace with them...I need to "be at one with the crows". If I fail to do so, I can turn the blessing into a curse - and I figure I can't take any chances! So I have excepted a friendship with the crows and the figures are now placed on my bedroom dresser. Thanks Rachael!

The Curse of the Crows

It will be seven years ago this October since the incident. Those who live (or have lived) in Logan, Utah know how cold it can get in the Winter. Billy makes it a practice to test and adjust the antifreeze levels in our vehicles before the first snow hits so that we don't have issues starting them in the frigid mornings.

In October of 2001, he spent a few hours doing just that. At the time we rented a house in a neighborhood that had lots (and lots and lots) of stray cats. I must have reminded Billy at least 10-15 times (while he worked on my car) that we needed to make sure to spray the driveway off afterward so we wouldn't be responsible for killing all the neighborhood felines. As Billy finished up, I grabbed the hose and made sure that not a drip of antifreeze lingered on my driveway. The vehicles were winterized, the cats were safe, and things were good.

The next morning, as I pulled out of the driveway to head to the store, I noticed a small puddle of antifreeze in the driveway. I called Billy immediately at work to inform him of my dilemma. He told me that he was working at a jobsite just a few blocks from our house and that if I drove over, he would take a look and see what was wrong. I drove right over and Billy discovered that he had not tightened the drain valve enough and so the antifreeze had dripped out during the night. He fixed the problem and I told him that I needed to get home right away to spray the driveway off again.

After being gone a total of 10 minutes or so, I pulled up to a scene that I will NEVER forget! This is where the curse comes in. Instead of dead cats, I had about 5 or 6 dead crows all over my yard. If you've never seen a crow up close and personal before, THEY ARE BIG...like the size of a cat! Frantically, I called Billy. I was crying hysterically and thought for sure that a neighbor would see the birds all over my lawn and call me in for being a crow killer. I stared out the front room window as I tried to gain my composure so I could tell Billy what had happened. He didn't understand how that many crows could have drank antifreeze out of the small puddle within the 10 minutes I was gone. As I stood looking out the window at the walnut tree, the answer came falling. A crow dropped dead from the tree right before my eyes. Upon further examination of the antifreeze puddle, I noticed the many walnuts in the middle of it.

I'm not a superstitious person, I never have been. Every Fall, though, we experience a streak of bad luck. Just 3 days after the initial incident (and a week before Halloween), Billy was buried in a trench that he dug with his own backhoe. As it gets closer to the Crow Anniversary, I will share my experiences with you to give you a taste of what I experience every year. I know it is coming. Billy tells me that I will bring on the bad luck if I think about it too much...and he teased me for reading The Secret!

I'm goin' back...back...back to school again! (for all you Grease fans)

Devon is officially a seventh grader and really excited that he has finally reached the age where he gets to shower in PE next semester (yeah right). Cadyn is in third grade this year and is glad that he doesn't have to get any shots until the summer before sixth grade. Last Thursday was Devon and Cadyn's first day of school...and boy it went smooth! At six o'clock I arose to get Devon prepared for the day's events. He was excited to wear the new clothes Grandma Maryann and Steve bought for him. He headed out early to meet his friend before catching the bus at 6:50 a.m. I went back to bed relieved to have one of my children off to his exciting first day of school. I arose again at 7:30 to get myself ready for work and Cadyn ready for his adventureous day. As I grabbed my purse and handed Cadyn his backpack, he looked at me like I was crazy and said in his sweet little voice, "Mom, that's not my backpack." I asked him if he was sure. "Duh, mom...I know what my backpack looks like!" I opened the backpack to see Devon's binder...AND class schedule...AND locker combination. Frantic, I yelled to Billy, "We have an EMERGENCY!!!" Billy grabbed Devon's backpack and drove to his school to trade him for Cadyn's. Meanwhile, I drove Cadyn to school assuring him all the while that Dad would soon be bringing his backpack to him. "But Mom, what should I tell my teacher if she asks me where my backpack is? How will Dad know where to find me?" All I could imagine was poor little Dev freakin' out when he noticed he was missing his class schedule and locker combo.

The day got better when Devon called me at work to tell me that he had made it home okay and that he was going to walk to Cadyn's school and walk home with him to make sure he knew his way home. Dev is a worrier, like his mother, and after all, it was Cadyn's first day in a brand new school. About an hour later, he called me again to let me know that Cadyn was rather upset at him for meeting him at school and that Cadyn told him that he knew how to walk home all by himself - upset enough that he wouldn't even talk to me on the phone to tell me how his day was - upset enough that Billy called me an hour after that to tell me how upset he was and that Cadyn thought that a piece of beef jerky from 7-11 is what he needed to not be upset anymore. I love being a mom!

"Didn't I (Blow Your Mind)"

All of our lives, people have told us how different me and Aubrey are. There have only been a few that have told us that we look like we could possibly be related. We are quite different from one another and we, of course, know this. What people that are close to us know, however, is that we are alike in many ways. Two of the things we share in common is our sense of humor and our taste in music.

This November, I will be 33 and Aubs will turn 31 in January. As we get older we laugh about the fact that we still haven't grown up. The story I'm about to share with you all will attest to this statement.

Three days ago I arrived at work to face a day of chaos. We were two team members short, I had a list of action items that had to be completed by the day's end, and I was on day four of having a cold (which is not cool in the middle of summer). Overall, I've had better days...that is, until my employee, Jamie, went on her lunch break. Half-way through her break she told me she had a surprise for me in my office. Well, the surprise she said, wasn't actually from her, but it was indeed a surprise! She had me sit at my desk as she logged onto a website. View my surprise by clicking on the link. http://ginashangintough.blogspot.com/

Oh Aubs! You really out-did me this time!

Our Bronze Anniversary

So number eight is soon approaching. I wish it were going to be our aluminum anniversary so I could buy Billy a twelve pack of Coke and call it good. It will also be Aubs and Stan's Bronze Anniversary (three days after ours). Wow! Time sure does fly when you having fun, or working hard, or whatever it is that we've been doing these last eight years.

You're My Little Golden Schmack!

The other night, as we were laying in bed watching T.V., Billy decided to go into the kitchen for a little snack. A few minutes later he came back to the bedroom with a big bag of Cheetos. He asked me if I'd like to partake of some of his cheesy delights, at which point I never would have guessed that we'd be up for another hour laughing hysterically about cereal...Somehow, our conversation went from Cheetos, to pork rinds, to puffed wheat cereal (we were comparing textures). I tried to remember the name of the puffed wheat cereal I used to eat once in awhile as a kid and described it as having a red box with a frog on it and that I was pretty sure that it was called something like "Golden Smacks". Billy loves to laugh, but rarely laughs hard enough to shed tears. That night - he laughed that hard. He insisted that there was absolutely no way that a cereal could possibly be called "Golden Schmacks" and that I had to be making it up. Every time one of us said the word "Schmack" we would laugh even harder. He made a bet with me that I would never find a cereal with the word "Schmack" in the name. The next day at work, I shared the funny story with my co-worker, Jamie. Jamie knew exactly what cereal I was talking about, except that I was mixing up the names of two different types of puffed wheat cereal..."Golden Crisp" and "Honey Smacks". Needless to say, I ran to Albertson's on my lunch break, bought a box of "Honey Smacks" (in a red box with a frog on it), and placed it strategically in my cupboard for Billy to find. I just don't understand how you can prove something to a man...and he STILL thinks your nuts!

The wheels on the bike go round and round...

I'm proud to say that Team MS Team FedEx just finished another successful bike tour. My coworkers and great friends, Ben and Rachel joined me once again and the team, consisting of 18 riders, has raised $4,955 so far this season. Danny and Marilyn weren't able to ride with us this time, but graciously allocated their donations to Ben and Rachel so they both had enough to ride. We completed the 40 mile route again this year, and had a great time doing it. Rachel got a little road rash as a souvenir, which I guess beats the painful sunburn she took home with her last year. I'm so thankful for the wonderful friends and family who support me with this...I love you all and wouldn't be able to do it without your help!

Ridin' Dirty

With the warm weather upon us, the boys have started their dirtbike and four-wheeling adventures! They really enjoy spending time at their friend Christian's house, riding and jumping their toys. They're hoping to enter some races this summer where they can prove their talents and win some trophy's.

We're Gonna Rock This Tour!

Well the MS 150 bike tour is fast approaching and I'm extremely excited to take part again this year. All five of us that rode last year are signed up and ready to go again and are busy getting donations and trying to recruit others to join our team.



May 22 not only marks the day of Devon's 12th birthday, but also the 2 year anniversary of Billy's diagnosis. We reflect a lot on the different things that have happened throughout the last two years and are thankful that Billy is still able do the things he enjoys most. I am so very proud of the man that he is and his ability to keep going.



Two weeks before Christmas this year, Billy was unable to walk for about three days and was so dizzy for about a week that he could hardly keep from vomiting. He was still determined to go Christmas shopping though, and with the use of his cane and the scooters at Wal-Mart, he did just that! He takes advantage of every day that he feels good and uses those days to take the kids riding, work on his truck, prepare his snow mobile for next year's sod races, or do a little yard work.



Seeing his determination to live his life as normally as possible drives me to want to do as much as I can to help all those affected by MS.

Where do we begin?

I've enjoyed reading Aubrey and Stan's family blog so very much that I've decided to start one of my own. Life at the Nielson/Wilcken house tends to be chaotic yet exciting, messy yet fun, loud yet comfortable. It is crazy to think that Billy and I have been married almost eight years now and that Devon will be twelve in less than a month. Where does time go? Just yesterday I was bringing Cadyn to the barber to have his cute little 2-year-old mullet cut off, and now I'm replacing fenders on dirtbikes and brakes on four-wheelers. No wonder I'm gray!



Recently, our black lab, Rosco, was invited to join our family indoors. Rosco has spent all four years of his life running with his playmate and best friend, Roxy, in our back yard. Our Roxy girl had to be put to sleep and Billy couldn't bear leaving Rosco outside and alone. So now it is the four boys and me...and I wouldn't replace a thing...except maybe the carpet (grease and mud don't come out so well!)