What a week the Helm family has had!! I am just glad it is a new one and so far so good. Last week the Helm's spent more time in hospitals than anyone usually does in a whole year. Jane (Chris' mom) was in the hospital 3 times with back problems. Luckily it wasn't ruptured disks or something new, but she has a degenerative bone disease in her lower back that is getting worse and worse. She is still not feeling great and is spending most of her time taking it easy in bed. Then, Jon (Chris' brother) was jumped and they smashed his eye socket to pieces. Wednesday, Madi and I and my mom went also, we took Jon to see a specialist in Wichita. We spent all morning in the doctors office and then they sent us straight over to Wesley so Jon could have surgery later that evening. We left Wichita at 5:00 when Dan (Chris' dad) made it to the hospital to stay during surgery and until he was out and everything was fine. The next day, Chris, Madi and I drove back to Wichita to pick Jon up from the hospital. Friday we were finally able to relax and I am sure Madi was glad she didn't have to sit in her carseat anymore. But she did do a wonderful job.

Chris has been working a lot lately. Saturday and most of Sunday he worked all day down at the shop getting dirt moved around and weeds taken care of. Chris and his second cousin Bob (who just retired in June from the City of Salina after 30 years of service) started construction on the new addition to the shop today. We were down there just a couple of hours ago and they were trenching out the outside to get the footings started. It will be a 20 x 50 ft addition on the south side of the building. Bob is going to move into it and start doing his taxadermy full time from there. He is really talented and does an awesome job. Some of you have seen his work. Remember, Bob Helm if you ever have any taxadermy needs. Wow, maybe I should start advertising for people! Well, all this construction means more late nights for Chris. I am just glad there is finally going to be a break in the 100 degree temps around here. This is his third big personal construction job that he has decided to work on during the month of August. I keep asking him to pick cooler months to work on these things! Oh well, I'll post pictures of the progress.

In other big news around here, my dad is traveling this week for his job. The Teutle's in NY made an Airgas themed chopper motorcycle and as a promo, charity thing, it is being taken around KS the next week and a half to different Airgas stores. They are collecting money for the Cystic Fibrosis foundation and dad gets to travel with it. Yesterday they were in Garden City, today in Hutchinson, Wednesday in Wichita, Thursday in Salina, Friday in Topeka, Monday in KC and Tuesday in St. Jo, MO. They have hotdogs and chips and pop they are serving at lunch time and you can take pictures of the bike. Sounds like fun. Madi and I are going to go down on Thursday. I am trying to put together a cute little biker chic outfit for Madi! Will definetly pass pictures on of that one! I guess everybody thinks the Teutle's will be there, but they won't be. I think Dad could probably pass for Paul Sr. though. We should have planned ahead and had him grow some chops and wear an OCC tank top, I think it would have worked!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week and I will be posting pics real soon.

Love, Amy

I am getting so fed up with blogger not posting pics. What a pain!!