Merry Christmas 2013

Where to start? 

OK. Here. Riken, Ashli and Mack were here for a few days before Christmas, and it is absolutely amazing how much he has grown and changed even in the past couple of weeks. He is a little man now, not a baby anymore. I am SO proud of Ashli and Mack for being such good parents. On Monday night, Riken just really didn't want anything but his bottle. He cried real tears (which is pretty rare for him)  and it was so hard to see him being so sad. We all knew that a bottle would make it all better, but Ashli and Mack stuck to their guns and he eventually fell asleep without it. He slept 11 hours and woke up happy as can be. I'm proud of them for not taking the path of least resistance in their parenting, and for making decisions that are good for their little man. This guy knows how much he is loved and I couldn't be more proud of them all. 

Now to Zack! He thought of his romantic proposal to McKenna ALL BY HIMSELF!!! I'm so proud of him.  Kenna wanted to start a tradition of giving each other an ornament on Christmas Eve, so he had the idea to put the ring inside a beautiful ornament and propose to her that way. We are all SO happy! We love her so much and we're so excited to welcome her into the family. 

Mack and Zack both had to work on Christmas Day, so we got permission from Ty's mission president to Skype with him on Christmas Eve. It was SO great!!!! He grinned from ear to ear through the whole call, and he looks so awesome. I knew I missed him, but I didn't realize how much until I saw his face. I cried a lot after the call ended, just missing him, but I wouldn't trade that hour for anything in the world. I can't WAIT for Mothers' Day to see him again:) 

I got a beautiful facebook message from Kim Marshall, an investigator he has been teaching. She will be baptized in two weeks and she has asked Ty to baptize her. Her life has changed so much since she started learning the Gospel, and she thanked me for making the sacrifice of sending my son into the mission field. She thanked me for raising such a wonderful young man, and it was one of the BEST Christmas gifts I've ever received, hearing from her like that. 

Another great surprise came from Alec when he called last night to tell us that his Dad proposed to his Mom after being together for 12 years and having three beautiful kids together. He bought her a beautiful ring with help from the boys, and they're all excited to make their family official. As are we:) !! 

I love the moments when I see our grandbabies, but moments with both Ken's and mine together are rare. We took Riken over to Zane's birthday party on the 23rd, and Miss Oaklee wanted me to hold her, too. This is a precious moment for me. Ken has 11 grandkids and of course I have little Riken, so I love it when we can blend well and Rike gets to play with his little cousins in this big, crazy, blended family of ours. 

Jen and the kids were our final visit on Christmas Day, and it was so great to spend a few minutes with all of them. 

All in all, this was a very Merry Christmas all the way around.  

 Smiles like this one are the highlight of my life... 

 And what more could a Mom wish for her kids than this? Was it REALLY 5 years ago when he proposed to her on Christmas Eve?

My little girl... ah... life is good! 

Love, Loss and the Loco Lady

I'm two semesters away from my Bachelor's Degree in Psychology (Yay me!) and relatively certain that I chose this major in a "Heal thyself" type of thing. Yeah, I'm a little bit crazy. 

I love really deeply and experience loss of love really profoundly. And, no, this isn't a post about my divorce from my first husband. 

My BFF when I was 5 years old was a 6 year old down the street. We did everything together. She was my idol. So the last day of summer we were so excited to go to school the next day. It was a day like every other day of that great summer. But the VERY next day when I got to kindergarten, she joined a bunch of the other 1st Graders in chanting "Kindergarten Baby, born in the gravy" when I walked by. (WTH does "born in the gravy mean, anyway?") 

That was the first time I got my heart broken and started to learn a little bit about loving people who might not be around twenty years from now, twenty days from now, or even twenty minutes from now. 

A bunch of boys broke my heart in the ensuing years, but only one or two them did semi-permanent damage to my heart. 

My Mom's death. That one was worse than kindergarten or the 16-year old cowboy. 

And somehow, in the back of my mind, there's always this little niggling fear that if I love someone TOO much, they will disappear. One way or another. To cooler friends or prettier girls or to heaven.

Well, in spite of my resolve to protect my heart, I love someone a WHOLE bunch right now. Probably more deeply and sincerely than I've ever loved another soul. 

And he's going in for surgery on Thursday. 

I'm terrified that I love him too much and something tragic will happen during his operation. 

I'm going to the temple tomorrow morning to pray for the very best, to put his name and the doctor's  name on the prayer rolls. My hope is that this November isn't like the one in 1987, the one in 1989 or the one in 2009. Yeah, I want this one to be different. 

360

Work for my both my husband and my son has been kind of stressful this past week. 

So it was kind of weighing us all down and taking its toll. 

And Tuesday afternoon, I decided that I just really needed a temple trip. 

So Ken and I went here after work. 

We were both super tired and I had a test due before midnight, but we stuck to the plan and went anyway. 

And, as was expected, it was an AMAZING session. Probably the BEST endowment session I've been on in 23 years of temple attendance. 

When you go to the temple after the initial time of doing your own work, you go and do work as proxies for people who have passed away. If you are awesome and have done the research to take names of your own deceased ancestors, you get a name from your family file and represent them. But Ken and I haven't done a lot of that type of work yet, so we get names from the general database of the church, randomly assigned to whomever is doing temple work that night. 

And last night, Ken was representing a deceased gentleman from Pennsylvania whose first given name was.... drum roll, please... TYLER!!!! Woohoo:) 

Mine was a woman from South Dakota named Anna, the name of my cousin who was killed by a drunk driver when she was 17 years old. So, when things like this happen, I like to think that it's not simply coincidence, but the Lord saying "Thank you for being here. I want to acknowledge that I see you, and this is how I will do that." 

As we walked into the chapel, we were overwhelmed to see the sheer numbers of people in there. It was apparently Stake Temple Night for one of the Snow College youth stakes, and I was so impressed to see how many young men were serving in the temple last night. Boys that I see on campus all the time in my work at the Snow College registration desk. Not to mention SO many of our adult friends who we love and admire. Men that Ken has worked with in YSA bishoprics in the past, people from our old ward here in Ephraim, people from our new ward here in Ephraim. Our home teacher, who was also Ashli's absolute FAVORITE professor at Snow. A beautiful couple who recently lost their 7 month old grandson to death way too soon. Their son was my son-in-law's best friend throughout high school, so I was so moved to see Jeff and Michelle there last night, and so emotional when I was able to talk with Michelle for a few minutes. 

The moment that really got to me, though, was when I saw Brother Scott, one of the men who was the most influential in helping Ty make the decision to serve a mission. I got to hear him verbally pray "Please protect our missionaries" and I got so emotional when I heard him pray for Tyler's safety out in the field. 

At the end of our session, I was ready before Ken, so I sat in the celestial room for a few minutes by myself to pray and search for a sense of peace about the job situations, my schooling, my missionary son, Ken's upcoming surgery. I can't put every detail on my blog, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I felt the presence of my Mom as I sat there. It's only happened two other times for me since she died 26 years ago, but it was so powerful last night. 

BEST.EVENING.EVER. 

And.. I got 95% on the test that I finally finished at 10:30 last night. Waiting for an email from Elder Allred today. 

I feel peace and joy, and everything will be just fine for my sweet family. 

My First Cruise!!!

To celebrate our anniversary and Ken's 53rd birthday, we went on a cruise to Santa Catalina and Ensenada, Mexico. We flew into LAX and sailed out of Long Beach. It was such a great week! 

 The missionaries on the phones at the SLC airport made me think about the time two months ago when Tyler called me before he boarded his plane for New York. 

 At the airport awaiting our first flight together:)

I just HAD to have this floppy hat. I love it!!!  

Our first stop was at Catalina Island on our 2nd wedding anniversary. It was beautiful and a fun place to visit.  

Ken at Catalina. I love this man! 

Mexico was SO interesting. Our tour guide, Melanie, knew a lot about the history of the cultural center. We went on to La Bufadora and had a great day in Mexico. 

I loved the view from the Serenity deck onboard Carnival Inspiration. 

There, their, they're....

Fortunately it doesn't happen as often as it used to, but occasionally my husband receives mean, threatening correspondence from someone. It always makes my day when this person misuses to, too or two, there, their or they're. Takes a little bit of the sting out of the rest of the words. If I am ever in a position to interview candidates for a job opening, I will simply ask them to complete the following using there, their, they're, to, too and two. 

Please go over __________ and give them ________ mail. __________ expecting you _______ be there by ________ o'clock. Will you please take this package _________?

Family Home Evening

 A lot of things lately have been making me think that I want to hold Family Home Evening. But it's just me and Ken, so we never really do. Yesterday during Sacrament Meeting, I realized that we have LOTS of people with whom to have Family Home Evening. Lots of little people who need to know what their Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa believe. I remember one family home evening we had at my Grandma and Grandpa's house when I was a little girl. I want the grandkids to have memories like that, too. 

 So tonight we started building memories. Ah... this girl. 

 ...in her Grandpa's hat. 

 :) 

We sang "I am a Child of God" , had an opening prayer, then Ken talked a little bit about families and how we have a great big family and it will get bigger and bigger when Zack has kids, then when the grandkids grow up and have kids of their own. He said we have biological family and stepfamily and we all love each other and need to be there for each other. Then we all said something that we love about our family. I said " I was really scared when I married Grandpa that you guys wouldn't like me." And Zane said, "Not like you? You're awesome!" Alec said "In all the time I've known you, I've never heard you yell at anyone." Zack looked shocked at that one. lol. So glad I've been able to keep it in check around the grandkids. We continued around the room, and Zack said "I love my family because they accept me for who I am and love me no matter what". OK. Wow. I am SO glad he knows that because it's all that his Dad and I ever wanted for them. To know they were loved no matter what. Yay!!! Alec said he loves his family because they never act like they hate him, and Zane doesn't annoy him TOO much. 

We all colored pictures of a cute little family clip art I had found online this morning, and it turns out that Zack had used the exact same image for a project he did for a college assignment last week. 

We finished up the night with banana splits and I hope the Moms let them come back after we filled them up with sugar on a school night!!! 

Zane wanted to make sure we got a picture of his very professional looking banana split. 

This night was awesome. I want to do it again and again and again. 

9/11

These people are my whole world. 

It's September 11 and one of them is in New York.

So I got kind of emotional this morning. 

On a lot of levels for a lot of reasons. 

He's actually near Newtown, Connecticut today.. the site of the school shooting. So that's made me emotional, too. 

I wear red, white and blue on the 11th of September every year. My kids were still young when it happened, but it changed their lives forever. And my prayer is that nothing like that  EVER happens again.

And that he gets his Wednesday email sent soon cuz Mom is going a little crazy here today.

Was There Life Before Riken?

I love this little man more every time I see him.

He's pulling himself up against every piece of furniture in the house and he got his first shiner this past weekend when Grandma was watching him. Boo:( Broke my heart. 

 He's usually asleep when we do our late night Snow Creme run to Spring City, but he was bright eyed this time. Even signed the book:)

 Mom and Grandma went on a little shopping spree and got the baby all Under-Armored and Hurleyed for the Fall season. 

 We visited Mack and Ash at their new cute home in Toquerville. They spoiled us and we had a great time! 

 Mommy, food and Wreck-it-Ralph. What more could a man want?

 Aren't they perfect? They took us to Zion National Park and we had a great weekend! 

 The view from Mack and Ashli's back yard is phenomenal. 

Mommy got him his first Yankees hat. Flat brimmed like Daddy:)

725 days to go....

Saying goodbye to Ty was even harder than I thought it would be. We took him to the MTC 5 days ago and I haven't heard from him yet, so I'm kind of down. I hope he gets to write tomorrow. I'm proud of him. But I miss him so much. 

 The week leading up to his departure was emotional. Seeing all of his life spread out and ready to pack into two bags was rough.  

 We spent a lot of time together the week before he left. Bowling, barbecues, Disney movies, Yahtzee and Monopoly. It was so great. 

 We took the kids up to the Keebler house geocache the night before Ty left. We had a family testimony meeting up there after he got set apart. 

 He looked like a secret service agent the morning of our taking him to the MTC.

 One last stop at the Santaquin Maverik on our way to Provo. 

Three of my favorite men in the whole world! 

Zack has been asking for a picture of the 5 of us since Ty's high school graduation, so we finally did it for him.