Student of the Month

I didn't get the notice to attend until after the fact. Bummer! But the teacher took a nice picture and sent it to me .

It was also crazy hat day. 

New toy

Craig had a marvelous idea for Christmas this year. We decided to purchase a better guitar and another instrument to encourage developing talents. 

We had an old, beat up guitar that josh had to tune with a wrench. 

The man at the music shop was very knowledgeable. He gave Josh a free music lesson as we looked at different guitars and listened to why they were different and what was good about them. 

We also found this cute little toy. 

He's not too happy about me taking a picture, but he didn't put the uke down for hours. His fingers were sore  and still are. 

He's learning how to play Lava - the song that the lonely volcano sings in the Pixar short. 

Scripture - Acts 7

As part of the Light of the World advent calendar, I wanted to post a scripture today.

We read in the Book of Mormon as a family and read a lovely chapter in 2 Nephi. However, I wanted to keep to the Book I had been posting from.

Stephen testifies to the leaders in Jerusalem and recounts their history. The famous scripture is when he sees God and the Son of God standing on his right hand. But today, a new scripture caught my attention.

Here he is talking about Abraham. He mentions all the blessings that had been promised and points out the time it took to realize the blessings. Abraham had to wait years, decades even for the blessings. 

I am reminded of Elder Holland's talk where he said:

My prayer is that I have the faith and the patience to wait on the Lord, for His blessings are sure.

Headed to SLC

After the festivities, we headed to my sister, Debbie's, house. She was at her son's house, but left the lights on for us. We were greeted by her two dogs who threatened to lick us to death. Not really good guard dogs.

I sent her this picture:

This is Todd trying to coax ear rubs from Boaz. He had tried already on Josh and moved to more welcoming possibilities.

The boys figured out the TV, movie situation and Josh had his first experience with Monty Python's Holy Grail. I was happy to watch with him, but my mom and brother, Ivan came and I went upstairs to visit with them. It was still fun to listen to the boys enjoy a movie I first saw back when I was in high school.

Friday we got up slow and Craig made breakfast for the crew. He took the kids and met with his brother, Mark. I was feeling crappy and stayed "home" to rest and drink fluids. No fun to be sick, but really no fun to be sick on the road. Still a good day. That night we met Willa and Pete and their family for dinner. Thea wanted to be able to say hi before she headed up to Idaho the next day to say hi to friends.

Saturday Craig made breakfast for the crew again, and then we loaded up Raven and the boys and went to a movie - Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them. We love us some Harry Potter. I guess maybe some JK Rowling. I love the world she created and enjoyed the new visit.

That night, we had a family dinner of chicken tacos. So fun to have those that could make it come and eat and laugh.

That night we packed up the car and headed south. Driving all night and we crashed Sunday. Happy to have a weekend full of family.

My devices have had a hard time posting, and I just got it figured out. Sorry for the late post and abbreviated festivities.  

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was full of family, fun and food. What could be better?

Craig's mom and grandma were there, as well as his sister, Sandy, and her husband, Alan. We were at Craig's sister, Ronda's, house. She had all three of her children and spouses (two).

I tried to not sneeze or cough on anybody.

The boys enjoyed the holiday football and then broke out the four-wheelers. I watched from the warmth of the kitchen.

I laughed at Thea's outfit and pulled out the camera, but didn't take a picture of anybody else.

The coveralls is reminiscent of her time spent at the farm in Wisconsin.  But she did have fun zipping around the course.  Josh got in on the action, but Boaz declined. 

This post should have something about what I am thankful for.

I am thankful for family: for fun cousins for my boys and Thea. I am thankful we traveled safely. I am thankful for the fun relationship that Craig and I share. I am thankful for time spent with my family the next two days. I am thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ that teaches us the importance of family. I am thankful for temples. Going to Utah is going to the land of the temples. We saw so many temples from the road. They are majestic reminders of the important things in life. I am grateful to spend time with Thea, we miss having regular time with her every week. I am thankful for many things, to many to really write down. I am thankful we are all happy and healthy.

Family photo

We were finally all together. 

First priority was to get us smiling at the camera. 

Thanksgiving up north

Tuesday night we packed up the car and headed to Utah. It was a nine hour drive. We are not as young as we used to be, but we made it.

We did manage to have a bit of an adventure on the drive. We got to Scipio in Utah right at dawn and we were exhausted.  I-15 Northbound was closed. We were routed off on a street that had maybe five houses on it and we spotted some trucks turning down a little road. We followed the traffic only to see cars coming back. One lady rolled down her window and told us there was nothing down the road, and they had all turned around. We had people to see and places to go, so we kept going. The road followed the freeway, so we knew we were not too far off. We passed open gates that were clearly marked private property, but the gates were open and we could still see the freeway, so we kept going. We noticed that the cars that had followed us turned around. We were the lone adventurers for a while. Then one we saw one lone set of head lights that braved the unknown with us. The road led us to a gravel road that T-ed into a slanting road that went under the freeway and dumped us on a sad frontage road. The next exit was also blocked, but a nice sheriff  told us to keep going and we'd get back to the freeway eventually. By the time we got around, we were awake again. We didn't find out until much later that a rig had rolled that was carrying batteries and battery acid was spilled all over the road. We were relieved to find out that nobody was injured.

We missed the Denny's in Nephi - but I am not really fond of that town anyway. We searched Payson for a breakfast diner and headed on to Spanish Fork. We found a cute little cafe and I thought that my dad had probably eaten there countless times. It looked like his kind of place. I had an omelet and the boys had pancakes. We were off to find Joyce. She was in a Rehabilitation Center - physical therapy to get you back in your home. She had fallen and broken her hip earlier and had surgery. The Center was in Springville, in a place that has really grown in the past few years. I didn't recognize the area at all.

We walked in and were met by very nice staff. I told them I was looking for Joyce Harris and was this a good time to visit with her. He said, "No. Are you family? Did you get the phone call?" I was immediately worried and confused. She had fallen about 8 am and had a laceration on her knee and they sent her to the hospital for stitches back in Payson. After a bit of deliberation, we headed back to Payson and found ourselves on the same road we had been on just an hour before. We found her in the ER getting shots to deaden the area. We had left the boys in the car and Craig and I went in to access the situation. She didn't recognize me at first. Really I just show up and she has no idea I'm coming. So it is totally understandable she doesn't know who I am at first. And I had been driving all night. We said hi and chatted a few minutes when the X-Ray guy came. We were kicked out for X-rays (in a very kind manner) and in no time at all found ourselves back in the room. 

Joyce was worried about being able to go home for Thanksgiving, but since this was the day before, that idea was shot down. Bummer. The boys declined the opportunity to come and watch the stitches, they came in after. But I was there and watched a bit. It was fascinating. The doctor was very nice and didn't mind chatting a bit while he worked. Because we were chatting, he lost count of how many stitches, but she had a 4 inch laceration across her knee.  The tear went from the outside of her leg across the bottom of the knee cap where it hooked down about an inch on the inside of her leg. It looked savage.

She had just lost her balance and fallen as she was getting ready to brush her teeth. She was frustrated that she had fallen. The PT person had just stepped out with her sheets to get them in the wash. Joyce said the girl was horrified and guilt ridden. But Joyce is 80, on dialysis and recovering from a previous fall already. The nurse at the hospital said because she was on prednisone her skin was thin and that is why it ripped.

Honestly a terrible thing to happen. However, I felt led to be there. I also felt that we had help getting there when we did. We found out the freeway at Scipio had closed the quick (ish) detour option we had taken and rerouted traffic through Gunnison on the other side of the little mountain. It would have taken us substantially longer to make our way to breakfast. It was good for us to be there with Joyce while she was stiched up. She had a huge bruise that could not be deadened and the doctor hurt her a bit as she was stiching her up, and then he tried to drain the build up of the blood to lessen the pain later on. Joyce said that she knew Dad was there. I'm glad I was able to be there for him, in a way. Joyce will be fine - as much as an 80 year old on dialysis can be. She has lost so much weight. She just might float away in a good breeze someday.

That took our mourning and into the early afternoon. We continued on to Erda, outside Toolee and checked into our hotel. We rested. I felt a cold coming on, and honestly I hope I didn't pass it to Joyce. But I still felt pretty good at that point.

Josh went and visited with his friend for a few hours and then he and Craig picked up Thea from the airport.

That was Wednesday.