We have had a whirlwind week of family togetherness, the plan of salvation and another funeral. My paternal grandmother found out she had cancer three weeks after my grandfather's death. Within another three weeks of oncology consults, she ended up with a 14 inch incision and without two very large tumors. During the last three weeks she struggled with incessant nausea and six of eight fatal maladies. Her remaining sons took her home to be in peace. I got to spend a couple hours with her. She tried her best to tell me all sorts of things, but I am no lip reader, so the secrets from beyond the veil will remain a mystery to me. I swabbed her mouth, talked, applied lip gloss, talked, and talked. I can be incessant you know. I told her how beautiful the cemetary was at Memorial Day and how we finally found her grandparents and sweet Aunt Gladys. And won't it be great to see Gladys without the infirmities of her handicaps. I read her mail (TO HER-silly). I joked about the cards that said things like 'get well soon' and ' you can beat cancer' saying that these people had no idea how soon she would feel better and beat the cancer to the finish line. While I talked she was calm and everyone left me to it. In a quiet moment she opened her eyes, said my name and told me that she loved me. Although we had a great visit in the hospital a week earlier, I really will treasure the time I spent with her because it quelled my grief. I am actually mostly content and only a little sad because it was only two months and a few days and she got to be back with her sweetheart. Death gets harder the closer to me it gets. I hope it is a long time before my own parents go.
All Broken Up
Part of my offline life has incorporated a short nursing stint... the RN type if you're wondering. Two weeks ago, my parents were ATVing in Moab on a trail called Metal Masher. Yes, that is the foreshadowing part of the post. My mom was on a very steep part of the trail when her machine started back and rolled over her chest and face. After a blessing and some ibuprofen, she rode back two hours with two broken ribs, a punctured lung and a mouth full of twisted teeth. After a crazy night in Moab's hospital, she finally started her rounds to all the specialists to fix everything up. The ironical part was that I got to take her to get braces put on her loose teeth... reminds me that she had the same honor on my behalf when my teeth were knocked out. My dad had scheduled surgery for his torn medial meniscus on Braces day, so Cait and I found had a sleepover. They wore me out. Everytime Cait would say she needed a drink or anything, one of them would jump up and beat me to the punch. Finally at midnight, I turned down their beds, posted their pill schedules and left them to their own devices-- exhausted. The good news is that the knee only took 12 minutes, which means a quicker recovery and the teeth are all back to where they should be. They are both off pain meds and hopefully they don't bounce back too soon or they will never get a rest. With all the medical drama in my family for the past couple years it was kind of nice to feel like I could actually do something to help out. Generally, everyone is closer so they get first dibs on the service opportunities.
The Primary Colors Are...
Well I can barely remember, but they don't even sing that song anymore... do they? I guess I will find out with my great new assignment in Primary. I am really excited and maybe the sheer adrenaline will keep me rolling until I really figure out what I am doing.
Lapse
It appears that a lapse has occured. I must of blocked the need to blog about moving again because let's be honest-- I love moving. We moved into our new house in the middle of March and it was a lot less work than previous moves. Hopefully we have pefected it well enough to never do it again. Even though we were excited about our new garage, we couldn't use it for nearly a week because all the boxes were stacked there. While the move was easier, the unpacking has presented a huge challenge because we didn't think to differentiate between what we packed in December from what we packed in March.... so it's a mixed bag. We couldn't find the essential things, but found plenty of randomness. Our car has now made the transition to the garage and we have only about 30 remaining boxes to worry about. I uncovered a whole wall in our family room just last weekend. I also got brave enough to crack some of the "decorations" boxes open and frustrate my brain. The inside is starting to come together and we have managed to haul a few hundred rocks from the yard, find some lingering mulberry tree roots, discover our own earthworm hideout and have Jeff's TAs over for some harmless FearFactor fun. I thought that not having a set of stairs to climb was going to make me lazy, but rest assured that I hit the pillow snoring at around 9:30 most nights -- completely worn out. The yardwork alone could turn out to be a great workout program. Don't worry, when I get a room done, I will take a picture... but until then, you'll just have to live with the suspense.
Girls Night Out
I Love To See the Temple
We spent a Saturday touring the new Draper Temple. A couple buses broke down and we ended up waiting for about 90 minutes for a bus-- which is hot and not fun with three kids(especially with fully charged batteries). Once we got to the temple, all the annoyances melted-- just as you would expect at the temple. I loved walking through the temple and explaining things like the paintings in a room and how they help us remember that Heavenly Father created the whole earth or that the twelve oxen represent the twelve tribes-- you know Jacob's 12 sons from the song... and so on. Ben's favorite part was the celestial room, Noah-- the oxen, Caitlyn-- the room with all the mirrors, Jeff-- looking in the sealing room mirrors with our whole family, Mine-- the paintings in the chapel: Christ and the Rich Young Man, The Pool of Bethesda by Bloch and a ressurection picture I didn't recognize with Christ and Mary. It really symbolized the things we leave behind when we go the temple-- our worldliness and our weaknesses. The temple is really the only place where we can be sanctified of those things and it all is due to Christ and his mission to be a Savior for us.
DERBYLICIOUS
Just two weeks into Benja's new Scout Troop, we had major derby stress. Both leaders assured me that they would get us a copy of the rules because there was a Pinewood Derby coming up...... Jeff and Ben spent some time drawing renderings of the car ideas they had. One fateful Tuesday, I picked Jeff up from work early due to a cranking headache. From the backseat, Benja informs us that the Derby is tonight because so-and-so (another kid in the Wolf pack) told him at church on Sunday. WHAT??? After a quick call to the mightly chagrined den mother, Benjamin got to work with Jeff maintaining his stance that a boy should do the work on his own. 50 minutes later, we arrived at Pack Meeting in time to weigh in before the big race. We didn't realize that a little graphite lubricant on the wheels was allowed, so Ben's car finished dead last in every heat. Poor guy. When the races were over, he was acting brave but glum until he realized that his prize for "Most fuel efficient car" was the same king-sized Hershey's bar as the fastest car award. Another dad offered some graphite grease and Ben's car raced down the speedway during the fun runs. 
