Daniel

I have been having a hard time getting to sleep at night. I have never had this problem, so naturally, I am really bugged. The moment I lay down, my brain starts buzzing about EVERYTHING. It doesn't even have to be stressful stuff, just stuff and it won't shut off. Last night, I finally fell asleep around 3am after laying in bed tossing and turning for hours. It has been this way for the past month. I have tried several things, but my new idea is to write down the things that are on my mind so that maybe, they will leave me alone at night.
One such thing is my neighbors loss of their son. This past fast Sunday, our bishop had asked us to fast as a ward. Not for anything in particular, but just for ward members. He had never asked this before, but sure. So fast Sunday comes and we are all sitting in Relief Society etc., when a member of the bishopric comes in and breaks down in tears for several minutes before he can even get a word out. Finally, he tells us that a family in our ward by the name of Cope had just had their baby rushed to the hospital because he was not breathing when the mother went to check on him. It was supposed to be this little boys blessing day. This family has 3 little girls and this was finally their little boy. One (or more?) of the girls had woke up sick so the mother and children had stayed home. The mother had spent the morning frustrated by having to miss the blessing day because of the sickness. She was making lunch and the husband came home to check on the family after sacrament meeting. The mother went upstairs to check on the napping baby and he was not breathing and hadn't been for some time.
Long story short, the baby was revived, but had been without oxygen for quite some time. They were able to get him life flighted to Salt lake and he was able to be around long enough for his dad to give him a name and a blessing and for the parents to be able to hold him while he passed. He died that night at 11:10. At the funeral, the father said that "we were all fasting and praying for a miracle. I want you to know that for a time, we received that miracle. We were able to hold him and have the sacred experience of holding him warm and alive while his spirit left his body."
I have spent many hours thinking about this family. Especially the mother, who is from Venezuela and who did not have any family here to support her. Who was nursing the baby and was I am sure suffering emotionally and physically by not being able to feed her baby any longer. To not be able to hold her baby anymore. To have to leave the hospital empty handed and return home to see his crib, clothes, blankets etc. My heart has ached for her. I don't have a real close relationship with her, but have wanted so badly to help her. Yet there is nothing that will heal that pain, but time and help from the Savior. I went to visit her. It was a little awkward, but it was healing to me to be able to hug her and cry with her. Now that the funeral has been over for a few days, how do I help this family now? I hope that I can be worthy of the spirit so that when they need something I will be able to receive promptings and help.
So hard to see suffering at the holiday time. The father also said at the funeral though, that it is nice to be able to remember their son at the same time that we remember the Savior. It is a reminder not to take a moment with our loved ones for granted. To be more patient and loving. In this way, little Daniel has taught all of us in his short life.

Stevie Awards in NY

Justin was asked to go support one of his Southeast Asia co-workers at the Stevie Awards (an award for women in business) in New York City this past weekend. Of course we decided that it was too good an opportunity for me to pass up. Really that has happened a lot over the past 18 months, but when all you have to pay for is airfare and you have flyer miles to cover that? It has proven too much to pass up lately. We have been to upstate New York, but neither of us has ever been to the city. It was a really short trip. We were only gone for a total of 27 hrs, including travel time. We left Friday morning, getting up at 3:30 am to catch our flight and returned Saturday night. Our hotel was located in Time Square which was nice because we were able to see it by just walking out the door. We were also able to squeeze in Statue of Liberty and World Trade Center rebuild along with exploring the city around the hotel. We thought of it as a long date and had a great time.
(I am having a hard time fixing the pictures that I really messed up. It is late and I have a 5:30 am appointment at the gym so I am going to say that I was just being really creative in the layout. Melissa, Justin's co-worker that we went to support, won the award which was really cool because she was so happy. The pictures are all out of order and maybe on another day when I find a few spare minutes, I will fix it.)Staten Island Ferry (free :)) that we took to see the Statue of Liberty. We didn't have time for a real tour, but this worked out just fine because I could imagine my ancestors seeing it the same way while they came to shore while coming to America.

World Trade Center rebuild.

Lady Liberty, The Stevie Awards dinner, Melissa receiving her award, Time square, and Rockefeller Plaza

Nates Football 2010

Football season is now over for Nate and Justin. I include Justin because he always coaches Nate's football team. Justin is a great coach. He is really positive with the boys and is able to keep his temper in check.
Their team had a great season only loosing to one team and thus placing second. Nate struggled the first couple of games because he plays quarterback and didn't really like getting creamed by some of the big guys. It took him a little while to learn to deal with the pain that is associated with the sport. I was surprised with some of the bruising and swelling he would have after a game. He played really well most of the season though. I am afraid that he gets his mental game from me however, and was his own worst enemy when it came to playing teams that had really big kids or that he had heard were really good. If it was a game that he knew had a bad record, he was a completely different player and had all the confidence in the world. It will be interesting to see how he does over the years as he matures. I always struggled mentally with sports and would talk myself out of winning. I hope he can overcome that better than I did. I am just now starting to believe in myself when it comes to competing even though I really only compete with myself in races now. When I first started running 5k's I did worse each race for my first three races and became very discouraged because I was training harder for each subsequent race. It has only been the past couple of years that I have reversed that and started beating my own time with each new race.
Overall, it is just nice for Justin and Nate to have that bonding time that playing football has given them. Now on to basketball which Justin is also coaching because Nate's coach quit on the morning of their first game. More father-son bonding time which, at this point in Nathan's life, is so important.

Ella's Birthday 2010

Ella turned 6 yesterday. Justin had just left for Thailand so I was on my own for this party. Actually, Mikaela, Nate and Alexa were quite helpful. Especially Mikaela. Ella had a great time so it was worth it.

Ella in her second outfit of the party. Why she chose a sweater dress, I have no idea. I guess because it was sparkly.

Part of the lunch.

Hayden was the only boy at the "dress fancy" birthday party. He kinda hung to the sidelines. He didn't want anything to do with the actual group of girls. He and Ella play fabulously though.

The rest of the group.

Mikaela turned the basement into a runway for the girls to model on. Ella and Gracie were trying it out before the party. They were quite the posers.

The effect was much better when the lights were off and the party lights in the corner (thanks Ryan) were flashing. I got some pretty funny video clips.

They call each other BFF (they didn't get it from me). Gracie and Ella.

Ella opening her presents from mom and dad bright and early. She is one of the happiest people I know. We love her sooo much!

Sister's Night Out

I love having sisters for many reasons, but one of my favorite is that I get to go out on birthday lunches/dinners with them. Connie suggested that we make a night of celebrating the June/July birthdays and do dinner, scalp treatments and then a movie. We usually just do lunch. I was all for the extended time out. We hit Zupa's for dinner then went to a beauty college for the scalp treatments and then went to see Letter's to Juliet. Laurie, Connie and I missed at least half of the movie because Laurie's hairdresser was as slow as molasses. I was the driver and Connie knew where we were going. I am sure that I can rent it sometime later to catch what I missed. It was a lot of fun.

The ladies after getting their hair styled. You man never see my mother with flat hair ever again.

Laurie was doing her best to avoid the camera, but I caught her eventually.

Whitney and Connie. Whitney and Holly usually join us if they are around.

Holly, Becky and Tiffany.

Tiffany, Mom, Julie AND Laurie :).

School Shopping

"Who are the beautiful models behind the window?" you are surely asking....While staying in Midway, Laurie drove up to join us for a day of school shopping in Park City. The girls had a great time hamming it up as manequins to see how many people they could fool (not many :). Unfortunately you cannot get the true image because of the glare, but I am sure you can get a good idea. Nate unfortunately was back at the condo throwing up. I felt bad that he missed out at first and then realized after that he would have been bored out of his mind.

The lovely ladies (and Logan).

Midway

Justin had a few days of meetings at Midway this August. The kids and I joined him on Friday and Saturday. I was worried that we would get bored just sitting in a hotel room for two days and was wondering if it would just be a nightmare trying to keep five kids under control the whole time. The meetings were at Zermatt (don't think I spelled that correctly) and I didn't realize that Justin would have a two bedroom condo, not just a hotel room or I would have gone up earlier. It was actually really nice and we had a great time. Other than swimming, the kids favorite thing to do was to go see the goats. Each time we went the kids wanted to feed them. Being the cheap mother that I am I put it off for as long as I could but eventually gave in and took them to go buy some goat food. They gave us a few bags of what looked like dog biscuits and we walked back up the hill to feed the goats. As soon as the goats got wind of the food they started jumping the fence and putting their hooves up on the kids chests. I was thinking "Oh crap! How am I going to get all these goats back in.?!" I was also laughing my head off. I sent Mikaela to go find some worker to come help us and in the meantime tried to keep them contained. Ended up being quite fun. Ella did start to get a little nervous though as they chased her around trying to get to her bag of food. Good times.

This is Ella feeding the goats some grass she found before we went to buy the food.

Trying to corral the goats.

Lagoon

I am finally getting around to uploading some pictures from this summer. Now I will make quick posts about each of the events starting with Lagoon.


Nate won this plastic bat and gave it to Kate. She held on to it the whole time. She started calling it "Buddy". That night as we were trying to get her to sleep in the trailer (see previous post about Lagoon) we heard her saying as she tucked it into bed next to her "It's okay buddy. Go to sleep." I am not even sure where it is now.

I loved this ride as a kid.

Ella and Kate loved consulting the map as they waited for the older kids to get off rides.

Love these people.

Nate and Mikaela are a good pair for the dizzy rides cause I can't do them without getting sick anymore. They have always been good friends.

Nate is very proud of the fact that he is almost as tall as me. It is weird to see him getting so big.

Still one of my favorite rides.

Kate is finally warming up to the rides. This is one of her favorites.

Ella not a fan of the rattlesnake rapids.

Yes Scoutmastah

Wednesday I was pulling in the garage after a night at the church with the young men. Like she often is, Ella was waiting at the garage door for me. She says, "Dad, where have you been?" I told her I'd been at scouts. She asks me why I was with the scouts. I told her it was because I'm their scoutmaster. Without hesitation, that witty little girl smiles at me as she puts her two hands together and bows to me saying, "ah, yes Scoutmastah".

I laughed for quite a while, and then laughed later that night. She's such a fun girl. We love our happy Ella!

Alls Good (As Justin would say)

I have not been feeling too great today. A lot of dizziness. Anyway, I was in bed laying very still when Kate walked in. She asks: "Mom are you sick? " I said, "Yeah, I am not feeling very good." Kate replies, "My fix it mom." Then she climbs into bed and snuggles up next to me and starts singing Jesus wants me for a sunbeep.... Made my day!
Other than being dizzy, I am feeling so much better than I was the other day. I am done being pessimistic hopefully for a long time!

A little lesson in pessimism :)

I am feeling a bit tired and frustrated today. Tired because I couldn't seem to go to sleep until after 2am. Frustrated because I feel helpless. I had my yearly check up at my doctors yesterday. As he is going through all the fun procedures, he is being more insistent than usual that I get all my tests and check ups done. Finally at the end he tells me that he has two neighbors right now, that live three doors from each other, that both had early stage melanoma and who they had stopped worrying about that now have advanced melanoma. He then tells me that they were doing all the check-ups and tests every six months and missed them anyway. I hear stories like this quite frequently and they always throw me for a bit. So, I now have all my tests scheduled for later this week, and I am sure they will all come back fine. That doesn't take away the dark thoughts that sometimes resurface in my mind. I have that fear that one night I will have a weird pain somewhere and that I will find out that I have cancer spread through my body. I know that I need to be optimistic and usually I am fine. Sometimes I want my kids to hurry and grow up so I know that if that does happen, they will be fine. My problem is that pretty much everyone I know who has cancer has had it return at some point. Huntsman Cancer Institute gave me an 82% chance of facing it again. That doesn't help my optimism much. I am five years out and that is a great milestone. It is stupid really, I know that I could die on my way to take the kids to swimming lessons today. We don't know, so why lose sleep over it? I know this, but my mind doesn't cooperate.
I really think that I just need a nap. For now, I will go get dressed to take kids to said lessons and go from there. How I will manage to run for 55 min. later tonight (stupid triathlon training) will just have to be figured out later.

Arms and Legs

This past weekend, we went to the Gundersen family reunion in Logan. We decided to leave a day early and go to Lagoon on the way. Normally we go with Nuskin, but they are having their summer party at 7-peaks in August. We borrowed Jared and Leslie's tent trailer and stayed the night at the Lagoon campground. I forget how expensive Lagoon is when I am paying for it. Justin kept teasing the kids saying that everything was costing him an arm or a leg or a little finger. Friday after eating lunch Ella was saying that she was still hungry. I replied that we had JUST eaten lunch and I was not about to buy anything else. Alexa, sitting next to her, said "yeah and dad has already lost an arm, a leg, and a little finger." Ella thought about that for a minute and then says "well mom has an arm". Silly kid. I have pictures that I will post from the weekend, but today I am drowning in laundry that needs to be done first.

Niagra and Cooperstown

While we were in Palmyra we found out that Niagra Falls was only an hour and a half's drive away. We knew that would make for a long drive later in the day because we had to go 3 hours in the opposite direction to get to Cooperstown, but how often will we be an hour and a half away from Niagra. We decided to go and we are glad that we did. It was fun.

On the train.

We went on the Cave of Wind tour where you get to walk right to the falls and get soaked. The yellow poncho's don't really help but it was so hot that it actually felt great.

At horse shoe falls.

Horse Shoe Falls again. This is the one I remember seeing as a child.

After the Hurricane Deck.

Later in the day we made the drive to Cooperstown. It wasn't too bad because Nate and Mikaela slept most of the time, but we didn't get to the dreams park where we were supposed to check Nate into the dorm where he would be spending the week with his team mates. It turns out that we just avoided several hours of waiting in long lines so I was okay with it. The place that the rest of us stayed was a little modular home that we shared with two other couples (Melissa Argyle and her son Colin and the Hales). It was a great price for the week and the kids LOVED the little pond with the paddle boat. Nate was there as much as he could sneak out. Mikaela probably caught a hundred fish. She and Colin spent most of their time fishing and would catch one each time they threw their line in. Nate loved catching the frogs. There were also five rabbits that roamed the property. The kids had a great time. Nate's team won 6 out of their 7 games. They did really well and had a lot of fun playing at the dreams park.

Nate and his friend Beano (Braiden).

On the pond.

The opening ceremony was canceled due to heavy rain. This was, of course, after we had sat in it for quite awhile.

After one of the games, the boys just hanging out.

Outside the Baseball Hall of Fame. Mikaela wasn't a fan. I wouldn't feel too bad if I missed it next time. If there ever is a next time....shh don't tell Justin. He loved it.

Walking into the dreams park for the opening ceremony.

I didn't get a picture of the downtown area of Cooperstown, but Justin described it as Disneyland for baseball fans. Overall a great trip.