RETIRED

That is how you can refer to Kerry these days! Yikes!
This is a period in your life you don't think will every really materialize, and all of a sudden it is here! We are 10 days into this and so far, I think he is bored out of his mind. But my tires are rotated, the garage door is fixed, the smoke detectors have new batteries, the light bulbs are changed, the dog bathed .... You get the picture! In Kerry's immortal words, "it is everything he thought it would be, and less!!!"

Tough Week

Maggie dog is downstairs with a cough that is bone rattling. She is so sick it is heart wrenching. She got sick a week ago today and we have had her in the doggie hospital for four days and is on a nebulizer for pneumonia and hasn't eaten anything to speak of for three days. Watching her suffer is horrendous. I do not know how people watch their children suffer from devastating illnesses. Having said that, we are going to a four year olds funeral tomorrow. Life feels hard right now.

Preparing a Way and Opening Doors

Been an interesting few months as we have watched the Lord 'prepare' the way for Missa and Ethan to get an internship and for Lisa and Rags to buy a home. We watched him open the doors for Corey and Steph to have the babies join their family and have seen that again in the lives of our Lisa and Missa. And a dear little girl for Chris and Chira is the cherry on top! It is such a sweet thing to know there is a watchful, loving Father providing for our family in the way that only He can do that.

Speaking of Events!

My last blog was about events. Then we REALLY had an event !There is nothing quite as memorable as your darling daughter sitting next to you in church and then pitching over in a never before, totally unexpected seizure! It was an event that I had never anticipated in my lifetime and really not what you want to have happen. We spent the rest of the day at the ER. We have since been to get an EEG; no real abnormalities detected and been to a neurologist. We had to make some adjustments to our plans for the next few weeks (we can not leave her unattended) and were feeling a little better about it until Thursday evening when I called her to go with me to run an errand and she didn't respond. When I called again and she didn't respond, I ran up the stairs and to my distress found her on the floor by the couch unconcious (in a post dictal state) and with pillows lodged around her head (freaky how they were configured that way) (there are just two fairly small and lightweight accent pillows on that end of the couch) I did not witness the actual seizure (so unnerving that I didn't hear anything and I was just downstairs doing seminary paperwork) but the post dictal state was very similar to her first seizure (it may have lasted a bit longer. This seizure (from start [my guess] to finish was approximately 6:40 pm to 7:15. We were truly hoping that she would not have a recurrence. She has now been put on anti seizure medication [Keppra 500 mg twice a day] and we will have to consider her as having a seizure disorder. She has been my semi constant companion for 35 years; she will now be my ever constant companion for the foreseeable future as we try to keep her safe and monitored. In an odd twist of events; Nan has for a long time chattered to herself incessantly [we have always felt it was her coping mechanism for the loneliness and isolation that she has felt over the course of her life with her disability] It is a behavior we have aggressively discouraged. She also is a mad dog vacumn-er which can also be annoying. All of a sudden I am encouraging her chatting and any other noise making (vacumning) because I can monitor her from other parts of the house and know she is safe and not seizing! WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD!

Bonjour

Off we went to the lovely country of France. I can't say that I was looking forward to this trip...y'all know me.........and the first day or two was horrific. I must have sworn a thousand times that I was not going to ever leave the country again and that I couldn't stand it and that I HATE overseas flights and that I hate.............well, everything. I do hate overseas flights and when we got to CDG airport, they don't pull up to a gate, they unload you on to buses and transport you to the terminal.....so......... you wait for two hours to leave from the US (overseas flights require early check in) and you sit for hours on the plane and then you wait to disembark and then you ride seemingly endlessly to get to the terminal and then you wait for luggage and then you wait in a line to get a taxi and then the taxi ride to our hotel was THREE HOURS LONG! Hence, the hate language. Fatigued and hungry, you try to navigate the currency and the room and lay down for a rest and decide where to eat. After resting, you can begin to appreciate the beauty of the city called Paris!

There are Events and then there are EVENTS!

We have had an eventful few weeks and an eventful day. I have been to Michigan in a Penske truck and off to Paris the week after; I returned home to our daughter and her cute baby being here to spend the summer and help us with the dog etc while we traveled; I am off to DC next week and the Caribbean the week after that and then seminary starts and then we head to Michigan again over Labor Day. We have a new Bishop tonight and that is eventful and there are other little events along the way (I hope to blog more about some of these individual items soon)but the thing I wanted to make note of (besides it being Corey and Kerry's birthday today...it really was a fun day 33 years ago when a cute little boy was born on his dad's birthday) Kerry told me this morning that it occurred to him that 40 years ago today he had been baptized. I had forgotten that he was baptized on his 18th birthday and I was impressed with the sense I had in that moment of the magnitude of that event. That is the event among all these events that has had and will continue to have the most lasting influence on the eternal wellness of our family. If he had not chosen the path of baptism, his life and mine and the children that we were blessed with would have an entirely different trajectory and it is a bit frightening to think what it would have been. So there are events and then there are events and as wonderful as the event of my son's birth is/was and as memorable as our little trek to Paris will be for Nan especially and as memorable a day as this will be for our new Bishop Dayhuff, I am most grateful for that event 40 years ago that allowed me to "date only those young men who honor their priesthood" and the influence for good it has had in my life.

Home Sweet Home

The weather is BEAUTIFUL! The azaleas are stunning..there is a ball game on and I am loving the opportunity to spend an evening at home after a week gone and then busy-ness that needed to be attended to. Trip to Utah accomplished and cute Liam and parents visited and now back to seminary and dog and chauffering and funerals and laundry and paperwork and grocery shopping and dentist appointment and much more fun stuff! Not much to say so let's watch Jimmer! (Charles Barkley an idiot!!!!)