National Ability Center

I'm not going to try to resist the temptation to just post the link to Geoff's blog and call it a day. :D He did a great job telling about our adventures at the National Ability Center. Plus, he has all the great pictures up over there, too. :) I took most of them to be honest. Even when Becca is participating, I can't help being the standby support person, I guess. Old habits die hard! :D

It was incredibly awesome to do something that centered around Becca instead of circling around her, if you know what I mean. She got to try everything first and her siblings loved hanging out with her and trying things that she thought were fun. :D Plus, it is always so much fun to hang out with our Deafblind friends! :)

The thing that surprised me the most? How much she loved swinging 30 feet in the air! That was the activity that got the biggest smiles! And she even went to the effort of holding her head up and looking around. She really, really loved it! It did my mother's heart so much good to see her having so much fun!

I love my family!!

Technology: can't live with it, can't live without it

The bad news is: the new ipod went kaput. The REALLY bad news is: it was my camera of choice for the past few months and it had A LOT of pictures on there that are now also kaput. :(

I'm not a good scrapbooker. I'm not a good journal-er. I'm not even a good blogger. But I am a good picture taker. We have folder upon folder of pics between hubby, his artistic eye and new camera and me and my point and shoot. The point and shoot went kaput long ago, but the same day we tried to figure out what happened to the ipod, we bought it a new battery and it's working again. Yay! But that still leaves the hole of the past few months. Some things I remember taking pictures of with the ipod:

My new mother's day sewing machine... that's still in the sewing room, I could take more pictures of that.

Ethan... who has probably changed the most, given his age. In snow boots from cousin Alex's baby days. Wearing silly hats. Crying his eyes out for Daddy to get home... there was a video of that one... very sweet.

I had a couple of tutorials I was going to blog about, like how to make a skirt longer so it's modest. And also a series of pictures of Emily sewing for the first time totally by herself.

Tons of hilarious mashed up face pictures that the kids made using an app that stretches and squishes your face in different ways. It seems like every time I picked the ipod up, there would be more of those. :D Mostly of Gracie. :D

Landon hiding. Landon sleeping. Landon making funny faces and wearing silly things.

My phone was in one pocket and the ipod in the other most days. I pulled it out and just snapped us... life... whatever was in front of me that I wanted to remember. I love technology and all the fun stuff that goes along with it, but when it goes wrong like this... it sucks.

Keto Krazy Weekend

I was all ready to take to Facebook this morning and rant about our home health company. They really messed up this time and my precious daughter was going to pay for it. That is not okay with this Mama Bear. But then something amazing happened that deflated my anger-filled balloon.

Recently, our home health care company switched over to a different company. Becca gets her emergency oxygen supply (used to make sure she gets enough oxygen during a seizure) and her diapers from their office in Lindon. That's about 15 minutes down the road. She gets her food and supplies for tube feeding from their offices in Salt Lake, about 40 minutes the other direction. However, the food itself, KetoCal, the delicately balanced nutrition that has kept seizures at bay for so long, comes from Arizona first and then routes through Salt Lake to our house. We have been getting all of her orders on time or early for over a year now. Just when we start to run out, another order comes. Each can does about 2 1/3 days' worth of liquid formula.



Last week, long about Friday, we noticed that we were unusually low and that a new batch had not yet arrived. We had had calls from the new company double checking things and we thought we were set for the roll over. I made several phone calls and received several and they told me it would probably be here Monday, Tuesday at the latest. We had enough to get to Tuesday and so we kept on as usual.

Saturday we went to Taylorsville to visit my Mom for Mother's Day and Sunday we were preparing to go to Tooele to visit with Geoff's Mom. As we were getting kids in the car, the baby knocked over the pitcher of Becca's food for the day all over the garage floor. Okay, so now we didn't have enough for a whole day on Tuesday, but we would be fine if the formula showed up on Monday. As these things go, the formula of course did NOT show up on Monday. We used what we had and made more phone calls as now we had approximately 1 serving out of 5 for Tuesday. And that wouldn't be so bad, but her class was going on a field trip and it wasn't like I could just run stuff over to the school when it came. Everything that comes for her comes through UPS and they always deliver in the afternoon. Always.

So, here we were on Tuesday morning talking to people on the phone who were telling us they were doing the best they could. I wanted to scream, "NO! If you were doing the best you could, this would never have happened! We would not be the family that is out on a limb now with no food to feed their daughter!" Geoff made a mad dash to the nearest grocery store to buy heavy cream and egg substitute to make a "Ketogenic-friendly egg nog" that doesn't do the job quite as well as the formula, but is way better than nothing. She is given 2 of her feedings at school, so we put the last serving of KetoCal in one bottle and one serving of "egg nog" in the other bottle and sent her on her way.



Lo and behold, after everyone was gone for the day the doorbell rang! Either someone gave him a heads up or our knight in shining brown shirt and shorts decided to do his route backwards today, but there was that great big brown UPS truck in front of our house bringing Becca her food! I shouted Thank You and he had to stick his head back out of the truck and so I shouted it again, "Thank you SO much!!" I went back in and hit my knees and after many many 'Thank Thees,' I prayed for that delivery man to be blessed proportionately to how much he had blessed us! I know he was the face I saw at the end of the line of people who tried to help us over the past few days. I'm still a little miffed that it had to happen in the first place, I must say. But I guess all's well that ends well.

Becca went on a fishing field trip and brought back a real, used-to-be-alive fish in her bag! :D That was a new one! Her Intervener (Aide) wrote this in her journal:

Becca had a great time fishing today. She laughed all the way to Salem on the bus. She got to hold the fishing pole and reel her own real fish in. Her fish is in a plastic bag in her backpack. We ate in a big room there. Becca was looking around the whole time with a smile on her face. She smiled all the way home!

Indeed, all IS well that ends well! :)

The Psychology of Writing

So, the writer trapped inside of me has been screaming and pounding on the other side of her door trying to get out. I usually tell her to get in line behind the dishes that need doing, the laundry that needs folding, the house that needs cleaning and if that doesn't work, the kids usually chase her right back in there and slam the door tight. This is a euphemistic way of saying that what I 'need' to do feels like it suppresses what I 'want' to do. I'm sure I am the ONLY person that feels this way in the whole wide world! ;) I mean, talk about my id, ego and super ego duking it out, right? I tell ya what!

In addition to continuing to work on my favorite 3 novel-length stories, I decided to challenge myself and do short bits of writing, too. For those days or moments when letting that creative writer out of her room to do a burst of writing would do me worlds of good. I actually created a blog for this very purpose. I laughed when I discovered that the first post was in 2006 and the next in 2008! It's not that that's all I have written in that amount of time, but that is all that I have written that is short enough to make sense sharing in a blog format. At the moment, I have decided to keep the blog private as my first baby step to maybe someday being published. As much as it is somewhat embarrassing and overwhelming to think of other people who are not me reading what I have written, I think it would be good for me to hear what other people think. Good or bad. Like it or not!

If you would like to be a part of my first readers outside of family, please find a way to get me your email address and I will send you a top secret invite. You can leave it in a comment or send me a message on Facebook.

Where'd you get that cool pic?

One of the catalysts for me being brave and diving in has been a very interesting BLOG that combines Psychology and writing. He uses his background in Psychology and Counseling to diagnose his characters and really get to know them. I do this in my own way, being fascinated by Psychology as I have been since my first class in college. His textbook approach has been very thought provoking for me as I try to understand these characters I create. It has led me to make sure the way my characters act and the decisions they make are congruent with the type of person they are... that they have an aligned psyche, so to speak. That they make sense.

Aligned psyche... what a cool phrase! :D

So, if you're interested in reading what I actually write instead of just hearing about how I want to write, but don't... gimme a jingle! And make this the day you dive in and try that thing you've always been wanting to devote more time to!

I finally got asked to Prom!

Theme: I Will Always Love You by Dolly Parton



I had my hair done at Stacey and Shannon's Chic Salon. Don't bother trying to get an appointment, they only work with the most exclusive, discerning clientele. I borrowed jewelry from the posh Heather's Haus of Jewelry. Pearl necklace and earrings that came with their own body guard. My blouse came from Denise's Tip Top Tailoring, which was way better than what I showed up in. (Don't blame me, I didn't know!) I did my own nails myself the night before, a completely happy accident.

Denise stayed up half the night trimming these leaves. Not to mention all of the other gorgeous decorations and yummy food! She rocks!

We went to this VERY exclusive restaurant. I'm pretty sure it was one of those things that disappears at midnight. Sorry you won't ever get to go there. They have the best lasagna and jello jigglers around. And the cheesecake? Fugeddaboudit!



I even got a goblet for my china cabinet... now if I only had a china cabinet. :D Geoff's and his siblings' Prom goblets are in his Mom's china cabinet and I freely admit my jealousy of such a trinket and what it represents. And now I have one!

All of this was a complete surprise to me. Geoff set it all up, including a babysitter. (Yep, I was THAT kind of Prom date) ;D So, as the dancing started, I asked if they had all learned a Promenade dance too, without telling me. I know, in Tooele, you have a date to Promenade that may or may not be your same date to the dance and you go to practices and everyone learns this choreographed dance that you all do together and parents stand on the balcony and take pictures and video. I almost got to go to Geoff's youngest sister's Promenade, but I was heavily pregnant (as in due any day) and had to miss it. We didn't do a Promenade... but there's always next year! ;D

Love these ladies!!!

It was fun to have a partner for every dance and never be left sitting there by myself. :D We were the goofy couple that couldn't stop laughing together. We also stole kisses, which is something high school me would never have even considered!

And so it was that after 12 years of marriage and even more than that since I DIDN'T get asked to Prom that I left my 5 children with a babysitter and went to the best Prom ever with my one and only true love and had the time of my life! Thanks, Hubby! You da Bomb!

Lemme tell you about Allie

Every so often, but not very often, you happen upon friends that just click. Like the "exactly-right-size Lego that you didn't even know was missing" kind of click. When they first came down to meet the new neighbors, we learned that their youngest is about the same age as our oldest, they had just recently sent a son off on a mission and married off a daughter and they were totally cool about the Becca thing. Now, that last one was something I was obviously dreading. Moving to a new neighborhood and having to describe all that goes along with Becca is daunting. Not only is it daunting to say (it's a LOT of info!), but there are no guarantees about the recipients' reaction either. I remember being mildly surprised how they just took it all in and asked questions and were so nice about it. They didn't even run screaming down the street! :D

Fast forward to now and their missionary is home and married, their oldest daughter is expecting her first baby, their second daughter is getting ready to leave on her mission THIS WEEK, their second son still says Hi to me even though it probably isn't considered very cool and their youngest daughter is still about the same age as our oldest and is one of my funny, bright, smiley, beautiful Activity Days girls that I will get to see in about another year in Young Women!

Can I just tell you how much I enjoy time spent with this family? They have let me tie quilts and mend clothes and embroider fun things and hang out and eat and just have so much fun. And did I mention that even the Hubby loves them? We all love them! And getting Allie ready to serve her mission has been the awesomest thing ever. Granted, I haven't spent hours shopping with her and then hours returning things and getting the right things for the climate and truly, I've done very little. But to bask in her glow is amazing. She's been reading all kinds of uplifting books and praying and preparing. She is SO excited to go that I can't help being SO excited for her!

A couple of weeks ago, we had a Young Women's activity where I invited Allie and another cute girl in our Ward that has been back from her mission a couple of years and one of our YW leaders who has been back for quite a while to talk to the girls. It turned out better than I ever could have imagined! I hoped that we could put the idea in the girls' heads that missions were amazing opportunities and maybe give one or two of them an 'Aha!' moment. I was so impressed by the Spirit that was there and the wonderful teaching moments the pre- and returned- missionaries were able to share with us. Most importantly that missions are not just what you do if you're not doing anything else at the moment, but that they can be great preparations for everything you do in life... career, family, friendships, education... everything.

I am thrilled for the people in Panama to get to share my friend Allie. They are going to be blessed to be taught by a beautiful, very enthusiastic, Christ-like servant of the Lord that I love very much. Good luck, Allie! Have fun! And may the Lord bless you and keep you safe, happy and healthy.

Day 31 - A picture of yourself.

This is the last day of the picture challenge, which must mean that tomorrow is my birthday! :)

"Challenge" doesn't cover it! This was very difficult. Not to mention a little soul bearing. I am so glad I did it and even more glad to be done. :)

I would have to say that all of these 31 posts have painted a very good picture of myself. Not that I'm trying to get out of posting yet one more picture of myself...

Day 30 - A picture of someone you miss.

I've decided to dedicate this one to my college roommates. We don't get to hang out NEARLY as much as we used to! ;D

There is just something cool about the bond formed with your first family away from home. We had SO much fun figuring out how to be grown-ups and still get our homework done. I hope it's okay with you guys if I use your actual first names... if it's not, let me know and I'll make up a nickname for you! :D

Ricks College Dorm 6
S.L.E.D.N. "Sleddin" on the snowy hills in Rexburg, ID. :) Sara, Lucie, Emily, Diana, Nancy. I need to dig further to find pics of when we were actually roommates. The one of Nancy and I on a particularly freezing night was taken then, but you can't see her face! Never fear! I will find more pics! ;D I don't have any pictures of Emily. She left part way through the term to have her own room.

Crazy answering machine messages... "Well, I ain't all that nARmal..." Playing Ghost in the Snow Building. Boys. :) Boys. :( Racing home on icy sidewalks to make curfew on time. Sleeping in the living room and waking up to Chicago on the CD player. Eating in the cafeteria. Dean, Steve and Jake. :D Jonas, Tory, and Bruce. :D The Jareds. :D All of our other homies. :D





Ricks College Riviera
Lucie, Cammie, Mindy, Holly and Mandy

Eating together. Roommate prayer every night at curfew. Group hugs with heads tilted to the right. Mandy's car Nelly. Hot tubs in the snow. Break ups. Bike wrecks. Carpet in the kitchen. Holly's dating and engagement to Shawn. Man, it was cold!

Mandy is one who will always be truly missed. She died in a car accident the year after we were roommates. She worked so hard the year we were roommates to be accepted into the Nursing program and she was! Mandy was authoritative and our favorite quote was, "How high, Mandy?" because she was always asking us to jump. ;D She was just over 5 feet tall and I had to bend at the waist to hear her when we went to Ricks Basketball games (half the team was in our ward). What she lacked in height, she made up in personality. Love that girl!



USU Moen Hall
Gaylynn, Christine, Meghan, Emily, Shannon and various other roomies that came and went.

Three flights of stairs. Hawaiian haystacks in the common room. Our own personal balcony that could be used up to one week a year when the weather was good. :D Stairs. Archaic microwaves. Getting locked out because my keys were inside drying because I had painted my keychain with nail polish. Calls in the middle of the night for the Asian guy who had lived there during the Summer. Did I mention the 3 flights of stairs? Numerous times a day. Three. Flights. Of Stairs.