Ups and downs, and all arounds.

 
Kid stuff

Monday night we played 'Scriptionary' for FHE. It is a big favorite at our house! I highly recommend it. Ammon couldn't understand the game, but he drew a picture of himself and one of daddy, which looked like a bunch of scribbles. :)

Brenna had her Kindergarten screening on Wednesday! She was SO excited. It was great for me to be able to meet the Kindergarten teachers and see how the classrooms are set up. Both the Principal and Assistant Principal were there the entire time. I was so impressed with the staff and how they ran things. Brenna was brave and came out smiling. She is ready! All week she has been planning her outfits for school.

 The Rogers, a family in our ward, have been swapping with us about every other weekend for date night. This week was our turn with all the kids! We played on scooters and watched movies! We are getting in as much play time as possible before they move in July. :(

We found out that the kids will only have 6 weeks of summer before they start up again! We better party hard!

Sarah's life

To say I'm excited for Heather to come stay with us this upcoming week is an understatement! I spent an entire day boxing up toys and clearing out some space for a bed for her. She will be with us for a couple of weeks, she needs a little sanctuary from the madness!

I was in a small motor vehicle accident on Friday. I was on my way to work when I was rear-ended. The woman hit me twice. The back of my head whip-lashed into the seat. I drove myself to work (the rehab clinic where we see patients post-concussion...ironically enough) although I was a little shaken. Once I got there, however, my head was getting worse and I began to feel foggy, dizzy, and nauseous (a little concussed!). I had to leave work. I became upset and very emotional and my eyes couldn't focus. I came home and put a big bag of frozen strawberries on my head and slept several hours. Chalk this up to number 5 million of the car problems we've had this year!

Me with my frozen strawberries in a Christmas pillow case. :) Nate took such good care of me.

On Sunday, I was still foggy. After sacrament, I laid down on the bench and slept all through 2nd and 3rd hour! I felt so much better after that. For some reason, the music and the bright lights were just auditory overload.

Before church, I was called to help a ward member who had a surgical procedure last week. I changed his wound dressing 3 times before he had to fly to Arizona for a job interview. While there, he began hemorrhaging and had to go to the ER. He got back Sat. night and asked me to come change the dressing before church. I was a little nervous since the prior dressing was a pressure dressing to stop bleeding. As I took it down, I was relieved to find that the bleeding has stopped. But BOY did I put that man through a lot of pain changing it! I felt terrible! I went over again that evening and went through the same process. I dislike inflicting torture on people, but I am willing when it is for their benefit. :( Not fun!

Nate's life

Nate's last day of research assistant at CMU was this week. Yay! On to bigger and better!

General

 On Thursday night we had some friends over for a BBQ. It was cloudy and a little misty all day, but when they arrived to cook the meat, it started pouring buckets! For about 30-45 minutes the rain did not stop. Ammon was of course out playing in it and was sopping wet. There was a large muddy puddle in the kitchen from everyone coming in and out with the meat. As soon as the last hot dog was cooked, what do you know! The rain stopped. The food was awesome though!

On Sunday, we were invited to a friend's home for dinner. Dutch oven! It was so nice. However, our car was dead. Can you imagine?
Our friend recharged the battery and we made it over to our next stop so I could do the dressing change. When we left, we made it about a block before the car died again. It was about 9:30PM. I held up the hood so Nate could try to recharge the battery with a jump-start machine someone had let us borrow...to no avail. When I got back in the car to ask the kids to pray with me, they informed me that they had already prayed. Then they fell asleep.

We were grateful we had AAA. We called them, and called another ward member for a ride home. We rely so much upon our ward family! We were feeling pretty hopeless. I was supposed to work the next day, and it seemed like I was going to have to call in. 
Nate stayed with the car until AAA came, which wasn't until 1:30 AM. I felt so bad. I tried to wait up for him, but my head was pounding and I was nauseous so I crashed. When I got home, I checked my email and ANOTHER ward member had sent me a message, saying she heard we needed a car and that her hubby was gone until Tues, so we can use theirs. What a load off!

 

Miracle of the week

When I was hit in the car accident, it was so hard that I thought the car must be totalled...at least needing a new back bumper. However, the only 'injury' to the car was to the license plate and a minor scratch...not even a dent! Better yet, I was wearing my seat belt and was not ejected from the car, thus my life was spared. I'm alive! It's a miracle!

Also, as previously mentioned, all the help we received on Sunday because of our car issues. I'm just trying to figure out what we are supposed to learn from this experience that we didn't learn the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh time around...?

Scripture of the week

 I was so touched by this article called Dear are the Sheep That Have Wandered. It was from a conference talk given by James E. Faust. It was such a great read, and gave me so much hope. I was overwhelmed at the idea of how the atonement allows repentance for sin even AFTER death. Other religions teach that if a person dies in his sins, he is damned forever to endless hell. I am grateful for the true doctrine that teaches that a person can be saved on the condition of repentance, whether in this life or the next. 

{Quoting from the article below}

 

“The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God,

“And after they have paid the penalty of their transgressions, and are washed clean, shall receive a reward according to their works, for they are heirs of salvation.”

We should not judge others, even and perhaps ESPECIALLY in our own families. That job lies in the hands of the Lord!

 "There are very few whose rebellion and evil deeds are so great that they have “sinned away the power to repent.” That judgment must also be left up to the Lord. He tells us, “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.”

"President Howard W. Hunter [1907–95] observed that “repentance is but the homesickness of the soul, and the uninterrupted and watchful care of the parent is the fairest earthly type of the unfailing forgiveness of God.”

I am truly thankful for the discipline provided to me by my own parents when I was a child.

An important element of doing the best we can as parents is to provide loving but firm discipline. If we do not discipline our children, society may do it in a way that is not to our liking or our children’s. Part of disciplining children is to teach them to work. President Gordon B. Hinckley [1910–2008] said: “One of the greatest values … is the virtue of honest work. Knowledge without labor is profitless. Knowledge with labor is genius.”

We need to be kind and forgiving to our parents. No one is perfect! It is all I would hope from my own children.

Children who are critical of their parents might well remember the wise counsel of Moroni when he said, “Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been.”