Garden

At my parent's church building, there is a BIG garden lot above the parking lot.  They use it for community outreach and it is really awesome!  This summer my parents have a little spot and every time I see my Dad he wants to go up to see it.  Today my littles and I went over for a visit and I had a great time going up with my Dad to check it out!

 

It is doing really well!  You can see the potatoes growing in front.  They have pumpkins, tomatoes, beans, corn and probably other things I have forgotten!  It is a lot of fun and my Dad loves it! 

Their spot is in the back of the garden so it is fun to make the walk to it and check out what everyone else is doing.  One of their garden neighbors is Grant, and he has been up there for ten years. In the picture below you can see Grant's bamboo shooting up.  That man has got a professional looking garden going on!  They've got some awesome stuff up there!

Boise service

 One of the good things I can think of that has come from all the tragedy of the last month is the people.  The people I've been able to meet and be around have been incredible.  My Uncle Frank died in Phoenix on April 30. On May 6 we all were in Phoenix for his funeral, then my Dad's other brother, Uncle Steve, held a memorial celebration in Boise a few weeks later.  I had the opportunity to take my Dad up and attend that.  It was really lovely.  While up there I got to meet Gary Loveland, a man I've heard a lot about and talked to on the phone but never met.

Dad and Gary Loveland before the service began

It was so good to meet him!  While my Dad was in the hospital almost a year ago, I talked to him on the phone and he told me about coaching my Dad in baseball when he was a youngster.  He told me to this day he still has only seen a few people, Dad included, throw out a runner on second base from the squatting position of pitcher.  He is such a cool guy!  When one of his sons was born, my Dad went for a visit.  Gary said when my Dad showed up he knew what his new son should be named, and he did in fact name the new baby Scott, after my Dad.


I love meeting with these great people who have nice memories to share!  In a very real sense we lost my Dad last year and now you never know if his memories from long ago are really from long ago, or if they are from last night's dream.  Although I will admit through fact checks, he gets things pretty close to right on most of the time.  It was just great to take my Dad to Boise where he was born and raised and meet some of these great people!


Another was Pieper.  Her mother was married to my Dad's uncle, although I am still hazy on whether Pieper was already born when her mother married Uncle Tim or whether Uncle Tim is her father.  (Anyone know?)  My confusion is due to my Dad's explaining her connection for 1-2 hours on the way home, each time he restarted it was a little different.  Notwithstanding, Pieper is a beautiful, wonderful person and lovely to meet.   Pieper was married a little while back and three months after she suffered a massive stroke and also has a TBI.  She talks and acts about like my Dad.  She made that whole trip worth it for my Dad, I think.  (He said after we left my Uncle Steve's house the night before, that that visit was worth the whole trip, and then again after talking to Pieper. I was so glad he had some nice visits!)  I've got to say Pieper made my whole trip worth it too, which was already worth it.  She was such a nice, sweet, lovely person!  One thing I so enjoyed was watching them as they sat and talked to each other.  It was a little bit funny because for my Dad's part, I don't think he was really following anything he or she were saying, but he was so happy!  

One of the hard parts that trip was meeting all these people who my Dad knew in Boise who were absolute jerkstores.  I remember their names and wish I had it in me to rat them out on my blog, but I don't, darn it.  I know he talks slow and is hard to follow and I just wanted to say "you know what? My Dad knows that too! Can't you just humor him for a minute?  Help him feel like the real person he is?  Not make him feel worse than he does?" because he understands still if people are rude to him.  It broke my heart to watch as this guy from his childhood sat and looked through the program (which he helped create) while my Dad was working at reminiscing.  I was also wondering what made the program important enough to look at while I was watching this whole thing happen.  Oh well, I know it is HARD to have the patience to talk to people with brain injuries.  So if you are, have been, plan to, or ever will be someone who takes a minute to talk to my Dad or anyone with a brain injury, I sincerely THANK YOU!  For that act alone, you are a hero to me!

Things that make me happy!

Easter Egg Hunting at Poppy's

My awesome Daddy-o and my incredibly loving husband, Matt

Brother Dan arranging flowers with James (I am on a different computer so I don't have a picture on this one of all my brothers!  Otherwise they'd be up!)

Uncle Steve with Sleeping Beauty

Peach Pie helping with laundry

Charity and her look-alike cousin Brecken

Playtime with Daddy!

My strong, wonderful cousins Kari, Marissa, and Juhani. They are seriously amazing!

Kristin and Jenmy

In short, one of the things that makes me most happy is my AWESOME FAMILY!!!!  I feel so blessed to belong to a family where we love and know each other.  My husband is my best friend ever!  I am thankful to have his support throughout everything.  I have wonderful parents, brothers, and cousins who really are my favorite people.  I thank the Lord for blessing us all to belong to the same family!

Sick and tired of sick and tired!

Wow it's been a long time.  Not for lack or something to write but for lack of opportunity.  May 2011 . . . a MONTH that will live on in infamy! It has been CRAZY!  Truly I hope my grandma Nonie's superstition is correct, because if it is (things come in three's) then we ought to be done!  So here I am with a lot to say, and hopefully I can get it all out.  On top of the events, we've all been sick, some of us sick and pregnant, and it has been that way for over a month!  Craziness, but really I get annoyed with myself listing all the things that are have been hard because I don't like feeling a pessimistic!  And actually, things are hard for everyone.  I am glad if lending a listening ear to the down trodden can help them, but for me, complaining often makes me feel worse.  As Elder Holland said "No misfortune is so bad that whining about it can't make it worse." (From April 2007 General Conference)

I try, sometimes with no success, to follow the advice I sing to my littles "No one likes a frowny face, change it for a smile! Make the world a better place by smiling all the while!"

Good-bye Aunt Wendy! We love you and miss you!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah, hallelujah!  She fought a valiant fight and her suffering is done.  My Aunt Wendy is one of my Mom's two siblings and her only sister.  About seven or eight years ago she was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma (LMS) which is a rare form of cancer.  She had been in pain longer than that and looking for answers.  Yesterday, May 19, she died in her home around her two daughters, her husband and brother.

Aunt Wendy is such an awesome lady.  My parents were able to spend some days in Georgia with her right before she died.  On one of those days I called my Mom's cell phone, and she put me on speaker.  "How are you doing?" I asked.  "Great!  We're doing great and having a lot of fun together!" she said from the couch.  She was always positive and upbeat and brave.  I will miss her a lot!  She is such a beautiful, well mannered, and awesome person and anyone who met here was saying that within seconds. 

She came out in December with my Uncle Neil (their brother) and stayed for a few days.  It was so much fun to see her!  She was in pain, but she carried on cheerfully and took part in everything, including doing a great job being our BINGO caller, and the traditional paper crowns, which come from the Christmas Crackers.  Aunt Wendy just always kept going, only staying down when her tired body literally would not let her move anymore.  She is such a genuinely beautiful person and I will miss her.  I love her!  I love my family so much.  Each person really means a lot to me and I am thankful the Lord has placed us all in the same family tree.

What a blessing is family!

My cousin on the other side, Jenny, said "try explaining your uncle and aunt dying within two weeks of each other to your boss!"  I am glad I don't have a boss to explain that to, but it really has been a month of some difficulty!  Two years ago this month my Aunt Kirsti died, after her valiant, valiant 23 year fight with cancer.  So if things come in three's then we ought to be done with this for a while.

It is interesting just to experience different things in life and have new opportunities for learning and growth.  I have a real firm testimony about death and about the Plan of Salvation and so I have felt peaceful about these happenings.  However, these are people whom I loved my associations with and I am a little melancholy thinking that for this life, that association is over.  But I do believe we will all be reunited one day and be able to pick up those associations once again and continue our progression.

I am thankful for so many wonderful people in my life!  Love to you all and God be with you!

The Frankinator, love you, miss you.

It is so great to belong to the big family of God.  One thing we have in common with everyone is suffering!  Elder Neal A. Maxwell once said "A few individuals may appear to have no trials at all, which, if it were so, would be a trial in itself.  Indeed, if, as do trees, our souls had rings to measure the years of greatest personal growth, the wide rings would likely reflect the years of greatest moisture-but from tears, not rainfall."  He says this in an article titled "Thanks Be To God."  He says that while the Lord has described His great plan of happiness, not one of us is likely to be a stranger to sorrow.

I am just sitting here thinking of all the people I know who endure hard things and do them so well.  This past week we spent in Phoenix where my Uncle "Frankinator" died.  Almost two years ago we were there for the funeral of his wife, my Aunt Kirsti.  Although a sad occasion, it would so nice to be together with my cousins.  All of the suffering they have experienced and witnessed in their young lives and into adulthood!  My Aunt Kirsti was diagnosed with cancer 23ish years before she died from it and had been through as many surgeries. She was amazing at appearing cheerful even when you knew she was in pain.  She was beautiful that way, like my Aunt Wendy who is going through the same thing now.  My uncle and aunt in Phoenix did an inspiring job at carrying on despite the challenges with her health and continued to teach their children good things.  I am so grateful for their lives and examples, and grateful for the lives and examples of their three children, whom I love so much.  I really, really do.  Their sufferings, their lives, their interests and their concerns are all important to me, and I always find myself wishing I was better at really showing others the way I care so much.

When I witness or experience suffering, I pray for the opportunity and blessing of helping other people feel of God's love.  As Elder Maxwell says, Heavenly Father does indeed have a wonderful plan of happiness, but that does not mean we will not experience sorrow.  Joseph Smith was reminded that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, descended below all things.  He was taught that "all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good."  I am thankful for that knowledge that somehow these things that seem so sad or that devastate us are somehow designed to make us something better.

I am thankful for my Mom today on Mother's Day and always!  I am thankful for how she is converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and her example of not running away or turning angry and bitter about her challenges with my Dad---and the other ones too!  It is amazing to hear her say, she whose life has been thrown in a whirlwind of hard changes, that she knows these things are the things she needs to experience in order to become what she needs to become.  In short, she is awesome to me!

And finally, to end I want to say that I LOVE being a mother.  Oddly enough, nothing sounds more fun to me than being the "Mommy!" these little people cry for in the middle of the night---or the middle of the store.  I really feel so blessed with the opportunity to hav my own children, and to raise them, to take care of them, and teach them.  Being a wife and mother are the best two things that have happened to me.  I am really thankful I get these experiences, and grateful to enjoy them so much.  Love to all of you, wherever you are and a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to women EVERYWHERE!

Sofie

Today I am thinking about how my Dad really has always been nuts over his Boston Terrier Sofie.  Every time I see him, he will, at some point, sit watching Sofie and will inevitably shake his head and say "That is the best dog in the whole world.  Look at her." 

This morning slicing some bread I made reminded me of how I got that bread knife.  About a year ago my Dad came over with Sofie to visit.  He came in and stayed a while, talked a while about Sofie, we offered him some bread (which he politely turned down) and then left.  Minutes after leaving he called and said "How about I get you a good bread knife and bring it over, then you give me a piece of your bread?"  I told him he could have bread without bringing me a knife but that sounded great!  When he came over with the bread he told us that he pulled up into the parking lot of Target.  He knew he couldn't bring Sofie inside the store.  Positive someone would steal her from his locked, alarm equipped car during the three minutes he was inside, he said he looked around and waited for people to go inside.  When all the people were out of the parking lot, he wrapped her in a blanket so no one would see her, opened the trunk, put her inside, took her out of the blanket and then shut it.  We laughed so hard at him for that!  I can honestly say that as cute and perfect as a dog may be, I have never thought of stealing one from anywhere, let alone a locked car with a set alarm.  I still think he probably looked more suspicious doing that than any of the dog nappers in the area that night.  He really knows he has the most perfect dog ever born!

Dad and Ammon

A couple of growling nerds!

Thanks to Our Father

Thanks to our Father, we will bring
For He gives us everything!
Eyes and ears and hands and feet,
Clothes to wear and food to eat.
Father, mother, baby small,
Heavenly Father gives us all.

-Robert Louis Steveson

"I'm Scott . . ."

There is a man in my ward who had a hemorrhagic stroke three days after my Dad did.  Today at church I was talking to him about his whole ordeal and it is amazing how these things change life for the affected individuals and family members.  My heart really aches for these people and their loved ones.  It really is strange to think of my Dad on July 5, the day before his stroke, and the phone conversations we had and the advice he was giving me.  Then the next day my Dad was in brain surgery.  I am just thankful for every day I have with my family and at the end of each one I hope and pray for another day together of health and strength, of safety and happiness and protection.  I know all these things happen as the Lord sees fit and that He sees the end of everything from before the beginning.  I also know there will be healing of the physical kind!  Actually of every kind but I really look forward to the day when my Dad and this nice man at church will enjoy the use of their brains and bodies again.

Speaking of the man at church with my Dad, he said he would like to talk to him.  I said "Yes, it's helpful to know other people who are in the same situation as you are."  He said "That is the best statement so far on why I want to meet him.  I just want to meet this guy and say 'Look, my name is Scott.  I'm 40 years old (he is really 56) and I have . . . 4-6 kids' and just talk."  It was pretty funny-my Dad actually has five kids plus one son in-law and one daughter in-law, a granddaughter and a grandson.  So I am really not sure why he came up with that range but it was pretty funny.  I am always glad when he realizes what he is saying and can laugh about it too.  He's great!

Who got the milkcow now?

Today I got a fun phone call from my Dad.  He wanted me to help him figure something out that my Mom could not, according to him, figure out at all.  He said "I have this song stuck in my head, Mom says it doesn't exist.  Okay, tell me what this is: (singing) Who got the milkcow now?  Who got the milkcow now?"  I don't know if this could possibly come across in writing as funny as it was on the phone.  But it was really, really funny.  He really insists there is a song with a line in it "Who got the milkcow now?"  So my Madre thinks he is singing "Who Wrote the Book of Love" with the wrong lyrics and I suggested maybe he is thinking of Eric Clapton's "Milkcow Calf Blues."  I don't know if he will ever agree to either one, but the fun of it all has made for a Sunday afternoon treat!






P.S Maybe he is thinking my son "got the milkcow now." 

Lack of Computer! Arrg!

I have not received complaints on my lack of online activity from anyone but me, but boy it is sure different not having a computer around!  We have a P of J (piece of junk) old Dell Laptop from Matt's time at BYU that we keep around from some unknown reason.  Sitting in front of it is something that I only do out of desparation and if I have the time to wait three hours while it loads my e-mail.  Matt is now doing his MBA and the program directors want every student on the same machine.  Really sad when we received word it was . . . ANOTHER DELL!  In an effort not to offend anyone in the universe I will say it may be us (but I doubt it) and the way we use computers (we don't) but we have never liked Dells!  Sad sad sad.  So for once, the computer and I are together at home and all at the same time!  I have had a lot of things I have wanted to sit and write about but no computer to write it on!  Ahhh it's good to be online for a few minutes!

Jeffrey R. Holland-"None Were With Him"

Twice a year we tune into General Conference of the LDS Church.  We get to hear from the leaders of our church both Saturday and Sunday.  It is such a wonderful time when saints all throughout the world gather together to listen to the word of the Lord spoken by His Prophets and Apostles.

I know it is not Easter quite yet, but being in April sure puts me in the mood for it!  Two years ago, Jeffrey R. Holland gave, what I consider, the most soul stirring and heavenly talk on Jesus Christ, his Atonement and Resurrection.  I love it so much, I immediately instigated a family tradition for us each Easter Sunday, which is to gather around and watch this together.  It is entitled "None Were With Him" and was given at the General Conference in April of 2009.  Here are links to it, and I really, really hope anyone reading this will have the time to listen to at least a portion of it.  It is so marvelous, so uplifting, so beautiful and reverent, it moves me to tears every single time I listen to it.  It is the perfect Easter message for everyone, and it is such a comfort to anyone who has suffered in any kind of way.  I consider this talk a gift from Heavenly Father!

To watch:
http://lds.org/general-conference/2009/04/none-were-with-him?lang=eng&media=video

To read and/or:
http://lds.org/general-conference/2009/04/none-were-with-him?lang=eng&media=audio

Any talk can be downloaded to an MP3 player free!

I Feel My Savior's Love

I Feel My Savior's Love, in all the world around me
His Spirit warms my soul through everything I see

I feel my Savior’s love its gentleness enfolds me
And when I kneel to pray my heart is filled with peace

I feel my Savior’s love and know that He will bless me
I offer Him my heart; my shepherd He will be

I’ll share my Savior’s love by serving others freely,
In serving I am blessed, in giving I receive

He knows I will follow Him, give all my life to Him
I feel my Savior’s love, the love He freely gives me.

Sweater trouble and its no April fool's day joke

No idea why this past week got too busy for me to sit down and write the things I have been wanting to! 

First of all I want to say the Webb family is in my prayers and on my mind.  I was so sorry to hear of another huge event in the lives of the health of their family.  I have always admired my Mom's good friend Pat and her unwavering positive attitude and faith!  I hope and pray for a speedy recovery there!

A couple days ago I went to see my Dad.  I sent him off to get out of his PJ's so we could go check out a house my brother is planning to buy.  Got to say it was hilarious when he came in looking like this:

 This is a zip up hoodie and he couldn't figure out how to get it on.  I did tell him to pose for the picture.  The face he actually had when he came to say he needed sweater help was a big smile.  He thought it was funny too, thank goodness!  He was wearing it with his PJ's when he went off to get dressed so I guess he must have pulled it off right over his head!  I love my Dad!  He is so adorable!