Pack Girls

I still love me some Pack girls time.  That reference is for Karen and Shauna (and Kim when she's in town).  I organized a book club for all the Pack girl cousins, but only Karen and Shauna showed up and Deborah made it over too.  I had planned for more than that though and had bought a bunch of pizzas and got lots of desserts from Cravings cupcakes.  I set entire pizzas home and cupcakes with them to get rid of the excess afterward.  It was fun meeting together to talk...even if it wasn't about the book much.  ;-)

Friday I had one of the neatest experiences of my life thanks to one of the perks of my job.  It was eye-opening.  While it was happening, I almost cried every time I stopped and thought about where I was and what was going on.  It was a nice affirmation of God's love after all the craziness that has been going on...even if I'm not allowed to discuss the circumstances of the day.  Yet.

Saturday I got to see Karen and Shauna again for a wedding shower.  Karen's son, Derek, is getting married and there was a party with lunch, presents, tying a quilt, etc.  One of these days, I'll have a Saturday to myself, but in the meantime, glad I can spend it with these ladies.

Daylight Bust

For six months I look forward to autumn's Daylight Savings time.  It's always a chance to get caught up on some extra sleep and after the past month it was particularly anticipated.  I got a phone call last week though asking if I'd watch Dana's kids while he and Deborah were away for Dana's bday.  That meant Sunday was an early start with the kids, getting them to Church, and then fed afterward.  Turns out I can survive sitting by myself with six kids at Church, and survive well.  The sleeping was the disappointment.

Lisa and Steven came in to town on Wednesday.  They stopped by my work and I introduced them to Elder Carlson, one of the general authorities assigned to the temple department.  He is a five star general and used to be the director of the National Reconnaissance Office for President Obama.  Steven got to talk to him about the Air Force and then I took them up to the 26th floor to look out at the view.  They gave me a ride home and dropped me off in AF at the movie theatre so I could go with Lori.  Our family bday party was on Saturday since Lisa was in town.

No Rest for the Weary

Sunday I had to get up earlier than usual for my visiting teachers to come over before Church, I went VTing after Church then had to rush home for dinner w/Lori's family and grandma.  Monday night I squeezed in some racquetball, Tuesday night I stayed up in Salt Lake to go to the 50th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America.  I had helped get Brett, Jeremy, and Nate in the eagle choir performing for the event and had gotten extra tickets so Dana's family could attend too.  We sat on the 3rd row from the front on the very front right side.  Not great in being able to view the event, but awesome for seeing people afterward.  Jeffrey, Bryan, Taylor, and Jaden got to meet the prophet and lots of the apostles.  The event was done so well and we even happened to be sitting on the aisle that Brett, Jeremy, and Nate came down singing so we got to see them up close and personal too!

 

Wednesday night I squeezed in a Primary presidency meeting AND racquetball, Thursday I sat up in Lori's part of the house to answer the door for all her trick-or-treaters.  They didn't have a trunk-or-treat this year so there were tons of people that came to the house.  Friday I managed to play racquetball again and then Saturday I had to drive up to Salt Lake once more, this time so I could attend the sealing of my friend Melissa's new adopted son to her and her husband.  It was so sweet seeing all the kids in white!

Meanwhile, at work I was still in catch-up mode as well as finding out that my job responsibilities would be changing in a couple of weeks to a new position.  Though it is a promotion, it was a bit of a tough situation all around so it means a bit of some work stress coming up!

Exhaustion Becomes an Art Form

Nathan was awarded his Eagle Scout award on Sunday.  I drove up to Heber and attended sacrament meeting with the Zabels and then helped them set up for the event.  He seemed so grown-up as he spoke during the meeting.  I had solicited a shout-out and he made sure to thank his Aunt T for coming up and helping him during the huge yard sale he had organized to raise toy money for the hospital.  Good man!

 

 

Thanks to all the seminar stuff (and Jon), I hadn't been able to play racquetball for over two weeks and I was definitely starting to feel it by having more heart episodes than usual.  So, after working all day trying to get caught back up at the office, then I'd come home and take care of grandma, then play racquetball, and squeeze in sitting with Jon some more at the hospital.  Of course this week also ended up being the combined auxiliary training meeting where we as the stake Primary presidency joined with the stake Relief Society and Young Women presidencies to train all the ward presidencies.  I just can't catch a break!  So glad that night is behind me.  Now I just have to worry about the Baptismal Preview in January!

Seminar Stuff and Jon

I managed to take care of everything I needed to so I could focus on just seminar stuff for the entire week.  My careful prep didn't take outside factors into consideration...

We put together the seminar binders on Thursday night, and then all day Friday we did all the fact checking like usual, dropped the envelopes off at the hotel and picked up the chocolates.

Saturday was an early start to the day to work on seating charts.  We finished in the afternoon and my friend, Amy, came up so we could go out to get dinner.  She spent the night in Bountiful with Amanda so that we could go to the Monument Park single's ward together on Sunday.  Saturday night though, I got a text saying Jon had gone to the American Fork hospital sick and wasn't doing well.  Sunday morning I got a call saying he was even worse.  I canceled with Amy (and felt so bad because she'd come up just to spend time with me!) and ended up driving down to the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center hospital where Jon had been transported in Provo.  By this time, he was intubated and in the ICU's ICU section of the hospital.  Brett and Dana had stayed with him the evening before in AF while he was incoherent and going through withdrawls.  Sunday, all of us there met with the doctor as they tried to figure out how his lungs had gotten so infected because it wasn't normal.  Dana, Lori, and I stayed with him for awhile after that and it was pretty awful.  Lori had to leave after a bit because it was so hard to watch.  Jon was restrained to the bed and kept thrashing around because of the withdrawls still and he had tubes everywhere.  He was so agitated, that the nurses had me stand next to him and talk to him to try to calm him down even though they had him heavily sedated.  The only place it felt safe enough to touch him was his head, so I stroked his head and talked to him and used a tissue to keep wiping his eyes where tears were leaking out as he choked, gagged, and thrashed.  There was a particularly bad moment where he started coughing up tons of blood while he was intubated.  The nurse got a long suction tube and started to suction out his mouth and throat, but then asked me to hold the suction tube while she went to take care of something else.  So there I was, stroking Jon's head, telling him he was okay, and suctioning blood from his throat.  They had to change all the wraps on his intubation tube after that because they were blood soaked.  As bad as that was, it got even worse later.  Dana had finally called mom and dad to give them an update when Jon started choking up blood again.  I jumped up to help the nurse who had me do the suctioning again while she tried to take care of all the alarm systems that had started going off.  Huge chunks of clotted blood and fresh blood were gushing out and I glanced out the doorway and two male nurses came in when they saw me doing the blood.  They took the tube from me but then had to ask me to take it again so they could go help the other nurse who was trying to take care of the problems causing the alarms to go off.  So there I was, stroking Jon's head again, suctioning huge chunks of blood out of his mouth and throat, and this time I had to keep telling him, 'we're okay, we're okay, we're okay.'  It. Was. Awful.  Dana had hung up the phone as soon as the choking and alarms had started which was hard on mom and dad because they could hear some of the things going on.  Definitely one of the worse days of my life.  When they got him as stable as they could that evening, I left to drive back to Salt Lake and cried the whole way there.

Monday and Tuesday we continued with the seminar preparations.  We stayed late in the evenings to work on seating charts and place cards and I would get phone updates on Jon.  He kept getting worse.  His lung collapsed, they drained pints of infected fluid out of his lungs, did a spinal tap, drug tests all kinds of things but he kept getting worse.  Wednesday the seminar started and I was over at the temple.  It was a very weird experience standing there as an usher to direct all the temple presidents into the chapel at the start of the morning along with nine apostles and the first presidency, and then rush into the recorder's office so I could get on my phone to get an update from the hospital.  Wednesday was the worst day and I was pretty much just waiting for someone to call me to let me know Jon had died.  In between all of this I kept running around for seminar.

I got to meet President and Sister Callister again, the new president and matron of the Fresno California Temple.  They know and love mom and dad and it was good to talk with them.  I helped them meet and speak with Andrew Unsworth, MoTab Choir organist, after his presentation and he allowed President Callister to play the tabernacle organ and pulled stops for President Callister while he played.  It was very cool!  I took pictures for them and we surreptitiously had them printed out, framed, and then gave the pictures to them as a present on Thursday.  They LOVED it.

Thursday was also better for Jon because he finally started responding to the heavy antibiotics they were giving him.  Friday he started coming out of it, but they were still concerned as he wasn't responding to verbal commands or very aware even though he was awake.  Friday evening after the seminar was a tradition to go out to eat with MaryAnn and her fam to celebrate the end of seminar.  It was an EXHAUSTING week dealing with our busiest week of the year combined with Jon.  Saturday I finally got to drive back home, but went directly to the hospital first and stayed there several hours.  Jon was no longer intubated and was somewhat aware and talking, but it was just a whisper so you had to get up close to him.  He was also very sensitive to smells.  When I walked in, his face lit up and then he started crying and telling me how beautiful I looked and my hair was so nice and that I smelled so good.  That was nice to hear, especially as other people weren't so lucky and he had to tell them to leave because they stank.  I sat with him for over eight hours, then stopped at the store close to 11 p.m. to pick up some dessert for Nathan tomorrow before finally making it home...still exhausted.  What a week!

New Woman

Why yes I did manage to get General Conference tickets for the missionary from dad's area AND some for Lisa and Steven. Lisa was able to sit on the second row. And yes I did manage to get all the seminar usher assignments taken care of in time for our big meetings on Monday and the walk-through of positions. I ended up having to conduct and run both meetings. NOT my favorite thing! I almost canceled the meetings when I found out I was in charge!

 

The view from Lisa's seats at Conference.

Yes I was able to play racquetball on Monday and Tuesday WITHOUT any injuries or pains! I'd almost forgotten how nice it is to play without hurting. After our game on Monday, Melissa and I grabbed some dinner and took it back to her place where she colored my roots, cut my hair and straightened it. I threw EVERYONE off at work the next day because they didn't recognize me. So much so that my co-worker friends actually walked by me without knowing who I was!

 

Another friend wasn't able to see me at
work so she asked for a picture as proof.

Tuesday after racquetball I threw on a skirt and ran to the stake center for my temple recommend interviews. I was Bishop Feveryear's first recommend renewal. The stake presidency member afterward asked me how he did and if he'd read the questions. He did a good job!

 

Lori and I were going to go out to a movie tonight but nothing good is out so we opted to stay in and watch some of the TV series that we're making our way through (White Collar). I was also getting everything put together and packing so I can focus just on seminar this next week. Here we go!

Seminar Prep Time Again!

It's that time of year again. Even with all the craziness, I still love it! MaryAnn and I had our hours long usher assignment powwow and I was able to pass out all of the assignments before leaving work on Friday. Good thing as I couldn't stay late that day since I was driving straight to Heber again. This time to celebrate the Sept/Oct family birthdays. We skype'd with mom and sang Happy Birthday to her. She laughed pretty hard because she had forgotten that her bday was even coming up with all of the missionary work that they're doing. Then we skype'd with Jodie to wish her happy birthday too. This was the very first birthday where somebody actually recognized that I am expected to give individual presents to each family member, and yet they give me a group present in return. Instead of a group gift from Lori, she took me for a pedicure earlier this week and then Cody gave me a separate present at the party. First time that's ever happened. FIRST TIME! I can't believe what a difference it made for me in how I felt about the siblings.

 

Skype-ing Jodie