WEEK of July 9, 2012

Wow, another week has flown by.  Yesterday was super fun and pure bedlam with the grandkids.  The food was great and the company was even better!  I think we were all exhausted when all was said and done.

Great Aunt Margaret with baby Vona

Bryn

Daddy Russ and Jackson playing computer with Berniece looking on

Emmett playing with his shoes

Auntie Bea with baby Vona

Berniece is never far as she watches over 'her' baby!

Uncle Ivan taking a turn holding baby Vona

The apple of Daddy's eye!

                                                                  Cousin play time! Then yesterday evening Briana took me to the Curtain Club to watch Justin, Vicki and Rob's show with their band Rude King. This morning I met Margaret at her ward for Relief Society.  She was teaching the lesson and she did an outstanding job.  She had to combine two lessons into one, a daunting task!  Her lesson was wonderful.  It was about missionary work.  She shared the experience of the youth this past Wednesday with their tracting 'Prepare the Way' experience and had the ward missionaries come talk about the results and what we can do to help in the missionary effort.  The youth's results were tremendous and the missionaries indicated that in that one hour or so that the youth went door to door they had more referrals to work with than if they'd been tracting themselves door to door for about 3 months!  I think this would be a wonderful program for our youth, so Margaret shared her information with me and the names and phone numbers of their full time missionaries so that our ward can contact them if we decided to do it. I went home to Johnson's for about an hour and then returned to the church for Sacrament meeting. When I got home to Ashley's Bethany was here visiting.  It was sure nice to see her again and to have the chance to visit.  Tomorrow I'll be out house hunting with Erin's realtor Avril Anderson and Margaret and Bethany will be joining me. Baby Vona has a follow up appointment at the doctor tomorrow afternoon.  I'm sure enjoying having the opportunity to help with another sweet grandbaby! SATURDAY - JULY 14, 2012 It should be a fun family day today.  Pascual's and Chatwin's are coming over to the Rush's for lunch and games.

 Then we may all head over to Pascual's to go swimming.  I forgot to bring my swimsuit with me so Ashley and I went to Walmart last night and I bought one and she bought new swim shorts.  It's about time I bought a new one anyway as I've probably had my previous one for 10 years at least and it was getting pretty threadbare! I'm making Darvin's cousin Rohn's Pistolette recipe with baked potatoes and a Dirty Rice recipe we had found on the internet when Lance and his family visited.  Briana's bringing chicken nuggets or something like that for the kiddos and Erin's bringing something for dessert. FRIDAY - JULY 13, 2012 Today I am reminded that each day of our life is a gift from God.  One of our high school friends, Matt Clonts was diagnosed with cancer last year.  His wife has been keeping a blog of their experiences and today as I checked her updates Matt is 'stable' no progression and no regression of the cancer.  She noted in her blog that they still have the normal family stuff, sibling fighting, cranky Mom when the house is dirty, etc, but that this cancer journey that they've been placed on has helped them all to realize that each day together is a precious gift from God.  I need to remember that WITHOUT having to have someone in the family with a life threatening illness!

I got Vona 'duty' this morning.  Ashley's taking a nap and Justin went with Rob to the hardware store to get some supplies to work on the van that their band will be taking on tour.  Justin fed Vona this morning and then let me burp her.  She was wiggly like she was trying to keep herself awake, so I finally wrapped her up in her baby burrito swaddle and she went to sleep.  She's been wiggling around the last few minutes like she's trying to wake up.  She was fed 2 1/2 hours ago, so it's about time for her next feeding.  They've been trying to get her to go 3 hours between feedings in anticipation of her night time sleep training which will start when she reaches 9 pounds. THURSDAY - JULY 12, 2012

Baby Houdini works her way out of her Swaddle Me!

Hey, can a I get a little privacy here, I'm trying to take a bath!

Somebody likes her baths!

Aw, so refreshing!

I made it safely to Dallas yesterday evening.  Ashley, Justin and Vona picked me up from the airport.  What a sweet little peanut!  She has a lot of her Mommy's newborn mannerisms.  I can hear Great Grandma Clement saying, "Why is that baby so serious, what could she be thinking about?"  Vona's a little scowler!  But she has already cracked a smile or two for her Nana!  She's got 3 dimples!  On either cheek and on her chin!

Mommy Ashley with baby Vona

Daddy Justin feeding baby Vona

Big 'sister' Berniece always watching out for Vona

Nana gets some Vona time!

Disaster averted this evening.  Alex had been looking forward to seeing Nana all day long.  We didn't get over earlier enough in the afternoon so he had a big meltdown when Briana put him down for a nap late in the afternoon. She texted me when he woke up this evening and I went over and we played.  He's developed quite the imagination.  He had me set up the tent with the connecting tunnel.

Come on Nana let's play!

 And he drove me around in monster trucks and planes and trains and Nana's race car and Pops's monster truck, etc!  He was thoroughly delighted when I left the tent by squeezing through the tunnel after him!  We played and played and played and he was very happy to have Nana's undivided attention.  We put jewels on his king's crown from Burger King and he told me all about Monster Jam and the Wiggles and.....!!!  Finally read him half a dozen books, sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star a couple of times and got him in to bed for the night! WEDNESDAY - JULY 11, 2012 I had a very enjoyable afternoon at the Pacific Science Center yesterday afternoon with Aidan, Lance and Donna.  In true Aidan style, the boy refused to take a nap before I arrived, so he was exhausted by the time we got to the Science Center.  He was still a trooper.  He enjoyed the 'petting' tide pool

and the 'wet floor' sign in the Butterfly house,

Aidan, the newest Pacific Science Center Butterfly House employee!

Beautiful butterflies AND flowers in the Butterfly House

but his favorite part of the museum was the kids play area!

Silly boy. We then headed to meet Mike, Erin and Hadley at Red Robin in Southcenter.  Unfortunately my stupid TomTom GPS took us on a detour north on the I-5 Expressway instead of south on I-5...in rush hour traffic...Thankfully Lance saw that south Hwy 99 was moving along parallel to the stop and go traffic on I-5 so we backtracked via 99.  We finally arrived close to an hour late.  They'd ordered a kids meal for Hadley in the mean time, which she refused to eat until we arrived.  As soon as we got there she started munching away.  What a little doll!  She had 3 chicken pieces on skewers and a cup of broccoli with ranch dressing.  She ate one of the pieces of chicken and proceeded to share the other two with Aidan!  She was a great diversion for Mr. Sleepyhead!  When Aidan's dinner of mac n cheese and broccoli arrived he devoured THAT too!  AND Donna and Lance had been feeding him snacks on the way to dinner.  That boy can put down his groceries!  I'll sure miss the little guy! Mike was kind enough to be our taxi service.  He followed us to the hotel, helped us unpack and then followed me to Darvin's cousin Candace Boelter's house where I parked the car for my 3 weeks away.  Then we headed to Mike's to get Molly and they took me back to the hotel.  It was a very enjoyable evening all the way around.  I felt bad though because we kept Mike up so late, he was working at 4 a.m. today!  Was so good to see him again and catch up on visiting.

I extended invitations to Mike and Erin to come visit Yakima with Hadley once I get back.  I think Hadley and Alex would get along marvelously! Got my Biggest Loser DVD workout in late last night.  I'm going to try to be creative today and walk the airport in Denver during my 1 1/2 hour layover so I don't need to worry about 45 minutes of exercise when I arrive tonight in Dallas.  If I didn't have carry on bags I'd jog the airport!  But I guess walking will have to do!

TUESDAY - JULY 10, 2012
May the travels begin...again!  Today I'll head to Seattle after I take Grandpa Clement to his doctor's appointment.  I got all of the cherries dehydrated yesterday.  The Rainiers were ready to come off the dehydrator this morning.  The Bings are still a little too moist.  Hopefully they'll be ready before I have to leave.  I feel a little sad that I dehydrated all of them since we hope to be moved to Texas by this time next year I won't have access to .50/pound u-pick cherries!  I had some people mention that they freeze theirs so I put a couple of pitted Bings in the freezer.  Darvin and I tried them this morning and they were quite tasty.  If I had a little more time, I'd go out and pick some more as Darvin said he'd pit them and freeze them.  But since I don't, if he really wanted to give me a nice surprise he would go out and pick them, pit them and freeze them!  Time to get on with my day!

 I arrived and Lance and Donna's hotel about 2:15 p.m.  Lance and Aidan could see me from their window when I drove up.  Aidan was pretty excited to see me and the feeling was mutual.  We waved back and forth at each other!  When I came around to their hotel room the first thing out of his mouth was "bee-kee".  He wanted me to get out my cell phone so he could look at the picture of his beloved cousin baby Brooklyn.  Cutest thing EVER!!

MONDAY - JULY 9, 2012
Today didn't start out so well for me!  I took Abby out running with me this morning (upon Darvin's suggestion), when we arrived home hot and sweaty (temperatures have been reaching the high 90's to 100's) Darvin had locked us out and went to work.  Previously it would have been no big deal because we had a key hid in the back garage.  After we had a theft in the garage recently we got a lock for the garage door and Darvin removed the hidden key.  So I went to our neighbors and borrowed Laurie Matthew's cell phone.  I tried to get ahold of Christie Afualo first because they have a key to the house and live nearby.  No answer, I left a message in the hopes that she was in the shower or something and would see the message soon.  Then I tried to remember Darvin's cell phone number to ask him to come let us in.  Now, I am the woman that can remember my social security number, Darvin's and parts of the girls, I know Christie's number by heart, but do you think I could come up with Darvin's number?  Not even if my life had depended on it.  I called his old BiMart work number (where he hasn't worked for 6 or 7 years!) somehow I could remember that one!  But Darvin is #2 on my speed dial, who needs more than that, right?!

Well, in frustration I left and of course as I was stepping off the Matthew's porch, Darvin's number came to me.  So I rang the doorbell again and borrowed the phone again, all the time sweating all over poor Laurie's cell phone!  No answer of course!  So I left again, then thought that although Darvin usually can't get a phone call on his cell phone because he works in the basement of the hospital, sometimes a text will get through.  So once again, I ring Laurie's doorbell and ask to borrow her phone (how embarrassing!).

Then Abby and I meandered home where I checked to see if by some slim chance Darvin had left any of the windows open.  No such luck!  Abby got a drink from the dish in the back yard and then we wandered up to the front porch and sat down in the shade.  As I was sitting there it occurred to me that I could be waiting for quite a long time if neither of my messages went through and I had a visiting teaching appointment at Erin Jones' around 10 or 10:30.  I couldn't bring myself to ring Laurie's doorbell one more time, so I walked down to Nic and Clara Rasmussen's.  Clara answered the door and let me in where I looked up the hospital phone number in the phone book and proceeded to borrow HER phone to call.  When the pharmacy answered they indicated that Darvin had just left.

The rest of the day kind of went the same way!  But, when all was said and done I did get a lot done and I'm pretty well packed and ready to head to Seattle tomorrow after I take Darvin's dad to his doctor's appointment.