A friend in the ward came over and played with my kids while I cleaned my garage on Tuesday. Hooray, hoorah, I can park in there now! When the hail came a few days later I was very grateful. I was anyway, but more grateful. On Wednesday I had to shake Josh awake, and he came dragging downstairs with white lips and wouldn't eat. I tried to perk him up and make him go to school, but decided to believe him and let him stay home since I know he loves school. Also Gary said I should. Turns out he threw up not too long after school started, so then I felt guilty I made him wake up when he said he didn't feel good. He threw up a few times that day, and there was a moment when one child was throwing up, one was screaming bloody murder about a cut on his thumb, one was in trouble for causing the cut, and another was being waaay too helpful in helping me clean up the puke, but by evening things were great. Gary didn't get home until 10 because of getting ready for a meeting/trip thing, but a friend brought us dinner that night. She said she had wanted to do something for us ever since Lissy got hurt, and wouldn't take no for an answer. She brought the food, helped me clean up the kitchen, and chatted for a minute. Her service and nice words saved the day! Who knew we would need it so bad when she was offering? Seriously, people are angels. Hope I can do for others what they have done for us.
Gary had a grand tour of the prisons, jails, and receiving centers in central and southern Utah on Thursday and Friday. He went with a bunch of legislators, and stayed in St. George overnight. He said it was an awesome opportunity to learn about the way things really are at places, and then debrief with everyone in the car afterward. As for us, we were sad to not see him, but thought we had stuff planned to keep us busy. Some unfinished Super Saturday projects fell on my head while cleaning out a closet, so a friend helped me finish them on Thursday. Another friend helped me put dinner in the crock pot while she was passing time between elementary school and preschool drop off (yeah, right, she is too awesome). Since we had dinner ready, I made Halloween cookies with the kids to pass the time in a fun way. I wasn't scared to be alone because having 4 kiddos makes me too busy and tired to be scared anymore, so I cleaned up and sat down to drink lemon tea to clear my congestion (remember the yucko sinus infection?). Ahhh, relaxing. Ready for bed. Here's how it went:
11:15 - Gonna get in bed! Oops, no, Andrew is screaming because he is peed, and refuses to let me help him. He does that. Ok, really to bed at midnight.
3:30 - Wake up to incredible hail storm. Sounds like we live in a tin shed, that stuff is so powerful. After about 10 minutes, it subsides, I fall asleep eventually.
4:25 - A man who is not Gary gets in bed with me. I bite him and plan my escape, but realize there is another guy downstairs. Aaah! But, turns out it was a dream. That's good, but it seemed totally real. My pitch black house I was not scared of, is now scary against the backdrop of a thunder storm. Also, a get-well balloon against a heating vent makes a very scary sound when you know not what it is. I try to fall asleep, but no dice, I have to go downstairs, check things out, and read the Ensign a bit. Finally get back in bed and drift off around 5:10.
5:30 - Bolt of lightning shakes the house, and I'm awake. Wish I had an alarm system to warn me of would-be bed intruders.
7:00 on the dot - Lissy is poopy, and refuses to sleep another second. Welcome, Friday!
I felt like a winner on Friday, so I scrapped plans of ambition and helped the kids tromp through the hail. Also started messing with the disaster of the ages called switching seasonal clothing. Now that it's over and I'm alive, the night is very funny to me, especially since I wasn't even worried beforehand! Gary got home around 7:30 that night, all cute and tuckered. We were also tuckered, so there was mutual tucker-age. (Ok, now that I'm finally posting online and it's been a while and I am hugely pregnant, let's put a bit more perspective on this - I was dealing with really yucky morning sickness during this entire time. Made things pretty disgusting.)
Saturday started out as a fun day of soccer, but when I was buying treats for Josh's game I got a phone call asking me to show up at the fire station at 1:15 with Lissy. I had heard some people were organizing a bike rally for Lissy to help pay for her medical bills, but that I actually wasn't supposed to know about it, so I tried to not think about it. When we arrived, I was completely overwhelmed. All of these kind, kind souls, most of whom didn't know us, had gathered to ride. We said a few things, cried a little, and took pictures, and then they took off. About 4 hours later they rode up to our house with an amount of money I consider quite sizable and presented it to us. I have been praying non-stop that these people will feel the love in their lives that they have brought to ours. I don't know how to thank them enough, and the things I said seem so inadequate. This act of kindness blew me away. I feel like this paragraph should be ten pages, because it feels that significant to me, but I'm at such a loss to describe or thank, as I am with so many of the acts of service we have seen. Once again, I pray I will be that person to someone else.
General Conference is awesome, I loved it! The boys each picked someone beforehand they would listen to in addition to the prophet, and they did a good job with listening to that much. Josh chose Boyd K. Packer because of Green Bay Packers. Nice. We tried to learn something about each person we chose to make it more personal. Some day I will have incredible entertainment and reward systems for listening such as I've seen, but for now that was good. For the rest of the time the boys dug in the recycle bin, found a bunch of milk and juice cartons, and played some game involving a ball. Lissy climbed all over us, most often pretending to be a dog.
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