first week of march and it feels like January!

A wonderful beginning at winters end! These storms have been fabulous!  SO Beautiful!  And so much snow!  It's been crazy for the past two weeks.  Today is beautiful with blue skies.  One day it's blue, the next it's grey with lots of white!  I'm loving it!

Our sweet neighbor, Brother Doug Hart, passed away last week.  His funeral was on the same day as my cute niece, Shanna's wedding.  This wedding was the first of Dee and Aleece's kids that I didn't get as involved in. I went from wedding coordinator to consultant because I have so many other things going on.  I told Aleece in January, I didn't dare because, "for all I know, I could have a funeral that day and I'd hate to have to divide myself for both."  As it was, I told last Tuesday that Brother Hart was not doing well and there was a possibility that we could have a funeral on Saturday but I was hoping not.  No sooner than the words left my mouth, my phone dinged.  It was the Bishop letting me know that he was gone.  And the funeral was on Saturday.  Is this not the most awesome hearse ever!?

I spent the day going to the church at 8AM for the set up of the funeral dinner, then to the temple for the wedding, to the church to help get the food and tables set, to the wedding luncheon then back to the church to assist with clean-up and the delivery of the leftover food to ward members.  Then, we cleaned up a bit and headed to USU Alumni Center for the reception all evening. It snowed all day long.  It was a lot of in and out.  But, the funeral was a wonderful tribute to a remarkable man and the wedding was beautiful.  I think that my nephew Tyson's wife may be my replacement in the family wedding department. She did a marvelous job with the few ideas I'd suggested and many more of her own.  It was lovely.  And Shanna was beautiful! We absolutely loved Casey's family, who are from Washington State.  Just a great and wonderful day!

One of my favorite things about the day was watching Zeej and Will at the wedding.  Will is her friend.  They've been friends for a while and are now dating, which according to Zeej,  "Today, dating means going steady" and ""Going on dates" is a totally different thing.  So, they have been going on dates.  But, they are kinda "dating" too.  HA!  Either way, we like him.  He's a nice boy from a good family and he has the same values and standards that she does.  I was impressed that he would choose to spend a whole night dressed in church clothes, sitting at a stranger's wedding reception over skiing with his friends that night.  Brownie points for Will!

My wonderful neighbor Julie has been in the hospital a lot lately with her cancer.  We love her so much and she has the thoughts and prayers of our ward every day.  It's been hard.  She's my friend, my neighbor, my secretary.  This is hard.  I hate that she is having to endure such pain and so many medical procedures. But, I have never seen so many positive thoughts and vibes!  Layne and Julie are my heroes!  I love them so much! I hate cancer.

Zeej has had some brochitis thing happening since December and has missed so much school. There's a lot of bronchial stuff happening at this time of the year, but with such a mild winter until this past week, it shouldn't be so!  This week, she was in class and had a coughing spell.  She texted me and said that she'd just been completely humiliated by her teacher, who said, "Stay home if you are sick, so that I don't take it home to my kids!"  I told her to walk out and if the teacher asked what she was doing, tell her, "I'm leaving.  I'm sick."  That happened.  I called the attendance secretary and told her why I was checking her out for the day.  Twenty minutes later, the Vice Principal called to apologize.  I questioned... what do you want us to do?  She has been on antibiotics twice, she's missed so much school, she is coughing but not contagious.  He admitted that it's a tough call but 24 hours on antibiotics and no fever, she should be in school.  Okey dokey then.  Zeej loves this teacher and didn't want her in trouble, but seriously?

Zeej was been "ProMposed" to by Will.  She was so excited!  We bought him a bunch of treats and she had a cute response for him, then we went prom dress shopping!  She tried on about a dozen dresses.  We narrowed it down to three and fell in love with all three but she ultimately decided on a royal blue dress.  I preferred this black one but she wore black to the last dance and wanted a change.  It's beautiful and we can't wait for the big day of being a princess!

Speaking of princesses, Grace is happily in love.  She's not had much to do with the family since she moved out.  We have all felt kind of abandoned, but these are her choices.  She did, however, take a roadtrip to visit my mother for a few days with him. As far as we know, they are planning a temple wedding in May or June.  Sadness.  Nothing more to say about this.  I've been "asked" not to.

Quayd has been doing well!  He is working for a local company that manufactures circuit boards here in the valley.  He works graveyard, which isn't my favorite thing, but he's so nocturnal, it's a good fit for him!  We had a lunchdate at last week, where he ate 22 breadsticks, 10 pieces of pizza and four salads.  The boy (MAN) is a bottomless pit when it comes to food! 

Doug had a health scare this past week.  He had a vetrious detachment, where there is some tearing near the retina of his eye.  He thought Zeej was playing with a laser light.  It's something that is very common and normal according to our eye doctor.  Doug and Dave had more fun and took more time looking at Dave's recent cycling trip through Viet Nam than doing the eye exam.  Doug was pretty excited for that!  I was just thankful that all was well.  It's always frightening to me when my Granola-man isn't 138% healthy!

That's it so far for the first week of March!  I've been making visits, having meetings, planning some upcoming future events and loving my calling, my family and my life!  It's good!