HELLO, SEPTEMBER!!!

I started this post on the first and am just getting back to it.  CRAZY! 

Our Labor Day weekend turned out being something completely different than what we had planned.  Everything feels different with Quayd gone and having only two girls...  No boy to please, not five just four of us, missing his tastes and interests makes things totally different... from where we go and do to what we eat.  It's just so odd! 

  I can now say that Quayd has been out "a couple of months".  July and August are behind us.  Although it's really only been  seven weeks, two months sounds much better than two weeks!  Doug and I were on a little drive this weekend and I asked him what he missed about Quayd.  Immediately and without thought, he responded, "His laugh".  We both miss that laugh of his!

I digress... Labor Day brought a sudden surprise.  Liza texted and called a few times while were in church on Sunday morning.  I didn't answer until our meetings were over.  I went outside, called her and asked if everything was okay.  She'd forgotten that we changed meeting times.  She asked, "What are you guys doing for Labor Day?"  I told her, "Making salsa and going to see Tarzan with the girls.  She then explained that she and Buddy needed to make a fast trip up for less than a day.  

Following their church meetings, they left and stayed in SLC at Buddy's grandmother's, then did what they needed to do in SLC on Monday morning.  They came to our home at around 3 on Monday, but we sort of waited around all day and didn't do anything because we knew that they would be there soon.  We made a very late lunch, then played a few games, they went through some boxes of baby clothes that we are storing here for them and they left and went to dinner with Buddy's folks.  They came back from dinner after 9.  We spent 30 minutes with Aylabelle before bedtime and Liza and I stayed up chatting till midnight.  We are talking about a serious short visit!  Last month, they were here for 12 minutes.  This time, fifteen hours.  That's better!  We packed as much into our hours together as we could, regardless!

I love this picture of Aylabelle giving Gramp her "hello" hug!  I think it's one of my favorite pix ever of both of them together!

Aylabelle thought that picking tomatoes was pretty awesome.  She was pretty good to just pick the red ones.

We snapped quick pictures for Quayd while going through baby boxes in the garage because Quayd was online on his P-day! 

Bedtime... We played a "match game" with this little bowl of resin acorns.  Aylabelle created the game, as we played.  She would place the acorns in a circle around the pumpkin bowl that they were in.  Then, we would find "matches".

As she placed them in the circle, I told her that they were acorns.  Then, when the pumpkin bowl was empty, I asked, "What's this?" referring to the pumpkin shape.  She looked at me like "DUH!" and said, "A bowl!"  Okey dokey then!

Aylabelle is such a joy to be around.  I can't say it enough.  She woke up this morning and came running into my bed.  The girls were gone. Doug was gone. She said, "Good morning, Grammie!  I'm freezing!"  I said, "Good morning!!!  Do you want to climb into Grammie's bed and cuddle and keep warm?"    She said, "No thank you, but I do want breakfast."  Okey dokey then.  She asked for cold cereal and I said I was going to make her waffles.  She said, "Oh!  I like that!" She's too fun!  

It broke my heart when she left so soon.  She said, "I want to stay at Grammie's house for a long time."  She's never slept just one night, so this was a change.  That was the hardest part... just knowing that she was not excited to get in the car and head home yet.  Oh my, I adore that child.  And her mama!

It was lovely having Doug and the girls home all weekend!  We had a great weekend together.  Here's a few other weekend pix...

I made waffles for breakfast Monday morning.  Doug added my cucumber salad to to it as "syrup".  Sick and wrong??? 

Grace, our pickiest eater of all six kids,  tried it and said it was pretty tasty.  Doug said it tastes like salad with extra croutons.  Okey dokey then.

 Here's the recipe, in case you haven't tried it.  It tastes like summer and is our favorite August food!

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1/2 cup sugar

1 Tbsp. salt

2 tbsp. olive oil

lots of pepper

Pour over veggies.  I double the sauce and use about three or four chopped tomatoes, 1 or 2 sliced cucumbers, 1 sliced small onion.   This year, we've been adding fresh peppers, as well.

Zeej spent three hours while we watched old movies braiding Graces's hair into corn rows.  Grace did not like it as much as we did.  She liked the braids but not at the scalp.  She wore her mint beanie and loved it.  I teased her all weekend... "It's summer, why are you wearing a beanie?"  It really was darling!

We've recently only realized that Zeej had never been in a drive-thru carwash. It's better than taking a baby through!  She's so dang funny!

And cute! 

It's fall!  So happy!

 

Life is good!  Especially when  you are surrounded by family!

Quayd's letter #4

I wasn't sure if we'd even hear from Quayd yesterday because of the holiday.  They usually write their letters from a public library, so I figured it would be closed. But, he wrote right on time!  And the coolest thing was that Liza and Buddy were here to snap a pic off to him while he wrote.  This week, he's had some serious ups and downs, from the sounds of it.  We wrote back and forth for over an hour.  I'm amazed at how strong he is.  I don't know if I could go through what he's experiencing and still be smiling.  Wow.  And it's hard to imagine that people could be this bitter and mean to ANYONE, let alone someone who's serving and giving up two years of their life for ANY cause!

I’m here!  Guess who I saw!  Elder Max Allen from SVHS! I’m so happy I got to see him!  We hugged each other! We were so happy to see each other! Yeah, he’s in our district. It was weird.  When I first came on the mission, I was like, “I’ve seen him before.” So, it’s been great.

 I’ve learned so much!  There’s been times where I have been a little home sick. I don't know. I mean I miss you and Dad a lot.  The girls… I’m kinda missing.  It’s weird. 

Anyway, I love the work!! 

I love being yelled at and spat at and beer cans being thrown at us!  It was so funny. I was telling President Dixon about the guys who threw beer cans at us.  They were full! I was telling him how I was a little disappointed the first minute, but, as I was thinking about it, I saw the name tag that I have and how Jesus Christ’s name is the second biggest.  I thought about His life and how many people spat at him, threw rocks at him and also, how many people laughed at him, as he walked the dreary road to his death and how He suffered so much, but, He endured through all of it. I smiled, thinking about Him, and being a representative of Him, almost being like Him or acting in His name. I was thinking and I thought it was so cool, even though, it was pretty disgusting! I said, in my mind, “This is so cool!  We are representatives of Jesus Christ and we are being hit upon with full cans of beer and being laughed at!”  It made my day, knowing that we are representatives of Christ, our Savior.

So, I told my Mission President that story and he wanted me to share it with the visiting General Authority. Elder Jorg Klebengot was awesome! I learned so much! I can’t remember much about the details. He talked about the scattering of Israel and how we were promised a promised land.  He talked about missionary work and a lot of people were shocked by what he was saying because it was different than what President Vancott had taught them.  So, who knows what’s going to change now, but, it was awesome!  We were there for 7 hours!  Crazy, but it was awesome, listening to him, and, also, seeing Elder Allen.

It was weird.  Saturday, I was kinda bummed out for some odd reason. I was reading "Preach My Gospel”.  It was about finding people.  It said that God places people who need the gospel or the light of Christ.  I prayed and we went out to work. I can’t believe how many people we talked to! Some, I was impressed by - like Jesse.  Jesse was walking his dog, named Rocky.  We talked to him and he said that he’s actually been trying to talk to us for a while!  Then, there was this other guy who we talked too for an hour.  Crazy!  He was asking us lots of things.

Then, we went to a bike path and across the street.  While we were waiting for the light to turn, there was this man staring at us with a big smile!  We eventually came over and we had a discussion about religion. We are, now, currently, teaching him!  It was awesome and it’s true!  When its time, God places those who need the gospel! It’s like the saying, “We do not find them, but, they find us.”  So, yeah, that’s my week, so far. It was a great week!

I miss you so much.  I love you!

Elder Corbridge

 Quayd has always been tall, but, the missionary photos make him seem much taller.  He's 6'1".  Whenever I see a group photo, I just look for the tall boys and find Quayd.  I love the blessing of technology in our lives that allows us to miss him a "little" less while he is away.

This week, Doug ran into the father of another missionary serving in Quayd's mission, who is also from our home stake.  The father just "happened" to have a photo of our two sons together!  We were thrilled for another pleasant surprise!

Life is good!  So is being a missionary mama!

not!

Last night, Doug, Carol and I went up the canyon for dinner with Trace and MaryAnn at their trailer. Ann had a wonderful meal prepared when we arrived and, as always, things were perfect!  Ann even had fall tablecloths and decor for camping!  Beautiful!  We had a great dinner, played cards and then sat around a campfire and discussed all sorts of topics and how the gospel affects our lives.  In the course of the conversation, we discussed what a different world we live in today… kids can’t play in their own front yards, we have to watch them all the time, how parents have be overly-cautious.  It was a lovely evening.

We pulled back into our driveway at 9:25.  There was a police car/SUV in front of our house.  The girls, a police officer, Layne and Julie are out on the street. I get out, “What’s happening?!” The officer explains that he's is taking a statement from the girls and Layne.  

Zeej has a new friend, who she'd brought home for us to meet.  She lives a few blocks past our church building, which is just a few blocks from our home.  She’d been here all afternoon hanging out.  The girls made their own dinner, watched a movie, then walked her home because the sun was setting.  Before we left, they asked if they could go do something together.  I had had one of those “feelings” and said, “No, I prefer you just hang out at home tonight.”  So they had.  

As they came back from walking the friend home, they notice this, as Zeej put it, "sketchy" looking guy, wearing a hoodie and baggie pants, standing by the busstop in front of our church. He was staring at them. Zee says, “Grace, let’s cross the street here.”  They were a couple of houses before the bus stop.  They cross the street.  So does he.  In front of them.  He starts walking ahead of them.  They keep walking but slowly behind him.  He keeps turning and looking at them.  They walk slower.  He turned onto OUR street.  They decide to walk across the street on the other side, from the corner. 

The guy is one or two houses ahead of them.  He gets to our home and walks up to the steps of our front door, turns around and stares at the girls.  Not wanting him to know that this is their house, they walk into Layne and Julie's garage and start standing behind Layne's truck, like they are busy.  He looks over at them like, “What are you doing over there?!  You’re supposed to be over here!”  They stay there. He starts getting really agitated and then, he takes off his hoody, then his shirt and starts frantically pacing a crazy 8 shape in our front lawn, just pacing and watching them.  SHIRTLESS! 

So, Zee and Grace could see that this guy is going nowhere, so they, go up to Layne and Julie’s front door and ring their doorbell.  Layne opens the door, sees them, sees that they are scared, sees the guy in our front yard and the second he makes eye contact with the guy, the guy starts bolts, RUNNING up the street towards the mountain.  He bolted! The girls explain to Layne and Julie what was happening.

Layne walks the girls across to our home, and goes through the whole house, looking under every bed and closet.  Then, as he’s going to leave them in the house with the doors locked.  He walks out front and sees the guy down pacing up at the corner to the east of us, under the streetlight.  The guy sees Layne and hides behind the light post, then bolts again!

Julie called 911 and Layne went looking for the guy.  The police came and searched for quite some time but never found the guy.  It was really creepy.  It might have been a coinkydink that the guy walked up to our house, but then, it might have been that he knew exactly what he was doing. What are the chances that he just randomly walked up to our home? We are getting a security system!  SOOOOOO Creepy!

But, the good thing is that the officer doing the report asked the girls, then and asked them again, “What did you do next?”  You crossed the street because he looked sketchy.  GOOD JOB!!! PERFECT!  What next?  You didn’t go home!!!  GOOO JOB!!! PERFECT!!!  He went through their every step over and over and told them that they handled every single bit of it to perfection.  Then, he asked, “I have one more question, what if he had have approached you?  What would you do then?”  Zee said, “Kick him in the balls!”  GOOD JOB!!!! HIGH FIVE!!!  Grace said, “SCREAM LOUD!!!!”  GOOD JOB!!!!! He went on to say that make loud noises and fight hard!  That's the next two steps.

He said that as parents, we could feel very proud that the girls had not made one single mistake and did every single thing that they should have.  They crossed the street, they didn’t go home, they didn’t get too close, they went to a safe place/neighbor. The police circled the block and rode through the neighborhood all night long and will do so for a while. 

It was really really creepy.  The girls were frightened but they were also trying to be calm so that I didn't freak.  I was touched by that.  They were dying that the kitchen wasn't cleaned up from dinner and Layne came through the house.  HA!  That was the least of my concerns! 

When we knelt for family prayer last night,  it was the first time since Quayd left that we didn’t pray for him first.  We were so thankful that the girls were safe and unharmed! Pretty intense, but we were ever so grateful for wise girls, for good neighbors and for tender mercies! The girls were protected!

Oh, this world we live in... where we do have to be so overprotective! I spoke with a detective today and he encouraged us to not allow the girls to be alone at all.  We are always telling them that they have to do everything in pairs and never be alone.  Sometimes, they think that this is over the top, but that's okay.  Last night, they realized that there is merit in our concern!  Again, how thankful we are for their protection.  Hopefully, it was just some guy who was drunk or high and confused.  Hopefully, that's the end of that!  Who knows.  We will always be protective parents... not helicopters but protective.  Because we love them.  And that know it.  And that's all that matters.

Life is good... even when things are not as they should be.