FREEky Fun Fotos

 

Our awesome neighbor, Kristina, offered to take pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes, free of charge.  Love how they turned out!

Halo Heaven

Ben loves Halo, so last night he was in heaven!  Halo 5 was released at 12:01 AM and Ben stayed up playing into the wee hours of the morning.  I am anti video games so it is hard for me to watch him waste his life.  But Ben is the most hard working, helpful husband I have ever known.  So, if Halo makes him happy, and he's not slacking on his other responsibilities, I guess I can just keep my mouth shut on this one.   

Remembering Brian

I found out this morning that my friend Brian passed away last month.  I wish I had known sooner, I would have loved to have been at his funeral. 

I met Brian in grade school.  He wasn't like the rest of the kids.  He was big, loud, socially awkward and didn't have many friends.  We didn't know it at the time, but Brian was autistic.  I don't remember him well from grade school or even junior high, but I do remember that other kids made fun of him, and picked on him. 

It was toward the end of my 9th grade year, Lagoon Day, to be exact, that I really started paying attention to Brian.  I was there with all of my friends.  We were laughing, flirting with the cute boys, enjoying the rides, having a blast, when we noticed Brian.  He was all alone, looking for something on the ground.  We stopped and asked if we could help him find whatever it was he was looking for.  He said that he was looking for a quarter so that he could call his mom to come get him (back in the day we didn't have cell phones, he needed a quarter so he could use a pay phone to call home.)  We gave him a quarter and then left him to go to our next ride.  That decision weighed on me all summer.  Giving him a quarter was nice, but we should have invited him to ride the rides with us.  Instead, he called his mom and went home. 

Sophomore year changed my relationship with Brian.  During the first few days that year I noticed that during lunch Brian was always sitting by himself.  Perhaps it was the guilt I had felt from my poor decision at Lagoon that prompted me, but I told my friends that I thought we should go sit by him.  They were all for it.  After that, every time we saw Brian sitting alone at lunch, we would sit with him.  The first few times we sat at his table the conversations were pretty awkward.  We would ask him questions, and we didn't get much more than a grunt in return.  Eventually though, we all became friends.  This went on all through high school.  I didn't have any classes with him, and I rarely saw him in the halls, but I always sat by him at lunch. 

Then one day during senior year he slipped a note inside my locker.  I was locker partner with my friend Mindy who had also befriended Brian.  The note was addressed to both of us.  My heart broke as I read it.  It said something like...there had been times when he had wanted to take his own life, but then he remembered his friends, and that kept him from doing it.  We were worried about him, so we went to his house to talk to his mom, show her the note, and express our concern.  She thanked us for our friendship with Brian and especially for caring about him.  We were some of the few who really did.

Later that year he asked me on a "date".  He had never been on one, and I couldn't say no.  I went over to his house and we made dinner together, homemade fettuccini noodles which I believe we turned into fettuccini alfredo.  It was a fun night.  Later he invited both Mindy and I to go with him and his parents to see Les Miserables.  I was tempted to say no, because the tickets were so expensive, but it would have shattered him, he was so excited.  We all had a lovely evening!  Brian was obsessed with Les Mis.  I don't blame him, I love it too. 

After graduation I didn't see as much of Brian.  He did send me an invitation to his eagle court of honor which I was happy to attend.  He also asked Mindy and I to sing at his mission farewell, which was such an honor.  After that we lost touch.  I moved to Connecticut to be a nanny, then went on a mission, then got married.  I ran into him every once in awhile, usually at the hospital or doctors office.  He seemed to be struggling with his health.  It wasn't until I discovered Facebook that I reconnected with Brian.  We exchanged a few messages back and forth in the beginning, but not much. 

When it was time for our 20 year high school reunion I wondered if Brian would be there, and sure enough, he was.   It was a pleasure to be able to introduce him to Ben.  We chatted with him for quite awhile that night, reminiscing.  That was the last time I saw him. 

20 year high school reunion
7 months pregnant

Brian passed away last month of pneumonia, and while I am sad for his family, I can only feel happiness for him.  I know we all have our challenges, but it seems to me that Brian's were much more difficult than what most of us have to face.  I am so glad that he is finally home, finally whole. I feel blessed to have been able to have known him, and to call him my friend.  Love ya Brian!

Halloween a Week Early

Since our exes have the kids for Halloween, we kinda celebrated a week early...

The Pumpkin parade at the Riverwoods
...was kinda lame, to be honest

Pumpkin walk

you got it, Tiago!



so creative!

watch Q pull a rabbit out of a hat...
and not get pooped on by the dove...magic! 

and our ward Trunk-or-Treat was awesome!

I'm lovin Holly as a creepy clown!

The Curse

Since we moved to Utah, Ben appears to be cursed.  He's played in lots of leagues, on lots of teams, and always makes it to the championship game, but just can't seem pull off a victory.  He hates 2nd place.


His latest 2nd place team/trophy

PT

What is the difference between a physical therapist and a terrorist?
You can negotiate with a terrorist.

This is how I left Physical Therapy today...

Not my most glamorous shot, I know.

I don't cry very often, but today I could have filled buckets.  So much pain, so much frustration.

It has been 7 long weeks since my shoulder surgery. The pain still keeps me up at night.  My range of motion is coming back too slowly.  This is not what I had imagined. 

I met with my surgeon last week.  He said that my arm is still much tighter than it should be at this point.  I do stretches diligently every day.  I spend 40 minutes each time I stretch, three times a day.  I feel like it's taking over my life, yet, there is little improvement.  If I can't get my range of motion back on my own, they will put me under and manipulate my shoulder while I'm out.  Not only do I not want to do that, but we can't afford it.  I hate this!

I have never cried at physical therapy before, but the pain was too much today.  At the end of each visit the physical therapist measures my range of motion in various directions.  If there is improvement we celebrate.  If it is tighter than the previous time....well, he forces it until there is improvement.  That's when the pain becomes unbearable.  Even though I put in 2 hours a day stretching my shoulder, I was tighter today than last time.  How could that possibly be?  I am beyond frustrated!  I paid $40 today for torture.     

Fall Break

Out of the blue Ben decided to take the kids and go to Washington for fall break.  At first I thought he must be joking, but he was super serious.  I didn't want to go, and didn't really want them to go either, but I could see that it would make him and the kids happy, so I reluctantly packed their bags and off they went. 

I hear they had a great  time!  Willy had a retirement party while they were there.  The kids got to ride on the quads, play in the fort, and look for frogs.  They also did some hikes, it appears. 

I was able to get a lot accomplished while they were gone.  I mostly worked on stuff for young women's, made Qyntn's birthday DVD and spent a ridiculous amount of time stretching my shoulder (I'll get to that in my next post).  The nights were no fun though.  If you read my previous post, you would know that I don't do well home alone at night.  On Saturday night my friend Lia slept over so that I wouldn't be so freaked out, she's the greatest.   Next time I need to book sleepovers every night!

Anyway, I will be super happy when my family comes home.  I have missed them!

Home Alone

When I was a little girl I was fearless, carefree and completely oblivious to the evil in the world.  It was a happy, peaceful way of life.  Then one day everything changed...

I had returned home from a date late one night and decided to watch a recording of the BYU game I had missed earlier in the evening.  I went downstairs, put on some pjs, got comfy on the couch and quickly zonked.  In the darkness I woke up to a cool breeze on my face.  It felt so nice.   Half-awake I moved to another couch across the room so that I would be able to feel the breeze better.  Then it hit me...why was there a breeze inside the house?  That jolted me out of my sleepy state and I quickly looked toward the back door.  It was wide open.  My heart started to race.  I was certain that the back door had been shut while I was watching the game.  Who had opened the door, and why was it still open?  I watched and listened in the darkness as my mind was trying to make sense of everything.  Then the frame of the doorway filled and a person walked through.  He was inside the house.  I couldn't breath.  I didn't know what to do.  I lay on the couch paralyzed.  Could he see me?  Did he know I was there?  Should I scream?  Should I run?  It seemed like minutes passed as he just stood there looking and listening.  He walked back outside.  He must not have seen me.  I needed to get out of there.  I slowly began to stand up with the intention of escaping the room unnoticed, but just as I stood, he walked back inside.  I stood there, frozen in fear.  Certainly he could see me now, I thought.  A billiard table stood as a barricade between myself and the intruder.   He still did not see me.  What does he want?  What will he do to me?   What should I do?  Then without warning, the word..."Hello?" quietly escaped my lips.  What would he do?  His head turned toward the sound of my voice then he turned and ran from the house.  I sprinted out of the room and up the stairs to my parent's room.   We called the police, who responded quickly and searched for the man, but all they found that night was a black beanie hat that must have fallen from the man's head as he disappeared through the trees behind our house.  Who was this man?  Why was he in our house?  What did he want?  There were so many unanswered questions.  Although he didn't hurt me physically, he intruded upon and violated my peaceful, carefree world, and just like that, it was gone.  I could finally breath, but the fear didn't leave me for weeks, months, years.  Actually, at night, when I am home alone, the fear is still there.