Extreme Emotions…

We have been really busy the past few weeks. I’ve been trying to sort through and organize some of the Young Women stuff and make new calendars and lists and other various organizational things which really shouldn’t take that long to do, but which always inevitably DO take a very long time to do! We also had our ward’s Youth Conference this past weekend. It was a lot of fun to go and get to know the girls a bit better and have a good time together. Friday night we had a speaker and a dinner (a Hawaiian luau at a Young Men leader’s house—who grew up in Hawaii and knew the authentic recipes. I brought some leftovers home and Bryan loved eating the food and felt like he was back in Hawaii again.) Then, on Saturday we did a service project at the homeless shelter in Ogden. We helped them sort through their food and re-organize the pantry shelves, then we served lunch to the public. It was a good experience and it sure made me thankful for my blessings. After that, we went to Cherry Hill to play in the water park. It was a really fun weekend.

Over the previous (4th of July) weekend, we were also busy and had a lot of fun…first we went to Bryan’s parents’ cabin in Heber City and enjoyed seeing cousins and grandparents. Bryan & I got to go for a long motorcycle ride together while the kids were back with Gma and Gpa, which was a lot of fun. Before we had kids we used to go for “hog” rides often and I miss it! On the morning of the Fourth, we attended the Hooper City parade and Tess loved running out for all the candy. Good ol’ Hooper…there were many, many horses, tractors, and horse trailers in the parade (and of course the obligatory pooper-scoopers with shovels walking behind the horses). On the evening of the Fourth we went out to Tooele and saw “The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band” in concert, followed by fireworks. It was a real small-town, down-home, fun 4th of July!

We made our annual trip out to Delta for water-skiing on July 5-6, to commemorate the anniversary of my Mom’s death, 10 years ago, when she was only 51 years old. Skiing is such a fun thing for us to do together, and it was one of my Mom’s favorite things, so we always love to go and remember her in a fun way.

Right after that trip, we attended the funeral of our brother-in-law’s father, who died from colon cancer on July 3rd. The funeral was July 8th, and my Mom’s funeral was July 9th, 10 years ago, when she died from colon cancer….so I had an extremely hard time at the funeral. I haven’t cried that much for a long time and I ended up with a horrible headache when it was over. I think it just hit a little too close to home for me. Even though I didn’t know him very well, I knew and understood the feelings that his family must be having at that time. My heart especially goes out to my brother-in-law’s youngest sister, who is single with no children. I was in her shoes 10 years ago…knowing that my mom would never get to meet my husband or play with my kids. It just sucks, plain and simple. There’s no other way to describe cancer. I’ve become pretty bitter about the whole search for a cure…right after my Mom died our whole family really got into the Relay for Life (American Cancer Society) fundraiser and we had teams for a few years, but then I guess I just got cynical and bitter; and so now whenever I hear about someone with cancer I have such a bad attitude and just expect the worst. I feel like cancer is a death sentence, plain and simple. And I know it’s an awful attitude to have! I’m sure there have been many advances in the past 10 years, but I think back to the days of her chemo and I’m just so bitter and negative about the whole thing. And then (then!) the worst part is that when I do hear of someone beating cancer and going into remission I find myself having a hard time being happy for them, because I think it’s just so unfair that some families get a happy ending while my family got the crappy ending. I know, it’s a horrible, selfish thing to say, but it’s my honest first reaction. I do want my brother- and sister-in-law to know how terribly sorry I am for their loss. Nobody deserves to go through that pain, and I’m so very sorry that they are going through it right now.

Whew…sorry for the bummer post this week. I’ve been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster.

Pictures

I forgot to add pictures to the above post…here are the kiddos at Delta; Tess playing in the sand, and Miles zonked out on the float-tube. Also, maybe it was all my crazy emotions…but I got a wild hair to chop my hair again and I got back from my appointment just now. So, here’s the new ‘do. I really like it. I think Bryan is a little in shock. When I asked Tess if she liked it she said, “ummm, not really.” But I think she’ll get used to it, and I like it! This is the shortest it’s ever been (except for that disastrous fluffy boy cut I had in 4th grade that I don’t like to think about…)