4th Party

It was a very fun 4th of July. We went down to the campground in Idaho Falls and spent two nights there. Melanie's parents came the 2nd night and we had a blast-swimming, playground, smores, movies, A/C, it was great and the kids loved the fireworks as well.

Mark's post reminded me of our trip last year with mom and dad. It was so fun. Dad was on an rv kick at the time. He had his motorhome at that time. Then after that he proceeded to switch to rv trailers instead. He sold his motorhome and got a little trailer. He decided that one was a little too heavy so he sold that one and got another one. He did these transfers all within about a month or so-so hilarious and reminds me of dad to a tee-always trying to improve things till he gets it just where he wants it. Mom and dad had a fun time on the camp trip, as did we. Of course our kids wanted to sleep in Grandma and Grandpa's outfit and not ours. Mom was doing pretty good and Dad was escorting her around the campground to the pool and playground, and eventually the fireworks. The fireworks were great and after I remember her saying she thought this would be a fun family tradition, which is kind of why we did it again this year. We also had a great time this year as well. Melanie's parents came and we had a blast. As the fireworks started I all of the sudden got a little emotional and teary. I couldn't help but think mom would have loved the show, but I also felt like she was watching them somewhere and that she had talked dad into going with her. Sometimes I feel they are a lot closer than we think and that makes me happy. Last night just made me miss them and love them more at the same time. Dave

Laurie

I wrote this post mothers day, but for some reason it didn't post. Today is Mother's day and a lot of my thoughts have been on Laurie. Happy Mothers Day Laurie. My emotions have been close to the surface. Dave was turning off the light tonight so we could go to bed and I looked up and saw a picture where Kameron was hugging Laurie and it reminded me of a small tender mercy that I wanted to write down before the memory escapes me again. All of my kids were especially close to grandma, but Naomi and grandma grew a really close bond when we lived there the last few months. Naomi spent a lot of time at the edge of grandma's bed. She would go there for a hug or a bite of licorice, lunch, dinner, hot chocolate or to spill grandma's water all over the floor. Laurie would interact so cute with her. They just loved each other so much. There were plenty of hugs and kisses that went on at the edge of the bed, and Naomi thought grandma was the best. She just loved to be right by her. I beleive it was the Sunday before we went to doctor Dixon's to find out that Laurie would not be with us for long. I was very tired and emotional and I had this feeling that Laurie was going to pass. This flood of tenderness filled my soul. I was blessed that day to remember everything that Laurie had done for me and so many others. I felt this compassion and love for her that I cannot express, it was such a wonderful blessing. I knew then that we did not have long. This was conformed to me later when I was in the room with Laurie and Naomi. Laurie was in pain from her ear ache. I remeber wanting to help and not knowing what to do. We had been to the doctor a twice to try to help with the ear ache and gotten medicine. Anyways Laurie was in pain. I remember Naomi tucking under grandma's arm and giving her the most compassionate loving hug. It wasn't like her quick I love you hugs, it was much bigger than that. When I looked at them I thought take a picture of this moment you will not want to forget it. It felt like Naomi's spirit was telling grandma it's ok your going to be ok, heaven is bueatiful. Again this was before we even talked to Doctor Dixon. It was a powerful moment.

Happy Mother's Day

Even though mom is gone, I still want to wish her a happy mother's day and say thanks for everything she did. I can't physically give her anything since she passed, but I think there are a few gifts she is receiving. I think the best gift for her right now is that she is with dad and not in pain! As we now in the spirit world our spirits are in a perfected form, how exciting for mom! I don't know how all that spirit world stuff works, but I would hope they get to check in on all of us from time to time to see that we still miss them a lot. I hope she knows that I love her, miss her, and am thankful she's my mom. I love you mom, happy mother's day. Dave

Dennis & Laurie

Last night Dave officially mowed the lawn with the Dixon. Just the other day out of the blue Kyle said I am so glad we got the lawn mower. It reminds me of grandpa. It really does but so do so many other things. I can't quite thinking about Dennis and Laurie and how amazing they are. I miss them so much. This last few months has been the hardest of my life. But I told Dave last night how blessed I have felt to be able to be here. Since day one I adored Dennis and Laurie. One of the first times I meet Dennis I was answering Dave back to go to the dance with him. I gave him a huge stuffed pumpkin man. He say hu that's creative or something like that. When we were cleaning out under the house pumpkin man was still there. His head was missing, but his whole body was there. It made me laugh. I am sure almost everything they had in there house was sentimental or just a good deal at a yard sale. After cleaning out a whole ton of stuff and this is not an exageration, I was talking to a friend about there house. I said they had a lot of stuff, because they loved people and wanted to serve. I said if I told Laurie I liked stamping, she would go out and buy a case of them. Or if our dishwasher broke, Dennis would get a new one and then decide to have a back up on hand just incase we ever needed another one. This last 4 almost 5 years has particularly blessed our lives. Living so close gave us an oppurtunity to see them on almost a daily basis. I loved going on a walk to Lauries to visit in the afternoon. It was always so good and you walked away feeling filled up with life. I so miss Dennis's suprise visits in the morning before I had jammies on, or at lunch or when it was suppose to be time to put the kids to bed. He often would just come in when I was gone and I would find chips or the leftover pizza from goinf out after Chemo. He spoiled us rotten. He wore his personality on his sleeve and I loved him for this. I feel like it was so easy to love Dennis, because he reminds me so much of my own husband. What a man. Laurie was always there with a listening ear. She didn't quite listening and helping with encouragement. She was one of the most charitable people I know. I will continue to write more, because I have a ton to write about this. But for today I just miss them. I know all of my family does a ton. But we are trying to work through it. There has been many little blessings along the way, but I have to say that I am grateful for Dave's family. They are amazing. I was so glad to have Dan and Shalee here they are a strong and serviceful couple. There is no way we would have survived this last few months without there help. I also have to say that I love my family. I echo the same thing without all of my families help, my little family could have not made it. I am grateful for the little miricales and people who are helping through this trial.

Moving on....Mostly

We have finished cleaning mom and dad's house along with Dan and Shalee and the renter's will move in this weekend. The last 7 months have been crazy. Finishing the cleaning is somewhat closing a chapter-it was sad to see the house empty for the last time. I think going over there gave me peace, because I was still close to mom and dad's stuff-and frustration because of all their junk, but at least it was their junk and cleaning the house helped me still feel close to them. Our lives have been centered around mom and dad the last seven months in one way or another-and I wouldn't have it any other way. I miss mom and dad terribly, and I think they will always be present in my mind, not in a drag me down way, but in a loving help me to always remember them way (don't know how to explain it-I know it sounds weird),but am also mostly excited and ready for a fun summer, to give us all some other things to focus on. We need to do a little relationship building within our little unit. Melanie and I are going on a little get away next weekend and are excited. My kids who have been the best little kids I could ask for are in for a great summer. We have an awesome list planned and I just want to see them be little kids and have fun. Many times we were cleaning at the house and they had to fend for themselves, not to mention they miss grandma and grandpa too and have had some struggles dealing with them being gone. It's time to bond and build our little family unit again. We are planning a party hard summer with lots of great things and I am really looking forward to going and playing on the weekends rather than cleaning and I think mom and dad would want it to be that way too. Bring it on summer 2011!

This made me laugh today for some reason

Not sure why, but made me smile

Dad

Mark and Dan's posts regarding dad were excellent and inspired me to write as well. Yesterday, which was dad's birthday was rough for me-a couple of my brothers mentioned I should go to the Thorton Merc in his honor to eat lunch. I had a really hard time keeping it together at work, but reading those posts made me feel a lot better. I also had some family bring me some jerky just cause they wanted to help support.

Mark commented on Dad not liking people chewing ice. One of my favorite things to do would be to get a jolly rancher or ice and sit down next to him and see how long he could go without getting on my case. It was usually under two minuets. He would tilt his head toward me and say something like "you know I hate that right" I would reply yes and keep chewing until he told me to knock it off. He also really hated the sound of people walking on snow and the crunching noise it makes. He would tell me to stop walking or say "Do you really have to walk right now" Good times.

One of my favorite things is that I had to assist in pulling dad out of snow. I enjoyed this on a number of levels. First it was usually always the other way around. I would be stuck or need some sort of car assistance. This time it was dad calling me because I had a dodge durango. He called and said, "I need you to come pull me out." I said sure no problem where you at? He replied, "I'm at my house in the driveway." I said, "Let me get this straight, you're stuck in your own driveway, how did you do that?" "Nevermind, just come pull me out." I drove over to dad's house and it was pretty funny. He was not even backing out of the driveway, he had already backed in so he could pull out forward, however when he pulled out forward he turned to sharp right into a snow drift and could not get out. I started laughing and he looked at me "Very funny isn't it chuckles." Anyway it brought me great joy to 1-have a vehicle capable of pulling him out and 2-that he was stuck in his own driveway, a fact I reminded him of often.

One of the things I miss the most is his random drop bys at our house. This was more so when mom was homebound, I think he just needed some companionship. He was literally stopping by almost daily to see the kids or drop off random things to us. The kids would come running up the stairs and give him a big hug. He would visit with each one of them for a few min. then take off. He loved each one of our kids and knew them personally. Sometimes he would show up just after we had put the kids down for bed, but it didn't matter we would let them out of bed to come see their Grandpa-after all he was making the effort to come see them and we knew he just needed to hang out sometimes. It was so fun and I miss it. It's funny cause after we gave checkers to him he stopped coming over.

One time we were eating Sunday dinner at mom and dad's. After eating a good meal, I noticed that there was some ham on the serving plate that had been cut in pieces. I asked Brianna if she had eaten all her dinner she replied that she had and she went outside to play. After she was outside dad said, "I hate to rat your daughter out but she didn't eat her ham, I saw her put it back on the plate." He really felt bad because he knew we would punish Brianna for lying which we did. Anyway, he thought correcting her lying was more important than keeping it to himself.

I told Melanie I wouldn't go camping unless we had a camp trailer. So we found a nice 1980's beater and went a number of times last summer. Not long after we got our trailer dad got a motorhome. He and mom came camping with us on the 4th of July when they down the fireworks in IF. He decided he didn't like the motorhome and when we went camping at Rigby lake a few weeks later, he had a camp trailer. After that campout he decided he wanted a different camp trailer so he got a different one. It was so funny-but just like a lot of other things in his life-he wanted to makes things just a little better if he could.

As mentioned by others there are some things I have learned since his passing that make me admire, love, and respect him even more. What a great Dad, happy bday!