This & That

20, Holy Cow!

This boy turns 20 today. 20 years ago today he was life-flighted from our town to Primary Children's Medical Center where he spent the next 3 1/2 weeks mostly fighting for his life.

Every year on this day, I celebrate the miracle that is this boy's life. OK, so maybe I feel a little scared like I did on the day he was born. It goes with the territory...all those feelings get stirred up with each other, but I am really working on trying to let go of the scared part and just concentrating on the multitude of good things that have come our way. We are so very lucky to have him in our lives.

Family Time

My nephew came home from his church mission last week. He went to New Zealand for two years. He came home with a bit of an accent and a very definite island vibe because....correct me if I'm wrong, B....most of his mission companions were Polynesian. He spent the first week telling his mom how much better "N-Zed" was than home. I remember going through the same thing with Eldest when he came home from Russia. That was a little interesting for me to hear since I grew in the Cold War era.

 The man of the hour. He's nicely focused...needed a narrower aperture, but already had really high ISO's and noise. You will notice there's quite a redheaded theme going on in a lot of these photos. We can thank my grandfather for most of it.

SD Boy and his wife. They've been married a whole year now.

LS Boy and my mother. She's feeling pretty spiffy now that she's had her cataracts done and doesn't have to wear glasses all the time. That hasn't happened since she was a little girl.  It was good to see all my Utah kids. It seems like forever since we have.

My brother. His hair used to be redder than this, but then again, so did mine.

His littlest girl...she's just adorable.

We had a great time mingling with family for the afternoon and it's always awesome to be together for these milestone moments.

His Face

My nephew got home this past week from his church mission to New Zealand (or N-Zed) as he calls it. I'm so happy for my sister. I really, really am. But it makes me miss PB out in the Corn Belt. I'm lucky, though, because he sent me this picture last week so I could see his cute face.

He's pictured here with a friend of his who is from our town and in the same mission. They met up at a mission conference. In his email yesterday, PB told us that he's going to be transferred to a different town. He's not sure where yet, but he's a little sad to be leaving Mt. Vernon. He's really enjoyed it there. In fact, he has a little adopted grandma there who is struggling with the idea of giving him up, but that's the way of it. Still, I'm really glad I got to see his face.

The Camel Story

We got our weekly email from PB and in response to my questions about seeing him in the snow....with a camel, this is what he said, in his own words.

"As far as the camel story goes, they had a live nativity thing in downtown Mt. Vernon.  There was a camel there and so Elder Pass and I got a picture with it.  We used that as our christmas card that we gave to the members that fed us.  The camel's was named Jabbara and had really stinky breath."

So there you go. PB with a camel, in Iowa.

Good Thoughts Appreciated

PB has been in Iowa for about one month and has managed to dislocate his knee. He's wearing a brace right now and waiting for the swelling to go down before he gets a definitive treatment plan. If there are bone chips in the joint, he'll have to come home for surgery. If not, he'll just keep wearing his brace until the swelling goes down.

He's a Hawkeye!

For the last couple of weeks, PB has been in Iowa. He left the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, and flew to Des Moines via Memphis. He got to call us from the airport and we talked for a while. This past week I received these photos in the mail from the mission office as proof that he arrived there safely.

Here he is with the mission president and his wife. They have called me twice to let me know that he is doing great and they are being very careful with his vision. :)

And here he is with his trainer, Elder Pass, from Salem Oregon. My family will know that tears started as soon as I opened the envelope. "Mom's gonna cry." has become a statement of fact with anything missionary related, but I know there are little tender mercies that are afforded me as he's been gone. I KNOW it's good for him to go and be out there on his own being the grown up, but because I stood as the buffer between him and the outside world for 19 years, you'll forgive me if I have an occasional moment.

Some Photos

Just a few images from the day....

Today's The Day!

We are up and out early to head to Utah to drop PB off at the Missionary Training Center. Everything is ready to go. The billion white shirts are ironed, the suitcases are packed, the last minute counsel has been given and the hair is missionary short.

And on the way to that photo were these:

The last minute foyer plaque-worthy photos have been taken.

And the silly ones.

Even with the shorts and flip flops. He's ready to go and excited about it.

The Missionary Letter

About two weeks ago I posted about PB submitting his papers applying for his church mission. Well, it took a little longer than we had planned on for the papers to get back to us, days of him checking the mailbox multiple times an afternoon, being disappointed that it wasn't there.  but Monday afternoon, he came galloping into the house with the envelope from Salt Lake in his hand.

Then we had to wait until his dad got home from work to open it. We got all the brothers on different cell phones, so they could participate (all except for LS Boy...it was 3 in the morning in Ukraine).

And then the big moment arrived. This boy, starting August 31 will be spending the next 2 years in....

The Des Moines, Iowa mission!

I am thrilled.  Having SD Boy in the States really spoiled me and removed a level of anxiety that I had with the older boys serving halfway round the world. PB says he will learn to eat a lot of corn.

And now to the really important business of the day. The cookies. It turns out that his mission boundaries include eastern Iowa and a chunk of both southern Wisconsin and Northern Missouri. We had two people that selected Missouri, so cookies will go out to:

My SIL, Kim and, if you can believe it, Baby Caroline. Yeah, I'm thinking there will be others in the family eating those cookies. I guess it's only fair since the SGB got the California guess last time for SD Boy. So I need to know flavors of cookies from both of you and I'll get them to you after the holiday weekend. :)

It was really fun to see the guesses come in from all over. I had a BIL that sent me an email saying that PB was going to go to the Orlando, Florida, Finnish speaking mission. When I replied that seemed a little far-fetched, he said that PB would spend most of his time in the Scandianvian area of "It's a Small World" at Disney World. Long story behind that, but it would be PB's idea of you-know-where. He would wish for a shotgun to take the puppet people out of their misery.

Artwork

The day before San Diego Boy came home, his one and only sister and one of her friends worked for about 3 hours on this banner that graced the front of the garage. 

He loved it.

I was especially partial to the capital letter "A" that mimicked the den. Yeah, DDT's even on the banner.