Dangerous eating . . .

Kade was at the church building with my friend and her two little girls a few days ago setting up and waiting for an activity to start. A couple of 11-year-old girls arrived shortly after them and were playing with and teasing the littler kids. One told the little ones, "Don't get by her! She has bacteria!" Kade responded with a very dramatic, "Eeeeewwww!" as he took off in the other direction. The germy girl asked, "Kade? Do you even know what bacteria is?" He replied, "Yes! My dad gets it every time he eats at McDonald's!"

When tragedy hits . . .

Our hearts have been truly broken this week by a tragedy that has occured in a dear friend's life. Brett's dental assistant's fiance and one-year-old daughter were on their way home from grandma's house Tuesday night when they were in an accident with a drunk driver. Her sweet baby girl died on impact and her fiance is in critical condition in the ICU at a large hospital 100 miles away fighting for his life. With the experience that our own lives have given us, Brett and I have found ourselves grateful to be in a position to help a friend in an impossible time. She has been able to stay by her sweetheart's side while Brett and I have worked with the funeral home and others to make preparations for her last goodbyes to her little one. It has been a bit tender for us to retrace steps that we have walked so recently, but Heavenly Father has put her in our path and us in hers. I'm grateful for the chance to help someone in ways that others have helped me. The last couple of days we have fallen in to bed at night emotionally and physically exhausted and happy to have spared her just a little of both. We are also grateful to be witnessing such an outpooring of love from so many people in our life for our friend. Not all that comes from a tragedy is tragic.

An Eventful Holiday Season

We are alive and well, for all those who are wondering. Forgive me for having abandoned my blog for so incredibly long. Our holiday season has been one of lots of happenings -- some up and some down, but all memorable.

1. Brett and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary in the middle of December! I'm so grateful to be sharing my life with such a fantastic man. Nearly a decade ago, when I was just getting to know him, I would have felt it frivolous to dream of being so satisfied with life and so giddy in love this many years later. Thanks for loving and completing me, my sweetheart!

2. Brett had a minor surgery on the tissue on the bottom of his left foot and has struggled with wearing shoes and getting around since the week before Christmas. He hasn't been able to exercise, play basketball, help move snow, or anything for weeks now. I spoke with his doctor yesterday who said that he won't really notice much healing until the first month is behind him. Yuck! This has been a slight damper on his two weeks of holiday vacation from work!!

3. We had a fabulous, quiet, white, cozy, and exciting Christmas! We really enjoyed doing nice things for people we know and love and neighbors we'd like to know better. The boys got a personal call from Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, and rather than being silent and shy like I expected Kade to be, he said, "Hey, Santa! . . . Yep! It's me, Kade!"

Santa asked Jordan if he had some cookies to leave out for him and Jordan told him we had cinnamon rolls this year. Close to bedtime, while we were preparing Santa's midnight snack, Jordan very nearly changed his mind and left cookies out after all. But then he said, "Wait! I don't want Santa to think that I lied!" and left cinnamon rolls as promised. Jordan got a digital camera from Santa Claus, so stay-tuned for samples from his developing photography career.

4. Brett and I spent New Year's Eve with several couples playing games and eating into the morning hours. We decided that since we celebrated only 2 hours less than our 17-year-old friend/babysitter, we are still young after all.

5. Jordan lost another tooth! It was a lateral incisor, to be exact. It was barely hanging on and driving him crazy when Brett decided to help him get it over with -- He grabbed on securely, gave it a tiny yank, and it was over. Jordan calmly looked at the tooth in his Daddy's hand for a few seconds and then erupted in a bawling fit of pain and anguish -- a classic delayed reaction.

6. Brett and I left our kids with a babysitter and went to the movies as a beginning to his birthday festivities! The gal selling tickets gave us a really strange look when we bought tickets for both a 7:00 and a 9:30 show upon our arrival. I haven't seen two movies in one night for a long time. We had a great time -- except for when we had to move across the theater in the middle of the second show to get away from the couple that wouldn't stop analyzing the show out loud. I was really embarrassed to make such a scene, but Brett assures me that the chatting couple were the ones with something to be embarrassed about.

7. On the morning of January 3rd, I received news that my Grandfather had passed away after 98 3/4 years of life. He was born in Nova Scotia in 1910 and it is quite amazing to contemplate all that he witnessed in his lifetime. He was a man known for his quiet dignity and his wit. I will miss his humor and his example, but am so happy that his time in his aged body is done.

A few hours after we heard of his passing, we were in the car headed to Canada so that we could be with family at his funeral services (we had to cancel Brett's birthday party with friends that we'd been planning for a while! Thanks for being so unselfish, Brett!). We traversed some rather treacherous stretches of road along the way (at one point the snow drifts on the roadway were nearly neck deep in one lane!), but the true adventure began upon our arrival in my mom's home town of Mountain View, Alberta, Canada. During our time there, we had to wait for someone to plow a path for us with a tractor or Skidster every time we wanted to leave one place for another. The drifting snow would make driveways impassable in a matter of minutes. I wish that I had taken a picture of the parking lot during my Grandpa's services, because I'm not sure when a John Deere tractor will be the popular choice of transportation to a funeral service again in my lifetime. I'm sure that the small town's natives had a good laugh about the retarded Americans that were trying to get around in January in two-wheel drive mini vans!! I really thought I was in the twilight zone when there was talk of not employing a hearse, but maybe just putting Grandpa in the back of a four-wheel drive rig that was sure to make it up the hill on the snowy cemetery roads. I was relieved when the cemetery road was nicely cleared and the more traditional mode of transport was decided upon.

The funeral service was a very nice tribute to a wonderful man and I enjoyed every bit of it . . . . . . except for the parts when Kade forgot to whisper. His commentary throughout the event went like this:

Upon arrival to the viewing, in full voice in a really quiet, crowded room: "Who is that old guy?" and "Why are we sitting way back here? I can't even see that old guy!"

Upon being seated in the chapel at the beginning of the service, also in full voice in an even more crowed room in absolute silence: "Does that old guy know that he is closed up in that box?"

Upon the adults' return from the cemetery, when the children arrived in the luncheon hall after playing in the nursery: "Mom, what did you do with that old guy?"

Once we were not having to face people and worry about appearing horrified, red-faced, sweaty, or panicked as we did in the heat of the moment, we roared with laughter about Kade's could-be-offensive attempts to understand this experience. I keep receiving text messages from family members on my phone that say something like, "Hey, where did you put the old guy?" We shed tears of two different varieties that day.