We're Back!

I'm glad I was on a boat for that whole little good v. evil contest. Yaktown. Sienna had this video done about 5 minutes after we got back. She's something of a marvel. We should hire her out as a nanny/videographer for trips. But I want to keep her all to myself.

I have no idea why people would rather go to work and school when they could be on a boat. Why anyone would choose to be an orphan is beyond me. #spoiledbrats




Here is her SHARK WEEK video:
TRAIN actually posted this video on their facebook, blog and official website. (See it here) They are much cooler than Keith Urban whose music label EMI blocked Sienna's video for my family's reunion because we used Long Hot Summer. Boo to them.




 Here's the Stroud Family Reunion:

Given this land if we live righteously!

I love politics.
I hate politics.
Because of the political storm I spend a lot of time listening to talk radio and watching the news.
Because of the political storm, I rarely get on Facebook or read many of the blogs I used to.
I can get so depressed. I get so fired up! I want to yell and shake people! I want to prove that I AM RIGHT. Which is funny because that's wrong. It's pride. So I'm in a pickle (Did the Cardinals secure the wild card spot last night? I fell asleep before the end of the Dodgers game . . . never mind) As I was saying, I'm in a pickle. Caught between wanting to share what I believe to be right (which is right) and wanting to share that I am right about the right being righter than the left (which is wrong). Right?

So we have the BIG DEBATE tonight and I have been a mess. I have a heart condition left over from the radiation and I swear my heart wants to implode every time I think about Romney up against Obama tonight. Obama is a scary competitor because he doesn't have an obligation to the truth. He's the kid saying he'll put a free soda machine in the cafeteria and no homework ever again! How does one go up against that? I can't stop thinking about it. Luckily, I'm also cleaning out my storage room which is also scary but it gives me time to listen to the Book of Mormon. I did something similar to this earlier this year and found that it just is the most peaceful way to get through something as awful as me being a candidate for HOARDERS.

Isn't it funny that a book written 1500 years ago can have so much to tell us about our day? It never ceases to amaze me. How could these people know what to include to give us hope and faith in our vastly different day? Part of the answer is that our day isn't vastly different. The cycles that happened throughout that book are happening now. And situations that happened then are recurring. And it is my belief that one of those instances will replay tonight.

I believe we have the chance to see a miracle. The Lord is not asleep or playing racquetball. This is His chosen land where freedom will prevail as long as there are enough righteous people willing to work to preserve it. As long as we haven't been lulled to sleep by the philosophies of men. All is not well in Zion. So will this be the time that we wake up, repent and save ourselves? Or will the majority choose evil and make us ripe for destruction. These are SO Book of Mormon days!!!

Yes, I said EVIL. In our politically correct times, there are people whose fingers are twitching to write a scathing response even now as they read this. How dare I?! I'll tell you how. Because truth doesn't manipulate itself to fit into an awkward politically correct shape. Truth is truth and sometimes it cuts.

We came to this earth to work. By the sweat of our brow we make our bread. We are to learn to choose good. To choose charity and to help the people around us. To choose for ourselves what we do, how we spend our money, what we eat and who we help. If we are Christian, we are to stand up and say so. Commandments put forth in the Bible are still in effect today. We are not ashamed.

Our current administration would have us believe otherwise. I do believe they are scratching away at our freedoms one by one and looking to put us into bondage by allowing the government control as much of our lives as possible. They would love to tell us what we can and can't do with our religions. What we can and can't do for our children. What our businesses can or can't do. There ARE bad people in the world that make bad choices, but that is no reason to take away our chances to choose for ourselves. This land is a place consecrated as a land of freedom and the Constitution is a divinely-inspired document not to be torn or trampled underfoot. Kingmen.

It's just all so familiar. But also is the instance where the cunning man, wise as to the wisdom of the world, the lawyer who is expert and uses much flattery to lead away the people comes up against a man of God. That man of God may be old or weak in speaking. Or maybe he's got perfect hair and is well-spoken but a bad debater. What matters is that he has the Spirit. If he has the Spirit, he will confound the wicked. (Ooooh! I hope Obama asks for a sign! Do it, I dare you! . . . I guess that's not very Christ-like.)

I believe Mitt Romney is a man of God. He is a good, prayerful Christian man who has lived by the Spirit his whole life. He has heard the Spirit ask him to help people around him and he is never too tired or too busy to answer. He doesn't want the stories told, but if you look for them, you will find them. They told a few at the Republican convention. Here is an article with a few. More were told on the Blaze. They are videos of people telling about their various encounters with Romney.  Watch them and see if you think he is good.

So if he is good and God is not asleep, then tonight will be an amazing night. Tonight Romney will come off as good to those who have enough light left to see it. Does it mean he will win? No. He might, and I pray he does. I think he has to do well either way because when we write the scriptures of our day, we need to be able to say that it came to pass that the people were given a clear choice of whom to follow - to once again choose between liberty or captivity.

Fast and pray oft over the next few weeks. i have joined a group called SWARM and they are hosting a 40 Days of Fasting. I have signed up for the 25th of October. Join me?

Five Years

Five years ago today I was getting a biopsy. I was in the hospital in St. Louis wondering what I had and what it was going to take to get rid of it. I couldn't see my future because there were so many unknowns. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that I would be fine and that I'd even get to have another baby AND a treehouse. Maybe I did. Maybe that's why I felt fine through the whole thing.

It really seems like a dream. It went by so quickly and was over. After October, I start seeing my oncologist once a year! Phew. I have a few long-term effects from the chemo and radiation, but nothing that holds me back too much. My heart is a little scarred and we're working out a plan for that. Nothing life-threatening or scary.

This year has been kind of crazy because I did all the things I did that summer. We had the same reunions, went on the same big vacation and even played on the same jump house. All things I haven't done in between. So of course I have been worried but the odds of it coming back now are less than 3%. So maybe I didn't catch it in Tahiti or like a germ that smells like feet on the jump house. It was just lightning.

I went back and read some of the blog from the beginning and it was good. Not the blog, the time. All of it. Definitely worth it. There was a woman on the radio a few months back talking about how she had a near-death experience. She had been an atheist and woke up a Christian. But that's not what stuck out to me. They asked her, if she could communicate one thing she learned on "the other side", what would it be? She said,"It's hard to explain because it doesn't make sense. The most important thing I learned is that the good in life is good but the bad is also good." I couldn't agree more.

Thanks again to everyone who helped and supported us so much during that time. You changed my life.

Baby Beck and the Frog

This cracks me up. He's so offended by the sliminess.

THANK YOU!

Sienna got more than 2,000 views on her videos. She said it was the best day of her life. My mom printed up a little note about her channel and went to the high school on her day off and passed them out at both lunches. Is your mom that cool?

Here's her latest. It's my favorite thus far. I can almost stomach this song now.

Sien8na

Sienna's birthday is Friday. She has a youtube channel and she gets so excited when she sees that people watched any of them. At any given moment she can tell you how many viewers any video has. Somebody she didn't know commented on one and she was dancing around the house.

SO... if you guys would watch a few OR just set them to go without watching so it shows up as a view, that'd be awesome. ALSO, maybe put a link on your facebook asking people who are strangers to her to leave a comment? Or subscribe? I can't put it on mine because I'm friends with some of her friends and she'd find out.

Anyway, it'd be her happiest birthday week ever.

Thanks in advance!
Person

Here's a link to her channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/sien8na?feature=watch

And here's a few of my favorites:

This one she made with a bunch of videos Preslie made of herself (with some Sisi added)



This one is not for wusses. It scares me.




Superheros with some weirdo powers.





And finally . . . i don't know what to say about this one. I promise they weren't on drugs. It makes zero sense and yet it's my favorite.

THANK YOU!!

The First Week of School

Do you ever have that dream where you are under water and you can almost get your mouth to the surface but then you get sucked down? Luckily, I can breath underwater and run effortlessly in my dreams. But I can imagine that the drowning dream is akin to the last few months of my life. It's been crazy ever since Beck was born. I should have blogged about it but . . . you know.

Anyway, as once again I have completed the obligatory "I haven't blogged because. . ." , we can get on with things like THE FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL. Sadly, this won't be a post about their perfect hair or cleanliness or how organized I am. Far from it. Imagine if someone picked up your house and turned it on its side and you still had to function. That's about how that week felt. I had taken on too many projects (stupid pinterest.) AND Lexi was coming to visit. The kids are lucky they went to school at all.

We made it until ten-thirty on Thursday unscathed. But then the nurse called.

Please read in your most "old-lady perfume" voice:

"Mrs. Stroud, hiiii. I have Camryn here in my office. She said you wouldn't let her have breakfast and she's shaky and weak."

Flashback a few hours and you'll see Camryn laying on the floor and me pulling her almost lifeless body to the shower. A few minutes later that same Camryn will be lying on the floor wearing only a towel and will require being dragged to her closet. This went on for TWO HOURS. During that time I asked her exactly 576 times to please eat breakfast. As 4/5ths of us were walking out to the car, Camryn grabs a bowl for some cereal.

Please read in your most "I want to take you out to the desert and leave you with a canteen, a book and a note for whomever finds you" voice:

"Sorry Cams, too late. YOu cAn't haVe CerEaL. You can have a granola bar, gogurt, or a banana in the car."

Read in a Banshee voice:

"I HATE ALL OF THOSE THINGS!!!!"

Now read my response in the same voice as before but cover it in syrup because the neighbor kid is there:

"OK, I'm sure glad you ate a lot when we went out last night because you're going to have to wait until lunch."

Flash forward. I tell the nurse that Camryn CHOSE not to eat. She said,"We-elll, that may be true but she says she al-so didn't get enough dinner last night . . ."  Ugh. Whatever. I tell the nurse that that is true and that she should feed her as many saltines as she has because I won't be feeding her again for quite some time.

Oh well. I went back to doing things that in no way help me to prepare for the arrival of my sister or help me finish any of my 32 projects.

1:30 pm. Same day:

"Mrs. Stroud, hiiiiiiiiii. Don't worry, nobody is hurt. It isn't even about Camryn. I have Mason in my office and apparently while he was out at recess he found a dead cicada that was covered in maggots. He chose to put it in his pocket, so I made him change his shorts. I just wanted to inform you so that you wouldn't be concerned when he came home in different shorts."

"Oh, neat. Ok. Hey- do you want me to stop by and pick up my You're Awesome award or do we have to wait until the end of the year? It seems like just a formality at this point . . ."

The end.

FYI - I googled "dead cicada +maggots". I don't recommend that. Here's just a dead cicada.

New Shark Week Blog

http://oursharkweek.blogspot.com/

We have tons of crafts, food and games planned. We have already trimmed the shark tree... or something. Check it out . . . later today . . . when I finish it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ /\ ~~~~~~ \O/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ !

HAPPY SHARK WEEK!

Baby Beckham

Starting about last December, when people would ask me when I was due, I'd say,"May 27 but I'm having him May 7." I had made up my mind that I was getting that sucker out the first Saturday after he was full-term. It would be perfect. Jaymee wouldn't have to miss work, I'd get to stop being pregnant (which I hate with the fire of a thousand suns), I'd get to be away from home on Mother's Day (a long-standing tradition in my home so that my family can stay alive), it's my best friend Mami's birthday, he'd be old enough to travel to Utah for Jamey's wedding in June . . . it was brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

So I rubbed my belly and told it the plan. May 7. May 7. May 7. On May 2nd I started having contractions and went in to the hospital. They sent me to the mall to walk and walk and walk and then come back when the labor gotten bad enough that I killed somebody in Naartjie. Six hours later, the contractions had stopped altogether. It was fine with me because I still had some stuff to do and he wasn't supposed to come until MAY 7.

On May 6, I went to lunch with a bunch of friends and they joked with me,"tomorrow's the big day, right?!" I affirmed that it was indeed. There was some eye-rolling but I told my uterus to pay them no mind. They didn't know the deal we had made.

About 6am on May 7, I woke up with hard contractions. Jaymee woke up to laughter. Ha! Ha! It's May 7 and I'm in labor! We called Mami and told her she could have all the Cardinals tickets because we were heading to hospital! Stop by after the game to see the baby! We got our stuff together and left. When we arrived, they confirmed I was indeed in labor and gave me an epidural within 30 seconds of getting there, bless their hearts. About that time I got a snarky text from Amy saying, "how's the hooossspital??" I told her everything was great and I had just gotten my epi. WHAT?! Ah ha ha ha. So funny.

(our three seconds together)

Everything went perfectly. No pain. A push and a half and I was done. It's easy to deliver a five pound baby. I saw him for about three seconds and they stole him and started freaking out. Well, as much as baby docs freak out. Baby Beckham couldn't breathe. SO they whisked him away to the NICU to live for the next eight days. Poor little guy.

(poor little guy)

(Mother's Day. It was a very fancy NICU. Ties were NOT optional)

They hooked him up to a bunch of monitors and machines and put so much tape on his face that his eyes swelled shut. He had only seen the world for about and hour. Sad. The first day they let me hold him. I spent all my time with him. The next day, they wouldn't let me hold him and they wouldn't let him eat. Did I mention poor little guy? It was killing me. They kept telling me that I'd be able to hold him "tomorrow". Then on tomorrow, they'd tell me the same thing again. I should have been blogging back then but I was sad and didn't want to be away from his bedside for one minute. On Tuesday they discharged me (no discharge cookies this time). I went to live in the NICU and then on a hard chair in the hall when I wasn't allowed in there. They took pity on my and let me back in my room for another two nights. On Tuesday night he took a turn for the worse and they had to intubate him. (PLG - poor little guy) Whatever they gave him while intubated did the trick and he turned around within twelve hours. On Wednesday I was holding him and feeding him a drop or two (they are stingy). But that night I had to go home. No empty rooms. Just empty arms as I left the hospital which is 45 minutes away. That was awful. I was back first thing in the morning and he was moved on to just oxygen through a nasal canula instead of the big apap thing. They took some of the tape off his face. I could almost see it. When I got there on Friday morning, they had taken off even more tape and I could see his whole face. Man was he cute. He even opened his eyes for the first time in a week.

He was eating like a champ and they said he could go home if he passed the "car seat test".

(Look how tiny! It's like that old skit with the girl in the HUGE chair. Was that Hee-Haw?)

We brought him home and I realized that I had been so worried about him at the hospital that I hadn't remembered that I had had a baby. I was fine. I had been taking my meds like clockwork and somehow didn't even notice the healing. It was so bad with Preslie that I was crying for days. Tender mercy much?

(ten days old. can anyone resist a baby yawn?)

So that's what happened. Geez. Get off my back and let me go snuggle with the cutest baby ever. He's my best friend.

PS We sold Fiyero (the bird eating cat) and Hinckley got a fish hook through his paw that had to be removed by the vet. The turtle is fine. Suckers.

SHARK WEEK!!

As you know, Shark Week is next week. Is all your shopping done? Treats made? Crafts planned? Every year I think I'll get everything done by June so I can just kick back and enjoy the holiday, but here I am once again scurrying to get it all done.

I can check the "Shark Week T Shirts" off my list. If you haven't gotten to it, you can have some of mine. Just let me know by 8am, July 26th. $10 +$3 shipping. Paypal.

hi. i promise.

"Dear Shelby. We are all tired of your bobbed tail cat. We discussed it at lunch the other day, all 7 of us. Please show a picture of your newest child and write something un-pet related. Love, all 7 of us at Bazzill"

I promise to write about my baby, etc. by Wednesday. If not, I'll pay you a dollar. Sorry Bazzill Seven.

Bobtail Cats

Yesterday, Camryn threw an amazing and barely death-defying tantrum before school. On her way out to the car she slammed the door going into the garage with all her 10 year-old might and in the process chopped off Hinckley's tail. He had to have the part that remained surgically amputated and now wears a cone of shame.

That is the animal news of the day. Do I have the right to cut off one of Camryn's fingers? A toe? What is appropriate in this situation?

And

I'm bored of pregnant.

More Carnage

Another pet gone. I won't go on and on. This is not a dead animal blog. I won't say it was Oscar and he was the best pet I ever had. I won't tell you about how he never left my side the entire time I was sick. How he went in to bathroom with me when I puked and down to the fridge with me to eat some of Darlene's pie at 2am. That every time I blogged he was sitting behind me on my chair. I won't tell you that he slept by me for ten years. Because this is not a dead pet blog.

I will tell you that I am weak-hearted and have had a very hard time. It's been two weeks and I still cry. What a baby I am. I guess I'm a crazy cat lady. He didn't come to bed one night and then I never saw him again. He had kidney disease and probably wandered off to die. That's part of the problem. I just don't know. Maybe he was translated.

Maybe I replaced him with a maniac himalayan kitten. We named him Hinckley so he will be cute, wise and live forever.

The Horror! The Horror!

As I contemplate the overall contents of this blog, I realize that a large portion of it is dedicated to animals. Mostly animals that die. Maybe I should make a separate blog for dead animal stories. But I won't. I'll continue to share here the terror I have faced on about a bi-annual basis.

Sometime in October a place opened in my little town called "Oasis Exotic Birds". Being a lover of all things feathered, I took my kids there one Thursday. They had a bunch of cockatiels in a little glass pen and you could hold them and play with them all you want. I was permitted to go in the other room and grab me a cockatoo or macaw. It was so fun and the birds were so sweet. So sweet that we started going every Thursday after school. One little gray cockatiel decided it loved Sienna. It would get so excited when she came in that it would leap to her shoulder and nestle into her hair. It would tell her all kinds of bird stories in her ear that the rest of us couldn't understand. Stories about eating seeds and looking around, mostly.

Finally at Christmas we brought him home. He had been "Murphy" to us for some time already, so we didn't need to name him. Sienna was as happy as I have ever seen her. She fed him and held him and cleaned his cage. All the kids loved him. He was a sweet, sweet bird.

Do you feel foreboding?

We decided to bring his cage down to the kitchen so we could all spend more time with him. He was out of his cage as much as he was in it. Always on somebody's shoulder. Friday morning we caught Fiyero, our wild leopard cat (who is a jerk) eyeing Murphy's cage and licking his chops. Sienna was nervous and moved the table even farther away. Then I took her to school.

Dun dun duhhhhhh.....

When I came back I woke Mason up and made him breakfast. I went in the other room to turn on the lights for our box turtle Gregory Von Turtlestein. Then it all started. Mason started screaming,"I'M SORRY! I'M SO SORRY!". I ran in there to see Fiyero running out with the bird in his mouth. I chased him screaming out of the house into the 2° weather. In my t-shirt I ran around the back and down the hill falling through bushes and trees as I went. I caught him but it was too late. Murphy's neck was broken. He was dead and I was pregnant and lying in the snow. I took him back inside and held him until he was no longer warm. Mason was a wreck. He wasn't supposed to take him out without me or Sienna with him. He hid behind the curtains and sobbed. Camryn came down and wailed as only she can. She could be a professional mourner. It would be a good use of her talents.

Preslie didn't care.

Luckily, Sienna was at school.

Mason pulled himself together and I took him to school. I figured it would be a good way to take his mind off it all. I came back home and climbed in bed and shook and cried. I'm so glad I haven't had to deal with horrifying "people" incidents instead of animals because I would not be ok. Jaymee told the kids to never get hurt or die because "Mom would implode." It's probably true. It wasn't that I was sad for my own loss. It was that it was traumatic and horrifying and I knew it would be the worst day of Sienna's life. I dreaded telling her. How could I tell her? How could she forgive Mason? How could she forgive our jerk cat if he ever came home... he may have been kicked. . . can't be sure... it's all a blur.

Jaymee came home early and we went to pick her up together. I told her we had to talk and started crying yet again. I said,"Fiyero..." and she looked horrified so I thought she understood. Jaymee finished my sentence (gingerly) so I could sob,"ate your bird." She said,"PHEW!! I thought the baby died. Then I thought Fiyero died. I'm glad it was only the bird." I guess that's a good way to tell somebody difficult news. "Mom? Dad? I'm dying of cancer - yep. A week to live ... just kidding. I'm just gay." Phew.

It's a BOY!

And he is cute. There was a little red flag on his ultrasound but we're hoping it's nothing. Keep him in your prayers.

Will someone come take down my Christmas tree?

Words to live by

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."

— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Miracles

When you've been given a miracle as big as your LIFE, it's hard to ask for more. I've seen my share of miracles. I've been part of miracles.

During our first year of medical school we quickly ran out of money. I was working part time at a florist while Jaymee watched Sienna while studying at home. Other days, I babysat for a very generous family in our ward. But it wasn't enough. We were broke and still had a lot of bills coming up before our next loan in January. We tallied them up and figured if we only ate ramen noodles until January, we could get by on $478. We didn't tell our family. But we did tell Heavenly Father. We told Him that we had paid our tithing our whole lives and we needed the windows of heaven to open up and dump out $478. The next day I took Sienna out to get the mail and there was a card from Jaymee's grandma Blanche. Odd, she had never written us before. I opened the card and a check for $500 fell out. The note said,"I felt like you needed this." She is not well off and had never given us money before. She's a good lady whom Heavenly Father felt he could inspire and she would respond with generosity. I cried and cried. I still do. But here's the kicker - the next day I went out to the mailbox and there was a card from my grandma Tot. With a check. For $500. And a note about how she felt we needed it. So not only were we blessed with what we needed, the Lord blessed us double. Miracle.

Which brings me to today. When I had cancer, I asked the Lord to spare my life. My prayers were answered and I have felt so humbled and grateful for the gift that I haven't felt like I could ask for more. But there was something I wanted. I felt strongly that my family was incomplete. I didn't feel like I deserved it and had already been given too much. Mami told me it was ok to ask because it was a righteous desire. So we started asking. And fasting. No one more than Sienna. She asked in every prayer. Every blessing on the food.

When I went to see my oncologist in April, I told her we had been trying but with no luck. She told me that was crazy. I already have four beautiful kids and I'M ALIVE. Wasn't that enough? And she thought the world was overpopulated anyway. I left feeling sad and wishing I could be satisfied. I really wanted to be satisfied. I felt ungrateful! But I wasn't satisfied.

Next I started seeing my OB. I told him what I wanted and he was not hopeful. I got a lot of tests and bloodwork done and he was even less hopeful. He called me with the results and offered his condolences. According to my FSH levels, I was probably out of viable eggs and would enter menopause soon because of all the intense chemo. Chemo scrambled my eggs. I was devastated. Why would I feel so strongly about something that wasn't possible. Something whispered to me that it wasn't in the doctors' hands. It might of been the Spirit, but I think it was Jaymee. He felt everything would be ok one way or another. I wanted to mourn. Sienna wanted to pray harder and fast more.

In September, I missed a period. Hooray! I took a pregnancy test and it was negative. Dang. My doctor said I was probably starting THE CHANGE. (Is that what people call it? Weird. Like we're gremlins that ate after midnight or something). Then I missed a period in October. I was crying about being fully in menopause to Mami one day. After she left I walked inside, smelled something funny and promptly puked. Wha?? I had another pregnancy test laying around and even though I wasn't hopeful, I decided to use it. Instantly positive! PREGNANT!! Miracle.

I went to my oncologist and was scared to tell her. She said it was time to schedule a scan and I said that we couldn't because... I'm pregnant. She jumped out of her chair and grabbed me and hugged and hugged. She said,"Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! I can't believe it! I didn't think it was possible and didn't want you to get your hopes up!" She hadn't had any patients go through as much and as intense of chemo as I did get pregnant. Miracle.

My OB was astonished, too. When I walked in he said,"Well look who it is! Miss I Get Everything I Want." I reminded him that I've had things I didn't want, too.

So $500 AND $500. I got to live AND I get to have a baby. I believe in miracles. I feel so loved and blessed.

I'm 3 months along and had another ultrasound today. Baby was sucking its fingers.

My Mom

Last Monday, My mom entered the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT. She's serving a one-year mission for my church in Rochester, NY. I'm so proud of her that I could burst. Here is a lady that lost her husband 15 years ago when her youngest was only nine years old. She has worked so hard to provide for us and get us all safely out the door. She retired from teaching last year and her last little chicken moved out this year and so what did she do? Revel in her new-found freedom? Sleep in each day and eat bonbons? Nope. She has done service by indexing her brains out - to the tune of about 140,000 names (that's about 2300 hours of work!) . Then she submitted her mission papers and was on her way. Wow.

She has always been such a good example to me. I can't count how many times I walked into her room to find her praying or reading her scriptures. She always has. She has always served with all her might in her callings and found a way to enjoy each one - and made it so others enjoyed it, too. When she was Stake Camp Director, my house was filled with camp for almost a year. Camp crafts and shirts and bandanas and anything else she could think of. She worked on it every day. One year she and I searched for hundreds of "apache tears" for hours and days so that she could make necklaces for every girl to go along with a spiritual lesson she had come up with. The years she was at camp were the most fun ever. When she taught Gospel Doctrine, she packed the house. When she teaches, she gets so into it that she claps her hands and jumps up and down. You can't help but become passionate about the things she's passionate about.

When she used to teach school, she would do trivia with her students if they had spare time. When they got a question right, she'd put a gold star on their forehead. It was a huge trophy to walk around the high school with a sticker on your face. All her students love her. Most of the entries in my yearbooks say,"Have a great summer. Your mom is the funniest, best most awesome teacher EVER!!!!!" It didn't bother me because I felt the same way.

She has a knack for seeking out and loving the unloved. The kids who had gotten themselves into trouble with drugs or other lifestyles seemed to gravitate to her and to our house. She loved them all unconditionally and I'm sure has helped and impacted hundreds of lives for good. Some of them even lived with us from time to time until they stole all our credit cards and held up the police in our house with a BB gun. But that's not her fault. It's a small price to pay for the good she did for the others.

Last month she went with me and my family on a cruise. Some people wouldn't be able to take their mom or mother-in-law on an intimate trip like that but she was AWESOME. She was so much fun and wasn't afraid to do or try anything. My kids would run into the room and instantly look for her to tell her of their adventures. She is the most fun to tell things to. She is a gusher. Preslie is in love with her and still talks about her constantly. Having her with us made the trip 100 times better than it would have been without her.

She has only been gone a week and I have actually spoken to her and texted her a bunch, but even so, there's a void. I miss her. She is having a blast and has fallen in love with the "Preach my Gospel" manual. I don't have to miss her for long because we're going to go see her and stay with her in Brigham Young's New York home for Thanksgiving. Lucky us. I can't wait.

If you want to keep up with her on her mission, Mel has set up a blog for her:
http://chrisinrochester.blogspot.com/

PS She doesn't read this blog, so if you think I'm writing this stuff to kiss up to her, you'd be wrong. I have held the "favorite" position since birth and don't need to flatter my way into her good graces. So there.