almost done, I promise!

yet another for your viewing pleasure...

more pictures Angela took last month

It's about time!!!!

Well, I guess you could say that I took a 6-month leave of absence. Life just has a way of getting so busy. So anyway, school is out now for the summer, so it goes without saying that now the kids are driving me absolutely INSANE!!! As I type, Tommy is angry about something Will has supposedly done and is kicking his bedroom door. This causes me to stop typing and commense the beatings! :) Just kidding, no beatings, just death threats, er, promises that if he stops his tantrum that he'll get a smoothie soon. Okay, so my kids are bought pretty cheap.
Speaking of kids, we recently had a photo shoot with a very talented friend in our ward. She is so wonderful! I wish she'd been around for my senior pics, but, alas, she wasn't born yet!
So enjoy the photos. If you want more details about what the kids are thinking in this, then you'll have to wait until my next post, or email or call me on the phone and we'll chuckle about the brattitudes of children. ;)

better late than never, right Mom? :)

In honor of Mom and her "blog stalking" tendencies, I'll finally update my blog. It's been a little while since last I blogged, mostly 'cuz I'm so sore from the accident. I'm okay, just stiff and sore, but getting better every day, so they say.
Today was stake conference, and to say that our stake president was long-winded would be an understatement! Bless President Miles' heart, he was really instructing us on an important topic, and under different circumstances, I would have absolutely LOVED to have him talk so long. But with my kids and their undesirable behavior, and Ryan ushering (he was helping someone with their wheelchair or else he would've taken Will and Tommy), and my headache from my whiplash, I was ready to march up to his microphone and say "Amen" for him! :) What stopped me? Basically the protocol that it just wouldn't be socially acceptable to do that, plus the fact that it would've been just plain embarrassing. I do care more than I like to admit to others, what people think about me.
Anyhow, it was really a wonderful conference, the theme being temple work. We had Brother Dewey of the temple presidency and his wife speak, it was very wonderful. She spoke about some experiences with instructing the new endowment sisters prior to the endowment session, and how that is so emotional for some.
Brother Dewey spoke about how sad it is that people prize their season tickets for the Mariners or the Seahawks more than their temple recommend. Then he related a story about a sister in his stake (Tacoma) when he was the stake president there. A sister was dying and her bishop called him. The bishop explained that this sister, while nearly comatose, had as her last request to have her temple recommend renewed, which had recently expired, and would he please go to her home and conduct the interview? So he readily went to her home, signed recommend in hand from her bishop, and walked into the living room where her hospital bed was placed. She was aware enough to know that he was there, but not cognizant enough to conduct an interview with him. He simply looked into her eyes, touched her hand, and told her that he knew she was too ill to speak, so a proper temple recommend interview would be impossible, but that the Spirit had told him she was worthy to enter the temple. He signed the recommend, placed it in her hand, and then left. Two days later this sweet sister passed away. When she was buried, instead of the traditional white handkerchief in her hands, she had her temple recommend. Her family told him that she hadn't let go of it since he had placed it in her hand. It was quite evident to him where her priorities were. With Heavenly Father and His temples.
Quite a story. The kids actually let me listen to this, how nice of them! :)
So I guess the moral of this story is, when was the last time you attended the temple? Just go! He encouraged everyone to go, and to not only go as a couple, but to fill your car with others who otherwise wouldn't go because maybe they don't drive.

on how we ended up in the ER on our way home from church today

Well, to say we had an adventure today would be understating things just a bit. :)
We began our journey home a little after 1:00 when Ryan finished his PPI at church. We were almost home, and turning left off of the Kent-Black Diamond Road, and onto the feeder street for our street, and had to wait for on-coming traffic, so being normal, law-abiding citizens, Ryan signaled left and stopped, waiting his turn to go left. Suddenly we felt an impact and slid a few feet forward on the wet road. Our kids started screaming and crying, as we assessed what had just happened.
As Ryan opened his car door, he said, "Somebody's going to die!" and then walked to the back of the van to see who had hit us. He immediately changed his tune when he saw a hysterical teenage girl behind the wheel with her and the passenger's airbags deployed from impact, and a white van behind her and his airbag deployed, yet another teenager. Ryan, who is really an old softy in disguise, immediately felt fatherly toward her and started crying out for someone to call 911 to get her some help.
I got Emma out of her car seat to comfort her, and people started pulling over to assist us. We had one woman put a blanket around Emma, and another family came over bringing snacks for the kids when they realized our situation of just getting home for lunch from church. Truly, people are mostly good in this world. I think the media has done a huge disfavor of mankind, painting us mostly bad. What an injustice to human nature, which really is more godly than ungodly.
Anyhow, we had the fire department there soon, and then a few minutes later a Sheriff deputy drove upon the scene, not dispatched to us, but just clocking out and going home. He joked later that he just didn't feel right about driving by our scene and waving as he left. :) Always one jokester on accident scenes, I guess, right?
The teenage boy who caused all this chaos never even got out of his van to check on any of us. Either arrogant, or scared out of his mind to face Ryan and the girl's dad. I sure would've been! That being said, I sure wanted to ring his little chicken neck once we got to the hospital! Ryan told me to give the kid a break, that everyone makes mistakes, and all I wanted was blood! Once again it goes to show you that it really helps to have both parents, because when one of them wants blood, the other is calmer and more reasonable and able to talk some sense into the other one.
Tommy was the only injury, and that wasn't too bad. When the impact happened, he flew a little out of his seat, even though he was belted in, and hit Ryan in the head. So you could say he gave his dad a head butt at impact of over 40 mph. As a precaution AMR took him to Auburn hospital to check him out for possible concussion. He's fine. Ryan has the headache we though Tommy should've had. How's that for irony.
Emma and Will are fine, as am I. We are all just really stiff and sore and know more of that to come tomorrow and the next day.
Damage to the van? The back bumper is seriously damaged, so much so that we cannot open the hatchback of the van. Also both the front seats are broken, in that they won't sit upright anymore. Makes it pretty uncomfortable to travel! :)
We'll be fine though, and now we must begin gathering new car seats for the kids. And now we wait to know if our van, with it's Blue Book value of between $800-$1,000 only, will it be totalled out? Who knows?
It's paid for, too! Darn! We'll have to find a way to afford a new vehicle if this is totalled. Life stinks sometimes, you know? But we are really blessed. It could've been far worse. Our own calvary showed up at the hospital, our Elder's quorum president, Jeremy Christensen, as well as our two home teachers. Tonight, about half an hour ago, one of our home teachers stopped by and brought a plate of cookies and asked if we needed anything else from him or them. What wonderful home teachers! I told him that President Kimball would've been really proud of him for going the extra mile.
Enough of my Sunday trial. Tomorrow is a better day, right? I hope so at least! How appropo that our Sacrament meeting topic was HOPE today! :)

Kearsten, who is exactly one week older than me. Exactly. Doesn't she look great for someone who just a few days prior to this photo had her chemo dose upped?