Texas Wedding Reception

Liz and Joey came to Texas for a wedding Open House.  It was an excuse to dress up again and see friends we hadn't seen in awhile.

It was also an excuse to venture out to the Blue Bell Factory, an outing I'd wanted to do for a long time.  It wasn't the best day.  Some of us were in grumpy moods.  But it was yummy!

It was fun to have everyone together, even Liz' mom and sister came and it was fun for them to see a bit of Texas.

And  of course there was swimming.....

Fun in July

Summer was really hard.  Before mom died I had GRAND PLANS for the summertime.  I LOVE having my kids home, planning fun outings and doing really cool stuff.  But EVERYTHING was overwhelming to me.  I was depressed and couldn't do anything I really wanted to do with them and that made me even more sad.  But little by little we ventured out.  We went to the arboretum on a gorgeous day!

The BIG CHOP

Lindsey accomplished a GREAT task of growing her hair long enough to donate.  I was so proud of her and her hair was so cute cut short!

Pioneer Day!

I've always wanted to celebrate Pioneer Day.  On the heels of Trek I thought my kids would be into it.  We watched 17 miracles, made freezer strawberry jam and bread to eat with it, and drew pictures.

 

July 2014 with Ben and Summer

 

4th of July

Was spent with Ben and Family.

Aunt Summer can sew really well and I'd wanted to make these shirts that were super cute and so we made them!

And we did our usual shakes at Sonic and watched the Plano Fireworks from the Los Rios LDS Chapel.  Simple, fun, FREE!

Before Ben and Summer left to go to Nevada for the rest of their time in the states we also ventured out to the Ross Perot Museum of Nature and Science....

Lewis Family Reunion part 2

On the way home from Lake Texoma we stopped off at mom's grave.  We were concerned about how sad her mound of dirt looked until it settled, got leveled off and a headstone was placed.  My mother-in-law Susan helped us make this silk flower arrangement in a pot that could be buried a bit at the headstone to make mom look like she was loved.  So we went together and placed that.  It was perfect.

Another big "to-do" on the list was an updated family photo.  This potentially was going to be really hard because we were missing a REALLY IMPORTANT PERSON but my Sister-in-law Rachel told me about how she'd seen family photos with a photo of someone in a frame being held by someone.  This felt so right so we did it too.  

Here are some of the BEST SHOTS!

 (shockingly this one required NO editing!  Miracle!)

(As a side note.  This photo proved to be VERY powerful at the sentencing of the man who killed mom.)

Lewis Family Reunion part 1

One month to the day of my mother's death we held our Lewis Family Reunion.  Mom had planned it all.  She was looking so forward to this event.  Ben and Summer were coming with their family from Japan.  We'd ALL be together.  We were going to take a family photo that included everyone.

We had rented a couple houses up on Lake Texoma and were going to boat and spend a couple days on the lake and playing in the sand.  

She was LIVING for this.  One of our greatest sorrows was that she couldn't have been spared just a few more weeks to have been able to be with us.

 Summer and I found these shirts at Old Navy--they were a MUST and a surprise for Grandpa!

Fun on the beach at Lake Texoma:

 

 

 

 

One of the fun activities planned by Grandma was for the girls to make pioneer rag dolls....

 

and the boys were to make sling shots.....

 One evening we acted out stories from our ancestors.  Those were fun.  Another night we enjoyed a bonfire and campfire songs.....

 

Kindness of others

I believe that what you put out comes back to you in the end.  If you put out selfishness, rudeness and unkindness, it will come back to you.  If you put out love, service and light, it too will come back to you.

I have felt such an outpouring of love and concern, it's hard to detail it all.

While still in Boston, the swirl of trying to decide when I should go home, I got an email from our dear friends the Tesons.  Scott flies frequently for work and was offering up all his airline miles to fly our whole family home if needed.  

A sweet friend, Amy O'Neil, texted me early one day letting me know she was at Target and could get me something.  I didn't see the time stamp on the text and when I saw it later that afternoon I told her I needed some Dove Dark Chocolate and my sister needed some iced tea.  Then I noticed that she'd sent the text hours before and I tried to tell her never mind.  To which she responded, "like cravings just go away, I'll be right over."

My neighbors across the street (Glaser) and next door (Dove) each made runs to the grocery store for me, AND let themselves into my home to put the groceries away.

Women from my church came and cleaned my house really well in preparation for all the company to come.  Some of them stayed to help me sort through photos that were needed for the funeral and family dinner.

My other neighbors pitched in for a large card they all signed and an eatable arrangements while all our company was here.

My lawn was mowed every few days by well meaning friends and neighbors (Doves, Menini's, Colmans)

MEALS, FOOD, and GIFT CARDS for restaurants poured in from church and neighborhood friends.  Christine Kless in the neighborhood collected money and we got over $500 in gift cards to various restaurants.  These were a lifeline to us in the weeks after mom passed.

Sandra Hamblin and Amy got me a beautiful necklace, flowers and cards etc.

Sweet things were brought to my children, the primary made them fleece blankets, Kaitlyn got a journal.

This one instance was really sweet.  I got a lot of flower arrangements and plants when mom died.  They were gorgeous and having them in my home helped me feel loved and supported.  But the flowers died.  New ones were brought, and they died.  Just when I figured that my time with fresh flowers was up, I had just tossed out my last arrangement (from sweet Rachel Hay and Aubrie Bailey) and I thought to myself, "these are the last of my flowers", not 5 minutes later, my friend Julie Atkinson showed up with these......God is so mindful of me and my grief.

My children have also been my support.  They have been like ministering angels to me.  When they see me crying they just quietly give me a hug, they pat my hand, they bring me tissues, etc.  I am so grateful for them.  They have supported me.  I wasn't expecting this.

One evening, after everyone had gone to bed, I came out and found this on the kitchen counter:
"Mom, Hug this as tight as you want when you miss Grandma, Love KP" and I cried.  This was her new bear she'd just made at a birthday party.  It was very special to her and she let me borrow it for awhile.  What a selfless, sweet and compassionate thing for her to do.  Made my mommy heart sing!

 

Twilight Camp

We have a cub scout.

It was his first year of Summer Cub Scout Twilight Camp.  In most areas of the country Cub Scout camp happens during the day, but in Texas where it's amazingly hot, camp is held at "twilight" from 4-8:00 each evening.

I long before mom's passing had signed up to be a chaperone.  Since it required background checks and specific training I'd attended in person I couldn't get out of it.

This day was awful.  Probably one of my worst.  It was hard to get out of bed.  EVERYTHING overwhelmed me.  The thought of going to camp with a bunch of "squirrely" cub scouts and be helpful was a joke.  Stephen hadn't arrived home by the time I had to leave the other children at home alone.  I couldn't even get him on the phone so I had no idea when an adult would get home.

But we went and it was ok.

I remember taking this picture with Sam on purpose.  As I've been going through photos of my mom I have been desperate to find a recent one of us together and I can't.  She and I were always the ones behind the camera.  I have some of her with each of my children but I can't find one of us together.  I noticed that I wasn't in a lot of pictures last year as I reviewed 2013 and I made it a point to not worry so much if I looked decent enough for a picture, but to be in the pictures anyway.  So here is a photo so Sam can have one of just us and so he remembers that I was there!

Trek 2014

 

We got to do something few get to do.  Stephen and I got to go on the Stake Youth Pioneer Trek reenactment and we got to BRING OUR KIDS!!!

I think due to Stephen's ability to play the violin AND that we had children young enough to play the roles in some of the vignettes we were invited to help with the music and vignettes that the youth would come upon during the day.

We spent 3 days at the LBJ Grasslands camping and helping the youth of our stake appreciate a bit of the pioneer experience.

We really lucked out with the weather.  For one, it RAINED our first day.  True it made it really muddy, but it also cooled things off.  We were prepared for the triple digit temperatures that plagued Trek 4 years earlier and had people passing out from the heat right and left.

Our children LOVED it.  Being some of the only children on Trek they quickly became famous and adored.  They LOVE to camp and for them this was just an awesome vacation.

Kaitlyn got heat stroke the 2nd day.  She forgot to drink enough during the afternoon (Pioneer village activities) and by dinner she was dragging.  I thought she might just be hungry or thirsty.  I encouraged her to eat her dinner and drink her drink but as soon as she got it down she complained of a stomach ache.  I took her right over to the medic tent.  They strongly encouraged her to drink a water bottle flavored with kool aid.  She really didn't want to and really felt awful.  But she did it, but when she got it down it came right back up with her dinner.  Poor thing.  But at that point it meant she needed an IV.  She was scared.  But we had wonderful people taking care of us, Viki Walker from our ward (who had had an impression weeks before that one of our kids would get sick and she would be needed--so humbling to know the Lord cares), Ben Quenzer who was a master with the needle, and President Fisher who was moral support.  As soon as she got that IV in her she bounced right back, her color was back in her cheeks and she was happy again.  Whew!

It was up in the air whether or not we would go.  While we were still in Boston, President Trent Thomas emailed us to give us the out not to go if it was too much for us.  But we really wanted to go, and thought the distraction would be good for us.

I think people hoped it would be this wonderful spiritual experience for me, but it wasn't.  I think I went for other people, I think our going was a strength to everyone else and that we were to be examples to them.  Towards the end of the week I got really tired of all the sympathy.  It was the first opportunity most of our friends in the Stake had to offer their condolences to me so they took the opportunity.  I was still numb.  And I pushed my grief aside to complete our assignments there at Trek.  No one wants to grieve so publicly.

I am grateful for some great photos from the week......much of it was a blur.