Promotions, Puppies, and Patience
My youngest son, Benson, has received an important promotion in Northern Italy! I'm so proud of him! He is now a Senior Airman. (with his proud and supportive wife, Kylie, at his side) He has made one good impression after another in the last year that he's been on Aviano AFB. This was such a happy culmination of all of his efforts over there.
Oh no - the sun is up! Hurry and hide!!
He was eating something in his barracks one day, and I told him it looked like he was a tiny kid trying to eat at a huge grown-up table or something.
I love laughing with my best friend in the whole world!
After:
Before:
After:
Then they played kickball with a slip-and-slide to get to each "base" (a kiddie pool).
One of the younger girls, Hailey Reisner, was pretty spunky and would do all kinds of tricks as she slid into the tiny pool at each base. She did barrel rolls, somersaults, etc. She was the most entertaining one of the bunch! :)
Eating chocolate cookies on the porch in the new matching dresses we picked out at Old Navy together:
And Gwen has an ear for the piano. She doesn't just sit down and bang out whatever notes that a typical 2-year old might do. She chooses each note thoughtfully, and quietly. Like she's composing a beautiful song that's in her head.
Mid-week, some of Amber's friends from San Antonio stopped by to play. Addi, in the red dress, is Abby's best friend from San Antonio. They have been writing back and forth to each other ever since the Whitworths moved up to Idaho. Addi's grandma lives in Rigby, so they came up for a visit. How convenient! :)
It looks much better now. I just have a few more trees to trim up in the back yard now . . .
He told us that the next step for him in the Air Force is Staff Sergeant. So that's pretty awesome!
And on top of all that excitement, Benson and Kylie got puppies! Yes, not just one puppy, but TWO!! They are Akita puppies and siblings - a boy and a girl. And they are SO CUTE!! If puppies could stay puppies forever they would just bring a whole lot of sparkle and cuteness to the world. (Let's not talk about potty training or kennel training . . . just focus on the cuteness . . . nothing else)
This morning our family woke up to some of the cutest videos EVER!!
Video #1: Mocha, the girl puppy, is outside and listening to the beautiful chiming of church bells near their house in Italy.
Video #2: Pippen, the house bunny, is getting acquainted with the two much larger, but seemingly innocent puppies. Mocha = the girl; Koda = the boy.
Kylie reported that Mocha did fine in her kennel during the night, but not so much with Koda. I suggested that maybe they could snuggle him in with one of their t-shirts tonight, in the hopes that he might feel more secure when he can smell them. Benson thought that was a great idea. Now I'm just crossing my fingers that it helps!
News from Scott:
He is doing well for the most part. He had some additional issues with the air conditioning in Kuwait, reporting that it seems to be routine that generators stop working due to the extreme heat and have to be replaced. The workers are pros though, and are able to swap out the old one for the new one in under an hour, even though each one is ginormous!!
This photo was from earlier this past week, where he said the temperature inside their barracks was 104 degrees. The A/C was off for 5 hours and affected ALL the buildings, not just his. The power was completely OFF!!
On good days, the A/C hovers around 70 degrees inside. They have fairly decent internet and can watch movies on the big screen.
Scott schedules his day around the sun. He gets up around 4 a.m. to go running for 30 minutes. The sun rises around 5 a.m. in Kuwait, and goes down around 7 p.m. After he is done running, he showers and heads off to an early breakfast before the sun comes up. The chow hall is about a half-mile walk away from the barracks. So it's best to hustle down there, eat, and hustle back to the safety of the A/C barracks as quickly as possible.
During the day, he works on his computer quite a bit. He's always deep into several projects.
After visiting his mom, Coy, a couple days ago, I shared with Scott something she said that inspired me. We were talking about how much we miss being able to attend the temple and lamented that it might still be a while before we get to go again, due to COVID-19. She said she likes to work on family history as a way to feel the spirit of the temple without actually being IN the temple, knowing that we are seeking out our deceased ancestors - learning about them, organizing information pertaining to them, and ultimately making sure that their temple ordinances are being performed.
Deep down, I already KNEW this. But I have been neglecting my family history too much and too long. Ever since I got home, I have launched into updating my house and helping to take care of my grandchildren - both very good things. But I need to incorporate doing family history into my life, too. It makes me happy. And I want to feel those beautiful feelings and blessings once again from serving my ancestors on the other side of the veil.
So anyway - my point to this whole train of thought is that I told Scott about what his mom said and invited him to do some family history more often, too. He agreed and said he couldn't argue with my logic. :)
Sunrise in Kuwait --
Scott found a secret garden in the middle of the dirt. He thinks this is a pumpkin or squash patch.
In other news:
The ONE apple that was growing on our apple tree FELL OFF!! The wind was blowing around 35 mph on Monday and that little guy just could not hang on. I was SO SAD!! This is from our Jonny Tree, named in honor of my grandson Jonny, who was stillborn at 21 weeks gestation. The symbolism of this tiny little precious apple and its life being cut short was not lost on me.
One evening, while Abby and I were hanging out in the rocking chairs on the front porch, Abby spotted something out on the lawn. We crept slowly closer and closer, trying not to frighten this little guy.
We were able to sit down about 18 inches away from him and just hang out for a bit. Eventually I reached out to pet him. We wanted to know if he was injured or not, which obviously he couldn't fly away or he would have done so by now. As I petted him, he suddenly got a streak of gumption and ran/hopped with a slight gimp across the lawn and over to pause under our red Ford Ranger truck, which was parked on the street.
We also noticed that our neighbor's cat, Garfield (an oversized orange tabby) was directly across the street from the bird, just resting underneath their truck. As we started prepping Abby for the catastrophic possibilities, the bird started hopping/running with the gimp, straight over to Garfield!! Literally straight to him!!
I was like, "Here we go, National Geographic is about to happen right in front of our eyes!"
Garfield stood up, with some evident surprise. His back arched slightly, and at the same time he crouched down in predator mode. Abby cried out, "Oh noooo!!"
But the bird must have realized his predicament (finally!!) because all of a sudden he did a 180 and hopped/ran with his gimp back into the street and headed south. Garfield must have been in a lazy mood, because he just let the bird go. And then he curled back up under the truck.
As we marveled at the whole thing that happened in about 1 minute or less, we discussed what we should do, if anything. Amber suggested that we call Kim, Garfield's owner and our dear friend, and see if she could perhaps bring her cats in for the evening. (Garfield is their orange tabby, and Mimi is a white Siamese and was out roaming nearby, too.) She was happy to oblige and did so right away.
We also prayed for the bird. And even though we discussed nature with Abby and survival of the fittest, we also taught her that there was a place being prepared for him in Birdie Heaven (just in case).
We never saw him again. One can only hope . . .
I finished painting the dining room, hallway and front entry area this week. It looks so good!
Before:
This week, I will take care of a few loose ends, such as a puttied area in a corner of the kitchen that I still need to paint, along with a few other random post-painting to-do's.
I will also be adding some wall decor in the dining room and in my bedroom.
On Tuesday, I helped with a Girls Camp activity all afternoon. Approximately 25 girls came to tie-dye a t-shirt, have a devotional, and then play water games. They had a lot of fun!!
They played water balloon volleyball: teams of two hold a towel and use it to launch the water balloon back and forth across the net.
Here's a 19 second video of the girls in action:
I had the usual fun with Abby and Gwen throughout the week. They are so fun and creative!!
Here's Abby, a.k.a. "a unicorn super hero ballerina!"
Later in the week, I went to visit my in-laws for a bit and we enjoyed visiting about family history and all kinds of stuff. I borrowed their chainsaw so that I could groom some low-hanging trees around the yard. It was lovely to just relax and talk about "whatever" with my mother-in-law. She's pretty great!
Just as I was preparing to leave, Amber arrived with the girls. They had been over at her in-laws picking about a gallon of raspberries before it got too hot. They showed up just in time for a light lunch with Grandma Coy and then they cut out sugar cookies together, then baked and frosted them. They were delicious. Trust me. I ate way too many once they made it back to my house. :)
They also played Russian princess dress-up, ha ha. Well, maybe not Russian princess on purpose, but look: what do you think?
What a fun grandma to spend the time in doing these activities!! XOXO
Saturday (yesterday), I cut down an entire heaping truckload of branches from just ONE pine tree out front and then I hauled it all off to the dump. SEE YAAAA!!
I'm trying to be so PATIENT as I wait for Scott in these final weeks before he comes home. I noticed something a couple days ago about myself. I was eating a LOT of sugary sweets over the past week or two, something I don't typically do. Yes, I like to eat something every day, but this was becoming more like several servings a day. I usually have pretty good self-discipline when it comes to restricting how many carbs I take in, but it felt like I was out of control.
I stopped to assess what might be the cause of this. I think it's because I'm so excited - nervous and excited, eager and excited. But I don't really have a good way to channel that excitement while I wait. So it turned into eating sugar.
At the same time, I remembered what I've been reading in the Book of Mormon this past week. Amulek (in the book of Alma) was teaching the Zoramites that you are not limited to just praying in church. You can pray about anything you are in need of, in just about any location. You can even have a prayer in your heart if you can't pray out loud. You can pray over your flocks, your fields (your garden), and any problem or care that you have.
So I did just that. I prayed to Heavenly Father and let Him know that I was sorry for putting so much junk into my body and that I wanted to do better. I had the thought come to me to pray any time I had the temptation to eat something sugary. And then to eat a fruit or a vegetable instead.
Yesterday was my first full day trying this out. Honestly, I did not feel a single urge to eat any sugar the entire day! It was quite remarkable. (Today has been the same - no issues) When I have had to cut out sugar in the past (usually during my pregnancies because I had such big babies), it was the hardest during the first 3 days of going without. Like I needed to get it out of my system or something. But after the 3 days, the desire to eat sugar was gone.
This time, I have done awesome so far for the first 2 days. I'm not cutting out sugar entirely. I mean, let's get real here. I seriously love chocolate. But I feel like it's under control now. I am not wildly out of control. So that feels good.
I just need to continue to be patient while I wait out these last few weeks. I can do it. With heaven's help, I can do it.
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