Week of February 10-16

On Monday, the 10th, I was able to do something I have wanted to for a long time. There is a sweet wonderful lady at church named Tisa. Right after her 40th birthday, she was diagnosed with stage 3 metastatic breast cancer. She has a wonderful husband and three children, ages 8-14. She has been blessed to make it through each and every one of the radiation treatments, as well as the 19 rounds of chemotherapy. To help her, ladies from church go to her house every other week and clean on Monday. It was my "Kaylee" week before, but since I helped out Allison, the weeks ended up changing, so I was able to sign up and go help. Four ladies from the two different wards came, and we cleaned the three bathrooms, mopped and vacuumed a three level house. Tisa was soooo thankful, and many hands made light work, so we were done in a little over an hour. Dee used the van (which has been working on and off) and took a load of donations to Deseret Industries that had been building up. We worked on Nate's truck that night.

Updated my Hallway Wall

Dee designed and machined this awesome holder for Nate's truck battery.

On Tuesday, I was able to actually use the jeep and got paper coin rolls to roll up our loose change for deposit. I ended up with about $39.00 in pennies, nickels and dimes. I wanted to find out exactly the procedure for deposit at my particular bank, so after trying to phone, I used the internet personal banking question option. I asked what the procedure was, and the personal banker gave me lots of info regarding 25 pound and 50 pound bags of coins. I informed the individual I had but a few coins, and the individual responded regarding me using an armored carrier and asking them how to transport.

An armored car? For 39 bucks worth of change?

I was a victim of an outside-the-US-call center!!! Boy did my bank get a negative review.

Wednesday I got my cleaning done, and since the van had worked for Dee, I was confident it would work, so I set out to run errands. I was sitting at a stoplight....and the van just died. Dead. I started crying. The wonderful and calm Hispanic yard worker and his friends pushed my van off the main street. I called Dee, who was at the airport location of Honeywell, and he started toward me...30 minutes or more away. I then called my roadside assistance company to get a tow. I kept answering questions...and spelling street names...and describing my big huge 15 passenger van, who the person on the other end with the sing-songy voice didn't seem to comprehend...I finally asked, "Are you located outside the United States?"

She replied, "Yes, but I will give you good service."

I continued waiting and answering question after question for over 30 minutes. Dee arrived. He got the van working. I gave my phone to him to cancel when the lady finally would come back from hold, and he could cancel the tow. I drove his car home...in tears (saying that the van hates me!). Got home...then the tow truck driver called me asking where I was. He was so kind after I burst into tears again with apologies and he kept asking if I was ok. Nice the local tow truck driver was more helpful than the roadside assist call center!

Gonna find a new roadside assist service ASAP!

Wednesday was another cleaning day...I do that a lot here. We did have sad news. A friend of ours...I went to high school with him...who had been our sons' scout leader, and his kids and my kids had been friends, lost his short battle with leukemia. He died early in the morning, with all his kids and grandkids and sweet wife at his side. He said his goodbye's and lived an extraordinary life. He was a good man.

Webelos was uneventful…He is a co-leader who decides what they do, and he does what he wants to, so Dee feels kind of like just a chaperone...

Thursday, Dee wanted some beef jerky, so I gave him his Valentine's Day gift early: Costco treats: jerky and dark chocolate coconut covered almonds. Truck work continued…boy, these things sure can be costly! Tires and some new, non-1960 rims cost almost a thousand bucks! Not sure Nate wants to spend that much of his remaining money for this.

Happy Valentines Day was pretty routine. I gave Kayty a hot pink heart full of chocolate. Since Grandma Liz had jury duty, I cared for Kaylee. We enjoyed our walk and fed our goat friend a granola bar. Made Quick Chicken Creole for dinner and watched the olympics after truck work.

Kaylee LOVED the sweet Valentine Treat my wonderful visiting teacher, Missy DelGado brought over. She even had the special little one just for Kaylee.

Yep...Valentine's Day...Crazy Man In Pool

Saturday, we hit some yard sales…I got some large bells for the playroom. We prepped for our long planned and many times cancelled Pizza Oven dinner with our dentist, Phillip Johnson and his family. Doran and Amber called later and wanted me to watch Kooper so they could go out to dinner and a movie, but they ended up coming here for a pizza and enjoyed talking with the Johnsons, so that ended up being their date. It was a nice night.

Michelle and Phillip Johnson, with two of their four awesome kids, creating pizza. 

Grammy enjoying Kooper

Michelle brought flowers...so nice!

Sunday, Dee ended up not being able to attend his co-worker's funeral (he suddenly passed away last Wednesday night in his sleep…good health…only 38 years old…still not sure what the cause was) due to our sharing one vehicle and his ride-another coworker-became ill in the night. I was called to a church calling I already had for two years and wasn't released from…I guess someone eliminated all my callings via computer…it's all good though. I like singing with the nursery. I substituted for the primary chorister and didn't cause any mayhem! We attended the missionary farewell for Maddy Baird during the ward after ours, and then headed to Dorrie's for Valentine's Day Dinner. We shared the celebration with Ethan, Cameo and Kaylee, and Doran, Amber, Kelsie and Kooper, plus Grandma and Curtis, and Jessica came when church was over. We shared meatballs, potatoes and cheese, cauliflower with cheese sauce, a great salad, some layered bean dip and cheese dip that Cameo had left over from a party at their house, and then lots of candy and cookies. Curtis also started up the fire pit for some smores, which Kelsie enjoyed. We came home and waited for our next to the last letter from Korea.

Curtis was great helping Kelsie make her smore. She didn't care for the one with chocolate, so Papa got it.