March 9, 2013

Dear Mama,

Hey! How are you? I am doing pretty well especially after last 
Sunday. Because I did not want to spend another day like that, I called 
the surgeon and asked if I could get an earlier appointment. The 
earliest they could get me in was on the 5th, Brenna's 19th birthday. I 
took it.

Brenna wanted a carrot cake for her birthday cake, so I spent my 
Monday doing that. I told her that I wouldn't be around so she could 
choose when to cut her cake. We toyed with the idea of having cake for 
breakfast before Josh went off to Seminary, but that would mean getting 
Matt and Beck over here at 5 in the morning , so we scratched that 
idea. She would just have to eat cake without her Dad or I.

Tuesday, Jay went with me to meet with the surgeon. His glasses 
came in, so we went and picked up those as well. I think he looks great 
in them. We went to my appointment a little early because I knew there 
would be paperwork to fill out. We were there about 2 and 1/2 hours 
before we ever got in to see Dr. Kwan. He did a previous surgery for me 
before the twins were born (in fact, I was 4 months pregnant with the 
twins) and it went well, so I felt quite comfortable going to him 
again. Not only do I have an inflamed galbladder, but I only have one 
stone. It is 3.6 cm. big. And it is perfectly round. Josh saw the 
ultrasound and said it looked like I had swallowed a golf ball. Anyway, 
a few years ago it was the size of a quarter, and now it is the size of 
a fifty cent piece. I was still hesitant about surgery and Dr. Kwan 
asked, "What, you want to wait until you get a silver dollar?" We all 
laughed, and I agreed to go through the surgery which is scheduled for 
April 2nd. By the time we got home, later that night (8pm), we got there 
just in time to sing Happy Birthday to Brenna and have some cake.

Wednesday was a pretty good day for me and I went to the gym and 
everything. They said I can work out as much as I want before surgery 
but need to take off two weeks after surgery. I can eat just fine as 
long as it is not too high in fat. Then I get nauseaus, and ...well, 
you really don't want to know all the details. I have noticed I feel a 
little more tired than usual, but I think it is just from stress.

Thursday, Sam and Cale had orthodontist appointments. It was in 
the morning and so I just drove them to school and hung out there an 
hour before checking them out of school and going on to Clovis for their 
appointment. Saved me time and gas, too. All the teachers and the 
secretary, and even the superintendant were worried that I was there 
because of some problem. It was almost comical. Cale is doing well 
with his braces. He doesn't need to wear his rubberbands anymore, at 
least, for now. That is good, because I was tired of reminding him to 
put his rubberbands on. Sam had his consultation. Just like Cale, he 
will need a few molars pulled before they actually put on his braces 
which is scheduled for March 27th. I got them back to school as soon 
as I could. They got there in time for lunch. They have taken to 
fixing their own lunches. I asked the school for their lunch money 
balance. Sam and Cale each had a balance of about $13, but Josh's 
balance was more like $33. Jay and I have been worried about him 
because he is so thin and tired and pale, but we figured it was because 
of early morning seminary, school, basketball practice, homework, etc... 
that he was burning the candle at both ends. But he is also not eating 
enough! I am worried about him. Thursday Jay had to be out of town and 
the Young Men were in charge of the combined activity. I bought a big 
container of ice cream for their refreshments and sent Sam and Cale with 
the "Mormon Mouthfull" game. Josh, meanwhile, had a basketball game. 
By the time I got there, it was the last five minutes of the game, which 
they won. That meant they had a game on Saturday in Grady.

Friday, Josh went to San Jon to hang out with his friend Adam. Adam 
had wanted Josh to do a sleepover, but we told him we didn't do 
sleepovers. They played video games and watched a few movies. Adam had 
wanted to watch one that was rated R, but Josh insisted that he would 
not watch an R and so Adam finally relented and they watched something 
else. I think Adam thinks that Josh is a deprived kid, and 
overprotected, and that is okay with me. I was just really proud of 
Josh for sticking to his guns when we weren't around to sway him to make 
the right decision. He did that on his own.

Saturday, I needed to sit down and do my lesson. I was really 
dragging my feet on this because there was a part in there that talked 
about "the power of godliness". For some reason I could not wrap my 
mind around this concept. The scriptures supporting this were not 
helpful, and the questions I was supposed to ask the class made it even 
more confusing. I asked Jay to look at it, and he was puzzled, too. 
So, during breakfast, we searched around for about an hour trying to get 
a clearer concept on what the power of godliness was all about. We 
finally got a clear answer that it had to do with godhood. There is 
more about this later. Meanwhile, we did all of our chores and Josh had 
a basketball game in Grady, so I asked Jay to take him to the bus and 
then go to the game. He did not understand my instuctions at all, 
because he just dropped him off at the bus and then came straight home. 
But it turned out for the best. Shayna had called a few days before 
totally elated because everything had cleared through the Peace Corps 
and she had a WebCam interview on Thursday which she was feeling pretty 
confident about. But I got a call from her and she was a mess because 
her computer crashed. That meant she had no capability for the 
interview and all of her term papers and senior thesis and everything 
was on the computer and she had no way to retrieve it and deadlines are 
looming and her Dad wasn't around to help her because he was off 
bringing Josh to the bus for his game. So when Jay got home, he called 
her back and it sounded so serious that he went off to his office to 
find a spare computer to give to her and then after church today drove 
to OPSU (with Brenna in tow because he doesn't know where she lives) to 
do computer stuff for her. He really wants this girl to graduate! 

While he was still at his office Saturday night, Josh called for his 
ride home which Jay did. He had a car, and Brenna had the van at work. 
I was carless and couldn't do it. They lost their game by about 30 
points. Josh said that the ref's were against them from the beginning. 
All of their best players fouled out of the game, and the coach and two 
other men from our team were evicted from the game. It was insane.
Before church I was listening to some General conference talks and 
Elder Stevenson mentioned "the power of godliness". And as I sat down 
to eat my breakfast, I picked up a magazine that was already opened (it 
was the BYU magazine) and there as a talk in there by Elder Tad 
Callister of the Seventy, and it was opened to a section where he 
discusses "the power of godliness" and it was just so clear to me. Of 
course, I struggled to explain it as clearly to my class, but at least I 
got something out of it. I was very grateful to Heavenly Father for 
being so mindful of me that these things just kind of fell into my lap. 
He must love me a lot! After church today, while Jay and Brenna went 
off to Oklahoma, Josh and I had to run to San Jon because there was an 
enchilada dinner and a "Meet the Varsity team members" thing. I thought 
it was a fund raiser, but it was just some of the parents getting 
together to have a dinner. By the time Josh and I got home, we were 
both so tired we took naps. The phone woke me up, but Josh was dead to 
the world. I had to wake him up to go over to Beck's for Family Home 
Evening. Josh called his coach just now and is really sad because he 
isn't going to get much of a Spring Break. Apparently they are leaving 
Tuesday and overnighting in Albuquerque for a few days for this State 
tournament. Yeah, a sleepover, after we just told Adam that we don't do 
sleepovers. Josh says that he'd rather just stay at home, but he is 
going to hang in there and bite the bullet and just do it. I think they 
pulled a wild card or something to go to State. Everyone here is tired 
because of the time change messing with our internal clocks, so I am 
going to close for now. Next week is Spring Break for the kids and I 
intend on sleeping in until 6 every morning. Well, I want you to know I 
love ya, and I don't know if we will ever do sports again. It is like 
an animal that just won't die. Enough already! I bet you are glad that 
you had all girls in a time where sports didn't go on 4 to 5 times a 
week for 5 months out of the year. Cale wants to do baseball next year, 
but I am concerned about whether he will be truly committed for the long 
haul. Well, take care Mama, your 4th, Lisa