Happy Easter from Mom and with Mom!

This may be the last Easter we have my mom here to celebrate with, and that makes Easter even more magnificent.  I don't like the idea of losing her, but I do know that it won't be forever.  Oh what peace it has brought me to know that the same holds true for Weed.  And it brings me such peace knowing that Bean's trials won't be a permanent thing either.  I enjoy so very many blessings as a result of Easter,  more than I even can imagine.  As President Hinckley said:  "God be thanked for the gift of His Son, the Redeemer of the world..."

Here's my mom's Easter letter for this year.

Now I can add to this post since Paul and I got to fly up and visit Mom for Easter!  It was a lovely trip.  Marilynne and Lynn visited too, so we had 3 of the 4 living siblings there for the the occasion.  Denny is in very poor health and couldn't make it.  His wife, Sandee, and daughter, Ariel, did drive over and visit which was very nice.  Besides being Easter it was Genernal Conference and it was a pretty special one.  We sustained a new President of the church, Russell M. Nelson, and also two new apostles to fill vacancies left in the 12.  Elder Gerrit W. Gong and Elder Ulisses Soares were sustained as apostles.  Through crazy circumstances (the cable company messed up and broadcast the Saturday morning session in Spanish only) we didn't actually get to participate in the solemn assembly they held before/at the beginning of that session.  Pres. Nelson also announced 7 new temples to be built and big changes were made to Visiting/Home Teaching and to the Elder's/High Priest quorums.  One of the 7 new temples will be somewhere in Russia!  That's so exciting.  One will also be in India!  

We had a good visit with everyone including Mom.  She got pretty tired and had to rest as needed, but other than being tired and more weak than I have seen her before, she was doing pretty well still.  I felt pretty good about it until it was time to say goodbye for the flight home.  It really hit me that the next time I see her she may be in pretty bad shape...or even gone.  She's such a wonderful lady and tries to be upbeat and happy even when I know it must be hard and things hurt and don't work how they should anymore.  Such a hard thing to see her heading down that final path.  We did take some pictures and we did have a very good time visiting.  It was a good memory making time.  So here's our pictures.  

The top picture has Ariel and Sandee in it too.  It was a long drive for them to come over, but it was so nice to have them there.  I wish Denny could have come.  I think he's almost in worse health than Mom in a lot of ways.  

The bottom left picture is kind of funny...with Mom looking a little crabby getting ready to put on her glasses, Marilynne laughing and Janet really the only one looking good!  What's special about this picture is that it has the old lunchbox full of flowers in front of us.  That's Dad's old lunchbox and if you look close you can see his shaving brush is one of the flowers.  I like to think of him sort of being there with us and maybe laughing along. The top picture shows Mom with all of her son-in-laws.  They all love her and she loves them.  It's so nice to have that type of relationship instead of the kind you usually hear about.  

Andrew and Careina hosted a really nice Easter feast/gathering at their house on Sunday afternoon.  It was fun to get together with those that were in the area.  

The March Birthday start to finish...Ferf, Sarai, Joel

Ferf's birthday started things rolling for March.  This year was one of those milestone birthdays - #40!  Ryan planned up a nice Borrowman/Lillywhite adults party for her.  It was good food and good fun to get together and just eat, visit and celebrate!  Ferf is an awesome, beautiful lady and we are so proud of her and love her so much.  She has accomplished so much in her life personally as well as with her wonderful family...and it is hard to believe our little Ferfie can be 40!  Happy Birthday Ferf!  We love you! One thing we so appreciate about Ferf is her tender care of Grandma Kurtz.  Weed was trying to be helpful to her and then there was a big void for Grandma when she left us.  Ferf has added caring for Grandma to her already busy life with 6 children, a busy husband and big church calling.  I don't know how Grandma would get along without her. What a blessing she is in that way as well as in so many others.  

It was nice to have 6 of the 8 siblings at the party!  Who knows, maybe Weed was checking it out too!

Kai got to come because he's a baby too attached to leave much.  He entertained himself and us with his bow antics!


Next up in March was Sweet 7-year-old Sarai!  We went to her dinner/birthday party and enjoyed the evening with her very much!  She was so excited and so cute!  We love our Sweet Sarai!  

It was fun to see how she loved every present...from mouthwash to fruit roll-ups to fancy shoes and frilly shirts to dolls!  Everything was WONDERFUL! 

Now it was Joel's turn...finally!  His birthday was actually 3 months ago on December 26, 2017, but saved for March to have it be more of a treat instead of a left over from Christmas.  He was also excited and happy to have his #4 party, pig cake and presents at last!  Lou made another masterpiece cake since he loves pigs right now!  We love our Joelly poelly!

 Afton tricked him pretty good by putting a candy bar into the box his bike was shipped in.  When he opened hit he looked and looked and then found the little candy bar and knew he'd been had!

Christmas Edventure date with Brynnli

We called also called it a senior date...she's a senior in high school this year and we are both getting the senior discount now!  We wanted to do something where we could just spend a little time visiting since Brynnli will be heading off to school in the Fall probably.  Hard to believe she's going to be heading out into the world.  Where did the time go?  Hard to believe our oldest grand child is getting ready to fly the coop!  We just called her up last minute and it worked out.  She's really busy between school, work, track and social life.  We had a nice dinner and visit at the Outback and then came home and played a couple of games of Rummikub.  Then it was time to call it an evening.  Brynnli is a grand daughter to be proud of.  She's on the right path.  She's talented, smart, beautiful and fun and funny besides!  And she doesn't mind hanging out with two old people either!  Merry Christmas and happy future Brynnli!  We love you and want the best of the best things for you now and in the coming, so important years!  We hope you keep making the good choices you have so far and that it will bring you joy and happiness now and forever! Let's have more edventure dates!  

This was the original "Grand Edventure" date.  Brynnli is actually the originator of the term "Edventure".  See blog post for March 9, 2009 to see the story of this first "Grand Edventure" date with Brynnli!

Happy Birthday in Heaven Weed... #38 here!

This year it was hard for me to decide how I would remember Weed on her birthday.  I didn't want to step on Derek's toes or cause awkwardness for Colony, so I just kind of put off asking about it at all.  Then when Derek said they did want to do something, I wanted to leave it to him to decide what would be comfortable for them and go with that.  So, it ended up being a little last minute, but I felt like it happened how they wanted it to and that was good.  We got together on the 23rd and had pizza, potluck and party with the Smiths and the Lillywhites who were in town for it.  We missed Supe and Beacher and Jay and Brynn and girls.  Shanna Bundy and her husband, who have been a huge support to Derek and kids, stopped in for a few minutes too.  I could have enjoyed the whole thing more if I hadn't felt so much stress about trying the please/meet everyone's expectations.  This is a hard day and people have their own ideas of how it should be spent.  Derek did a good job of putting things together last minute style.  He had thought it would be nice to go out to dinner at the Pizza Factory and invite us to go.  Then everyone wanted to get on board.  Since it was a little late, we couldn't get their banquet room, so we reserved the church and had the party there.  Pizza Factory pizza was Weed's favorite (she worked there as a teenager).  When the bosses there heard Derek was buying all of this pizza to celebrate her birthday, they wanted to do something nice.  They remembered her as the sweet person she was when she worked for them.  They were very generous in giving Derek a great discount plus threw in salad, dressing, bread sticks, plates and napkins.  The rest of us brought sides to go with it.  We had plenty of yummy food for everyone.

For me personally I thought some temple time with family would be a nice way to celebrate.  Paul and I did go and do some son/daughter sealings the week before and I tried to focus on Weed and think about how because of these covenants we can be a family forever...Weed will always be our daughter.  It was a nice evening.  We also went to the temple on the 22nd with our YSA Ward and I had hoped it would be a special night somehow, but between my expectations, attitude and maybe some help from Satan, it wasn't quite what I had hoped for.  I remember that after Weed passed I seemed to feel her near/think of her when I would be in the car alone on the way home from work sometimes.  I tried to have a time like that and it was nice.

We were able to have one of Weed's cute sketches put on a cake!

Besides eating and visiting we played a few games and had fun!

Brynn added a crown and #38 to one of Weed's little people and we printed up 38 of them for the kids to hunt for Smith birthday family tradition style.

Still kicking myself for forgetting to get everyone together for a group shot.  At the last minute I rounded up Zade and Kaebri for a shot with the 38 little Weeds the kids hunted for.  I'll do better next year I hope!

On our way home afterward we stopped by the grave and put flowers there.  Weed's friend, Karma, had already been there and left a nice little birthday remembrance. It was very sweet.

Derek's sister, Karissa, posted on FB in remembrance of Weed...such a sweet tribute:

"Today is Lenae's birthday!  Oh, how I miss her smiles, the texts with a joke or a picture of how she embarrassed her kids, or way I could embarrass my teenagers!  I miss seeing what she would dress up as for Halloween.  I miss seeing her in the corner with my husband at family get togethers because they both couldn't hear because the kids (and adults) were so loud.  I miss that I could ask her to add sleeves to my daughter's dress for a dance and know it would look tons better than I could do!  i just miss her!!!!  Happy Birthday in heaven Lenae!"

On the heels of her birthday this coming Saturday, March 10th, will be the anniversary of Weed's death.  Paul and I will be headed out of town for a trip that day and I know it will be a crazy day.  But here and now I will just say that losing Weed has been the hardest thing in my life so far.  When I think of the many things she's missing I feel so sad, but when I think of all the wonderful things I know she must be involved in where she is now it comforts me as much as I can be comforted.  I feel sad that she is missing watching her children, that she suffered so much to bring into the world, growing up and having the joy of grand children and growing old watching good things happen in their lives.  I'm not sad that I didn't have to watch her go deaf and suffer through that.  I think she was just so good that she could leave early.  I think she's fine, but I wonder if she gets to take a peek and see her kids sometimes and help them along. I hate that Trigg, and maybe even Zade, probably won't remember he much.  I could go on and on, but instead I will just trust in Heavenly Father and know that everything will work to the good in the end.  Miss you Weed.  Hope heaven is going great for you!