*Monday Memos* (McKay's Farewell Edition)

*MONDAY MEMOS*

            

 (If pictures are too small, just click to enlarge) 

dear what a week!  I am not sure if I will ever get this post done because I am just glad I survived it and not sure I want to relive it while blogging about it.  The week that I am in now (the following one) was even more crazy and emotional draining and I am just not really wanting to relive them both, which is what you basically have to do when you blog about it.  But, I am going to TRY!  It may take forever, but I will somehow do it.  I would really just like to take a long vacay and chill for a couple of weeks!  hah  But, that's not in the cards and so I may as well just get on with it all, right?

dear support, McKay has had so much support as far as cards and gifts for his graduation AND mission.  Just crazy to be doing both together, but that's what it has come down to.  He has had to write a lot of thank you notes.  He has been so blessed and we are so grateful for such amazing friends and family.

 I ran out of room to display them all!  These are a mix of graduation congrat cards and mission cards.  I doubt too many can say they got both in the mail on the same day.  Some people just sent one congratulating him on both....others sent two!  This whole thing just seems so crazy to be doing them together so close!

dear going away lunch for dottie and loraine, Leslie planned a lunch at Costa Vida because both of them are moving soon.  It was kind of a bad place to do it because it's so loud in there and you just can't really hear or talk and there were about 20 people there and we were spread way out down a long table.  Yeah, I forgot to get a photo.  It was just kind of strange because everyone came and got their food, ate, and then left.  I really wish I hadn't gone.  There were a few reasons besides just that, but I should have just stayed home and got a few more things checked off my list of a brazillion and one things!  I really did NOT have time to go, but I thought it sounded fun and I love both Dottie and Loraine, but I didn't get to chat much with either, so I really felt it was a waste of my limited time this week.  

dear farewell prep, I spent a lot of time this week preparing for McKay's farewell as far as meal prep and cleaning the yard and house.  I have noticed that getting my house ready for things like this takes much more time than it used to because my boys no longer have house chores like when they were younger as far as cleaning specific rooms and areas.  They still work hard in the house as far as helping to keep things clean and doing dishes and laundry and their rooms, but Dave really uses them for helping with his yard and apartment upkeep more and so the bulk of the house falls on me. It is overwhelming to try and get it ready by myself.  I even made a list of things I needed help with and for the most part they helped out, but I still ended up doing the majority of it.  The sad part is when I spend hours and hours cleaning and organizing etc., it only lasts a few days! That is the most frustrating thing about house cleaning.  If it would only last longer it wouldn't feel like such a huge waste of time.  But that is just one of those laws of nature.  Entropy.  I used to give talks about organizing and I always talked about this second law of thermodynamics because it really is why we have to continually clean over and over.  It's a physics principle that basically means that everything in our universe, when left to itself, tends toward more and more disorder.  Even if a spotlessly clean room is left untouched and no one messes it up, it will still entropy simply due to dust in the air.  Nothing stays clean in this world.  Even if we just let it be.  Seems kind of self defeating really doesn't it?

This one says, "I blame entropy."

But... we still must clean or things would like the photo above. ↑  Not really an option!  hah

dear hair appt., I went much longer than I normally do for my hair color because I like the body it gives me right after and we have family pictures scheduled next week.  Catherine has a dog and two cats that like to sit on my lap when I am there.  This time I got to enjoy her sweet cat that loves to be held and petted.  My cat is nothing like that and so I was in heaven.  She shed a ton, but it was worth it!

I came home and cleaned our big windows in the family room (inside and out!) and I nearly fell off the ladder.  Talk about entropy!  lol  THAT would not have been a good thing!  But it needed to be done and so I persisted until they were all done inside and out. 

dear seriously this is getting comical, I keep saying I am going to write a book about the last two months of everything that has gone wrong.  But so many things keep happening that it is pretty much just expected now and comical when it does. Today when I got our local paper, I just actually burst out laughing because once again....

Yep, they got McKay's mission call wrong! Not just wrong, but how confusing is THAT?  Even the local mortuary that always sends out laminated copies of the article wasn't sure!  Hmm...not sure I have ever heard of service in the Russia AND England mission at the same time?  Oh, just hilarious! I wonder what language that would be?  Russian English?  LOL  Ya know, if Satan is trying to make me discouraged by throwing so many things like this my way, he did a good job at first, but it is actually rather funny now. 

dear ami state board meeting, I really didn't have time to go to a meeting this week, but they were holding it in my town and some of them travel two hours to get here and so I figured I better go since it was right here.  I ended up getting there a half hour earlier than it was planned for and so to kill some time I left the restaurant and headed to Walmart to return some things.  I took a back dirt road that had been sprayed and so it wasn't dusty....but it was still too wet and it made my car look like it had been lightly sprayed with mud and Dave had just washed it for me the night before!  I felt really bad and so I had to go wash it again.  More wasted time!  

I love meetings with my AMI friends because they are such outstanding women and I always leave feeling so inspired and uplifted!  I sat by Marilou who is our Co-Pres right now and she told me she had a daughter serve in Russia and then she just groaned.  She said it was so hard.  She also said that her daughter was beat up a few times and had very little food. Great.  Just what I like to hear.  The one thing I have learned is that no one that has been there or had a child serve there sugar coats Russia.  They tell you how it is.  I guess that's good, but not fun to hear!   Most of the people are tough and not really interested in some little missionary telling them to change their life. But then without fail, after I hear about the experiences, they ALWAYS say, "But they absolutely loved it there!"   Hmm.... 

The cute lady on the left is giving a demo of a fun family activity game. Our theme was centered around lemons.  It was a yummy way to spend a couple of hours but I rushed off before it was over because I had so much to do.  

I went and picked up the pulled pork for the farewell and when I got there they couldn't find my order anywhere.  Did I mention that things just seem to keep going wrong?  But it's not going to frustrate me!  I will just keep laughing!  Luckily they were still able to accommodate me.  And that is really what I keep discovering.  Even when something goes wrong, it still ALWAYS works out and sometimes even better!  

This ↓ came in the mail for me and even though it's pretty silly, just reading that label totally brightened my day!  I needed to feel that someone thought I was magnificent even if it was just a clothing company! hah

dear shopping trip to o town, I had to pick up McKay's suit on Friday and I also had to grab some things for the farewell at Costco and make sure I had the clothes I wanted for family pix on Monday.  I changed a couple things as far as the outfits go.  Having a hard time finding exactly what I want!  But I got a lot done.   Family pictures has always been on my top five list of the most stressful things as a mom!  I text Sky a picture of some of the clothes so he could see the color scheme and asked him if he had anything that matched.  He wrote back and said, "I'm cancelling my flight!"  VERY funny!  I text that back and he said he found it amusing that I thought he was kidding!  lol  He does NOT like family pictures!  But I know in the end he will cooperate because he always does.  I told him I was only two weeks away from a nervous breakdown and he didn't want to be the one that pushed me over the edge was he?  I am just kidding...well pretty much!  hah

dear bro trip!  Sky arrived on Friday from Hawaii and the boys picked him up from the airport and then they all headed to Moab.  For McKay's birthday, Bryce and Taylor gave him a sky diving trip!  When we all went sky diving on my 50th birthday, McKay wasn't 18 and so he couldn't go.  He has been wanting to ever since and so this was super exciting for him.  They cancelled on Memorial Day and they miraculously found a time they could all go this week.  Sky didn't dive with them because he said it wasn't worth the money because they didn't go up high enough. He has been about seven or eight times already and so it was no big deal for him to not go.  But it was fun for them to all have a trip together.  We paid for a hotel for them even though they would have preferred to camp, but they had to be to the sky dive place at 7:00 a.m. and we thought that would be a little bit much to do while camping.

 The three sky divers!
McKay LOVED it!

Nothing like going SKY DIVING four days before you go on a mission!

Taylor bought the photos of his jump.

 I am so glad they had a good time!

This is a shot from where Sky lives.  SO GORGEOUS!

I need to get back there soon!

dear mr. cat, yep, you still love Dave and still won't give me the time of day unless you want a treat and then I can get you to rub my legs until I deliver.

dear running this week, there are some weeks when I just don't have time to run, but it's the best thing I can do with my time!  Running is what keeps me sane and when I'm already going insane, it is a necessity! 

I had some good runs this week.  Good in the sense that I felt so much better after I was done because I needed them.  I was feeling really good on this run.... ↑  Can ya tell?  haha

I also did hill repeats this week and found this little dead snake.  Just a sign of many more to come this summer I fear. 

I also found this awesome heart rock.  I needed it! 

I came home and added it my collection.  I need to figure out a good way to display them.  Anyone have any ideas?  I am open to suggestions!

dear quote of the week, the scripture from Seminary graduation kept popping into my head all week.  My friend Colleen who is sending out her baby on a mission the week after McKay, text me this week and said, "Here is a scripture that stuck out to me in sacrament meeting yesterday... D&C 6:36.  Look unto me in every thought, doubt not, fear not. I'm going to try and keep to this in my mind."

I wrote back and told her that what she just sent gave me chills because that scripture was on the Seminary graduation program the night before and it hit me also and I had decided that night I was going to focus on it this week as well. 

We both felt like it was a sign from above that we are being helped and it was a little tender mercy of reassurance from Heavenly Father that He is watching over us.  I mean what are the odds we would get that exact same scripture on the very same day and then both share it with each other?  Pretty cool!

dear mckay's farewell,  I can't believe it is already here!  It came SO fast!  On Saturday I spent the day cleaning, cooking, baking, and setting up the tables.

I seriously have the most incredible friends!  Robin dropped by a huge pan of brownies, Sharon brought over a huge bean salad, Bonnie a plate of cookies, Nadine a huge banana cake, Julie blond brownies and deviled eggs, Karen a pan of yummy M&M brownies, Jamie ordered and delivered a bunch of sweet bread.  I didn't get pix of it all and I am sure I forgetting someone.  I was just feeling SO grateful!  I was starting to worry I wasn't going to have enough food. The fam also brought over a lot of yummy food too.

 We got everything set up in our backyard and we were really hoping the mosquitoes would stay away.  This has been one of the worst years in the history of history for mosquitoes because of all the rain!  We called the Mosquito Abatement to come and spray and they did in our street, so I hope it helped!  It was also predicted to be super hot today.  Ugh!

I had planned on enough food for 100.  I had no idea if that was good or close because a lot of the family that usually comes to these things weren't able to this time and so I thought I would be good.  That was before I went to church!

 I know you are not supposed to take pictures in the chapel during a meeting but I am hoping it is okay if the meeting hasn't started...otherwise....busted!  I arrived 30 minutes early and two benches in front were already full with his friends and they were saving three more full ones. It was crazy. I sat farther back than I wanted and I was there 30 minutes early, but that is okay.  In the past for farewells, friends always sit in the way back, but not today.  By the time the meeting started his friends had filled four full long rows and about seven side ones.  I have never seen so many kids attend a farewell in my life!  My extended family kept asking me if the entire student body was there.  I was pretty sure the entire football team was.  Just from where I was sitting, I counted 80 kids in front of me and there were several more rows in the back full of kids that didn't arrive early.  They had to open the overflow and the gym for more seating, which is normal for a farewell or homecoming, but this was really full. I wasn't in a panic yet though because McKay reassured me that not everyone that came to hear him speak would come to the house to eat.  That was good since I had only planned for 100!  I am sure there was close to 150-200 friends there!  I was fine until after the meeting when I walked out in the foyer and several of his buds said to me, "See ya at 4:00!"  

THEN I started to panic!  What if they all DID come to eat?  I seriously wasn't sure what I would do.  Our church is at 1:00 and we weren't eating until 4:00 and so I figured since it wasn't directly after the meeting that not many would even come.  I ran home and my mom and quite a bit of my family was already there and I told them that I didn't think I was going to have enough food and what should I do!?  And...a lot of these guys were HUGE football players that ate a lot of food!  We came up with a plan that we would have to serve the pulled pork in order to make it go further.  I had enough buns for 120 and so that made me feel better.

But back to that later...  

McKay gave an awesome talk and I was just so proud of him. He was so cute and so funny and said, "I was trying to get out of this talk today so yesterday I went skydiving.  Turns out it's a lot safer than most people think."  He talked about playing Risk with his bros at the cabin and he put all his pieces on Mongolia which borders Russia and said that if you want to go to a ceratin place on your mission put all your troops on a country that borders it.  His topic was the plan of salvation.  He got me teared up and needing a Kleenex about midway when he talked about Tyson.  It's better if I quote him so I don't slaughter it.  
He said:  "Boyd K. Packer said in a talk he gave, "If you understand the great plan of happiness and follow it, what goes on in the world will not determine your happiness." That's big. I know this is true, I truly believe that the greatest sorrow a person can feel in this world is the loss of a loved one if they don't know about the Plan of Salvation, a parent, a spouse,  a dear friend or even a brother.  When I was 8 my brother Tyson died. That was easily the hardest moment in my life.  Me and Tyson were closer most than brothers, I looked up to him so much, he was my hero, battling CF for 17 years.  Everybody liked Tyson, in his obituary it says, "He seemed to naturally possess a Christ like spirit."  He's the reason I am going on a mission and why I try to live the gospel.  I know I will see him again.  If you really understand the plan of happiness and follow it, there is absolutely nothing in this world that stop you from being happy. "

He talked about the climate and told how cold it would get (the record low for one part of his mission is -89 F!) and he talked about it's the biggest geographical mission in the church as well as the most expensive due to the travel involved because it's so large and that he will go to Seoul South Korea every three to six months to renew his Visa.  He then talked about the plan of salvation and he gave a lot of doctrine and it was a very spiritual and inspiring talk. 

It was good.  Really good.  I was just so proud of him!  He never ceases to amaze me.  He already seems so mature and missionary like!  I have to say I was not expecting that!  McKay has more friends than probably anyone I know.  He has friends from all walks of life.  Translation: all groups of kids.  He is well liked and I have never heard anyone say anything but good about him. He is kind and respectful and FUNNY!  He seems to always be laughing or joking about something and has others doing the same.  I love that so much and I am going to miss it terribly.  He also has an incredible amount of confidence.  I am grateful for that. 

Once 4:00 came around, they arrived and they arrived.  But, thankfully the whole student body didn't show up!  Just the football team!  hah  I think we probably only had about 1/4 of the kids that came to the talk.  If we had been serving the meal right after, I have no doubt I would have ran out of food because most would have come!  Obedience does bring blessings!  :) We somehow managed to feed everyone and even had some leftover.  I think we had about 90 there total including family.  What a relief.  I was afraid we were going to have to pray for a feeding of the 5000 miracle!

I tried to get pix of most of those there, but I missed several. 

The mosquitoes stayed at bay but the heat was pretty fierce!

I wish I had invited more people even after the panic of the food shortage!

Brother Nichols from our ward dropped by with a box full of things from Russia (including a hat!) and just grabbed McKay and started to show him all the things in his box and spoke very loudly so all could hear. 

 It was actually very interesting and fun. 

It was a great day!

 We truly appreciated all the support we had.

McKay has been blessed with great friends.

I was grateful so many were able to come and support him.  I'm not only going to miss him, but his friends as well.

I am so proud of this boy!  What an honor to be his Mama!
We had people stay until after 10:00 that night.  I was EXHAUSTED!  I just wanted to go to bed and sleep for days, but....the next few days are going to be pretty intense! 

dear where did the time go? My brother sent me these pictures that my cute niece Paigely had on her phone of her and McKay when they were so tiny.  Wow, how time has flown.  Seems like these were taken just the other day.

There are so many days that I just want those days back.  It's so heart wrenching to think that those days are over for good.  I loved it when they were little.  I am not a fan of people growing up and becoming adults!  lol  Why can't they just stay little forever?  hah

McKay taped this note to my bathroom mirror when he was seven or eight and I have had it taped there for years!  Shows how sentimental I am!  I just can't take it down because it was so sweet.  Now when I see it, I will think that instead of him saying he went to school, he went to Russia.  Ohhhhhh.... just stab me with a dagger!  Okay, drama over for now!  hehe

 There was another one that was taped there for years too, but it fell off.  It said, "Mom and Dad I lose you - from McKay."  He meant I love you, but it made me smile for so many years while reading that every single day.

dear weekly quotes:  I think it's time for some humor!  This made me die laughing!

 THIS ↓ is what I need to keep reminding myself because I am NOT a fan of change!

And this is TRUTH...

Just keep telling yourself that! :)

 I LOVE THIS ↓

 So why do we go somewhere else for answers?

This is what Christ thinks of us all...

 Yep...

And yep....

dear weekly messages....there were several this week that hit me and so I posted them all!

Today, Jodi, we believe God wants you to know that ...you don't go to find meaning in life, you bring meaning to your life. Meaning isn't something out there waiting for you to discover. The meaning of your life is what you infuse it with - beauty or ugliness, happiness or sadness. It is totally your choice, and God wants it to be your choice because God gave you free will.

Today, Jodi, we believe God wants you to know that ...you are asked for very little, - just the totality of your being. God demands the totality of your being. That you invest all of yourself into celebrating the glory and the preciousness of being alive right now, no holding back and saving for later.

Today, Jodi, we believe God wants you to know that ...the sounds of Nature can lift your spirits.  Take time to revel in the joyful songs of the birds, the splash of a bubbling brook, the whisper of the wind through the trees, and the roar of the ocean's waves. These sounds can deeply nourish your soul.

Today we believe God wants us to know that ...it is okay to ask for help. You were not meant to go through this journey alone. Ask for help. There is strength in togetherness.

I survived this week...one down, one more to go!