Catching up Part 2....

April was the hardest the month for me. The count down for Relay was ticking - one month to go. Getting everything ordered and organized for the event and the food was more than I could do. I had mid-terms and projects all due and many family activities going on at the same time. This is when Karl helped me the most. He watched the girls almost every night while I either worked on Relay, school, or church stuff. Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of fun stuff going on too.

In fact, it was really awesome when Deana left her three little ones with me for four days. The cousins had soo much fun! They were so good and sweet (I miss them so much), it was a true pleasure having them here for an extended stay. The next weekend was my favorite. Ever since my sister in law, Paige, came to visit me in Roseville and told me about my brother's college graduation, I had been planning to fly out at attend the ceremony.  The weekend had finally arrived! Leah and Deana were able to fly out too though Sarah was already going to be on a trip so she couldn't make it.  My parents were all going and my grandma and aunt too.  John had no idea!!  It was such a blast.  My sisters spent the night at my house and we drove to the airport the next morning. When we parked our car at a nearby parking lot, we ran into my mom and Dan in the shuttle to the airport! We had the same flight and sat right in front of them even, crazy.

When we got to Utah, my sisters and I met up with my dad and Kathy.  We drove the first ceremony and found seats where we could see John.  He even sent us text messages about how we could watch him on TV.  So funny when my dad called him and told him where to find us in the crowd and we saw us all sitting there with his two little boys!  It was priceless.  We spent a wonderful weekend visiting with Paige's family and celebrating John's graduation from BYU with his Masters.  That same weekend he packed up and drove to Dallas, Texas to start his new job.  On the way back to the airport, my sister and I stopped with my grandma at the Salt Lake Temple.  It was so pretty.  We went through a live session at the temple and I hope to go back some day.  At the visitor's center we found a photo of one of our ancestors who was building the temple at the time.  Seeing the visitor's center was so amazing.  Hard to image, even with all the evidence, what it was have been like for those saints.

John is the one standing up, raising his hand, while talking to us on the phone!

It was FREEZING cold and took forever to find everyone.

So I wrote this, with my sister's help, which read: Brother's of Yoda University, This certifies that John Boy has completed the course of loving sisterly torment, awkward adolescence, sacrificial service and perseverance for Real Life and is entitled to officially enter into this degree of Master of the World and has earned all rights and privileges pertaining therein. We signed it cute but I don't remember the words we used now.  Something about siblings and parents...  It was awesome!  The picture is the frame is of him when he was little with a super cheesy grin on his face - totally my little brother.

Celebrating at dinner with the family - love my grandma!

My sister in law, Paige, and my aunt Jill!

Again, John is the one raising his hand.  This is at the second ceremony where he actually got his name read and he walked for his diploma with his class.

Seeing so many people there to support him was amazing.

My meant-to-be sister!

Having lunch with the family to celebrate again

We sang "He's a jolly good fellow", it was great!

John gave tours of the brand new broadcasting building at BYU that he helped design the IT set up for.  It was the most amazing building EVER.  It was like a corporate Disney Land - very high tech and posh.

Posing on the lawn next to the Salt Lake Temple.

My grandma and her best friend in temple square.

Walking up temple square to get a bit to eat, right passed beautiful Church Headquarters.

Such a wonderful, peaceful place.

My grand pointing out my great, great, (maybe another great?) grandfather on the top to the temple in progress.

The coolest model of the Salt Lake temple.  You could see the chairs in each room and everything.

Couldn't resist trying to capture the beauty of the flowers.

 The next day was Easter and I have to admit, I don't remember much.  I think we were suppose to go see Karl's family but then canceled at the last minute... But I had it to church with the girls so that's good.

Karl left that same night for a week long trip for work out of state. Relay count down continued with two huge events that week. I think I got like four hours of sleep each night on average - usually I need at least 7 to function normally.  Mother's Day and teacher's appreciation week came and went but I didn't have a minute to say thank you like I wanted to.  I think I slept for Mother's Day or maybe the Briggs dropped in.  The pressure of the upcoming week was too much to focus on anything else. My girls were really fending for themselves at this point.  Here are some things I found them doing:



This was Natalie science project for school.  She and Karl did a great job putting it together.

For Relay I made cookies for my team to sell - I know I will not be doing that again - but it was so fun! Probably the thing I enjoyed the most to prepare for the event. You know, I think these are actually the ones I made for church on Mother's Day for Relief Society.  For Relay I made about 300 hundred cookies and slid six into a package with a tie on top.  They all turned out really well.

Relay was on Saturday May 14th. The 13th was Stephen's 18th birthday.  He spent it with his girlfriend. I realized I was going to spend the whole day getting Relay set up at the high school so I took Kylie a babysitters.  I spent all morning and afternoon getting things ready.  Nat came after school to help.  Karl picked both girls up and I went back to setting up the event.  The next morning started bright and early as the last of the teams set up their booths.  It was incredible. So many people came and things went very smoothly as the day got started.  People had so much fun buying treats and watching all the entertainment at the stage area and all around.  The track was full of people from the community and teams walking around all day to show their support in the fight against cancer. There were so many purple shirted people walking around meaning they had survived cancer.

Things grew more hectic as the day continued.  Some things didn't work out like we had planned and other things come up that we hadn't expected.  I had to take a break in the evening but jumped right back in.  So many of my family and friends came out to participate.  Fred, my dad, my mom and dan, my sister Deana and her kids and of course, Karl and our kids.  They stayed most of the day! I ran into people from my ward and got to know people from the community that I had never meet before.  The ceremony in the evening was very moving as everyone stopped to remember the loved ones they had lost to cancer.  It was so great to stop and take a few minutes to remember why I had gotten involved with Relay and remember what a wonderful woman Mary Jo was.  I still can't think of her without tearing up...

Things quited down after that and many people went home. I had a wonderful surprise that evening when Danicia and Ryan stopped by with her sister, Deidra and her husband, Mike.  It was around midnight and things had already wound down but it was great to walk around and talk about all the great moments of the day and the hard work that went into it all. I went home and tried to sleep for a few hours but I couldn't.  I got up around 4am and just rolled out of bed and went but to the event.

Everyone was sleeping but a few walkers around the track.  It had rained pretty good while I had left and the money had all been counted for the morning's total.  Slowly people started coming back to life and breakfast was kicked off rousing everyone.  We were all excited to hear how much the event had pulled in.  The ceremony that morning was full or energy and excitement though a little groggy (at least for me). We needed up raising just under $300,000 and are still a few hundred away from it.  But we reach the our for our event and everyone felt we did a good job.  I just hope that I'm forgiven for any ungracious words or actions that I most likely made or did during that 24 hours because I was not quite myself. 
The tents went down and people disappeared pretty fast after that. So many people were great at helping get the grounds cleaned up.  I left early to go teach in Relief Society but that was a mistake.  I was so tired, I kept falling asleep in my chair.  I had to stand up until it time to teach my lesson and then I found that my tongue and brain weren't quite connecting!  It was pretty embarrassing but thankfully I asked other people to share stories to fill the time and get the message across.  Then I went home and CRASHED.  Karl surprised me with a massage at my favorite place in town which I quickly booked for the next day.

The next two weeks found the kids and I wrapping up school and getting ready for summer.  Natalie got accepted into the G.A.T.E. program which means she would be changing schools. Stephen finished up his classes and requirements for graduation and firmed up plans to move into an apartment with his friends to attend school at a Jr. College in Davis. I completed my classes with flying colors and had just a few last wrap meetings to complete the Relay session.