Youth Conference Trip

This past weekend was General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. As Bishop, Ed takes the priests and laurels down to experience conference from Salt Lake. As his wife, I get to go along. This year we made the trip with 24 youth and 10 leaders from the Evergreen Ward. We left Friday morning at 5 am and our first stop was Echo, Oregon where Sister Hullinger's parent's house is. She was there waiting for us with breakfast. Then it was on to Mountain Home, Idaho where most of us stopped for lunch. When we arrived down in the Salt Lake area we went to a local school where Brother Hullinger's sister had prepared a dinner for us. The youth enjoyed being able to stretch their legs and play some basketball.

We end up staying the nights at Brother Hullinger's parent's house along with a couple of their neighbors' houses. Saturday we drove to temple square and some were able to get into the conference center to see the prophet, while the rest of us watched from various other venues on temple square. During the men's priesthood session the girls all went shopping. Afterwards we all met up for dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet. I think they lost money on us.

Sunday was like Saturday with the exception that we ate our sack lunches between sessions and then went to the Hullinger's stake center where we were treated to a wonderful potato bar dinner and a testimony meeting. The Relief Society room in the stake center has a beautiful mural of the Saviour painted on the wall. We of course had to get a group picture in there.

Spring Break is this week, so we didn't head back to Vancouver on Monday, but instead went back down to temple square so we could visit other places that we might not have had time for earlier. The wind was something else, but we managed to not get blown away and get another group shot standing in front of the temple. From there we drove down to Provo to visit the BYU campus. Thanks to Eric Glem, we were able to tour Cougar stadium (press box, booster club, walk on the field, and locker room). We then went to the Marriot Center where Mr. Marriot himself was practicing for a speech he was to give the next day. We also were able to quickly chat with the Cougar basketball coach. Dinner was another all-you-can-eat buffet at the cafeteria. They have some good food there.

Tuesday was the long ride back home. At least this time we had good weather (the trip through the gorge on Friday was horrific! what with all the rain). We got home around 7pm. We had such a good time. I can't wait to do it again in another 2 years.

I have the BEST husband EVER!

Ed sent me down to Florida so that I could help Jennifer celebrate her 20th birthday with family. I arrived on Wednesday afternoon and drove over to "Mama & Papa Rap's" where I was going to be staying. I got to meet Toni (Mama Rap) and have a pizza with her before driving over to Hollywood Studios where Jennifer works. From there we drove to Downtown Disney to run around for a few hours. I didn't get back to "my place" until after midnight, and then it was up again by 7:00 am to get back to Jennifer's apartment to meet up with her friends for our trip to the Magic Kingdom. I ended up driving us since Jennifer could get us free parking. The weather was gorgeous - around 80*. We had a lot of fun going on the rides, before heading off to Hollywood Studios to watch the parade and Fantasmic, and then racing back to Magic Kingdom for the "Wishes" fireworks show.

On Friday it was just the two of us as we went to the Animal Kingdom (Expedition Everest, Dinosaur, Bug's Life, and Kali River Rapids), Magic Kingdom, and then Epcot. My feet had taken a beating by the time we were done, and I have the blisters to prove it. I had such a good time with Jennifer though. It was all worth it. Ed had gotten me a new camera before I left, so we took a ton of pictures. I am looking forward to the whole family going down to visit later this year. I miss Jennifer so much it sometimes hurts. I am glad that I have a husband who can see that and does what he can to help.

I'm going to go see my baby!!

My baby girl will be turning 20 in just 2 days and she is clear across the country so I can't celebrate with her. Boo hoo. Then my husband, the loving, caring man that he is, says to me, "How would you like to surprise Jennifer for her birthday?" He then proceeds to buy me an airplane ticket to Orlando so I can spend some quality/fun time with our daughter. Things really worked out great, in that she has both Thursday and Friday off from work so we'll get to spend those two days together doing Disney "the way it is supposed to be done" (according to Jennifer). Since she doesn't have to work until 4pm on Saturday, we'll have the whole morning together too. I am so excited to see her and where she is living for the next 6+ months.

I Love my Family!!!!

Before Jennifer left to head down to Florida, we decided that we needed to get our family pictures taken. A good friend offered to use her talents and they were done. I can not believe how grown up they are all starting to look. It was just a few years ago when they all had those cute "baby faces" with the puffy cheeks and dimples. The boys are looking more and more like my father and brother. When they were younger they looked so much like Ed it was scarey, but now I finally see my side of the family showing through.

New Background

In honor of my daughter being down in the most magical place on earth, Disney World, I have decided to change my background. Since I am NOT computer sauve, it took me quite a long time to figure out how to change it. In the mean time I seem to have lost my music on the blog. I'll have to research how to get that back.

Counting down the days until Jennifer comes back home. 196 days!

A New Adventure Begins

Well, at least for Jennifer. Tonight we held a party in her honor as we all wished her luck in her new adventure - working in Disney World for the next 8 months. I will drive her to the airport tomorrow morning bright and early (6am). She will be on the plane for the next 13 hours or so and then when she arrives in Orlando, Cassie's mom will pick her up from the airport, take her home to their house for the night, and then deliver her to Disney World in the morning. (Cassie is Jennifer's roommate from BYU-I) This is such a great opportunity for Jennifer and we are all excited for her. I am going to miss her terribly. There will now be a 3 hour time difference and she won't be able to drive 12 hours to get home. Thank goodness for modern technology which will allow us to communicate as often as we feel like it.

It was fun tonight to visit with my stepsisters Anne and Kimmie, and my stepbrother Tim and his family. We rarely get together, but when we do it is fun. Ed's side of the family was represented by his younger sister Karen, her daughter Shelby, his brother Jim, and Jim's family. We missed several other family members, but that might be because Jennifer was in charge of the invites, and they might not have received them. Oh well, we thought of them and counted them there in spirit.

Scarey Times

To give a bit of back ground: Edward came down with a nasty cold after the football game in the rain on Friday, November 4th. He ended up with flu-like symptoms on Sunday and stayed home from church. He did drag himself out of bed to attend seminary on Monday (he had perfect attendance for the 3 years so far), but didn't feel well enough to go to school. He was worried though about missing football practice so after sleeping most of the day, he went there also. Tuesday he still felt lousy, but managed to make it to seminary, his classes, and to football. Wednesday morning after seminary I receive a text message from him telling me that he doesn't feel good, that he wants to go to the doctor's. I replied and said I would be right down to the school to pick him up. (I did stop to get dressed and put gasoline in the car, figuring I was going to have to drive him up to Salmon Creek Urgent care.)

By the time I got to the school he was in a panic. I went to check him out of his home building only to find out he was in the 300 building with the school nurse. When I finally arrived she said Edward was having chest pains and that she almost called for an ambulance. I drove him quickly to SW Medical Hospital where they quickly took him into the back room and put him on a heart monitor and did some blood work. The doctor thought it might be inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart, but after an EKG and an Echocardiogram it was determined that the inflammation wasn't the sac, but the heart muscle itself. They gave him some pain killers and an asprin, and then said they would redo the blood work in six hours. We were then moved upstairs to the Clinical Decision Unit (CDU) to wait.

The heart produces an enzeme when it is under stress. The normal range is 0.0>0.04. When Edward came into the hospital it was at 6.something. Later, when they did the blood work again, it had climbed to 15.something else. They told me that they wouldn't start to be real concerned until it reached 20. It was then that they decided to keep him over night and test his blood levels again in the morning. At 8:30 in the morning we finally got the news that the levels had dropped to 3.9! He could go home.

Edward will be taking Ibuprofen for the next 4 weeks until we see the cardiologist again. In the meantime, he is off all physical activity other than walking. This means no more football. He was crushed. The team went to Kent, Washington this Friday to play the Kentlake Falcons and Edward really wanted to go and at least be on the sidelines. Coach Piland agreed to let him go only because he wasn't contagious. He was there to cheer his teammates on as they beat the #6 team in the state 31-7. Next week they'll play up in Woodenville, Washington.

Keep Edward in your prayers.