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Painful to Watch!

Oh my GOSH!!! I can't believe this! The hair pulling thing especially! With soccer season just ending, I thought I'd post this one for Q. Yay BYU!

Just Taking a Look Around

Do you ever have the feeling that you've had your head in a hole in the ground most of the time and every so often you lift your head up and realize that life is going on around you?

I sometimes wonder whose life this is that I'm living.

I'm facing the realization that my oldest child is turning 16 next week. Ugh! How did this happen? How did she get this old? I am grateful that she and I have always been the best of friends.

When Z and I started school together, six months after we were married, I went along with Z's idea that we wait to have children until after we graduated. Not long after moving to Monmouth, Z was given the assignment to home teach a young couple who'd just moved into the ward. I was assigned to be his companion.

We grew to love Mark and Kati so much! They became our best friends, and we chose to be with them every chance we could. Kati was pregnant with their first child. We had a lot of fun finding things for their baby and anticipating his birth.

I have a hard time accepting the idea that this wasn't in God's plan for Z and me. Why would I be assigned to be Z's home teaching companion? I have little doubt that this was all laid out. In getting excited for their baby, it became clear that we could have the same thing happen to us. This had honestly never been a thought in my mind before this.

Mark and Kati moved shortly after Levi was born, but we got to enjoy their first few weeks of parenthood before they left sometime around Christmas.

The idea that we NEEDED to have a child grew and grew. By spring break, and our first anniversary, we were going to be parents! Q was born November 11th (11/11) at 2:22pm. And, our lives have never been the same.

Q was born while Z and I were in college down at Western Oregon University. Z had been accepted into the School of Education and was doing his student teaching when she was very little. The thing we understood about the Beaverton School District is the fact that they, more often than not, hire their own, so Z wanted to do his student teaching (at least part of it) in the Beaverton area, while I stayed in Monmouth.

When she was five months old, Z was also called into the bishopric of the young single adult ward. This kept us apart on Sunday's too. Our church building was under construction to make it into a stake center, so I was going to church with Q in Dallas, Oregon, and Z was going to church in West Salem with the YSA ward.

Well, at that point in time, my life would have been extremely lonely. It was such a blessing to have Q as my little companion. She gave me someone to focus on.

So, here I am now preparing to watch my daughter turn sixteen. I remember sixteen. It was a hard time. Q doesn't seem to have the hang ups I did at that age. She is fairly level-headed and happy in her own skin. She is confident and enjoys every day.

It's just scary to think that the day is coming, sooner than I expected, that the next time I pull my head up out of the hole I seem to live in, that she'll be setting off for college, so I'm not going to think about that....I'm just going to enjoy sixteen and love every minute I have her around.

Twilight Zone

Seven years ago today, I was in a car accident. The reason that comes to mind is that Z called me this morning to tell me he'd been in one today. I remember the date because it was the day that Z was allowed to break the news to the school, where he was working at the time, that he was accepting another position in the school district. Instead of making that announcement, he had to come take care of his wife--I really screwed that up for him, didn't I?


That day seven years ago brings to mind a number of interesting facts.


I was rear-ended as I stood still by a guy in a black car who was going 35 or more miles per hour. His air bag deployed. He had passed out and was just coming to when I got out of my car. I'm sure he about croaked when he saw my seven-months-pregnant body.

As soon as I got out, a man approached me. He told me that he was an under-cover narcotics officer (flashed his badge) and said he'd help get things under control. He got the tow truck there and started directing traffic. My van was a mess in the back. I had a difficult time getting it farther onto the shoulder of the road. Our former bishop drove by, pulled over up the road a ways and came over to help me and make sure all was well.

So, does anyone else see the distinct tender mercies in this?


The other thing that was amazing to me was that I was completely unharmed. At impact, I felt that I had been lightly tapped in the back although I heard the screeching tires. As I recall, when the accident occured, the other driver was attempting to light a cigarette. He didn't even know I was there until it was way too late. I know my car felt the impact much more than I did. The dent in the back proved that along with the large bucket of Costco laundry detergent that had overturned and rolled to the other side of the car.




Here's what makes this a Twilight Zone moment....

That evening, we went to a car rental agency to rent a van. As we walked around to the front door, we were greeted by a van-full of kids calling us by name and inquiring as to why we were there. We knew them from church. They were also there to rent a van.

Ends up that their mom, also named Julie, also seven months pregnant with her fifth child, which was also a boy, and also driving a Mazda MPV minivan (which, as I recall, was the same champagne color as ours) was hit by a black vehicle. She was just on her way home from taking her kids to the dentist; I was just going to the dentist, and thankfully, had no children in my van. We had both spent a portion of the day at the hospital having our unborn babies monitored. Both MPVs were totalled as a result of the accidents.

Amazing, huh?

So, today's accident was in the Suburban that we purchased to replace that MPV. Everyone's okay. It was a really dumb circumstance and just too bad it happened at all.