In the Hands of God

It's fun to have a missionary to write a letter to on Sunday! We did get an e-mail from him on Thursday morning. Here it is:

Hi guys!  The first day was great! We're supposed to send a short email letting you guys know that we made it A OK. Have a great week! Also please send me a  comb and some lotion thanks!

Ha! A man of few words. I'm curious to find out if future e-mails will be longer. I really don't know!
We have a delivery service that does same-day delivery to the MTC. So I was able to quickly send his requests and a couple extra things, so he should have already received his first package.

I did Nick's laundry on Friday. He took it out of his suitcase and brought it downstairs in the basket. I put it into the washer. And then transferred it to the dryer. And upon opening the dryer, was met with a 3" centipede who had hitched a ride home from Hawaii and somehow (thankfully!) didn't make himself known amongst all that moving clothes around until he was dehydrated in the dryer! So GROSS!! Can you see how big that thing is?! HUGE!

Of course I was freaking out. So glad at these times to be able to say to my husband, "You're the man, you have to get it!" He's honestly not that much braver than me when it comes to creepy crawly things. (And dead birds -- remember that?!) But he does rise to the occasion and took it to the outdoor garbage cans to get it as far away from me as possible. Still just thinking about it makes me squirm!

Friday Jane Adair Nugent was born! Yay! She arrived with a harrowing last-minute complication as she tried to come out shoulder first and no amount of tugging could turn her so an emergency c-section was performed. But how grateful we are to live in this time with medical interventions!! She wasn't breathing when she was born, but very soon she began to cry which resulted in a very emotional Bekah and Matt, as you can imagine!

On the subject of babies, Rachel was having some complications with her pregnancy -- placenta growing over cervix. Often this corrects itself, but the location and area didn't look good. When she texted to tell everyone, Michelle asked if she would be okay with a family fast and prayer. She was. That Sunday was Fast Sunday so we all fasted for Rachel, Jeremy and Baby. At her next appointment, the doctor was VERY surprised at how much improvement had already taken place. Seriously shocked.

Then at her most recent appointment last week, everything had completely moved away from her cervix. The doctor was most surprised at the direction it moved. Very atypical. She said it normally doesn't move that direction, but it is certainly the most efficient direction to move. Fasting and Prayer works. It just does.

Friday night we got a surprise snowstorm. Woke up to over 8" of snow and it got up to 12" throughout the morning.  Dan took Nick skiing. Took them over 2 hours to get to Alta and then the powder was so high on Nick he only managed 2 runs before he was beat.

Dan got home in time to snowblow the driveway for a second time. While outside, a neighbor two doors down asked if he could help her get her machine working.  Her husband was out of town and Dan went ahead and snowblowed her driveway for her. Then next door to her, another neighbor who is battling brain cancer and his wife were out hand shoveling their driveway because their blower was broken. Dan took over and got theirs done. And finally, he blowed the driveway across the street from them because its the house Chris is assigned to, but he can't with his broken femur. So... 2 hours later Dan finally finished. He's a great example of helping without complaint.

Saturday evening we had Nick's birthday party. Last year we never got around to doing his neighborhood friend party. He planned a LaserQuest party with his school class, but there wasn't enough space to invite his neighborhood friends as well.  I said we'd do a separate one, but then we never got around to it! :-\

He had been wanting to go to Flowrider, so now, a year later we finally made good. And what he wanted was to get as many turns as possible. So he only invited 4 friends and they had the whole Flowrider to themselves for an hour. They said it was so fun and felt like 3 hours! Such cute friends and so fun to be with!

Notice I haven't said anything about Chris?! Because he's getting practically back to normal! He hung out with friends all evening Friday and Saturday. He can get around the house with one crutch well and can even walk (with a VERY big limp) for a bit. But then his leg tires out and starts hurting so he goes back to crutches. He is feeling fine back at school, but I will keep having him do home seminary because the seminary building is too far to crutch in the snow and ice for now.

He's in good hands.