for whatever reason i  can't publish a comment and i can't hold a thought  long enough to put all my comments in my blog.

leeshie, i remember so fondly you backpacking with me, kathleen, and the good doctor.  you were planning to stay for a few days after-wards and instead stayed for 6 plus weeks.  remember swimming in bg lake and then coming home to warm up in the hot tub. scarey  about little maddie. chloe will rule the school just give her a little time.

when geof. darla and kids get here. i can hardly wait because he's in charge of the hot tub. not near as big as their apartment complex pool but it will have to do. i figure i will just have to keep putting water in it every day to replace what gets splashed out.  one solid party coming up.

mindi, your new self portrait is hysterical!!!!!! you are so danged funny!!!

jason and elly belly we can hardly wait to get you up here. cute picture.

moni i am so glad you are alive!!! so sorry to read about your friend's death.  hard on those that are left behind. patti moved with her little family wed. she texted cory a picture of the temp on the rearview mirror of the suburban just like rob used to do every time they went to utah.  now he's really gone.  looking back is sometimes too painful-good times are gone-bad things can not be undone.  i like looking forward to what needs to be done and what fun stuff i get to do.

when i wake up in the mornings is when life comes crashing down on me.  maybe my dreams are better than i remember.  i am forever grateful that it happens in the morning because i usually roll over  say prayers and start the day. at night i think if it happened i would just lay there wishing i could go to sleep and be too tired to get up and do anything.

anyway yesterday i woke with that crushing feeling.  i don't know of anyone that has worked any harder than geoffrey to get through school.  he graduated cum laude while working 3 jobs, with 2 1/2 kids, logging 1,000 hrs. of flight time to become a pilot.  darla was able to stay at home with their children in various apartments  and endure poverty while having a husband that is gone all the time. no mean feat!!! he was promoted to pilot and demoted to 1st officer all in less than a 24 hour period.  the upside was they were used to living on $20,000.00 a year.  what about all those other pilots that were used to $60,000.00 plus a year? 

if you want to hear the woes the airlines and  our country is facing pick up a paper, try to buy gas. (i paid 4.79 in CA last week) or talk to any of you that are looking up recipes for new cassaroles that use  government cheese and top ramon. pizza hut will be looking to get some of that cheese soon as their price for cheese is spiraling  out of sight. everything is starting to tank. BIG TIME!!!

I kinda thought when the end came it would be all at once. to go out incrementally  i guess gives you time to prepare some more if we will heed the warnings, but if we can't work to support ourselves. . . ?  even if we haven't gone into debt. which we have unfortunately. it won't take long to incur a lot of debt if we have no income. we could sell our homes if anyone can or will buy them etc. does this sound familiar to anyone?

anyway, when this crashing thing happened yesterday as i lay there contemplating life in the early hours of the day. i prayed, and then followed it up by reading the article by pres. packer in the "worldwide leadership training meeting."  he said:

     "When you young people who now look forward to marriage and a family life look around and see the dangers, there is only one place on this earth where the family can be fully protected, and that's within the ordinances and the doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Live the gospel, and you're going to be all right.

     The world isn't a very pleasant place to live in and there are challenges and disorders and patterns of life and death and all of the problems that come to us, and yet the answers are found in understanding that the family is the fundamental unit of the Church."

i feel i can take that literally and i know we will be blessed. the blessing poured in yesterday.

My neighbor called and asked me a few days ago about finding someone for her to work 1 maybe 2 days a week. Gerdia is a little german lady, 84 and in poor health. i love her to death. i thought about it and decided i wanted the job if she would have me.  she was so happy and is just fine when i have someone else come in weeks i am not home. she loved julia when she worked for her or meags, darla, or ellynn. so i now have a job that doesn't interfere with my being a mom to all my grown up and needy, but way fun children.

meags and the kids rode their bikes up to help me go through adam and mindi's trailer. it was kind of sad.  last year we thought we would have them here with us. oh well, we went thru the bins and pulled out enough clothes for ellynn to have quadruplets. 2 boys and 2 girls plus a box full for baby june. and a giant bag full of clothes a. and m. kids had grown out of that we were loading to take to d.i. when our r.s. pres. showed up and said it was a blessing she knew some people that could use them.

about the time we  get to the food storage that is in the trailer.  we get phone calls from both adam and mindi. they haven't been able to get a hold of each other but they know it will be alright---just keep the food storage.  you have so much of the family moving up there you might need it and we will just buy more. it makes me bawl to even type this. i am so blessed with the family i have, my sisters and their children, ellery's family. 

"...The family is the fundamental unit of the Church!"

"Live the gospel, and you're going to be all right!"

Love to All, Aunt Le Anne