Roomies, FSY, Father's Day, ID reunion, Elisabeth's Birthday

One of my BYU roomies, Ashley, was in town from Missouri.  Since the 6 of us still chat on Marco Polo, I invited whoever could make it over for dinner. April lives nearby in Sandy and was able to come, but the others were out of state and unable. We caught up, and looked at old pictures and had a good time. 

My gospel doctrine lesson this month covered the story of David and Goliath. It's such a good story with so many applicable lessons. I love teaching gospel doctrine; or at least I love all the time I spend in the scriptures preparing to teach gospel doctrine. All the time I spend each day in God's words (through his prophets) is making me a better person. 

Annabelle and Jane filled these forms out during their church class. I love that they both put the same answer for 'when dad comes home from work he likes to..." A: Kiss mom. It's true! 

Father's Day dinner Scott requested pasta salad and a pretzel jello salad for dessert. We also added sandwiches and chips. I'm so grateful for Scott and the attentive father he his to the kids.

Isn't this picture adorable? Scott reading to Jane on his lap with Charles snuggled close by his side and Annabelle listening in while also reading a book of her own. 

A picture of my dad with either Luis or Pepa. 

Jane was able to attend FSY at university of Utah. She went with her friend Savannah. She made a good new friend from bountiful, Ryker, that she's hung out with a few times. Jane was not happy that we had to pick her up a day and a half early for our family reunion in ID. But in all fairness, she knew before she picked her FSY date that we had our family reunion that week and that she'd have to leave early for it. 

I reached 500 days on Duolingo for Spanish practice! 

Annabelle bought second hand clothing to take to Africa for her HXP humanitarian trip, which we then hung and sprayed with a clothing mosquito spray in preparation for her trip. 

Thursday night we drove out to Idaho for the reunion. Friday morning we went to the temple for Bella's temple endowment. It was fun to be in the temple with siblings and family. 

That afternoon we went back to Romney's for a birthday party in honor of Ava and Rain. They rented a large inflatable water slide that many of us went down. It was so tall! 

The weather wasn't great that weekend. It was in the 70s and rained off and on quite a bit, but we still enjoyed it. 

Because we were all coming in for Rain's baptism, we also had Blake's side of the family there which was fun. 

While Nora and Cora were out on the trampoline it started hailing. They stayed out until it started to hurt then they came in. 

I suggested they grab cups and see if they could catch some of that hail. They didn't get much. It was a little scary driving back to our VRBO that evening as the roads had flooded. We had to drive through several large, deep puddles where I wondered if our car was going to make it. Elisabeth and Tayson stayed at the house we rented with us. It was fun to have everyone together. 

Rain's baptism was beautiful. for the special musical number, Becca played an old video of my Mom singing and playing at Bella's baptism from years ago. It was very special. 

After the baptism we changed, ate lunch and went back to the church for games. We played with nerf guns, spike ball, pickleball and basketball. 

Charles is doing well in Ghana. He loves the people there. And he's always got people to teach about Jesus which is a blessing. 

Elisabeth and Tayson came home with us Saturday evening and stayed through Monday, which was her 22nd birthday. We celebrated Sunday night since both Jane and Nora left early Monday morning for girls camp. We had stuffed pasta shells and fruit pizza and played spike ball and Nertz. 

Monday night Annabelle flew to NYC where she met up with her HXP group before heading to Kenya and then Ghana. On her flight to JFK, she met some other HXP friends...they're not hard to identify as they're all wearing the same shirt and have the same Cotopaxi backpacks. Once in Ghana they found that many of them had lost their checked luggage, including Annabelle...it had remained in Kenya (or so my AirTags showed). The day after they arrived they flew to Mole National Park for some fun, but it meant they didn't get their bags until they got back to Accra area. So they went without the first 4 days. But she was fine and had everything she needed in her backpack and carryon, and if there wasn't something she needed, she could borrow/share from a friend in the group. So it all worked out. She had a great group who never complained and just was happy to be there, to be together and had fun with whatever they were doing. 

 

Herpetic Gingivostomatitis, Tuesday June 6- Friday June 19

 Tuesday night June 6th, Jane started feeling sick. She got a fever and a sore throat that night. Wednesday it was the same, her throat was burning now all the time and she also had a couple of small sores appear on her lip and in her mouth.  She continued to have the same symptoms Thursday and Thursday night we noticed a sore on her uvula. I figured it might be strep throat, which we've never had, and so Friday morning I took her into the doctor. She continued to have a fever of around 100 and everything was mostly the same. They gave her a strep test, which was pretty awful as they stick a long qtip thing down your throat which makes you gag and then they have to swipe that area back there. The first attempt was failed as when Jane gagged, she also hit the swab away. So we had to do it again. This time she was more prepared, and I helped to hold her hands in place. Success. We found out soon after that it was negative. The doctor who was in that day (he wasn't our primary care doctor but another one in the clinic) said it was a enterovirus of some sort (like hand foot and mouth) that would go away on it's own and sent us home after he'd sent in a prescription for magic mouth wash that would numb her throat. 

Jane was miserable and hadn't eaten hardly anything in days. Even water hurt going down. So we were anxious to get the. mouth wash that might provide some relief as all she'd had to help so far was ibuprofen and Tylenol which weren't doing much. Her 5'2" 100 lbs body was losing weight at about a pound a day, and we needed something to help. The doctors office called after a couple of hours and said they sent the prescription to a different pharmacy after getting it back from the one they sent it to because they didn't make it there. So I went in a couple of hours later to pick it up. and it wasn't there. They hadn't received the prescription. So while I was at the pharmacy counter I called the doctors office. They apologized for not having sent it yet and said that doctor was currently at lunch and theyd' have him sign it as soon as he got in. The pharmacy took my number and said as soon as they got it they'd fill it and give me a call. Well, they never called back that night. And the pharmacy was closed Saturday and Sunday. So we would have to wait until Monday. Monday her throat was started to feel better and I was able to pick up the prescription and get her started on that which helped. At the same time, the sores in her mouth and on her lips got much, much worse. Her gums were also red and inflamed, one of her front gums was receding and another back gum felt loose. I took a picture and sent it to the doctors office and asked if there was anything more we could do to help this. Another doctor was in the office that day (mine was on vacation), Dr Langston, and she said she thought it was Herpetic Gingivostomatitis. she'd seen it before many times. It's basically cold sores caused by HSV1. She said it was too late to start a treatment that would help, but if we'd like to get her tested to be sure, we could do that and then if it came back positive, we could get medicine for when/if it shows up again as it tends to do that (like when there's a lot of stress etc).  

I said yes so we took her in Tuesday morning and she was tested for HSV-1. The results came back Wednesday and they were positive, so Dr Langston was correct and it was Herpetic Gingivostomatitis. By Wednesday Jane's fever broke. Her gums were still inflamed and she still have lots of sores on her lips and mouth. By Thursday her moth was less painful and her energy started to increase. By Friday she was eating more and each day after she seemed to be a little better. She was hoping she'd be all better by Monday as she had FSY, and she was. Her lips had returned to looking pretty normal by then. 

We took a few pictures of her lips/mouth over the weeks. Also, our sweet back neighbors, who she was supposed to babysit one day during her sickness and had to cancel because of it, brought her this sweet card and some chicken noodle soup and tea. It lifted her spirits. 

St George, A Cruisin, N soccer camp & FSY

We started the summer out with a bang! June 4-7 we stayed in St George at the Ludwigs home while Annabelle took off on a cruise with her friends (and a few parents went along as chaperones). 

We watched the sunset at Dixie Rock, 

I climbed the Tech Ridge stairs in the morning, 

Nora brought her friend Sienna along. We did baptisms at the temple together. 

It was in the low 100s which meant the pool wasn't super cool, but it was cooler than being in the heat so we still played in the water. 

And we got some yummy foods. 

We usually eat a meal at Angelica's Mexican restaurant when we're in town. We love the street tacos. 

June 6-11 were the dates Annabelle was gone for her cruise. They rented a big van and drove to CA. 

This was Annabelle's first cruise experience. She had a really good time and they made some new friends on the boat. She was so happy that Sadie was able to join; originally there were about 6 of them going but they were able to add several friends, and Sadie's one of her dearest friends so that was nice. 

June 8-11 Nora attended a high school soccer camp at USU Price campus. 

She had a good time and was definitely sore when she got home. 

Here's Penny on a normal afternoon. She follows me around and then finds a good, cool spot on the tile to sleep. 

I drove Tays and Elisabeth to the Provo airport one afternoon (they were heading to CA for Emily's wedding) and on the way home, I stopped at Pink Box in American Fork to get a couple of donuts to bring home, since that's the closest location and it's far enough that we never go. I took a pic of the box and sent it to Scott who immediately called and said he was working at the Lehi office and asked if I'd like to stop by and have lunch with him. Did I ever! We went to Spitz, a greek restaurant and got some really tasty food. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back. 

On a Saturday morning, Scott and I went for a hike up Bells Canyon to Lower Falls. This is a good beginning of the season hike as it's not as long as some of the others we go on (this one is less than 5 miles RT) and the water fall is much more lively at the beginning of summer than at the end. 

It was beautiful as always. Although we left a little later than normal and didn't start hiking til around 9am which meant it was already getting hot when we started and it also meant there were more crowds of people. 

June 15-20 Nora went to FSY at University of Utah with Megan. They had a fun week together. The house was pretty quiet with both Nora and Annabelle gone so much. Jane got pretty sick and so we were having to spend a good amount of time helping her and figuring out what was going on and going to doctors appointments etc. More on that in the next post. 

 I have a goal to finish my book this summer (third book I've finished; hopefully the first I'll actually publish). I have lots of quiet time with the girls at work and camps and me not working over the summer, so I'm hoping, with the Lord's help, we can make this happen.