Gramps' Funeral

It is no secret to those that know me well that I hate funerals. I am such a sap that they make me cry, and I don't like to cry in front of others. I was dreading Gramps' funeral; the march into the church with everyone watching, the endless condolences from concerned friends, the black clothes, and let's not even talk about the viewing. But now that it is behind us, I can honestly say it was a good experience.

All of the J-boys were able to make it to Idaho to pay their final respects. It was wonderful to have the family around. Josh gave a tearfully wonderful tribute for Gramps--I am so proud of him! We were able to laugh over old stories, and cry with each other. It has been one of the best-hard experiences of our lives. Everything just seemed to go right. We even had clear roads and no wind, hard to believe in January.

We forgot our camera (of course), so I stole these pictures from Shelly & Beth until I can get a chance to download the ones we took on Grams & Gramps' camera. Thanks girls!

the J-boys standing in order, youngest to oldest with Grams & Shauna: Todd, Mark, Kyle, Eric, Jarrod, Josh

And just look at this view. This is the view from Grams & Gramps' house & also from the cemetery were Gramps was buried & where someday, hopefully a long time from now, Josh & I will also be buried. I hope it looks the same on resurrection morning!

To the Rescue...one more time...

Once again, Alan & Heather came to the rescue. When it became evident that we would be at the hospital much longer than planned, they took the babysitter home & entertained our boys. I pirated the following pictures from their blog. Some of the photos were too hilarious not to share!

.

Here Alan is teaching Jake how to play Red Alert on the computer, apparently, he did really good!

Alan & Heather always do silly things with the boys. They are so good to them! Here are some $1 costumes that they found at the DI this week. Lander's is tiny, meant for an 18-month old.

They watched Star Wars and Lander decided that he was a Jedi. Here is his famous Jedi pose (pretend he is holding a light saber).
Jedi ATTACK! ...and the Jedi dies. I guess the bad guys won.

Alan & Heather have been sooo good to us. I don't know what we would do without you guys. Thanks for all you do. We REALLY appreciate it!!!!!

"Crazy, crazy"

How do you say good-bye to someone who has impacted your life more than anyone will ever know? That was our dilemma on Saturday as we said our "see you laters" to Gramps and watched him slip away.

In typical Gramps style, he fought it out, surprising everyone with his ability to keep going. He was taken off his medications & the tubes were removed from his throat. We expected him to be with us for an hour, two tops if we were lucky. But instead we got nearly 11 hours. It was a long day. What a gift!

Gramps was alert, although weak, and we were all able to be with him, to talk to him. He kept telling us how much he loved his family, even asking about Jake & Lander in the last moments before unconsciousness overtook him. I will never forget his "Hey, pal", his greeting each time Josh called his name. He made jokes, laughing at one point because he couldn't seem to die. He told us "Crazy, crazy. I can't die. They don't want me yet. Crazy, crazy." as he quietly chuckled. He was so calm & accepting.

He left this life in dignity and grace at 11:11 pm with his family at his side, sad to have him leave us, but grateful to have had the chance to love this great man.

We love you Gramps & miss you tons!

Island Park Sledding

Meet "The Hill": Meet "The Victims":

Meet "The Ride"

Meet "The Casualties":
Who are we kidding? It was FUN!

airborn

Josh & Nate came up with a little game, "see how far you can huck your child".

The culprits: Josh, Nate, Jake, Walker

Jake

Lander

Walker

Don't let Lander fool you. No children were harmed during the filming.

Island Park

We had made arrangements a few months ago to stay in a cabin with Nate, Hilary, Daisy & Walker F. over the Christmas break. Grams encouraged us to go, and we are glad that we did. It was a much needed break from the stresses at home, and it turned out better than we had hoped! Our reservation got messed up, so instead of the old cabin we had reserved, we got to stay in a beautiful new cabin. It was awesome!

our Christmas story

Sometimes we don't recognize how wonderful "normal" can be. To me, if something is normal, it is expected, routine. We all expected a normal Christmas this year; family in town, Dixie working over the holidays, playing with cousins, you know the drill. But, this year our Christmas decided to deviate out of our norm.

It started on Christmas eve. We had a wonderful dinner in Driggs with Grams & Gramps. Other family had come up for the holidays. Jarrod & Shelly, Shauna, & Todd plus our family were all packed into Grams & Gramps' home.

After dinner, Gramps wasn't feeling well, bad enough that we begged him to go to the ER, and after some major begging, he finally consented to go. He was admitted into the tiny Driggs hospital for antibiotics. What a way to spend Christmas Eve! I wish that is where the story ended.

But it doesn't.

We got a call at 3 am Christmas morning. Gramps was being transported by ambulance to our largest hospital, the ambulance bucking snow drifts and braving a white out to get him to a more equipped facility. Grams & everyone staying at her house were hopelessly snowed in.

We were having our fist blizzard.

We scrambled to find a sitter, but who do you get at 3 am on Christmas morning? We called Alan & Heather, but they had recently been playing middle of the night phone pranks on Dustin, so their phone was turned off. Josh decided to go alone.

He drove down the dark highway. Only one set of tracks were visible, those of the ambulance, a few minutes ahead of him. He arrived at the hospital finding Gramps alert, but in pain. No one was quite sure what was going on.

To make a long story a little shorter, lab tests revealed that Gramps was in septic shock, a very dangerous condition, and he was dying. So to save his life, doctors placed a tube down his throat, allowing machines to breathe for Gramps, and pumped his body full of medicines to control the side effects of the shock and kill the germs causing the sepsis.

Josh was able to stay by his side all day as Gramps fought for his life. It was a hard day. I stayed home with the kids, making arrangements, relaying calls, feeling helpless. The kids couldn't understand why I kept crying or why they couldn't just open there presents. I finally told them they could each pick one present to open. And this is what I found:

Wow.

Each & every present with Jake & Lander's name on it had been opened. They were having a marvelous time, and I cried some more!

It didn't feel like Christmas at all.

Luckily, things are starting to smooth out. Against difficult odds, Gramps seems to be healing. We are almost too afraid to hope. None of us want him to suffer, but if he can recover, we aren't ready to see him leave yet either.

So, now we just watch and wait. And remember the good times with the man that Josh looks up to the most. The man who taught Josh how to enjoy work, how to honor his priesthood, how to love his family. So many lessons, so much love.
We love you Gramps aka Peepaw!

full of excuses...nothing new!

Okay, okay. So, I know I am a blogging slacker, but in all fairness, I have been busy! Between digging out our driveway (one of the joys of living in the Arctic, Tiff), working at the hospital waaaay too much & trying to keep up with life, I am swamped. All of my Christmas plans somehow got delayed & now I am enjoying the mad scramble. So stay tuned. I promise that I will get back into the swing of things soon!

a short story

When We Don't Lock the Door My Cat Opens It

When we don't lock the door, my cat opens the door. He smells dirty cuz he rolls in the dirt, and gets wet, YUCK! He is white and black. He rubs me and my brother Lander. Lander is five years old. When my cat sleeps on the couch, he is the funniest sleeper in the world. How does he do that? Sometimes he puts his arm under his head. It is so cute when he does that! I mean cute, cute, cute!

--Jake, age 7

Jake wrote this story for school last month. I corrected the spelling, but everything else is as-is. Jake's cat, "Barry", likes to sneak into our house so we have to lock all of our doors to keep him out. There isn't a knob that he can't open!

Quote of the Day

This quote, although gross, pretty much shows what my life is like surrounded by 3 boys:

Lander: looking out the window, "Hey Jake, look! There is smoke."

Jake: very seriously and condescendingly retorts, "No, Lander. It's just me. I farted."

---Oooh dear.

Memoirs of a harried mother

Do you ever have a day where you wonder what form of craziness possessed you to procreate? I sure did a few days ago! School got cancelled and my lovely little boys couldn't contain their excitement. They went from one "Boys, please don't do that" activity to another, starting with the pile of 20 blankets (as seen in "the LONG night" post), moving along to the yogurt food fight, and ending with this.

Any guesses what this might be?

little miss homemaker...

...has arrived! I finally decided to make jam out of the raspberries & huckleberries that I picked this summer. Yum-m-my!

the LONG night

Someone had a BAD dream last night and couldn't sLeEP. So he crawled into bed with mommy & daddy. His pillow in the new bed was haRd. He FelL out of bed once. Mommy woke him up as she cRAwLed over top of him to run to the bathroom. Everyone kept buMpINg into each other. NOboDy slept well. It was a LONG night.

He tried to get dressed for school, but the pile of blankets were so SoFt. So instead of getting ReADy for school, he thought he would just take a NAP!

His feet got cOLd, but mommy's pillow was cOzY.

Until mommy dRAgGed him downstairs for breakfast.

POOR boy!

7 Random Things About Me

The rules are: Link to the person that tagged you, (Beth) and post the rules on your blog. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself. Tag 7 random people at the end of your blog. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
1. I love, love, love cloudy days. I actually feel really depressed when it is sunny for too many days in a row.

2.I like numbers. A lot. I get so crazy about them that I run idiotic scenarios in my head. "If I won a million dollars, what would I do with it?" or "How fast can I pay off my house if I...". You get the point. My latest craziness? Creating a spreadsheet for Josh & I to use, should the other one die, to help us know what to do with the life insurance money during our grieving period. Weird. I know.

3. I have a phobia of social situations, especially when I host a dinner party. I get so stressed out that I fill my schedule to the brim so I won't have to participate.

4. I think it would be really cool to have a British accent.

5. I can't seem to outgrow the habit of picking at my lips, especially if they are dry or I am stressed. So instead, I constantly put on chapstick and read every day (my narcotic of choice) to keep my sordid habit in check.

6. My favorite place in the world is home, with no where to go. Unless you want to talk about vacations, then I am game for most anything.

7. Even though I love home (refer to #6), I am still filled with wanderlust. I just can't seem to get over it! Last winter I researched jobs in St. Croix, Tonga, New Zealand, England & Scotland, hoping that I could find a way to convince Josh that we should take our family on a little "sabbatical". So far, no luck.

I tag: Emily, Cameron, Camie & Dad

A life to be remembered

It is with a heavy heart that we announce the death of Fishee, who passed on to the next life sometime during the night.

Fishee began his life as a research fish for the firm of Synakowski-Farnsworth, dedicating his life to the advancement of science. We came to know Fishee at the end of his career when he was looking for other options. He decided to give the world of pet-dom a whirl, and moved into our home. He was a great pet, taking to it like a natural, always swishing his tail and swimming around in his tank. His smile brightened our days. He never complained of neglect nor of loneliness, but eagerly greeted us each time we brought him his food. We will miss our Fishee. Survivors include Fishee's owner, Lander, and Fishee's friend, Jake.

Interment services will be held at 8:30 am today in the downstairs bathroom for those interested.

Pumpkin Patch

We went to a pumpkin patch with Alan, Heather & baby Smatrick in utero the week before Halloween. The patch was small, but fun.

What a MAN

Last week was a blur. Scouts, work meetings, shopping for the family, helping out at school, helping a sick Jake, Young Womens, a 2-day nursing class, an over-nighter in Driggs, plus work and just normal household stuff put me far behind and made me pretty tired. I dragged my tired body home Sunday morning after working my shift at the hospital, a shift that included an extra hour (thanks daylight savings!) and collapsed into bed.

I woke up 8 hours later, but my body wouldn't cooperate. I was still so tired that I could barely move. Geez! So, my sweet hubby made me breakfast in bed, took care of the kids, and spent the rest of the evening hanging out with me. We watched 2 hours of HGTV in bed, shocking because I don't watch TV and a real exercise in patience & perseverance for Josh as he gave up watching the more desirable football game. It was wonderful! He had already spent hours this weekend organizing the kids room, a task worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, and doing other chores to help me catch back up.

And then to top it all off, he tells me "thank you"!

What a man!!

I love you Babe!

like father, like son

Jake holding his catch near twin bridges,

South Fork of the Snake River.

more LiVInG the dReAm...

It was man vs. beast (well, fish actually) this weekend, and Josh came out the victor. Check out the 21 inch, 4 1/2 pound BrOWn tRoUt that Josh hooked on the South Fork of the Snake River, just like the good 'ole days....Dan, where were YOU?

Slumber Party

Our house was filled to the brim with people for Jake's baptism (Sorry Randy & Keri about having to sleep in the bunk beds!) so Jake, Lander & Sydney decided to sleep on my bedroom floor and have a "slumber party". Sydney slept like this all night long until Jake woke up at 5 am & tried to move her. I helped him straighten her out & she didn't even wake up. I think she was exhausted!

Jake's Baptism

My baby is 8! It is so hard to believe!! Jake had a pizza party to celebrate. He was baptized the following weekend. Baptism guests included Grandpa & Grandma Nala, Randy & Keri with Sydney & Jenna, Grams & Gramps, and Alan & Heather with baby Smatrick. Josh baptized Jake, but Jake asked if Peepaw (aka Gramps) would give him the Holy Ghost, so Gramps confirmed Jake. It was very special.

Grandpa, Grandma Nala, Jake & Lander

Best Buddies--Lander & Jake

Just a small bit of the Farnsy Clan. Back Row: Randy, Lane, Alan, Josh. Front Row: Keri, Nalene, Heather, Dixie Gramps, Josh, Lane & Jake
...and last, but not least, Jake & Grams