A Sweet and Stressful Summer

The summer of 2019 will be sweetly remembered as the year Bob and I welcomed two more of our children and their families to the Houston area as permanent residents.  We never would have imagined that we would have 3 of our 4 children working and living in Texas.  We count that as one of God's tender mercies in our lives.  Now we just need to find a job for our oldest son so that his family can join us here in "cowboy country".  The summer of 2019 will also be remembered as a time of stress, as we helped those two families make the transition by having them live with us until they could buy cars, find homes, and settle in.

Our youngest child, Michael, graduated from Brigham Young University with a Master's Degree in Geology.  One week after his graduation, I flew to Las Vegas to meet up with his family.  They had been vacationing with friends in Moab, and I arrived to help Michael drive their van filled with household necessities to our home in Texas where they would live until they could get settled.  Kristin and their two kids would fly to Houston a few days later.  Michael started his new job immediately, and shortly thereafter purchased a commuter car, and began the hunt for a place to live.  The month of May was spent playing with 2- and 3-year old, Eve and Brady.  Swimming in the backyard, going to the Children's Museum, and playing at parks kept us busy.  Chelsea drove over from Temple with Knox and Holly, to help out and join the fun.

By the first of June, Michael's family had closed on their new home in Katy, about an hour south of us and we helped them get moved in when their storage pods were delivered.  Bob set to work finishing up plans for Stake Conference the following week. We enjoyed spending time with Elders Jose Teixeira and Bryce, but are always relieved when a Stake Conference weekend is over.

The following week was Father's Day and we enjoyed having Michael's family come up for the day.  We spied a deer in our backyard that afternoon.

A few days later, on June 20, Stephanie flew into Houston from Paris, France with her 4 children.  They were here to enjoy summer vacation with us for a few weeks before Ben would join them, and then they would go visit his family in Idaho.  The first thing they did upon arrival at our home that Thursday was to jump in the pool!  A little shopping, a spicy Slurpee (ha ha - this was a hilarious mistake and discovery by Tanner), and going to the movie, "Toy Story 3" were on the agenda for Friday.  Stephanie and I took the kids to a farm and picked buckets full of blackberries and then Emma made blackberry jam.

And this is when the stress really began!  On Saturday, Stephanie found out that Ben had a stroke.  Friends in Paris had gotten him to the hospital and were looking after him. Thankfully, he was stable and would be alright.  Dad used frequent flier miles to get a flight for Stephanie to return to Paris on Sunday after church.  And Bob and I took on the daunting role of parenting 4 young children once again.  I won't lie, and say it was all fun and games, but we did try to keep the kids engaged and happy.  But their world had been thrown upside down, too, and it was a challenge for all of us.  Stephanie was amazing through it all!  She had some daunting tasks ahead of her.  In addition to taking care of Ben, it was decided they would need to repatriate to the Houston area instead of transferring back to South Korea, as they were shortly to be doing.  We concluded it would be best for her to stay in Paris to pack up their house and be with Ben until he was deemed able to fly.  After several disappointing changes to their scheduled return dates, our hope, was that they would both be back in Houston by July 20th, in time for a reunion we had planned with our kids at South Padre Island.  So while Ben was relearning to talk, see, and move the right side of his body in a hospital in Paris, and Stephanie was scheduling packers and cleaning house, I was chauffeuring four busy kids to activities and figuring out how to cook without dairy for two with allergies. Let's just say it was a time of intense change and learning for all of us!

Perhaps the most memorable event at Grandma and Grandpa's house was the discovery of a deer hanging upside down on the fence in our backyard on June 26.  Apparently, the poor doe had tried to leap over the fence into our yard and impaled it's hind leg on one of the posts. When we failed to find anyone who would haul the animal away, poor Bob took on the task himself.  Tanner, Bennett, Paige and Emma were absolutely enthralled with the whole process!  And Tanner had to take me out back and talk about it every day thereafter!  Months later, it's still a hot topic of conversation!

Another memorable event for Emma and Paige was going to "Painting With a Twist" and creating their own masterpieces with oil on canvas.

We never seemed to lack for fun things to do . . . play places, parks, crafts, yard work with Grandpa, and a cooking school for Emma!

 

 Chelsea, Knox and Holly came over once again to help out.  We had lots of fun cousin time together, including visiting Uncle Mikey and Aunt Kristin in their new home in Katy!  Before we knew it, July had arrived . . .

. . .  and the fun was just getting started!