August was the month of all months. The only way I survived it was by only thinking about what was happening and needed to be done that day. Let's start from the very beginning, it's a very good place to start!
The month of August actually started on July 27th. Brooklyn and I were headed up to Salt Lake for about ten days. Elder Justin Moore was returning home from his two year LDS mission in Nicaragua. We were going up early because Brooklyn and Brandon gave me two tickets to see Neil Diamond on July 28th at Rio Tinto Stadium. They had given me these tickets for Valentine's so my excitement had been building for months!
The week previous my car had been in the shop. When I picked it up on Thursday I made sure they knew that I was taking a trip with just me and my daughter and the car would need to be safe. Seeing as I had spent $1600 on the car in the previous 6 weeks, they assured me there was nothing more that could go wrong. Yeah right! We had gone about 16 miles out of town when the white smoke started coming out of the hood and the car lost all power. I steered it off to the side of the freeway in a very safe place and called the repair shop. They believed a hose had come loose and I could safely drive it to Cedar City if I wanted. Well, that car was going nowhere. It wouldn't go forward or backward. On a side note, Brooklyn was starving and hadn't eaten since breakfast. She had wanted to go into Hurricane for some lunch, but I said that was the wrong direction. I told her we would head north and stop in Cedar City. Thank goodness we had some fresh tomatoes from a neighbor's garden in the car or she might have died of starvation!
I called my mom to see if she had any ideas. And boy did she! She drove her car and my Aunt Jill drove Brooklyn's truck up to where we were stranded. We waited for the tow truck to take my Subaru back to the repair shop and we continued on in Brooklyn's truck. We were on our way again after only a two hour delay! (As a side note, one of the hoses had been connected wrong and the vehicle was fixed at no charge to me).
On Saturday, Brooklyn hiked to the Y with some of her friends and I went shopping. We managed to make it back and get dressed just in time for Jane Stringham's baptism. Brooklyn has always thought of Jane as her little sister so we were excited to be there for her special day.
On Saturday, Ginger, Bailey and Charlie came up to Sandy. We were able to go to dinner at Zupas with Brandon and Amber before the concert. We had quite a time trying to take a picture where my arms didn't look fat ! I forgot I could just crop them out!
Brandon and Amber took Charlie for the night...and they dropped Brooklyn and Bailey off at the mall. There is a funny story about that...Little Kitty notepads and candy will trigger my mind, but I best not put it in here!
And then Ginger and I were off to join the old fogies at the wonderful concert. Neil Diamond is a great performer. Since he writes most of his songs, he has so much emotion that he sings with. There was a girl on the floor dancing her heart out and she also provided entertainment for us. There was no opening act...just pure Neil and he was amazing as always. That night Neil said he would be giving 100% of the proceeds from t-shirt sales to the Aurora, Colorado shooting victims. The t-shirt stands were so crowded that they ran out of all of them. We were in the throng for awhile but to no avail. I would post pictures from the concert, but Ginger looks drunk and I just look fat! Not that I am thin, but I can promise you only water was consumed that night!
The next day we joined Brandon and Amber at their church ward and had dinner with the Farrs and dessert with Amber's grandparents. The Farrs were so nice to let us invade their home several times this summer. I told them if they weren't such good hostesses we wouldn't keep coming back! Monday I went into work at Georgia Carpet Utah. It was nice to actually be working the phones and on the floor. The week was spent in various ways: shopping, lunching, visiting friends, etc. All in preparation for Thursday, August 2nd, when Justin would be returning.
I received a suprise phone call from one of my BYU roommates, Elizabeth Bretschneider...Zibbi to me. She was visiting from Washington and was staying at her mom's house by the Jordan River Temple. I was excited to go see her. While visiting about random things, we started talking about our BYU Independent Study classes we were both doing. She mentioned that if on a Pell Grant all course work had to be finished by August 31st or else you failed the class. This was news to me and I still had a class to finish. That was not as bad as my sister, Lori. She was working on three classes as well as preparing for her daughter's wedding at the end of August. I called BYU and this was verified to be true. Lori and I both went into panic mode and then to overdrive to finish our courses with everything else that was going on. Thank goodness for that "tender mercy" as Zibbi called it. We both finished our courses in the nick of time.
On Thursday morning I woke up and felt like I could barely breathe. My heart was racing. Today was the day I would see my baby boy after two long years. He was not due to fly in until 8:45 pm so I had a whole day ahead of me.
Wendy's sister and her husband are serving as mission presidents over the Salt Lake City South mission. So once a month she fixes lunch for one of the leadership conferences. Brooklyn and I were excited to help her. I could think of no better way to spend the day waiting for my missionary than to serve other missionaries. Brooklyn thought being around the cute elders might be too much of a temptation for her!
We also spent the morning painting Justin's room. He will be staying in Kenny and Wendy Farr's basement. I was able to borrow Eric Lee's old bed and get him some new bedding as well as all the "supplies" someone who has been away for two years might need!
Brooklyn spent the night before making Elder Moore an awesome welcome home sign. We forked the front yard with yellow balloons. Some visitors came by...everyone was anticipating Justin's arrival that evening.
It seems like we were doing all we could to pass the time away. I still had to honor Justin's request. He asked for three things when he arrived at the airport: A pretzel from Pretzeltime, a Dr. Pepper, and a masseuse. I told him I would be happy to provide the first two, but there was no way I was having a masseuse at the airport!
Amber agreed to be in charge of doing the welcome home sign for the airport. I loved how Brandon got the balloons too. I really was happy to have so much help in preparing for Justin's return.
The countdown began. From years, to weeks, to days, to hours and now to just minutes. I was nearly coming out of my skin. I was getting nervous and anxious. I wondered if Justin was feeling the same way. Soon enough the long awaited time would be here and I could be the mama of two returned missionaries. Because the boys overlapped in their missions, it had been almost four years since I had all my kiddos together. I was looking forward to having all my children in my arms at once. I was ready for that!
