EFY Arizona

Mon. 26 – Fri. 30:  Everything went really smoothly all week and Rick did a fantastic job at all his talks. Rick had me speak a little bit to the young woman and young men.  He also had us sing a duet at one of the meetings (his arrangement of “Because I Have Been Given Much.”)  

We brought Josh with us and I pretty much nursed him everywhere I went!  He was a good baby and of course all of the kids – especially the girls were always around him saying how cute he was! EFY was fun but we were definitely ready to come home at the end of the week! Gerilyn and Madee had come down to watch babysit for us and the kids all had a ball!   

Father's Day Party

 

I think the trip to the Manti Pageant was our first Father's Day Flee -- but I will have to check to make sure! Here is what I wrote about the last day: 

June 18:  We had our own church services and sacrament meeting right there in the campground (in Manti). It was really neat and the spirit was there. We all cleaned up camp and then went our separate ways. Our family headed up to SLC to go to a big Father’s Day party at Scott and Amy’s. It was so fun to see everyone – I was really glad that we went.  It worked out because Rick had a faculty retreat up in SLC Monday and Tuesday and so I brought him to his retreat and then I stayed at my mom’s with the kids. We were able to have a nice visit and go swimming with the kids! 

Here is Jen's Westra Way post: 

Father's Day 2006

Looks like Derek and Danielle were at the party (picture below) but must have left before we took the group picture. The new babies are Cayson and Josh, with Rella on the way! Colton was about six months old. I don't remember Wendy's hair being this dark ever (WHO is that in the photo, I had to look twice!)

Trampoline Time!

Father's Day Flee: Manti Pageant

Friday June 16:  We left right after Rick’s inservice to go camping at a campground near Manti for our “Father’s Day Flee."  This year our theme was:  "Establish a house of learning.....even a house of God."  (D&C 109)

For Father's Day Flee this year we chose to go camping.  Rick recently purchased a large new tent and sleeping bags that he was excited to get some use out of.  The campground had facilities such as showers, bathrooms, swimming, pool, and a playground.

We invited Curtis and Steph Healey and their kids to come along with us on our adventure this year.  During our two day stay, we had four different lessons geared toward the ages of the children.

Rick gave the "Welcome lesson." He talked about the importance of being prepared and the importance of families.  He told a different version of the "Three Little Pigs," in which nature happened to be "The big bad wolf." 

In the end, even the little pig who built his house with bricks lost his house to an earth quake.  But that didn't matter, because he still had his brothers with him, and as long as they were together, they could rebuild.  It was an interesting analogy as the children came up with the principle that family can be a strong force -  even stronger than an earthquake!

Afterwards we had s’mores and sang around the camp fire.  We then put the kids to bed and Rick and I stayed up late with Curtis and Steph just gabbing around the camp-fire.  It was so nice and we didn’t want to go to bed!  Finally we were too tired to stay awake any longer and headed to our tent.  Curtis and Steph had it a little easier because they brought up their camper and so they had better sleeping conditions.  The first night was really cold and I had Josh snuggled right next to me in the sleeping bag.  I didn’t sleep well at all!

The next morning Steph gave a small lesson.  She handed each child a plastic booklet that had plastic sleeves on it.  They called this their learning book.  She had a little art project for them to do and encouraged them to put things inside the plastic sleeves of their learning book whenever they learned about something. Jared (age 6) couldn't wait to fill up his learning book.  He included things such as grass, leaves, a few pictures, and even some feathers from the local turkeys that were wandering around the camp-site.

The next day, I presented my lesson on work.  Later on that day Curtis gave his lesson on Prayer and Faith. He had the wonderful idea to share a story from one of his ancestors, who through prayer, fasting, and faith migrated to America.  It was a heartfelt story and each of the children enjoyed learning about his ancestor. He even got quite emotional while telling the story (and so did I)!  

Throughout the day we all went swimming at the camp-ground pool and all of the kids had fun exploring the camp-ground and chasing the turkeys around.  Later on we all headed over to the Manti Pageant and secured a place on the ground with blankets.  We all went and ate some of Ephraim’s famous turkey that they have at various churches around the community. Unfortunately I was so tired from my poor night’s sleep that I fell asleep during the pageant!   

Sun. 18:  We had our own church services and sacrament meeting right there in the campground.  It was really neat and the spirit was there. We all cleaned up camp and then went our separate ways.  Our family headed up to SLC to go to a big Father’s Day party at Scott and Amy’s. It was so fun to see everyone – I was really glad that we went.  It worked out because Rick had a faculty retreat up in SLC Monday and Tuesday and so I brought him to his retreat and then I stayed at my mom’s with the kids. We were able to have a nice visit and go swimming with the kids! 

Easter Sunday -- Baby Josh is Born!!

Sunday, April 16 (Easter morning):  I think I slept some before waking up with painful contractions around 1:00 a.m.  I just lay in bed and watched the clock, timing the contractions….1:05…1:10….1:15…..1:20…finally I woke Rick up and said that I was having contractions five minutes apart and they were hurting so maybe I had better go to the hospital.

We’ve never had to go to the hospital in the middle of the night before and I was thinking “Darn! Gerilyn left one night too early!”   At first I was saying maybe I should just drive myself and leave him with the kids since it might take awhile (I know bad idea).  But when he could see that I was really starting to hurt he hurried and got dressed.  We  wondered who we could call in the middle of the night since most of our logical choices were out of town for Easter.  Rick said maybe he should drive around and see who had their lights on (another bad idea – I would have been home alone having a baby).

I said, “let’s just go and leave the kids and we will call someone on the way.”  So we grabbed the video camara bag, hospital bag, cell phones and ward directory and headed out.  Our neighbors who live down the street (Gentrys) had a light on and they have several teenage daughters and so we called them. She is also my visiting teaching companion.  I said, “Ronda? This is Wendy,” then started having a bad contraction and thought I might start to cry and so I just handed the phone to Rick.”  Rick explained the situation and she said that she would be right over.  We told her we had left the back door unlocked for her. On the drive over the contractions were coming closer together and really starting to hurt.  I was clutching my seat and breathing hard through each one.  The good thing about going that time of night is that at least there was no traffic!  

We arrived at the hospital at 1:38 a.m.  I stopped on the steps with a bad contraction and could hardly walk in the door. The desk attendant saw my plight and hurriedly brought a wheelchair to the door.  He said “Do you need this?”  I said “I don’t know” (I was sort of out of it) and sat down and Rick wheeled me to the nurse station.  The nurse at the desk was standing there brightly saying something like “Hello, what can we do for you?”  I’m thinking, “Isn’t it obvious??” I was about to say I was ready to have a baby (I mean – hello!) but I couldn’t talk through the contractions and so Rick said, “um, we need some help.”  When they saw how serious it was they hurried me into a room and handed me a gown and asked if I wanted an epidural.  I said “okay” (yeah, right!)   They handed me a gown (there were several nurses there) and I’m thinking, “I don’t want to change right here in front of everyone!”  So I go into the bathroom and I think Rick or someone helped me.

I barely made it on the bed and the nurse checked me and said, “She is fully dilated – and the bag is bulging!”  Seconds later the bag of waters broke all over soaking my socks and then I felt that burning, pushing sensation and baby Josh was here!  (1:45 a.m. – just 7 minutes after we had arrived!)  It was over with just like that, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!  It was so much better than sitting in a hospital room all day or all night hooked up to monitors, IV’s, and an Epidural and being numb and unable to walk for hours afterwards.   I don’t know if Rick thought so though – he was shaking his head saying that was cutting it way too close!  It was still awhile before the placenta came out, so I still hurt somewhat.  Then Dr. Lunt arrived and said there were two tiny tears and one of them would need to be sewed up.  So that took several minutes and was not fun!  I wasn’t able to nurse the baby until after that because it was too awkward.  Finally I got to hold him and nurse him.  He definitely looks like a member of the family!  He has lots of hair – more than any of the other kids (about like Janika when she was born).   So all three of our boys came quick and natural and all three of our girls took a long time and came with all of the interventions.  Anyway, I was so glad to have him here safe and sound and what a wonderful Easter gift for us!   

Josh weighed 7’5.” Rick took video footage and pictures and stayed for the baby’s bath and everything and then headed home so that Ronda could go home.  Ronda and her teenage daughter both came over and none of the kids woke up or anything. I stayed in the room where I delivered the rest of the night but didn’t get much sleep.   

At home we had the Easter Baskets all filled with toys but of course I didn’t get to watch the kids go through them since I was in the hospital.  I remembered that Rick had gotten “groceries” last year for their Easter Baskets and I didn’t want that again so I had prepared early and gotten lots of toys from the Dollar Store.  I wanted to stay away from candy and junk food as much as possible since they already had plenty from all of their Easter Egg Hunts.  I got each of them swim goggles (from the dollar store, so hopefully they won’t bust the first time they put them on – one of them already has!) and little toys etc.  I got Janika underwear and socks since she is in dire need of some and Rick got each of the three older kids scripture crayons for their scriptures (which really helped attentiveness during scripture study).

I told Rick to be sure and video-tape Easter morning since I missed it.  Rick and the kids decided not to go to church since he was up half the night and really tired.  I understand, but still – missing church on Easter Sunday – that’s terrible!  Later Rick and the kids came into the hospital to see the baby.  They have a new rule where kids 14 and under can’t come into the rooms since it is RSV season.  They don’t lift the rule until the end of April.  So that was too bad!  So they didn’t get to hold the baby but just got to look at him through the nursery room glass.  Rick went in and held him up to the window for them and we got some cute pictures and video footage of all of the kids peering through the window.  They all looked really cute and Jaiden kept squealing and signing and saying “baby, baby!”  They all brought in their traditional dozen roses – except one plant was a beautiful Easter Lily.  I was glad for the Lily – it looked and smelled beautiful and was the only plant that lasted.  The roses already looked half dead .  Rick said that is what he gets from buying them from Lins – I think Janika said that is what he got for buying them on a Sunday!

Mon. 17:  I was ready to go home today – I start to get cabin fever staying in those little hospital rooms and start to feel almost depressed after awhile.  The beds are not all that comfortable and the room on the other side of one of my walls sounded like people were having a party at 4:30 in the morning.  It was so loud!   They had done a few blood tests on Josh (I think it was to make sure he didn’t contract the Group B Strep). They had to send two blood tests in for a more detailed reading at the other hospital since they were high after the initial tests, but they came back normal.  So he was cleared to go and all we needed was clearance from my doctor.  The nurse said she paged him and said he would be there in fifteen minutes.  So I went ahead and called Rick to come get me and he made arrangements to drop the girls’ off at a neighbors.

Part of me thought I should wait until my doctor actually came before calling Rick, and I wished I had! The same thing had happened with another one of our babies – we were all ready to go and were waiting around for hours for the pediatrician to come and take his 30 seconds to say “okay, you can go.”  So I should have learned my lesson!  Rick came and we waited and waited and still no doctor. We kept checking with the nurses who said he had been called on a delivery.  Finally like three hours later, he came.  

Since we were later than expected, we weren’t going to be there when Jared was to arrive home from kindergarten. I worried that the gal I car pool with might drop him off and no one would be home. We tried calling her several times to see if she if she could bring Jared to her house, but no one answered.  So I left a message with his teacher to tell him to go to her house. Anyway, Jared’s teacher ended up calling to say that Kaylee (his ride) wasn’t even in school today. Apparently they had gone on vacation over Easter and had forgotten to call us to say she wouldn’t be picking up our kids!

So now Jared was at the office and we were both at the hospital wondering who we could call to pick him up. Finally I thought of Monica Williams, whose son is in Jared’s class and who lives close to the school. We called her and she said she would pick him up and he could play at her house with Tyson.  We felt bad about leaving the girls’ at Gentry’s so long when we told her it would only be a half hour.  So the lesson is – don’t call your ride to come get you until all of the doctor’s have seen you and your baby and you have been officially discharged!!

We came home and of course the girls were all excited over seeing their baby brother.  We put them straight to bed, however, and told them they could hold him after their naps. I took the quiet time to write in my journal about the delivery. The other kids were equally excited to see their baby brother when they got home from school and they all wanted to hold him. Josh was asleep in his car seat when he got home around 2:00 and pretty much slept all afternoon. I fed him and changed him and let the kids hold him but other than that he pretty much slept -- until bed-time of course! Then he was fussy and didn’t like his bassinet at all! I would nurse him and then put him back in his bassinet and then he would fuss. Needless to say, we had a hard night and didn’t get much sleep!