Jack update II and Zack

Jack is home now. I think it was a little premature to take him home but they are handling it so far. Mark surprised them with a visit over Memorial Day and he stayed at their house and helped out. Jack has a hard time getting up from low seats so Kelly found him a lift chair that he can watch t.v. in and got him a high toilet seat. Dave and Mark put grab bars in the bathrooms and he has a therapist come in to help him build up his strength. Kelly came down and helped him take a shower. We had a BBQ on Monday at their house. Jack and Gennie loved seeing everyone. Kelly brought her family, and Brandon, Jodie, us, Bob and Diane. I called this morning to see how they were doing since Mark left. Jack said that Gennie was learning how to help him up when he needed it and they were getting by ok. His mind is slipping a little...He thought someone was at the door when the phone rang. Sometimes he tries to stay in goos spirits and other times he is quite grumpy and stubborn. I think he is tired of living with the effects of old age. He told me he loved me when he hung up the phone. It's a nice way to end a conversation.

Zack has exactly 7 weeks left before he leaves on his mission. We bought him two suits and four shirts, 4 pair of socks and a tie. He has one pair of shoes that he will take with him. Joyce gave us a long coat and said she has some lined gloves and she thinks she can hook us up with some luggage. Someone gave him a pocket-size hymn book and Cindy S. gave him some handkerchiefs. I told him it was a good idea to keep one in is pocket so he could wipe his sweaty hands before he shakes hands with people. I don't know where he got that from. Neither Dave or I get sweaty hands like that. Dave bought him a nice quad. We are planning on his "Last opportunity to speak" on July 13th, 11:00 a.m. 1900 N. 1000 E., Lehi. We will probably have a family/friends get-together the day before, because I have a class to teach and the Church asks us not to skip out for missionary dinners.

I am very excited for Zack to have this opportunity to serve a mission and have this experience in his life. Yet, my heart aches every time I think of being separated from him for such a long time. Zack and I try to go to the temple every week and we have enjoyed working together. I know he will be just fine, but I will miss him so much. I can selfishly say that this will be a hard transition for me. It makes me cry every time I think about it. I never thought it would be so hard to let someone grow up. I had better stop now and think about the weeds I need to pull so I can get these tears under control.

Jack Update

Jack was in a care center for a few days, but they didn't take very good care of him and he had to go back into the hospital at Utah Valley Med. Center. He's on the 7th floor if anyone wants to go visit. Yesterday he was still on mask oxygen because his saturations were too low. They found blood clots in his lungs. He said he is too tired to fight it and wants to join his parents in heaven.

Jack in the Hospital

Here is a post for all of you who know my father-in-law, Jack Holladay. They took him by ambulance to the hospital yesterday with severe back pain. He was so weak he couldn't get himself off the bed or couch, even to go to the bathroom. They found a fracture in his T12 spine and they think since that is where the pain is, that he made things worse when he was bending over picking the heads off the dandelions in his yard. He is feeling better today than he did yesterday. Dave and I got to the hospital at 7:00 p.m. last night and I found him all alone in the ER. I thought it was so sad. I sat and held his hand while he went in and out of consciousness (he was a little doped up on morphine and couldn't stay awake unless I talked to him the whole time). I sent Dave to check on his mom and I went with Jack to get a CT scan. Dave came back and we stayed with him until he was comfortably in his room and ready to go to sleep for the night. So far the doctors haven't found anything bad wrong with him that will cause long term disability. Other family members were with him throughout the day so he wasn't alone the whole time, just for a few hours....still, that must have felt very lonely. It was so sad to see him lying there with that O2 mask on his face, not really cognitive of what all was going on. We think we will be in the hospital a few more days. His O2 saturations are too low for them to release him right now. He was back to his old self when we visited him this evening. We hope that is very promising.

Poor Jake!

Poor Jake! He had his wisdom teeth pulled on Friday and his cheeks swelled up like Chipmunk Man!

Portland and stuff.

We went to Portland to visit Mark and Steph (and fam) and the took us to see the ocean. This is the boys chasing the seagulls.

Dave, Mark, Steph and Mike watching Spencer feed the seagulls.

Mike at the beach.

This is a cute, I mean handsome picture of John.

John and Jake, just happy to be here.

We stopped at the Tillamook Cheese factory and took a tour.

Here's some good looking Jackson girls!

Sandra, Connie, Fontella, Judy, Betty, Belva, Rose 4/8/8

Zack's Mission Call!

Guess Where! New Jersey Cherry Hill Mission, same one J.L. went to. He leaves July 16th!

Birthday!

Happy Happy Birthday!!!

Finally, I have something to share. I decided to blog what I did for my birthday. First, I got the boys up for school, drove Jake and John to school and then took Spencer and a few of the neighbor kids to school. Two of the kids gave me a big cupcake with a candle in it. It was awesome. Their mom's b-day was yesterday and she gave me a cute card with some nice lotion.

One of the sweetest gifts I get every year are flowers from God. Every year on my birthday I look out by my front porch and there are flowers there, waving a cheery hello. As you all know, yellow flowers means somebody loves you. What a sweet reminder!

Then I played racquetball. Tammy let me win the last game. LOL It was fun!

I was going to wash the dirty rain off my van, but then I remembered that I could get a free car wash on my birthday, so I went down and got one. I tried to get a picture of this guy wiping down the van, but everytime I snapped the picture, he ducked down. My lens wasn't open all the way so it has a weird frame around it.
Here is my clean van! There was a long line at the car wash so I had to hurry home and we drove right back here to go out for lunch with my friends.

These are my peeps! Iva is my sweetheart of a friend in the light jacket. Angie is in pink. We've been great friends since I moved to Lehi. Her youngest is Emily and the one on my left is my dear friend Sylvia. It looks like we are going around a sharp corner! Whoa!













Tammy is the one in the red jacket. She is the one I play racquetball with practically every morning. She used to be my partner in cub scouts. We switched to Primary teachers in December.











At 6, Spencer and I had to run down to his school to the "Wax Museum" the 5th graders were putting on. Spencer was playing Thomas Edison. Such a striking resemblance! We were late because I was on a long distance phone call just before we left and I didn't get to fix his hair or get his tie on him. He was totally happy with that!















Here are the great things my peeps gave me. My uncle Phil gave me the card on the left with $20. My dear friend Rinda gave me the homemade bread, jam and a very cool book that just came out last week. I can't wait to read it...My Dear Sisters, quotes from Gordon B. Hinckley. Funny card from Fern. The pink flowers and Symphony bar from John with a card that reads..."Even though you're getting old, I still love you". Pink card from dad. Kara chocolates from Zack (you rock Zack!). The salt and pepper and napkin holder with matching hotpads from my sweet friend, Iva. The purple pansies are from Jake and the lotion and cute "Make a Wish" card from my friend Julie. If you look in the background, there is a 42 inch plasma t.v. from Dave. That's what he gave me for my b-day (you rock Dave!)

Thanks to everyone who made this a fun memorable day!

Family Pic

Here is the latest family pic taken by Sam.

Except for the long hair and Zack's crooked smile, it came out pretty good. Thanks Sam!
(I don't know how to get rid of this underline, so sorry about that.)

Zack had to get a missionary haircut before the bishop would send his papers in. The papers are finally in and we are waiting to hear where he will be going.

Feeding the Bear

I asked my nephew to take a picture of me feeding the bear because you don't get many pictures of the photographer. Here's the shot!

Cruisin!

Cruise update!

Dave and I went on a cruise with his family last week. We had a fabulous time in the warm sunshine! We were spoiled with great food and maid service every day. I could never figure out why anyone would order hamburgers, hot dogs or pizza when you had gourmet food to choose from. I was a little disappointed when they brought saltine crackers with the cheese platter, but , whatever. The soufflés made up for it. They were awesome!This is a picture Dana took of Dave and I at the zoo in Puerto Vallarta

Here are two tigers lounging in the shade. It was about 85 degrees.

For $10, you could get in the cage with these tiger cubs and play with them. There were about 5 of them playing here.

The boy in the green shirt is Nathaniel. It looks like he has the carrot in his mouth, but he is holding it with his hand. As we were walking past this camel, it opened it's mouth and about bit Nathaniel on the head...twice. Yikes!

This is Nathaniel's adorable sister, London. She is 2 and singing us the alphabet song while sitting on daddy's shoulders.

This zoo was pretty cool. At the gate, you could buy bags of food to feed the animals and they would come take the food right out of your hands. There were several more flamingos, but they were sleeping on the other side of the pond. We were practically the only ones in the zoo.

I saw this thing swimming around in the mote and thought, what the heck is that thing! This is an RUS (rodent of unusual size).

This is another shot at the RUS, on the left, not the right. LOL

Here is Dave (on the left) getting off the boat at Puerto V. The boats hanging on the ship are called tenders. We would have to ride in these when the ships couldn't pull up to shore.

Here is Dave relaxing on the beach. We took a boat out to this small island. It was a little croweded because it was the weekend. Clair taught us a new card game and we played until the last boat left to take us back. We were told the last boat left at 5, but we noticed everyone leaving at 4. I finally asked someone when the last boat left at 4:15 and they said in 5 min. We scrambled to get back to the dock and got there just in time.

This is a sample of the cute towel animals our steward left on our bed. I had to take a picture of it on the floor because the bed was white and the picture didn't turn out as well as with a colored background. The rooms weren't very big, but we didn't spend a whole lot of time in them, so it was fine. I took a egg-crate, foam pad to put on the bed and that made it very comfortable.

On Sunday, we got off the boat and found the LDS church to attend. One of the missionaries came over and asked if any of our group could lead music. Everyone pointed to me so I got to lead the music in Sacrament meeting. It was a very interesting experience. I would have really enjoyed if the missionary who was playing the piano hadn't ditched the meeting and left me hanging for the intermediate hymn. I walked over to the piano and played the first three notes of the song (probably the wrong notes) and we sang without the piano. Luckily, there was only one verse.

We had a fabulous time. I ended up going with the boys on their fishing trip and got to see lots of whales and dolphins. That was awesome! I couldn't get a good picture of them. Here is a video. If you watch close, you can see them turning over in the water and blowing air out of their spout. For some reason I could not see the whales on my camera screen while I was taking the picture. It's a better video if you can watch it on a bigger screen.

Here are two short videos. The first is of the two whales. I couldn't zoom in with my camera, so this was the best, shortest clip I have. The other is of the Pelicans who would fly behind the fishing boats and look for leftover chum. Notice they only follow the fishing boats and they know just where to look for fish. You can see our cruise ship in the background.