Finally my children came back to me!  I had missed them all so much, I could hardly stand it.  It felt strange, hearing about their lives and not experiencing it with them.  It is different from when you go on vacation and leave them for a few days or even a week.  Then, you are having the fun adventures and they are spending time with (usually in our case) grandparents.  But three weeks passed and I heard snippets of life moving on without me.  School projects, activities, sickness, family dinner, movies.  You know.  Life.  Kids got in trouble and did chores without me.  It seemed like everything just moved on.  I knew that this was only possible with an enormous amount of outside help, but it still managed to make me feel a little useless.  

So when those loud, noises, wild children came back to me, I was so happy!  I loved see their faces and hearing their stories.  I even liked taking care of poor sweet Jason.  I was amazed, however, at just how little it took before I was completely exhausted.  Before they came, I had started to believe that I was getting my energy back.  Boy, was I wrong.  I was getting energy back, just not even close to the amount of energy it takes to take care of 5 children.  Still, I enjoyed the visit!

By the time the kids got there, it had snowed again!  They were excited to get out there and play in it.  (it had already hit the 80's for a couple of days back in Vegas.)

Ethan and Laina's snowmen

The time passed a little too quickly for me.  The big kids had to head back to school and Robert had to get back to work by the next Monday.  Nonetheless, I loved the time we had together and the visit gave me more motivation to get myself better...quicker!

Spring Break 2016

Robert took the three big kids to a place called Goblin Valley in Utah to go camping for three days.  Since I wasn't there, here is Robert, giving a guest report of their trip:

Over the weekend, we decided to go camping to Goblin valley with the highs in the 60's and the lows in the 30's.  After leaving, later than expected, we ended up arriving around midnight.  Before getting to the camp site, we realized that it would be cold so we decided to pick up some firewood at Home Depot.  Unfortunately for us, they didn't have any firewood, but we scavenged the lumber section with the approval of the manager for scrap wood.  We ended up with 45 3.3.4's  which is what they use stacking wood with pallet jacks.  

My brother-in-law Scott told us about a place we could camp that was free on BLM land, so we took our van off-roading looking for this mysterious campsite.  WE bottomed out the van a couple of times, found a small washed out part of the road and wanted to get past it, so we filled the ravine with rocks and dirt so we could cross.  By this time it was 1 a.m. and we found the perfect spot and set up camp.  You can imagine the next morning, we woke up about 10.

That day we explored the canyon that we camped up, where we had our fires.  We cut up the wood in three sections and had a fun, easy day. The evenings consisted of us sitting around the fire, having smores and listening to Ender's Game.   

The next day we went into goblin valley, having a fun time hiking and walking around the goblins. 

 We found a cave, took a break and listened to more of the book on tape while resting.  The wind started to pick up later in the day due to a cold front coming in.  We had Bella with us and she had a thorn in her paw, so we couldn't hike the narrows.  The forecast mentioned possible snow in the morning.  We did a little geocaching, went back to camp and hunkered down for the night.

That night we had really strong winds that ended up breaking the tent.  In the morning time we packed up camp, ate up the rest of the smores for breakfast and headed to Payson.  We stopped along the way and found 10 different geocaches and drove through snow.

All in all, it was a fun adventure.

Recovery

During the first three weeks after my surgery are a bit of a blur.  I spent most of my time resting, sleeping and watching movies.  I had a long list of things I wanted to do and books I wanted to read, but I'm afraid that nothing really kept my attention for too long.  For the first week, my main focus was remembering to take the right medicines at the right times.  Mom kept my very annoying tubes hanging off of my body, clean and my drains, measured and drained.  It was a blessing to be able to take the time I needed to rest and heal, but the better I got, the more antsy I got.  (Even with the very slow walks I took around Mom's neighborhood. :)

Kari kept the two little boys with her for that time and instead of doing all the fun things that she planned to do with them, she ended up taking them to doctor visits and one ER visit.  It turned out they both got RSV.  It was hard to know that they were sick and I wasn't able to help them.  We phoned a few times and skyped a few times, but I wondered if that didn't make it worse for both of us.  During my first phone call, Jason broke my heart when he asked me, "Mama, am I staying here forever?"  Poor sweet baby.  He'd cry and tell me he wanted to come home and I had to tell him he couldn't.  I think the combination of being sick without Mom or Dad in a home he wasn't familiar with made it harder.  In the end, though, especially with the sickness that they had, I was glad that they weren't with me.  I couldn't afford to get sick and I wasn't well enough to watch them.

I felt comforted knowing that they were being loved and well cared for.   Here is a picture I took while skyping the boys.  Aren't they so sweet?  That phone call did my heart good.

Back at home, Robert was taking good care of the big kids.  He was also being spoiled by the women at church who brought two meals a week and would drop of Alaina at gymnastics two times a week.  For some of the days that Robert couldn't be home, someone would either hang out at the house with them for a couple of hours or they would go to their homes until Rob got off work.  The coordination alone that went into what I like to call, "Project Jones" was amazing.  (This help continued the whole time I was in Utah and except for the after school help, continued for three weeks after I got home.  I finally had to sit down and make them stop being so amazing.  (I almost got them to stop a week before, but Sandra found out about Robert's knee surgery and I immediately got signed up again!)  The amount of love and service has really just blown my mind.   I tease my family that they got used to being on the church gravy-train, but in reality, I don't know how I would have manage without them.  

Even without all that scheduled help, every time I look around, someone is offering to watch the little boys.  I am so grateful for these beautiful women and families.  It is hard, sometimes to accept the help.  I have always been very independent and I don't like feeling like I can't do it on my own.  But when it comes down to it, sometimes I can't do it on my own.  Accepting the service that I have gotten, some from friends and some from strangers has really made me want to give back more.  It makes me see service at a different level.  Not just something I know I should do but something I want to do more of.  I hope it is a lesson that stays with me and the kids for a long time.