March Part 5: Everything Else

In the beginning of March, I cleaned out our storage room, put things in their place and sent these sweet shirts to Serene for Hunter to wear. This is kind of a big deal since that room is FREEZING this time of year. 

While I was cleaning things up, I found Skyler's wand that had been missing since Rachel's birthday party. It was propped up on one of the top shelves. I have so many questions. 

I ordered something from Amazon, and it came beautifully gift wrapped. I don't remember what was inside, but I am a sucker for pretty packaging. 

Gracie kept a constant vigil over her domain our home. We all feel safer knowing this fierce fur-ball is on the job. 

The biggest news was that Gabe lost his first front tooth! He came home with it super loose, and he just twisted it around until it popped out. 

Brian experimented with a new hairstyle. 

And then, Gabe lost his second front tooth! It was super loose as we headed to church, and right before the Sacrament was administered, the tooth was hanging on by a thread, and he had a bloody napkin hanging out of his mouth. Everyone in the pews around us were invested in the tooth coming out. I insisted that he not touch the sacrament trays, and as soon as everyone was finished partaking of the sacrament, I took Gabe to the bathroom to get the tooth out. He wouldn't turn it all the way around like a few days before, so I asked him if he wanted me to get floss (we always keep some in the car), wrap it around the tooth, and pull the floss to cut the last string or if he just wanted me to pull it out really fast. He said "Floss" but I heard "fast" and I had the tooth out before he could even correct me. He was so excited to have it out! 

They say it was a very spiritual fast and testimony meeting, but I was way to distracted with this tooth to have noticed. 

Speaking of Sundays, that's the day we switch out the weeks on our rotating calendar. We were all so excited to finally see the cruise show up within our four-week calendar! 

The Young Women came over to make blankets for the American Fork Hospital. They provided much needed motivation to put the rest of my craft room back together, including my wall of pegboards that needed rearranging after adding the wardrobes. 

I love serving these girls! 

One day, Gabe decided that he wanted to give a talk in church. He approached one of our bishopric members to let him know, and the bishopric member suggested that he give a talk in primary instead. In March, he finally got to give that talk. He talked about Jesus calling his 12 apostles. I had him write down the words for his talk, and then, when he got it how he wanted it, I typed it up for him. He did a great job! 

And with that Sunday, it meant that it was time to rotate the calendar again. Rachel and Gabe love this calendar and are constantly looking at it. They will erase the old week before I get to it if I'm too slow. This time however, Michael was the one to make it happen, and he asked if he could color on the week. After I got the basic schedule for the week in, I let the kids go nuts on coloring it. We were all SO excited about the upcoming cruise. 

Brian wore the cufflinks I got him for Valentine's Day. He's really gotten into cufflinks, thanks to the French cuff shirt I accidentally bought him. 

I was feeling a need to be creative, so I busted out my Little House quilt that I haven't looked at since 2015. 

Our power went out twice in March, right around bedtime. It wreaked slight havoc on our routines, and it made us appreciate power when we did have it. We are so dependent on power! 

I registered Michael for Flag Football and Tackle Football in the fall. He had to pinky promise to keep his grades up and give it his best effort. 

I read an article about taking better photos on your cell phone, and one of the things it suggested is turning your phone upside down to take pictures of pets, so I decided to try it out on Gracie. 

Which led to me playing with Gracie, something I rarely seem to have energy for these days. 

I am still not a little dog person, but I do love and appreciate this little dog. 

I subbed at the District Office, and they all thought it was funny that I matched my water bottle. 

I love seeing sweet moments like this, where our kids act like friends. It makes my heart happy. 

Gracie is ever the optimist. We rarely give her food scraps, but that doesn't stop her from hoping. May we all be so optimistic. 

March snowed. A lot. It was so cold and so long, and we were getting REALLY tired of it. Normally at this point, if it snowed, which it usually does in Utah, I call the snow white rain because I know that winter is letting go. But this March, I couldn't call it white rain. It stuck and stayed. All. Month. Long. There were maybe two days that it melted enough to see our grass, and then it was all covered up by a foot or more of snow. It's been a LONG winter. The only thing that kept us hanging on was our cruise. We just had to make it to March 31, and then we could get away from the cold for a week. 

I got a terrible migraine in March and ordered an eye/head massager, and it was magical. 

The youth started gearing up for Trek this summer by learning some line dances. It was so strange to see how many boys refused to dance with the girls and would rather partner with other boys. When I was a youth, it wasn't uncommon for girls to dance together, but the boys would rather have died than pair up with another boy. Not so anymore. There was an entire square made up of only boys--and a square made up of only girls. It was a little concerning. 

I went to physical therapy twice a week for balance, and it has made a big difference in my dizziness and slowly giving me more energy. I started pressing 60 pounds on this machine, which isn't much, but I've been able to walk more, and do more than I have in almost a year. I'm teaching myself that baby steps still make progress. I still have days where I get frustrated about all the things that I don't have energy for anymore,  and I'm trying really hard to be okay with small progress. Small progress is progress, and physical therapy has helped me see that more. I may never make it back to the level of physical activity that I used to be able to do prior to A-fib, and I'm learning to be okay with that. 

Meanwhile, it snowed, and we finally got close enough to get the first weather predictions to temperatures in Puerto Vallarta, and we hung on. 

Peter Barrow came to visit us, and it was so nice to see him out and about. He had a really bad car accident back in January, and previously to this night, we'd seen him not doing really well. We're so grateful for his healing! 

We read to Gabe. 

And I volunteered to go on Gabe's field trip as a chaperone. Thankfully, it didn't wear me out too much, thank you physical therapy! 

I built a beach house

on stilts. 

I think Brian took this on the first official day of spring. 

But thankfully, our cruise was just around the corner. 

Since we were going to disembark on the Saturday before Easter, the day the Easter bunny typically delivers baskets, I made special bags for everyone to take instead of their Easter Baskets. I ordered the pre-made designs off Amazon and just pressed them onto the bags. 

My cabin fever and dreams of sunshine led me to planning a summer activity for our Young Women. We played a version of croquet that used pool noodles as mallets and mini beach balls as balls. 

We pretended to sit by the beach. 

And sipped lemonade with little umbrellas in them. 

We even made a fake campfire to sit around. Yeah, we're all ready for warmer weather. 

Thursday before we left on our trip, I got my eyelashes tinted for the first time, and Brian and I got pedicures. Those toes had been in shoes for a LONG time and needed help getting sandal ready. 

Cruise toes! (funny enough, my mom picked nearly the exact same color for her nails!) 

We reminded and reminded Michael to get all his homework in before we left since we were skipping the last day of the term to drive to California, and when he got home, we found out he hadn't turned in an assignment, so we took him back to the school to turn it in despite all his protests. After he was done, we went to go pick him up at the church across the street and this is how we found him--sitting on a bag of ice melt while he waited for us. 

That night, our last night home before our great escape, we went ahead and had lemonade with umbrella straws. 

My mom arrived later that night (March 30). We were jealous that she was already packed. We finished packing our stuff and the next morning, we loaded up and headed south. Do you see the snow in our yard? Yeah, we were ready to be away from all that nonsense. 

We stopped at Kirt and Julie's house to drop off Gracie, and we discovered that Michael is taller than Nana! 

We stopped in Cedar City for lunch at Costa Vida. 

We drove and drove. I told my mom that I was going to get her away from the snow. It took us until St. George to not see anymore. When we went through the Virgin River Gorge in Arizona, I was blown away by all the green there. I had never seen that much green stuff growing through there, not in all the times we've driven through there. I guess all this snow and water is going to be worth it at some point. We drove and drove some more. We got dinner at Panda Express in Victorville, 

 and then followed the sunset to our hotel in Rancho Cucamonga. When we were checking in, Brian's drivers' license wasn't in his wallet, and we all about had a panic attack. Thankfully, we found it in our envelope of cash that we'd pulled out of the bank for the trip! Phew!  

We went to sleep, saying "Good Riddance!" to March and snow, and looked forward with much anticipation for April 1!