Hope and Miracles

I understand charity. Charity is seeing people how our Savior sees people; its treating them how He would treat them; it is the pure love of Christ. Faith is believing in something that is true that you can't see, sometimes you can't even describe it, it is a conviction, it usually moves you to action. Keeping the commandments is an act of faith.

Hope has been a concept that I have had a hard time wrapping my brain around. It feels like wishful thinking to me. But it talks about the need for hope all the time in the scriptures, so I have been studying hope, trying to develop that Christ like attribute. So recently when my sister in laws where planning on going to a women's conference and the topic was hope I knew I had to go.

A speaker at the conference talked about the same thing that I had been thinking. She said her friend was talking to her about how she understood charity and faith but didn't get hope (ding, ding), then she explained how inside when her friend was saying this she was thinking hope is the easiest to understand, hope is a given. But not too long after this conversation with her friend she was "given" the opportunity to understand what true hope is all about. She was running for re-election in her city in California, she was the Relief Society President in her ward (the women's organization for our church, which is no small task, making sure families in need are fed, families with newborns have meals, sisters with illnesses are taken care of, Sunday instruction is uplifting, helping people who feel lonely feel loved, provided RELIEF etc.), her husband lost his job, and then she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She suddenly felt the keen need for hope. She needed hope to get out of bed. I began to see what hope was.

Last Saturday our family went on a camp-out, we do this quite often. Our family likes to camp and hike, it is a terrible nights sleep but the kids always get so excited. We brought our dog Luke along, he loves exploring just as much as the kids do. The kids were also excited because their uncle Dan came along for the trip. The night was uneventful, the predicted bad nights sleep occurred. Luke scampered around the camp, came and went. But when he left in early morning he wasn't coming back when we called for him, which is very unusual. He is a very obedient dog. Finally I was getting nervous, so Bella, Olivia and Holman and I, set out to look for him.

I said a prayer in my heart that we would know where to look, I felt impressed to go left down the dirt road. We walked a good quarter of a mile calling his name asking near by campers if they had seen him. No luck, so we headed right, down the road. Still calling his name. On a whim I turned around and looked back and saw him cross the road into the bush. The kids and I started running full speed to catch up to him, again it was odd that he wasn't coming to us. When we finally got to where we saw him disappear into the bush, we called for him to come. When he emerged Bella started to scream that he was bleeding. It was horrible. He wasn't bleeding but his eyes were popped out of their sockets. I told her to run and go get dad and tell him to bring the car, she froze, but Liv started running. Benjamin came without the car, but when he saw me he ran and got the car. He picked Luke up and carried Luke back to camp, so I drove the car back. I moved to the passenger side of the car and held Luke, while Dan and Benjamin jumped into action and packed all our gear up, the kids were chucking things into the car as well. I know they did it real fast, but it felt like eternity (later Benjamin told me that if he would of had a handgun he would of put Luke out of his misery, all we had was a bb gun).

We have had several dogs in our 12 years of marriage, none of them compare to Luke (see earlier post). We brought Luke home almost the same time we brought AJ home from the hospital, AJ loves her dog. When we were waiting to leave, AJ was in her car seat, but not buckled and when she saw Luke on my lap she kept trying to reach her dog, she couldn't tell how ugly he looked all she could see was his black fur and she wanted to be with him. He provides so much love for very little effort.

Waiting for our cell phone to get reception was agonizing but finally we were able to reach Pete and Amy, who we knew would have the Internet at their finger tips, they gave us the numbers to emergency vet clinics. Luke got in right away, who wants to look at that in the waiting room?! Benjamin stayed with Luke and I dropped the kids off with Danny at Grandmas house and went back to Benjamin and Luke. When I got there the doctor was ready to tell us the news. Luke sustained a blunt force trauma to the head, since we were camping near the dirt road and campers were coming and going we think he was hit by a car. He is little and black and it was early morning so we think the driver probably didn't even see him. Now the bill. Just to get Luke through the day so that he could have additional surgery would be anywhere from $1,800 to $ 3,000 dollars! Just to get through the day. On my ride over I thought whatever it takes I want this dog to live, when I heard the bill I started to cry. There is no way I could justify that kind of money when we are still recovering over our failed land adventure. My little pre-school job wouldn't even put a dent in that. The doctor saw my breakdown, plus the dirty overalls I was wearing and had charity for us. She said she would see what she could do, taking out what wasn't absolutely necessary. She came back with a new figure that was way better than the first which would involve Benjamin and I doing a lot of the recovery treatments ourselves. I can't express what a loved animal is to a family, I never understood it till I had this dog, and those of you who have had such an animal get it.

I understand better what hope is. The whole time we were making the long trek back to Tucson after camping I kept praying that he would be saved, I had the HOPE that he would be ok, the TRUST in God that whatever happened would be for the best. My little brain finally made the connection that HOPE and TRUST go hand in hand. Hope is the optimistic attitude that everything will be made right because we have trust that our Savior and our Heavenly Father know who we are and that they are aware of our trials. Faith knows this, but Hope smiles and knows.

Then comes Monday morning October the 25th. The miracles start to pour. Faith(and Hope) precedes the miracle. Luke is recovering so well that it looks like he won't need any additional surgeries! The home treatments that Benjamin and I have to administer are greatly reduced. We were so over joyed and felt so deeply grateful on so many levels. That night when I was going over bills and trying to figure out how we could pay the vet bills along with our other obligations. I logged on to our bank and there was a large sum of money deposited into our account! I know my account, nothing gets past me and no amount of willing has made a deposit appear. Something wonderful had happened. I called the bank the next day and asked them about the mysterious deposit, I wanted to make sure there wasn't a mistake, that some poor fellow had accidentally miss-written his bank account number. The banker put me on hold to see what she could find out. She spoke with the person who received the payment, it was made in cash and it was deliberate and the person wanted to be anonymous. I cried on the phone. I cried telling Benjamin, I cried when I looked at Luke. Who could be that generous?! The amount received is almost the exact amount that is needed for Luke. A true tender mercy, an angel here on earth. It feels so opulent to receive such a gift for an animal, but it was more than that. It gave me HOPE, hope that it is all going to work out, hope that there is awesome people here on earth, hope that when things go bad in life that it doesn't have to stay that way. On our car ride over to the clinic, I thought of people who had lost loved ones and I knew their pain was far greater than mine, so I prayed for them and I prayed for Luke. And I will pray for the kind person(s) who gave so freely, and since it is anonymous I will treat everyone I know as if they were the ones who gave the generous gift. Thank you. Thank you. This will be told and retold in our family as a day of miracles.

The King

Holman (5) in kindergarten was having a conversation with Olivia (7) who is in second grade, I was listening to her asking him questions. Holman was talking about a boy in class and Olivia said, "you always talk about him, why?" Holman said, "because he is the cool kid in class." Olivia said, "why aren't you the cool kid?" Holman without missing a beat said, "well there is the cool kid, and then there is the King of the class, I am the King of the class." Then Olivia said, "well that's cool." I have no idea if he is, but I love that my shy handsome boy who wears his cowboy boots everyday at least thinks that he is. Half the battle in life is believing in yourself.

Geeta

So there is a popular book series called the Hunger Games, it is very intense it is like Survivor on steroids mixed with political, social, and economic drama. It is one of those books that makes you stay up reading into the wee hours of the evening, or if your a bad girl (which I was) makes you totally zone out on parenting while the house gets turned into a disaster, all for the love of a good book. Anyway there is a teenage girl who is in love with two teenage boys. One boy named Gail is her best friend, he is a skilled hunter and very inventive. The other boy is Peeta, he is without guile, and very honest with his feelings and freely expresses them. In the book you see how she can love both characters. If you haven't read the book don't worry I won't spoil anything.

Benjamin and I both read the series and I would find myself saying oh you are so Gail, or wow you are Peeta to a T. I came to the conclusion my husband is both, inventive and open. Yesterday he fixed my old dryer, the dryer door hasn't latched right for a while. I usually lean a chair against the door so that it will continue to spin (maybe someday I will get new appliances, but probably not anytime soon). A month before he set out to fix the handle on the washing machine it would always get stuck on the last spin cycle, to replace the part was going to be worth more than my washer and dryer combined, so he made his own tool and wala it worked. Two points for Gail :)

A Girls Best Friend

This is Aj's live stuffed animal. Thesetwo love each other. We think our dog Luke Two is awesome. He is so sweet and obedient, we have had our share of hellion dogs (most of which we recognize as a result of being bad dog owners) so to finally find one we love is a lot of fun. I have learned that as soon as you start praising how good they are, that is when you get tested, so I will say on the record he is not perfect but pretty darn close, cause after all he is a dog.

90210

My mother was born on September 2nd so this year (as pointed out by Robin) her birthday is 90210. She loves celebrating birthdays. Growing up my twin sister and I always had the biggest birthday parties. We always were in separate classes, (I think the teachers were afraid that we would cheat, probably rightly so) my mom would have us invite the entire two classes. We would have every theme imaginable in the 80's and 90's. We had a Clue birthday party, Ghost Busters, Freaky Friday, backwards party (where everyone wore their close backwards), a bunch of St. Patrick's Day parties, they were always a ton a fun. So of course my siblings and I wanted to make a huge party for her. For over a year we had kept her surprise cruise a secret, a year, that was rough! She new she was going to Florida with my Dad when they stepped on the plane, she didn't know that we were going to meet her 2 days later and that we all would be going on a western Caribbean cruise. This is a video of her being surprised :)






It was a great week! I love my family so much, they are all people I genuinely love, and I know I would be friends with them even if we weren't family :) Thanks Mom for giving us a reason to celebrate!

First day of school and I am not there!

Benjamin and I missed the first day and first 6 days of school, what awesome parents we are. We surprised my my mother for her 60th birthday with a cruise with her children and our spouses (more on that in another post). My Dad was in on the surprise how he kept it a secret from her shows his talent for sneekary. We had this cruise scheduled a year in advance, when we didn't know if we would be in Benson, TUSD or another district, so we had to make a stab in the dark as to what week to cruise. My siblings who knew their schedules chose the week and we rolled with it. I must say a tear was shed over missing Holman's first day of kindergarten.

Lucky for Benjamin and I, and our kids, Grandma Babs was available. I couldn't ask for a better person to watch the kids. We even left little Anna, but knew she was in VERY capable hands. We are fortunate to live very close to Benjamin's parents, we don't even have to get on a main street to get there, they are right in the neighborhood. Our kids really are fortunate to truly know their Grandparents. So if we must ditch the kids for 10 days Grandma's house is the place to do it. Heck she knows their elementary school because a goodly amount of her kids went there. We couldn't have gone on this once and a life time trip without her service, what can I say she is a saint! I need to mention Grandpa Ronnie, Bekah Mae and Danny also helped with our crew, we sure appreciate them!! These are the pics they took for us on their first day.







Holman Jackson Howe 5 years old
1st day of kindergarten














Olivia Jane Howe 7 years old
1st day of 2nd grade







Isabella Jules Howe 9 years old
1st day of 4th grade
















Parkin Joshua Howe 3 years old
almost first day of preschool :)









Thanks again Barbara and Ron we really appreciate you. I am in constant awe that you raised 10 children, 10 first days of kindergarten, 10 kids to potty train, 10 kids to help graduate, 10 kids to.......

Do other families have poop stories?

I heard my little one cooing in her bedroom and went to go get her, I love picking her up first thing in the morning. I open her door and instantly I am accosted by the most foul smell imaginable. I am surprised that she is even conscious in that stench. The culprit... a blown out diaper. Once that door was opened the house was flooded with its putrid aroma. The kids ran to see what had disturbed their nostrils. I took AJ into the bathroom to give her a bath and when I came out I went to her room and this is what was posted on her door:



















My seven year old wrote " Danger do not enter without breathing equipment baby let out a poop bomb." That says it all.