The Dreaded Phone Call

This account of Taylor's accident is taken straight off of his missionary blog:

Dear Friends and Family,

I was waiting and wondering this afternoon why I hadn't heard from my boy yet, when I got a call from the mission president's wife.  She said that Taylor had been in an accident.  She said that he and some other missionaries were going to the church to play basketball. Taylor opened a huge sliding metal gate and it broke and fell on his head.  The gate knocked him to the ground where he hit his head again on the curb.  Thankfully, one of the missionaries that was with him was a trained EMT.  They gave him a blessing and he cared for him and called an ambulance.  Eventually, a lady stopped and asked if she could give him a ride to the hospital.  When they told her they were waiting for an ambulance, she told them that it could take hours.  So, they loaded up in the car and went to the hospital.  The lady even gave him some brand new pajamas that she had just bought for her son because his clothes were bloody.  What an angel.  I am very thankful for her.  

The Antivilo's met them there and have been very involved in his care.  He has a neurosurgeon that was trained in Puerto Rico and then the church has a doctor there that they are consulting with also.  He has 20 something stitches on his head and they x-rayed him and gave him a CT scan.  He was very confused and has a concussion and so they are keeping him overnight in the hospital.  The missionary that is a EMT is also staying with him tonight.

It has been a very trying and emotional afternoon and evening.  Here is a first-hand account from one of the missionaries that was there  I hope he doesn't mind.  It was very disturbing for me to read, but it really tells what happened:

"still pouring rain bye the way and we were soaked. elder mcbride opened up the huge wrought iron gate to the church that slides open. he opened it enough to walk in and went in and then the support pole for the gate broke and the entire gate fell on him. the gate hit him in the back of the head and then he turned sideways and fell over backward and hit his head on the curb as well. so he started having convulsions and bleeding from his head, apart from my comp and i and him and his comp there was one other companionship there. by now there was a huge crowd of people around not doing anything. elder lesuier and i got our shirts off and held them to the back of his head to stop the bleeding, and then i had mcbride´s comp elder sena hold my shirt so that i could give him a blessing. here they have no ambulances so people were coming on motors to try to take him and we kept saying no cause we all had to stay together and were all trippin out cause emergencies are handled a lot differently here. an suv stopped with two ladies in it and we got him loaded in the car and tried to grab all of our stuff and left. 2 of our 3 phones didnt work cause they were now wet but we finally got a hold of the mission president to tell him what was going on. we got him to the hospital and they brought out a gernie and started doing their thing. basically things are a lot different here than what i am used to in the states so im glad that everything turned out alright. they got him stitched up and he is going to stay in the hospital overnight so that they can keep an eye on him to make sure that he is okay."

I just got another phone call from sweet Sister Antivilo.  She said that Taylor's companion called tonight and said that he was worse and he was throwing up.  They went over to see him and then talked to both doctors again.  They both reassured her that he was okay and that it was normal for what he was going through.  They thought about letting him call me, but he was pretty out of it and medicated and falling asleep.  She is very confident that he is being properly taken care of and will call if anything goes wrong.

Please keep Taylor in your prayers everybody.  He could use a letter from anyone who can write also - to help keep his spirits up.  We love him so much and pray that he will recover quickly.  I will keep you updated.

Chrissie

Here are pictures of that time that we got later:

Ouch

The horrible giant gate (already fixed).  See the bags of cement

At the hospital in the DR -  Letters from missionaries

 Elder Allen (the EMT), Elder ? (the area doctor), Taylor, ?, President Antivilo and Elder Sena

Still in the DR

Salt Lake City

I got a wonderful surprise from my hubby!  He got me a ticket to go see Emily in Salt Lake!  She has been living there since August while she interns for the church.  I have wanted to go up all year and see her and the environment she lives in - but just haven't had the chance.

Emily decided that she is going back to BYU to get her teaching degree in high school English.  She will be moving back to Provo in a couple of weeks.  So...I am really happy that I got this opportunity to visit her in her SLC environment.  It also worked really well because the boys were going on "Fathers and Sons" and I have always spent that time with my only daughter!

We had such a great time doing everything and nothing!  We saw movies and ate yummy food.  We drove to Provo and bought cinnamon bears and went to the Carl Bloch exhibit (AMAZING!!).  We wandered around IKEA, watched more movies, visited with friends, went to the library and enjoyed the weather.  But, THIS morning Emily and I got up and went to the "Music and the Spoken Word" at the Tabernacle. I had never been and I was really excited! It was such a great experience...I loved it!  Afterwards we walked around in the rain. It was just drizzling but it was beautiful.

I loved taking pictures of the beautiful grounds. I love the peaceful feeling I always feel when I am here.

This is Emily standing in front of the church office building where she works in the Welfare Department.  She has loved working and living here, but is ready to start the next phase of her life.  Thank you Emily for showing me such a wonderful time!  I LOVED spending mother/daughter time with you and chatting with your roommates.  :)

 In front of her cute little house

View from the top of the SLC library

Father & Sons 2011

Brad here, hijacking the blog.  Chrissie is up in Utah running around with Emily, so men do what men do best:  Get dirty, shoot things, and eat unhealthily.

Our camp was up on the Rim past Strawberry.

We ate buffalo wings for dinner. They were hotter than usual, but the boys had plenty of root beer to wash them down. We enjoyed hanging out and sharing a campfire with the Kemptons and the Crocketts. S'mores rule.

The next morning we had our traditional target practice with a bb gun.

After we packed up, we went to visit the Tonto Natural Bridge. My boys had never seen it, and we dragged the Aubrey, Lee and Lewis families with us.

It was a cool and beautiful underneath the bridge. It was a good hike.

For the record, Alex is still one of my sons. He had a volleyball tournament and Prom to go to, so he couldn't come with us. We missed him.

Around the World with Food

A couple of weeks ago, Brad and I had the opportunity to finally try Dominican food!  We were so excited to see what Taylor has been eating for the last year and a half.  We tried oxtail, pork and moro (mixed rice and beans) and we also had tostones and maduros (fried green and fried ripe plantains).  I was really nervous to try the oxtail, but it just tasted kind of like pot roast.  We both liked the tostones but didn't like the maduros much.  Taylor said that he has never even seen oxtail??? and was surprised that we didn't like the maduros cuz he likes it a lot.  He said that the tostones are served almost like french fries with every meal.  It was so fun to try some new stuff!

 Oxtail and Moro

Tostones and Maduros

While I am posting about food, I might as well include our experience with crickets!  Brad and I teach the 16 year old Sunday School class and we are teaching the New Testament this year.  We had a lesson that talked a lot about John the Baptist and so Brad got the clever idea to order some flavored crickets for those brave enough to try!  Unfortunately, we both got the flu (the worst I have ever had in my life) and had to get a substitute, so we weren't able to watch the kids do it.  Well, we had some extra boxes left over and Ryan had been begging for a month to try them.  In the meantime, I had sent a box over in Taylor's Valentine box for he and his companion to try.  Anyway, I finally let Ryan try them.  I think they were sour cream and onion?!  He wasn't scared at all and ate two of them.  They browbeat me into trying one and I thought I was gonna die.  I'm not the kind of girl who will necessarily try anything.  Needless to say, I was having cow and I look like such a dork in the picture!  At least I can say I did it now!

"Dan the Man" aka "Boonster" Turns 14!

Our Danny turned 14 today!  Wow, I know I say this all the time - but "where has the time gone!"  I don't have many digital pictures of Danny.  I need to go back through all the old pictures and scan them.  But, I was lucky to find some old ones that Brad took before I even had a digital camera.  I remember thinking that he was crazy to do it that way.  I liked my film camera. :)  Anyway, here are some cute memories of Danny.

 Danny was a slow walker.  The doctors were really worried about him and were testing for muscular dystrophy because he was so slow.  Thankfully, everything was just fine.  This pic was taken in Tom Sawyer's cave and my favorite memory then was that this was the first time he walked so long.  He hadn't been walking very long, but walked through the whole cave by himself and we were so proud!

 Danny has always been a great camper - I guess all our boys have.  But I LOVE this pic. So cute!  He was my little buddy back then.

 I'm not sure how old he is here, but he has such a cute grin!

 Ditto!  See the puppy calendar in the background?  When he was about this age, he used to crawl all around on the floor and pretend he was a puppy...constantly!

 Look at the tall handsome young man that he has grown into!  He was so surprised to get this BYU "Jimmer" jersey for his birthday.  We have all really enjoyed watching BYU do so well in the NCAA tournaments and we have all gone a little Jimmer crazy.

Happy Birthday Danny!  You are growing into such a kind and wonderful young man.  Dad and I appreciate so much how seriously you take your church callings and are proud of your growing knowledge of the Gospel.  I love to see you at night reading your scriptures right before bed.  Keep up the good work and you will go far in life.  We love you more than anything :D

Japan

In the last couple of weeks, there was an 8.9 earthquake just off the coast of Northern Japan and then a massive tsunami.  It has been absolutely heartbreaking watching footage and seeing pictures of the destruction that has taken place.  They are still unsure of the number of the dead. And to top it all off, there is a nuclear disaster/emergency taking place.  The tsunami flooded the power supply that keeps the fuel rods cool and many heros have spent the last 2 weeks trying to get it under control. It is freezing, there is a food shortage and the people there are suffering terribly.  What really tugs at my heartstrings is how the people are handling it.  They are patient and courteous and there is no looting going on like there would be almost any other place in the world. The news people are saying that the Japanese people are the most prepared on earth. I hope and pray that their suffering will be relieved soon and that the nuclear crisis will be resolved soon. I truly can't imagine what they must be going through.

Beauty & Culture

We had two concerts back to back last week.  This was the gorgeous view on the way into the high school where Danny's Jr. High orchestra was performing.  It took my breath away.  Watching my sons musical performances was pretty awesome too.  It makes me so happy that they love music and that they are trying to be well-rounded.  They do it because they want to.  :)

Danny in the 8th grade orchestra for Greenfield Junior High

Alex on the right in the back.  He is in the Concert Choir for Highland High School.

Kirk Jones

Mike Plowman, Brad, Steve Mousser, KIRK JONES, Mike Ward, John Davis

We had a dear friend pass away a couple of weeks ago.  He was only 53 years old.  His name was Kirk Jones and he had ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease).  I have thought about Kirk and Karen a lot this last couple of weeks.  It is impossible to summarize his life in just a paragraph or two, but I just wanted to share how much he touched our lives.  And by "our" lives - I don't just mean my family's, but our whole "ward family".  Kirk and Karen moved into the ward 2 1/2 years ago.  They knew something was wrong and suspected ALS, but got the formal diagnosis soon after they moved in.  The thing that struck me so much about him was his friendliness and how happy he seemed.  Over the last couple of years, we watched his body wither away, but we were also privileged to watch his spirit grow brighter and stronger.  

He served as Executive Secretary to Brad while he was Bishop and was just released on October 31, 2010 with the rest of the bishopric.  He was so good at names.  I think he knew everyone and had the gift to make us all feel special and like he was our best friend.  Our ward had the opportunity to serve him and his family over the years, but I feel like what we received from Kirk was definitely more than we gave.  I know that he blessed my family's life greatly and we are so thankful that we got to know him.  We will miss him dearly.

Luckiest Boy in the World!

Danny went bowling for a friend's birthday.  Each boy was given a $5 card to use on some of the other games that were there.  Danny used that and $2 of his own and came home with a 16 gig Ipod Nano!  What?  That just doesn't happen!  He played one of those stupid chance games that I hate so bad, but it also had to do a lot with timing . . . which Danny obviously had :)  I am really happy (and jealous) :) for him that he won it - but now my boys are gonna think those games are even cooler.  It's a little too much like gambling for my taste so we usually try and stay away from them.  It's really ironic because ever since we have had kids, their dad has really discouraged them from playing those games - always telling them "you never win!"

Pinewood Derby 2011

 This week has really been a full one.  Brad and Ryan spent President's Day making Ryan's Pinewood Derby car.  Ryan really did a lot of the work and he loved it!  He LOVES spending time with his dad and he loves cub scouts.  He finished up his Wolf last month and is now a Bear.

 Here he is with the finished product - The Hotdog Mobile!  Aren't they cute?!

 Ready for the big race . . . can you see the excitement?

 Getting ready to push the button . . . 5-4-3-2-1!!!!!

 Ryan and Quinn

I Feel Like Super Mom!

 

This is the awesome quilt that I made for Emily's birthday!  It is made up of t-shirts that she has saved for YEARS - I'm talkin' some from 4-6th grade.  There are shirts from "Battle of the Books", "Jump-Rope-for-Heart", church girls camps, band, choir, you name it, it's there!  I am so glad that she saved all of those shirts.  What a great way to keep some memories :)

I am really proud of myself for making it!  I have tied quilts here and there, but never started completely from scratch.  It was a lot of fun and I am so glad that she loves it!

First Date

Tonight is the 25th anniversary of my first date with my hubby.  25 years . . . a quarter of a century - that is a long time!  But what's funny about it is that it seems like I have been with him for longer - forever in fact.  And I definitely mean that in a good way :).  It is sometimes difficult to really remember what life was like before Brad.  I remember things, but it seems like it was another lifetime.  This one, the one with him is the one I always dreamed about as a little girl.  I can't believe I get to live my life with him.  The best part is that if we live right, we will get to be together forever.

For posterity's sake I will recall the details of that night!  We went to BYU's production of "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat".  It ended way sooner than we expected so we went to Brad's apartment and hung out.  We watched an episode of Taxi and chatted with roommates.  That's it - but we were together pretty much every day after that!

Brad, thank you for finding me and loving me.  Thanks for being my best friend and the one who I always would rather be with.  Thanks for putting up with all my flaws :)