Examples, Opportunities, and Forever

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. Becky's Grandma, Orma Briscoe, passed away (her obituary) the day after our last post on June 27. An amazing woman who blessed the life of her children, grandchildren and everyone she met. As a grandson-in-law I first met her and her husband just shy of 9 years ago. When I met them they were already old and somewhat sickly and Sam, her husband, had been battling cancer for 6 years. He continued to fight his leukemia for 15 years until he passed away July 10, a short two weeks after his beloved wife.

Examples
Every time I saw them they were together. Sam always opened the door for her, helped her down the stairs, held her hand, and knew when to zip it when he disagreed with Orma. He respected her and loved her dearly. After his wife died the hospice workers thought it odd that Sam didn't appear to be too disturbed at the loss of his wife. When they asked him about it, he simply testified that he knew he was going to be with his wife forever and that gave him great comfort. In the two weeks between his wife's death and his own he never grew weary of sharing that message of the resurrection and eternal families. The same man that went on a mission with his wife after he had cancer was once again a missionary.
When he stood and said a final, tender farewell to his wife I felt privileged to see a righteous priesthood bearer and husband at that stage of life.

Becky's Grandpa Sam Briscoe after his wife's funeral.

Becky's Grandpa Sam Briscoe when we visited him on the 4th of July and a week before he passed away. Though he was increasingly frail and weak, he spent much of our visit talking to our kids. Here he was joking with Morgan about a puzzle toy that she was playing with.

Opportunities
Two short weeks after his beloved wife, Sam joined his eternal companion (his obituary). For Family Home Evening this last Monday the lesson was the Plan of Salvation and where Great Grandma and Grandpa are now. Thankfully, it wasn't the first time the kids had ever heard it and were able to teach us most of the lesson. The passing of Sam and Orma gave us an opportunity to remember our own divine nature and enjoy the unique perspective of seeing two righteous examples move to the next stage of their existence, together.

Cousins Sadie and Hannah playing piano at Grandmas

Forever
As a fitting tribute, their passing brought all of their children together for the first time in a long time and some of their 18 grandchildren and 29 great grandchildren. I couldn't help but feel how proud and pleased they both were with the legacy of families and forever that continues in their absence.

Poland, here we come

It's finally official... after many months of waiting and decisions made back and forth, and a gazillion changes in plans, we are finally committed to moving to POLAND!!

As I expected, they're ready for us to move NOW, but with the Sattlers coming to our house the end of of July for the family reunion, and Scentsy Convention the first week of August, we're looking at mid to late August. Whew. I don't even know where to begin.

Should be a fun adventure for our little family and I'll definitely keep you all posted. Guess I'd better teach myself some Polish via youtube!

Sadie hugs

Sadie is the best hugger and Daddy is always more than happy to get them...

Mr. Clean

Isaac is growing up. He is such a huge ball of emotions... so loving and sweet and mushy, freely giving hugs and kisses so often. He also is very quick to change, and can go from laughing to crying or incredibly mad, all in one instant. He's very high energy, and brings lots of laughs and fun to our family.

Here's a little taste of classic Isaac mischief. We were all cleaning the house and Isaac decided to secretly clean the toy room. I went up to put a toy away and saw a cute boy with a huge grin in the middle of a very tidy toy room. I asked if he did it all by himself, and he was so proud! He said he put it all away in the closet... this is what he then showed me...

Dave's scary procedure

Dave has had digestive problems for such a long time and finally got his colonoscopy and endoscopy yesterday. He was worried about the procedure (for one because he's not a fan of needles), yet very anxious to hear the verdict. The doctor was very surprised that they didn't find anything at all abnormal during the procedure. You never really want to hope that anything is wrong, but it sure would have been nice to get to the bottom of his issues (so punny).

It all looked good, so the doctor ordered some more tests to see if the problem lies in the small intestine. Dave was really funny waking up and kept asking me how long I had been there waiting for him. He must have been worried they wouldn't call me to pick him up! He seemed to be coming out of the anesthesia slowly, but Dave is always a pretty sleepy guy, and besides that, he always tells them to give him lots of drugs to completely knock him out. As I said, not a huge fan of medical procedures. :)

All seemed fine and he got up enough to get dressed so we could go home, then had to wait for the doctor to discharge him. I was going over his chart with the nurse and we both looked over to see Dave slumping over in the chair and looking quite pale. They laid him back in bed and immediately hooked him up to the IV and monitors again. His heart rate was 58 when he came in for the procedure, and it was now at 35. The nurse called for the head nurse and doctor to come, and they both did immediately. They gave him some drug to increase his heart rate, but that didn't work at all. His ears were purple and his lips were blue, along with his fingernails. Scary. They wanted to rush him to the ER to get an EKG to look at his heart. The doctor was even going to ride with us in the car to watch Dave. The colonoscopy was done at a medical center where they only do routine procedures, so they didn't have the heavy equipment. I don't think they see stuff like this every day because they were pretty worried.

The doctor wasn't certain that was completely necessary, and when Dave heard him talking about it, he started wiggling his feet around to make his heart rate go up so he wouldn't have to go to the ER! It worked to bring it up to an acceptable range so they let us go home, but made me take his pulse every 30 minutes and they called 3 times yesterday to make sure he was okay. He seemed fine, but I was so worried to let him go to sleep at night, because I wouldn't be taking his pulse all night. They called me once to check up on him again this morning, and then again this afternoon to schedule an appointment with a cardiologist.

So, the good news is that the colonoscopy and endoscopy looked great. The bad news... hopefully Dave doesn't ever have to be sedated again! Makes me realize just how lucky I am to have him in my life and I'd sure like to keep it that way.

Wicked!

I have always wanted to see the Broadway musical "Wicked" so when Dave heard it was coming to Boise, he got everyone at work to order tickets together so we got a great group rate and got to sit with our friends. We loved the show and had such a great date night. Mom, Dad, Elizabeth, Charity, and my cousin Kaite got tickets with us so we got to sit with them too. An incredible musical and a fun night to remember.

Morgan's dance recital

Morgan loves going to dance class, and LOVES the recitals in December and May. She loves the costumes, loves the makeup, loves the pictures... everything. She is about as girly as they come!
The theme was Disney this time and her class danced to "Woody's Roundup" dressed as Jessie the Cowgirl and "Cruella Deville" dressed as dalmations.

Dave is a cute dad and brought her flowers when she was done. Don't know if she's a born dancer or not, but she's definitely born to be in front of the camera... this one's definitely not camera shy!