Friends All Along the Way

July Vignettes

We only had 4 dinners in our home during the entire month of July without guests!  How fun for us to have visits from family and friends from all over the country!  I wish every month could be like that. We loved every single visit!

Derek completed his 10th and 11th chemotherapy treatments.  They are taking their toll on his body, but he looks great and has done remarkably well.  In fact, he has done so well that the doctor is considering 2 extra treatments just to kick the cancer a little harder while it is down.  None of us are very excited about that, but it is good news that he has done so well and we attribute it completely to the prayers offered on his behalf.  He has been able to work.  He's enjoying his job.  We're so grateful.

I painted a bedroom gray with a dear friend and former college roommate and wished I could visit longer and deeper, and with fewer interruptions.

I caulked (Did I mention that I learned how to caulk?) around some baseboards and trim while my aunt, who thinks like me and inspires me to be better, painted the walls brown and green. I almost wished we hadn't finished so quickly.

I learned that the mom of a friend, who has been helping me with interior design concerns, knows one of my aunts and wondered how many other random connections I can make if I have the right conversations with people.
 
Derek and I were able to attend an amazing concert in a beautiful setting in VIP seating.  It was magical and memorable.

Matthew nicely tucked away his Pass of all Passes into the zippered pocket of a woman's purse after using it one day to play laser tag.  Unfortunately it was not his mom's purse, as instructed, but the purse of a friend who was visiting from another city.  I laughed and laughed once it was found.

Our family enjoyed a visit from Derek's uncle from Dallas who took us all to one of his favorite restaurants for dinner one of the nights.  It was a special treat for all of us and both of my teenage boys got full, which doesn't happen often!
 
I greeted many men, sent to my home for various contracted jobs, and wished I spoke Spanish:)  It was delightful, however, to get to converse in simple ways and feel of their desires to do their job well and to provide for their family in the best way they knew how.  I loved those who did little things to be helpful that were above and beyond what they were in my home to do.

I painted a room blue, one relatively calm afternoon, with someone I just met at church and was again reminded that we all have things we struggle with.  I appreciated the shared words of encouragement and was happy that I had allowed myself the opportunity to make a friend by letting her help me.

I painted a new laundry room and hallway beige-ish with another former roommate, who makes me laugh, while the man hanging the new doors around us whistled spiritual hymns.  It made my funny basement feel like a happy place.

In an attempt to make the deprived son's bedroom look bigger and more interesting, my sister and I began painting stripes on the wall.  I became better acquainted with a new friend up the street, who painted the bottom color around the room with us, better acquainted with the process of making a clean line on a textured wall, and better acquainted with all the reasons why horizontal stripes in a room without a level floor or ceiling is an impossible task.  Thank goodness for another friend who helped me finish it, in all its imperfections!  I am going to consider it a successful endeavor anyway!

Haddie was as happy as a clam with a week-long visit from the other pea in her Colorado pod.  It was fun for all of us to have her and other members of her family pop in on us multiple times.  We could have chatted for days, non-stop!  It was so fun.

Savannah and Normandy enjoyed visits from friends that they have been looking forward to seeing as well.  Now they are having to content themselves with emails containing a plethora of emoticons.

Tanner and Matthew spent a week at an Especially For Youth camp held at BYU.  They loved every minute of it.  Matthew's dorm was more out-dated than the dorm where I lived in the '90s (that has since been torn down) so he was bitter that Tanner's was brand new and amazing, but the all-you-can-eat breakfasts made up for it.  It was very fun to walk around the old stomping grounds.  It brought so many memories flooding to the surface, as if they had happened yesterday.  It also brought the realization that it was definitely not yesterday and much progress has been made in the last 20 years!

Speaking of BYU, we hiked the mountain to the "Y" with some good friends of ours from our college years (one of Derek's friends from high school... also a former roommate).  We loved every day of their week-long visit, but that hike confirmed what I'd already suspected... I am so very out of shape! I think when I stop painting I will have to make new friends by asking people to exercise with me:)

Austin attended his first scout camp with his new scout troop.  He was gone for 6 days and returned with minor cactus induced injuries, a nice tan and a few merit badges to show for it.  He now feels a closer connection to approximately 15 other boys in our neighborhood!

We went with my sister's family to Lehi's Foam Day and were sprayed with foamy fire hoses for no apparent reason.  Some firefighters let Derek help with the spraying, which he thought was cool. The kids loved it.  I took pictures.

My dad came several times to help caulk and paint.  We enjoyed his expertise and his company for dinner a time or two.  My mom also came several times to paint doors and provide food, which was so helpful, but the time she stopped in to take me to lunch was fabulous.  It was nice to walk away from it all for a minute.

My family enjoyed a delightful visit with an ailing grandma and also grandpa.  I am grateful we had that time to hear stories from Grandpa and some laughter with Grandma.  They are amazing!

I loved painting our large family room with three of my cousins.  They got the whole thing primed, including the ceiling, in the few hours that they were here.  It would have taken me much longer and instead I could putty and sand baseboards while getting reacquainted with them.  It was wonderful.  I later had two other young cousins come to help.  What would I be doing without my family!?

Another sister brought her little family to help paint trim and brought dinner.  I love having nieces and nephews come and play at my house.  It's a good excuse to pull out all the old toys again.

This past week was spent at home for a few days with Derek's parents visiting from Texas (we always love that), and then we were able to attend a three-day camping reunion with extended family on my mom's side, at an awesome little spot in Wyoming.  Matthew was doing marching band and cross country camp.  Haddie was at girls camp.  Austin was at Scout camp, but the rest of us went and had a good time.

It is nice to be home again, all together.  We have new friends coming tonight for dinner and that will be fun.  Perhaps different from the ease of the dinners and conversation we have shared with old friends, but it will be good.  We are looking forward to the visit of friends from Seattle later this week, and hope to see many others of you through the months ahead.  Please never feel that you shouldn't bother us by stopping by.  We truly love it!  It is keeping us moving forward in anticipation of your visits.  We still have unpacked boxes and displaced furniture in our garage, but our ugly door is always open and  you are always welcome!:)