Trip to Montana

Murphy's Law (if something's going to go wrong - it will) became our motto on the trip to Great Falls, MT to see my mom. It was a girl's trip with Chersten, Halli and myself. We were going to see Jane Nickeson (DeVonne's mom, Chersten's grandma, & Halli's great-grandma).

• Thursday, 3/5- We were supposed to leave on Thursday morning, but Chersten was playing piano in the evening with the Community Choir and also the weather prohibited us.
  


• Friday, 3/6 We were going to leave on Friday, but when I checked the weather forecast - things didn't look so good so we postponed the trip until Sat.
  


• Saturday, 3/7 Halli woke up with a cough. We made a Dr.s apointment just to be on the safe side. We couldn't get in until noon and when we did, he told us it was because she was teething! He was a PA and has misdiagnosed several patients (found this out way later). We left his office, got on the freeway and listened to books on tape until we got to Butte, MT. I couldn't remember how far Great Falls was from there. Someone said 4-5 hours so since it was dinner time and we were tired we stopped at a motel. It was a lot of fun. We had a cooler and made ourselves ham & turkey sandwiches and watched tv. Halli's cough got worse.
  






• Sunday, 3/8 Halli is really sick now. She's got the runny nose, cough, fever and she didn't sleep much last night. We tried to get in to see a Dr. but would you believe that there were none opened to treat a pediatric patient unless we went to the ER at the hospital. So we had a great buffet breakfast and Halli just got sicker and sicker.
  


• Monday 3/9 We were very worried about exposing Grandpa & Grandma to any illness, so we found a Dr. in Butte and couldn't get in until 2pm. She had an ear infection. We left his office and went straight to Wal-Mart to get a prescription which took about 30 min. to get. We made a decision to go on to Great Falls. We arrived about 6:30 pm. Halli was not a happy camper and Chersten had another sleep-interrupted night. I felt bad for her because I know she thought they shouldn't have come on the trip but I'm glad they did!
  


• Tuesday 3/10 Halli finally felt a little better towards the evening. We tried not to get her germs on the grandparents. We waited until Halli had been on antibiotics for at least 24 hours before letting grandma hold her. We thought about going to the store but it was about 5 degrees below zero - so we stayed in. Chersten helped my mom clean out some papers and I found the Quarter collection coin book my mom's been looking for (two years), that had fallen down behind the file drawer. She thought someone had stolen it. We took a four generation picture.









Oldest to youngest - Jane Blythe Brock Nickeson,




DeVonne Brock Allred, Chersten Allred Wright




& Halli Paige Wright!





• Wednesday 3/11 We had to leave for home today. Halli is back to her cheerful self.

Great Grandma & Halli having a fun moment together!

So . . . . the actual time we were supposed to be with my mom was one week and it ended up being about 36 hours. She was as disappointed as we were, but it was so good to see her and let her meet her great-grandaughter. Right after we crossed the border into Utah, we were greeted with this awesome sunset. The multitude of beautiful things that our God has created for us to enjoy never ceases to amaze me. It seems like those things say to us, "All is right with my life - the little inconveniences mean nothing in the grand scheme of things."

Chrismas 2008

Gingerbread House creation with NO adult supervision!

"Cute" Trevin

Aunt Heather with Halli

"soft" Lexi

Brenden & baby Halli

Rudy, Trevin & Lexi

Halli loves the lights on the tree!

Taelor & Brenden

Halli's 1st Christmas

Christmas is my favorite time of year. Always has been and always will be. This year I didn't start my shopping until December 19th at 6pm during a blizzard. I didn't get all my cards sent and when I started to panic after reviewing my "to do" list, I calmed myself down by taking a permanent marker and crossing off each thing that would end up making me work myself to the point of having to stay in bed and recuperate. I practiced my new way of doing things so that I wouldn't "over-do - crash - and burn!" I enjoyed our Christmas Eve and Christmas day because it was spent with my husband, children and grandchildren. I pondered the Christmas story as we read it from the Bible on Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning all of the adults were up before the kids (first time in history) and we finally woke them up at 6:30. My favorite time was when everyone was together in the family room and the noise level was NOISY! I watched the reactions on the faces as they opened their gifts. An extra gift for me . . . it snowed all day. What a beautiful white Christmas. I again watched their faces in the glowing candlelight around the dinner table and I felt at peace. Even though I went to bed before 7:30 pm, I had enjoyed the wondrous holiday. I feel so much gratitude for family, friends, neighbors, and especially our Savior Jesus Christ. May we all feel his light and peace in our lives.

Cricket Fear

During my lifetime, there are countless ways and means that I've been able to overcome my fears. Sometimes it takes a long time and practice and using several different methods before I felt I had conquered the problem. This is about one of those times when I was forced to face my fear and get over it quickly. It all started when my friend asked if I could watch her son's lizards while they went out of town. I asked the typical questions, "Do I have to touch them?, Do they bite?, How do I feed them?" I decided that I could "watch" Lizzie and Sport, as long as I didn't have to feed them the live crickets. There was NO WAY I was going to touch a live cricket. I talked my husband into doing the feeding, and was so relieved because I thought I might have a heart attack if I actually had to pick one up!


Well, she brought them over. I held Lizzie and tried to pet Sport. Then she brought in the container with 1oo crickets. I was fine as long as I didn't look at them. She left and we were making Lizzie and Sport comfortable with their new surroundings when my husband knocked the cricket container off the kitchen counter and yes of course the lid came off and well . . . there were 100 of the nasty little things hopping around and it took all 3 of us to catch them and put them in their box. I pointed at each one as it got away and my boys caught them and put them in their acrylic home. I didn't need to point out that even if one solitary critter got away, I wouldn't sleep all night and if I did, I would have nightmares.



Before leaving, my friend gave strict instructions which my husband and I listened to very carefully. My son was standing right there nodding and so I thought he understood how to take care of the feeding, holding, etc.



It was too quiet when I got up the next morning. My husband had left for work and Brenden wasn't in is room and I knew that he was home because it was Christmas break. I went downstairs and saw a sight that left me dumbfounded. My mouth was open but no words were coming out and then when they did, they were in tones that the neighbors could hear through closed doors and windows. Brenden had decided to feed the lizards. Lizzie, who had eaten 4 crickets the day before was not to have any for another day. Her instructions were to eat 3-4 every other day. There were about 8 of the horrid things hopping around in her glass home. In a decibel louder than I thought I could speak I ask him how many she had eaten for breakfast before I came in. He whispered, "four". I went into panic mode (same mode I used to go in when I was an EMT and had an amublance call and had to save someones life!) With my bare hands I got those crickets out of there in 2 seconds flat.



But . . . it gets worse. The little lizard, Sport could only have one a day 'cause he's still quite young. Don't even try to guess how many were in his cage and how many he had eaten. It was enough to put me in shock. My mind was going over how I was going to explain to my friend's little boy that his lizard had died and would my friend still want to be my friend!



After I calmed down a bit, I called and found out that lizards are not like fish. They do not eat too much and die (we'd had that happen already with Pal, the fish). I was assured that the lizards would be okay, but I kept that information from Brenden because I wanted to prolong the teaching "moment". I really wanted him to understand that there are consequences to our actions, and sometimes the consequences are big when it comes to caring for a living thing. I wanted him to "think about" it for a while.



After him asking me to go see if Lizzie and Sport were dead and asking me if Santa had ever left coal instead of presents for anyone in our family, I sat down with him and had a good talk. He was relieved and so was I for a very different reason.



I had not set out that day to have a "conquer my fears" experience but life always throws those curve balls and I ended up having one. We've had Lizzie and Sport for 13 days now. I feed them and clean out the cricket cage when it needs it. I didn't have a panic attack or a heart attack when I found a live cricket next to my bed the other night before crawling in. I calmly picked it up and put it back in it's box where it belongs. Of course it isn't only live crickets that I feared, but I don't want to even think about it if I had to pick up a live spider!