Settling In

It was a legendary moment...

In a legendary place...

With MY legendary guy!

Yes, he is the cutest coach on the BYU campus and I have enjoyed meeting him for lunch at the Legends Grill a few times. These photos came from our first lunch together. It felt so good and so right to be on campus with him again. It is the place we met and fell in love. It is the place where we got our degrees, It is the place where Sarah, Diana, and Nick also graduated. To me it is a legendary place because there are so many happy memories there. Dee has wanted to be a part of this school as a coach for a very long time and I am so happy for him! His parents are in town and we will go meet him for lunch in Provo a few times, I am sure! Fun times continue!

ANNOUNCING...

The Master of the house has a new job! As of June first Dee will be officially employed by Brigham Young University as an assistant Swim Coach! Sometimes your dreams don't come true in the form you had imagined, but they can happen. I am so happy for my sweetheart! He works tirelessly to be the best teacher and coach he can possibly be. In the past 21 years he has literally worked at least 12 hours a day, coaching before and after a full day of teaching high school. During seven of those years he served our church as the Bishop of both our ward in Tacoma and a ward here at BYU. For five of those years he took night classes to earn his Master's degree. He is one of the best men I know and has such a big heart. He has felt badly that sometimes in his effort to support his family he has had little time for us but I want him to know that he has kept his promise and given me a great gift. I have been able to stay at home with our children. It has not been easy and we have sacrificed much financially. I hope our children will see in years to come what a gift their Dad gave them. I know they love him dearly, as do I. We look forward to a much more relaxed husband and father. He actually sat down after dinner the other night and put his feet up, which was unusual in and of itself, but watching "Downton Abbey with us for two whole episodes? That was fun! We are anxious to see him more often and see him less stressed. I am sure his health will benefit from not coaching inside of poorly ventilated pool buildings or "bubbles".

On the other hand, his students and swimmers will miss him dearly. The thanks and praise are pouring in from many generations of young people who have been touched by this man. I have heard him audibly sob as he has read email, text messages, and Facebook comments.One of the most common threads through the years has been something like, "you are like my second father", or even more endearing, "you are like the father I never had." He will miss them all very much. The school system is missing out too. But one cannot go on forever with rising benefit costs and no raise in pay that is even significant. Sometimes you just have to move on.

Here's to many happy years at BYU and new adventures! 

Go Cougars!

THeRE wAs A yoUnG LaDy wHO....

A sunny summer day in Orem, Utah ca. 1986. One minute she was just sitting on her front porch all innocent and smiles. The next minute she became a victim! But a victim of what? Her environment? The tendency she had to laugh out loud when her friends were around? Her open mouth? The answer was "all of the above"! No sooner had she opened her mouth than she was invaded by a Kamikaze fly!! The little beast flew straight into her mouth, hit the back of her throat and was gone as she gasped, "aack!" Her big blue eyes grew round and startled, they welled up with tears (as her eyes tended to do) and she cried for her mother/protector to help her.



Enter mother/protector...now, I ask you...what is a mother supposed to do when her child exclaims, "I swallowed a fly!" ?

Of course she wants to fix it, to make her little girl smile again, but short of reaching down said child's throat and pulling the insect out with her bare hand what else can be done? Syrup of ipecac? Too violent. E.R. stomach pump? Too dramatic and expensive. (What a laugh that would give the staff!) Do you other mother/protectors talk to yourselves in situations like this? "Stay calm. Reassure her that she won't die...it's just a little protein! Yes, I know we say flies are germ infested, dirty little bugs but...but..."

Fast forward to spring 2001, American Fork, Utah. Phone rings...(different blue-eyed blonde daughter is calling) Mother/protector exclaims, "You swallowed WHAT?!".In the E.R. the young, cute doctor enters the room, looks at his pretty 17 year-old patient, and laughs!
"Sorry, it's just that usually when I read on the chart "swallowed a pin" I assume it will be a 3 year-old on the other side of the door". (Thanks a lot, Doc.) She explains she was in sewing class, holding a pin in her mouth, listening to another student tell a funny story, "I just opened my mouth to laugh and it got sucked in! It hit the back of my throat and was gone...aack!" $50.00 later mother and daughter leave the E.R. having been told not to worry, "It will pass!".


What is all of this about? Well, I have not slept well lately and the other night when I actually did fall asleep I had a dream which brought to my memory these two incidents. I thought about them for the next two hours and wondered why I had dreamed them. Finally a few thoughts became clear. First of all, mother/protectors are certainly called upon to deal with strange situations anytime, night or day! Next, I tried to draw similarities between the two "aack!" invasions of my girls' mouths. Not to get too deep, but think about all of the sin & temptation that is around us. If we give it just a little bit of an opening...aack! In one case a daughter was blindsided with the attack. In the other, she put the danger just on the outskirts of herself and in it went. Either way, once it's in there it's not coming out anytime soon unless we take drastic measures. Weird, I know! Just a thought...from a woman who hasn't slept much lately!

...I dOn'T knOw wHY ShE sWAllOweD thAt fLY...!