Angie & Jim

Quick Trip to LAby Angie

Jim and I were up bright and early Monday Morning: he was off to a dentist appointment and I went to Zumba. It was my first time back since before our trip to Georgia. Several people noticed that I was no longer attached to my O2 tank and took the time to comment on that and offer encouragement. One sister (who is a nurse) stopped me on the way out to ask how I was doing and how long I had had respiratory problems. I explained that it was actually a complication of my heart problem. Her eyes got wide and she asked if I would mind telling her about it. I told her about my single ventricle and fontan surgery and was surprised to see her almost in tears. She has a 14-month old granddaughter who was born with the same defect! She is being treated at Primary Children’s Medical Center (my home-away-from-home for so much of my childhood) and is receiving the newer 3-stage fontan over the next three years. We talked for almost an hour, and it was a really sweet experience.

That afternoon, I helped put together a luncheon for the family of one of the sisters I visit teach, whose mother passed away last week. It felt good to reciprocate some of the service that we have so abundantly received. For Family Home Evening, we watched Elder Uchtdorf’s talk, “Gratitude in Any Circumstances,” and then wrote some Thank You cards. Tuesday was Earth Day, so Jim and I had a picnic during his lunch break, complete with Jelly Beans for treat (because it was also National Jelly Bean Day).

Friday night, we drove down to North Hollywood to visit Alex and Melinda and pick up some things from Grandma & Grandpa Packard’s house on Pickford Way. We drown down after work and got rained on a bit, but got to see some really beautiful clouds, a gorgeous sunset, and even a rainbow. After it got dark, we even saw some giant flashes of lightning that lit up the entire sky, but we didn’t hear any thunder. We made good time and got in just before midnight.

Saturday morning, Jim got up early and helped to put together Alex’s new computer (which Jim helped him pick out). At about 10, he went to pick up Jason from LAX and they spent the afternoon in Culver City with Aunt Debbie, Mark, and his crew (David, Leslie Ann, their kids, & cousin Deb). Jim picked up some stuff for us and for Jon and then returned to finish the computer. In the meantime, Melinda and I left Aurie with Alex while we went to help with this year’s Mormon Helping Hands project: cleaning up flood debris and trash along the LA River. Mel & I chatted and sang hymns and primary songs and, despite it being hard work, we were having a great time. Then, in a moment of very poor judgment, I fell into the river. I went completely under, but quickly got my footing and stood up in murky water about four feet deep. Climbing out was quite a challenge and I was a complete mess but I was soon safely on solid ground and heading to the information desk to get a few scratches patched up. The only serious casualty was my phone, which was in my back pocket. We’ve yet to see whether it will survive the ordeal.

We went home, got cleaned up, and picked up Aurie, then headed out to the LA Zoo where we saw lions and giraffes, and even one of my favorite animals: a sloth. We spent several hours there, then met up with the boys for dinner at The Island’s, a Hawaiian Burger place in LA that we fell in love with after going there with Grandma and Grandpa a couple years ago. Alex and Melinda had never been, so we introduced them to it, and they enjoyed it too. For dessert, we stuck with the Hawaiian theme by getting Hawaiian shave ice, which was also delicious.

This morning, we got up early and started our trek home. Jim had to stop by the Pickford Way house, so it added a bit to our trip, which meant we walked in to church just a couple minutes late, but I guarantee we left for church before anyone else in that congregation. Of course, we drove 350 miles to get there, but who’s counting… 🙂

Home Againby Angie

Returning home was harder than we expected, but it was so wonderful to have family around us for a few days. We also found a special blessing waiting for us when we pulled up to our house: members of our ward had come over and mowed our lawn and weeded (front and back) and planted flowers in the vacant planters on our front porch. We felt so loved!

Wasn’t General Conference wonderful!? I felt like many of the talks were deeply personal and applicable to both sides of our family, especially on Sunday. Is was a very comforting way to begin to return to “real life” which – this week – meant lots of work, laundry, phone calls, and thank you notes.

On his first full day back at work, Jim’s group leader, Gordon, stopped by his office to inform him that he (Jim) had won an award while we were out in Georgia! Gordon had nominated Jim for this excellence award a while back because of the Java class that Jim taught in the Fall. The nomination was approved and he was awarded a nice certificate. We are so glad that Jim has been supported and appreciated at work, despite our recent family crises.

On Thursday, Pam Dozier invited me to join a group of women from her ward who get together casually every other week to discuss whatever they’re studying in their scriptures. Though I’m not in their ward, I still knew several of the girls and it was wonderful to talk about Conference and other spiritual topics.

We decided to do something special for “date night” on Friday: we moved the couches around and built a blanket fort in the living room, then we curled up inside it with a bowl of homemade kettle corn to watch a movie on Jim’s tablet. It was a blast.

On Thursday, Jim had created an elaborate and very effective setup for archival photographing. We spent a good part of that evening and Saturday afternoon taking pictures of all of Mom’s recipe cards. I posted a video on facebook about the project. Now that the photography part is done, the more time consuming steps begin: editing the pictures and uploading them to the family recipe website, which we plan to fix up a bit.

Yesterday we had the Elders over for dinner. We shared with them some of the ravioli left over from the funeral that we had frozen, and sent them home with some extra servings… And there’s still some more in our freezer! It’s the cruse of ravioli that never faileth. They shared with us the neat new video the Church made for Easter: http://easter.mormon.org – If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check it out!