Miss Becky's Blog

Update on My Life ...

Today, July 19th, 2006, I'm at our small cabin in the Logan mountains, just about a 15 minute drive from our home. I do not have internet here, so I'll have to post this when I return home in a couple of days.

This has been a very busy month for me:

* Drove to Montana to attend a memorial service for a special friend who died in June. A friend drove with me and we listened to some tapes about the medical advances in treating mental illness that have come about in the last decade. This was very interesting to us, as our friend who had, died had struggled with a mental illness for years. This information was helpful in understanding mental disabilities better ... now doctors are treating the brain as another organ of the body and we know that chemical imbalances in the brain can cause illness for people and there are a variety of things that can cause those chemical imbalances. The good news is that there are now medications available to assist in the treatment of these illnesses.

* Took care of the three grandchildren that are living at our home for four days while their mother was leading a group of young women in a summer camping experience. It was a busy week getting them to all their summer activities, which included summer camps at the Historic Farm, 4-H Adventure camps on the USU campus, and supporting Baylor's baseball team as they played in and won the end of the season tournament -- this was all in addition to preparing meals, washing clothes, reading stories, etc.

* One weekend, I drove to Boise, Idaho (about a 5 hour drive) where my son had just moved a couple of weeks ago. He called and asked me to come help, as they were having to move to a different house because the one they were living in had mold and a water problem in the crawl-space under the house that could make his children ill. So I drove up early on Saturday morning and tended the children (two little girls) while they moved everything on Saturday. I stayed until early Tuesday morning helping my daughter-in-law get things organized and tending the children while she unpacked.

* When I arrived home, my brother’s two children, Kayla (10) and Jake (9) were at my house … I had invited them to come to give their parents a week to themselves to celebrate their wedding anniversary. My brother’s wife has an older son who is a drug addict and has problems with the law. He finally is in jail now and we are praying that it will help him to overcome his addictions. This has been very hard on his mother. These children are near the ages of our grand children that are living with us now, so they had a great time playing together…. Kayla and my granddaughter, Britt, attended a 4-H Adventure Art Class on the USU campus each afternoon during the week. Jake and my grandson, Baylor, had a great time shooting bows and we only got two arrows on the neighbors roof. All the children loved playing in the water and sand in my backyard. They all went tubing down the canal, saw a new movie; had a cook-out, watched the video, "Iron Will" and slepted-over at our cabin in Logan Canyon, where we also made and decorated pinewood flutes. I helped Kayla and Britt sew some matching pj’s and I made them small bags out of the left-over fabric … I also made matching pj’s for Gwen, who is too young to use the sewing machine yet. It was a busy and fun week.

* Also the same day I arrived home from Idaho, friends of ours from California arrived. They have an RV (Recreation Vechile) they had driven to Alaska and back. The RV contains a bathroom, bed, kitchen, etc. They parked it in our driveway and stayed for three days. They had been pullling a small car in back of the RV, which they would use to get around places after they arrived. The car was having some problems, so Ken took it to the man that works on our cars and he was able to fix it for them for a lot less money than it would have cost them in California. Bob and Sherry are really great people. Bob and Ken when golfing two days, I took Sherry sight-seeing in Salt Lake City as she had never been there before. Did you know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the world's largest Family History Library inb the world in Salt Lake City?Sherry put her grandfather’s name in the computer and on a website, we found LOTS of his ancestors, some as far back at the 1300’s. We printed off 30 pages of names for her. She is really excited about that and wants to do more family history. They took us to dinner one night and on the way we stopped at a cemetery where several of Bob's ancestors were buried. Sherry took photos of all the headstones we could find with the information she needed. The last night they were here, they cooked out at the cabin with us and all the kids.

* Also, last week, with the cooperation of my husband and daughter-in-law to take care of all the kids, I made another trip to Salt Lake City on Friday to attend a court hearing for a lady that I've been working with for almost a year. I met her in the class that I taught at the county Jail. Since the first of the year, we have become closer friends thru visits and letters. She has been transferred to another jail and asked that I be there for her in court. It was good for me to learn more about the charges against her and to see the justice system in work!!!

* Our Chinese friend, Zhai Wei, who has been living with us for the last three years, decided to move to another apartment, to make more room for Jason's family as it looks like they will be with us for several more months and she needed a change of environment. I hope this will be a good thing for her. I think she wanted to be more independent of us. Ken and I have spend hours this month helping her move, driving her to the airport to take a trip to Florida to visit friends and picking her up and taking her calls in the middle of the night when she has had problems in the new apartment.

* I've also made some trips to Provo to check on my Dad, who continues to have a variety of health problems. My niece is living there for a month and Dad is really enjoying her little boy, who is two-years-old. While she is there, I do not have to go down as much.

On top of doing all these things, I've suffered a bad cough since the first of the month. It has kept me awake at night so I've not slept well, the cough medicine helped a little, but I was just too busy to take better care of myself. So Monday, I went to a doctor and found that I have a sinus infection, and some problems with my stomach. The doctor gave me four medications to take and I have to drink lots of water and rest. So that day I packed up my things, got food for the week and headed to our little cabin in Logan canyon, where I’ve been staying ever since … doing lots of RESTING and sleeping and trying to get better.

Love to all ...

Miss Becky

P.S. I was not able to get this posted earlier because I had a problem with my computer and it had to be sent away to be repaired. I've spend the last couple of weeks getting better and cleaning and sorting things at our home to make more room for our son's family.

I can't believe that the month of July has passed ... Ken and I will fly to California on Saturday (August 5th) to visit family and friends and Ken will be playing golf with his friends from his high school years. Hope you all have enjoyed a great summer.