I believe in divine intervention

So this week I have been taking one of my young women to early morning Seminary because her parents (who aren't members) don't want to take her. On Thursday, I woke up at 6 and got in the car to take her and when I got to the end of my street I had the thought to really fully stop and make sure there were no pedestrians exercising in the dark before I pulled out onto the main road. I stopped and looked down the path both ways and then started to pull out and then for some reason I put my foot on the brake again. Just then a biker zoomed right in front of my car. I hadn't seen her because she was riding on the road and I had been looking on the pedestrian path. Since I was already braking, I was able to stop for her, but otherwise I would have almost certainly hit her. Although I would like to be able to say that I am always such a cautious driver, that is really not the case. I am grateful for the divine inspiration and help given to me this week that helped prevent a serious accident.

This is what prayer time is like at our house these days:

Sunday

Gabe woke up with congestion and a runny nose today, so we decided to only take him to Sacrament Meeting at church today and spare all the kids at nursery.  Dave took him home after the first hour.  When I got home, this is what I saw:

 

Dave says these are Gabe's "sick clothes" (Gabe found my high heels by himself).

Camping with girls, and two amazing dude-guys

So this man here:

is quite possibly the most amazing man ever.  Do you want to know why?
Because, while I was up at Girl's Camp for a week hanging out with these lovely ladies:

And doing activities like this:

Dave was full-time single dad to this one:

 

It was VERY hard for me to leave this little guy.  In fact, I put him down for his nap right before I left and cried through all the songs I was singing to him.  He thought it was a game, he thought when I paused (because I was crying) he was supposed to fill in the blanks of the song!  Before I left, I made some videos of me singing songs for Gabe, but I couldn't put any of our most special songs on there because I couldn't get through them without crying.  (I had also written a daily letter for Dave and I hid them around the house).  Anyway, I had told Dave that the only thing I really cared about is that he and Gabe would be alive when I got home and then I added that if possible it would be nice if the plants could also be living and if the house could be reasonably clean.

 

 

When I got home, Gabe was napping, the house was spotless, and Dave was studying his Sunday lesson.  I asked Dave what they had done while I was away and Dave talked about going to parks and the library together, going for walks in the foothills etc. When Gabe woke up, it didn't even phase him that I was back.  He gave me a hug and then went downstairs and grabbed Dave's hand and pulled him over to the couch.  Then he got a pillow and the remote and gave them to Dave and then he sat down on the floor beside him and looked at the blank TV and said "LYMPICS!"  So the cat was out of the bag with how they really spent their time (Dave insists that they really did do all those other things too, but their nightly ritual was a lot of Olympics viewing.)

 

AND, Dave found the time to build this with Gabe:

 

A SHELF EXTENSION on my closet!  He even went and bought the baskets for it!  So this week effectively proves to me that Dave would be an AWESOME stay-at-home Dad.

 

By the way, Girl's Camp was as wonderful as I was hoping it would be.  The girls I get to work with are incredible, talented, good, beautiful girls and it was really fun to be with them.  The stake leaders put in an unbelievable amount of work.  For example, on Testimony meeting night, the stake leaders had lined the walkway to the ampitheater with lighted garlands and lanterns and each girl got a handmade necklace with the mutual theme on it and they had put together a beautiful slideshow of the girls to the song "Three White Dresses" and they had prepared a song for the 6th year girls to sing.  Every aspect of camp was so planned and prayed over.  Hopefully the girls appreciated it!

 

One small downside of camp was that almost every cabin had mice (including mine).  The first night, I didn't realize and I slept soundly.  The second night, I saw the mouse right before going to bed and I laid awake literally all night, listening to it scurry around upstairs where the girls were sleeping.  The third and fourth nights I decided I wanted to get good sleep so I went out to my car (the Rav4) and slept great on the folded back seat!



It's a Dude-Guy!

We changed our blog's title. Maybe you noticed. "Ladies and Dude-Guys" is one of Gabe's phrases. He first said it in reference to nursery, as in, "Nursery is where the ladies and dude-guys are." We'd never heard "dude-guys" before, and here's guessing none of you have either.

We like Gabe's wordsmithing. "Dude-guys" has made its way into our everyday speech.

• "Hi dude-guys, I'm home."
• "What did the dude-guy next door say about our weeds?"
• "So I said to this dude-guy, 'Hey, dude-guy, step off.'" 
• "And this dude-guy was like, 'Dude-guy?' Like he didn't know I was talking to him."

With Shan's ultrasound date approaching, we started asking Gabe if he wanted a little lady or a little dude-guy. No consistency to his responses, almost like he doesn't know what we're talking about.
The ultrasound went well. Gabe behaved like a real dude-guy the whole time. Even the nurses said so. They also said that our little baby is a boy. So with that news we decided to change the blog title. We hope to pluralize "Lady" real soon.

Zoo Day with cousin Benton!

Brennan and Chad are in town because Chad is taking the bar in Idaho because the license is reciprocal with more states than in Utah. While Chad studied, the rest of us went to the zoo.

The intrepid explorers set off on the first leg of their journey by Jeep.

When the Jeep broke down, they lassoed a baby tiger and continued on their journey.

The journey was long...

and tiring!

But perseverance pays and the explorers eventually reached their destination!

Gabe and his Bad Guys

Grandma Grange was nice enough to get Gabe some knight figures from the Utah Shakespeare Festival.  We gave them to him on the car ride home and he immediately started growling and saying "Bad Guys!  Bad Guys!"  (He knows this phrase because we read the children's illustrated Book of Mormon to him and talk about the "bad guys.")  Anyway, I took out the camera and this is what I caught: