The Second Half Is Almost Past...

Another half of a semester has passed by, only a couple weeks left. Crazy! But, here are some highlights (low lights are contained in another post):

EGG DROP COMPETITION
For FHE one Monday, we had an egg drop competition. I thought every one in the work had done egg drops, but apparently not. There were people in my group who didn't even know what an egg drop was! What?! I started doing them in sixth grade I think and all the way until I was a senior senior, and I have never had my egg break. Pretty impressive. Reader and I were the only girls with about 12 guys and we had it at our house. We dropped the eggs off the balcony into the parking lot. Joe, Parker, and I packed the plastic jar full of garbage bags and surrounded our egg with bread. With the first drop we attached three parachutes. Even though it was pretty heavy, the parachutes actually worked! I was impressed. We took them off for the next drop and our egg still survived. Then, we threw the jar far into the parking lot. The plastic dented, but the egg survived! I continued my winning the egg drop streak. Unfortunately, I do not have a pictures to show.

DINNER GROUPS
I am done cooking for the year! The meals I cooked were all delicious and nutritious....kinda. I made Sweet and Sour Meatballs on rice, Hawaiian Haystacks, Rigatoni, and Beef Noodles and Sour Cream. All pretty successful. I didn't ever run out. In fact, I didn't even cook all the food I purchased for my last meal because I found out an hour before that only three people were coming! I cooked have and have I guess what you would call pre-overs.

I had to make a meal the other day with my pre-overs...so, I copied Karrah's idea from a while ago. It turned out well!

Meatball pizza on french bread. Meatballs from first dinner group, french bread from the last.

BLOOD DONATION
Yeah, I decided to give blood again. This time it hurt and she left the little turniket on the whole time I was donating...I guess that's what you get for bleeding too fast. I filled it in 6:20, pretty good. I got a cool bandage too, and free treats which makes it totally worth it.

WORK
I now work on Fridays and a few hours from home during the week. It has been a rough couple weeks and I wonder why I agreed to work, but I have been blessed and time has sometimes been created I feel. I do get a few perks for working besides being paid:

Chick-fil-A coupons! Free food = awesome :)

I got four of these little puppies for my nieces and nephews #favoriteauntiekitt

Old candy...disappeared in hours. It came from a lady who was cleaning out her office.

They gave me a box of tissues too, I think they heard the sniffles...

BUSINESS SIMULATION
My capstone project is a business simulation and we are tearing it up. Our stock price has been steadily increasing and I feel very blessed to be doing well. I was pretty darn worried or a while that we would flop. We get to make decisions on marketing, production, human resources, TQM, pricing, etc. We invest money and hope that things go well in our favor. We design products and launch them. I hope I do as well on my final as I have during this simulation...the final is on my own.

DINNER WITH KARRAH
Check it out, we got dinner with my coupons and only ordered one fry to share. They brought it to us and it had two fries and they said we could keep it because they couldn't take it back! :) She is my new little Asian, I guess.

LAST TESTING CENTER EXAM
I took my last test in the testing center, ever! What a beautiful feeling! :) I couldn't believe it when I finished. Such a joyful experience to walk out and see "Great job!" next to my number and know I am not coming back!

Here is how I studied...genius idea for window/whiteboard!

The beautiful day of my last exam.

HERO HOMETEACHER
This story begins on Tuesday, I replaced my windshield wiper fluid to stuff that wouldn't free and decided to look at my battery...

Uhhh, that's not good. Sent the pic to Papa, he said I should get it cleaned and to ask my Hometeacher...so, I did. He kindly agreed to help, because after all, how hard is it to clean corrosion off a battery.

Saturday morning, I went with Hometeacher to look at my battery and clean off some mild corrosion off, so I thought. We start working, and he tries to undo the bolt and the terminal to the battery just snaps off. The corrosion had just eaten it away. Okay, that was bad. But, I had hopes that little part wouldn’t cost much. We cleaned what we could and put the two pieces close together to see if we could get the car to start. It did, so we cleaned up, shut the lid and were headed to Auto Zone. I got back in my car and no battery connection…dead. Great. I ushered to Hometeacher that we had more of a problem and the tools came back out. We decided to take the battery out and take it to Auto Zone to have them test the charge and look for a new terminal. I thought it wasn’t needed, but wasn’t going to tell him no. Corrosion was all down the side of the battery and inside the casing. Hmm, that’s probably not good. We clean it and head out in Hometeacher's car. Got there and the man said, looks like you need a new battery, it’s bulging on the sides and the corrosion has eaten everything away. I called Papa for the second time to see what he thought. So, I bought a new batter and Hometeacher determined it was his fault for breaking the terminal and bought that five dollar part. Back to the parking lot. It had started to rain and was almost 11 at this point or later, we started at 9:30. Hometeacher tries to remove the bolt from the terminal that broke, but the bolt is so tight and cemented with corrosion he can’t get it to budge. He douses it with stuff he bought for himself at Auto Zone to clean corrosion and tries to get it out. Still, no luck. He finally turns to me and asks if he can come back and do it after his exam. Of course! I feel horrible at this point for taking up two and a half hours of his morning and it’s raining at this point and I am frozen. He left, we locked everything in my trunk and I did homework. Around 4:30, he comes back with his cousin. It took both of them to get that bolt loose. One holding a wrench to give leverage and the other with the ratchet. Finally, the nut was off! I celebrated until they couldn’t get the bolt out. With more WD-40 and corrosion eating stuff, the bold came out. We cleaned stuff the best we could and put the new batter in and finished around 5:15. It was pouring rain, so during this session my job was holding the umbrella over the car. Again soaked, we left and cleaned everything up but this time, the car worked! Blessings come to those who serve. I know Hometeacher and Hometeacher's cousin will be blessed. And, I kept praying that bolt would loosen and when it finally did I was so relieved. Prayers are also heard.

BROOMBALL 
Another ward activity great success! You play broomball on the ice with normal shoes and a stick and this ball. Pretty awesome. We had at least 80 people there, I was so impressed! :) And, no serious injuries. Everyone loved it and we had a great turnout! I am so glad we did it. Brother Barnes made everyone do three cheers for me, which was embarrassing. I enjoyed playing and I am grateful so many people came.

The sticks and ball used...wish I pics of us playing.

I am excited for Thanksgiving and will hopefully post about that soon after. What fun this semester has been and what a whirlwind too!

Peace out.

-the tall girl

Grandma

My sister described my feelings perfectly one day, she said she never thought of Grandma being old and that is why it was so surprising when she passed on. She was 84 years old and to be honest, I expected to have her around for the next ten years. I planned on having her in person at all my significant life events, like marriage and have a picture of her holding my first child. I never thought she wouldn't be there. I know she will be at those events, but now in Spirit. I have a few distinct memories of Grandma and I am going to try to describe them the best I can within this post and a short tribute to her.

A couple years ago we had a family reunion where Grandma was watching all of us do a high ropes course. We climbed up a telephone pole, walked across a telephone pole, and ziplined down. After watching a few of us, she determined she would do it! She told all those service missionaries she would do it and they probably thought the 80 year old woman was crazy! The person valeting her up the pole helped her carry herself up. She got to the pole to walk across, laughed and said no way. She sat down and scooted on her rear all the way across to the platform. I doubt many people ever did that for being afraid of slivers. It was funny! She got to the zipline and she was a bit nervous. We all cheered her on and off she went screaming and yelling just like the rest of us, and maybe even louder.

I was probably 10 or 11 and we were out playing in the yard over the summer. We were all doing the bridge and seeing how long we could hold it. Grandma watched for a while and told us about when she used to be able to do the bridge. She gets off her chair and lays in the grass saying that she can probably still do it. I remember at that age I was a little concerned. But, she insisted she still could. I can still see her with her hands by her head and trying with all her might to lift her body up. She started roaring with laughter and hollered for us to help her. We all knelt on her side and tried to help. She was laughing so hard there was no way she was going anywhere. She kept saying I can't get my bum off the ground and then laughing some more.

Just three months ago, Grandma was sat in an inner-tube at Bear Lake because it was worth getting out in the sun and having to travel all the way back to Virginia with wet clothes. She always wanted to do what the kids were doing.

I always liked trying to get Grandma to paint her nails. She has the most beautiful hands I have ever seen with large nails. They were always long and strong, they never broke. She didn't like having them painted because she thought her hands just seem like nails and they were just too much if they were painted. I always tried to show her something awesome that I could do. I got to paint her nails when I went for conference. Here's a picture of the process.

I used a polish that was pink normally and turns purple in the sun. I put some pretty decor flowers on her nails and she said it would give her something to talk with the nurses about. When it dried, we went outside and saw the nails change. She was fascinated and could not believe how ugly the purple was, I told her not to worry that they would go back to pink once we were in the house. Grandpa saw them and said the same thing! When I said they would go back, his mind was blown. He didn't really believe me. We had a lot of fun making them change back and forth.

Grandma is a marvelous cook. She always made such delicious food! My favorites were her spaghetti and breaded pork dishes. I don't know how she made either one of them, but they were always so good!

Every year we would go school shopping with Grandma in Poci. She would complement our choices of clothing and usually buy one or two pieces for us. We would typically stop for a treat somewhere on the way home. She was a good sport and followed us around to all the stores. She would then ooo and ahh once we came back to the house and did a fashion show for Grandpa.

A couple years ago (Feb 2013), I went up to Virginia to stay with Grandma and Grandpa for President's Day in February. It had snowed and there was fresh powder all over the hills on the farm. We pulled out the snowmobiles and tubes and had a great day in the sun and snow. I didn't think Grandma and Grandpa would join, but sure enough they came out all bundled up. I was priveledged enough to tube down with Grandma a couple times and enjoyed her hoopin' and hollerin'. When we got to the bottom of the hill, we couldn't figure out how to get out! We laughed pretty hard at ourselves. ;) Here's a pic of the two of us after a good ride on the tube and her and Grandpa.

My friend Smiley and I went and visited them one day. Mom had just flown up and I drove up to surprise her. We showed up and no one was home, they had stopped for dinner and a movie. We were stranded outside for a while until I found the spare key. While we were visiting, Smiley drew these pictures of Grandma and Grandpa. When Grandma passed, Smiley gave them to me as a gift.

One of my last memories of Grandma was when I went with Uncle to visit her about two weeks before she passed, only two weeks after I had painted her nails. At this point, she could barely speak and opening her eyes was difficult, for her body was getting tired of fighting the cancer that was rapidly taking over. She was alert when I first arrived. I went to her as she was sitting in her chair, just as pictured above. She was on oxygen and seems so weak but looked good. I gave her a hug and told her about the amazing pumpkin olympics I had planned for my ward. I could see her laughing as I told her we planned to throw them and cringing to think of the clean up it would take. I told her about my job hunt. I held her beautiful warm hands and commented on the nail polish and that it still looked good. She said the nurses liked it, but it made her nails too hard she couldn't cut them. I laughed at that because I realized Grandma's spirit was still very much alive. It was one of the hardest things of my life to kiss her goodbye that night. I knew the next time I saw her she wouldn't really be here anymore. I felt reassured knowing Grandma's spirit was still there. I could see her personality showing through. The next time I saw her was at the viewing two weeks later. How hard it was to see her lifeless body, for I knew she had left it. Her reunion with her mother, father, and brothers must have been great on the other side. I am sure Grandma will still be close to me throughout the rest of my mortal journey, although I can't wait to give her a hug again someday and feel her hand clasping mine back. Grandpa gave the family prayer before the services. It was one of the most beautiful prayers I have heard him offer. He's a great man and I am so grateful for his strength and faith. As I watched him kiss her one last time on the forehead, I think a little piece of my heart broke. Emotino overcame my Grandpa and that was one of the only times I have ever seen him cry. How tender was his love for her. The funeral services were incredible. All her grandchildren sang Abide with me tis Eventide. I cried almost the whole time so the singing struggled but the Spirit was there testifying she would be with us. The great grandkids sang I love to see the Temple. The messages were enjoyable and beautiful. The temple workers from their shift came and lined the sidewalk as we left for the graveside. What a beautiful tribute and an overwhelming display of love and honor. As granddaughters, we did a flower tribute to her on her casket before they buried her. The love of the Virginia ward members was incredible, They provided us with a fabulous meal and food and housing for the weekend. There were many who sent their love. I was surprised with a beautiful arrangement of flowers for me and the family from Brother and Sister Wall. They have been such a great support through this time of trial. All of my first cousins and aunts and uncles were there, except my cousin who is in Norway on his mission. Incredible! All her descendants in one room, what a blessing and great feeling of love.

Grandma spent a lot of time worrying about me. I have a voicemail on my phone that I hope I can somehow keep. She called me up randomly one day just to check and see how I was doing. This message surfaced on my phone just a week ago and I cried when I heard her voice. It's been a month and a half since I have heard that  normal voice. She always wanted to know about my adventures and what I was up to. She cared so deeply. I think she felt pain when I felt pain. She worried about me stressing too much during school and not having enough fun. She kept me grounded. Grandma was such an example of service. She and Grandpa served in the temple for over 18 years. Incredible. She was always thinking of the person in the ward who may need something. She had a beautiful singing voice and I loved singing with her...she could always go higher than me. She loved everyone. She was one of my biggest cheer leaders and always encouraged me to be the best while having fun. Grandma was a full German and I can see some of her natural stubborn instincts passed through the gene pool. She was skillful at crafts and was only pleased if they were perfect, I am the same way. I don't do them often, but when I do they have to be perfect. I hope someday to be as pure and wonderful as my Grandma. Her intentions were always good and faithful. She had a strong testimony of the Savior and of the Gospel. I know she believed. I know someday I will see her again and what comfort that brings to me!

Here's one last picture I took with them almost exactly two years before Grandma passed on.

-the tall girl