April was a wild and crazy month. We started off with a great Easter surrounded
by family. We stayed with the Lunas all weekend
for General Conference and had the wonderful opportunity to go to a mission reunion
with President Callister on Friday night.
There were tons of people there—way more so than our other reunions in
past years. It was fun to see people from
our time in Canada who we haven’t seen in years. Marmie flew out a couple days before Easter and
Sara hosted a Swingle family gathering.
The cousins loved hunting for eggs together and doing fun crafts with
their Marmie.
Later in April, we went to Cirque de Soleil with Sara and
Jason in Salt Lake. It was an incredible
show—those performers can do some amazing things.
We celebrated Granny’s 99th birthday (!!) on
April 6. What a woman. I think we’ve convinced her that if she’s
made it this far, she might as well go on to 100. I feel so very blessed to have her so close,
to get to see her so often, and to have our kids grow up with her in their
lives. I went to lunch with my cousin, Hope,
a few weeks ago and most of the time was spent talking about how much we love
Grandma and all that we’ve learned from her, as well as how we both hope to grow
up and be just like her.
Our birthday present to Granny was to take her to the
Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival. It
was beautiful.
We had a very sad and unexpected loss in the middle of
April when Jade passed away. She was our temporary doggy family member for 6 months while
we dogsat for my cousin, Meggan, and her husband, Jon. They are out here for work training until
July or August, so we were excited to welcome sweet, mellow Jade into our home
as a buddy for Roxy pups until then. She’s
about 3 times the size of Roxy and our kids immediately fell in love with her. Alexa would try to put flower headbands on her
and call her beautiful. She and Tyler
even made up a song about Jade and Roxy that they would sing all the time. She has been with us since the beginning of
January and Kyle was working with her to run more and catch the ball with Roxy
at the park. She was a little heavier
and sluggish at first, but has really gotten fast and was doing so well.
Kyle and I were jolted awake to a painful cry and ran
down to see what was wrong. Jade was
lying on the floor next her bed howling.
Right as Kyle got to her she took her last breath. It lasted all of 5, maybe 10 seconds before
she was gone. I immediately called Meggan
and cried with her over the phone. The
vet thinks it was a heart attack since there were no signs of other issues or
poison.
The kids and I went to the Payson Temple Open House with
Mom, Dad, and Granny. It is a magnificent
temple—I love all the curves, natural wood, and stained glass. There was such a feeling of beauty, peace,
and holiness. I loved how they
emphasized that everything in the temple points to the Savior. I went again with the Young Women in May and
they all loved the Celestial Room, which is a quiet room on the top floor where
you can go to pray and ponder. There is
such power in stepping away from the world and refocusing on what matters most,
being reminded that there’s a purpose to life, and also being reminded of a
loving Heavenly Father with a plan for each of His children. It’s a wonderful place to go when you feel
weak or stressed—I always feel strengthened, calmed, and uplifted.
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