Sandwich Love

These past few weeks have been filled with experiences from the generation younger than me, and the generation older than me, so I am the sandwich filling in the middle! The first side of the sandwich is we were able to fly out to Minnesota to see Mr. Wyatt Dean Hallstrom get baptized and confirmed. Minnesota is so beautiful, even in the winter time. The sky is azure blue and the sculpting and lay of the land and the natural habitat of the trees is so pleasant to me. I just love it. And I love those Hallstroms that live there, plus I love their beautiful home, neighborhood, ward, and Angie's caramel-colored car which I think might be a Subaru? You can find it easily in the Target parking lot.

Here is the "unbaptized" Wyatt the night before, doing one of his favorite things - falling asleep in front of the fire! Oh my, their carpet is so plush and their fire is so warm.

I also love to fall asleep in front of their fire - with my hand-holding-open-my-deviated-septumed-left nostrilled self in all its glory!!

Hazel Hallstrom is a delightful kitty. She comes from the strain of kitties for which the phrase "curiosity killed the cat" was coined. Hopefully she's also from the "cats have nine lives"strain!

Below is a photo of Wyatt dressed up with somewhere important to go! He's standing in Jonas' bedroom, where I got to sleep in his comfy, comfy bed.

It was such a special baptism and the spirit was so strong. I think Wyatt will always remember how he felt that day. Every time I go to a baptism and feel the spirit that is there, I think about how missionaries must feel when they see someone enter into the waters of baptism. It's really undeniable and different than other church meetings. I'm so grateful to have been able to be there and share in all of the emotions and feelings of that day.l.

Angie and Forrest have a fabulous ward. I love visiting your wards. I meet so many exceptional people who  all support and love one another. Angie taught Relief Society on Sunday and hey, she's a great teacher! This year's theme is on charity and she taught "suffereth long" and they had such a good exchange of thoughts and ideas from all of the sisters. Way cool Relief Society Angie! Before class began, Angie handed out a full printed page with all of the quotes that were going to be read. It was so nice to be able to follow along, and if you really liked one you can take it home and put it on the fridge!

Happy, happy baptism day Wyatt Dean Hallstrom!

Wyatt is taking piano lessons and doing great! While we were there I taught him how to play "Blues in the Night" and so it's now passed down from Great-grandpa Hiatt, to Grandma Sweat, to maybe Angie/Amy? and now Wyatt has it hard-wired into his brain. Funny thing is I taught it to him in the key of C and dad and I play it in a different key so I'm going to have to think hard when I teach him the next parts :-)

Angie says he plays it all the time and with his eyes closed which is awesome because I showed him how I can play it with my eyes closed too!.

It's truly incredible to see their basement set up as a working seminary class for 24 students. I loved seeing the scriptures and fleece blankets and notebooks all laid out. It really had a special feeling. What a labor of love!

.....and at the other end of the basement is their super big screen t.v. where there is a super soft love sack where Wyatt and I watched the Super Bowl!!

And now, the other side of the sandwich has been going through the experience of Grandma Hiatt fracturing her hip! What a shock when four weeks ago, the doctor came back from looking at her x-rays and leaned in toward her and said so kindly and matter-of-factly "Shirley, you have broken your hip." I was dumbfounded! And to think she'd been hobbling around for maybe the better part of a year with what they term a "compression fracture" to her left hip. Mom had been complaining of pain for a few weeks and finally could hardly get around, culminating in her being unable to get out of bed, having to call the Paramedics (such handsome young men marching into her bedroom and lifting her gently out bed onto the gurney and off to the hospital where we ended up coaxing her into getting out of there and going home, which in hindsight I'm sooooooooooo grateful we did because had she stayed the night, and been admitted, they might have ended up having some on-call surgeon to perform the surgery and we wouldn't have had the surgery performed by dear Dr. Kimball who saved the day by going in and doing it the posterior old-fashioned operation instead of the more common anterior they use today. We are in the 4th week of her recovery and I'm grateful each day that she is getting stronger. Grandpa Hiatt has been a true angel by her side for every moment day and night. They are a love story and I have loved watching, and being their daughter.

It has been a sweet experience to spend so much time with my mother. I've spent more time with her in the last four weeks than I have in the last 45 years. We've had more genuine heart-to-heart conversations than I've ever had with her so I treasure much of this experience, even though I would never ever have wished it to happen at all! When Grandma Hiatt dries her hands, she dries off each finger individually. I just do a big ol' dry of each palm and call it good. Well, now sometimes after I wash my hands, I DRY OFF EACH FINGER! I'm easily influenced in things like that.

Here are mom and dad pumping iron together. They really worked mom in physical therapy and it made a huge difference in her being so far along in her recovery now! The occupational therapy was kind of a joke, especially the day they tried to force her to play Yahtzee with a group of other patients. Yeah, that didn't go so well :-).

My Red Bull photo below was taken the day we took mom in for her 2-week check-up with Dr. Kimball. They told me they got poor mom up at 5:30 a.m., and I was there by 6:45 a.m. to make sure we had her dressed and breakfast eaten and ready to be transported by van to the doctor to arrive around 8:00 a.m. So it was a long day at the good ol' Health South Rehab center (although a GOOD day because they said her hip looked good, which I was slightly nervous about because of the night they found her on the floor at midnight, which they ended up calling a "slide" but anyway, it was good to know nothing had been ruined by her "slide." We were just passing time in the room later that afternoon, and I had such a splitting headache that I decided I just had to go home and take an Excedrin. I told dad I was leaving and would be back again later that night. The minute I pulled out of the parking lot I started having second thoughts and feeling like maybe I should stay for the rest of the afternoon, but I so needed to go home and get an Excedrin. Then it hit me that, duh, there are these things called "stores" where I could go buy a bottle of Excedrin. So I drove to the Smith's on 13th East (where I'd also gone to buy some snacks the night we were at the Emergency Room so that Smith's holds lots of memories for me now). There was a cooler of Red Bull in the checkout line and I thought what the heck. FYI, in dire straits an Excedrin and a Red Bull will do the trick.I also bought some Grape sparkling cider so we could celebrate the good report from the doctor.

When I returned to Health South who should be there, but my dear friend Lynette who had come to visit mom. So we had a toast to a good doctor's report and also ate the cookies that Lynette brought. My friend Debbie brought a lemon pie one day too and ooooh la la did we feast on that!

And this picture is too cute for words :-) Mom and dad were the subject of many of the employees at Health South saying they were the "cutest" couple - because they are!

Mom is doing so well, and dad is the champion of caring for her! Denny and I have tried to fill in the gaps but dad is doing all the heavy lifting. He called last night to say mom was back to doing the dishes so all is going well at the Hiatt house! I am grateful beyond measure.

Well, that's a quick recap, from someone whose brain isn't quite back up to snuff, because unlike mom and dad, it seems it s taking me a bit longer to bounce back!

Love you all - Happy President's Day!!!
XOXO Mom