It's Official

We are coming home, and not just for a vacation. After months of frustration with life in Australia, we are heading back to the United States. More to come later but just thought I would post a quick note.

Ugh!!!

I am dying here. I potentially have some wonderful, thrilling news that I can't wait to share with everyone. You have no idea how hard it is for me not to say anything. It is the only thing that I can think of to blog about and I can't say anything yet. I can't even talk openly about it with James because the kids don't know yet either. I can tell you that I am super excited and really hoping that it all works out, for all of our sakes. Then I can complain and celebrate. I won't have to wear my everything is fine and I am happy face anymore. Keep your fingers crossed for an awesome post later in the week.

Grandma Campbell

My Grandma Campbell passed away on July 2 and I thought I would share with some of my memories of her. Growing up, my sisters and I would visit every summer and sometimes on Christmas or Spring breaks. We didn't have many cousins and so some of them would usually be there too. I think that the thing that sticks out most in my mind is that she was always taking our pictures. She would dress us up and take pictures. She would take our pictures when she visited. We hated it. She must have taken hundreds of pictures of us and sometimes she would make us sort through all of them for our photo albums. I am grateful now that she took all those pictures to preserve the memories we made there.

As kids, we thought she was eccentric for collecting dolls and stuffed animals. We thought she was too old. I now know that you are never to old to collect something that brings you joy. Her porcelain dolls were her pride and joy. When I was about 10 years old she had all of the grandkids go through her house and pick at least one thing we wanted when she died. As a young girl, I thought it would be awesome to have the first porcelain doll that she ever got. She made dresses and hats for it and would fix it's hair. She loved that doll. The last time that we saw her she told me that doll was mine.

She would have us do chores around her house. We used to think that was the only reason that she wanted us to visit was to do the things she didn't want to do. She would have us wash her car, weed the garden, pick the chokecherries, and even washout the bread loaf bags and ziplocs that she kept. As tortured as we thought we were, we actually had a lot of fun. Washing the car would always turn into a water fight and we always turned the other chores into some kind of game that usually got us into some kind of trouble later.

Grandma would always make sure that Grandpa took us camping. First time ever that I had to use a leaf instead of toilet paper. She said as long as we were in nature, we should use nature. I always carried my own toilet paper with me after that. She also made sure that we went to church with her when we were there. She would make us sleep in these really hard curlers and then get up early so that we looked perfect before we left.

Everyday at noon we had to be absolutely silent while Paul Harvey was on. We were not allowed to sit on her bed during the day. She would play board games with us. She was an excellent seamstress. She tried to teach me how to sew but I was not a good student. She would have us exercise every day to Jane Fonda. We went to Deseret Industries every Saturday. We got lost in Pocatello and got onto the Interstate going the wrong way once. She seldom drove. She wouldn't let us use our left hands to eat. She fed us bread and milk for dinner once. We would walk all over McCammon collecting aluminium cans. She made huge bunny cakes for everyone on Easter. She always had push-pops in the freezer. She loved spending time with her grandkids and great-grandkids.

She was a crazy old lady that did things that made us question her sanity, but she had a great love for her family and she will be missed.