The wonderful life he led

Well, we knew the day would come that one or both of the fish would kick the bucket.

Bolt has passed. I know.... I know. I'll give you a second to compose yourselves.

We spent a lovely weekend in Nevada visiting Nils' parents. The fish were being babysat by the neighbors, and all was well until Monday afternoon when Bolt was found floating. It's sad that he died on the neighbors' watch, because they blamed themselves. I explained that these fish have lived way longer than is normal. Nils and I were tempted to ask them to keep the other fish until it died, but that wouldn't be nice, would it?

So, for FHE we talked about death. Tender. We explained the whole "spirit leaving the body" deal, and broke it to the kids that Bolt's spirit no longer resides in his body. Anders was sad for about 10 seconds. Addie said, "BOLT'S DEAD???" and then she sobbed for the rest of the night and was inconsolable. I said the closing prayer and said, "We're thankful for Bolt, and the wonderful life he led..." and laughed and laughed. I tried to muffle the laughter to sound like crying, but I don't know how effective that was, and yes, I know I'm going to perdition.

Anders did flushing honors, since it was his fish. Then he wanted dessert.

And, this was Addie for the rest of the evening. Bless her heart.

So long, Bolt. It's been real!

Family Clown

Aani is our family clown. She is genuinely funny. She was born a happy girl. She was the happiest baby and hardly ever cried. She started smiling socially at two weeks old- really! It was crazy. She's a normal little stinker of a two year old, but she's a happy stinker- not an ornery one.

We were driving home the other day and she put her sunglasses on and started talking in a low voice saying, "Hi, I'm Daddy." Then she put her sunglasses in her ears like a stethoscope and said, "Hi. I'm a doctor." She had me cracking up. What would I do without this girl? How I love her.

The Power of Advertising

I bought a Baby Bjorn today off of KSL, because Ava has to be held all the time by yours truly- exclusively. I can't blame her, since I'm so awesome and everything, but it's making it a little difficult to get anything else done.

The kids had no school because of a teacher professional day, and I made them clean their rooms. Then I made them drive to Highland with me to pick up the Bjorn. I felt like they deserved a little sumpin sumpin, so we stopped and got some ice cream. We were sitting in the booth eating ice cream, and Addie kept dragging her sleeve through it. I told her she had ice cream all over her sleeve.

She looked at her sleeve and said, "Too bad we don't have any Oxi Clean."

Anders said, "Yeah. It really cleans."

Addie said, "It gets the tough stains out."

I put my head in my hands and moaned, and the kids were like, "what?"

P.S. Rest in peace, Billy. I loved Pitchmen.

Yaaay! She's home!

I got a much anticipated phone call from Katrina today, letting me know that they had the all clear to head home. Ava is off oxygen and ready to join the madness that awaited her at home. She spent four full days in the hospital and poor Katrina hardly saw the outside world. When I went to pick them up, it was so great to see Ava with nothing attached to her. She had leads on her chest, some glowing thing on her foot, the oxygen and the IV. I must say, the nurses that helped were great and all of our friends and family have been fabulous.

On that note, we want to send a big shout out to everyone for praying for her and thinking of her. Your prayers were noticed. I gave her two blessings as well and we feel like she just got better and better and did so more quickly than the doctors anticipated. We're so grateful for that. Here are some other pics from the last four days.

Thanks again to everyone!