Prepared...

Yesterday while I was out walking I was starting to go into my obsessive thoughts about what I could have done differently to keep Tatum healthy longer so we could have had more time with her.  Those thoughts are just never ending.  I just ache still for more time.  As I was thinking about those things my thoughts traveled to thinking about my life and the big events that  have happened throughout, and how as I look back on almost all of the big hard trials that I have experienced how I can look back previous to them and see the Lord preparing me.  Always.  I am sure if most of us looked back on our big trials, we would see the same thing.  One thought in particular struck me.  When Hilary was a little over a year old, Lance and I went to San Fransisco for a weekend trip for our Anniversary.  At this point Tatum was just a wish.  Before we left one of my neighbors had told me about a book that she read that she really like.  It was called "The Message" and it was about a man who had a "near death" experience.  I decided to take it with us and we could take turns reading it on the trains and on the plane.  We ended up just reading it with each other.  Poor Lance had to endure my EXTREMELY slow reading.  He would wait and then i would finally turn the page. We read the book in those few days that we were sitting on the trains and trolley's.  We both really liked it.  After we finished it we talked about it.  It seemed to give both of us a feeling of great peace.  A greater peace about where we feel like Trevin is.  I have always had my own vision of what I think he is doing and where he is, and this book just confirmed it.  I look back on that now and how poignant that was that we read that book when we did.  We have never read a book together like that.   It was unique in it's timing and in its delivery.  I truly feel like that was one of the "preparations" that Heavenly Father placed in our path to help us in what has proven to be the hardest thing we have ever done.  I am grateful for the knowledge that I have that I know that these things are not just "coincidence".

Today was another Friday.  Another bit of bad news on a Friday, ugh.  I heard today that a family that we love has stopped attending church.  I am so sad and devastated.  It is hard to watch people that you know allow the world to enter and push out the one thing that can truly keep them happy.  I can't believe that after being around Tatum and hearing us testify of the things that we know are true, that they can deny it all.  We are all given our agency.  Sometimes I wish that weren't part of the plan.  Isn't there another way we could learn?  I am all for it!

After that depressing news, luckily a few of my friends called to go to lunch.  It was such a nice surprise on a very cold and gloomy day.

Today Halea went to a "business conference" for a club she is in at school, FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America).   When she walked in the door, it took me a back.  She looks so grown up and determined and  confident.  She is definitely in her element.

Notice Zoe photo bombing at the bottom of the picture!

When Halea and Lance got home we went to see the movie "Saratov Approach".  It was a fantastic movie.  One minute I was laughing the next I had a pit in my stomach from fear and then I was crying.  I thought it was sweet and real and funny and as a parent it was completely terrifying.  I loved the messages that were delivered in the movie.  It was just uplifting.  I would highly recommend it, unless you have a son or daughter currently serving an LDS mission or about to serve a mission.  What great examples of human resilience.  It was a nice way to end a sort of sad Friday.

Lance and Halea insisted on bringing home the refill bucket of popcorn for the kids.  Hilary lit into it as soon as we walked in the door.  The bucket is almost as big as she is.

I couldn't just pick one picture.
Another one of my relatives sides with me about Thanksgiving.  I think that I am in the lead:)

My plea and prayer is that we will all keep safely to the far side of the line, that if crossed will lead us into temptation and darkness.  We have to search out and surround ourselves with the good things in this life, so we can prepare ourselves for the hard times that will come.