Lennon's blessing weekend

Here is the story of our week leading up to Lennon's blessing, as promised. Our families arrived from various places across the country last week, and we decided it would be a fun thing to do some of the touristy things here in the city of Memphis, while they were all here. On Friday evening we went to the Peabody Hotel in downtown. We parked in a parking garage with security and assumed our vehicle would be safe. How wrong we were. We had a lot of fun watching the Peabody ducks make their grand march from the lobby to the roof and enjoyed some BBQ on Beale St. The girls were even treated to a Cinderella carriage ride through Memphis, by their Granny and Grampy! When we decided to head back to our cars, Val and Trey headed back before the rest of us to switch some of the car seats around. I was quite surprised to get a phone call from Val informing me that our car had been broken into. Apparently someone tried using some kind of screwdriver or something to get into the car and when that didn't work they just bashed in one of our windows. They then proceeded to turn the car pretty much inside out. Fortunately not much was taken, and what was taken was of no real importance to us. It was traumatizing for us, but we are so thankful that it happened to things and not people. Things can always be replaced, people can't. Sometimes I think we take our safety for granted, and this helped me remember how grateful I am for the Lord's protection in our lives. When you turn on the news, and hear about some of the things that occur in this city, it is downright frightening, and I know that our Heavenly Father watches out for us. Well, after the police arrived and filed our claim we managed to get everyone home and decided not much else could go wrong before the blessing....right? Wrong. We had a fantastic day on Saturday. We visited Mud Island and waded in the "mini Mississippi" and tried to stay cool. The temperature that day was 102 degrees before including the heat index! It was definitely hot! But it was fun to do things we hadn't done before and we got some great pictures! That evening Aleece had a slight runny nose, which at the time we attributed to the poor air quality and allergies. Wrong again. Within the less than 12 hours from the time she went to bed to the time she woke up, Aleece was having major breathing difficulties. Her chest was retracting and she had a lot of stomach breathing, her breathing was wheezy and she was absolutely miserable. Madelaine was also not feeling well and we actually spent a couple of hours in the night up on the couch with all three of our children. We raced to get everyone ready for church and luckily made it there in time, but not without challenges! It sometimes seems as though the harder you try to do the right thing, the more that can go wrong! Fortunately we made it to church on time and Val offered Lennon a blessing that was beautiful and the Spirit was strong. Immediately after the blessing our bishop unlocked one of the larger church rooms for us so that the priesthood holders in our family could offer Leecy T a blessing also. By this time she was just curled up in a ball in my mom's arms, completely miserable. Aleece was also given a beautiful blessing that promised her that her body would begin to heal itself immediately. She fell asleep and a short while later, while returning home she opened her eyes and began to talk and we could see the miracles that were occurring. She was pretty sick all day and we still contemplated taking her to the hospital but could see that there were continuous minor improvements. We started breathing treatments on her as soon as we arrived home and 24 hours later she was infinitely better that we had imagined she would be. We don't know what triggers these outbreaks in her, the word asthma has been tossed around by several doctors, but we are grateful for the Lord's hand in our lives. The girls have continued to improve since Sunday and we are so thankful for that. After the blessings on Sunday we were able to all enjoy one another's company and we had a wonderful meal. We are so grateful for our families and for their unconditional love and support that they offer us. We love them so much and are thankful for the time we got to spend with them. We know that the adversary enjoys making us suffer, but as much as we know how hard he works, we know that our Father in Heaven works just as hard to make us happy. And that is what we are.




The Peabody ducks

Our sweet families (part of them)

Eric and Leecy T

the Cinderella carriage (Granny, Grampy, Leecy, Lainey, Patty and Eric)

Patty, Eric & Lainey

our car after being broken into

Mud Island--fun in the mini Mississippi

Granny & Trey at Mud Island

Grampy & Leecy at Mud Island