Welcome to the Daylight

 As if having cancer wasn’t bad enough, towards the end of my cancer treatments Nolan broke his leg while working on his Ultralight... Nolan had bought an Ultralight (it's like a hang glider with a seat and small engine) that he could fly around in since he couldn't fly regular planes because of his accident. One day while he was working on it he started it up and it took off, hit a tree, flipped, and landed on his leg. When he got to the hospital we found out this wasn't just a regular leg break... his leg was broken in two places so not only did he have to have surgery, but his leg swelled so much beforehand, he had to have more skin graphs put over his old ones to cover the wound. I know by now you guys are probably starting to think I'm making things up, I mean who in the heck has a life like this???   It wasn't good (remember all those meltdowns I had in the last post, this was part of the reason). Because I didn't feel good and had my own problems, I could

 In the spring of 2012, right after Mother's Day,  I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It all started when I felt a lump and went in to get it checked. They did a mammogram, ultrasound, and finally a biopsy and then had me make an appointment for a week later so they could give me the results. I really didn't think it was anything (we never do) and went about the week as usual. Nolan had a camping trip planned with his brothers the weekend of the appointment so I told him to go ahead and go since I was sure I was fine. My appointment was on a Friday morning and since my youngest daughter had afternoon Kindergarten, I took her with me to the appointment. I checked in and then sat down to wait to be called back. When the nurse came to call me back she had a look of horror on her face when she saw I had my (6 year old) daughter with me and asked if she would be okay to hang out in the waiting room with the registration staff. I knew right then and there something was wrong. I got

  As time went by Nolan grew stronger and decided it was time to pick another career path so we headed to Utah State University so that he could get his Masters Degree. We spent two years in Logan, and had our first daughter while we were there. Once he finished school we moved, bought a house, and had our second daughter a few years later. I was excited to finally settle down into regular everyday life and I was also excited to go to church in a ward that we would be staying in for awhile. Although Nolan still felt the same way about the church, we were at least going as a family and things felt pretty normal . They, of course, put me right into the Primary where I stayed for (almost) my entire 12 years in that ward. I did have a few other callings here and there, my favorite and most fitting...haha, was when I was called as a Scout Leader for a summer... if you knew me you would be laughing too! I literally started laughing out loud when they told me this is what they wanted me to do

Nolan's brothers arrived around August 11th and spent the next couple of days sightseeing and hanging out at the beach. On August 14th Nolan wanted to take them sailboarding so they rented a couple of kayaks, grabbed Nolan's sailboard, and headed to the Marina on base. It was a beautiful summer day, with just a light breeze, perfect for windsurfing. I had stayed home to work on some schoolwork and after a couple of hours decided to take a break and go outside to water the plants. Far off in the distance I heard some thunder, which I thought was odd since there was not a cloud in the sky. I went back in and within 15 minutes the sky had turned black, rain poured down in sheets, and there was thunder and lightning flashing everywhere. I started getting worried about the boys and was about to go looking for them when my neighbor, Chris, knocked on the door. He was from New Orleans and knew how dangerous these sudden Southern storms were and was worried about Nolan and his brothers

I met my husband in High School and, just like I wanted, found someone who came from a good Mormon family, was planning on going on a mission, and would take me through the temple. He was also cute, fun, funny, and just rebellious enough that he wasn't too religious. We were mostly just really good friends right up until the summer before his mission when we realized we wanted to be more than friends and I said I'd wait for him while he was gone... well, wait and date... isn't that what they call it these days?  After a two year mission to Japan, we dated for another two years before we got married. I think this was part of his rebelliousness that he refused to get married straight off a mission like so many do, however, we can at least tell our girls that we knew each other for a good 5-6 years before we got married! We were married in the Manti Temple, which was 3 hours away, so we put everyone up in a hotel for the night and were married the next day. It was a beautiful

Looking back on how I was raised makes me realize why I always thought a little different than most mainstream Mormons. Although I had gone to church my whole life, my dad never went to church and my mom stopped going when I was a teenager. My dad came from a very mainstream Mormon home and went to church all the time up until he graduated High School and was expected to go on a mission. He told me once that he simply just didn't want to go, and that his Bishop was so upset with his decision that he told him he had to go to these classes for people who were trying to quite smoking, drinking, etc. so he could get back on track. I could see this was hurtful to my dad because he wasn't doing anything wrong, and just because he didn't want to go didn't make him a bad person... but he felt like one. I don't think he really believed in The Church anyway, so this was a turning point for him and instead of going to the classes, he went home and never came back. Like I said,

To begin with, I wanted to explain why I chose to create a blog...  It all began during the pandemic when I had a lot of time to think and realized my girls were getting older and would be spreading their wings and flying the coop before long. My oldest daughter was a 2020 Grad and my youngest daughter was heading into high school. With this realization came a panic of what am I going to do once they're gone? On one particular day when I was thinking about this, a thought entered my mind to  Start a Blog.  This came out of nowhere and was a complete surprise. A blog? I don't know how to start a blog. I barely know how to post something on Facebook and rarely do that. I'm the opposite of everyone else and Social Media terrifies me! You get the picture. So suffice it to say, starting a blog would never even occur to me. However, because I have learned to trust that voice that seems to come out of nowhere I sat down and figured out how to start a blog.  The very next day a goo