Dear Family and Friends,

Happy May Day to all! To combat the snow and bitter cold we have had since Tuesday we bought some tulips to celebrate spring. If you don't look outside at the snow on the mountains and the wind blowing everything over I can pretend that spring really is here.

This week the theme really has been how much I rely on friends to help me out. Taylor had his surgery Tuesday morning to replace his VNS generator. Jeremy got kid off to school and dropped Robyn off at a friends. Accidents made Taylor and I really late for his check-in. But everyone having surgery was late so it all worked out and we didn't get bumped. It was a long day. All went well with the surgery, that lasted 1 1/2 hours. The original lines were still working fine so they didn't have to re-open his neck incision or attach new lines to his brain. They just opened his chest to put in the new generator. Its 1/3 smaller than his old one which is nice. He looked so peaceful all drugged up afterwards! All the drugs seemed to affect him though. He had a good day Wednesday but Thursday and Friday sort of stank. Didn't eat and seized a lot. But Friday evening he started to come around and has been fine since. His bandages have come off and he is just down to steri-strips now.

Friday I spent the day at BYU Women's Conference. Another friend watched Robyn and again Jeremy got kids off to school. What a guy as mornings are really controlled chaos around here. It was an awesome experience for me. One of my friends was there so I was able to meet up with her to attend classes with her. Its different than education week as its all women and the classes are all spiritually based rather than having some practical classes too. Learned a lot and had a lot of thoughts on what I need to do/change. Left a little early so I could be home to get Taylor off the bus and Allison from choir practice. Next year though I have high hopes of attending both days. Robyn spent the day with my friend Allison and her little girl Tally and was suitable tired out from a fun day of playing, going to an inflatable playground place and the grocery store. Allison is a patient and brave woman!

Friday evening we had our two neighbor families over for a BBQ, making s'mores and hot tubbing. Despite the bad weather our fun prevailed. Kids were high on junk food and almost caused our hot tub to overflow. It was fun to catch up with our friends, we need to do it more often.

Saturday morning Spencer was off early for a 5 mile hike with scouts. They ended up doing 2 hikes as they would go up the mountain till the snow got too bad, come back down and then back up another trail to get their mileage in. He came home muddy, tired out and happy. I love scouts. He spent the rest of the afternoon laying on the couch with a blanket and a Harry Potter book to recover.

Saturday night Jeremy took pictures of a neighbor's son for his Prom. Then we went to see the play 'To Kill a mockingbird' where he was asked to take pictures of one of the actors. Jeremy had one bad moment as it hit him again how something always breaks on the doing it as a favor jobs! The play was really well done and I walked out with tears in my eyes, always a sign of a good play.

The girls have been busy this morning:
And Robyn tortures/loves Macho. Her body is so covered right now with cat scratches, bruises and scabs. Her bouncy personality has been leading to some crashes lately.
It has been a busy week but nothing really else to write. It just always amazes me how much work I have for a "non-working" mom! One comment at women's conference was that you shouldn't read other people's blogs as so often they are brag posts. I hope I share some of the bad and ugly along with the good and sweet. But as I told Mimi once, life with kids is like childbirth. Looking back you focus on all the wonderful parts and conveniently forget the pain involved.

Mom, have a wonderful birthday! Peter, fasting for you is the only reason the BYU ice cream I brought home hasn't been broken out - you are in our prayers.

Love to all, Heather