Australia!!!

Seeing your son open his mission call is more incredible than words can express.  I had no idea how of the spirit and special witness we would all receive as we watched Trey read the words written to him from the Prophet talking about how he has been found worthy to be a minister of the restored gospel and how the Lord will bless him to be able to seek out those ready to accept the gospel and that more blessings than he has ever received are in store for him as he humbly serves the Lord.

We were so grateful to have had all the Knoxville family gathered to experience this with us and that Brad, Susan and the boys were able to be with Trey as well.  Here are some of the thoughts the kids had that night:

Sydney:  "It made me realize how important it is to serve a mission.  And how much it strengthens your testimony.  I've never seen Trey cry before.  You could tell how much he felt the spirit."

Tanner:  "I felt the Holy Spirit so strong.  I just know that Trey is supposed to serve in the Australia mission and President Monson knew where to send him.  I know there are people there that he will convert to the gospel.  I wish I could go on my mission right now!!"

Connor:  "I felt so good.  I know Trey will be a good missionary.  It made me so proud of him"

Allie:  "I was so proud of Trey.  I felt really strongly that it was an inspired mission call.  I know he was meant to serve there.  I know that just like I want Trey here to take of me, the Lord wants Trey to take care of the people in Australia."

Getaway

Thank you David for taking me on a late anniversary trip to our favorite tropical getaway!  It is hard to leave the kids when things are busy, and I at first just thought we better not go, there was too much going on, but I am so grateful that David made this trip happen.  Every time we go away together and catch our breaths from the craziness that is our life, I am grateful.  I'm so grateful to be more in love today than I was 21 years ago when we got married.  I'm grateful to be married to a man who loves me more than I thought possible.  I'm grateful that we had a few days to spend on just us. ( Thanks grandparents and Allie for making that possible!)

I wish I could wake up to this every morning:

 I wish I could watch sunsets like these every night:

I wish I had more time to read and have this view while doing it (:

I wish my kids would fix us gourmet candlelight dinners every night, ha!

I wish I could have video taped the hilarity of one of our sailing adventures.  Everyday we set off sailing and exploring little uninhabited islands.  One day was particularly windy and I was afraid the boat was going to flip so I jumped out.  The water was only up to my knees but David, worried about leaving me, jumped out after me, as our little sail boat took off in the wind!  Thankfully it only went a short distance before slowing enough that David caught back up with it, because I really thought we were going to be stranded out in the middle of the ocean while our runaway sailboat landed on some island with all of our stuff.

David:  sailor

 

Trey's mission call predictions

When Trey came home for Thanksgiving he told us he wanted to turn in his paperwork for his mission right away and go right when school gets out in April instead of waiting until June (after the family reunion) as originally planned.  So when he came home for Christmas he had his doctor's visit/physical and dental appointment, filled out all the health history forms and other paperwork and thought that it was pretty easy and straight forward and not as daunting as I once thought.  And then the snags began......

First, his doctor couldn't run one of the tests, blood typing, so he had to go somewhere else to get that done.  No problem, we found a lab that said they could do it and have it back in a couple of days.  Well everyday we called the lab they said the results weren't back yet until finally the day Trey boarded the plane they called to say it had been delayed in shipping and therefore could not be tested. Ok, irritating but fixable.  I found a lab near Provo that Jenica so nicely took Trey to on the way back to campus to get his blood typing done. Ok, check.  Now he just needs his Bishop and Stake president interviews.

Bishop's interview:  check
Stake Presidents interview:  Trey shows up and is told that his paperwork is not all there from the Bishop, some of which they track down except for the dental form, which apparently his Bishop lost.  So, interview is postponed a few days but does not delay paperwork getting sent off to Salt Lake as they just do this once a week so "no time will be lost" as long as he can get his dentist to resubmit the form in time.

I get another form from the dentist, David scans it and emails it to Trey's bishop in time for him to have his interview Wednesday night and the Stake President to submit all the paperwork Thursday morning (the one day a week they submit mission papers)  to the Brethren to make the mission call, which happens on Fridays we are told.  EXCEPT, Trey's dentist filled out the form saying he didn't have his wisdom teeth removed! Ahhh!!!  SOOO, the stake president still lets him get his interview, and tells him if he can get a new form filled out, scanned and emailed directly to him the next morning it should still make it out in the mail, not delaying his call.  So we do just that, go back to the dentist Thursday morning, get a new form filled out, scan, email, etc....

But it was too late, he missed the deadline for this week.  He really wanted it to go in this week.  When he got back to school he thought he would have his call by now, but he will have to wait a few more weeks to find out where he will be serving for 2 years.  I wanted to write this all down so when my other kids serve missions and there is a snag with paperwork I'll remember that it's just the way it is sometimes.  Who knows, maybe the mission he is supposed to serve in is not filling any spots this week.

HERE ARE THE PREDICTIONS:


Trey:  Argentina or Jerusalem
David: Spain
Lisa:  California
Allie:  Argentina
Tanner:  Mexico
Connor:  London, England
Sydney: Arizona
Mom:  Seattle, Washington
Dad:  Argentina
Allen:  Germany
Julie:  Hong Kong
Carter:  Texas
Jared:  Venezuela
Claire:  Utah
Scott:  Africa
Lori:  France
Emma:  Australia
Ben:  Australia
Josh:  Australia  (They were not together when I asked the Cruze kids)
Lydia:  California
Troy:  San Francisco, CA
Dan:  France
Brad:  Curitiba, Brasil
Susan:  Rostov, Russia
Andrew:  South Africa
Joel:  Chile
Jenica:  Salt Lake City, UT
Jonah:  Paris, France
Silas:  Middle Earth (New Zealand)
Koen:  New York
Hale:  Utah

I haven't decided what the prize should be if anyone guesses it (besides bragging rights)......maybe a map or globe?  Hopefully we'll know the first week of February.

Connor

 Connor is the middle triplet.  He had a lot to say when he was fighting to survive in the womb and still always wants to give you his opinion.  He cracks us up a lot.  He is not hesitant to let us know what would make him happy.  This list of A "Connor" day especially made us laugh!

He decided we all needed to be reminded of some family rules and posted these up

 A while back he made this timeline that included the dates of all of our births, our marriage,  and the date Trey got his car and then the day Allie got the car when Trey went to college.  We're not sure why the car made it on the timeline (:

The other day he made up these posters for his door.  If you look closely he has quoted 2 family members.  Maybe if you say something really intelligent you can make it on his wall of quotes too!

Something else that cracked us up was last Monday Connor was in charge of the FHE lesson and he made up a great game of pictionary using gospel words like temple, Holy Ghost, etc.  The spin he put on it was that each clue was worth different points.  He told us there was one clue that was worth 6 points while all the others were between 1-3 points.  We cracked up when we got to the 6 pointer word:  eternal damnation!  When we started to crack up he said "what?! It's in the scriptures!"  We love you Connor!

TREY comes home for Thanksgiving and surprises lots of kids!

Surprising the Cruze kids at the bowling alley:  David thought it would be hilarious to see if we could fool some unsuspecting cousins and tell them that Trey was actually a wax statue.  But how to do this???....He came up with a brilliant story: the bowling alley wanted to be a part of Hoops for Hope but they found out about it too late so they decided to make a wax statue of Trey and display it in their establishment.  Sure, what kid wouldn't fall for that?

Josh will reminded of his hilariousness many times for the rest of his life.

 Scott thought it was hilarious too!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Thanksgiving has been an extra wonderful one because Trey got to come home for a visit! (I will post some awesome footage of the surprise reactions from siblings and cousins soon!) My heart is so full of gratitude for family.  It couldn't have been a more perfect day!

RAGNAR!

So, about 2 months ago my friend Crystal said "hey do you want to do Ragnar with me?"  At the time I had never heard of it.  After she explained that it's a relay race between Chattanooga and Nashville (196 miles) where 12 runners trade off running non-stop.  I thought it sounded fun.  Then she explained that it meant you have to run 3 legs in 24 hours and would probably not sleep in between.  Hmmm, now I wasn't so sure.  I told Lori about it and even though she was like me and really didn't run at all she said "Wow, I'd like to do that!"  So, Lori talked me into joining the team made up of other Farragut Ward members.  Lori and I started meeting at the gym and running outside 3 times a week.  She had looked up the training schedule and made sure we stuck to it.  And I have to admit I would not have done so if she had not been there!

After training for 2 months we finally had the big race last weekend.  I was plenty prepared for the running (I drew the easiest leg:  4.4 miles, 1.6 miles, and 4.5 miles), but I wasn't prepared for the no sleep part of it. It was hard.  And it was fun.   The amount of times I used port a potties during this one weekend probably quadrupled my lifetime usage.  The dance of hydrating, eating and peeing at the right times between your legs was interesting.  I was surprised that after 24 hours of no sleep I felt great running, I could have gone a lot further I think.  Adrenaline is a powerful thing.

Biggest positive of the whole experience:  my kids were so proud of me.  Trey called while I was on the race and told me he had been bragging to all his friends about me and how hard core he thought I was.  The kids made a sweet sign and David ordered a trophy for me.  It's a good feeling to accomplish something hard.

Two of my legs were through little towns, which was fun.  The trees were in perfect color changing mode so the views were amazing!

 At the three major exchanges we were able to go into real bathrooms inside a high school and wipe down with baby wipes and change into clean clothes.

 This was at the end of my last leg.  The six fingers represents "kills" or how many people you pass

 I was the last girl runner and Scott was the first guy runner so it was fun to be able to pass off to him each time.