How life is going... or My Trip to Utah

I flew to Utah last week to visit Rachel and Elizabeth.  It was a quick decision.  On Friday afternoon I thought, "I wonder if I could get a cheap ticket to Utah?"  Sure enough!  I called Mike at work, told him the price, and he said, "You'd better go, then."  I bought the ticket and got on the plane the next morning.  It was such a relief to be there. 

When I called Rachel to tell her I was coming, she picked up her phone and whispered, "Can I call you back?"  A moment later my phone rang and she said, "Sorry, I am in the ER with Sadie.  She's having emergency surgery in a few minutes and Grandma is in Minnesota."  

What??  (Sadie is my 17 year old sister, so Grandma is Sadie's mom, just FYI.)

Then my mom called and said, "I hear you're coming to Utah.  Are you staying at our house?  Because we're getting tile laid in the dining room and entry way, repainting the kitchen, waiting for our curtains to be finished, and the furniture is all moved."

Elizabeth sounded relieved that I was coming.  Her current medical concerns were the straw that finally put me on the plane... so to speak.  (No camels or broken backs involved.)  And Rachel just about cried.    

While I was there, I got to go to class with Rachel and Elizabeth, watch Elizabeth fence at BYU's fencing club, watch Rachel dance in her clogging class, take them both out to dinner with their room mates, pick up some all-natural groceries for them at The Good Earth, and spend a lot of time just talking and being together.  It was wonderful!  =) 

I also took Elizabeth to the retina specialist.  A couple of weeks ago she developed a large blind spot in her left eye, and she's been to some different eye doctors.  The retina specialist said he thinks it's MEWDS (Multiple Effervescent White Dot Syndrome).  He gave her an injection of dye and then photographed the back of her eye (the retina) and printed the photos.  Quite interesting to see.  The good thing about MEWDS is that, if that's what this is, it should clear up on its own after several weeks.  (7-10) We are really hoping and praying that's what it is.  We welcome all of you joining us in praying for her.  

Rachel has also been struggling with hypoglycemia and stress from some very difficult classes.  Life just seems to be made of trials.  I guess that is why we're here.  

Now that I'm back home, it's performance time for The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  Bethany is an extra and Josh is running the sound board.  I took Peter and Naomi to see it last night, but Naomi was crying at intermission.  It was too scary and upsetting for her, so I took her home.  We talked about the characters and what bothered her.  ("The women should have been nice to the baby Quasimoto.  They were mocking him when they made him King of Fools.  No one should whip another person.  And they were going to kill Pierre just for not having a wife!")  She read scriptures and then we watched a silly movie together.  She was looking much better by the time she went to bed.  

Rebecca

who read The Map Thief on her trip, and recommends it, and also read The Spellbook of Listen Taylor, and thinks it was really weird.