Lawrence Family Blog

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Telephone Conversation with Sasha

Last night at 11:00 p.m. we called Sasha, with the help of Marissa's friend Riley, who went to Ukraine on his mission. We all didn't realize how much we miss him until we heard his cute little voice.

"Mama Lori? Papa Michael? Mawissa?" (Quinn was fast asleep, and Gage was at work.)
"Yes, it's us. How are you? Are you fine?"
"Dah." Then in English, "How are you?"
"We're all fine. We miss you."
Then in English again, "Please come."

Those two words about brought tears to our eyes. We then had to break the news to him that Ukraine would not let us come on the dates we had requested, Sept. 7, 8, 9, or 10, because it was too close to our dossier expiring. We told him we had to start all over again on the paperwork, and we could hear the terrible disappointment in his voice. He got very quiet. We told him we were working as fast as we could and that we would try so, so, so hard to be there in November. He said "Okay."

We then asked him if he was being a good boy. He said yes. We asked him if school had started. He said yes. We told him Quinn misses him and that his bed misses him and is waiting for him. He giggled. Marissa told him she couldn't wait to ride bikes with him, and he giggled and said, "Okay."
We said, "We love you." He said in English, "I love you."
And that was it.

So now I can't wait for two months to pass to go get him, but now I'm dreading two months to pass because Gage leaves November 4. Gage will not see Sasha again before he leaves for his mission, and that makes me sad, and Gage will not see Eric again before his mission, and that makes me sad.

I have decided being a mom of big kids sucks. All you do is say good-bye all the time and then spend your days missing them and wondering about them. I liked it better when they were all little.

Marissa Accepted into Respiratory Therapy Program

I forgot to mention previously that Marissa received the great news that she was accepted into the Respiratory Therapy Program at Weber State in conjunction with the Intermountain Medical Center. Yahoo! This means free tuition and books for the next two years. We're very proud of her. Getting into the program was quite competitive, and she has worked very hard to get to this point. So she's finishing up her prereqs this quarter at Weber. She gets up very early to catch TRAX and then transfer to a bus downtown. She doesn't want to put the miles on her car. The Respiratory Therapy Program will begin in January.

Temple Day for Gage

Gage received his temple endowments Saturday, August 29, four days after he turned 19. It was a very special day. He chose the Draper Temple, and it is just beautiful. We had a small turnout of family members: My mom and dad, Bruce and Janet, and Linda. But we had a very large turnout for the family dinner at Sweet Tomatoes! (Shoot. I forgot to take pictures at the restaurant.) Eldon and Susan Hjorth, Gage's YM leader, also came to the temple. It was so nice of them. Thanks so much to everyone who came and supported us. Some drove very long distances to be with us.

Dad, Mom, me, Gage, Michael, Janet, Bruce, Linda

Eldon and Susan Hjorth

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Last Half of Summer Continued: Oceanside, CA

Here we are at the beach in Oceanside, California. Our family LOVES the ocean. We played in the waves almost every day of our vacation. Here's a funny story. So we're all sitting in our condo the first day we arrive in Oceanside. Someone knocks on our front door. We all wonder, "Who could that be?" I walk to the front door, open it, and there stands Nanette Garrett! They were staying in the two condos right next to ours, and she didn't have her key and thought she was knocking on her own door. We were both kind of shocked, and then we started to laugh. It was fun to see them at various places throughout our vacation.

Quinn dug himself a hole to sit in.

We drove out one day to San Diego and visited Seaport Village, a very pretty little tourist area.

Quinn loves to pull this face. It's a long story, but this face puts Eric, Marissa, and Gage in hysterics.

Nighttime at the beach.

Seaport Village, San Diego, just going for a walk.

Sitting in the sand one night on the beach.

Dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Yum!

Walking in Seaport Village. Quinn is chasing after a pigeon.

What a fun vacation. We returned home Sunday, August 23, just in time for Marissa and Quinn to go to school the next day.

The Last Half of the Summer or The Procrastinator's Way to Blog

I have devoted the next two hours to catching up on the blog, so this will be a mega post of our family's story the last half of this summer. For the 24th of July, we headed out for the north shore of Bear Lake early in the morning. Quinn was at Scout Camp, so he missed this fun day, but he was already having fun at Bear Lake, just on the east side. We kept remembering things we didn't pack as we backed out of the driveway, so we kept pulling back in, opening the garage door, and someone would run in and grab whatever it was we forgot. Then we'd start to back up again, we'd remember something else, open the garage door, and someone would run in. By the third time, we were sure that our neighbor Alan, who was in his front yard, must have thought we were completely crazy. Finally we were on our way, and about at 45th South and I-15, I realized I forgot my swimming suit! Back we went. By this time we were laughing hysterically. We met Brian and Susan and Mom and Dad at the north shore, where we made good use of the jet skis. Thanks to Brian and Susan, we always ride in style. After we ate our lunch, the wind started kicking up, and it got worse and worse. We were all eating and breathing sand and decided to leave. About the time we got the jet skis loaded up, Bruce and Janet's family arrived. So we all decided to head south to Hyrum Dam, and we spent the rest of the day there. The weather was beautiful, and the crowds had been scared away by the earlier nasty wind.

Brian, Brayden, Susan

Marissa and friend Danny

Gage and Emily (Marissa and Danny are doing silly poses. Marissa was going to jump up behind them, but I missed the shot.)

Michael

Brayden and Susan

Gage and Emily

Greg, Brian, Lori, Janet (We have all decided that Greg, my nephew, needs to quit school and go get a six-figure modeling job for a top modeling agency.)

Gage and Emily

It was a very fun day, and we have decided to make it an annual outing on the 24th of July.

Here are a few pictures of Eric in Guam. Eric has received notice that he will be deployed to Balad, Iraq, for 179 days. He leaves in January. I knew he would have to go sooner or later; I was just hoping it would be later. We sold Eric's car here in SLC, and he bought a Hyundai there in Guam. I think it's called an Accent. I guess he'll have it shipped to his various stations, if possible. He is doing well in Guam. He describes his living quarters like this. "If I look out my window, I'm looking at the golf course. If I were standing on the golf course and hit a bad slice, the ball would land in the ocean." That would be hard to take, huh?

NEXT:
Gage submitted his mission papers the last week of July. About seven days later, on Wednesday, August 5, I was pulling out of the driveway on my way to a deposition. As I went by the mailbox, I thought to myself, "Could it be possible?" I decided to stop and back up to the mailbox, and inside was an official large white envelope from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I left it there and called Gage on his cell phone as I drove to work. Gage was boating at Willard Bay that day. I was on pins and needles during the deposition, which dragged on and on. When it concluded, I hurried and called home. Marissa answered and said Gage was called to the (insert drum roll here) New Mexico, Albuquerque Mission, English speaking. Gage is very pleased and not disappointed at all that he's not going to an exotic, far-away place. He goes into the MTC November 4.

Every spring I plant lots of flowers. I thought they turned out really nice this summer, so I took a picture.

Sadly, our papers in Ukraine expire September 11. We heard through Marjory Jorgensen about eleven Ukrainian children coming to Phoenix, Arizona, for a hosting experience. We decided to get involved and flew to Phoenix August 12 to meet two children, a boy and girl, 10 and 11 years old. We stayed at the home of our good friends, Danny and Debbie Jarvis, who made us feel so welcome and who went to great lengths to make this hosting experience possible for us. We spent about a half day with the two children, and the poor little girl never stopped crying. She seemed to be traumatized by the whole experience and wanted nothing to do with us. Here they are at the camp director's pool before we took them to dinner, when the crying began. Something about our faces must have been really frightening!

So we began to observe a little boy, Sasha, age 12. I was really drawn to him. He was very affectionate towards his host mom (who was not planning on adopting) and had a very outgoing, cute personality with us. We started to interact with him, and we were given permission to take him to SLC for two weeks during the hosting period! We feel so blessed to have met him, and we feel that Heavenly Father opened this door for us.

Michael and Lori at the museum in Phoenix. (Sasha took the picture. We were trying to get acquainted with him and let him take pictures with our camera. He had no idea why were being so nice to him at this point!)

Sasha during an art project. He was sad in this picture. He had just been told that his host mom was not going to adopt him, and he was trying to absorb it. He had become attached to her.

Children and host families panning for gold. Sasha is on Michael's right.

Sasha at the Odell home before we took him back to SLC. He was happy again. He liked us. Interesting side note: We found out the Odells are sort of related to us. His father is Norma's brother. What a small world, so thank you, Odells, for taking care of Sasha until we arrived.

Back in SLC, Michael helped Sasha learn to ride a bike. He got comfortable with it by the time he went home. It's sad that a 12-year-old had never ridden a bike. Once when we weren't watching, he got on Quinn's electric scooter and really bloodied his knee and elbow.

Here we are at the Slick Track. I think Sasha was scared to death. We had a great time.

Quinn and Sasha "Bouncin Off the Walls"

Throwing rocks in the river. It's a boy thing.

Sasha's favorite ride at Lagoon, the bumper cars. I went with him three times in a row.

He just giggled and giggled on this ride, the Dragon something?

Marissa is thrilled to be getting another brother. She was beginning to run short on them.
Sasha can't say his R's and calls her Mawissa. Here she's doing a balancing act! I mean that literally. She had to be careful that Quinn got his share of attention.

Hiking in the mountains. (Quinn looks like a giant. Sasha is 30 days younger than Quinn.)

This is my favorite picture of the two of them. Sasha is now back in Ukraine, and we can't wait to go back and get him. We are presently waiting for our SDA date and are hoping and praying that things will work out.

Quinn got promoted in his Jiu Jitsu class. Here he is with his best friend Patrick.

Here he's getting his new belt.

We went on our family vacation August 15 to Oceanside, California. We stayed the first night in Las Vegas, where Norm and Stephanie live. They took us out to dinner, as usual. They are so generous.

They took a picture of us before we left.

(Continued)

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Uncle Dave

Uncle Dave, Dad's older brother, passed away last week from pancreatic cancer. He was 89 years old. These pictures were taken at the cemetary on Saturday, July 18. I didn't know my Uncle Dave very well, but funerals in the family always cause me to reflect on my own mortality and that of my parents.