On June 9th Jeff and I were called into the Stake President's office and Jeff was extended the call to be the Elder's Quorum President in our ward. We were a bit surprised because he has been the Stake Sunday School President for only about 8 months. Personally I am not at all surprised that they want him though - he is so strong and so spiritual, truly a blessing to me and to any he serves. He was sustained on Father's Day.
On June 10th our front yard was flooded for the first of what would be five times over the next two weeks. I spent 3 hours that first day shoveling mud off our sidewalks and power spraying our grass in an effort to save it. The storm drains in front of our house are not working and we are at the bottom of two streets that slope downward to our house. Thankfully the yard is contoured such that the water stayed out of our house but at one point it was 6 inches from going over a window well. There were midnight calls to management companies for our subdivision, visits from the city, and people calling us in the middle of the night when we were out of town: (imagine the voice yelling over torrential rain in the background) "Hi, Jeff? This is Brandon and I'm standing outside of your house and the water is getting higher and Justin is trying to unclog your drains..." Lots of fun.
On June 11th, Jeff and I had put the kids to bed around 8pm and then sat down in our family room. As soon as Jeff sat down he saw flames out of the corner of his eye and screamed, "The Swenson's house is on fire!" The next four hours was one of the more traumatic things I've witnessed in my life. Their house (which is about four down from ours an is completely visible from our back deck) was totally destroyed although several fire stations responded to the blaze. It was a complete loss. Blake and Kate came out and saw part of it because they woke up with all the noise. Kate still talks about it almost every day. All of the family was safe but they did lose their dog and every single thing they owned in the world. It was a tragedy but also an amazing display of charity over the next week or so. The family has moved into Jeff's parents house and will be renting it for the next year. So, we will be missing Grandma and Grandpa for the next year but we are grateful that this family has found a peaceful place to stay while they rebuild. The experience has been a real testimony builder of how God works in amazing ways to answer prayers and help us grow. Here is a view of the fire from our back deck:
On June 12th, Jeff's grandmother died at the age of 93. We already miss her. Our family went up to Idaho for about 5 days to participate in the funeral and see Jeff's parents.
On June 28th, right after we had gotten home from church around 3pm, Blake asked me if he could get all the air our of a beach ball. Sure, I don't care. Jeff says I should have asked him how he planned on doing that. As it turns out, his method of choice was to jump on the ball which promptly threw him onto the floor, smacking the back of his head. It was loud but I wasn't too concerned, no visible injury. I made him lay down and went back to making dinner - for the two families that were going to be coming over in about 2 hours. Then Blake started saying stuff like, "Mom, I can't see out of the side of my eye. Mom, I know you are over there but I can't see you." Can we say PANIC! I called my sister and my mom - just like any true woman I had to talk to someone else about it. They both said, "Hang up and take him to the ER." I called Jeff (who had been gone since 8:30am that morning) and said we had a problem. He was already on his way home, so he came in, got a piece of bread and headed to the instacare. As soon as they walked in the door, Blake threw up everywhere. They turned him right around and sent him to the ER at the big hospital. Initially Jeff had told me that I should just stay home and keep making dinner. When he called about the throwing up I couldn't be apart from Blake - so I called my friend (who was supposed to come over for dinner in one hour) and through my bawling, told her I had to go to the ER. So she came over - nice how I traded her dinner at my house for her watching my kids. Blake ended up throwing up again at the ER and was given a Cat Scan. They said it looked fine and that he had a concussion and that his symptoms would last about a week. It did take a few days for the vision to return to normal.
So June was crazy - way too crazy. Here's to hoping July is much, much better! Below you will find some posts from June:
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