My cup is half full... actually overflowing.

This begins my tale of how the glass goes from half empty to hale full to overflowing....


So, last Wednesday started out with a few hours at the orthodontist with Tenley.  She had a Rapid Palate Expander installed.  I say installed because they call it an "appliance" and it required installation. The goal is to expand the roof of her mouth 1/2 an inch in one month.  They also put braces on her four front top and bottom teeth.  We have to turn her expander two rotations a day.  We, apparently are not very good at it because the first time we tried we got it stuck between rotations so she had to wait until Monday morning to go in to have one of the girls in the office fix it.  Hopefully as we try to turn it tomorrow we will be able to.  So, that appointment took an hour longer than expected.  I must say that Tenley did so much better than I had expected.  She is a gagger and I thought for sure she would have a hard time, especially when they were doing the molds.  Anyone who has had those done know that those make you gag!  So, I was truly proud of her toughing it out and dealing with the appliance installation.  So, later that afternoon, Cole and I headed out to Brandy's to get his hair cute and get my bangs trimmed up.  Everything goes smoothly there, no problem, out the door in about 40 minutes and on our way home.  So, our journey begins... we are heading north on Highland drive to get on I-215 heading west... and I see a car start to pull out into the intersection heading west.  I honk at him thinking why is this guy pulling out in front of me.  As, I honk, I look up and my light it RED.  So, I slam on my brakes, and according to Cole, blurted out... OH, SH@#!... so glad to know that when the pressure is on I remain calm, cool and collected.  Despite my brake slamming we still hit the car.  We hit his driver side rear and spun his car 180 degrees around!  We were able to pull off to the side of the road but the other car was not driveable and had to be towed away.  Luckily, or I should say, blessedly, no one was hurt.  Cole and I have had sore backs and necks, but nothing a chiropractor can't crack out of us.  It took the officer so LONG to write the report up since I have Idaho plates and license and the guy I hit had Nevada plates with a Utah license.  I was shaky and on the verge of tears for the hour and a half we were there.  I just had to keep taking deep breaths and tell myself how great it was the no one was hurt.  I didn't even know what to do.  I called Norm first and he said to call 911 and then call our insurance. I should have asked him to come but he went home to be with the girls since my hour long hair appointment trip was going to be extended.  The other driver had several family/friends come over to the scene and check on him.  The first guy that arrived, even before the cops, jumps out of his car, giving the "hands up" yelling "what happened".  Like I am in the rival gang and I just ran his friend off the road on purpose!  He never even made eye contact with me and just seemed totally ticked off the whole time!  I felt horrible already but sheesh, this guy was scaring me.  I am so grateful the guy in the other car was very nice and understanding.  He just kept asking if we were okay and kept saying that cars are replaceable.  So that was comforting to have him understanding and not yelling at me.  So, the front of our van is smashed pretty good and I got a ticket for running a red light.  So, we will see how much that will be in the next few days.   Saturday, I woke up feeling crappy.  I had a horrible ear ache and kept getting these sharp shooting pains in my ear and down my neck.  I was dragging and feeling just awful.  So, right now my cup seems half empty, but as I take a look back at my weekend things turn around.  Even though all these not so great things that were previously mentioned did not go away, they still happened and are very real.

Friday I get an appointment with a chiropractor because my back and my neck are hurting.  I get worked over a little and as I am walking out of the Dr.'s office I get a text from my sweetie.... "Avatar matinee?"  I was all in for a night out. I went home got the kids going on dinner and we left to make it to the 6:05 show.  I went with no expectations and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I actually really liked it.  To top it off, we both think that we may have had the best popcorn EVER.  We had some money left from a gift card for christmas and my Mom and Dad gave us refillable mugs so it was even a cheap date!  It was awesome!  So, saturday, as I mentioned, I felt crappy, but about 2:30 I went downstairs to shower and decided to lay down and I took a nap until 5:00!  That was fabulous.  I felt a little better but I know that extra sleep will help.  Sunday morning was little Ruby Claire's blessing.  We left the house at 8:20 to make it to the 9:00 meeting.  That was early and I was dreading it but the morning went very smoothly and we made it there early enough to get a bench even though there were three blessings that day!  I love going to baby blessings and listening to the Dad's or whoever is giving the blessing. It reminds me of how much I love our kids.  It reminds you of the kinds of things you hope and want for them.  It puts things in perspective.  It is such a neat thing to hear the Dad's say such sweet things to their kids.  I wish they recorded them like they do patriarchal blessings.  It would be neat to hear the words your Dad said to you as such a tiny baby.  We went to Lindsay and Riley's and had a yummy breakfast and visited with family for a while.  We came home, worked on some of our dinner food, and Norm and I ran off to primary in our ward to teach our classes.  We got home at 4:00, finished getting dinner ready and watched the Super Bowl.  The dinner was so delicious.  We made a mock Cafe Rio dinner that I  thought was just as good as the original.  We made pork, beans, rice, tortills, creamy tomatillo dressing,crispy tortilla strips, guacamole, fruit salsa, cinnamon sugar tortillas, the carmel popcorn/pirate's booty that the Butler's used to make, brownies, veggies, chips and dip.  SO YUMMY!  I got to snuggle with my sweetie in the love sack as we watched the game.  It was actually a good entertaining game to watch and the commercials were funny.  Doritos and Dennys were our favorites. 

So, as I look back at the past five days my cup is not only half full but overflowing.  I am truly blessed in so many ways.  Even though sometimes you think :  "Why now"  "This is the last thing we need"  "Seriously, this can't be happening" "How am I going to pay for that".  But if you stop and look at the rest of your life and the tender mercies we have every day, you can realize that your cup is at least half full if not over flowing.