Liberty's Baptism

My cute niece Liberty was baptized  into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in May.  It was a great day and I'm so happy that I got to celebrate with her on her big day.  I'm so proud of you Liberty!  You are such a great niece and I love spending time with you, you're sweet, nice, caring, funny and just an awesome girl!  Love you tons!

Below are some pictures at the yummy luncheon after the baptism.

 

Cousin Mya

I'm so happy that I took this picture of Libby and Grandma, it was only a few weeks later that we lost Grandma.

I LOVE the look on her face, priceless!

It wouldn't be a picture of Chris if he wasn't posing!

Cute Girl Cousins, McKinsey and Lexi...we missed you!

McKinsey and Prom

How do you know when you're old?  When your oldest niece goes to prom.  My niece McKinsey went to prom a month ago (or longer)  and I got to do her hair.  Unfortunately I don't have pictures of her all dressed up with her dress and everything, but I did manage to get a picture of the hair.  We didn't do anything fancy and crazy, but I think it turned out pretty cute, anything on her would look fantastic.

McKinsey has turned out to be such an amazing young lady, she's cute, smart, talented, always mindful of other's feelings and doesn't let trials get her down.  Thanks for being such a great example to me and everyone around you Kinse, I love you!

94!

I'm now starting to figure out that maybe school wasn't the reason why I can't stay updated on blogging.  But if school wasn't the problem, then what is?  It just might be that life is crazy and sometimes everything we want to get done, doesn't always happen.  Anyway, no excuses from now on, if I blog yippee, if I don't, I'll get to it someday.

On May 23, 2011 my Grandma Josephine Verplank Veenker turned 94!  Pretty big accomplishment if you ask me.  The day before we had a big family party to celebrate it along with Lexi's, Afton's, Zach's and KyLee's birthdays.  It was the typical family party, Dinner, visiting and a little show put on by the girls.  We also took a quick family picture with Grandma and her posterity and it's a good thing we did because a week later Grandma returned home to live with her Heavenly Father.

My mom and Grandma.  She's getting ready to blow out the candles. 

Afton and Lexi blowing their candles out. 

Everyone getting ready to dig into some very yummy cupcakes 

The show put on by the girls 

The Veenker clan minus my brother Craig, nephew Stockton and sister-in-law Katie (she was taking the picture).  I'm no expert but that's a pretty good posterity just from one son!  The Utah Veenker's always doubled if not tripled the family gatherings when we would get with the California Veenker's.

Grandma was so vibrant and funny this day.  She made a couple jokes, visited with grandkids, ate food  and was her typical self.  That night my mom came down to my room around 2:30am and told me that  they had found grandma on the floor and that she was freezing cold, shaking and mumbling. They thought she was dying right then and didn't think she would make it through the night.  We don't know for sure but we assume that she had a stroke either from falling or a stroke caused her to fall in her bedroom.  After my mom and dad found her on the floor they put her in her bed and stayed with her the rest of the night where she soaked through a couple of nightgowns from all the sweating she was doing.

The next two days she was able to get up, walk around, go outside, and eat but her speech had definitely been effected.  All of the words she spoke were slurred and nothing made sense.  She could still read and the words she read were very clear.  She slept more than she usually did during the day, but we just thought that she was tired from her hard night on Sunday.  We called hospice on Monday and they brought a bed in for her and got her all set up with anything she might need.

Tuesday night my mom was helping her upstair to bed and when they reached the top of the stairs Grandma's legs gave out and she had no strength to get back up.  Unfortunately no one was around to help my mom get grandma in bed.  My dad was at church meetings, Clint was at work, I was downstairs sleeping because I was going to be taking the night shift with grandma and couldn't hear my mom yelling for me.  My mom said a little prayer and asked for strength to get Grandma into bed and she did it!  After she showed me what she did to get her in bed I know it was the Lord that gave her the strength and idea to lift a 100 pound women into a 3 foot high bed! It was A miracle!

Wednesday we thought we were going to loose her, she didn't get out of bed, wake up or eat.  The color in her face was gone.  My dad had asked some of my brother's to come and give her a blessing.  In the blessing my dad asked that if it be possible to wait until his brother Bruce came (which was going to be on Friday), until she passed, it would be nice.  Right after the blessing she WOKE up, ate some food and the color in her face came right back.

Thursday we moved her hospital bed down stairs in the family room so she didn't have to be upstairs all by herself.  I gave her a hair cut, we changed her nightgown and even though she didn't have enough strength to do anything on her own or stay awake for more than a minute, I think she enjoyed being pampered and being around the family.

Friday my uncle Bruce and cousin Jodi came.  They spent Saturday with her at her bed side and then left Sunday morning.  Grandma ended up passing away at 5:10pm Sunday May29th with my mom and dad right at her side.  It is sad to have her go, but the last week of her life she seemed like she was suffering from pain and was in such confusion that it's good that she didn't have to suffer any longer.  She was a fighter though, there were several times after that Wednesday night that we thought we were going to loose her, but she would all the sudden wake up with a determined mind as if she was saying, "I'll go when I'm ready!"

I'm sure her reunion on the other side was amazing, she finally got to see her husband Louis Veenker, who had died 25 years earlier, I'm sure her mom and dad were there along with her two brothers and two sisters.  Thanks Grandma Jo for being such a wonderful example in my life of what a true Christian person should be like.  She wasn't a member of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, but I know that when the time comes she'll except the Gospel.  I love and I'll miss you Grandma, thanks for sharing your last 5 weeks of your life with me!

Here is one of my favorite pictures of my Grandma and Grandpa Veenker in the Summer of 1984.  Aren't they just adorable!

Grandma Jo Veenker

I think I mentioned this earlier but this deserves its own post.  My dad's mom, Josephine Verplank Veenker moved in with Clint, me and my parents on April 25, 2011.  She broke her hip about 6 months ago and has been in a care physicality in California since then.  Mentally she has declined since she broke her hip, so my parents decided that it would be better for her if she was living with family.

I get to help take care of her a couple times a week and I'm so thankful that I have.  She is such an amazing person and even though she can't remember who I am, I still enjoy spending time with her.

In spite of her mind not being all the way there, she still has her personality.  I'm sorry to break this to all of you ladies, but that paranoia of your weight will never change, even when you're 94.  The other day we were trying to get Grandma Jo on the scale and her first concern was that we were going to be weighing her with all of her clothes on (all 104 pounds of her).  Then once we got her on the scale  she yelled at my mom, "Oh Carlene, don't hold onto me, you'll make me weigh more!"  It was so funny and also a little depressing.  I hope that if I make it the the age of 94, weight will be my last concern.  I want to enjoy all that I can at that age.

The next funny story happened on Saturday.  We were at Los Hermanos to celebrate Grandma's 94th birthday.  Earlier that day I had asked her how old she was going to be and she said that she was somewhere in her 70's.  So I was telling my dad this story when we were in the waiting room.  My dad turned to my Grandma and asked, "Mom how old are you going to be?"  And she looked at him and said, "In front of all these people?"  As if that was the rudest question someone could ask.  She has a lot more funny stories and we've been keeping track of them so that we can make lots of money from the funny things she says.

So it's been wonderful having Grandma here.  I didn't get to spend a lot of time with her growing up since she lived in California and I lived in Utah, and even though I don't get to spend time with the "Real" Grandma Jo, I have enjoyed being able to help my parents out and especially Grandma Jo.

Mya's Violin Concert

My niece Mya had a violin concert to show off her mad violin skills.  She had completed book one of the Suzuki Method so she played the entire book cover to cover.

 My mom and Mya doing a duet.

 For Intermission my other niece Afton showed off her skills on the piano.  Both girls are amazing!

Easter 2011

For Easter this year we did the usual.  Had dinner at my parents house and a little Easter egg hunt.  My aunt and uncle and some of there kids from Canada were here so it was fun visiting with them.  Nothing too exciting happened, it was just nice being with family and seeing how excited the kids were hunting for eggs.

Our child looking for eggs.

I had to throw this picture in of Andrea because she is always saying that I pick horrible pictures of her to put on my blog, so here you go! ;)

Waiting to be let out side.

It's so fun seeing Jax and Yogi play together.  Jax is such a giant compared to Yogi, it's crazy!

The nieces and nephews love playing with Jax.  Here is Collin pulling him around.

And Brit.

Clint and Yogi

Brit thought it looked fun and wanted in on the action.

 

Yogi

We have a new addition to our family, Yogi Bear.  No he's not our dog, he' my brother Scott's, although I tried to keep him.  One day we were at Petsmart buying Jax some treats and they had a pet adoption going on.  Well Clint and I have wanted to get another dog so Jax would have a buddy, so we brought Yogi home for the weekend to see if he fit in with us.  Well my mom was not happy about having another dog in the house, so we had to find another home for him (we couldn't take him back to the store, we already were in love with him).  We searched and searched and finally my brother Scott and sister-in-law Andrea took him.

It's really fun to watch Jax and Yogi play.  Jax usually doesn't want anything to do with him (unless Yogi is chewing on his bone).  We have to trick Jax into playing with him by first having a human play tug-a-war, and then have Yogi hold on.  It's really fun.  Yogi tries and tries to get Jax to play with him, Yogi will run around the table at a million miles an hour barking at Jax, but Jax will just ignore him.  Whatever one of them has, the other wants and will stand guard until the other dog gets bored of his bone or toy and leaves it behind.  Then the other dog will chew on it for a while until he leaves it and the vicious cycle continues on and on.

You may have thought that Jax was small, we did too until we met Yogi.  He is almost half of Jax's size!  Yogi is so tiny and hardly weights anything.  The good news is, now that Scott and Andrea have taken him, they have toughened him up quite a bit and he seems to be more muscular.

It's fun having another dog in the family and the nieces and nephew just love having dogs around.  Yogi is so good with kids and doesn't mind if they pick him up or pet him (unlike Jax, he's kind of spoiled that way).  Once Yogi is fully potty trained I'm sure my mom will like him more, he struggles at times with training, but he's getting better!

These pictures are when we puppy sat for Scott and Andrea while they went to Moab.  It was fun, but Jax sure is happy when Yogi leaves and our full attention is back on him.