My Katie is growing up

Happy
12th Birthday Sweet Katie



Katie's 2nd trip to the Raleigh Temple....the 1st time she went was at age 1 to be sealed to us!!




Hugging my beautiful daughter!




What a wonderful group of girls and their leaders....Katie is so blessed to have such a great roup of friends!




Me and my sweetie!

 Two weeks ago, we went to the Raleigh, NC Temple with Katie.  It was her first opportunity to do baptisms.  She was so excited, as were we!  It's wonderful to see your children embrace the ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We knew that she would have a very special, sacred experience...and she did!  I had been down with a horrible cold for the 3 days preceding the trip.  I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to go to the Temple.  I started to feel better a few hours before we left.  During our time at the Temple, I felt ill, but not so bad that I couldn't enjoy being there.  Katie was beaming.  She got to see me all dressed in white.  I think it surprised her, but she had the biggest smile on her face.  Tabb helped do the actual baptisms in the font.  It was so touching to see him baptize Katie.  What a special experience for both of them to share.  The Temple is a quiet and peaceful place.  Katie said she could really feel the spirit of the Temple and loved the experience of being baptised for people who had passed on.  After the Temple trip was over, I experienced 2 weeks of fevers and the most severe cold I had ever experienced in my life.  I was so grateful that for the 2 brief hours we were in the Temple, I could feel well enough to be there with my sweet daughter and wonderful husband.

During that horrible time of illness, I was also in the last 2 weeks of my undergraduate education.  My statistics teacher refused to allow me to submit any of my work late.  I explained to him that in all my years of college, I had never submitted a late assignment and that all I wanted was to be late 3 days.  I offered a doctor's note and told him that he could verify that I have a 3.94 GPA (I'm no slacker).  He still refused.  So, Heavenly Father intervened and I managed to pass Statistics with a B and miss a week's worth of assignments.  I hated that class (and that is an understatement).  It was by far the most challenging, awful, disgusting, terrible, yucky thing I've ever had to learn and I am never, ever going to think about what I learned in that class again.  On the other hand, I got to experience the joy that comes from something you despise ending....that's an interesting feeling!  So....I plan on studying for my graduate school entrance exam and beginning graduate school in the Fall of 2013.  I'll attend the University of North Carolina - Greensboro.  My hope is to obtain a Master's in Nursing Administration.  I have given alot of thought to getting a Doctorate in Nursing Practice, but it is just way too expensive.  But who knows...maybe I'll find a scholarship.  Anyway, I will forever be grateful to my husband for helping me balance all that I have needed to balance. Believe it or not, without being able to focus on schoolwork, I may have collapsed under the grief of the last 2 years.  Keeping my mind busy and not dwelling on our family tragedy was a great blessing.  The Lord certainly knew what was best for me when I started on my nursing journey in 2001.  I could have achieved this degree when Tabb and I first married, but we were blessed with Daniel's arrival.  Then the Lord blessed us with Brian, Cory, Nicolas, Melissa, and Katie.  School took a far back seat to the blessing of motherhood.  Out of the blue, in 2001, I received a huge prompting to pursue my nursing degree.  It was a big struggle to be a Mom and to return to school.  One of my clinicals was at the hospital where Melissa one day would be a patient.  Little did I know that the Lord was preparing me for an experience that would help me have insight into what would one day save our daughter's life.  The day Melissa was admitted into the unit at UNC, I knew the staff, I knew the great work they did, and I knew enough to ask the right questions to ensure that her treatment was appropriate.  They also knew me and my integrity.  It helped them have faith in us that what we were telling them was accurate and true.  As a result, we were able to work closely with the  team until Melissa's diagnosis was confirmed.  I will always be grateful to my Heavenly Father for setting certain things in motion that will later be a way through a crisis.  Just the other day, Tabb and I were sitting alone.  I turned to him and said...."I'm so grateful for how things are going, but I feel very damaged by the experience."  He simply replied..."How could we not be damaged."  Accepting that the Lord loves us even when our journey is difficult has been what has gotten me through the past two years.  I have changed.  I have a deeper understanding of pain, suffering,  and sorrow, but a much greater understanding of joy.  When you've gone through the refiner's fire and you feel a glimmer of joy or peace, you feel it in a way never appreciated before.  This post wasn't supposed to be anything more than catching up, but it feels good to document that we're healing and that we're grateful for our family, friends, home and visiting teachers, and our wonderful Bishop and Stake President.   We love you...you have been our anchors and we will forever be grateful.