June 25, 2009 by Marlene.

It’s been quite the summer for me this year. I know it’s by far the busiest summer I have ever had. I started out working 30 hrs a week-( thankfully my old boss at Dairy Queen took me back), getting wedding plans together, trying to talk to Stephen as much as possible, attempting to get some exercise in there somewhere, packing up 20 years worth of stuff and getting ready for the temple. It’s been quite the summer but it has gone by rather quickly. I think that’s a blessing and a little inconvenient when considering all the plans that still need to be made. (Don’t worry, the essentials will happen)
I am so incredibly excited. I’d still be excited even if Stephen was visiting but the marriage thing adds an entire new
level to it. (Ok you can take your finger out of your throats now.)

Speaking of gagging….SLUGS ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD!!! Or at least our yard. They are the bane of my existence and are reeking havoc on my plants and therefore they all must die, slow miserable deaths. If there are any good ways to accomplish this send them my way. I’m a little done with gagging when I go to pick something and find a slug on the underside of a leaf. *shudder* ok that’s enough.

The other day I needed to go to the town hall for marriage license stuff and I decided to stop by Dad’s grave.I scoffed at the few flowers dying because of the excessive rain, cleaned off the cut grass and laid on the grass for a little while in hopes of being a little closer. I miss him so very much. It has been especially tender lately knowing that he never met Stephen and that I won’t dance with him at my reception and he won’t be able to do all those things that fathers do. Maybe he’ll surprise me. Last week the Young Men came over to do yard work and we decided to burn off some of the brush we have. The boys and leaders tried their darndest to get the fire going so they came back to ask for more paper and some lighter fluid. As a Webster Girl I refused the fluid and got the fire thriving in less than 5 min. Yeah…I was pretty proud of myself. Thanks Dad.

For those of you who don’t know I have had pretty bad back and neck pain, especially in the last year. My chiropractor thinks that it’s fibromyalgia. It’s nice to finally have a name to all the pain but it doesn’t cure it. We’re making progress. I hope to be pain free someday, but for now I’ll just keep trying to figure out my body.

It’s crazy to think of all the things that are happening this summer. I’ve decided that Websters never get anything gradually. We get everything all at once, have a period of rest time, then get another batch of everything all at once. I told Stephen that he’s in for quite the ride if he’s joining the Webster family. We are very familiar with trials and challenges. We’ve learned to adapt and advance on in life, preparing for the next time. It’s all good.
Until next time.

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June 25, 2009 by Mallory.

YAY!!!!! I’ve hit another big milestone. I have officially lost 30 pounds!!! So I guess they’re right…counting calories really does work. I’ve also lost inches too! I’ve lost 5 inches in my hips, 1.5 in each arm, 3 in each thigh, (I think) 3.5 in my waist, and 2 in my chest (again…hopefully it’s in my back and not my actual chest….). Yay! Things are going good! Again, it’s coming off slowly, but I’m ok with that, as long as it’s still coming off. I still have a long way to go to get to my goal weight, but we’re getting there slowly but surely. I’ve been exercising at least 40 minutes (usually I do an hour) 5-6 times a week. I try to change it up a lot so I don’t get bored doing the same things. Hopefully I don’t hit another plateau soon. The really big test for me will be to see if I can keep this up while I’m at camp and at home. It seems like whenever I go on any kind of trip, that is my serious downfall. I just let myself go and let myself eat whenever and whatever I want. So I’m determined to keep counting calories while I’m away from Memphis for a few weeks and to keep trying to lose weight…or at least not gain any! (Yeah….last Christmas I gained 10 pounds!!! Not good. It took me forever to get it off.) And I will keep exercising. So all you family members who will be home, make sure I do this! Ok? But all I have to say is YAY!!! I lost 30 pounds!!! Now to reach my next milestone…

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June 21, 2009 by Mallory.

First of all, Happy Father’s Day to all fathers/future fathers. I remember trying to think of what to get my dad for father’s day. Anything he wanted would always be really expensive, so he would just say to get him whatever. It was really annoying not knowing what to get him, but we tried to think of different things. It’s kinda sad not being able wish him happy father’s day anymore, but he was a great dad and I still miss him everyday. Even to this day, sometimes I still don’t feel like he’s gone. Maybe it’s because I’m far away from CT, but this life isn’t so long in the eternal scheme of things. Soon we will all be together as an eternal family and things will be great. I have also been thinking about him more because I got a calling as the Assistant Ward Camp director. Being assigned to go to girls camp has flooded me with memories of girls camp and of my dad really showing what he loved to all the girls in the stake. He loved girls camp and I loved him being at girls camp. He made it so much fun and some of the best experiences I had as a youth. Hopefully I’ll be able to show some of the girls I work with the same great spirit of girls camp that my dad showed so many other girls.

Another great memory I have of my dad is of him teaching me some of the things that he would do. Out of everyone in the family, I inherited my dad’s ability to make killer omelets. My dad would make the most DELICIOUS omelets, and each time he would make one, I would watch him carefully, ask him what he put in it, and then try it on my own. Whenever I asked him what he usually put in it, he would say, “Whatever is in the fridge.” He would also show me how he flipped the egg without a spatula. I still haven’t been able to do that yet, but maybe eventually I’ll get it. Another thing we would do together is I would sit right next to him while he played Doom on the computer and watch him play. I would ask him questions about the weapons and I would get nervous as the bad guys started to shoot at him. It would also be really funny when he would yell, “WHOA!” when a big monster or something would come out of nowhere and kill him. It was a great time spending time with him doing the things he liked to do. I still wish I spent more time with him, but I can’t go back and change time, so I have to be grateful for the time that I did have with him. We miss you and love you, dad. Happy Father’s Day!

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June 15, 2009 by Mallory.

This weekend has been a rather eventful one. On Friday, we decided to go walking/running at around 2:15 (Wendell wanted to go at 4:30, but I convinced him to go earlier). We came home, showered, and turned on the TV to watch Oprah (this was the first time we turned on the TV that day). Did I see Oprah? No, of course not. I saw the weather saying that there were tornado warnings, severe thunderstorms, etc. Did I have any idea of all of this? No way! We had just been walking/running. It was hot, but it was sunny and beautiful just an hour before. There’s no way there would be tornadoes and thunderstorms. But there it was on the news. At about 4:30ish, we were still watching the weather, and all of a sudden it got awfully dark outside and the wind started to blow REALLY REALLY hard and it started POURING down rain. It was a bit scary. The trees started swaying really hard. Wendell decided that he wanted to look outside, so right during this time, he opened our porch door. It SWUNG open and he tried pushing it closed, but it was really hard to close. He got it though. Anyway, during this time, the lights flickered a couple times, then all of a sudden…POOF…it went out. Growing up, when the power went out, it always went back on a few seconds later. I was just waiting for it to come back on…but it didn’t. Then the tornado sirens started going. We didn’t have a TV and we don’t have a radio that works without power, so we really didn’t know what was going on, where the tornadoes were or anything. The sky started getting rather green, but Wendell decided he still just wanted to stay inside. It turned out fine though. That night we were fine, but we didn’t have any power. We pulled out the candles and lit them. Unfortunately, we only have 1 flashlight and we don’t know where it is. The next day, we started to feel the heat of Memphis. I would spray myself with my water bottle every few minutes. We went over to a friend’s house for their son’s birthday, then we got a call that offered to have us stay at someone’s rental house that has air conditioning. Of course we had to say yes. So we went over to the other people’s house and stayed there the second night the power was out. The next day we went to church and someone offered to have us over for dinner…we couldn’t say no, of course. Fortunately, the power came back on at about 6:00, so we had power! Yay! You don’t really know how much you rely on the power until it’s gone for a couple days. Wendell wanted to stay home the whole time and “see if we can make it” but now he says that he enjoyed leaving. He’s funny.

Oh! On Friday right after the power went out, we were supposed to go to a Keith Urban/Sugarland concert. We couldn’t just skip out, so we went anyway! It was really fun. Really loud, but really fun. I decided that my ears just aren’t cut out for concerts. I plugged my ears almost the whole time. Next time I’ll have to remember ear plugs. Sometimes they had really bright lights too. Not very fun, I have to say. But the concert itself was fun, and it was good when I actually knew a song. Wendell knew a lot more songs than I did. Anyway, I think that’s enough of me rambling. I can put some pictures and videos later. Until next time!

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June 12, 2009 by Mallory.

We found out where we are going on our new externships. With the new plan, we are able to leave Memphis for the last year since I won’t be teaching. We found out that we will be moving to Utah for 8 months (May 2010 - beginning of January). He will be working in the Salt Lake area. Then we will have to come back to Memphis for the last rotation of externships, but it’ll work out great. I’m glad to be able to leave Memphis fairly soon and be able to have a new scenery (even if it is Utah! haha, just kidding). But it will also be nice because my mom and Marlene will be in Utah and Ashley will be in Colorado, which isn’t too far away. It’ll be MUCH nicer being closer to family and I have many friends still in Utah too! So I know it’ll be a great experience. So, Utah, here we come! (well, next year…)

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June 11, 2009 by Melanee.

I received a call last night while I was busy packing up my sewing room. My granddaughter Anya was in tears because she got in trouble for overflowing the kitchen sink. She also tipped over the shopping cart while they went to a fabric store the same day. It was not Anya’s day. I answered the phone hearing little sobs and her telling me how she got in trouble for her little antics today. The cart tipping was by accident when she tried to reach for a spool of thread. Leah got on the phone and said that when when she got in trouble for over flowing the sink she burst into tears and cried, “I want to call grandma….call 922″
Her tears were calmed as I talked to her and she was doing better. I hope she has a better day today.

I am so glad that there is an emergency phone number for grandmas.

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June 5, 2009 by Mallory.

These past few weeks have been a little challenging because they have brought forth new choices that we have had to make. We had 2 options with Wendell’s schooling. We could’ve kept going and graduated when we originally planned (May 2010), or we could take a little detour, help Wendell be a little more prepared for the future, and graduate in May 2011 instead. To some it may seem like an obvious choice…graduate sooner! But we prayed about it, thought about it a lot, and we really felt that taking an extra year seemed like the right decision. Originally, we were going to stay here for externships while I taught and then leave after he graduated, but because of this opportunity, now I can still teach for one more year, but then we can go elsewhere for externships. We are looking at going to Colorado and Utah for 4 months each (we don’t know if we’ll actually get them or not and if we do, we don’t know when we’ll be there) and then we’ll have to be in Memphis for 4 months as well. It will provide some great opportunities to live somewhere other than Memphis (and closer to family!) and Wendell can get experiences of what different practices are like in different areas of the country. I’m sure it’ll be a great experience for us and it’ll turn out great!

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June 4, 2009 by Ashley.

Well, I’m officially old. Not really but it’s a little discouraging that my age now rounds to 30 (26). Last weekend was my birthday and this past Thursday was Lydia’s so we’ve had a busy week.

Last weekend for my birthday Pat, Lydia, and I went down to the Denver temple. For my birthday Pat was going to get me temple clothes, but the distribution center was SO busy that we decided we’d buy them online at home instead. I guess it was unfortunate my birthday was the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend because apparently that’s when every LDS girl decided to get married. The temple was CRAZY busy. Pat even saw a member of our bishopric because his daughter was getting married then. Luckily I was able to just squeeze into the session I was planning for (although I did have to sit in a folding chair in the aisle). It was a really nice peaceful way to spend my birthday. Another reason I really wanted to get down to the temple was that this past Sunday I had to speak in sacrament meeting on temple covenants and I didn’t want to feel like a complete hypocrite because I haven’t gone in a long time. Luckily I had read a short article in BYU magazine a month or so back on how to give an effective sacrament talk so I really tried to implement the pointers they had. I didn’t procrastinate and actually finished my talk Saturday afternoon! I guess it all paid off though because a ton of people said my talk was excellent and that they really, sincerely enjoyed it. That made me very happy because I had worked hard on it – yay!

On Memorial Day our friends Eliza and Bryan invited us to play mini golf. It was totally overcast and so of course I didn’t think about the sun so Lydia got a little burned. Luckily Eliza had sunscreen in her car so Lydia didn’t fried to a crisp. The weather was supposed to be rainy and stormy. We thought we’d risk it. It turned out perfect. The sun came out half way through our game so we missed the crowds and after we finished, the storms came. I even got a hole in 1 at one point which I was very proud of

Well, Lydia is officially 1 year old. I used to look at other people’s 1 year olds and I would think they looked so huge and puzzled why they couldn’t talk and do other stuff I thought they should do. Yet here I am still looking at Lydia like she’s my little baby. But when I try and carry her or she wriggles out of my arms I’m reminded of how fast she’s growing. For her birthday we invited the Fairbanks over. Their little boy, Weston, is a couple months younger than Lydia and I figured she should have 1 friend at her party at least. It wasn’t anything major, but we had balloons (which Lydia wasn’t entirely impressed with), tuna macaroni and cheese casserole (Lydia’s favorite dinner), and cheesecake (Lydia loves graham crackers and cream cheese separately so I figured this would be a perfect cake for her. And with only ¼ cup sugar in the entire thing I was ok having her eat it). Below is Lydia opening her present from Grandma. Notice she’s not wearing any clothes. I thought it would be fitting for her to wear her “birthday suit” (actually it was just hot that day, but it’s a cute idea anyway). Be sure to check out the videos!

Lydia usually claps all the time (for real you have to believe us) but I guess in these videos she got stage fright. I’ll have to put up another video sometime actually showing she can do it. This was her first real word that would trigger an action on her part. I would say clap, and she’d drop anything she was doing and clap. I guess you’ll have to take my word for it for now though.
Lydia opening presents:
Click here for video –>dscn2542_med.MOV
Trying to get her to clap:
Click here for video –>dscn2544_med.MOV
Singing happy birthday and eating cake:
Click here for video –>dscn2545_med.MOV

Here’s Lydia giving Pat hugs. Pat just loves it when she does this. As you can see her little arm is sunburned because her careless mother forgot to put sunscreen on her.

Lydia watching her show (Baby Einstein). I hate having her watch TV but I just can’t seem to entertain her all day.

Lydia LOVES to read. Sometimes that is the only thing that will calm her down if she’s crying.

Lydia in the new dress Grandma gave her. The little sandals she’s wearing are actually size newborn. I guess her feet must be tiny. They were far too fat to stay in shoes when she was a newborn.

Lydia usually never sucks on her pacifier except for right as she’s going to sleep. This one morning though I found her in her crib still sucking on it. When I gave her the bottle, this was the result. I thought it was really funny.

One day Pat was watching her while I was out. He was working in the livingroom where Lydia was playing. Suddenly he noticed Lydia wasn’t around and started looking for her. She had crawled to the other side of the couch, found a bag of apples I had gotten from the grocery store that day, took one out, and started munching. Notice she eats the bottom first.

Eliza made me a birthday cake for my birthday. She’s so nice. This cake turned out way better than any I’ve ever made.

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June 1, 2009 by Melanee.

This day marks two years since Kev’s passing. Where did the time go?
The past three or four days have been really wonderful. Friends have been calling me to see how I am doing. One good friend, Dave, was here on business from Arizona, visited Marlene and I. He brought a really special gift for me. The gift was due to a special experience he shared that Kev helped him accomplish a goal that was to help me. This goal came to fruition rather quickly. This shows me how Kev is watching over me and making sure I am okay and being taken care of.
Another good friend checked in yesterday to see how I was doing and invited us to their home for some respite sometime in the future.
Then another friend dropped off a bakery treat that just made my day complete.
My energy level and confidence in getting tasks complete are at an all time high because of my great relationship with Randy. I know Kev helped with that.
My girls are being taken care of which really helps me not worry about them too much. Well, Moms seem to worry anyways. Marlene’s wedding plans are in the works and half way there. All is well for the Webster family because my husband and my daughters’ Dad is watching over us.

On Memorial Day Marlene and I spend some time planting yellow violas at the grave site. They look really pretty against the red marble granite. Marlene’s red Japanese maple is surviving. We think the lawn mower grabbed it and took a chunk out of it, but it survived. Leaves are on the tree and it looks healthy. It’s only two feet high after 7 years of growth. I will have to add pictures when I know how to put them on this website.

Today we are going to Lenny and Joe’s for dinner. Kev enjoyed this restaurant which was always followed by a walk on the beach. We have many good memories there, flying kites, walking the beach, swimming when the girls were young, geo caching, etc. I think it is nice way to remember a really good husband and father who made my life wonderful for 26 years.

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