The month of July was certainly one to remember although for very unfortunate reasons. The first weekend was the 4th of July which is also my dad's birthday. Every year we go to Nephi to party it up and watch fireworks. My mom is always giving Lisa and me cute little presents on holidays and I thought it would be fun to do something for them too. I saw a cute idea how to make "firecrackers" so the girls and I headed to Joanne's to pick up the supplies we needed. We spent the morning painting and gluing and making a big mess but we had a lot of fun. After the firecrackers were finished I hurried and made Jordyn & Maegan these adorable shirts out of bandannas. I had seen similar ideas in the blog world but I didn't want to pay for any patterns and I figured I have sewn enough to wing it and they turned out perfectly. I had scored the bandannas at Hobby Lobby a couple months before so each shirt only cost about $3.00. I didn't make one for Brooklen because we have so many other shirts from when Jordyn & Maegan were little but I promised her I'd make her a pink one (and now it's October and I haven't made it yet! Bad mom!). Usually it’s just my immediate family for this little get together but this year my Grandma and Grandpa Madsen joined us. My mom forgot to buy candles so it was really funny as she put one big votive candle on his cake. My girls were cracking up. After dinner we were worried the fireworks would be cancelled because it was a little windy but eventually they started and we had a great time, as we usually do, sitting back behind my parent’s house watching them. It was a little chilly so my Grandma stayed in the house and the kids bundled up in blankets. Who knew that exactly one week later at the exact same time we were watching fireworks my mom, dad and the girls and I would be at the Gunnison Valley Hospital dealing with my grandpa’s death.
On Wednesday, July 7th my parents took the girls up on Skyline Drive in the 12 Mile Pass area to go camping. They usually go for one week every July and camp in one of a few spots they like. I had hoped to be able to go with them but unfortunately work prevented me from being able to until Friday. My grandpa was also going on Friday but when he realized I wasn’t leaving Provo until after I got off work at 6:00 he decided he’d drive up on his own earlier in the day. Friday arrived and after work I hurried and stopped at home to take care of the animals and gather my stuff and started my drive. From my house it takes about 2.5 hours to get to the camping spot. Because the roads are fairly bumpy on the mountain I had to drive really slow. It was getting dark and was a beautiful night so I had the windows rolled down and was singing away to music when I passed someone on a 4 wheeler. I finally realized that it was my dad so I slammed on my brakes. He teased me quite a bit that I didn’t figure out it was him until I had passed. I followed him to camp where my mom was just finishing up making fried chicken for dinner. The girls were really excited to catch me up on what adventures they had been on over the past few days without me. I think Jordyn would kill me if she knew I posted this but she and Maegan went on a little hike and they thought they saw a bear. Jordyn was so scared that she actually wet her pants and ran back to the trailer. As much as we tried to convince them it probably wasn’t a bear (given where they described this apparent ‘bear den’) there was no denying that Jordyn truly was scared to death and I did feel bad for her. By this point of the night it was almost 11:00 p.m. and we decided it was time for bed. My dad and grandpa talked about the fishing plans for the next day. My grandpa headed out to sleep in his tent while we got the beds in the trailer set up for me and the girls.
The following days will be difficult for my to talk about. I debated about whether I should even write about it here but I honestly use this blog as my journal and I’ve decided I should write everything down because I don’t want to forget what happened and how I felt, which always seems to happen with the passing of time. That said, it’s going to be pretty emotional and it may take me some time before I get it all typed up so this is where I'll leave you for now.