The good, the bad, and the ugly

This is just some bits and pieces of last week. Rather than putting a bunch of little entries I decided to just do an update. There were some highs and some lows.

On Wednesday we made a quick trip to Salt Lake for Chris Porter's wedding. We stopped in Ogden to go to a party store (of course buying paper products for an upcoming RS event) and then made our way to temple square. The sealing was wonderful and seeing old friends was the highlight. Chris had put together a slide presentation and there were of course lots of pictures of Kristi. She would have loved the music and slides of her kids (she was slide show queen). Seeing Rob was great and he is really happy, but it was hard at the same time to not have Kristi there. Michelle sat by Chris but next to an empty chair they had left where Kristi would have sat. We sat at the reception with Bob and Linda Browne, Bruce and Karen Anderson, Rick and Julia Hatch and Ben. We laughed and laughed - a good thing.

Friday was doughnut day in the lab and I found the only spot on the kitchen floor where there had been an earlier oil spill that had not been properly cleaned up. Oh yes - on my bum, right in front of the whole class. One of my students ran over to help me up yelling, "Sister Kusch are you alright?" I thought - just leave me here on the floor for a minute so I can cry. My knee and leg are all bruised and swollen but I think my pride was the worst off. I felt old! Then at the doctor's office yesterday one of the docs slipped me a note that read, "I've fallen and I can't get up!" I'm glad I could provide some humor for the office.

Friday I collected on a mother's day gift from Bruce - a weekend away. We drove up to Mackay to stay a couple of days at the Bear Bottom Inn. It looked really cute on their web site. Well Mackay is a scary place (lots of long hair, beards, very large belt buckles, really big trucks, and tattoos) and the inn was not so great. There was a note on the door of the inn when we arrived that said "Bruce Kusch, room 3, key in door." We never saw a soul around the inn. We walked into the room, looked at each other with raised eyebrows and decided we would just treat this like an adventure. We didn't stay two night but instead drove on up to Salmon on Saturday and stopped to hike and fish (yes in the rain). There's not much happening there either. I didn't think anyone could mess up a grilled cheese sandwich but we found a cafe there that did just that (cold and dry, with not much flavor). We did have a nice dinner on Saturday night at a great steak place in town and then headed back to the hotel to read because the only thing in town (an outdoor concert) was rained out. After church on Sunday (interesting) we drove on home, happy to be back in the "Berg" (a comparable big city).

President Eyring is the devotional speaker today and he came into town early. Last night one of our wards had FHE scheduled with President and Sister Clark so the Eyrings came along. President Clark asked Bruce on Friday if we would like to come and that his counselors and their wives were invited as well. WOW! The ward was instructed at church on Sunday to arrive early, with good questions, be properly groomed and not to bring any friends - they did a good job on all fronts). We arrived in time to watch security do a sweep of the room and to see the bomb sniffing dog take a tour around as well (that is one scary dog!). It was a Q and A, with great questions - the students in the ward were well prepared and looked great. What a privilege it was to be 6 feet away from a prophet and learn from him. It was a tender mercy for me.

So there it is, the good, the bad, and a definite ugly (laying there on the kitchen floor).