Hello and welcome to May!!
May was a BUSY month. Meow-meow was wrapping up 6th grade, and as soon as school ended, the big move was set to take place. I had another surgery, and this is when the bat saga began. So, grab your popcorn because we're going to have some fun.
We did some comparisons
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Meow-meow's hand compared to Nathan's hand
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| Meow-meow's hand compared to my hand |
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| Meow-meow's feet compared to Nathan's feet |
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| Meow-meow's feet compared to my feet. |
Meow-meow does Taekwondo and had a belt testing, passed, and progressed to the next belt. Right now, he's got about 6 months until he is a black belt.
We had TWO graduations!! Meow-meow graduated from 6th grade, his very last year of elementary school!! That is a weird thing to think about. I don't have any more children in elementary school, and he's now my only child still left in school. Gone are the days when I had to juggle elementary, junior high, and high school schedules. It's very weird, but also nice.
Our second graduation is Eliza. She graduated from Davis High School.
We had a Bridal shower for Richard's beautiful bride-to-be, Olivia. We were very excited for her to join our family.
Kitten shenanigans
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| Don't ever get in the way of kitten shenanigans |
The kittens at this point were all old enough to be given away, and so one, by one, I had to say goodbye to them as they left to go to their forever homes. Luckily Richard and Olivia adopted one of them. This little guy was the last one to get adopted.
And we got Cocoa fixed. No more kittens for her. Poor thing had to wear the cone of shame. She was NOT amused.
Then, a couple of days after school ended, we packed up the last of our things at our Layton house and officially moved into what we now call, the Bat House.
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| Little did we know the horrors we would find behind that fireplace. We set out cans of baking soda everywhere in an attempt to get rid of the smell that would come and go. |
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| We moved in on Saturday, May 24th, which happened to be the first hot day of the year. As I mentioned in my March blog post, up until move in day, only three adult children had been living in the house, and they never went into the areas that had the smell, and Nathan's side of the Sunroom office was far enough away from the offending alcove that he didn't smell anything, plus he would usually leave before the sun could heat up that room. But, my side of the Sunroom office was next to this weird alcove, and as I was unpacking my desk, I could smell it, and it smelled HORRIBLE!! It smelled like cat pee, sort of, it was unlike any cat pee I had ever smelled before. I literally smelled all of my stuff to try and find the source of the smell, but my stuff all smelled fine. Plus, I figured that if my cats had peed on my things, I would have smelled it at the Layton house. It didn't take me too long after that to discover the source of the smell. It STANK in that alcove!! And then I noticed the urine marks around the baseboard. This picture was taken in the afternoon on the 24th. We did not move the cats to the house until the 25th. The first thing we did was to notify the rental company about the smell and were told that the owners of the house never had pets and the smell was from my cats. That didn't go over too well. |
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| The Sunroom was an addition that the owners had installed, which meant that it did not have air conditioning or heating, and we were going to use the Sunroom as our office. I had planned on putting shelves into that alcove to store my craft stuff. We had a fancy floor unit that doubled as an air conditioner/heater that we planned on using. Nathan had brought it over clear back in March, for just in case he got cold. He never gets cold, and had not turned it on. However, he doesn't tolerate heat very well. We are such polar opposites in that way. I, personally was fine with the room being warm, but Nathan wanted to turn on the air conditioner. It did not take long for that room to be come hazardous. Our eyes started burning, we started coughing, and it became difficult to breathe, and the smell was unlike anything I had ever smelled in my life. We had to quickly turn off the air conditioner, open the windows, and vacated the room. Any time we tried to turn on the air conditioner, the same thing would happen. We spent so much time trying to figure out what the heck was going on. The only conclusion we could draw was that it was coming from the alcove. So, on May 27th, which is when this photo was taken, we went and got some painters plastic and painters tape, hoping that if we sealed off the alcove that we would at least be able to run the air conditioner. We were wrong. We put many a complaint into the rental company. It was at this point that the unpacking started to come to a stand still as all of my craft stuff was now occupying the kitchen, plus I had a surgery..... |
May 29th, I had a shoulder surgery, the third surgery for 2025, and the 5th surgery in a 9 month period.
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| Waiting in the lobby to go back and get prepped for surgery. |
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| It was a painful surgery. Funny story about this surgery. First we have to go back to January. I got a call from the stake presidency asking me if I could give a talk in Stake Conference. I had to decline because Stake Conference was only a couple of days after my hysterectomy. Nathan was asked to conduct the music for that Stake Conference, and afterwards he chatted with the Stake President who told him that they had felt impressed that I should speak at Stake Conference. He then told Nathan that they would have me speak at the next Stake Conference. That conversation took place well before we decided to move. Fast forward a bit to March when we signed the contract for the Bat House, and I was left scratching my head about what the Stake President had told Nathan. Fast forward to middle of April when we were, at that point, planning on doing our final move at the beginning of June, we found out that the next Stake Conference would be on May 31st and June 1st, and they still wanted me to speak because they still felt like I had a message that needed to be shared. It looked like things would work out after all!! We knew I would be having a shoulder surgery, but it was scheduled for May 15th. I figured that I would be recovered enough by May 31st that I could speak in Stake Conference. Well, my doctor decided to retire from doing surgeries and there were only two surgeries he had left to complete, mine and someone else. Apparently the hospital won't open up an Operating Room for one surgeon to do one surgery, and guess what?!?! For some unknown reason, the other person had something come up and they were unable to have their surgery on the 15th. They had to reschedule. Guess what day they had to reschedule to?? If you guessed the 29th you would be correct. But that meant that by default, I had to reschedule as well. Ya'll the 29th was TWO days before I was supposed to give my Stake Conference talk!! I had already agreed to it!! I already had my topic and was working on writing my talk!! I'm a stubborn person, and there was NO WAY I was going to be stopped from giving my talk. SO, TWO days after having a shoulder surgery, I stood at the pulpit with my arm in a sling, and gave my talk!! Now there is a miracle in all of that. I was still in the recovery period of needing strong narcotic pain relief. Nathan gave me a blessing. The plan was for me to be the first speaker, that way I could leave to go home and rest. I should have needed to take some pain medicine during Stake Conference. I did not need any pain medicine. I did not feel any pain at any point during Stake Conference. I was able to stand and deliver my talk without any pain or needing any help. I was also able to sit on the stand during the entire two hour Stake Conference meeting!! I had no pain until I got home, and even then, it wasn't bad enough to require heavy pain medications. Miracle? I definitely think so. There is no way that this was anything other than a miracle from God. Now, the next day, I needed some pain meds, but after that, I didn't need them any more. |
Time for kitty pictures. The cats were settling in and adjusting to their new home.
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| They loved their new cat stand |
We did not get any news from Elder Davis.... Silly boy. Luckily we did get to talk to him every Tuesday on his P-Day. He was doing well, enjoying the work, and loving his time serving the Lord and the wonderful people in Las Vegas.
And that is a wrap for May.
