I might just drop dead...

If I couldn’t talk to my little bear everyday I might have a heart attack...I mean after all...I am a Grandma now. 

Do you dance?

The girls get asked that a lot. They don’t take dance but rather have worked so hard at perfecting what they learn from their coaches. Not everything has come easy. It’s taken determination, endurance, and even some tears. But whether they do gymnastics for 3 more months or 3 more years...I’ll know they’ve learned a great deal about hard work paying off.

I got to talk to my boy...

WE TALKED TO AUSTIN. Does anybody in the world even know how great this is? Because I sure as heck do. He shared some very special stories of people he’s already teaching while at the missionary training center. As he shared these spiritual experiences over the phone I realized that THIS is the very reason families can talk to their missionaries. As Austin shared these stories, I have no doubt it was a testimony booster for all of my other children. What a blessing to hear every week all the amazing things (ups and downs) of missionary work. There’s no better way to prepare my other children than by learning from their older brother. 

It wasn’t my idea...

The kids have been begging me to go skiing with them this year. I’m not very adept at skiing because I’m very inexperienced. It really kinda gets in my head and scares the crap out of me...especially getting off the ski lift. BUT I made myself do it today and I survived. I fell on my butt a few times, but I’m not dead.

Happy...

Our handsome missionary. We miss him more than words could ever express...and yet because we love him, we move forward. Because that’s what he would want. Plus...he’s happy and what more could I ever want for my son? ♥️

We may be smaller...

But we are still one. Near or far...

White Christmas, a little late?

Dear snow, 

I really wish you would have come a couple months sooner...

I know he’s ok...

Thank goodness that pictures can speak a thousand words...and oh boy...he’s so handsome. I’m such a blessed mama.

Just a boys hat...

Whenever I walk past Austin’s bedroom I’m often a bundle of tears. But when I see his hat hanging in the window? You don’t even want to know. I miss him.

Elder Chapman...2/6/2019- 2/11/2021

I’m laying in a hotel bed after just dropping my son off on a 2 year mission at the airport. It’s 5am and I’m needing to sleep. But how? So many thoughts are running through my head. Where did the time go? How will I learn to live without Austin? How will I go home and see the roads he and I ran on to train for our half marathon? How will I walk past his bedroom and keep from going inside and seeing all of his stuff still there without him?  How will I eat his favorite foods and sit at the dinner table without crying saying that his chair is empty? I’m not exactly sure how to do this successfully, but I am going to try. Because truthfully, serving a mission and spreading the gospel is what I’ve been teaching him since the day he was born. This is what his primary teachers have been teaching him, this is what we taught him and family home evenings. And truth be known, this is what HE wants. I will miss him fiercely, but even through all the heartache and tears of letting him go, there’s no place I’d rather him be. I told him before he left (through tears) that it has been such a privilege being his mother. And it has been. A true gift. 

Maybe, this is a bad analogy but it has comforted me to think that maybe this is just a tiny bit of what heavenly father felt like having to let his son, Jesus Christ suffer and come to the earth. Surely I can let my son go for two short years. 

Finally, I want to share my favorite quote from Joseph Smith. And one that Austin shared in his farewell talk in church a few weeks ago.

“The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.” 

God speed, Elder Chapman.