Dear Family and Friends,
I am sorry that I missed last month, so I'll cover a couple of months in this letter - but briefly. I'll try not to bore you.
The end of January started a firestorm with the tragic death of Lareen's older brother's wife - Gina. Gina was killed in a car accident and left Lareen's brother (Bryan) with 5 children ranging from 15 years old down to 6 years old. Lareen's family have really been helping a lot to get their lives in order. A number of things were "out of whack" due to a number of factors for a number of years and so it was imperative that the family step in and really help dig them out of a pit.
Lareen spent every day there for the first 2 weeks of February along with her parents, 2 sisters and 1 sister in law. Since that time it has been multiple days a week some weeks and other weeks only a day or two. We are just starting to feel like we are somewhat back to normal at our house due to falling behind on everything here as well. I keep reminding our kids (and myself) when we want to feel sorry for ourselves because Lareen has been gone so much that this is a choice for us and that for Bryan's family - it isn't. They don't have a Mom now and we need to share and help.
The latest and greatest on this particular issue is that we have found a nice little farm home that is about 2 miles from our house and they are planning to move out here so we can help easier. Currently they live 40 minutes away from us and that makes it even further for Lareen's parents and oldest sister who lived much further than that. So with this change their kids will be close enough to basically spend the summer at our home and when school starts next year they can come here after school. It will be great for them financially as well since the owners of the home are really giving them a great deal.
We also had another funeral just this past month. Lareen's Grandmother passed away. Her husband had passed a couple of years back and she was ready so it was truly a blessing. A totally different funeral - a celebration of her life. Lareen and her sister Tally were called on to do the flowers for both funerals - what a blessing that they are so talented and could share that talent with their family in these times of need.
On a brighter note - Logan's Young Women's volleyball team took 2nd place in their tournament and Jarom's basketball team tied for first place. Hannah has just started soccer and her first game is this next week.
Lareen's health is holding up amazingly well given the added stress and pressure and we truly feel that it is a "Tender Mercy" from the Lord that she is doing so well. I am very busy between running for Treasurer and things with BlueLine. I have a website up for my candidacy www.2CTreasurer.com is my "campaign" site. If you want to see what I'm up to on that front you can check out the site.
The kids are on spring break and really enjoying their "time off" and so are we. It is nice to take a bit of a break from the daily grind of getting to school on time (barely) and homework. We had a number of cousin or friend sleep-overs and the kids have just had a ball. With all of our lovely rain we have plenty of extra water running down our stream and the kids love playing in the mud and building damns and getting stuck in the mud. Lareen is trying to keep up with all the muddy clothes and the laundry - which is not an easy thing! We are grateful for a high capacity, front load washing machine :-) it certainly helps. When we have time to sit and watch a show in the evening we all sit and fold clothes together - fun family time!
It was sure great to listen to a Prophet of God during the General Conference broadcast. We are certainly blessed to live in a time that we can partake of the wisdom and counsel of the many great leaders of the Church in such a convenient manner. We enjoyed having a TiVo so we could pause and rewind and make sure we caught important things. It made the General Conference experience even better! We also recorded all of them so that Lareen can replay them while she is home instead of needing to wait for the CD's or the Ensign to review the points she would like to.
I'd better close this and join my family for dinner.
Brian & Lareen Packer Family
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