Memorable Memorial Day Sunday

My grandmother Meredith lives next door to my parents in Mapleton. It was a beautiful Sabbath morning, and she was just putting the finishing touches on the talk she was preparing for Sacrament Meeting. Her brother, Vearl and his wife Ella had come down for the occaision and were packing up in preperations to head back to Boise after church. With luggage in both hands, 89 year-old Vearl was just reaching the top of the stairs when he lost his balance and fell backwards down the stairs. Crawling to a nearby chair, he climbed back to his feet and insisted he was just fine.

Not long after my mom sat down in the computer chair to help Grandma with the printing her talk. Grandma walked in the room and tripped over the chair mat on the floor. My mom saw Grandma falling and reached out to catch her, but ended up falling, too. Grandma konked the back of her head on the corner of the desk pretty good. She sat there on the floor awhile to regain her bearings, and Mom noticed some blood on her shirt. Mom quickly returned with a towel to clean the wound.

A half an hour later Grandma was standing in front of the congregation giving her talk on Patriotism in Sacrament Meeting. Mattie Rae sat on the stand with her in case she was needed when the shock wore off. Grandma delivered a beautiful talk. After Sacrament meeting, Mom had a nurse in the ward take a look at Grandma's head. The nurse said Grandma needed stitches. "Okay," Grandma reluctantly agreed. Mom took her straight to an urgent care center where the doctor gave her 5 staples to close the wound.

Grandma took a nap after church (she was tired from staying up past midnight the night before when Vearl and Ella were lost trying to find her house), but she was just as cheerful as could be when she came over to have Sunday dinner with us. What an amazing lady.

After dinner we visited and relaxed. Brynlee loves the stairs, but I am not confident in her abilities, so we always lay a bench on it's side across the top of the stairs so I can relax a bit. Brynlee was playing happily with a little football as I watched from the living room. I looked over just in time to see her throw the football down the stairs, reach for it so far that she fell over the bench and down the stairs. I jumped up and ran over to the stairs to get her. Luckily, there is a landing about 4 steps down so I didn't think she'd fall far. She landed so close to the next flight of stairs that I couldn't grab her before she continued to fall. I was taking 3 and 4 steps at a time to try to catch up with her. My nephew, Ethan was playing at the bottom of the stairs and heard the commotion and caught her just a few stairs shy of the bottom (about the same time I reached her, too). (Don't worry. Brynlee posed for this picture later in the evening.)

So,we notice a storm is rolling in as it is getting later in the evening, so Rick has Ian go outside to bring in his shoes. As he comes in, I hear him yell out unexpectedly. I hop up and run over, and find Ian kneeling on the ground cradling his hand doing all he can do to hold in his tears. Because a window was open on the other side of the house, the wind forced the door shut with his fingers in the way. I took him into the bathroom and gave him a bag of frozen peas (we used all the ice at dinner). Ian recovered quickly and is just fine.

So, Mattie Rae and I go downstairs to let Brynlee play with toys while we visit. The storm has arrived and it is raining pretty heavily. We talk about how crazy this day has been with all the freak accidents. Mattie Rae notices that the carped is a little darker near the door to the outside stairwell. So, we get some towels, and when we return, I notice that water is coming in quickly from under the door.

Mattie Rae runs up and tells Dad, and he springs into action. The gutter was clogged and the water was pouring into the stairwell. At the base of the stairs, there was about 8 inches of water pooled. Dad worked to clean out the gutter, and Rick and Braxton worked on draining the pool with buckets. Rick was at the base with a gallon bucket filling a 5 gallon bucket. When it was full, Braxton would carry it up the stairs and dump it in the grass while Rick filled another one. Everyone was trying to help somehow. I helped by taking pictures.

They finally got it under control and Braxton and Becky decided it was a beautiful night to throw the football around.

We mosied into the front yard to see that the street was flooded as well. Water completely covered the sidewalk and was up to the grass. Braxton and Becky put on rubber boots and ventured out into the pool with shovels to clear the drain. They found it and there was nothing in the way, so there was nothing we could do.

Braxton's little Honda Civic was parked there, so Braxton moved it to higher ground, and my kids thought this was their chance to help out. They got buckets and filled them and then dumped the water on the grass. They had such a great time and were so wet.

That's stuff memories are made of.