Grandma Leary

Grandma Leary has been gone just over a year. Kind of crazy how time flies.

This picture has been my computer background for a year. One of our favorite things to do every year was to go rake her leaves. This was the last time we ever got to do that. I certainly didn't think it would be the last when I took the photo.

She was such a fixture in our lives, coming out to our home every month. Often she would sit with my kids at the piano and try to teach them her methods. She loved to do puzzles and talk. Often we would pick her up and drive her to family functions.

Oh, we miss her.

Thanksgiving

I'm so grateful for this week of Thanksgiving that segues to a celebration of our Savior's birth. Love this time of year, but more importantly love the baby who gave us a reason to celebrate. Hosanna to God and the Lamb.

The day started out with a quasi fun run on one of the most beautiful Thanksgiving mornings I can remember. You would have thought we lived in Phoenix, except you can see snow on the mountains. How grateful I am to live in such a beautiful world. Sunrises and sunsets are some of my favorite things.

All this race cost us was a can of food and we brought several. Kiersten and Nate have had a goal all year long to run a 10K race. They aren't the easiest races to come by and it never came to fruition this summer. This little race put on by the Tooele Running Club had three races you could choose between: a 5K, a 10K, or a half marathon. I immediately said no to the half marathon. If I don't get a shirt and a medal at the end, it just isn't worth it. I'm only half serious about that last sentence.

So I opted for the 5K only because I haven't run in over a month. It's been hard to find time this month and I'm beginning to think my only time is at night, after I've got the kids bedded down. How grateful I am for a body that works and allows me to do so many wonderful things.

Kiersten and Nate chose the 10K and finished together. I'm so stinkin' proud of them. I love watching my kids set their own goals and accomplish them. I love being a mom! It is the most rewarding career there is and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

We've become the chauffeurs for Grandma Leary and love it. I'm grateful that my kids have had this opportunity to get to know their great grandma and she knows them as well. Tyler was pretty certain she had a Mt. Dew or two before we picked her up because she talked nonstop all the way there and all the way back.

What do you get when you take your car to the mechanic?

An afternoon chat with Grandma.

Tyler's uncle is our trusty mechanic who happens to do his repairs at Grandma's house. This time we needed our rear brake pads replaced. So while he worked Grandma and I talked.

She told me how her testimony was strengthened. She had always known the gospel was right and true growing up, "But you know how everyone needs to find out for themselves at some point." She had just been called into the young women program and was on a hike during girls camp when they went on ahead and she sat down on a rock and said a short prayer asking Heavenly Father to strengthen her testimony, to make it stronger.

Her thoughts immediately after that were that she needed to study more, especially the scriptures. She recounted to me how that one thought has made a huge difference in her life and how her testimony grew to become her own, not something she leaned on others for anymore.

[T]he moment you begin a serious study of the [scriptures], [y]ou will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the straight and narrow path. The scriptures are called "the words of life" (see D&C 84:85). . . . When you begin to hunger and thirst after those words, you will find life in greater and greater abundance.

--Ezra Taft Benson, Ensign, November 1986