Back to the Grind

Early the morning of January 1st, 2009 brought the end to a fun ten days of family togetherness. That morning Ladd and I took Emily, her daughter, Macey, and my mother, Karen Smoot to the Charlotte International Airport for an early morning flight back to the snow and cold of Utah. It was a sad day for us. It is the same sort of feeling you feel the day you take your Christmas tree down. I was a bit draggy that morning since the night before, Ladd and I had chaperoned our church's youth dance until 1:00 a.m. in the morning. We got home around 1:30 a.m., I had one last one-on-one visit with my mom, got to bed around 2:30 a.m. and up at 4:45 a.m. The 4:45 a.m. time is usually not a problem for me because that is the time I get up every weekday morning to get ready for my early morning seminary class but the fact that I had not got into bed until 2:30 a.m. made for a more of a long nap verses a night's sleep. I was able to come home and catch an additional hour of sleep but then I heard grand-daughter #2, Addison awake and I thought to myself, "I have just got to get up and play with that baby before she takes off back to Tennessee." So that is exactly what I did. We played for a few minutes and then I began to clean and straighten our messy house in preparation for a visit from some great friends from Darlington, SC, Brian and Rita Jordan who were stopping in for a visit. They were in Charlotte to visit Rita's aunt and paid us the courtesy of coming to see us too. It was fun to catch up on old times from our days in Florence.



Later that afternoon, one more trip to the airport to take Mike and Lynsee and daughter, Addison to catch their flight to Nashville, TN. They live in Jackson which is approximately 1 1/2 hours west of Nashville. It was also hard to see them go since we have been spoiled over the last year of having them only 3 hours away in Charleston, SC. We got a chance to see them almost every long weekend. That will not be the case now. For us, Jackson will be a nine hour drive.



We are now back to the thick of school, seminary, wrestling, & winter track meets. And of course---HOMEWORK!!! With only 2 1/2 weeks left in the semester, it is starting to pile up a bit---YUCK!!!



We got a surprise visit from our daughter, Heather Edwards from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She and her husband, Blaine had to drive to Atlanta, GA for Blaine to attend four days of training seminars for his company Georgia Pacific. Heather decided to drive the four hours from Atlanta to Charlotte to visit with us rather than spend that time sitting in a boring hotel room. It was been having her here.



Our daughter, Ashley moved home during the holidays from Provo, Utah. She has been interviewing this week with dental offices hoping to get a job soon. She graduated in March with a certification in dental assisting. The job scene is beginning to look a bit more positive since she had three call-backs with interviews this week-----YEAH!!!



Tonight is our first wrestling matches since the Christmas break. Alex's last match that was just before Christmas proved to be an eventful one. He had just finished warming up and was getting ready to wrestle when all of a sudden he dropped to the floor with terrible chest pain. He has suffering with a sharp stabbing pain, sweating profusely, and tears were coming from his eyes. Alex is one tough kid so when he was crying and complaining of the intense pain I was, needless to say, VERY concerned. The pain began to get more intense, there was no trainer at the school we were wrestling. Needless to say, we ended up calling an ambulance and rushing him to the ER at Carolinas Medical Center---Pineville. After an EKG and a chest x-ary were performed and all was found to be normal, Alex was released from the hospital that night. What a scarey thing. I was relieved that it was not his heart but yet they couldn't tell me what it was either so the unknown is also a bit scarey. Time will tell if it happens again.