February 2026

 We started February as we usually do, celebrating Kori's birthday.  This year, we knew it could be a hard day for us, so we did everything we could to make it happy and not hard.  Russ and I worked.  And then at 3:30, we ditched out and headed over to the St. George Temple.  

We met Mom and Dad and Gracie, Grant and Kailee 2 there too and we did an endowment session.  It was so SO good.  

Then we met the rest of the family at Cafe Sabor, for some good ole Mexican Food

and lots of guacamole just as Kori would have wanted.  

It was a very good day, we all said it several times.

A cute young women's group left this on my car.

It made me feel so good.  

The next big event in February was PROM.

Peyton was asked to Prom like 4 months ago. 

They boys felt like they needed to lock in their dates.

I said "do you even think you will still be friends in four months?"

Well they were thank goodness.

They are even better friends than they were four months ago, 

boys are cool like that. 

She practiced dribbling while we were waiting for Easton to arrive

She had a fantastic night.  She was so happy while she was telling us

all about the events.

Her friends are such a great group of girls. 

They are not typical, dramatic, back biting, mean girls. 

They are so sweet to each other and they are super supportive.

Easton was the perfect gentleman.

He opened the door for her and told her she looked super pretty. 

They danced the night away (she even slow danced and said it was okay.)

They made homemade pizzas in a pizza oven.

I pulled off 3 more decorating projects in February.

One was a monster house out in Desert Color. 

I thought it turned out really well and I appreciated the opportunity.

The rest of February was a total blur for me.

I am so sorry to the rest of the family who was having events and fun things going

on in their lives.  I was there in body, but I was completely out of my mind for nearly the

entire second half of the month.

This was the last day where I felt normal, good, whole, happy and pain free. 

In January, I broke my very back upper right tooth eating a peanut. 

A mistake I will never make again.

Nevertheless, my tooth broke right in half.

The biggest chunk of tooth just fell right off. 

I wasn't in any pain physically, but mentally I was a wreck.

It was super upsetting. 

I immediately made an appointment to be seen by my wonderful dentist.

So sorry, he said, that you have broken your tooth on a Friday.

I don't work on Fridays, but I will see you first thing Monday morning.

I ate very gingerly on only my left side all weekend and felt very sorry for myself.

Finally it was Monday and I met with him and he told me that his suggestion would be 

to extract the broken tooth and put an implant in it's place. 

That sounded HORRIBLE, but somehow not as devastating as a root canal that would be an hour and a half of endless, non stop drilling to be followed with a crown that wasn't guarenteed to last longer than 10 years and I'd be right back here doing this plan.

And unfortunately, he said,  I don't do this kind of work, so he referred me to a place that does.  

I set up the appointment and planned to be sedated completly for the surgery.

 

THEN..... 

I proceded to have 4 days of intense vertigo (most likely due to the stress) and the thought of being sedated and then waking up from that in most likely a full spin was incomprehensible.  

So I decided to be brave and be awake during the procedure.

And the nice dentist felt and had compassion on my anxiety and perscribed a nice little gift of valium for me to take prior to the extraction.

Day of surgery.

I woke up and took my lovely drugs, Raleigh gave me a lovely blessing and we drove over to the doctor's office on a beautiful rainy day with a mix of snow flurries and really low hanging clouds. It was the most perfect of days.  I wish that I could have enjoyed it more, but I was too nervous and upset to even appreciate it.  

The procedure went as well as it could have.

It didn't hurt at all.

I was very relaxed and happy by the time the doctor got to work.

I told him many times that he "was so nice and wasn't hurting me at all."

I took the rest of the day off and laid in my bed and listened to the rain while the valium wore off.

And that was a really nice day for me

I did pretty well on that Wednesday and Thursday the next day too.

But then on Thursday night at 6:00 my pain suddenly went from a 4/10 to a 9/10 and climbing

in 30 minutes and I was in excruciating, unbearable, unbelievable pain for the rest of the night.

I couldn't sleep. 

Medication (tylenol only) would give me maybe two hours of relief. 

I was completely miserable.

FRIDAY MORNING (I found some Oxycodone from my back injury in 2022)

I put all of my eggs in the Oxycodone basket I knew I would be sick from it, but 

I if it could help me get some sleep, I was to the point where I was willing to risk it. 

No improvement

and now I had nausea in addition to indescribable pain. 

 FRIDAY NIGHT (after I had cried at least 20 different times)

Sidenote Disclaimer:

I have given birth to seven children....  2 of them without medication.... 3 of them were C-sections.

I have had my gall bladder removed

and I have survived a muscular, skeletal, full back sprain.

Not to mention I have two chronic conditions where vertigo is the leading side effect. 

I am not a wimp.

But this was without a doubt the most pain I have ever been in my entire life.

And it rocked my world and made be feel like a little baby. 

This was me ALL DAY SATURDAY...

And then at 9:30pm on Saturday I took some Advil and 

for some unknown reason that wimpy little over the counter drug seemed to do the trick.

finally....  some....  relief.

It was crazy that 400 mg of Advil did more to stop the

pain than OXYCODONE?

Pain was 3/10 again.

And I slept for the first time in three nights.

On Sunday, I was finally able to eat, sit up, go to church, partially feel happy...

so we made a good, soft dinner and the kids were helpful.

Peyton asked Easton to Preferrence and he answered her YES

She opened her gift in my room, so I could see.

We attended the temple for ward temple night on the last Friday night of the month.

Our temple (Red Cliffs) was closed for maintence, so we went to The Saint George Temple. 

It was a wonderful night and the temple was so gorgeous against the dark sky

Raleigh loved these trees 

For the rest of the month...  my pain level was a 3/10.

My bottom lip has been numb since the procedure.

I can feel it wearing off more and more each day.

I am assuming that it is because I am so swollen and as the swelling 

wears off, so will the numbness. 

The sad part is that the numbness didn't help mask the pain in the slightest.

It only just made me feel agitated and on edge.

I feel badly that I was missing in action for most of the month.

And that I was not a very good patient.

I was blubbery and weak and so sad for 10 days. 

I know people were doing things, but I wasn't with it enough to document.

Here is hoping that March will bring with it better health and loads of fun things to write about.  

I cannot believe we are through February already.  That is such great news for me. 

January and February are not fun months.

Here we are almost to Spring. 

We are busily planning a trip to New York.  I can't wait. 

The kids just wrapped up Quarter 3.  That's crazy.

We have a couple of pretty big ward/stake changes that will happen in the next month. 

That is always exciting.