Little entrepreneurs on the prairie

We are sorry we missed the great get together. We love you all and are still praying for you, Kirk and Cherrie and nanay. I am posting a few pictures. One of Grace on her blessing day. One of Ben's pinning on Captain (I am so proud of him). And one of the little entrepreneurs on the prairie. A couple of weeks ago we had a yard sale. The boys wanted to participate, so we decided they could do a cookie and lemonade stand. They decided not to set a price, but to ask for donations only and just give them out. Very smart! People thought they were so cute. The boys would say, "You can have a cookie. It is free, or you can just make a donation if you want." Some people paid $5 for one cookie! They worked hard, paid me $5 dollars for supplies and still made a profit of $28. Amazing!
We are doing well and enjoying some nice weather here in Minot, finally. Darcee and Darryl and Porter should definitely come visit us here. We just barely got to 80.
Ben got a call yesterday informing him that his brother, Richard, was racing motorcycles, and crashed and then was run over. He is in the hospital and not well at all. He has broken 12 of 13 ribs, his scapula, clavicle, 2 lumbar vertebrates and one cervical vertebrate. He also punctured a lung and broke his breastbone. They don't know if he is going to have some paralysis or not. They are doing some surgery today. He has a wife and 4 children and no medical insurance. Needless to say, we are worried for them and would appreciate any prayers in their behalf.
Tragedies do occur, but we are so thankful for the gospel perspective that we have! We are so thankful for loving and supportive family and for all the blessings that the Lord gives to us. He loves us. He loves Nanay and her family and Richard and his family. I love Him for loving us so much and when I focus on that, I am happy despite temporal, temporary circumstances. We are eternal beings, and we can be an eternal family. Cause for celebration!

we are back in phoenix

so, we are home now. it's nice to be in our own beds....but that is about it. we pulled in around 11pm (12 utah time) and it was 98 degrees outside. our first day home (yesterday) was 113 degrees. the record high in 1887 was 114. so we came home to "extreme heat warnings" and today is supposed to be close to the same....in fact...the temps are going to slowly drop over the week and by next tuesday we should get all the way down to a high of 108! so, porter is frustrated already....stuck in our house...no outside, no stairs, no cousins. poor kid!
it was so good to see everyone (sorry we couldn't go on to N. Dakota, pooh!). thank you especially david and susan for making an effort to come see us. i know it was expensive and totally chaotic for you. but we really enjoyed seeing you and your kids! and porter loved seeing so many cousins. porter is still talking about our trip. we keep hearing "grandma granpa benge's house," "uncle bret trailer," "uncle devin," "kirk cherrie," "no K.C.!" "toby lily kyle baby dedek," "dave," "uncle david," "nikki etan aaabelle," "playground" "swimming," and he recognizes even more of you all in the pictures we have now. it's so cute. i'll email and post some photos as soon as i get them off the camera.

Cherrie's mom had a stroke

As most of you probably already know, Cherrie's mom Anita (Nanay) had a major brain hemorrhage on Saturday night at about 6 o'clock. It turns out that she has a large AVM (Artereo-Venous Malformation)just like Devin. These malformations have weak walls which is why it hemorrhaged.

At first she didn't have any symptoms other than a sudden excruciating, debilitating headache. For about fifteen minutes we were with her, talking to her, trying to figure out what was wrong, we even took her blood pressure, but she didn't have any other stroke symptoms, just the headache. So we were left to either dial 911, run her to the emergency room (about 15 minutes away) or run to the insta-care clinic in Bountiful (about 10 or minutes away). I was afraid of going to a busy emergency room and getting ignored as the "Lady with a headache", so I left Cherrie and the kids and drove with Nanay and Tatay to the Insta-care clinic. Nanay was still talking to us the whole trip, but as soon as we started to get out of the car, she stopped talking and starting mumbling. She had lost all strength and could barely stand up. We hurried her into the lobby, and we were lucky that nobody was there. Just as we got inside, she started vomiting, and lost all strength in her legs. I yelled at the receptionist that she was having a stroke and everyone in the clinic jumped on it. Within a minute she was on a gurney and being evaluated by two doctors and several nurses. They're response was awesome, and they got her stats and info as they started loading her into an ambulance. It just so happened that our very good friend, Alili Perez, was also in the clinic at that moment, and she came over and got my keys to lock my car and take Tatay home while I climbed in the ambulance with Nanay.
We drove to IMC in Murray while the ambulance team stabilized her and contacted a stroke team at IMC to be ready for us. They put did a CT scan to see if the stroke was a "bleeder" (hemorrhage) or a clot. It was a bleeder, but they also thought that there was something else there too, so they put her on medicine to help control the brain inflammation and keep her blood pressure low while they did further MRI's and angiograms to see what was going on. They found that she had an AVM which sort of changed all the treatment options. If there had been no AVM they would have tried to get in and relieve the pressure immediately, but with an AVM they needed to stabilize her and let the bleeding stop on its own so that they could evaluate where to cut without causing more uncontrollable bleeding. On Monday they performed an angiogram/embolizaton (just like on Devin), where they blocked of the major feeder veins to the AVM.
On Tuesday they performed surgery to remove the clot formed by the blood which had pooled as well as the veins and arteries of the AVM itself. She is still recovering from that. She has weakness on her right side and still isn't able to talk, but the doctors are hopeful that she will make a pretty good recovery and be able to regain some of those functions.
Cherrie and I feel really blessed. We were supposed to go down south for two days to celebrate Cherrie's graduation from the dental assisting program, but Cherrie had a feeling we shouldn't go, that something might happen. Wow was she right. I can't imagine what would have happened if we had been 4 hours away when this happened.



What a change from the way she looked a week ago.

Cup of Tea

"One day my mother was out and my dad was in charge of me. I was maybe 2 1/2 years old and had just recovered from an accident. Someone had given me a little 'tea set' as a get-well gift and it was one of my favorite toys.

"Daddy was in the living room engrossed in the evening news when I brought Daddy a little cup of 'tea', which was just water. After several cups oftea and lots of praise for such yummy tea, my Mom came home. My Dad made her wait in the living room to watch me bring him a cup of tea, because it was 'just the cutest thing!'

"My Mom waited, and sure enough, here I come down the hall with a cup of tea for Daddy and she watches him drink it up. Then she says, (as only a mother would know... :) 'Did it ever occur to you that the only place that baby can reach to getwater is the toilet?' "

(Cousin Rick Benge sent me this.)

Cute picture

I thought this picture was really cute, and wanted to share :) Sounds like you had some fun this weekend Kirk. Glad no one was hurt.