On Monday of this week, Beth and I got to check out the new Primary Children's Hospital location in Lehi. It's a half-hour closer to us than the one in Salt Lake City! There's also lots of parking and in a beautiful setting. All good! It wasn't fun to be in a room for hours while they took samples of Beth's blood every half hour. And it wasn't fun that they had a super hard time getting her blood to flow well for those samples. But it was great that we were able to get the test done. As I suspected, her growth hormone is very low even when stimulated. We hear from her doctor next week. Hopefully insurance will cooperate and we'll be able to give her HGH soon! And then hopefully it will help increase her energy and endurance. Those are the things to pray for!

We also found out on Monday that Kevin had COVID again. He started getting really sick on Sunday. It's great he went to the doc on Monday and was able to catch it so soon. The meds they have for it now are super helpful, though he didn't start feeling an improvement until Thursday and still isn't 100%, it's been a much quicker recovery than it might've been.

On Wednesday, Ben played in a short tournament to finish out the Utah Youth Tennis he's been doing. He played twice and lost twice, but his second match was much, much better. He had some great shots! I think he just needs some time playing with Cali and Chey and he'll be unstoppable. :) 

Thursday and Friday was fall break so No School! On Thursday, Sarah and Megan planned a Halloween party that we had at Sarah's because Kevin was sick. She made us all spaghetti dinner! Megan made caramel apples. Savannah showed us "Over the Garden Wall." It was a super-duper autumn celebration.

On Friday, we woke up to SNOW! WHAT??? 

But, never fear, Sarah and Megan were planning fun stuff for us again, and they got us all to go to an 11 a.m. showing of the movie Wild Robot. It was a good movie and we all liked it--even those who had to sit on the front row! 

From Friday night to Saturday night, Claire and Annaliese came over and hung out with Beth and Ben all day and they had a good time together. 

On Saturday, I got some house things done. Kevin got to watch football. We got to hang out with Mariah for awhile that night, too!

This morning, Ben got his patriarchal blessing! What a beautiful experience. There's nothing like a patriarchal blessing to make you think about the eternal nobility of your children--and also to see their lives flash before your eyes! For a moment, you see the adult decades of your child's life and the possibilities that lie ahead of them. It's humbling, and you realize once again what a privilege it is to be their parents and to be part of their lives. You feel that what you do is so so important and also not important at all because they will make their own choices, and also, God is there helping things turn out how they should. It's all pretty dang amazing and unfathomably immense, and I love that we get to have moments like these. Then after it's over, I love that I get to come back to the present moment where he's a teenager and I'm his mom and I promise myself to try to soak it up before he's on to the next chapters in his life. What a great kid!