Four Month Anniversary of Larry's Passing

November 27, 2022 - December 26, 2022

This month has been filled with a roller coaster of emotions--Happiness, Sadness, Joy...

We started this month off right with a trip to Downata Hot Springs! This is one of my favorite happy places where I go to exercise, relax, and just enjoy the great outdoors!!!

The first Sunday of every December in our church our leaders give what they call a "First Presidency Christmas Devotional". This year we went to our good friends, The Robert's, house to watch it. As we usually have watched it at home together as a family, it was good to be in a different atmosphere where we weren't reminded quite so much of Larry's absence. After the devotional their very talented teenage daughter, Danika, offered to paint my nails. I love how they turned out and I was amazed at her perfectionistic "Y" that she free-handed from a picture off of the internet. My nails used to be very strong and grow really fast. I have noticed that my nail growth, my hair growth, and my sleep patterns have been out of wack since Larry's death and the last couple of months of his life. I have been taking supplements to help compensate for some of these things and I will know that I am starting to heal when these things start to equalize once again.

Last year for Christmas Larry gave me season tickets to The Old Barn Theater in Fielding, Utah because he knows how much I enjoy going to plays. Sadly, he was only able to attend one of those plays with me.😢 Luckily, my children ❤ to go to the plays. The play that we attended this month was "The Christmas Carol". Nate, Rachel, and Rachel's friend, Anslea, were my play buddies for this performance. The play was wonderful, but driving home in the fog through Logan not so much.😟

SNOW, SNOW, & MORE SNOW!!! I am so grateful for such good neighbor boys, and their dad, who came over to plow my lane during these storms. Larry was always so good at keeping our lane clear and keeping on top of the snow. Not only did he plow out our driveway, but he would plow for our neighbors across the street. We are both really feeling Larry's absence this year.

Progress on the ACE Store. The store continues to go up, slowly, but surely. As part of this project Enoch and I took a weekend trip with our business partner, Ben, to McCall Idaho to discuss our upcoming business and tour another ACE store. We also had the opportunity to stay at his beautiful cabin. It was such a blessing getting to know Ben better and having time to discuss our project. Ben, and his brother Brad, have been such a blessing in our lives in so many ways and I am so grateful to Heavenly Father for bringing them into our lives.

Bekah moves home from college! Going to college two weeks after her dad (her best friend) passed away was so hard for Bekah. Even though there were several bumps in the road, I am so proud of Bekah for doing hard things, facing her fears, and finishing out the semester. There have been many lessons learned and I am so grateful to Jen for always being there for us. It was super fun to meet up with all of the cousins for lunch after our long day of packing and cleaning. The boy next to Bekah in the picture is Hunter. Hunter was a very kind friend to Bekah whom she was able to go on a couple of dates with before coming home.

A much needed bowling night out with the kids. I love our bowling alley, "Pop 'N Pins". You even get to keep score the old fashioned way with good old pen and paper. This is where part of the movie "Napoleon Dynamite" was filmed.

Night out with the Telford's. Lain and Tyler have been such good friends since we moved here. They have taught all of my older kids, and many kids from our community, to dance. I have not been dancing in a very long time so it was very fun for me to get out and do some dancing! I honestly am not a very good dancer, but luckily Enoch is very good at leading. After dancing we went to their house and enjoyed some good adult conversation and laughs in the hot tub.

I have a good friend that recently dropped these gifts off in conjunction with Larry's passing. These gifts were very much appreciated and I especially loved receiving them several months after his passing. The one lesson that I learned from being on the receiving end of these gifts is that when your loved one first passes away you are inundated with visits, cards, money, and gifts. The gifts that come later are very much appreciated and needed.

Banana, nut, chocolate chip muffins. I finally did some baking again! These were one of Larry's and one of my kids favorites--bananas, freshly ground whole wheat, fresh farm eggs, coconut oil, honey, walnuts, chocolate chips baked in stone wear and served with fresh cows milk--Yummy Perfection!

Ashley's Farewell. We have another missionary going out! Bekah's cousin, Ashley, was called to serve in the San Diego, CA mission and left the week before Christmas.

Last Tuesday I received a phone call from my cousin, Kerry (who lives three hours away from me), while I was working in Malad. She ask where I was. I told her I was at work. She said that she and her husband, Cliff, had driven out to my house to surprise me with some Christmas gifts and a visit. They ended up driving back to Malad and meeting me for lunch. It was so great to visit with them and catch up. 

As we got to visiting I was sharing an experience with them that I had with Larry during one of my weekly temple visits. I was actually able to feel him with me and it was such a strong and powerful feeling I will never forget. After I shared my experience Cliff shared an experience that he had also had with Larry, shortly after his passing, that made me cry because it made Larry's spiritual presence so real to me. Larry and I met Cliff when he started dating my cousin, Kerry, while we were living in Provo. Cliff and Larry always had a special bond and it was so cool to hear that the bond was still strong beyond the grave. Cliff and Kerry's surprise visit was one of the highlights of my Christmas this year.

This experience with Kerry reminded me of some beautiful and powerful thoughts that a friend shared with me from Wendy Nelson's book called "The Covenant Keepers". "Ask for angels to help you. This help is always available to those who keep their covenants. As we keep our covenants, the angels will not be able to be restrained from being our associates. I'm not talking about praying to angels. I'm talking about praying to our Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ for those on the other side to be dispatched to assist us. Perhaps a departed loved one could be sent to help you with whatever you need. Ask for angels (aka your ancestors and other loves ones) to help you with whatever you need or ask them to be dispatched to help those you love! As a covenant keeping man or woman, you can do that!"

Having some Christmas break fun at the 3-D movie "Puss in Boots".

I finished reading the Book of Mormon on Christmas day as a challenge from the Stake Presidency from our last Stake Conference. Larry and I had started reading it together before he passed. Larry would ask me to read out loud to him every night before we went to bed. I just continued reading where we had left off. Finishing what Larry and I had started before he passed, was another great blessing of closure for me.

One of the tools that I use often to help cope with the grief is meditation. One of the nuggets from one of my favorite meditations states: "You will not be able to spend hours together, but they will now be with you always. No matter where you are, or what you are doing, all you will have to do is call and their presence and love will be at your side. Feel this knowledge envelope you warming you to the core like a mug of apple cider on a cold day. Your loved one wants you to know that they are not abandoning you, they are becoming closer, more tied to you, but in a different way. The hardest part of this process is adjusting to this difference of constant presence, but physical absence. They cannot do the work for you, but they will be next to you every step of the way supporting and encouraging you."

Christmas 2022

Our traditional Christmas letter was quite solemn this year...

Christmas Tree Set-Up: by Mom, Rachel, & Nate

Santa's Yearly Visit to the Clifton Community Center. This year it was just Nate, Rachel, & I (Rachel opted out of being in the picture this year), quite the change from the first year we moved to this area in 2016. While attending this year I had a friend tell me that she remembered the first year we were here (which was 2016) and we got our pictures taken in our cute reindeer Christmas pajamas. I had forgotten about that picture so I came home and found it. What fun memories!!!

Larry Ward Family 2016

The Annual Harold B. Lee Elementary Christmas Program. I can't believe that Nate is my last one to go through this amazing elementary school. He participated in the honor choir this year so he sang in several of the songs that were performed. He really enjoyed it up until they had the final long practice and he had to miss his recess time.😏Here is a picture and a couple of the videos from the performance. 

Rachel's Annual Dance Performance. Rachel has been dancing with Noelle's dance team since we moved here in 2016. Being part of this team has been a great blessing in Rachel's life. Sorry the videos got cut off. I ran out of storage space on my phone.

Our traditional Christmas Eve Dinner. Larry was there in Spirit and Dallin, Alyssa, and Addie were enjoying their time with the Kelly family in Florida.

 After dinner we watched our traditional Luke 2 followed by writing down our gifts to give to baby Jesus. I wanted to keep things light this year so for our traditional Christmas pj's I gave everybody "What About Bob T-Shirts" and we watched the movie "What About Bob" which was one of Larry's favorite movies. I missed hearing his laugh during the movie, but it was fun to watch it and remember some of the good memories and laughs that we shared together.

My original plan was for the kids to get up on Christmas morning, open their stockings, go to church at 10:30 and then come home and open presents. When I mentioned the idea, I thought their was going to be mutiny in the house, not by my 9 year old son, but rather by my 22 year old son, Spencer. He told me that I was ruining all of the fun of Christmas and that he wanted to open presents first thing in the morning! So the deal was that everybody had to be ready for church by 9 so that we would have 1 hour to open presents. It actually worked pretty well. Some of the gifts that were exchanged included...

A book called "Life is a Journey: Hardships to Blessings"written by Colten J. Skinner, a fellow warrior who also has ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T). I can't wait to read it! I love inspirational books.

As a family we received the book called "The Walnut Tree". It is the story of the pulpit being built in the tabernacle in Salt Lake City. I just recently learned that our business partners, Ben and Brad Banks, were the ones who built the pulpit. 

Our family loves to play games together. After playing this fun game "Word On The Street" at our friends house Santa decided that we needed one of our own.

Molly received a sewing machine. As Molly is so incredibly creative and talented, we are expecting great creations to come from this!

Much to their mother's dismay, my boys have gotten into motorcycle riding (ugh!). Enoch and Molly went in together and surprised Spencer with a helmet and a very high quality headphone set that goes inside of the helmet. Spencer was very pleasantly and happily surprised.

Bekah designed and had printed matching sweatshirts for her and Ben.

Each of the younger four children received one of these memory books where you open it up and it plays the video of Larry's life that was played at his funeral. At the end of the video I had them put an audio recording of the last father's blessing that Larry gave to them, which he gave just a few days before he passed.

Gifts from Aunt Tina. My Aunt Tina, who is super busy and has seven children of her own, gave each of us a box full of gifts which included an ornament, with the following poem on it for each of us. We are so grateful for the Aunt Tina's in our lives.

We usually get a new ornament for our tree every year. This was our ornament for 2022...

My favorite gift was the one that Spencer gave to Molly which was a love song he wrote for her.

We ended our Christmas day in Malad visiting and playing with family.