This has been a very interesting year. It's been full of learning. It's been full of growth. It's been full of perspective.
I know it's the last day of November 2015, but I am still catching up from the spring. I believe this lunch I'm writing about today happened in May....
Cute Liz, Addy's mom, has been trying to adjust. She finds so much joy in spending time with Addy's friends. This isn't new. She was quite involved with Addy's friend group before she passed away. She's the fun mom. Always letting them come over to her house, eat all her food and stay as late as they want. She always organized the night games and drove the car for 'fugitive' a night game where the kids hide around the neighborhood and try to sneak back to home base without being seen by the 'car' If seen, then they are supposed to get in the car and help find the other kids.
Maybe this lunch happened in April....Addy's birthday is in April. The Clingers had a party. They invited neighbors and ward members for an open house and then later had the kids over to play fugitive and hang out in their newly finished basement. The basement is what they focused on all these long months. It gave them a goal and something to look forward to.
The party went all well and good. That morning they went to the temple to do Addy's initatory. That's when I took Sydney to go do baptisms for the dead.
Anyway! Liz wanted to take the girls to lunch one day. This involved me and well as other moms putting Liz on our 'emergency contact list' at the jr high so she could check the girls out. She came and picked up the girls at their lunch hour. I was still there talking to Mylissa, Maddie's mom, when the girls all came out and piled in Liz's truck. I was still talking to Mylissa about a half hour later when we saw Liz and the girls drive by. I texted Sydney and asked what was going on...that they weren't going to make it back by the time lunch was over. Sydney said that Liz went to the high school and picked up her daughter Trinity, then back to the elementary to pick up her daughter Victoria (the elementary school and jr high are back to back). This also made too many kids in her truck and not enough seat belts. I wasn't happy. Then, they went to Farmington for lunch.
Later, we found out that they were gone for 2 hours. I also had Sydney text me and say Liz wanted to take the girls out for the rest of the school day and I said no way! Later Liz told me the girls wanted her to. I'm not sure who to believe. It's been a hard transition to being fully supportive of anything Liz wants to do and wanting to help her heal and helping Sydney start moving forward. Missing school is not ok. I was back at the school that afternoon because the waffle trucks were there and I met Amanda and Ty to get waffles. The principal, Mr Hogge, stopped me and talked to me about Liz taking the girls out of school. He said it's been hard for them trying to be supportive and still run the school like a school. We came to the conclusion that the girls won't leave for lunch again and that Liz is welcome to bring lunch to the school to a conference room if she wants to have lunch again. It's been better, but it was hard. There have to be some lines drawn and it feels mean when we know their whole family is suffering. We have had to remember that Sydney, even though everyone feels like she is, is not part of their family. We need to help her learn how to move forward. More to come on this....but these pictures are cute and I wanted to post them :)
