One Week to MTC

I cannot begin to express how I am feeling right now. Pride, sadness, loss. I am so proud of Clinton and his desire to serve the Lord in Raleigh North Carolina. But he is my baby! I will love having him out and will look forward to seeing blessings flow into our family, but I am going to miss that child so much!
We have had some amazing experiences in the temple since he got his own endowments. We have gone to 4 sessions, 2 sealings and he went to do baptisms with the branch and had the priveledge to baptize Mindi! He loved that. I will cherish the time we have spent there.
We are going to spend this next weekend together camping..... KayLyn and Haylee will love that!!!! They will miss him so much.
I think we are done with all the preperations and will just focus on getting him packed and hope that his bags don't weigh more than 50 pounds each! He will be set apart next Monday or Tuesday and then we have to have him at the MTC by 1:00 Wednesday! WOW is all I can say, it came so fast. I love that boy!
At the end of Relief Society yesterday we sang the song How Firm a Foundation and just about started to cry right there. It says:
In every condition, in sickness in health, in poverty's vale or abounding in wealth, at home or abroad on the land or the sea, as thy days may demand so thy succor shall be.
Fear not I am with thee oh be not dismayed, For I am thy God and will still give thee aid. I'll strength thee, help thee and cause thee to stand, upheld by my rightous , omnipotent hand.
All I could do was think about him out there in NC serving his Heavenly Father. I know that God will be watching out for him, guiding him ,helping and blessing him in hard times and good times, in sickness or health, being held up by HIS omnipotent hand!
The other amazing experience I had while we were attending the temple with his good friend Matt who went through for his endowments,(he is going to Korea) , I was thinking about dropping Clinton off at the curb at the MTC and wondering if what I am feeling might be just a glimps of what Heavenly Father must have felt as He witnessed His Son enter the Garden of Gethsemene by Himself to do something that only He could do alone. In a sense, Clinton has to do this alone. But I have enough love for my Savior and Faith in Him to let Clinton do this!
My arms will ache for him , but will be flung wide ready to embrace him in 2 years~

Crib

Jack has not been in a crib for over 6 months! Today he climbed up into it by himself and put himself down for a nap. He is such a goof! The tag that is showing is on the blaket, his pants are not on backwards LOL

Fathers Day

We had such a wonderful weekend. Nate and Lissy's sealing and Clinton's Farewell on Fathers Day. Harold couldn't have asked for a better day. Mike and Kathy and Mom and Dad were here for both events! Dan and Sherie came with their kids, Jace and Heather, and Kylly and Ryan and their family. We had a dinner after church and Clinton invited a few of his friends who are waiting to leave for their missions also. It was just like a family reunion. I appreciate everyone for making the effort to come! Here are just a few notes from everyone from the family website:

Lissy:
"Wow what an amazing weekend, We went to the Temple Saturday and it was absolutly amazing word cannot express how I felt... We had Seven Beautiful children Sealed to us!!!! Which is a blessing that they were all able to be. Thank You all who were there tp share the day with us. And thank you all for the support to help me get there! I love you all, Clinton Did awesome on his farwell talk, I love you Clinty. And I got to spend good times with Family!!!!! I love you all and cant wait to see everyone at the reunion!!!!!!"
Jes:
"Yay, it was wonderful."

Mike:
"Ya, what a TOTALLY AWESOME weekend. It was so special to witness Nata and Melissa's sealing and when those 7 kids came in all dressed in white, I couldn't see for 10 minutes cause the flood gates were WIDE opened. Thank you kids for sharing this very sacred and special event with Aunt Kathy and I. We were honored to be there. And Clinton's farewell address was also GRRRRRRRREAT (as Tony the Tiger would say). What a wonderful weekend. Can't wait to see everyone at the Reunion."

Grandma Crossley:
"Lissie and Nate, thank you for wanting us there with you! What a precious time for this family, especially for your own little family!! I feel that your Sis was watching over all of you too!! Nate, it was so special to meet your great family. All in all the weekend was one we will cherish; Clinton, you did such a great job---we just know that you will be one AWSOME Missionary!!, neat to meet your friends who will be leaving soon, too!What a special family we have!! Lots of tears of happiness shed. LaRee, you and Harold did an awsome job of entertaining all of us and THANK YOU!! and LOVE YOU!!!"

Being in the Celestial room after Nate and Melissa came in was just so overwhelming! The love that radiated from our family was so strong! And Jennifer was there with us! I have such a tremendous amount of love for my family. If I feel this much love for them, how much more does our Heavenly Father have for us....... enough to send a Son to atone for each of us and give us the opportunity to become ETERNAL families. Why would he send us here to love someone that much to only have it end at death! I knowHis plan is real and true!
Thank you all my family for your love and your un-ending support for us!

Clinton's Farewell

Papa with the grandkiddies!

Clinton with grandma and grandpa Crossley. Saying goodbye for 2 years!

Temple

Back row:
Jaxon, Neveah, Nate, Lissy
Bottom row:
Sydney, Mason (Doc), Kimmery, Mason and Chance.


Look at our beautiful eternal addition!!! The Blackburn family. What a wonderful day we had with them in the Idaho Falls Temple on June 19 2010. We are so proud of them!

Martins Cove 2010

The girls.

Our family:

Pres. Hickman, Mariel Boone, Brendan ODell, Liz Atkinson, Bud (Brandon) Robinson, Derik Ricks, Christopher Clark, Me, Harold, Joe Renderkenct, Sister Hickman and Tenia

June 2010

We had the priveledge of going to Martin's Cove again , this time with the Single's Branch and Pres. and Sister Hickman. It was amazing as usual. I wasn't wanting to go because we didn't know when Clinton was leaving for his mission and I was concerned it might be the same week but we have been blessed and Clinton doesn't leave until July. We took 8 of the Singles. 5 boys and 3 girls and they were AMAZING the entire time. We laughed and cried and really had a great time. 4 of the Young Men had their mission calls and were getting ready to go out into the Mission Field..

I had such an overpowering feeling of gratitude for Grandma Crossley and her family, (grandpa Ephriam was only 5 years old when they made the trek. Their names are on the plaque in the visitors center and my eyes were drawn straight to them not 5 feet away as soon as we sat down for our orientation meeting.

The weather the first day was beautiful and sunny. We left the Stake Center at 3 am and got to Martin's Cove around 11. We unloaded the busses and got our carts loaded and went to our meeting and headed out on the trek to the Cove. Brendan got sick at the handcart parking lot and Sister Hickman pointed out all of our guys standing in a circle giving him a blessing off to the side. What a sight! It tug at my heartstrings to see the Priesthood in action at such a wonderful place. I felt bad for Brendan but what a wonderful experience for the rest of the men and for Sister Hickman and I to witness.

Then we left our carts and walked up into the Cove. It was quiet and very spiritual. As I walked along wondering where Grandma might have been camped all I could do was to pray to Heavenly Father that somehow they would know how grateful I am to them for the sacrifice they made that has given my family the blessings of the gospel here and now. She came over from England with her 5 children and a baby of 1 year old named William ( I do not know where he fits in the family yet) 2 years after Grandpa came to America for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

After we left the Cove we picked up our carts and headed back to the busses where we then went to the Willie Site to camp for the next 2 nights. The Stake provided all the food for us which was VERY nice to not have to worry about cooking. That night we had a fireside ( Harold and I went to bed) and the next morning we got our carts ready and did the 6 mile trek through water multuple times and it rained and then the sun came out and it rained and the sun came out and it rained and the sun came out all the way back to camp. We had the womens pull up a 3/4 mile slope where all the men were standing with their hats over their hearts to represent the time when the men were called to the Mormon Battalion. It was moving but not near as the last time that we went 5 years ago. We got back to the camp about 5, ate dinner and then square danced, then had a testimony meeting around the campfire. That was AMAZING! Everyone bore such powerful testimonies! Then the rain came and the thunder and lightning and wow, did Heavenly Father put on a light show for us! We got to bed about 11 and the wind blew most of the night but didn't blow any tents down. We were a little wet in the morning and a little sleep deprived but we were all safe.

We got up and and started taking down the camp, went to breakfast and loaded the busses to go to Rock Creek Hollow. It had rained and the bus driver was nervous to go in the 8 or so miles on muddy rodes afraid we wouldn't get back out. We only stayed about an hour there and then the busses made their slow muddy way back out. They had some trouble getting up the hills but we all made it out to the highway again. We got back to the Stake Center about 7 to the road being lined with people waving their white handkerchiefs! It always makes me cry to think of the bedraggled handcart pioneers getting into the Valley and all of the Saints lined up welcoming them with their handkerchiefs waving!!!! AND of course, Jes didn't let us down, there waiting for us was part of our little family welcoming us home, Jes and the girls with Jack, Clinton and Mindi, AND Aubrie, Brian and the boys!!!!! We were so happy to see them! The wonderful end of a magnificent experience.

Clinton getting ready.

We bought Clinton's bike and it is being shipped directly to his Mission Home. We picked up his suitcase's. Now we are going to start to fill them! A little over 3 weeks left! WOWWe got all his clothes and his suits. He has been to the temple multiple times and has had wonderful experiences. The Branch went to do baptisms last week and he was able to be the baptizer and even got to baptize Mindi. That was great for him to be able to do. We will be going to Melissa and Nates sealing next week. That will be 2 sealings he will be able to witness and another session before he goes out. It is getting exciting and sad all at the same time! I know it will be wonderful for him and he will be a FANTASTIC missionary!

Family Pictures

My friend Robin came and took our family pictures. Here are some of them.