Panic and Peace

I got a message forward from Facebook last week from some guy I had never heard of, written in spanish, so I deleted it and chalked it up to a mistake on his part, but yesterday, while Fred and I were trying to track down some of these single young adults on our list, I got onto Facebook and the message was still there because I had only deleted it in my e-mail. So, I clicked on and deleted it from Facebook and then had one of those post-realizations that I had seen the word Santiago embedded in the message. Of course I got all excited and then panicked because I had deleted it, but my super "techy" daughter retrieved it for me and then I had Elder Navarette, our Spanish Elder translate it for me (and then had Taylor translate it for me since Spanish and Chilean are different). It was from someone named Jonatan Rodriguez who said he was in Jordan's ward. He told us that Jordan was a great missionary, that he loved him, and that they had shared some great times together. I wrote Jordan, asking about him and he verified that he knew him and that they were good friends, so Taylor said that if we want to write back and forth he will translate for us. What fun to have that contact!

A strange, scary thing happened with Maunzy, our chinchilla, this week. Friday night Mikayla had him out in her room and I went up to visit. He was being as crazy as ever and I started looking around the room at all of the damage that he has caused in there (which is very visible and extensive) and as he was jumping around my legs and being charming, as usual, I made a comment to Mikayla about how in the world I was going to keep him around for 15 years, as all my kids started leaving, with his destructo personality. He immediately got up on top of his cage and jumped off and landed halfway in Eden's purse that was hanging open on the closet door, which made him flip and he landed really awkwardly and then ran off. He is hyper and is constantly pulling dangerous stunts so I didn't think anything of it and I left. Five minutes later Mikayla came down really worried, carrying him. She said he was moving like something was wrong with his back leg and when she put him in his cage he flopped limply onto his side. I took him from her and could tell there was definitely something wrong because he wasn't wriggling around (the only time he is still is when he is sleeping and even when you hold him still you can feel the energy in his body). I took him back upstairs and called for Fred, who felt all of his bones, which seemed to be stable, but within minutes he couldn't even walk straight, but kept falling over on one side and then he ears became really limp, so we knew it wasn't just an external injury. It was late at night so we couldn't call the vet, so both Mikayla and Fred got on different computers and started looking up the symptoms he was having and Mikayla  found similar symptoms to heat stroke. The house was only 72 degrees, which is normal for us, but 80 degrees can kill Chinchillas and the post said they could work themselves into heat stroke if they are highly stressed or in pain and so we thought maybe the fall had hurt him enough to panic him. He was going downhill so fast it was scary. We opened the window, put him on refrigerated marble slabs and held ice packs against his body and then Abe suggested that we pray. Everyone was crying. We finally put him in Chester's (our late guinea pig) old cage so he wouldn't be able to move around very much and wouldn't have our added body heat, while trying to hold him still. After about 20 minutes he seemed to be hungry which we thought was a good sign, so we fed him and then left him in a dark, quiet room and checked on him every few minutes. Within a couple of hours he had started to regain his curiosity and by Saturday afternoon seemed to be back to normal. We were all so glad. He is truly a holy terror and I don't know how much will be left of the girls room by the time the responsibility of him gets transferred to a new child, but he would have been sorely missed. he really is a sweet thing.

Fred and I booked our flight to Taylor's wedding this past week and are getting excited for a mini trip together, since it will be close to our anniversary. This will be my first experience flying and I think we are on the same departure flight as Mom and Dad, so it will be fun. As an aunt I am not starting any traditions here. Taylor is probably the first and last wedding I will book a flight for until I am in the role of mother or grandmother, which makes this an unique experience, so I want to make the most of it.

Mikayla found out her college track to BYU-I yesterday. She will be on the Winter/Spring track which starts on Jan. 4 and ends in July. I would have preferred Fall/Winter but she did get her paperwork in one day late, so I guess those are the consequences. That will give her almost a year to work if she can find a job. If not she is going to get pretty stir crazy, I know, but I know it will all work out. I will be so sad to lose my daily work companion and confidant. Her leaving is going to make another enormous hole here at home, and we are all getting a little anxious. They need to teach mini classes in R.S. about the process toward "empty nesting" because it is HARD!

Still hibernating and waiting for the temperatures to come back above freezing.