back in the USA

We arrived back in Utah in April.  There was still occasional snowfall, while the kids were excited about it.  They missed the beach.

 We got to spend time with Nana and Papa again.  We lived in their basement, which Lonnie promised he never wanted to do.  But it was actually fun to have 11 people all living in the same big house.

 We received a bit of New Zealand in Utah when Alyssa Stinson spent a day with us before going into the MTC for her mission in Florida.  Just talking with her made me start driving on the wrong side of the road, which I quickly corrected.

 Max and Maya turned 5!  We had a small party at home.

We bought a beautiful home in Bountiful.  My favorite part is watching the sunsetting over The Great Salt Lake with Antelope Island in the distance.  We are now true Mercers.  

We were able to spend a wonderful weekend with our family at my parent's mission farewell.  Spending time with family and longtime friends has been the best part of being back in Utah!

Trent in Rehab:

Trent made my parent's mission farewell party even more exciting by getting into the medicine cupboard in the upstairs bathroom.  Lonnie found him with pills all over the floor.  We called poison control.   They said to keep and eye on him and bring him in if he started acting funny.  About 20 min later he started to wobble while he was walking.  We took him over to Primary Children's hospital.  We were't sure what he had taken so the doctors put in an IV and heart monitors.  He was quite groggy but we kept him awake.  I breastfeed him and shortly after he threw up....licorice and cookies (making me feel like an even better mother).  The doctors did a toxin screen and it came back showing something different than we had assumed so they decided to keep him overnight.  At 10:30 we were finally in a room and I was able to get him to sleep. He was over tired and agitated.   I slept next to him on the bed.  I don't remember ever seeing him look so helpless, even as a newborn.  By the morning he was feeling better and wanted to pull out all his cords.  We convinced the staff that he was annoyed not from the drugs but because we were trying to keep him still.  We took him for a walk in a wagon around the hospital and near noon we were finally able to take him home.  Lessons learned: lock up your meds, nothing is safe around this kid.  Welcome back to US medical system (we were still getting bills six months later),  I love my sweet little Trent.