Happy Father's Day

Father's Day:

Dinner at Pine Mountain with Dad Lundberg
Pickle ball and breakfast with Dad Rippy
Ricotta cornmeal waffles with Dad Tony

Grad 2020

I meet baby Walter for the first time!

Val gives Eliza Lope swag!

Car graduation

Sam in his "car"  

Meeting the puppies at Corries house

homeschooling the Riplets

teens on the boat

Brooklyns famous sourdough bread

My idea of heaven

Papusas with Emma

I think 2020 will go down in history as the weirdest graduation ever.  However, as Becky Dickerson always says, "St John is at its best at funerals and graduations."  It was a roller coaster of emotion to return to St John.  We spent the first night at Corrie Tollett's cabin at Williams lake.  It was a place of happy memories for Sam and me, but felt overwhelmingly rustic for Tony and Max.  Saturday we spent the day catching up with friends in St John and getting ready for graduation.  All of the food I had so carefully ordered to relieve stress for Melissa and me didn't arrive.  Sugar Cookies and Bagel dogs, chips and soda-none of it on time.  I did get all my money refunded and the bagel dogs, deliverd three days late, turned out to be disgusting!

Eliza was happy and excited and had salvaged as many graduation traditions as possible.  They pranked the teachers and had a "skip day" party at the lake.  The senior pictures were in the window downtown and the banners on main street were so cute.  The actual day of graduation was windy and cold.  Cooper and Jes (the party heroes because they brought papa murphy pizzas)  joined us and we drove to the football field.  Kenny put us very precise lineup so we could see the stage where the graduates went one by one to receive a diploma and get a picture.  No one from town was there and instead of clapping, there was honking.  It was the best possible under the circumstance.  People were very generous and came for the drive by party.  It was wonderful to see so many dear friends.  I miss them so much.

Staying at our old house was amazing, but only because of sweet Pete and Melissa.  They have absolutely caught the magic of the house and have improved upon it. The yard was impeccable.  The house was incredible.  We spent a long time catching up and connecting with them.  I slept so soundly with the familiar sounds of my house.  I miss it, but I loved the young energy it had of those sweet little boys and Pete and Melissa.  It felt surreal to be there and I often found myself forgetting I had a home in St George.  I had a wonderful visit with Laiken and the kids, a walk with Becky on a Sunday morning, a beautiful visit with Rance and Denise Larsen and Val and Monty hosted us for dinner on Saturday night.  Tony and I went on a run Saturday morning, like old times, and visited Pastor Denny and the Shepherds at their respective stores.

Sam immediately found his place and old friends.  For he and Joel it was like old times.  The same could not be said for Max.  Being in St John was so hard for him and he just wasn't strong enough in his identity. Being in St John made Tony and I weak too.  We broke our own rules about sleep overs and about allowing the boys to be with Cooper unsupervised.  Unfortunately, our weakness resulted in some poor choices that totally derailed Max.  He vaped with friends at a sleepover, went to the senior party and happily obliged when his brother gave him beer at a grad party.  The burden of these secrets, in addition to ones he had been keeping at home, turned Max into his angry and defiant self and he became unbearable to be around.

On Monday I had tea with friends while Tony played pickleball in Pullman and visited Cooper at work.  That night we went to Spokane to stay with Cam and Jill.  Max was horrible to Kimball and Addy and it took Sam a little while to warm up to Lane which is always so embarrasing to me.  By that point Max was determined to go home with Tony on Tuesday and started his maximum sabatoging efforts.  I held on (barely) and repeated over and over that this trip was for me and I didn't care what they did or how they acted, but I was going to enjoy my time with my brothers.  On Tuesday I dropped Tony off at the airport, spent the morning with Jill, then drove to Moses Lake to take Evalie home and have dinner with Jeff and Stacie.  That filled my soul.  On Wednesday I spent the day with Kimberly and got to see her efforts at homeschooling 3 first graders!  Max continued to be horrible.  Finally that afternoon I took the boys to the mall for a haircut and confronted him.  I told him that his choices proved that we can't keep him safe and boarding school was our only option.  I prayed so hard for the spirit to help me.  After all our work in counseling, here I was doing this hard parenting thing alone again. 

The mention of boarding school seemed to wake him out of his stupor.  It didn't take long for the confession texts to start rolling in.  As soon as the secrets came out, Max started to relax and by the time we got to Diamond Lake that night, he was able to function again.  He even spent a cute night with Eliza and Reese Roland braiding his hair.

We spent the last few days at Carpe Skiem relaxing and soaking up all the happy of that place.  The weather let us ski and surf a bit before the big storm clouds rolled in.  Saturday was a delicious rainy day full of bread making and movies.  It was my heaven.  It was especially fun to have Jenny there with Betsy. 

Sunday we had the sacrament with Jason and Andrea and then Eliza dropped us off at the airport, where Tony picked us up.  He had spent a nice morning with his Lori and Blake and had hoped we could go back for dinner.  The boys revolted and we had no fight left in us.  As we drove into St George Sam I asked how everybody felt about coming back.  Max's anxiety was palpably reduced but Sam asked me if I felt like I was "descending into hell."

The trip was important for my grieving process because it helped me see how St John was not a trouble-free place.  I need to stop eulogizing our time there.  There was hard and would continue to be hard had we stayed.  I'm also really grateful that the trip exposed secrets.  Max has a long way to go on developing his identity and doing attachment work.  The trip helped Tony and I recommit to helping Max through this until he no longer lets us be parents.

Eliza really is officially launched.  She is happy to be staying in St John for the summer and excited to start school in Phoenix in the Fall.  I miss her, but love having her happy and growing in her independence.

Quick Trip to Utah

Goodbye Reggie

Obituary for

Reggie the Therapy Dog

Reggie is a therapy dog.  What that means is that he had an extraordinary sense to know which human in the room needed his attention the most.  He knew it instinctively and would go straight to that person and cuddle up next to them. He would not have to say anything because he was a far better listener than a talker.

Reggie is the name given him by his first owner.  It was not Reginald as some would assume thinking that Reggie was just a nickname. He was always just Reggie or Reg.

Reggie was brought into the family as a healer of broken hearts. Evan was a young boy at the time his heart was broken after losing his little brother Beck who was only 2 and one half years old.  After fulfilling his assignment in the Rippy home, Reggie went to live in the Lundberg home to practice his unusual talent in the lives of Wilson, Cooper, Eliza, Max, and Sam and the parents; he did not neglect the parents, Tony and Kelly.

Reggie fulfilled his role masterfully. He made everybody's life richer.  He loved unconditionally and won the hearts of our family.

After many years Reggie’s life became a challenge. He was not able to eat or drink without experiencing great discomfort, and as a result had very little quality of life.

Reggie passed away June 2, 2020.  He was greatly loved  and will be sorely missed.

As the song goes, “If dogs have a heaven (we know they do) there is one thing I know Reggie will have a good home.”