St. John Family

Sunday January 11, 2015

Dear Cassidy -

Well - can you believe it's already been another week? In some ways it seems like forever since I've written/heard from you, and in others I can see that a lot has happened this week...

I know that Dad's already told you a lot about this week's happenings. I'll tell you too and maybe between the two of us you'll get the full story.?

Of course the biggest event was that Tuesday morning Chalis had the babies. I'll send you a picture of one of them. They are so little. She I guess went into labor and then started bleeding and with the risk of infection and of her placenta detaching they had to take them. Dad and Grandpa Jim were able to see them that day to give them a blessing. They didn't have names yet so they blessed them as "baby A" and "baby B." They've continued to do as well as possible and Jamie and Chalis were each able to hold one of them by yesterday. Baby A's name is Tommy James. They will call him TJ. (Jamie's choice.) Baby B was the baby whose water broke so early so his name is Chance Arrow. (Chalis's choice.) We'll continue to update you as they progress but things are looking good so far. They'll be in the hospital for around 3 months if all goes well.

Also, Natalie is pregnant! I'm not sure if we've already told you that, but they announced that on Christmas Day. She's due in August.

Then, sadly, Uncle Matt's dad passed away. He had a small airplane and went out Friday afternoon for a short flight. They found his plane Saturday morning in the Great Salt Lake. They're not sure what happened but it was foggy and I don't think he could see anything around him. We got updates from Chelsie all day yesterday and then his story was actually on all the news channels last night. I think Matt's doing ok, but this is going to be a hard thing for their family.

In happier news - we made it through the first week back to school. Colten's been really busy finishing up assignments and studying for semester finals. He also has to retake a physics and a math test this week before the term ends. Hadlie is happy to be finishing up with PE and a couple of other classes. Utah studies mostly. She also is having quite the friend drama. Her friend Ellie - oh my goodness - is like Josee reincarnated. For reals. I KNEW this would happen and could guess it'd be right about now. So you can imagine it...Ellie has been not so nice to their other friend Sadie (who is new this year and is super sweet and I really like her). Ellie and Sadie and their MOM's actually had a "meeting" this week to talk things over and that was a nightmare as you can imagine and so the week ended with Sadie and Hadlie hanging out together here on Friday night and Ellie and Tarlan doing their own thing. Sound familiar??? River's doing well. She still hates school and her teacher and she had to play soccer in PE this week in which she scored a goal for the opposing team. She handled it well though, she said, "I don't really care, I just wanted to get the ball away from me."

Our new Culver's opened this week. Hadlie and I went for her birthday lunch. It's yummy. I'm also really enjoying the new 5 Guys being open here. And because it's a new year - you know I'm on a eating healthy kick. I'm missing you being here to encourage my healthy dinners. I also spent my Christmas money from Grandma Bonnie on a FitBit. I'm enjoying seeing it track my activity (or non activity! on the weekends!) and seeing how many calories I'm burning and it also can show me how I'm sleeping! How many minutes I'm awake during the night or restless and exactly when that happens! It's sort of cool.

Well - that's about it for this week. I will send you a few pictures in another email. As always - I hope you're doing so good, staying warm and finding some success. Please let me know if you need anything!

Love - Mom