families can be together. forever.

i have had a lot of thoughts going through my mind this past 24 hours.

lots of those thoughts fill my eyes with tears.

last night while i was talking to my mom on the phone

she told me that my grandma and grandpa were coming home from their mission

a little bit earlier then expected.

about six years ago my grandpa was diagnosed with terminal kidney cancer.

he was given 5 years to live.

he recently started having pain again,

and after some testing they found out that his cancer is back.

they are on a plane home tomorrow.

kinda silly for a girl to be this shocked or upset about something

that has been inevitable for 5 years now.

when me eric my mom and dad went down to washington dc

in march and visited them

he looked soooo good. in fact the best i have seen him in awhile.

and so i guess for me anyways this news hit a little harder then it should have been.

tonight i wanted to settle down early

and when i laid in bed i just kept thinking about him.

i love him a lot.

i thought about when i was little

he was known as grumpy-pa.

i think we were all a little terrified of him.

i remember our trips down to rexburg

when we would pull into their drive way late at night

grandpa would be staring out the laundry room window waiting for us.
and i remembered

him throwing out the leftover pancakes to the magpies.

or him and his garden and picking raspberries.

or yelling at us for throwing rocks in the canal.

and very LONG huckleberry trips.

followed by delicious milk shakes in afton.

i remember one time grandpa was in charge of babysitting

me megan matt and ryan.

we played downstairs all day long

but we were getting really hungry.

so since matt was the littlest we made him go upstairs and tell

grandpa that we were hungry.

he fed us all ice cream.

:) :) :)

when me and my mom went and visited them

on their third mission in jackson missiouri

i remember us all sitting around watching the news together.

i remember noticing that me and my grandpa finish off our ice cream the same way.

scraping it all to one side and finishing off every last drop.

they are probably to blame for my ice cream obsession.

***side note***

trust me...

when i am a grandma, i want to be just like my

grandma and grandpa cliften and ALWAYS have my freeze stocked with ice cream.

there are so many things i love about my grandpa.
i love that he married my grandma in the temple.
i loved the way him and my grandma raised my beautiful mom.
they set the example before her and the rest of their children
the importance of the gospel and forever families.

i have heard my grandpa bear his testimony many times about the importance of the temple.
i loved the trip we took down to rexburg one summer
and he drove me and amelia by the construction of the rexburg temple
and sang i love to see the temple
as we drove by.

i love that i was able to receive my endowments
at the temple my grandma and grandpa were serving at.
they were the most beautiful in their temple clothes.
and even though we are all the same in the temple
it was like they had a special glow around them, just like they were angels.
i loved going into the celestial room and being there with them.
they are something special.
and they made my special day so much more wonderful then i could ever imagine.

when all is said and done at the end of the day

i have them to be thankful to.

they have past on from previous generations to our current generation

the most wonderful and precious thing.

and that is their love and dedication to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

they dont just testify of the the gospel,

they live it and are true examples of it.

they are the reason why my family is a forever family

and why i want a forever family with eric

the plan of salvation truly is the plan of HAPPINESS.

it doesnt mean that times like these cant be sad and hard.

it means that there is more after our physical life

that will bring us more joy then we ever thought possible.

and that will be when we are reunited with our families for

time and all eternity.

just a thought....
i love my grandpa.
the grumpy old guy with a soft heart.
i have amazing grandparents.
im a lucky girl

getting caught up.

sooo

once again... it has been awhile since i have blogged last.

so shall we get caught up, yet again.

eric had his spring break about the middle of march.

so me him my mom and dad flew down to washington dc to see my grandparents.

right now they are serving a mission over there in the LDS temple.

we had a really fun time there going and seeing all the sites.

i also had the most AMAZING opportunity to go through the temple with

my parents and grandparents.

it was one of the greatest experience of my life.

i love the gospel and the knowledge that i have of the plan of salvation.

i love my Savior with everything i have.

and i KNOW that we can live with him again someday.

im grateful for his atoning sacrifice.

im so grateful that my parents were married in the temple

so that we are a forever family.

i am SO excited for me and eric to be sealed for time and eternity.

then one weekend i was just soooo homesick.

but i had to work on saturday.

but eric is just SOOOO good to me and took me home

for a good 24 hours.

dont i have the cutest nieces and nephews???

i sure think i do :)

then this weekend was just the absolute BEST!

my mom, dad, megan, austyn and payson

came down to laramie for a quick visit.

we had a good time and im sad to see them good.

i love my family a lot.

im a lucky girl to have them:)

just a thought...

im a pretty lucky girl

living a pretty awesome life. :)