Joseph's wisdom teeth surgery

Last week was Joseph's first week at BYU!!!  I can't believe he is going to college!  ("Your mom goes to college!")  :)  We decided since he is living at home and won't be in a dorm this semester, we would paint his room so he would "feel" like he was in a new place.  Well...once we pulled out all of his furniture, we could see how bad the carpet was!!  Yikes!!  (His room, Mike's office and Anna's bedroom were the only rooms we hadn't replaced and they had the original WHITE/GRAY carpet...gray NOT being the original color).  I asked Mike if we could replace all three rooms, which he agreed to...since his office was the worst shade of gray!  So, our little project turned into a nightmare, lasting the entire weekend!!  (We started on a Tuesday.)  We ended up taking everything (with the help of our neighbor boys, Zach, Max and Tucker Johnson -thanks guys!!) out of the three rooms and putting it all in our family room and living rooms.  Its hard to believe you have that much stuff when you put it all in one place!!  But after all was said and done, Joseph has a nice "new" room to study in while he is going to college.  He chose a dark red color for one of his walls, which took four coats, but I must say it looks great and I love it...since it will be my office when he leaves on his mission!!  :)

It seems surreal that he is in college, but it has been kind of anti-climatic because we have been getting all the paperwork ready for his mission.  He has been waiting for this moment all of his life and it is finally here!!  Now everything is online, so we have been going through the forms, getting his dental and doctor visits scheduled, etc.  When he went to the dentist, he was told that his wisdom teeth were all impacted and needed to be removed.  I called the Oral Surgeon and he was booked out several weeks.  Joseph has a goal to get his paperwork in by September 16th - 120 days before his birthday, which is the first day possible for him to turn in his papers.  So, I knew he had to be booked out several weeks, but I thought we would take our chances.  And as fate would have it, they had a cancellation for the next morning (Friday, Sept. 2, Mike and I's anniversary)!  Joseph was in the office less then 24 hours later and the surgeon took like 15 minutes and they were out!!  I didn't realize it was such an ordeal...I guess I forgot what it was like 35 years ago.  He was in quite a bit of pain and couldn't hold any food down until later that evening.  He had a friend over the next day and actually sang with her at the piano, which probably set him back a few days!  I forgot to say that when we were in the office with the surgeon, right before his surgery, the doctor said he needed to lay low for three days.  Because this was such a last minute thing and it was really our only option, Joseph had several things planned for that weekend, including a date and the Brazilian festival on Saturday.  When the Dr told him to lay low for three days, Joseph said, "I WILL be going to the Brazilian festival tomorrow.  I set a goal for myself to go to the festival and order something to eat in Portuguese."  The Dr was a little shocked, I think, but Joseph was determined to go no matter what the Dr said!  Well, needless to say, he did NOT go to the festival.  Luckily, he started to keep some food down so he could take medication and the bleeding stopped pretty quickly.  His Dad gave him a blessing the night before surgery and everything went smoothly.  After five days of jello, yogurt, broth and juice, he was happy to eat again!  I think that meal of Top Ramen, even though its his favorite food, tasted better than ever!!

I am so grateful everything went well.  The next steps are his physical next week, his meeting with our Bishop, and Stake President on Sunday the 18th, then the waiting begins!!

How could I forget the most important thing that happened last week?!  Joseph was ordained an Elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood by his Dad.  :)  It really IS happening!!!  :)