29

Saturday night I was up all night long with either Ashelynn or Bryson. Bryant was sick last week and the rest of us got it Saturday night. Sunday I could barely talk and was so achy and tired. The kids both had fevers on and off all day long. Sunday was a long day.
Ashelynn stayed home from school today because she still had a little fever when she woke up. Bryson is doing better but coughing a lot and has a very runny nose.
Today also I turned 29. I had to cancel the baby sitter for tonight because we still aren't 100%. Its snowed all day long too. I have had so many birthdays where it has snowed all day and caused plans to be changed. That is just how it goes when you have a Feb. birthday. The only nice weather I've had on my birthday was last year when we were in Florida on my birthday. Bryant sent me a big basket of flowers, which was so nice and brightened my day. We are going to celebrate later in the week. Oh, also my mom was going to come up (which she couldn't have anyway because of the bad roads) but was in a 40 car pile up accident last Monday and her car was totalled and she injured her back. Thankfully that was all that was injured.
I was talking to her earlier that day while she was driving home from Provo and she said that the roads were so bad and that she needed to hang up. Several hours later I got a call from my dad, with sirens in the back ground, and he told me she had been in an accident, but didn't have any major injuries and was being taken to the hospital to be checked out. My aunt Holly also called me because somehow my mom's phone had called her house during the accident and my cousin Amy could hear my mom yelling to some other people who had been hit by a semi with more crashing in the background. I got the whole story later that night. My mom was almost home when a semi sped past her and she saw it jack-knife. She, and all the other cars around her tired to stop, but the blizzard made it almost impossible to stop. Also the visibility was zero. She hit the car in front of her and was hit also from behind. Her car went dead, but she had the strong impression that she needed to get into the median. She tried her car again and it started. She backed off of the bumper of the car infront of her, and pulled down into the median. As she came to a slow stop she saw another jack-knifed semi in her re-view mirror sliding down the freeway hitting the cars where she just had been. Stunned, she looked up at the road and saw a couple in their 60's huddled on the road, without coats, in the wreckage. Her first thought was to get them into her car and pull out to the other side of the freeway and drive out of there. Her car would not start. She grabbed a blanket from her car and her purse and went to help the stunned couple. She yelled asking them where there car was and they pointed to a black car pinned under a semi. She had no idea how they got out. They were dazed and in shock. After checking to make sure it was clear, she hurried them off of the high way as more cars continued to crash into the wreckage. They went down the hill to a Rite-aid phramacy to call 911. My dad met her there. They couldn't get through to 911 and called the dispatch office for the Payson police. They hadn't heard about the accident yet. They asked her how many were involved and she could only tell them, "more and more" as they continued to hear more crashing. More people came off of the freeway to find shelter and help and the store. After my mom and dad got to the hospital they learned that there were so many accidents that day that the hospitals in area had run out of ambulances. She was all right, but had a very twisted spine. She has gone to the chiropractor several times since last Monday. They found their car 2 days later and it had been hit several more times since my mom left it.
I am so thankful that she was blessed and only came away with minor injuries and that I didn't lose my mom right before I turned 29. Despite the weather and being sick, its a great birthday. I have a family that loves me, good friends, and so many blessings from our Heavenly Father.
Here is a link to the web page that has a little news video of the accident. http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=2562157