I'm sitting here preparing for our Cub Scout meeting tomorrow at our house. We're doing knots. I was thinking about our last meeting and had to chuckle. We are definitely not the average LDS den, that's for sure. Last time we made bean bags for bean bag archery. While they were sewing up the hole in the bean bag, we read and then talked about different scenarios that they may be faced with and how they should act or respond in each situation. They were the typical 'what do you do when a stranger calls and you are home alone' kind of safety questions. Well, one of the questions was something like 'what do you do if one of the older boys at school offers you drugs?' Juan (Spanish boy, age 8) couldn't remember what drugs were so Tijmen (Tie-men, Dutch boy, age 10) pipes up and says they're something you can smoke and it gives you a headache and makes you a little sick to your stomach. He went on to say, 'yeah, my mom tried the kind of drugs that you smoke.' Then I said that drugs were not good for their bodies but that also they were against the law and that you could get in trouble with the police if you have/use drugs. But of course I pointed out that, yes, they are illegal here but they aren't all illegal in Holland!

I've come across this situation often here in Europe - having 'bad' things be acceptable, in society and the general mentality - and it only reinforces my testimony that the United States of America was THE ONLY place that the gospel could be restored. Even though the US is going to hell in a handbasket (thank you Gramma) at least we can stand up and remind society about what is 'right' and 'wrong' because our country was founded on the 'right' (yes, I know we had our imperfections such as slavery). To use France here as an example, their gov't is founded on laicity (sp? absence of religion) so how can you even stand up for anything moral when society doesn't even really recognize that there is a moral right and wrong, just legal and illegal. OK, enough of that.



Here are a few pictures from Margot's recent hospital stay. She has reflux so when she goes to the bathroom, urine goes up from her bladder to her kidneys. We've known since 2003 and she's been taking prophylactic antibiotics since then. With her doctor we decided to stop the antibiotics to see how she would fare. Well, she lasted a good 4-5 months, but she ended up with a bad UTI and spent 5 days in the hospital - Jan 3-8. I'm sure in the US they would have given me the antibiotics and sent me home with her but here they keep you. We couldn't keep her temperature down and it was at about 105 so I was glad to have some help.

She was admitted on a Friday evening. Come Monday morning we found out that there was a 'craft' room with lots of games and crafts to do. So we spent Monday and Tuesday crafting.

Margot made a mask with lots of bits of felt.

The dumbest thing about the hospital stay was that they put the IV in her RIGHT hand so once she was feeling better - by Sat. night/Sun. morning - she was 'handicapped' with her right hand all bandaged up. I will definitely speak up next time.
Margot wanted me to show the little toilets they had so we took a picture - she thought it was SO funny to be taking a picture with the toilet. We were in the children's wing. Well, come to think of it, it's a children's hospital so the ER is for kids, everything is for kids.

I hope everyone is doing well. Have a great weekend! Jocelyn