I refuse to let the Coronavirus overshadow something really good and exciting that happened in our family! I want this amazing and much anticipated event to continue to be the joyous celebration that it was last Tuesday night. We have waited so long and been anticipating this day and it deserves its own post before literally everything in the world is centered around a global pandemic.
Kameron got his mission call! It took 9 days from his papers being submitted to receiving his call. He got a text at work saying that his mission call was ready to view! He called me at home and Tyler at work and was so excited. He called his good friends who are going to school locally and we threw together an impromptu Mission Call Party!
Kameron was scheduled to work until 7pm but he ended up getting off a little early. His friends all met up at our house. It was so exciting! Everyone was nervous, excited, making their guesses, and a little freaked out!
Kameron is excited about Minneapolis! We have heard from so many people how beautiful it is and what an awesome city it is! The day after he opened his call we heard from his mission twice. Having everything be *real* and actually happening has been so exciting after months of delays. He reports to the Provo MTC on July 1st. That seemed so far away but now with the Coronavirus situation it makes sense. Hopefully by then missionaries will be able to go back to the MTC to receive their training and hopefully things will be back to normal. The missionaries are currently having to train online due to the pandemic. I am so glad that we got to have this moment of normalcy before things got super crazy later in the week.
Kameron received his mission call on March 10th which would have been my Grandpa Ellersick's 97th birthday. Kameron is his oldest great-grandson. All of my Grandpa Ellersick's family originally settled in Minnesota after immigrating from Germany and before relocating to Northern Idaho. All of Tyler's Johnson family also settled in Minnesota after immigrating from Norway. Tyler's dad who passed away when we were dating had just returned from a trip to Minnesota where he was doing genealogy, family history work, and meeting extended family who were still in the area right before he passed away. Kameron is his only grandson and the only one to carry on the Johnson name. I think that it is no coincidence that his grandson will be continuing the work there. It feels significant and purposeful that he received his mission call there.
Now we wait and get through this COVID-19 situation and look forward to July 1st! I am so grateful for the decision that Kameron made to serve the Lord and to dedicate two years of his life to helping his Heavenly Father's children come unto Christ.
This is the absolute truth:
3 John 1:4 "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."
In October Kameron was diagnosed with a rare heart condition called Wolf Parkinson White Syndrome. This means that he has an extra electrical current going into his heart. After having a bunch of testing done in November we were told by his cardiologist that his particular condition wasn't life threatening but it was something that should be treated by a heart ablation. In most cases it fixes the problem and stops the extra electrical current from coming into the heart where it shouldn't. Kameron was scheduled for his heart ablation at 7 am on December 9th.
Kameron isn't a dramatic kid. He doesn't get worked up and stressed when it isn't necessary and that has always been a nice aspect of his personality (and Tyler's) in our family of highly dramatic and high stress girls. (His mother included.) Kam was pretty calm about everything...his mother was not. Hopefully I hid it from him but there were many days where I was freaking out and had to be talked off the ledge by Tyler, Kirk, and friends in the medical field. Heart stuff is scary.
Our friend Aaron came over the day before the procedure and helped Tyler give Kam a blessing. So many people were praying for him and that really meant a lot because there is power in prayer. If I have learned nothing else in the last five years it is that. THERE IS POWER IN PRAYER. This was also a time that I really needed my mom. She has been by my side for all of the other scary medical things in our lives. She is a nurse and has been a leader in the health care field for almost 50 years. She has always been my rock and my expert-in-all-things-medical my entire life. So to go through this without her was difficult to say the least. I was pretty nervous the day of the procedure and so was Kam. Thank goodness for Tyler!! The man is a rock.
We went to the hospital that morning with Ailey, Bryn, and Kam's girlfriend Abbey. Reilly's boss absolutely refused to let her off work because they were short staffed. It was hard for Reilly to not be there and to just be getting updates via phone calls and texts.
The first good news of the day was that a friend of ours who used to be in our ward, Eric, was his anesthesiologist. That calmed us all down knowing that Kameron would have Eric in with him. Kam seemed more relaxed too (see first picture) as we waited for him to go back. Then it was time and we headed to a small waiting room. This turned out to be the same waiting room where I sat with my mom while we waited for Tyler to come back from his procedure after his brain hemorrhage.
Kam was in his procedure for almost three hours. It was the longest three hours of my life. Tyler and I tried to stay busy. We designed and ordered our Christmas cards. We bought Christmas presents online. We answered a millions texts. Still time just crawled.
Eric texted us pictures from Kam's procedure and updates. He came out a few times too to talk to us in person about what was happening which was SO HELPFUL.
When Tyler got the first pictures of Kam I had no idea who it was. I just saw the picture and said "Who's that?" Not easy pictures to look at but I am so grateful for the updates that kept us calm...and we really were calm...during the procedure.
We had an odd thing happen while we were waiting. At one point the waiting room cleared out except for one other lady, the girls, Tyler and I. The other lady was sitting in the seat that my mom sat in while we were waiting for Tyler. All of the sudden the woman's phone started playing music SUPER LOUD not just music softly playing in a very quiet waiting room but EXTREMELY LOUD music in a very quiet waiting room. The woman could not turn it off. It just played and played. She looked at us in a panic and said "I don't know what is happening!! I can't turn it off and I can't turn it down!!" Music by The Beatles played for almost five minutes at an extremely high volume. I kept thinking a nurse or someone was going to come in to see what all the racket was! The woman struggled with her phone and we tried to help her. No one could turn off her phone or turn the music down. The woman kept saying, "This has never happened before!!" Finally the music just stopped. All on its own. The poor woman was beside herself apologizing. What she didn't know was that I had goosebumps and chills because my mom was the world's biggest Beatles fan. THE BIGGEST BEATLES FAN! It was her absolute favorite band since she was a teenager. She loved their music so much and blared it throughout our home growing up. The fact that it was coming from the very seat that she sat in the last time we were there was odd too. I am not one who sees signs of my mom everywhere. Occasionally...pink night at the lake was one other time. I don't often *feel* my mom near me. But this was a very odd coincidence if you believe in coincidence. Plus it seemed like something my mom would do. There wouldn't have been anything on Earth to keep her from being there for Kameron and I don't think there was anything in Heaven that was going to stop her either. I felt like she was letting us know that she was there.
Not long after that occurrence my sisters Kelley and Jordin arrived. They were a nice distraction. We were updated that the cardiologist was trying really hard to stimulate Kam's heart to go into the irregular rhythm so he could see where that extra electrical current was going. It took a lot to get his heart to do what they wanted it too. They had to wake him up a bit so he was more conscious (and uncomfortable). They stimulated his heart with adrenaline. Finally they got his heart to do what they wanted it to. Finally after large doses of adrenaline and all the efforts of his cardiologist and a consult with another cardiologist they determined that the extra electrical current was very weak. Nothing life threatening. It also was very close to the major electrical circuit in his heart and doing an ablation there for something that is more of a nuisance wasn't practical and could have done more damage. So no ablation was done after all. That ended up being good news.
Kam went home a few hours after his procedure and had a two week recovery. They went in through the groin which has a longer recovery time. He had to be very careful for the first few days. He could not go up and down the stairs so he moved into Bryn's room and she moved down to his room in our basement. He couldn't work for two weeks or lift anything over 5lbs. It was still quite the process despite not having the actual ablation done. He went in a few days later for an echocardiogram. The results of that came back normal. Thank goodness!! He goes back in to the cardiologist at the end of February. It looks like he may need to be on a daily medication or maybe just on medication when needed for a more severe bout of tachycardia. The good news is that he is doing well and hopefully will be able to submit his mission papers the first of March.
Before we knew it Kameron's big day was upon us. How does senior year go by so fast? It seems like all of high school passes by in a blur but senior year goes by at warp speed... especially the last semester. It's exciting and melancholy all at once.
The first big gut punch is always seeing your kid for the first time in their cap and gown. Kameron picked his up and tried it on for us. Things got real.
The second was Senior Day at the elementary school. On the Friday before graduation all of the graduating seniors from our high school got to go on field trips to their former elementary schools to be cheered, celebrated, hugged, and high-fived by their former teachers, administrators, staff, parents, and kids. It is one of my very favorite traditions and one that had me crying my eyes out. Kameron went to our elementary school his entire elementary career. All of our kids have gone there. Bryn goes there now and she was so excited to cheer for her brother...she even passed up a student council field trip...to be there as he walked the halls in his cap and gown.
Jonathan and Kameron
This was such a special experience. I loved watching the school kids cheer for the seniors while the Kool and the Gang song "Celebration" blasted over the speakers. I loved watching Kam hug his former teachers and say hi to kids he knows from our ward and stake. Tyler and I watched him with such love, pride, and disbelief. It seems like he just started Kindergarten and now he is done with school. How?! I ran ahead to Bryn's class to wait with her for Kameron to come by. She was so excited! He gave her a big hug and I melted. I love seeing how much our kids love each other. It was fun to gather with the other parents and celebrate this milestone together.
Then all the graduation parties started and things got even more real. The weekend before graduation was a double party for these boys...Tyler and Nick.
These three have been good friends since they were in the nursery together at church.
That same night Kam's good friend Caleb had his graduation party and so did several other friends of his. Kameron was all over the place that night stopping in at as many as he could. Kam had two parties of his own coming up. One a family lunch at the lake before graduation and another big combo Grad party with two of his friends the weekend after graduation.
My friend Shauna approached me about doing a big combo graduation party for Kyra and Kameron. I was all for it. Our friend Norma joined us with her son Josh who is also a good friend of both Kyra and Kameron. It turned into quite the shindig . We had a big planning meeting and a very active texting thread going as we put together this party for our kids.
The invite that the kids made.
The one BIG downside of this party was that the only time that we could schedule it was while I was in TEXAS with Ailey. :( That was a real heartbreaker for me but Kameron really wanted this party to happen... so it did. Planning graduation parties around all of the other graduation parties is no joke! This combo party was a stroke of genius on Shauna's part. Three kids...one big party! So I planned and planned and got everything ready for this big party before I left! Reilly stepped in to help Tyler with set-up and hostessing duties.
The seniors had their last day of school and then Ailey had to go to school by herself for a week and boy did she miss her brother. I love that they had this year in high school together. Ailey loved knowing that her big brother was there if she needed him. Kameron continued to drive her to and from school each day...unasked...when he was done with school. Very sweet.
The big day arrived much too soon.
(Please admire the eyesore of the BLUE painters tape that Tyler used to adhere that banner to the garage. Good grief. Oh well. It stayed up all weekend!)
Abbey joined us the day of graduation and we all headed out to the lake for the family party and lunch. Kameron had requested a taco bar, chips, salsa, guacamole, cream sodas, and ice cream sundaes.
He really enjoyed posing for this photo with his balloons! LOL.
My Uncle Steve and my mom.
It was nice to celebrate our son and this milestone in his life. Tyler and I gave a toast which ended up being very teary on our part. Oh well. We love that kid and are super proud of him. We had everyone go around and give Kameron advice or tell him something that they wish they had known when they graduated from high school. That was fun and some of the advice was *interesting*. I need to write it all down while I still remember it. Kameron appreciated all of their input and support.
Then it was time to head downtown for the big event. Reilly and Hunter took Kam and Abbey a little early. Kam had to be there an hour before and so did Abbey. She isn't a senior but she was playing in the band for commencement. We hurried and cleaned up and headed downtown too.
And then...there he was... a high school graduate! All the feels about this milestone.
The girls all wanted their own pictures with their brother. They are so proud of him and he is such a great brother to them. He is the calm in the whirlwind of these girls. Each of them go to him for advice and love him dearly.
We have two high school graduates now! So crazy.
I loved that these two had this special year together!
Grandma Vic and Kam
Grandma Judie and Grandpa Joel weren't able to come because the week before Grandpa Joel was in the hospital very sick with pneumonia. We are so glad that he is doing better now.
Kam with a couple of the Sykes and with the McKinnons.
Kam and the Hills
Kameron and Abbey
Kameron and Jonathan
Kam and Caleb
Kameron, Camron, and Tyler
Then Kam quickly left us to celebrate with all of his friends and to attend the all-nighter and we headed out to dinner with the Hills. Kam had such a GREAT time at the Senior All-Nighter!! He really celebrated with his friends and enjoyed his big day. He won a Samsung watch and was THRILLED! He came home the next morning exhausted and happy. Such a great way to end your high school career!
Next up was his big Grad Party! I was so sad not to be there but I had planned so much with Shauna and Norma that I felt like I was *almost* there!! Tyler sent me pictures and videos and my friends posted pictures and videos on social media and... guess what... it turned out just fine without me being there! LOL. The party was HUGE success!! So many people came to celebrate and support these kids. Kameron had so many people from all different parts of his life show up. School friends, co-workers, teachers, church friends, leaders, family friends etc. He really enjoyed every minute of this party and that made me SO HAPPY!! (Another graduate was added to the party at the last minute. Unfortunately Jacob missed being on the invitations.)
There was such good food: pulled pork sliders, potato salad, other salads, chips and dip, 7-layer dip, meat and cheese platters, fruit platters, veggie platters...my friend Norma is from the Philippines and she was frying tons of homemade Lumpia (spring rolls) that were to die for!! They had cake, cupcakes, brownies, a lemonade fountain, and a very popular Italian soda bar. They had a DJ, games, photo booth, and even a Hawaiian dancer for entertainment. It really turned out amazing! So many people came and stayed late. I have been hearing about it for weeks.
We were all so touched by the turnout, sweet cards, and generosity that these kids were shown. Wow. They have so many people in their lives who love and support them and they TRULY felt it!
Pro-tip: Graduation parties are so hard to plan because all of their friends are having them on basically the same two weekends...the one before and the one after. If you can combine with some of their friends and do one big party it makes it so much easier on you and on all of the people who would like to attend. Especially if the kids have a lot of the same friends etc.
And now summer is here and Kam is working and starting the process for his mission. He has met with the bishop, is filling out all of the online forms, and has scheduled his interview with the stake president. His plan is to work through the summer and put his availability for the fall. That will be here before we know it...
I am so glad that Kameron had such a great high school experience and a great graduation too!!
I am a stay-at-home mom and small business owner. I have four FANTASTIC kids: Reilly (29), Kameron (25), Ailey (21), and Bryn (17). I have been married to my amazing husband Tyler for 31 years. We are also grandparents to four cute grandkids and another on the way!
