Mormon Helping Hands 2013

Every year, we participate in Mormon Helping Hands, a day of service to our local community.  For the past few years, we've finished the ever increasing in size projects within a couple of hours.  This year, the city gave us a huge project which included painting fences throughout a local park, planting a ton of plants on a hillside, and moving 2 HUGE piles of mulch so that the hillsides were covered in mulch.

We had a lot of fun working (although AJ wasn't as excited as he was in past years), and we had a great sense of accomplishment when the tasks were complete!

Here are a few pictures.

Silly Cat

Our cat, Mia, is a strange one. She has loved David's Eagle Scout project, because he made blankets which she could lay on (and on the scraps of fabric).



After his project last Saturday, David brought all the blankets in and lined the dining room wall (until we dropped them off today). Mia plopped herself down in the middle of the blankets. I hope none of the kids who receive a blanket we made is allergic to cats.


Today, after we loaded all the blankets in the car, Mia looked a bit depressed while gazing down at the dining room. (Of course, she wouldn't keep that pose while I took the picture, because she's afraid of the camera. This is the best I could get.)

Erin's in the News (Again)!

A local Gaithersburg paper published an article about my younger sister, Erin, who gave birth to her fourth child in the parking lot of the local firestation last week. You can link to it

here, or read it (as I have posted it below).

Baby delivered in parking lot of Gaithersburg fire station

Woman realized she could not make it to hospital

By Nathan Carrick Staff Writer

This was a different kind of late night delivery.

While on the way to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville last week to give birth, Erin Presley told her husband, Christian, to pull over.

She was in labor.

The baby was coming.

"I said, ‘We can be at the hospital in five minutes," Christian Presley said. "She said no, she felt like she had to push. And she was the calm one. She suggested we pull over into the fire station."

They pulled into the Gaithersburg-Washington Grove Fire Department Station 8 at the corner of Montgomery Village and Russell avenues shortly before 3 a.m. May 27 and rang the doorbell.

When there was no answer, Christian Presley called 911.

The redirected call woke up Master Firefighter Michael Skidmore inside. He came rushing out to the parking lot.

"Mike said, ‘trade places,' and I stepped back and he stepped in," Pressley said.

Skidmore said the baby's head already was visible when he arrived, and the delivery took just a few moments.

When Erin Presley woke Christian at 2:45 a.m. at their Montgomery Village home, her contractions already were strong, she said.

"I would never have anticipated it being so short," she said. "When I felt how strong [the contractions] were, I said this is not supposed to be happening so fast."

Her water broke as she got in the car.

"He said we can make it in five minutes, but I said we don't have five minutes," she said.

Shortly after 3 a.m., in the passenger seat of his parent's car, Isaac Presley was born.

He weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces.

"It was definitely cramped quarters," Skidmore said.

Christian Pressley was in shock, he said.

"I would say it was extremely terrifying, but it happened so fast it didn't really have time to sink in and freak me out properly," he said.

Although firefighters periodically deliver babies, this was Skidmore's first, he said.

"We see both sides, from bringing life into the world, to the latter, seeing death," he said. Skidmore did not get much sleep that night. A few seconds after the baby was delivered, he was off on another call. At 8 a.m., he played the bagpipes at a funeral in Rockville.

Other firefighters at the station posted the delivery on Twitter shortly after it happened, and friends were congratulating him after the funeral, Skidmore said.

The Presley's have three other children — Jacen, 2, Aedan, 4, and Eilanora, 7 — but this was the quickest birth, they said.

"Our doctor was amazed it happened so fast," Erin Presley said. "When we got to the hospital he said, ‘you only called a few minutes ago.'"

For now, the Presleys are pausing at four children, and may decide that is enough.

"There's a slim possibility we're having more," Erin said. "But we're definitely not having any more any time soon."

My Sister Gave Birth in a Parking Lot.

My sister, Erin, was featured on the local news, because her new little boy (born this morning) wouldn't wait until she and her husband reached the hospital. He was delivered in the parking lot of the Gaithersburg volunteer fire department parking lot.

Here's the news story...

Mormon Helping Hands, Part 2.

Our family had the privilege of working with other members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints across the state of California last Saturday, May 8 serving our local communities. John, David, Michael, A.J., and I worked at a local park and planted ground cover. We spent a couple hours in the morning and had a great time.

This is the second year we've been able to participate in the Mormon Helping Hands program. I posted something about it last year. You can view that blog entry here.

Michael's 6th Grade Claim Jumper Trip

Each year, the kids' elementary school sends the 6th grade students to a local restaurant as a year end treat (and to practice their manners). This year, Michael's class went to Claim Jumper, and I was able to accompany them.

Mormon Helping Hands Day of Service

We were privileged to be involved in the Mormon Helping Hands Day of Service on April 25, 2009. Working with our stake, we went to Castaic Lake Park and painted curbs. If you'd like to read about it, here's a link to an article in our local newspaper about various projects in our city.

http://www.the-signal.com/news/article/12439/

I included this picture because I thought it was such a beautiful scene at Castaic Lake Park!