He sat down with us and talked over Colin's history in a fair amount of detail, then gave Colin some revised prescriptions for what he's been taking already and told him to go home and log everything for a month and then take some lab tests and come back and see him and they'd decide what to do from there.  I don't know if this guy is going to be innovative or creative enough to figure out what's really wrong with Colin, but at least he's not making him start over with basic insulin and he's not accusing him of lying.  Definitely a big step in the right direction.

I just looked it up, and Mr. Rogers had 24 cardigans over the life of the show, all of which his mother made for him by hand.  For some reason, having Mr. Rogers change from his coat into his sweater makes me feel good, like things might be right in the world after all.  I guess there's something to the assertion that people like structure. 

I like the segments where Mr. Rogers takes field trips or watches videos about factories or how things are made.  Today he took a trip to a museum, where the tour guide showed him some paintings by great masters and also the bathrooms and the cafeteria kitchen.  Maybe my clearest memory about Mr. Roger's Neighborhood from when I was little is the segment about how crayons are made.  I loved seeing millions of little crayons lined up in rainbow order.  There's that structure thing again.

Colin once made a reference in passing to how weird it is that the delivery man is named Mr. McFeely.  I'd never thought of how that could be twisted before, but I feel avenged now that I know that McFeely was Mr. Roger's middle name and that it was a family name from his mother's side.  So, no yuckiness there.

I like the fish in the fish tank and how Mr. Rogers feeds them.  I like how clean everything is in his house.  I like the model of the neighborhood at the beginning and/or end of the episodes and have always wanted to make one of my neighborhood (but where would I put it and which neighborhood would I mimic?).  I like trolley's whistle and the episode where Mr. Roger's shows how he makes trolley move.  I like the stoplight on the wall that blinks.  I like the way Mr. Rogers treats people–it makes me believe that if I'd ever met him he would have liked me because I never saw him act like he disliked anyone. 

Fred Rogers died in 2003, just a couple of years after he retired and I'm glad I can pretend he didn't by watching reruns.  Thanks for telling us we're each special, just the way we are.

In the background Colin has some Pavarotti playing on the computer in honor of the occasion.  He's putting some Spanish songs sung by Pavarotti on his iPod to play for his Spanish classes today.  I wonder if it's weird for his family to have to share him with the whole world, even in their grief.  If any of them ever read this, I'm sorry for your loss.  We will all miss him.

Their house is on a little lake or pond with fish and ducks and John Sherwood took Degen over to the shore several times and let him watch him feed the fish and look at the ducks.  Degen loved that and may still be talking about it tomorrow.  They grilled shish kabobs and corn on the cob for dinner and then we had watermelon and pie for dessert.  Everything was super yummy.  Someday we need to get a house with a porch and a big grill like that to entertain friends.  It was an inspirationally entertaining evening with our new friends.

After dinner, they pulled out their PS2 and we all played Guitar Hero.  It was my first time playing and I lost both times I tried, but I think I got better the second time and I'd like to play again.  Guitar Hero is more fun than I expected!  Colin plays the demo every time we go to Walmart (we don't have a game system at home, so he has to get in some gaming whenever he has a chance), so he was somewhat familiar with the game.  I wish it had more songs I know and that the characters were portrayed in a more appropriate way, but I guess that's how rock concerts are.  I've never actually been to one, unless you count Reba Mcintire at Stadium of Fire at BYU a few years ago, but that's country music and I didn't love that, either.

The Dewalls both work in the medical field and are now on the lookout for a good endocrinologist for Colin's weird diabetes.  The Sherwoods own a couple of pet stores and now we know who to go to if we ever decide to get a pet.  Maybe we should start out with a fish…

Dr. Frazier is our wonderful chiropractor.  He's helped us with a myriad of health problems.  He's the one who first figured out that Colin doesn't have normal diabetes (when Colin was filling out his new-patient paperwork the first time he visited, Dr. Frazier looked over his shoulder and said something like "You put that you have Type I diabetes.  Don't put that down, you don't have that").  He helped immensely with both of my pregnancies, getting my body ready for what turned out to be impressively easy labors and helping me manage my gestational diabetes.  He helped Degen without an appointment when I accidentally dropped him on a hardwood floor at six weeks old.  In fact, he's come in on weekends and visited us in the hospital and even lent us his trailer when we moved. 

Colin says "You know, it's hard to find an intelligent, balanced alternative medicine person.  Someone who doesn't hate the system."  Dr. Frazier is really good about understanding the need to work with both alternative and traditional medicine.  When he told Colin he didn't have diabetes, he didn't tell him to stop going to his regular doctor, he told him to go back to the doctor and ask him to run specific tests.  When I had gestational diabetes and they wanted to induce me, he didn't say to ignore my doctor, but he gave me questions to ask the doctor and helped me with other ways of managing the diabetes.

Aside from the typical chiropractic adjustments, Dr. Frazier is a genius at diagnosis.  He uses muscle testing and other methods to figure out the actual cause of the illness, rather than just treat the symptoms.  He has a broad range of methods he uses to treat you, too, including things like color therapy, homeopathics, nutrition, adjustments, acupuncture, acupressure, massage.  It's so nice to be able to go to his office when we have a mysterious and/or pressing health problem and he knows us and is able to figure out what is wrong and give us a lot of options (including untraditional ones) for treatment. 

Some things to know when you go see Dr. Frazier:

• He's very enthusiastic about what he does and is happy to answer questions, but you have to ask the questions or he might forget to explain because he's so excited about getting you better.
• There will probably be some suggestions he gives you that will be weird, but unless you have a bad feeling about it you should try them anyway.  There are a bunch of things that have helped me that I was skeptical about at first.  He'll never suggest something that will hurt you.
• Sometimes you have to wait a while before he gets you in to an appointment.  He spends as much time with you as you need to get better, but occasionally that means you have to wait a little longer than planned while he helps someone else.  He and the staff do their best to stay on schedule, but people aren't clocks.

So, go see Dr. Frazier and tell him the Jensens sent you!

Speaking of looks, my dad is a pretty snazzy dresser.  He used to own a men's clothing store in Arizona, and as long as I've known him he's liked to wear a tie to work if he can't get away with a suit and he regularly shines his shoes and he uses a shoe horn to put them on.  That is, unless he's doing archeology, and then I remember him digging in jeans, a polo shirt, a baseball hat with a bright bandanna tucked underneath hanging down to protect his neck from sunburn.  I've seen his wedding pictures from 1980–he wore a purple ruffled shirt with his tuxedo to his reception.  I've seen pictures from high school where he wore blue and white plaid bell-bottom pants.  The other people in the pictures seemed to think he looked cool.  My sister Abby found those plaid pants when we were in high school and wore them for years.  Dad's always looked really good in public, but when he's home working on stuff his sense of style suddenly breaks down and he has the funniest sense of what to wear to do home improvement.  Like khaki shorts that are too big but belted to fit and a green polo shirt and white socks and black tennis shoes.  I like the contrast.

Dad is a really friendly guy.  People at church used to ask us kids if he ever got grumpy, and I've shocked several people when I've told them that he occasionally even yells.  It's shocking because Dad is really a pretty calm, patient, happy person, but my siblings and I have diligently applied ourselves to the task of pushing his buttons from time to time. 

For a long time (until my brother came along) it was just dad and the girls, and you wouldn't believe how patient and wise my dad has been about dealing with his daughters.  I remember several times when I talked back to him or disobeyed or something and he sent me to my room.  I'm sure that's not unusual, but what is impressive is that he would give me a few minutes to cool off, stop whatever he was doing, then come to my room and sit at the foot of my bed and listen for hours to my crying and long explanations of what I thought was really wrong until I felt better and our relationship was improved.  He didn't give me advice until I was ready for it, he didn't tell me to get over it and shape up, he just let me talk it through.  Now that I'm older, I understand how much those talks made a difference to me and shaped my opinion of myself and how much time and effort he invested in me. 

Dad is pretty formal a lot of the time, especially with strangers or with work or church stuff.  He takes his responsibilities very seriously.  But when you get him in the right mood or with the right people, he gets crazy and dramatic.  When he would pick me up from school there were times that he shocked the other kids with his spontaneous operatic singing (Dad's a singer and a violinist, too).  I was totally embarrassed at the time, but I thought it was about as cool and funny as the other kids did anyway.  When you get Dad and my Aunt Becky together they laugh the whole time, sometimes until they can hardly breathe.  Dad starts telling silly jokes and breaking your expectations and you can't help but giggle along with his contagious laughter.  I remember one time when we had a family reunion Dad did a skit where he dressed up in a toga (bed sheet) and peeled grapes and threatened to stick them up his nose.  That's the kind of funny, crazy drama I'm talking about.  We still giggle over that performance with my cousins.

Dad told me once that one of the first things that attracted him to my mom was that she was interested in grammar.  That may sound odd, but language is important to my parents.  They both speak more than one language, and they both are careful about the words they chose to speak.  Dad always had a dictionary (or several) close by so that if any of us had a disagreement about etymology or grammar we could look it up.  It was totally normal to have a discussion around the dinner table about whether we should say "lay" or "lie" in a particular case.  Of course, the debate goes on about whether you should pass dishes to the left or right (we pass to the right) and whether asparagus is really a finger-food.  Dad is really into etiquette, too, and kept Emily Post and other manners books nearby.   

Dad is famous in our family for his gifts.  Valentine's Day was always a happy day for me (even when I was single) because Dad always got us each a carnation and told us he loved us.  He has a knack for presentation, and often the value of the gift is in the presentation.  My first Christmas away from home Dad mailed me a package full of dollar store and handcrafted materials in a box with step-by-step assembly instructions, including a pappier mache topographical map of Israel with Christmas-related cities labeled, and cotton balls out of which I was to create a herd of sheep to place near Bethlehem.  I think the most memorable gift I ever saw him give was a half-used bottle of ice drops (breath mint drops)suspended inside a large, marker-decorated tepee on a foil-covered cookie sheet.  The gift was labeled to identify the various features of his wrapping job and the uses of the gift inside.  He spent over an hour locked up mysteriously in his bedroom working on the project and then waited until all the other gifts were opened before he brought the tepee out with great fanfare.  I don't even remember who he gave the present to, but it was hilarious and I still smile when I think of it.

My dad works hard to improve himself and our family all the time.  He's already great at the basics.  He called us to family scripture study and family prayer nearly every morning I can remember for my whole life.  There was no question about whether we would be going to church on a given Sunday unless we were sick.  There were many, many nights when I would go to say goodnight to my parents and catch Dad on his knees saying his prayers (sometimes he was asleep, but I knew he said them before he got in bed).  My parents always paid their tithing, even though we didn't have much money.  Dad accepted callings at church and did everything he could to do them well.  He's a great Home Teacher.  He was always worthy and ready to give us blessings.  He made sure we had Family Home Evening every week, and on top of that we had Family Council and Family Outings almost every week. 

Vacations with Dad were always packed with plans.  Our extended family always jokes about how Dad makes an agenda for every family reunion or meeting, and that he does such a thorough job that we actually follow it.  Every road trip he has ten ideas of what to do next, and he always wanted to stop and see the educational sites (historical landmarks, points of genealogical importance, etc.), and even though I often thought it was totally boring at the time, I crave the order of those vacations now. 

Dad is still very involved in my life.  I talk to him on the phone, and when I'm talking to my mom or siblings he always wants them to put me on speaker phone so he can hear me.  I know he prays for me and my little family.  After Degen was born, he made a s

pecial trip up to see me and the baby because he couldn't come when Mom did.  Whenever I get to see him he's just as awesome as ever and I know he loves me and that I can count on him as much as I could when I was little. 

Now, don't you think I have the best Dad ever?  Don't you wish you had a dad like mine?  If I were you, I would, because he is the best.  I could continue going on and on about how awesome he his, but I think you get the idea.  I love you, Dad!  Happy birthday!!!!!

Emily was always the one Mom got after to clean her room more than anyone else, and the one who seemed to get into Mom's stuff more than anyone else.  I've wondered at times if Emily had more of Mom's stuff stowed away in her room than Mom did in her own room.  Emily would go to her room when ordered to clean it, begin with one small drawer, then spend hours looking through the drawer and thinking about creative ways to use the things in it or actually using them creatively or putting them "away" in creative ways.  I remember Mom sighing with a mixture of admiration and exasperation as she described this process to one of her friends.  It couldn't be helped, and I'm sure Mom wondered if it should be helped.

Emily has always done well in school.  In fact, being a middle child in a family of high achievers, she might be called an over-achiever.  She works really hard and is probably a little too hard on herself when she doesn't perform as well as she planned to.  I love reading her papers, which she sends to the whole family to edit (we all do that–one of the reasons we do well in school is that we have a large family of friendly critics).  Emily started college as a science person–I think she was a Neuroscience major or some such neatness.  Although she performed extremely well in her science classes we all knew she'd be happier in a more flowing discipline.  And now she's a Studio Art major.

Emily's art is optimistic and thoughtful.  We keep trying to get her to sell it, if only to set up a gallery online, but she's too busy with school right now.  She's not one of those grumpy, moody, irritable artists, but is totally anti-diva and down-to-earth.  She likes to paint meaningful subjects.  She's not really into surrealism because it tends to be so dark. 

I like Emily's faith.  It's very simple and straightforward.  It's an "I've thought about it and prayed about it, and this is just how it is" faith without the "you have to agree with me" stuck on the end.  She just always knows things will work out because they will. 

Ned is fun to be around.  When she was in high school, she and Abby came up with a creole of sorts that they called "Englinese."  It was a combo of English, English baby-talk, French, Spanish, Hebrew, and whatever other ideas they thought of off-hand.  My dad dubbed it "stupid-talk" and it drove him crazy, but somehow they found a way to be endearing through the irritation.  If you can get her to talk stupid-talk in front of you, you know that you've made it into the inner circle of her trust.  Now she speaks German, too, so be ready to be bewildered.

Emily is affectionate.  She's not one to hold hands on a first date, or even let a boy put his arm around her shoulders, but when all us sisters are home we'll be sitting on the couch and Emily will throw herself on top of the heap and cuddle in.  Sometimes when we're home on a Sunday afternoon, one of us will be in bed taking a nap and Emily will snuggle into the space between you and the wall and nestle into a nap herself. 

Oh, and Emily is a musician, too.  She plays the flute and the cello.  Now, don't you wish she were your sister, too?

There's my late-night musing on my third little sister.  She's awesome–smart and funny and eloquent and humble and happy.  Goodnight, Ned! 

St. Patrick's Day is special in my family because it's my mom's birthday.  Happy birthday, Mom!  I talked to her for a while this morning about everything from the Curves diet to potty training to how getting a cranial adjustment can prevent and correct orthodontic problems.  My mom is a "really neat lady," as Grandpa Stringham (her dad) likes to remind me.  Actually, everyone who knows her reminds me about how neat she is.  When I was a teenager that bugged me a little bit ("of course she's neat, she's my mom"), but now I just feel proud and honored to be part of her family. 

One of Mom's more obvious virtues is how impressively smart she is.  Of course, she's humble too, and gets a little embarrassed when anyone mentions how she's so smart and she starts saying how she's met smarter people than her and how she still has to work really hard at school and stuff.  Trust me, she's smart.  She knows a lot about a lot of things and she is committed to helping people by using what she knows, which I guess is part of why she's going to be a doctor.  She only has a year to go of Med School, then she'll have her D.O.  Yay Mom! 

Another reason she's going to be a doctor is that she's one of those people whose very presence makes you feel better.  She's simply a healing kind of person.  She likes to take care of people and help them make good choices about their health.  A good kind of person to have as your mom, no?  So, if any of you reading this go to Dr. Becky Bushman, you're in good hands.

My mom is musically talented, too.  She has a great alto voice–lots of people have told me so besides me just knowing it from hearing her.  She plays the cello (she went to college on a cello scholarship, even) and the piano.  I took piano lessons from her and know first-hand how patient she is, even though I quit out of my own competitive issues with my sister. 

Mom's a good listener.  I remember coming home from school every day and her being there to listen (even with interest!) to every minute detail of what happened to me that day.  The one year she wasn't around after school because of work my life pretty much seemed like it was collapsing, so it really means a lot to me that she made the conscious choice to be around for me and my siblings.   

Mom is a totally spiritual person, and I'm especially grateful for what she taught me about God, Jesus, and religion.  She turns to God for answers when she's having trouble and she knows that he will help her.  She says her prayers and reads her scriptures.  She goes to church and gives service through her callings and other ways, too.  She has faith that if you're trying to do what's right and you have a good relationship with Heavenly Father that things will always work out in the end.  Because of her (and my dad, of course), these things were relatively easy for me to learn and do in my own life.

The best thing about my mom is that she loves me.  She calls me when she's on the road, or during her lunchtime, just to check in and see how I'm doing.  She does extra homework to find out ways to help me and my kids and husband (and even my neighbors and their families!) feel better when we're sick.  She doesn't mind that I'm silly or grumpy or even a little mean or crazy sometimes and she believes that I'll get over it sooner or later.  I've overheard her saying "I don't think any of my kids are really brilliant," be she treats us like she thinks we are.  She just always believed I was a good kid, so I expected myself to be one, too. 

I love you, Mom!  Thank you!  And thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for having you and making St. Patrick's Day extra special.