Brett Pritchard Family Blog

One night the missionaries were over for dinner.  Eathyn was begging to go on a bike ride but it was already bedtime.  The elder's said, "how about we come over in a couple days and go on a bike ride with you?"  O my goodness, Eathyn was exstatic!!!"  Sure enough, one afternoon they show up and Eathyn went on a rather long bike ride with the elders.  I felt like a first time mom again.  I actually started to worry because they were gone so long.  It was easily a hundred degrees out side and they didn't take any water.  I couldn't imagine how Eathyn was surviving.  Then my worry was put to rest when they came home and Eathyn had a slurpee in one hand and a bag full of sweets and a slurpee for his little brother Ryan in the other hand.  They thought it was so cute how he had to have one for his little brother too.  One day shortly after the campaign ended, we decided to drop everything and get out of town.  We decided just mi...

I believe it was the weekend after the election Brett and I decided to take the kids camping.  We roasted!! It was so hot!!! The younger kids had fun and the older ones and Brett and and I were so hot! We were going to stay two nights but we only made it one.  Eathyn and Ryan love water! They were in heaven with water all around them. Rachel has a way of finding beauty in life. She was loving the opportunity to capture the unique flowers that were around the lake.  Of course she had to try them on and show off her natural beauty. She's such a beautiful young lady...  Brandon is my only child that's been in a cast.  I've lost track of how many broken bones he's had.  He's so skinny, when something hits one of his limbs he has nothing to protect him.  He's had just as many bruised bones that are equally painful for him.  He's 17 and we are so happy he still loves being with his family.  He rarely misses anyth...

Lazaro Cabellero is a cute little hispanic man I met one day down in Belton on main street during a child abuse awareness function Brett and I had been invited to attend.  He saw Brett's  sign and said, "I owe my life to this man.  He won custody for me for my two daughters."  He started to cry big crocodile tears.  He told me he wanted to help us make sure he won judge.  I put him at one of my polls during early voting.  He held a sign and waved at voters for 2 weeks.  This man has left quite an impression on my life.  He is disabled and is unable to work still,  he is the happiest, up beat person I have ever know.  Every day when he'd call me during early voting I'd say, "How are you Larry?  (everyone calls him Larry)" And he'd say,  "great!"  One day after getting that same response day after day, after he'd been in the hot sun for hours on end campaigning for me, I said, "Larry, how is it that you are always doing...

HUMMM.... What an interesting experience these last couple months have been.  Just to give a snap shot of what our life is like right now.  Brett and I were so tired emotionally and physically last night.  There wasn't an ounce of anything else to give inside of either of us.  We have been campaigning around the clock for a very long time, which is a full time job all by it's self.  When you have 17,000 people to contact and convince to vote for you-you have to work every waking moment or we'd have regrets.  Then on top of that we have Brett's full time job and being a mother of  6 and mournig the loss of one is more than a full time job.  We were three days away last night and Marilyn my sweet friend said, "You and Brett need to take the week end off or you're going to go into election day so exhausted.  If you loose it could spur a mental Break down for one of you.  You're both way too tired!! I thought that was cute of her because she...

At 9:45pm on the 24th of May I got this great idea for Rachel's birthday the next day.  I was soooo relieved I'd finally gotten out of campaign mode enough to plan something special for her birthday.  Election day was just 7 days away.  I was stressed to the max and completely and utterly exhausted from the whole experience of losing Mariela and trying to win this election all at the same time.  Her birthday was just hours away and I'd still not figured out how to make her feel special and loved for her 11th birthday.  When this idea popped in my mind I got busy and called all the people that she loves that live near us.  Of course Marilyn lives clear acrossed town but she's convinced us all that she'd walk a million miles for us so I knew she'd love to show up for Rachel at 6am to celebrate her special day.  Marilyn is one of Rachel's favorite people.  And Mare loves her equally as much.  I planned a surprise party for Rachel. I pulled ...

First it's Mariela's death, then, separation from my nurse and best friend, enduring to the end of a 6 month long campaign which we are now 9 days away from the election, and then just today Austin gets suspended from school for 3 days for bullying a child at school just after getting him through the sexting he'd been doing the last three months with a couple different girls and now Brandon just today as well is having another one of his major melt downs.  He just took off with the car with out asking and it's 1am. on Sunday morning.  It's come to giving him a ultimatum.  He's respectful or he moves out! Tomorrow will be a good day around here.  He either agrees to some extensive counseling to get to the root of his emotions or he moves out.  He is no longer managing his choices well.  Wow! What a very difficult couple months it's been.

Dear Mom, Most recently I have thought a lot about your role in my life as my mother.  Shortly after Mariela died I realized one of the best ways to ease my grief was to find something that would taste good, feel good and something that would bring me happiness.  Being in the middle of Brett's campaign did not bring much of a chance to experience anything that was positive.  I felt trapped in a world I didn't know how to get out of.  The grief was all consuming.  I realized all I wanted to do was escape this whole situation.  There was not  a part of me that wanted to be a mother or wife any longer.  I wanted to get relief from the grief but the only way to do that was to pray or do something that brought a positive feeling with no heavy responsibility.  Praying was difficult because I felt so far away from the Holy Ghost due to the grief that blanketed my heart and there wasn't even a moment of time to do something that...