Life Update via Letter Written to Our Missionary 1/9/2023

As per tradition when I have a child serving a mission for our church, I'm posting a little life update as taken from a letter written to our missionary.  It's a time saver  for me and is motivating to me to write a more interesting letter and to blog more often. 

 Beware:  If you proceed to read this blogpost, you will definitely see the goofier side of Lara (unless you happen to be related to her, in which case, you're fully aware how goofy she is).    

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Hey ho there, Sweet Elder of Mine!
You'll never guess.... I am not only remembering to send you an email today, but I'm actually getting started on it before lunch (which means I'm not in danger of falling asleep in the middle of writing it)! But, beware, my full state of awake-ness does mean that this email may be longer, more random, and/or a lot sillier than usual. Who knows? Time will tell....good luck keeping up with your mother's "woke" brain!   Not that I'm actually woke by the popular definition of the day, but I am awake and I'm sure if you asked Nana or Grandma, they would consider "woke" and "awake" to mean pretty much the same thing, so, yeah, I'm your woke/awake mother who is about to write you an epic letter.    

So, where to start? It's been a month since my surgery and my recovery is still going well. I had a little scare this past weekend, but I called the doctor, who told me not to worry, and  now everything seems to be back on track again. Yay!  😆

Okay, so I want you to look at this weather....

IT'S LOOKED LIKE THIS FOR WEEKS!!!! The sun will peek out for a couple hours here and there, but then the clouds will roll in again and it will usually start raining and/or snowing before too long.  It's kind of depressing--especially since, in addition to all the drear,  I don't think we've seen temps out of the 40's since early October or so.   I think you should call your Portland weather and tell it to come home!   

 And lest you think I'm exaggerating, here are the screenshots from the weather app taken a few minutes apart today...   

Anyway,  my surgery recovery forced me to stay home for a couple weeks, then this weather is making hard to break out of that pattern and get outside the house again.  I find myself staying home every chance I can and I've been very few places, other than church, the post office, and the parking lot of Ellie's school the last few weeks. I have even been letting Spence, Dad, and Emma do most of the grocery shopping, however now that Emma's back to school, I may have to buck up and at least do that again.  😶

What else is there?  

Um, I finally made a menu again.   I'm all sorts of exciting, huh?     

Oh, Ellie made a quesadilla from corn tortilla yesterday and drew the judgment of Spence, who thinks corn tortilla quesadillas are just wrong.   

It reminded me of the time when Spence put some super hot sauce on all the quesadillas that Cami made one day and made her burst into tears because they were so hot.  As punishment, I had him make a  new batch of quesadillas...

but we were out of tortillas, so he had to make them from scratch.  As you can see...the results were amazing.   😋  

Why did Spence having on opinion on flour vs corn quesadillas remind me of a silly story from 14 years ago?    I have no idea, except your mother is weird and perhaps I think Spence's quesadilla (gluten aside) looks a little more appetizing than Ellie's.  😏

Also, I found this photo on our camera roll.  I think Ellie was perhaps taking pictures of people's shoes to share with you...   Either that or it was a butt dial picture.   You should ask her and find out. 😆

I know you've been dying to see our Christmas card haul this year, so here you go....

And with that, I think it might be time to share a picture or two of Lucie with you...  

That picture was taken when Cami went to check on her during her nap today. 😂  

The  teddy bear she is holding is one we got for Cam for her graduation.  Apparently Lucie has become quite attached to it.  💕 

Brace yourself for cuteness overload....

Check out that smile! I have no idea what made her smile so big, but you better believe I was smiling equally as big when I caught sight of this photo for the first time.  😁

Look what else made me smile today!    

I got a postcard from Lucie in the mail!   And it's my very favorite type.   Granted, I would have rather been holding Lucie in person,  than them going to New Orleans to send me a postcard, but I'll take what I can get.   

Here are some other notables from our life right now:  

1.  We had stake conference this past weekend.   Our stake president is a wonderful speaker and an all around good guy and the conference was lovely.   A favorite quote from him:  "Heaven isn't panicking; why should we?"   spoken about someone who may not be progressing along the path the way we'd hoped.   

2.  There was a 7 foot man singing with the youth choir at stake conference.   We later learned that he was a professional basketball player from the 1980's and 1990's and he's not actually 7-feet.  He's only 6'10".   I think his name was Fred Roberts or something like that anyway.   He made the boy from our ward, who's about your height, look like a midget.   Elder F. would have come up his shirt pocket....maybe.  
  
3.  We have officially decided to leave the Christmas decor up until after Cami and Lucie finally come to visit.   

4. They're supposed to be coming this weekend, though I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high. #stupidsouthwest

5.  All the rain/snow this winter means that people are no longer praying for moisture, but thanking God for the abundance

6. Just in case you're wondering....the fastest way to kill a cactus is by watering it too much.   Apparently I watered this one too much, because it one day it was fine, then next day it looked like this... #brownthumb

7.  I cheated on Wordle yesterday.   The word was OPERA and I had the a, e, o, and r all in the wrong places and my mind was just blank.  I tried RAZOR, despite it not having an E in it, just so I could narrow down letter placement a bit, but that move was useless and I continued in my stumpedness.   Usually when I get stuck, I can walk away and inspiration will come to me later.   Alas, not so with yesterday's word.   I came back several times and just had to admit I was Madame Stuck-a-roni and I didn't want to waste any more time on it!  Finally, I  gave up and looked online for a clue and then figured it out quickly.  I hadn't done that move in a very long time.   

8.  Lest you think I'm a total loser for killing a cactus and cheating at Wordle, I am also starting fresh with my scripture study and so far (9 days into the year), it's going great.   I was already reading the Bible and Book of Mormon regularly, but I've been really feeling like I need to add more depth to my study, so I'm using the journal edition of the scriptures and some study implements to help the cause.   I've also started recreating my Come, Follow Me activity pages for kids/teens.    I have no one to share them with (since this ward does not want programs) and no one looks at my FHE blog anymore, but I felt inspired to create them again and that's also something that's helping me to dive into the scriptures with more depth.   (I'll attach a few for you, so you can see them) 

9.  I am officially running out of things to tell you.  I guess that's what happens when you don't leave the house much.     😑

So, what do you think?  Should I write your letters during daylight hours more often?   Or do you like the half-asleep late-night versions better?  Either way, I'll be very interested to hear if your missionary life continues to be BORING or if you'll move on to somewhere like ALOHA (I had a roommate from there) or BEAVERTON (land of dams and Nikes) or TIGARD (where the tigers roam free) or SUNNYDALE (the place where all the clouds part and the sun shines 24/7).   

I'm excited to hear from you tomorrow!   Have a stupendously amazing day!   

LOVE YOU!!!! 

Love, 

Mom  💖💖💖