If You Give Lara a Blog

Hello, hello!  It's me, your friendly neighborhood blogger trying to get this little blog all caught up again.   

Should I blog about the amazing trip we took back in September?  Yes, yes, I should.   But my brain isn't quite there yet, so that will have to wait for another day.  

That also means that I'm not blogging about politics, my philosophy on shoes, nor an in depth look at the life cycle of bananas.  But, who am I kidding?   If I ever post anything remotely political on here, you'll know that this blog has been hacked.  It's not that I don't have strong opinions on many political issues, but I feel zero need to ever pontificate on them in public forums.  I like keeping my friends.   My philosophy on shoes may be mildly interesting to a few of you, so perhaps I'll put that in my idea list for another day far far in the future.  And don't ask me where I came up with blogging about the life cycle of a banana, but stay tuned...that might be fun.   

So what can my brain handle blogging about right now? 
 
A good go-to light topic is the weather, so perhaps we'll start there and see where it goes...

  The first part of October was quite rainy by Utah standards (something we quite enjoyed since it generally only ever drizzles here), then on Adam's birthday we woke up to snow!   Yes, I was about as happy about snow in mid-October as you can imagine, but you'll be happy to know that I didn't cry.  I may have been a little grumpy about it, but no tears were shed.  Yay me. 

Thankfully I survived and the weather has redeemed itself since then.  The last couple of weeks have been breathtakingly beautiful and I am spending as much time outside as humanly possible (which is less than I'd like).     This was a glimpse of our walk this afternoon along the Provo River Trail... 

The weather was perfection, the surroundings lovely, and the company excellent!  

We've been spending A LOT of time in Provo lately with our new calling, but the  reason why we were hiking in Provo today (instead of closer to home) was super exciting.  We had a convert baptism in our BYU ward this morning!  M. is a new freshman from the mid-west who had a lot of LDS friends in high school, which influenced her decision to attend BYU as a nonmember.  It's been an absolute delight to watch her testimony grow over the last couple months and we loved celebrating this special day with her.    I made the programs...of course!  

Last Saturday we also spent the day in Provo for another exciting, but much, much different event than a baptism....the BYU vs Utah football game.    Rather than getting season tickets for BYU football, Glen likes picking one game a season to attend and this was the one he picked.   We spent the afternoon tailgating with a bunch of Glen's work colleagues (and Adam)...

Then we headed in to watch the game, which ended exactly the way we hoped it would!   

Speaking of  excitement...I get to go play with these cutie pies soon and I'm so stinking excited I can barely stand it.   

Life has been so busy and, honestly pretty heavy lately, and I am very much looking forward to slowing down and enjoying some Lucie and Oliver time soon.   Oh, and I guess hanging out with Cam, Garrett, and Ems will be pretty awesome too.  

That's all I have for now, but before I sign off for the night, let me leave you with a glimpse at the glorious sunrise this morning.    

It made our entire room glow and it was a beautiful start to a beautiful day.   

Have a wonderful week!  💗

The Blogpost Wherein Lara Seals Herself into Nerdiness Lore

Q.  Nerdiness lore?  What's that?  

It's that blogpost wherein Lara inexplicably refers to herself in third person and does a FAQ where she both asks  and answers her own questions, which means if you all thought she was nerdy before, now you have it confirmed.  This post will probably get referenced in future editions of the Webster online dictionary when you search the word, "nerdiness".    

Q.  Why would she do such a thing?  

Because she's been up since 5:00am (for an airport run), has barely stopped moving for an entire month, and would rather blog than be productive.  

Q.  So, what's going on to make life busy enough that would make her want to  write such an incriminating blogpost?  

As mentioned in the most recent blogpost here on this very illustrious blog, she's hosted a whole lot of guests, had 40 gazillion things on her to-do list, gone out of town for 10 days (blogpost to come), and is in the throes of preparing her third talk in five months to be delivered tomorrow.   Also, Glen got called to be Bishop of a BYU YSA ward last week, so there's that too.     

Q.  That is a lot.  How does she feel about it all?   
   
Happy to have made a lot of happy memories this summer.

Lukewarm on giving yet another talk in church. 

Terrified about the time this new calling will entail, as well as the physical and mental energy that will be required.    

Super excited to get to know and love another whole  ward  (yes, a different ward than they'd been serving in the last few months).   

And super intimidated about learning 180 new names and trying to love them all unconditionally.

Q. How do they feel about hanging out in Provo so much?  

Mostly great.  It is more late nights and driving back and forth than they're used to, but they're really hoping that their service will continue to be meaningful to both them and the people they'll be serving.  

Q.  What scripture keeps coming to their minds during all this?  

The parable of the loaves and the fishes.   In many ways, this is a calling that require more of them than they have to give, so they are taking heart in knowing that the Lord can multiply their efforts, however paltry they may be, and make it enough.     



And here's the big question I know that's really burning on all your minds...

Q.  Will she have time to continue updating this blog regularly?  

Heck, yes!   She will make the time...

This picture, taken in Oregon, was to commemorate their last Sunday of sitting together in church for a while

Old Friends and a Few In-Between Things

 Have you noticed that it's been pretty nonstop around here for the last couple months?  Yeah, me too.  With kids at home, my life used to be pretty nonstop all the time, but as the kids have left the house one by one, the pace has slowed down a bit.  There have even been times in the last few years when I worry that I'm missing something, because life is so NOT busy.   I've thought long and hard about finding a job, but just haven't felt like that was the right thing yet, so I am sometimes floundering a little as I search for the most effective/meaningful way to spend my time.   But then I have periods of time like the last couple months have been and I am grateful a million times over that I have the incredible privilege of choosing to stay unemployed at this stage of my life, because I can't imagine one more thing to do on my already long list.  Plus I really, really love being flexible enough to be available for the grandkids' calls and visits and I think our new BYU callings would be very challenging if I worked full-time too.  

So, I finally have a few minutes and, here I am, blogging about a couple of the in-between things that I missed mentioning here on the blog, because they happened amongst the myriad of other "bigger" things (like  our busy new callings, Emma's graduation, the work conference in Saint George,  our trip to Alabama, and Emma's injury/surgery).  

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I am not convinced that Utah will ever truly feel like home  to me, but I'm coming around to the idea that it's certainly not a bad place to live.  Besides the epic scenery, I love that old friends actually come to visit (or move here too).    If we moved away from our community here in Utah tomorrow, I am 99.99% convinced that not a single person we've met here in Utah would ever come visit us, no matter where we lived (even if it were a mile away), so the fact that I have friends that  call when they come to visit sometimes, makes me incredibly happy!   

  Heather and Kelly are two of those good friends.  Heather recently moved nearby and is now a part of my book group, which I love.  Kelly is so good at keeping in touch, something I'm not the greatest at, so I extra appreciate her efforts and I loved seeing her, along with Heather, when she came to town for her daughter's recent graduation from BYU.  

Speaking of graduation, when we were out celebrating Emma's, I  randomly ran into this cousin of my sister-in-law, Karey,  who recognized me from my blog.  Haha!  I am fully aware that she was a regular blog reader from way back when I actually attempted humor and had a lot more funny stories to share, but it did make me feel cool to be recognized all these years later!   If you ever meet / see me in the real world, please come talk to me and make my day!   

The day after all the excitement from Emma's graduation, we celebrated my 52nd birthday!   Emma made an AMAZING cake (gluten free of course)...

which was as delicious as it was cool looking!  

I'll do a catch-up post for every member of the family soon, since there's a lot happening in most of their lives, but I think I'll finish this blogpost up with a few more pictures of some Virginia friends that recently came to town.  Kim's son was performing in a BYU production of High School Musical, which provided the perfect, last minute excuse for a trek to Provo to gather with old friends!  

All of these women are dear friends, but, besides running RAGNAR together nearly 14 years ago (see photo below), I feel like I have a special connection with each of them.    Amy is a fellow grandma to Lucie and Oliver, Kim is the mom of one of Adam's best friends growing up, and Heather is a fellow Minnesotan with whom I have a lot of shared experiences.    Finding  this old picture of us was a blast from the past and brought back a lot of carefree memories from the couple of months right before Spencer was diagnosed with leukemia and our world was forever rocked!   These women were right by my side during that challenging time!  

RAGNAR, September 2011 {l-r:  Cat, Me, Amy, Kim, Paige, Heather}

 We had to get a photo with just us and the B family, since we're practically related now that our kids have been married to each other for 7 years!    

It made my whole week to see them all again...💗

And now I need to get back to my long list of things to do again.  Thanks for tuning in today and stay tuned for more updates coming soon!   

All In A Few Days

You may have noticed that between our new callings, Emma's graduation, the work conference in Saint George, and our trip to Alabama, it's been pretty go go go around here the last several weeks.    I had hopeful visions that things would calm down a bit once we returned from Alabama, but that has not been the case yet.    

I arrived back home on a Wednesday night to an empty refrigerator, boatloads of laundry to do, and a somewhat messy house after being gone for 2 weeks (4 days in Saint George, then 10 days in Alabama).    I also had a funeral program to design (see below) and print by Thursday and book group to get ready for hosting on Thursday night, plus a busy weekend ahead, which pretty much meant there was not a moment of downtime before I had to go go go again. 

BOOK GROUP
 I LOVE my book group!   They are fantastic people that I am lucky to call my friends, so I totally don't mind hosting every month, even if sometimes it feels like a lot.    Luckily I was able to talk Emma into coming up for a couple hours to help me clean and make refreshments, which took the edge off of this crazy day. 

BACK ROW L-R:  Julie D, Nancy G, Kelly D, Emily G, Mary J, Heather P, Andrea C
FRONT ROW L-R:  Susan T, Me, Carrie W, K'Lynn W

A FUNERAL
My Aunt Valerie passed away while we were in Alabama.  She never married, so it was her sisters (including my Mom) helping to plan the funeral.   I was asked to make the funeral programs...something I was happy to do!  

The funeral was on Friday, so I needed to finish designing and printing them by Thursday, so they'd be ready for Friday.   Luckily I have found a good local printer that was able to do them same-day.  I ran to the grocery store to do a quick restock of the fridge while I was out picking up the programs.

  The funeral went great, except that I forgot to tell Glen that he was giving the family prayer.  I had been asked about it while I was still in Alabama and just plain didn't thoroughly read the text they sent  and then couldn't communicate to Glen something I skipped over.  It was a bit embarrassing as everyone was waiting for him and it was 100% my fault.   😳 Oops.  Besides giving the family prayer, Glen also led the music.  Emma gave the life sketch.   This was us at the funeral. 

  My Mom and 3 of her remaining sisters (one was too sick to come) immediately went to Star Valley after the funeral for the burial.  

 

MY SISTER AND NEPHEW

Speaking of sisters...my sister, Kristina, town for the funeral too. 

She also brought Jesus, who decided he wants to be called J  now. Denali was LOVING all the extra attention J  was giving her...

And J was LOVING all the one on one attention he was getting here without any of his siblings to compete with.   We read lots of books and let him pick the movies  (Frozen and Pete the Cat), which his brothers would never let him watch. 

I'll be honest...I was also quite LOVING the bonus time with this sweet little guy, since I was in serious Lucie and Oliver withdrawals  at that point! 

WEDDING RECEPTION
On Saturday night, after a busy day of doing all of our Saturday things,  we went to the wedding reception of a friend of Emma's from PA. Emma didn't live in PA for very long, but Katie left on her mission within a few weeks of  Ems and both got reassigned to SLC missions during COVID, so they connected that way.  I grew to really love Katie's Mom, Elizabeth, who was one of our bright spots from PA, after the very awkward social experience we had in the first ward we lived in while we were there.   We didn't take any pics at the reception and we actually didn't get a chance to talk to the L family for very long, since they were a bit distracted with lots of wedding stuff, but it was great to see their happy faces and celebrate with them. 

A VERY LONG SUNDAY
One Sunday a month, we wake up extra early and head to stake meetings that start at 7:30am.   But since it's about 35 minutes to get there and we have to find parking on campus, we have to leave around 6:50am and we don't get home until about 3:00pm.   The Sunday after we got home from Alabama was one of those long days, but luckily  Kristina was leaving from the Provo airport, so she dropped by right after our ward ended to say goodbye!   It was fun for Kristina to see a glimpse of what we're doing in the YSA ward now and it was fun that Emma could run over and greet Kristina as well.  I laughed when I offered to pick J up for the picture and he immediately flopped over in my arms like a baby!  Silly boy!     

A BUSY WEEK
By the time you'll read this post, we'll have prepared talks for this Sunday, had a kid break a bone in two places (a post for another day),  and been down to BYU FOUR  separate times  for various ward activities (it actually ended up 6/7 days).  

 

And, yet, here I am blogging, because, you know, priorities...

💗

A New Alumnus in the Family!

Nearly 30 years ago, I graduated from BYU with a Bachelor's of Science in Psychology.  I had finished all my coursework in December, but walked that April.  Spencer was one-year-old and I was very excited to be done with school.  I never even considered grad school at the time and basically only ever worked part-time until Glen graduated and we moved out East the following year. 

Look how young we all were!  

This past week, Emma graduated from BYU with a Bachelor's of Science in Public Health. 

I am proud of all my kids and their accomplishments, but I did feel an extra sense of pride with this graduation, as Emma was our first homeschool graduate, who never attended a minute of  public school past 7th grade. 

She is a hard worker and a dedicated student and we were thrilled to be there to celebrate this huge accomplishment with her. 

It was fun to run into lots of old friends around campus, but mostly we just enjoyed seeing Emma in her element.    She has given her heart to her time there in Provo and it's clear she is well-loved by many!  

Here she is with her former mission companion and current roommate, Riley, who also graduated.

Next up for Ems...a gap year, probably in Rhode Island with Cam and fam, and then grad school...maybe...if she decides it's right for her! 

It's kind of wild that we've got another kid done with their undergrad...and our first BYU grad! 

Way to go, Emma!   We love you!  

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PS  If you're interested, here's a post about Cami's graduation from the University of Texas.

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Eastering Together

Since becoming empty nesters, we honestly  go through some pretty dry spells where our lives are pretty uneventful, but lately it's been a pretty steady stream of nonboringness and we are enjoying it!  In fact, it's felt a bit like a whirlwind here the last month or so, so there's a ton to blog about.

This post will focus on the happenings of Easter weekend.  

On the Friday before Easter, my sister Heather was down in Provo with my Mom taking Emma's graduation pics (more of the recent excitement) and we decided to join them for a spontaneous little dinner and treat night.  Besides Heather, my Mom, and Emma, McKenzie (my niece), Riley (Emma's roommate), Adam, Spencer, and Glen and I were there.  We ate dinner at Don Joaquin's...

and laughed when our receipt was #74, which induced a lot of giggles on our parts...

We ended the night at Brooker's Founding Flavors ice cream shop near BYU.  Zwahlens in PA is still our gold standard for the best ice cream ever, but Brooker's isn't too far behind.  Plus the colonial / Founding Fathers theme of the shop makes us nostalgic for the DC area.   We were there on the snowy day mentioned here, so it wasn't great ice cream weather, but the place was still packed and we laughed that they had an outdoor DJ there that night.   

It was way too cold to be sitting outside and eating ice cream, but we chatted with the DJ on the way out and were impressed that they were celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere that night.  

I doubt any of you blog readers have been around long enough to remember that Emma was OBSESSED with the poem, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow back in the day!   We both could quote several stanzas of the poem from memory and I had to pull up this picture I found here on the blog to pass around to everyone!    "Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere..." 

Then on Easter Sunday we attended our new YSA ward and LOVED it!   The talks and music were Christ centered and beautiful.   I think we are going to really enjoy this season of serving down at BYU. 

After church, we hosted dinner for 12 people!    Guests besides Glen, Emma, Spence, Adam, and I, included our niece, McKenzie, my sister, Heather, my Mom, my cousin, Trisha, and her 2 daughters Lily and Sylvie, plus Adam's roommate, Ty.

Glen woke up at 2am to  smoke  brisket and later made mashed potatoes, Heather brought rolls, and I made broccoli salad, pie,cupcakes.  Adam, Emma, and McKenzie were our sous chefs.  Everything was delicious and we ate well! 

It was so fun to get these first and second cousins together again. 

Meanwhile, in Alabama...the B family was enjoying their own Easter.  Yes, Cami and I were wearing matching dresses that we both bought on a recent sale!    And Cami sewed Lucie and Oliver's matching outfits!    Apparently Lucie had the time of her life with all the Easter celebrations, but Oliver wasn't so sure...

And, in California, Ellie was busy teaching people about Jesus, while celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.   She, along with the other missionaries serving in her ward, ended up performing a musical number in the Easter sacrament service without any previous notice.  Overall it sounded like she had a beautiful day. 

It turned out to be a lovely weekend with  a lot of good food, lots of reflection on the atonement of our Savior, and  with lots of good company... just the way Easter should be!  💗

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