Nostalgia in Rhode Island

Hello, friends!  

Rhode Island may be small, my grandkids might be small, and the length of my trip may have been small, but the energy when I visited in October was anything but small!  We played hard while I was there and I left there much more physically tired than when I'd arrived, but  I hadn't gone there for rest.   My main goal for coming was to hang out with my girls and to spend as much time as possible with Lucie and Oliver, so that's what I did.  This blogpost is to show a glimpse of my time there.  

First off, I have a question to ask you.   Have you ever been to New England in the autumn time?     If your answer is, no, then I highly suggest adding it to your bucket list.    I was actually there just barely past the prime of fall colors, and even still it was glorious.    

Living in Utah has many perks, but every autumn I find myself pining for East Coast fall—the real deal, with dramatic leaf colors and enough humidity to make your hair feel feelings. In Utah, the trees try, bless them, but it’s just not the same and I intensely loved the opportunity to experience a taste of a Rhode Island fall.   One morning we three girls took a little jaunt along this trail and the nostalgia was strong!  

 (FUN FACT:  Did you know that in New England, people walk on the left side of trails and pass on the right?   Apparently, it's a regional quirk, which I found quite charming in its own  confusing way.)  

Another day, while the rest of the adults were at work, I kept the kids out of preschool and took them on a traipse through the woods, where I experienced more nostalgia as I reflected on the many woodland adventures I used to bring my kiddos on back in  the day.

We also spent a couple hours at the local library to play with toys and read books.  They had a great time and I was impressed at how toddler friendly a place it was.  We spent a lot of time in the library when our kids were young, but it wasn't quite so fun a place as this one was.  We could have spent all day there, except the kids eventually got hungry and tired.   

Another day, my girlies took the day off of work and we went to Newport together. We visited Beavertail Lighthouse, which was closed, but  we enjoyed walking around and enjoying the ocean views.  

Then we took the Cliff Walk and stopped at the Breakers Mansion for a tour. Lucie decided it was a castle and was trying to figure out where the princesses lived!   

Then it was time for some ice cream  {a family tradition}!  We found this cute spot in town and enjoyed it, despite the cold weather!  

I also very much enjoyed being  with them on Halloween.  Lucie's costume included an Elsa dress, a crown, wand, and butterfly wings, as per her request.  When asked what she was, she gave a different answer every time.  Sometimes she was a fairy ballerina princess.  Other times  a butterfly ballerina.  And still other times, a magic queen.   Whatever she was, she was charming and thoroughly enjoyed herself.   Oliver had no anticipatory excitement about Halloween, but as soon as he realized that people were handing him candy, he caught the excitement bug really quickly.  He was adorable waddling around in his little dino costume. 

Over the course of the few days I was there, we shared a lot of silly, loud, grumpy, and snuggly moments!   

And I loved seeing a glimpse of the life they're building together.  💗

Mostly I just really enjoyed being able to spend time with them without anywhere else I had to be. 

It was good rest for my soul, even if  I left there needing a nap.  

Free Therapy

I'll be honest...

I'm currently sick with a bad cold (and the worst sore throat I've had in many years) and I have a lot of things swirling around me that are keeping my head in a pretty negative space.   As such, I am using this blog as my free therapy for the evening and I am going to try  and use this post as an opportunity to embrace the positivity as much as I can.   Don't worry though...since I don't pay you to read my blog, I'll keep you out of the muck of my brain!  

I'll post more about this trip later, but last week I was in Rhode Island to celebrate Emma's Halloween birthday with her.  Yes, my third child is 25 now and I am kind of feeling extra old because of it.  Cami has a full-time job and two small children, but she still managed to make a beautiful cake for Ems, as well as put up some decor (neither skill which she learned from her mother).  It was fun to be there with two of my girls...

I also very much enjoyed the opportunity to spend Halloween with these two cutie pies, even if they sent me home with this terrible cold.   

I also very much enjoyed seeing photos of Adam and his roommates' Halloween costumes. 

Speaking of photos of my "babies", I just got this one of Ellie texted to me yesterday by a girl that used to be in Vienna Ward like 20 years ago!   I think she recognized her by her nametag, not her face.  In any case, it totally made my day (which isn't hard when you feel like I do)! 

 If you happen to know me in real life, you may or may not know that I  have two core love languages...one is food, the other is postcards.    I love sending and receiving both.   I send  A LOT  of postcards in a month (probably 50+ most months), but don't get too many in return.  That's okay, because I love sending them so much, I don't really care.   Recently, though,  I got a homemade one from my sister-in-law...

And another one from a friend I met in Portugal...

 Both made me very happy.  

Also, every Monday we get to do this...

The calls with Ellie are always a bit chaotic and we are usually missing one family member or another (this week Adam), but being able to gather virtually with the fam is something that brings me incredible joy...the next best thing to being all together in person.  

So, yes, life is hard right now, but it's also good.     Hope you're having a beautiful week.  

 

As Seen On My Morning Walks

Hello dear blog readers!   

If you happened to live in the same neighborhood as me (or if you read this blog regularly), you already know that walking is my sanity saver.  I have yet to figure out the secret for making friends in Utah (or anywhere for that matter), so I just walk a lot...by myself, unless Glen is home, then it's with him.  And when I say I walk "a lot", I mean like 35+ miles a week a lot.  During those long treks around and about the area, I mostly just  wander and explore until I feel done, then I go home.   It works for me and it keeps my mental health on the positive side.  

With all the miles I log, I see  glimpses of a lot of interesting things out and about.   Here are a few from the last week or so...

One day I returned from my 7.25 mile walk to what I can only describe as wild sunflower "kisses"...

They confused me at first, then I realized that they're from walking through overgrown sidewalks like this one.  The wild sunflowers are everywhere right now and when they hit my leg head-on, the pollen leaves a little "kiss' mark.   I like it! 

This lovely dragonfly caught my eye and didn't fly away when I approached to take a picture.  It was definitely still alive, but I worried it may have been on its way out with how close it let me get. 

You've all heard of a "snake in the grass", but have you ever heard of a snake in a bush?   Not me, until the other day.   This snake was about 2 feet off the ground and just slithering around the bush!   I very much kept my distance from that one! 

Spence and I took the doggos out for a little jaunt around the block and found the loveliest double rainbow.   It looked like we could have walked right behind that house and found that elusive pot of gold right there. 

I am not normally much of a cat person, but this cute little kitty was super friendly  and had the most beautiful coloring.   I actually even gave it a little love, which is not very Lara-like of me.  

The Halloween decor is starting to pop up around town and this one was wild to me!   I thought it was supposed to be a skeleton basketball game until I saw there was an extra player in there.   I wonder how many small children are scared to walk by their house this time of year! 

Road closures are EVERYWHERE right now!   We just had our road paved a week or two ago  and now it's closed again for them to do work on the manholes.   It's rare for me not to run into at least one closed road on my walks each morning.    On the plus side, that means the massive potholes that popped up everywhere during our endless winter last year, are finally disappearing! 

So, that's it.  Thanks for reading my blog today. 

Halloween 2022

For years and years, my kids would always pull up this blog in the weeks leading up to Halloween and check out what they'd been in previous years.  It was a fun and easy way for them to keep tabs on what costumes they'd already worn and when.    Our current day Halloweens aren't anywhere near as exciting as Halloweens of old, but my family still references this blog all the time, so I figure there's no better place than here to document our very sedate Halloweens of present day! 

Here's a glimpse--starting with the cutest member of the family:  
 

Lucie/Cami/Garrett:  

Cami and Garrett's Aunt Aleisha transformed Lucie into a very adorable little flower.  She was quite a fan of all the Halloween festivities and loved people watching, parties, and getting her first tastes of real sugar!  

 I have zero Halloween pictures of Cami (in Austin) or Garrett  (in Birmingham), so this gorgeous Halloween treat Cami made for a party her and Lucie were attending will have to suffice. 

Emma (aka The Birthday Girl):

Emma turned 22 years old that day and dressed as a fairy, along with her roommate Rylie, for one party...

and donned some Day of the Dead facepaint for another one...

 The following weekend, she came home and got her birthday crepes made by Glen....

Adam (aka Elder G):  

Adam had his P-day a day early for Halloween.   It was a laid back day for him and he got to make cookies (with the ingredients we sent him for his birthday) and got to watch Coco with his mission.  He apparently had a lot of members sharing candy with him as well! 😋

We also very much enjoyed  a family facetime with him...

 Ellie: 

Ellie was actually in Virginia for Halloween.  This was a long-planned gathering with her friends and she was super excited to be able to hang out with them for a few days. 

Me:  

So my favorite part of Halloween was the excuse it gave me to send cards to nieces, nephews, and siblings...

I definitely had fun with it, though I got the impression that the recipients didn't enjoy them quite as much as I enjoyed sending them.  I actually had to remind most of them to check their mail and, even then, response was lukewarm at best.    Oh well, I already knew I was weird  anyway, so what's a little more weirdness to add to the mix?     

For the first time in our whole married life, we live in a ward that does NOT do a Fall Festival of any sort.  As a Mom of older kids, I was frankly pretty sad about it.  Sad to not be able to sample other people's chili/soup recipes.  Sad that I didn't get to show off my pie-making skills.  Sad not to see all the ward kids in all their adorableness.  Sad to not have a laid-back opportunity to get to know ward members better.  And sad not to have an excuse to dress up.  I'm all about simplifying where simplifying makes sense, but, I'll be totally honest, I think skipping a fall party (usually a HUGE draw for getting friends and neighbors to attend as well) is just lazy and I'll shut up about it now before they call me to plan it next year.  😒 

 

 In a moment of spontaneity, I did put on a costume to hand out candy.   It was originally bought as a German girl costume, but Spence thought it was a pirate costume, so I went with pirate.

 

But then Glen dressed to match me as a German guy when he got home, so my career in piracy didn't last long.   In any case, the dress is exceedingly uncomfortable and we only got a few trick-or-treaters anyway, so we changed into our sweats before too long.   

Oh yeah, and lest I forget...Glen also was very proud to have remembered to wear his Halloweeny socks to work that day...

 

The puppies: 

Don't ask how it happened, but somehow Ellie talked me into getting Halloween costumes for the pups as well.  She wasn't even around to enjoy it, but here they are in all their cute glory. 

Rocky didn't mind his costume a bit once we had it on him, but Denali acted totally humiliated the whole night.  She was definitely not a fan.   We had to keep Kiwi away from them while they were costumed, because the first time he laid eyes on Rocky trying his costume on a few days before, she went crazy (we assume because she looked like a stuffed animal)

Speaking of Kiwi...

She also had a cute costume, which she tried on for 10 minutes and never wore again.   We kept her out of sight and downstairs during the doorbell ringing part of the night, so as not to scare anyone. 

 

Spence (much like in his teen years) opted not to dress up for the occasion and basically hunkered down with Kiwi for the evening.   

So, there you go.    Aren't you glad you tuned in for a glimpse at our very not-exciting Halloween this year?   

The Paper Heart

When I pulled out my fall decorations a few weeks ago, 

I laughed when I found a cute little paper heart taped to our pumpkin door sign.

 It took me a minute to remember where it came from, but when I did it made me smile even more. 

 Here’s the story…

As most of you all know, we lived in the same house in Virginia for 20 years. Moving to Pennsylvania in 2019 was a HUGE leap of faith for us, but we felt strongly that that’s where we were supposed to be, and we went with open hearts, ready to embrace our new community. Six months into our new adventure, COVID kicked in and Pennsylvania locked down hard. We had already struggled to find our footing with the new social landscape of PA anyway and we found that COVID made it infinitely harder. Then our landlords came home from their overseas sabbatical and we found out that we had to move yet again.

That’s where the cute paper heart comes in. In the summer of 2020, we moved to the new house in Phoenixville…just 20 minutes away from our old one….but in a whole new ward and community. Honestly we were feeling quite lonely at this point and pretty discouraged at what our prospects looked like—with almost nothing happening in person to give us the opportunity to get to know people and me having some strained/weird social things going on with the old ward. 

That’s when the dear Latey family swooped in and made sure we knew we were loved and welcomed. I think we initially bonded over sweet sister missionaries starting their missions only a few weeks apart and both getting reassigned to Utah, but the connection definitely went beyond that and they made sure we didn't get lost in COVID anonymity.  They sent us letters, they invited us for socially distanced walks, and one day we came home to our door covered with hearts and sweet welcoming messages.  They didn't let us feel forgotten and it meant the world to us.  

The Lateys are the type of people I aspire to be...not just builders who help people feel loved, but true friends that  listen without judgment and show up when it matters.   

So....we were thrilled to hear they were coming to Utah last week for BYU homecoming and extra glad that their responsibilities as alumni directors for the Philly area didn't keep them too busy to come visit us.     

We had a lovely visit together and enjoyed catching up and renewing our friendship!

And of course we had to share the story of the paper heart with them (which I'm totally leaving up as long as possible)...

 I still don’t know all the reasons why we needed to live in Pennsylvania for two years, but meeting the Latey family was definitely one of them!