First Time in 30 Years!

Back in the days when I went through a bottle of hairspray a week... 


 I, on a whim, decided to donate blood for the first time.  I got a little light-headed that first time, but soon learned I could avoid the light-headedness completely by making sure I was well-hydrated next time.   I gave blood several more times through high school and college and eventually got a special pin for making it to a gallon of blood donated.

My pin is long lost, but it looked something like this...

Then I started having babies and didn't donate blood again for a long time....until Spencer got sick and needed dozens and dozens of transfusions during his treatment.  That was when I decided to try to do it more regularly again.   It's been a struggle in my post-baby years to make sure my iron levels are high enough, but if I am diligent in taking my iron pills and not donating too often, I have been able to swing donating occasionally the last several years.   Glen, however, was blacklisted from donating by Red Cross rules about living in the UK for too long in the 1990's and he hasn't been able to donate since before his mission more than 30 years ago. 

I no longer have to worry about my iron levels (thanks to my new state of uteruslessness)   

AND 

Glen recently received a letter from the Red Cross stating that they'd recently lifted their ban on people who'd lived in the UK, so....

we just signed up and donated together for the first time ever!  

Here's to an exciting new stage of life of donating blood together! 😉

 

A Glimpse at May 2021

I pretty much know that I'm blogging into thin air these days {feel free to send me a note if any of you blog readers is still around}, but it's been fun trying to get caught back up to speed for our family records.    May was a very full month of getting ready for our move across the country and some other big and small things.   Here are a few of the highlights...

--In the course of going through things and packing up our belongings, I came across some awesome old pictures.  Here are a couple of my favorites....

Me in college with my Larsen cousins (the ones that named their rat after me)

Look how cute and  little my kiddos were!   This must have been winter 2000/2001.  

--When we came to Utah to hunt for the perfect house for us, we ended up taking a hike up to Horsetail Falls.   The trailhead for it is about 2 miles away from our new house and we'd never hiked it before, so we were excited to explore our future stomping grounds!  There was still snow on the ground and though we were very much still flatlanders and the elevation change (about 1600 feet) knocked our socks off, we enjoyed the hike and the scenery.    (MAY 1st)

--When we got back to Pennsylvania, we made sure to hike our favorite trails as often as we could, because we knew we'd miss them once we were gone.  The Schuylkill Canal Towpath was within a 5 minute drive from our home and it was one of our very favorites.  Lined with trees and  sandwiched between the Schuylkill Canal and the Schuylkill River,  there were always ducks and other wildlife along the trail.   Plus the scenery was peaceful and idyllic!  

Though the trail starts right in the middle of Phoenixville, the path was generally quiet and little traveled.  It  was often my first choice when we were deciding where to hike and I definitely miss it now that we're gone!   

--You can read all about it here, but we drove down to Tennessee for the LDSHE East Homeschool Conference and for a graduation ceremony for Adam.  

--Since AnnaLisa knew our time on the East Coast was short, she came up for another visit...something we've missed since moving away from Virginia!  It was great to spend time with her again!

--What can I say?   I mentioned previously that Pennsylvania was a hard place for us to live.  Not only was our church community spread out significantly more than our church community in Virginia, but most of our time was spent during COVID, which pretty much sucked.   Everything shut down instantly in PA.  There was no church, the kids' classes and activities all got canceled, and being the new people meant we didn't have our tribe yet.   We were very lonely.   After a year there we found ourselves needing to move houses again....smack in the middle of COVID.    At that point we knew we likely weren't going to be in PA long-term, so we tried hard to stay in the same ward.   Fortunately for us, that plan didn't work.   While we never did find our tribe in the first ward we were in (which was technically the 2nd Ward), we found instant connections in the second ward, which were exactly what we needed for our lonely hearts.  We unknowingly rented a house down the street from the Richards' family.  We didn't know them before we moved in, but their sweet family brought us so much joy during our year in Phoenixville!  

Weirdly enough, they were moving to Utah too...only a few weeks before us, so we spent as much time as we could with them before they moved!  

Little Emmaline won all of her hearts and I miss her cute smiles and happy conversations. 

--PACKING! This was our main occupation for the month of May!  Glen was working remotely and the rest of us packed, packed, and packed some more...and I resorted to caffeine and silliness more than once!     

--Our ward in Virginia had some great traditions for graduating seniors. As the end of the school year approached I asked our ward in Pennsylvania what they did and when they said, "nothing," I decided that we would just drive Adam to Virginia to participate with the Vienna Ward.   At this point, we knew we were moving and I had no desire to rock any boats, so I was happy with this plan.   Too bad me asking planted a seed and they wanted to hear all about it.  Next thing I knew, I was in charge of planning the first ever Senior Roast for the VF1st Ward!  

It was a lot of work in the middle of moving, but it was a smashing success!  Of the seven graduating seniors, I had only met three of them (including Adam) and all of them came except one! 

It was a fun way to honor the seniors and I heard nothing but great reports from the seniors and their parents.  A lot of them hadn't set foot at a church activity in a couple years and I loved meeting them for the first time. The best part was that the reports were so good that I think it may be a new tradition there.  The Bishop and youth leaders all said that they hoped to do in future years now.  

The snuggies were a gift for each of the seniors to remind them of the warmth of God's love for each of them and that they had a ward family cheering them on. 

 Here are Adam and Ellie with their good friend, Kennedy. 

--Ellie got her COVID vaccine!    She's under 18, so she had to get a different version than the rest of us, but she's good to go on her overseas trip this summer now!   In case you're wondering, yes, she's totally  magnetic now. 😆

--Here is Glen's ministering buddy, Don.   They spent a lot of time together in the couple months before we moved.  

--So we didn't need to go to Virginia for the Senior Roast, but Mormon Prom was another story.  They weren't doing ANYTHING of the sort in Pennsylvania and I was so sad to think that Adam would graduate from high school without ever having the experience of a formal dance or prom.  We happily drove down for the occasion and lent all the help we could in the short time we were there for!   

It was an absolutely lovely event and I was so happy that Adam was able to be a part of it! 

And Ellie too for that matter.  She wasn't old enough to officially attend, but she was thrilled to hang out with her friends and help serve food!

It was a great night for the teens...

and we hung out with the Palmers.  

All in all, it was a welcome reprieve from all the packing to spend time with old friends and to let Adam have a quintessential experience of high school.  

--At the end of the month we headed back to Utah to officially buy our house.  The day we got there we ended up rushing my dad to the hospital with sepsis.  He and my mom had just returned home from their mission and he was quite ill with an infection that settled into his bloodstream.   Thankfully he got to the hospital quickly, because it was a serious infection that took several days of hospitalization to recover from.  

Here he is after coming home...

In the meantime (between driving my mom to and from the hospital and visiting dad when we could), we tried to squeeze in some time at the LDSHE West Homeschool Conference as well.  It was our first time attending the West version and though it wasn't the same experience as being amongst "our people" in the East, it was still great to meet people and be inspired.  The kids had a great time making new friends and spending time with some East Coast friends that had come as well.  

We also enjoyed hanging out with Spence and his new pup, Kiwi. 

It was a full month that started in Utah, then brought us back to Pennsylvania, down to Tennessee for LDSHE and Adam's graduation, back to PA for packing and  life stuff, down to Virginia for prom, back to Pennsylvania  for more packing, then back to Utah with a hospital stay.    I'd like to say that next month calms down a bit, but it was just as crazy...

Ellie's Ears

My family moved from Vadnais Heights to Blaine the summer between my fifth and sixth grade years.   It was a rough time to change schools and I do not have fond memories of being the new girl for the last year of elementary school.   I'm not sure what the difference between the two schools actually was, but I was very much an innocent little girl in my old school.  I had waist long hair which I wore in piggy tails and  I still wore cutesy sweatshirts with kittens and Holly Hobby.   And most importantly, I felt like I fit right in with the rest of the girls.  

The new school was a different story though!   Maybe it would have been the same had I stayed at the old school, but to me it seemed that Johnsville Elementary was peopled entirely  with mature girls that had  permed hair, pierced ears, and name brand clothes.   Throw a couple of mean girls into the mix and I was turned upside down socially.   Over the course of that year I desperately tried to fit in by cutting off all my hair, getting a home perm, and talking my parents into letting me pierce my ears.  

I hoped that by trying to fit in look-wise that I would finally be a little cool, but as you can see here, I never was really successful at fitting in or being cool.   :)

So, why do I share all this?

Because  my baby got her ears pierced yesterday and it brought back all sorts of memories for me!  It made me think of why I got my ears pierced in the first place and then what a disaster it was thereafter.  I am pretty severely allergic to metal and my ears reacted in a painful way to having metal placed into them.   Any sane person would have realized that they were allergic to metal and instantly decide that it wasn't worth the pain and effort to keep wearing earrings, but not me.  I was convinced that wearing earrings was important  to my social status and I am embarrassed to admit that I suffered with itchy, red, crusty ears for way too many years!

I can't remember exactly how it was that Glen and I decided that nine-years-old was the year we'd let our own girls get theirs pierced, however I'm pretty sure that it may have had something to do with a visit from Grandma Sandy when Cami was nine and them taking a grandma/granddaughter trek to the mall together.

Cami in 2006

After that, whenever our girls turn nine we say yes as soon as they express interest.

Emma in 2009

 Ellie turned nine in March and actually hadn't mentioned it yet.  Then Cami came home from California talking about how their 6-year-old cousin Madeline had her ears pierced and suddenly Ellie couldn't stop talking about anything else!

I told her that she needed to read 3 chapter books before I would take her, but if she did that then I would be more than happy to let her.    This week she finished her 3rd chapter book and yesterday we took a trek to the mall for some ear piercing fun!

She brought along her cousin McKenzie for moral support...

and she held tight to Cami's hand while they poked the holes!

Thankfully none of the girls seem to have inherited my allergy to metals...

which means they get to love every second of earring wearing!  

I, on the other hand,  haven't worn earrings in many years and haven't missed them a bit!