A Few Things that Have Been Making Me Happy

Life has felt extra stressful lately.   In between the normal busyness of life, Glen is in process of transitioning to a new job (again!), things are heating up with the extended family drama I'm helping with, we are trying to spend more time with my elderly aunt who is in the crosshairs of the family drama, I had TWO unexpected trips out of town (one to OKC for my Nana's funeral and one to Dallas to help Heather with her injury), we are worried about my Mom and are trying to get a referral to get her tested for some things (a process that is proving to be much harder than it should be), and we still spend 3-5 days down in Provo most weeks for our callings.   

All this means I've had very little free time to relax or to pursue my hobbies, but, don't fret, life is not all business!   Here are a few things that have been making me happy lately: 

1.  Time with old friends.   I recently got lunch with some of my dear friends from Virginia, most of whom have moved to Utah in the last few years.  We also watched Bella M. as Juliet in BYU's production of Romeo and Juliet and Logan N. performing in BYU's Young Ambassador's show.  It is incredibly meaningful for me to be able to spend time with people who know my kids, my story, and love me anyway.    It's a feeling that is very fleeting since moving to Utah, so I embrace it whenever I can!   

2.  It was our ward's turn to help with preparing and serving dinner at stake institute for 300-500 people, and it was so fun to be able to gather and serve together in that way!  

3.  Speaking of service, I love Christy and Alicia, two of the women I serve with at church...

4.  Entertaining isn't necessarily my forte, but I do love having our ward members to our home once a month.   It usually ends up right about 30 people and it's fun to give them a home-cooked meal and to find a good excuse to send some postcards afterwards.   

5.  I also love our ward temple nights.  There's something special about gathering together in the temple and I wish our home ward did this occasionally too.   

6.  I also love finding photos like this in our camera roll.    Adam recently ran a race with his friends...

 7.  And Emma had her own Branch Temple night in Boston...

Here they are gathering to watch the worldwide RS broadcast...

8.  I loved logging onto Facebook and finding this adorable picture of our missionary who comes home about THREE MONTHS!!!!!     

Speaking of our missionary, I totally look forward to our family phone calls every p-day.  The ability to be able to communicate weekly was the best rule change the church has ever made!  

9.  Adam and his roommates came up to our house for Glen to smoke them some steak!  I completely neglected to take pictures of them, but here's a glimpse of our delicious lunch that day! 

10.  These cuties are coming to visit soon and I can hardly wait!!! 

So, that's a glimpse of some happy stuff, though  I also need to be better about taking pictures.   Some happy things not pictured were book group at our house.  The discussion of "The Billion Dollar Spy"  was excellent, the turn-out decent (around 10 people), and all in all a great night.   We've also been lucky enough to spend a little more time with a special  friend of Adam's that I definitely need to take more pictures of. 

Will life continue to be stressful for a while?   Absolutely.   But I'm trying hard to look for the rays of light in the midst of it all!   

Have a beautiful day! 

************************************     

A Mid-Winter Trek

Back in January, Glen and I took a little trek to Rhode Island to spend time with our peeps there.  It was just the mid-winter jolt I needed to help me get through the longest month of the year (January)... 

Glen had to work remotely, but otherwise we  had absolutely nothing on our agenda, so I just kept the kids out of daycare and played with them all day!  We read lots of books, went to the library, did some crafts, and just enjoyed being together!   Oliver was obsessed with cars and trucks, so we read books for hours on end (seriously) and he just practiced his talking.   It was amazing to notice what a difference that one-on-one time with him made for his vocabulary and   enunciation.  

Oliver and I definitely bonded while I was there and I was very happy that "Gigi" and "Papa" were among the vocabulary words he learned well while we were there.  

We went to the YSA branch with Emma on Sunday, which was an experience!  It meets in an office building and is a very small and diverse group.  She enjoys attending there and we enjoyed getting a little glimpse of YSA life away from Provo!     

In the middle of our week-long stay (shortly after church), they got about 20-inches of snow which was kind of exciting, since we are having the warmest /driest winter ever here in Utah.  Temps were bitterly cold though, so not fun to be outside in.  Oliver lasted about 2 minutes out there and Lucie about 10.   

We also got to accompany Lucie to her first ballet class, which was adorable.   It was fun looking at these old pics of her Mom at about the same age happily dancing away.  

It was good for my soul to be there with them and I loved every second I had doting on Lucie and Oliver.   They're both at fun ages and I  hope that someday they live a little closer than the 2000 miles away they currently live.  I also really enjoyed the time with Cam, Garrett, and Ems. 

Meanwhile I'm eagerly looking forward to March...

 

The Buttercup Neighborhood Game

 We played a lot of board games over the holidays--including Wingspan, Telestrations, Codenames, Coup, Nertz, Trash, Magic the Gathering, 10 Days in Europe, and Dixit.  We enjoyed the more laid-back time to play together and only had a few grumpy moments when the competition got a little fierce.  Haha!  

But there was another game we played over the holidays that I haven't mentioned yet.   It involved the whole neighborhood and some equally tense competitive moments, and also some very silly moments.  

It was all about this cute little Christmas inflatable named Buttercup. 

Basically Buttercup was purchased by the H family in our neighborhood and was introduced as a sort of reverse hot potato.  But instead of trying to get rid of it, the goal was to steal it from a neighbor's porch and see how long you could keep it inflated on your own porch. 

 

   In order to be an official participant in the game, you had to join the Buttercup GroupMe and follow along with the updates and rules.  That GroupMe was one of the funniest things I'd been a part of in a long time and it was quite humorous to see the silly {and competitive} side of our neighbors.  

We didn't even try to attempt any heists until Adam arrived home, but once he was home, the game was on!    He had a few unsuccessful steal attempts where he was caught before escaping, but I thought it was quite funny that the first time we actually managed to steal her was just after attending the temple together...

We took a little drive around the neighborhood on the way home and Adam snagged her in his church clothes.  Haha.  

We were quite proud of our conquest and guarded her pretty fiercely until we went to bed. 

  Guarding it meant playing games while sitting on our stairs just inside the door, then opening the door and yelling "we caught you!" to the would-be thieves.  

We caught a few and met a new neighbor in the process.  Much to our surprise, Buttercup actually stayed put overnight and was stolen while on our morning walk the next day.    Once we'd experienced the "thrill" of capturing and guarding her for ourselves, we didn't try too hard for a few days.  But then Kristina's family came to town and all that changed.   The second the boys heard about the Buttercup game, they were excitedly all in!  

Honestly it was a fun excuse to get out on neighborhood walks with the boys...

and the boys were far more diligent Buttercup guardians than we had been.   They literally sat outside waiting to yell at anyone who dared attempt a heist.   At one point in the final couple days of the game, the games keeper had  to change the rules to only allow an hour of "puppy guarding", because there were a whole lot of eager young boys out of school and willing to even sleep outside for the cause.  

It was a sad moment when Buttercup got stolen on New Year's Eve night and the boys'  final attempts in the last hours of the game (New Year's morning) proved unsuccessful, despite their coordinated efforts with fellow-would-be thieves to outsmart the conquering family.  

All in all, it turned out to be a fun distraction over the holidays and I 10/10 would recommend, as long as you get everyone on board with understanding the rules and the idea that it's all in good fun!   

Life Via Quotes to My Missionary

 I grew up in a home where being funny was valued as a desirable trait.   I tried really hard to be funny when I was young, but at some point had to admit that quick wit that requires the ability to think on your feet is completely and totally beyond the scope of how my brain works.   Self-deprecatory sarcasm is usually about where my humor efforts land these days--like "Oh, yeah.  I can totally win a karaoke contest.  Just sign me up and I'm there."  It's total hogwash, but relies on the other person knowing I'm a terrible singer to even be slightly funny.   And because there isn't actually any wit involved, it's not actually funny at all.  And some people might actually believe me and think I'm just a really confident singer and if I'm not careful I'll be asked to be the primary music leader or something.

  But, I digress.       

Recently I came across a few of my old blogposts and was reminded of the fact that  I'm not quite as unfunny in writing as I am in person.   Don't get me wrong.   I fully know that 99.3% of the posts on this blog are about as boring as the footnotes of a textbook on ferns, but, I do have written evidence that I have  occasionally posted mildly funny content.    

Here are a couple that made me laugh... (10 commandments of a teenage boy,  princesses don't toot, three versions of how to pack, helpful advice) 

But, I still claim no real wittiness, even in writing.    Really, it's all about the kids.   Kids make life funny and the only kids left in my life are living 2000+ miles away from me, therefore I continue on blogging like an out of work botanist.  Not that I'm calling all botanists boring, but maybe some.       

So, you all know my style well enough to know that I'm not really into writing long essays on any topic, so I must be  leading this blogpost to be about something from our lives and you're right.   Today you get the privilege of reading about our lives via some direct quotes from a recent letter I sent  to my sweet missionary. I didn't really start off trying to be funny, but I do admit to feeling slightly off-kilter that night.   Long Sundays will do that to me! Vote in the comments if you have a favorite quote and whether you think I should always blog in an off-kilter state of mind or if I should stick with   blogging only when I’m well rested and feeling sedate (which would be never). 

      
QUOTE 1: 
" I am writing this letter to you today under the influence of not eating since breakfast, spending 13 hours at church (a typical Sunday of late), then stuffing myself silly at 8pm with a lunchmeat sandwich and previously frozen brownies.

DINNER OF CHAMPIONS!!!!! 💣

Do you want me to send you the recipe? Of course you do. It was fantastic and you'll probably want to make it every day.

INGREDIENTS:
lunchmeat
cheese
mayo
sauerkraut
bread (if you're me then make it gluten free)

brownies, broken into bite size pieces (frozen for at least 3 weeks)

DIRECTIONS:
Slather it all together (brownie bites intermingled with sandwich bites) and eat within 2 minutes 37 seconds.
ENJOY!


Next time I make it, I'll take a picture, so you can see how it all comes together." 


QUOTE 2:   
Oh look at that! We had a ward party on Tuesday night. 


There are cute guys in this picture that I would totally set you and Hermana B. up with....just say the word in 7ish months or so...


Sorry...that's the lack of sleep talking....you can forget I even said anything.

You'll never guess what I was in charge of for the party.

I'll give you three guesses....

1. teaching everyone the macarena?

NO!

2. bull fighting?

Good guess, but no.

3. karaoke leader?

Heaven help us all....that would be a big fat NO to the heck no!


I guess I'll just tell you and you can stop wondering.

I was in charge of making gluten free versions of all the Thanksgiving food.

Shocker, I know.

I made rolls using an expensive mix that were meh. Totally not worth what I paid for the ingredients....


But the apple pie...

It may look hideously hideous, but the taste was perfecto! 😋 Go ahead and lick the screen now. "


QUOTE 3: 
"CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THIS PICTURE IS?

It's the tea set we got Emma for her birthday. She decided that she wanted to keep working on her Britishness, so she's brushing up on her British accent and is holding a daily tea party for the entire YSA branch. 5am every day. For Christmas I'm sending her scones and clotted cream. 

 {Note:  This was meant to be the aforementioned sarcastic humor of which is my specialty, but then my own son asked if this were a true statement, thereby confirming the fact that my humor is actually rather humorless.} 

Speaking of your sister....here she is with her friends at the Boston Temple...probably pretending to be British if I had to guess. I hear she asked for the British translation of her temple session..."



QUOTE 4: Adam, on the other hand, is working on his peanut butter game. He got invited to a peanut butter party and sampled one of everything...Can you guess what he and {his girlfriend} made? HINT: It was my recipe and they borrowed my pie pan for the occasion. 



QUOTE 5: Oh, I have some life advice to give you now. Very serious life advice, which you should probably write in your journal and tell ALL of your friends. Whatever you do, DO NOT GO TO TRADER JOES ON AN EMPTY STOMACH!!!!! It's a problem. Perhaps not the worst problem ever, but a problem nonetheless. 




QUOTE 6:  "The other night, I brought Nutella uncrustables to our friend, J., for her 20th birthday. Lest you think me the randomest birthday treat giver ever, I'll remind you that J. is the one whose Mom grew up in Minnesota and her family now lives in Cami's ward, so I had sent a little text to her Mom and got her suggestions. She was actually quite excited!" 


QUOTE 7: We also went to the temple this week and had an awesome turn-out. Notice who's NOT in this picture? YOUR PADRE!!! Why didn't he come to this beautiful night at the temple? Was he too busy at work? Yes, but he was going to come anyway. Did he bruise his tailbone wrestling with Kiwi? Good guess, but NO! He was all ready to walk out the door and realized that he'd let his temple recommend expire. So Bishop G. didn't come to the temple because his recommend was expired. oops.

Okay, back to cute guys. I would give you and Hermana B the thumbs' up on any guy in this picture. CUTE AND RIGHTEOUS GUYS THAT LIKE TO GO TO THE TEMPLE! What could be better than that?! Absolutely nothing, but there I go again."

QUOTE 8: I'll close off with one more picture of a few of our ward members....


Can you tell this is kind of our lives right now? We had church activities Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.   This was taken at institute on Thursday night. If you weren't in the habit of going to institute before your mission, I highly recommend it when you get home. It's a night to be spiritually and physically fed AND you get to hang out with friends. It is awesome. And lots of cute guys."  

THE CONCLUSION:  

This blog would probably be a lot more entertaining if I blogged only after spending 13 hours at church and after gobbling down  food for dinner with minimal nutritive value.   Though, perhaps it's best for the people who love me, if I keep things more sedate.   

Also...my poor missionary!  I felt kind of bad the next day after talking about guys so many times.  That is not normal for me.  But at least I wrote a letter, so I'll pat myself on the back for that.     

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!    

A Visit to Adam's Mission in Portland, Oregon

When Adam got home from his mission back at the end of August 2024, less than two weeks before BYU started back up again,  we promised him a trip back to visit his mission the following summer.   

A couple months ago, we finally made good on that promise and I am just now finally blogging about it.    

We waited until the craziness of his full-time FSY office job wound down, then, in mid-August, Adam and I took off for a week and a day to spend in the beautiful Portland area!  

It's a pretty short flight from Utah to Portland, so we hit the ground running when we got there.   We started with a visit to The Grotto, which is a serene woodland sanctuary in the city--not far from the airport.   It's home to the outdoor National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother, beautiful botanical gardens, meandering paths, peaceful forestland, and many statues and artworks of Jesus Christ .   It was a lovely place to begin our journey exploring the place Adam grew to love so much over the two years he spent there testifying of Christ! 

The Grotto 

After The Grotto, we headed out to one of the areas he spent the most time in--Damascus/Boring/Gresham, where we were spending the first few days.  Right next to one of the chapels he served in was the North American Bigfoot Center, which was about as weird as it sounds!   It was hard to tell if the creators of this quirky exhibit dedicated to proving the existence of Bigfoot were serious, but it was highly entertaining.   We enjoyed examining the supposed "buttprint" of Bigfoot and looking at all the "evidence" of why Bigfoot could be real, as well as all the reasons why we shouldn't dismiss his existence due to lack of hard evidence.   This museum postulates that Bigfoots are likely a yet undiscovered species of elusive mammals.    We laughed a lot and spent the rest of the trip looking for Bigfoot in the wilds of the lush Oregon forests.  😂

Bigfoot Museum

 We planned the trip to cover two Sundays,  and Adam picked areas where he'd served in multiple wards serving in the same building, so we could maximize the number of wards we visited.    Damascus and Powell Valley Wards were literally the first and last areas of his mission, so that's where we visited the first Sunday.   It had been almost three whole years since the few transfers he served in Damascus, but he was clearly remembered and very well loved there.  He got lots of hugs and even got invited to a BBQ later that day.   He only served one transfer in Powell Valley, so the reception there wasn't quite as grand, but those that did remember him were excited to see him.  The BBQ turned out to be a super fun, laid-back way to visit with lots of people.  I felt a little like a fish out of water there, but it was great to see Adam in his element reconnecting with the people he'd served and loved!  

Damascus and Powell Valley Wards

After Sunday, we spent a couple days exploring the beautiful Columbia River Gorge!    We spent a lot of time driving, hiking, and exploring!  It was unusually hot  for Oregon--about 100*--but we thoroughly enjoyed soaking in that rugged green beauty!  

Exploring the Columbia River Gorge

Next on our list was heading to the shore!   The Oregon Coast is a popular weekend destination for Oregonians, so he heard a lot about it on his mission, but never got the chance to go.  The weather was much cooler on the shore, but it was also pretty foggy. 

 Most of our hikes' destinations were to cool lookout points, which proved to be a little disappointing when shrouded in heavy fog...

 but dipping our feet in the {cold} Pacific Ocean was quite rejuvenating.  We loved our laid-back time here on the shore, although Adam was thwarted in his attempt to find an intact sand dollar.  

Oregon Coast

One of our can't miss places to visit while we were on the coast, was the Tillamook Creamery...

Tillamook Creamery

We enjoyed learning  all about how they make cheese...then got to sample a bunch tasty (and old) varieties!  

After Tillamook we headed  to Cape Meares Lighthouse, which was our last stop on the way back to the Portland area.  We were surprised, after a few days of fog and clouds all along the shore (even in Tillamook),  that the skies, just a few miles away, were clear as can be!  

Cape Meares Lighthouse

After we got back to Portland from the shore, we picked up Glen from the airport, so he could participate in the rest of our adventures!    

Some of those adventures included...

 Visiting the End of the Oregon Trail 

Trying the Famous Voodoo Doughnuts 
(alas, they did not offer any gluten free options, so I did not partake)

Attending the Portland Temple

Taking a Very Muddy Hike 
after which I threw my shoes away

Hiking To "Witches Castle" and Pittock Mansion
and visiting Cathedral Park/Saint John's Bridge

 Tonga Festival
after being invited by a local member

Trying Out Different Food Trucks
Portland is quite well-known for its active food truck culinary scene, so we tried out a few different food truck locations while we were there

Rose Gardens/Dahlia Festival
I did not know before our visit that Portland is famous for its many flowers and gardens.  In fact, it even has the nickname of "Rose City", though we enjoyed many more flowers than just roses

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm
It was long past tulip season, so we enjoyed the fields of sunflowers and other flowers, the fun colorful tractors, and the bucolic surroundings.

Lan Su Chinese Gardens 
This was a peaceful little haven right in the city

We definitely enjoyed much of Oregon's natural beauty while we were there, but one of our very favorite parts about our visit was getting to meet the people--some  people that he taught, as well as many members that he interacted with during his time there.    It's hard sending a kid off into the world to serve a mission without seeing them for 18-24 months and it was very meaningful to us hearing about how Adam had impacted their journeys for good.

The People

 Over the last few days there, we also visited the mission office, drove by several of his apartments, and got to meet his beloved mission leaders--the Botchways!     
 

Mission Leaders, Mission Office, and his Mission Apartments

The Botchways are faith filled people sacrificing much to serve the missionaries  in the Portland mission.

On the second Sunday, we visited the two wards he served in in Tualatin.  Once again, people were quite excited to see him, though I didn't take any pics there! 

All in all, it was a good trip...

and I think we did a good job keeping Portland plenty weird.