Surprising Emma

When I was 14-years-old, my family took a trip to Europe.  We weren't rich by any means, but it  was important to my parents that we kids got to see a little of the world, and so we rented a cargo van with seats  and camped our way through 14 countries.  It rained almost every day and we were cold and wet most of the time, but it was a life-changing and unforgettable experience for all of us.

That trip instilled a burning within each of us to see more of the world and to experience foreign cultures.   My brother in the glasses and my sister in the pigtails, in the picture above,  have now been to more than 50 countries each.   The rest of us aren't quite that well-traveled (probably because we have a passel of kids between us), but we still daydream about traveling and occasionally find ways to make travel happen.   

When we went to Europe this past May, it was the culmination of a goal that Glen and I had set for ourselves when we were first married.   It was important to both of us and we really wanted our children to be able to experience a foreign culture before they left home.    We considered it a once-in-a-lifetime trip and did not even dream that in six months time, some of us would be back for another visit.   

Yes, Cami's on her mission in France and Emma's staying with my brother in England for a study abroad, but on October 27 Spencer, Adam, and I took off for Europe: Part 2!     This trip happened mostly because my sister, Kristina, was anxious for a trip before some busy new developments in her life make traveling impossible and no one in her family likes to travel.    She called me looking for a travel partner and was even willing to share her frequent flier miles with us to make it happen.  So we decided to make it Adam's 8th grade trip (a family tradition) and invite Spence to come along, since he hadn't been able to come with us in May.  

It all came together rather quickly (and we left only one day after we had returned from our trip to Utah), so I didn't have time to stress over this trip at all.   We met Kristina at the  Philadelphia airport.... 

and laughed at our matching rainbow of backpacks.    (this was all of our luggage!)

We flew through the night and arrived at our first destination of Lisbon, Portugal!

After arriving to Lisbon, we dropped off our luggage and headed to that big castle you see at the top of the hill there.

It's called Castelo de São Jorge (Saint George's Castle) and it marks the location of our big surprise of the trip!

In addition to boasting gorgeous views of Lisbon...

it also was the stopping place of my brother and his family on their fall break trip to Portugal, which meant that we got to MEET EMMA THERE!!!!!!   She knew nothing about our visit, so was completely surprised when showed up in the background of this picture!

This was her reaction after she realized we were there....

It was such a joy to see her and spend time with her again, especially because we got to be together for her sixteenth birthday, which was on Halloween.    

Stay tuned for more blogposts about our trip coming soon!  

Stake Conference and Missionaries x2

oops!   I was trying to schedule this for a future day, but messed up and accidentally published it too soon, which is why you've seen this in your feed before!

June 11:
At stake conference today,  Cami and her roommate, Katy, ran into one of their good friends from BYU, Ty, who is now serving as a missionary in our stake.  They were very happy to see each other, but  said it was very weird  not being able to give him a big hug.

Emma also had her voice recital today.  I missed her first performance, but was able to see her performing, "Hark, the Echoing Air".  The camera's sound quality is very poor and does not capture the clearness and the beauty of Emma's voice very well, but hopefully this will give you a glimpse of the difficulty of songs she performs.   I love hearing her sing!  

June 12:   Speaking of missionaries and stake conference, today I ran into the missionaries serving in our ward at stake conference and spontaneously invited them over for dinner.    We made lasagna, breadsticks, salad, and this cake.   It looks all fancy, but it's actually just an overcooked cake mix cake on the inside.   I may or may not have eaten more frosting than actual cake.   

It was a lot of fun to have the missionaries over.  We saw some cool birds on our deck during dinner (a bluejay and a ruby-throated hummingbird).  We ended up playing Telestrations with them and they shared a message about redemption.  

Other than Glen being out of town, it was a great day!


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Timekeepers!

May 2:
On Monday we drove through a crazy thunderstorm,

including a deluge of HAIL....

to get to the US Naval Observatory in downtown DC.  

The observatory is home to a very large (and somewhat old) telescope which is famous for its role in discovering the moons around Mars.   Because of the aforementioned storm, we didn't actually get to see anything  through the telescope, but we did learn a lot about it.   For instance, it was built in the 1873 and was the largest refractive telescope in the world when it was first built.

Later on the tour guide took us  to the USNO library, which in addition to holding one of the world's most premier collections of books on astronomy and physics, was also a very architecturally beautiful building.

It was difficult to capture the scope of this amazing round room in my camera lens, but suffice it to say, this room ended up one of our favorite parts of the tour. 

The last part of the tour was about what the USNO is most famous for (besides being the site of the home of the Vice President of the United States).....keeping time!  It was fascinating to learn about how time keeping has changed over the years.  As they've moved from tracking the  movements of the earth, to pendulums in vacuums,  and finally to cesium based atomic clocks, time keeping accuracy has gone from 1/10 of a second per day of variation to 1/1000 of a 1/1,000,000,000,000 of a second per day.    

It ended up being a late night, but, heck, since time is apparently  a human invented concept anyway,  we could all sleep more soundly knowing that the timekeeping ability of our clocks are in good hands! 

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Random Quotes of the Day: 

"If you have one clock, you think you know what time it is, but can never be sure.  

If you have two clocks, you don't know which one is correct.

So you need at least three clocks, so you can find a mean average time."   

Fact:   The US Naval Observatory has hundreds of atomic clocks.   

"NASA determines how long a second officially is.  USNO determines how many seconds have elapsed.   Therefore NASA is like a stopwatch and USNO is a clock."  

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Sings Like An Angel

April 26:  

Here is a video of the song Emma sang in sacrament meeting on Sunday.    We loved hearing her practice it for the last several weeks and we were not surprised that we got many compliments that she sounded like "an angel." 

Although she actually performed it on Sunday, I'm putting this on for Tuesday's "picture", because it took me way too many hours on Tuesday trying to figure out how to actually capture it on video.  

I know well how to take a video, but trying to do it while even semi-preserving the clear sound quality of her voice was actually rather difficult.   We decided that the poor quality video was the trade-off, so you can hear her voice without too much of the tinniness that our electronics kept adding.   

Love my Emma girl! 

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Happy Easter!

March 27: 

Happy Easter!

This song is one that the primary children sang today in our Easter program and it's been stuck in my head ever since.  What a powerful testimony of Christ's love for each of us personally.   

Jesus climbed the hill

To the garden still

His steps were heavy and slow

Love and a prayer

Took Him there

To the place only He could go

Gethsemane

Jesus loves me

So He went willingly

To Gethsemane

He loves me....and you!   

"The Savior has suffered not just for our iniquities but also for the inequality, the unfairness, the pain, the anguish, and the emotional distresses that so frequently beset us. There is no physical pain, no anguish of soul, no suffering of spirit, no infirmity or weakness that you or I ever experience during our mortal journey that the Savior did not experience first. You and I in a moment of weakness may cry out, “No one understands. No one knows.” No human being, perhaps, knows. But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for He felt and bore our burdens before we ever did."

  Elder David A. Bednar

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A Golden Oldie

February 10: 

What does it say about me that when someone sends me a text saying that they just went to Westminster Abbey and the Tower of Big Ben...

that this song released before I was even born instantly starts running through my head?
   

Of course I then couldn't help myself from asking them if they'd also seen the "rosy red cheeks of the little children." 

Weirdly, they thought my question a little strange. 

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Rain, Rain, Rain

February 3:  Today it rained and rained and rained all day long.  


So I skipped my normal walk while the kids were at music lessons and read a book instead.

For some reason the heavy rain fascinated me while I was driving and I had Emma do a time lapse video on part of our drive from the kids' math classes.     

It looks like I was going about 1,000 mph, which oddly is about how quickly I feel life is going most of the time.

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A Tender Mercy

Most of you know that on the evening of January 10, 2012, our world was rocked in a way we never expected when we learned that our then 16-year-old son had leukemia.   What some of you may not know, though,  is that earlier that same day I had one of the most powerful spiritual experiences of my life that, unbeknownst to me at the time, was actually preparing me for the storm that was to come later that day.     

I was reading  these words from a living apostle:      

“The most powerful Being in the universe is the Father of your spirit. He knows you. He loves you with a perfect love. God sees you not only as a mortal being on a small planet who lives for a brief season—He sees you as His child. He sees you as the being you are capable and designed to become. He wants you to know that you matter to Him.”    

President Dieter Uchtdorf, “You Matter to Him,” General Conference,  October 2011

And listening to this  song: 

It was during this song that I was suddenly overwhelmed with the very distinct impression that God not only knew me, but loved me, and was very aware of me and my family.   I am not normally an emotional person at all, but this message of peace struck me with a force and realness that I had never felt before in my life and it took me several minutes before I regained my composure enough to continue with my study.   

Several hours later, in the moment when I took the fateful phone call from the pediatrician, it was this message of love and peace that flooded into my heart and I knew that we would be okay.   Not that I had any premonition that Spencer would be healed or  a thought  that things would be rosy posy, but that wherever this new challenge took us, that God was in the details and in the end we would be okay.  That powerful experience on the morning of January 10th four years ago, literally carried me through the next several months of Spencer's illness.  

It's been four years now since that fateful day, but  it is still with trepidation that we approach the anniversary of Spencer's diagnosis day each year.  So many of our memories of Spencer at his sickest were in those weeks right around Christmas and I still feel my anxiety about his health rise this time  each year.  

This year, January 10th fell on Sunday and I intentionally kept myself busy in an effort to distract myself from what day it was, but still it was there niggling in the back of my mind.  Although there is not anyone at church who could have possibly known what day it was or what this particular song would mean  to me on that day, I was totally taken off guard when I heard  the bishopric member announce the intermediate hymn for the service.    

 God knew.   

It's a children's song with a simple message, but its message is powerful and far-reaching.

It brought comfort to me four-years-ago and brought comfort to me again this year.  

God is real and He loves us. 

And I am grateful for that reminder.  

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Our 2015 Month-by-Month!

Here's a glimpse of our 2015 broken into month-by-month highlights!   Read to the end to find my big announcement. 

January--We found  super cheap plane tickets to CA and introduced the kids to their first taste of DisneyLand!

February--Cami got accepted to BYU!

March--Spence's Make-a-Wish trip finally came through and we all went to NEW ZEALAND!!!!

April--Emma went on her 8th grade trip to Turkey!

May--Spencer hit his 3-year mark of being in remission from leukemia!

June--Cami graduated from high school, gave the valedictory speech, received several scholarships, and in general left HS with a bang!

July--I spent my third year in a row at YW camp!

August--road trip to Idaho, Colorado, and Utah!  We enjoy spending time together as a family  before dropping Cami off at BYU.

September--We went to Michigan to witness what turned out to be BYU's biggest football flop of the season.   On the bright side, we got a super cute picture of our family, which had it included Spence and Cam, surely would have been on our Christmas card this year!

October--I stayed completely awake through all four sessions of General Conference and took detailed and colorful notes.  

November--Epic girls' trip to San Diego to celebrate my sister's 40th birthday, which was awesome,  even if it did mean that I lost my brain afterward.

December--Glen and I went on an awesome anniversary trip to NYC.  

And, finally why you're all reading this far in the first place, I have decided that after nearly nine years that it's time for me to retire from regularly posting on this blog.  It's simply too much of a distraction for me and less of a joy than it once was.  I still may post here occasionally for out-of-the-ordinary occurrences, but I will no longer  be challenging myself to blog about the day-to-day happenings in our family anymore.

Alright, alright...you can stop cheering now.

 I will truly miss this blog as an outlet and definitely miss the connection I feel from it.  

Now I will leave all of you, dear readers, with a little Lara silliness in the form of a video we made for my dad's fake birthday today:     

Acing the Algorithms

Here's a quick glimpse of what's been occupying Adam's spare time lately...

After working on it for the last few weeks, he can now consistently solve the Rubik's cube from any position in about a minute, sometimes well under.    In other words, he's aced the algorithms and is now working on perfecting  his speed even further!

He also bought himself a few other puzzle cubes (some of them not very cube-y) and is working on solving those as well.   So far he's aced the 2x2, 3x3, and the silver crazy cube.

Adam's also been teaching Glen a few of his tricks and  Glen can now solve a cube, although not near as speedily as Adam, for the first time in his life.

Way to go Adam!  

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Sunday

It's been a busy few weeks filled with good things that have kept me away from the blog.  There are several things I hope to get to blog about eventually, but today was too eventful to let another day go by.    Here's a glimpse at today...


Adam gave his first talk in sacrament meeting today.    It was a special experience working with him to write his talk and I think it turned out well.    Click here to read it.


Cami and her best friend (and future roommate), Katy, received their YW recognition awards together today.  It was a long time coming and I am so proud of their hard work to earn it!

Right after church we headed off to award ceremony where Cami received the "Women in Sports" spirit of sports award for her high school.   They chose one nominee from each high school and this was the district award ceremony where all the nominees were honored.   

The two nominees from FCHS.

 Cami was the "Spirit of Sports" award nominee and Preethi (pictured with Cami), our neighbor, was the "Sportswoman" award nominee.

After the very long ceremony, we came home and went on a family walk in the sticky weather, Emma made us delicious meatball sandwiches for dinner (from scratch), and I am excited to stay up later than normal to blog because there's no more seminary for the year!  

It was a great day and we are proud of our kiddos!  

Hurrying Time

We've gotten to that  busy end-of-the-school year time when our schedule  goes into overdrive.   It is filled up with  a bunch of  "extra" events that get heaped on in addition to our normal busy life.    This past week, in particular, has made me start  to get really excited for this last month of school to be over so that we can finally get on to the more laid back days of the summertime.  

Here's a small glimpse of a few things we've been up to:

Cupcake Order:

At only seven dozen cupcakes, it was far from being the biggest cupcake order Cami's ever had, but it definitely  was one of the more stressful ones.    The order was due at 8:00am on Saturday morning, but after a full day of school on Friday, then one of her last lacrosse games of the season that evening, she didn't get home until nearly 10:00pm.    The cupcake making didn't even start until I was ready for bed.  I attempted to sleep, but the banging around in the kitchen meant that it was fitful.   She finally finished up around 3:00am and collapsed into bed.    At 5:55am I awakened and realized that Cami hadn't gotten up for her 6:00am babysitting job yet.   Cami jolted awake and ran out the door  unkempt and still in her sweats.    My sleep had been so interrupted, that I attempted once again to go back to bed, but alas I did not really fall soundly back asleep until right as it was time to wake up for my 8:30 YW camp meeting.     

Civil War Days:   

Because my sister's roommate has been in charge of the children's activity tent the past few years, we get the inside scoop about all the fun things they're planning for the Falls Church Civil War Days each year.  Ellie's become quite enamored with the event and it's now something that she looks forward to all year long.    She was an official (costumed) volunteer this year that went  to assist AnnaLisa and her roommate.   We didn't have a whole lot of time, but Adam, Cami, and I  dropped by to say hello and try out some of the activities.   As per usual, their favorite activity was making and dipping their own candles.   Cami brought along the cute little boy she was babysitting, who  really enjoyed himself as well! 

Emma's Spring Voice Recital:   

Emma's been singing for us since she was a small child, but recently has been very interested in developing this talent more.  This school year we decided to sign her up for voice lessons with our favorite 6'3" opera singer that lives in our ward and it's been amazing to watch Emma grow in confidence as the year's gone on!  I love hearing her sing! 

Here are videos of her performances:  

Siri Humor and Other Randomness

When we recently upgraded our phones, we were excited to discover that we had the Siri app for the first time.   Siri, for those of you who aren't iPhone users, is an app that allows you to verbally ask questions and make requests.   Siri, in the form of an ever patient  female voice then responds to you.  It's great for asking directions, sending texts, or making phone calls hands-free in the car.  

Or if you are Adam, it's also great for asking  silly and rhetorical questions like, "Why are firetrucks red?"   Siri, with her unpredictable humor, sometimes has an awesome answer...

Ellie likes the humor too, however,  recently she has discovered a new favorite kind of request.



She asks Siri to show her pictures of cute baby animals.       

Following the request, we hear oohs and aahs!

After which she goes on immediately to her next request.   

 I have to admit that it's pretty hard to stay grumpy or mad with that kind of cuteness going on around me!   Leave it to Ellie to bring a smile to all of our faces!  

In other news on the home front....

Spencer is home for a little while and we finally got to celebrate his birthday.  

Cami is in the thick of AP exams and other stressors, but got asked to Mormon Prom today by her friend Rex. 

It had been discussed that they were going together weeks ago, but with MoPro happening this weekend, I guess he figured it was finally time to officially ask her.   

And with that...off I go to Spence's 3-year oncology check-up....stay tuned! 

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Day 4: Zipping through the Trees, Jumping into Canyons, and Some Redwood Trees

Friday, March 13

We spent Friday the 13th experiencing some of the best of the adrenaline and adventure that New Zealand has to offer!  

Make-a-Wish had arranged for us to start the day at the Rotorua Canopy Tours….an awesome zip lining tour through a native New Zealand forest!  

We had done an adventure ropes course last summer in Asheville, so really we weren't  nervous at all about zipping around in the trees 72-feet above the ground.  In fact, even Adam and Ellie happily jumped right in (or off the edge as the case may have it) without even a moment's hesitation.  

The ziplining itself was pretty exhilarating, but honestly I enjoyed the walking and the guides teaching us about the native New Zealand forest almost as much.

We learned a lot about the 500-year-old trees we were standing in and the danger to the unique forest ecology that small land mammals (like possums, stoats, rats, etc) were posing.   Because of the geographical isolation of NZ, ecologists estimate that up to 90% of native wildlife and plant life found there is endemic, meaning that it can be found only in New Zealand, and nowhere else in the world.

Being avid birdwatchers, we loved seeing the different variety of birds that resides on the other side of the world.    Being in the middle of the forest, we actually saw some pretty cool birds along the way (that the guides told us all about).   

All in all, other than the lack of bathroom facilities along the way, it was an enjoyable morning that we would happily repeat….at a course closer home or back in New Zealand.  :)

After zip lining was done, we drove about an hour south to beautiful Taupo, New Zealand to try what was one of Spencer's most anticipated activities of the whole trip….bungee jumping!    The first commercial  bungee jumping operation in the world was founded in New Zealand and Spencer latched onto this idea that bungee jumping was one of the quintessential items he needed to cross off his bucket list while we were there!  

Spence talked Cami, Emma, and Glen into joining him in his venture, but there was no way on earth Ellie, Adam, or I were going to have anything to do with it.     I think Adam potentially could have been talked into it after having watched everyone else do it safely, but by that time it was too late and     Ellie and I were perfectly content to watch from the sidelines, pet the resident cat, and ponder over the American vs. New Zealand way to spell bungee (or bungy)!

We had the option of a couple of different places to bungee jump, but ultimately picked Taupo Bungy based on the spectacular setting.  The scenery is classic New Zealand and absolutely gorgeous.  Poised 154-feet over the Waikato River, it was hard not to be enchanted by the beauty of this location! 

Spencer wasn't looking much at the scenery though,  was excited to get the jumping started!   He was really happy to be there and didn't even seem all that nervous beforehand.  He had hoped to be able to dip into the water a bit at the bottom, but because of the strength of bungee cords they had to use for his weight, he never did touch on either jump and you can hear his dismay at just missing it!

Cami volunteered to be the next one to take the plunge (literally and figuratively), but you can see in this video how incredibly nervous she was.   She missed touching the water in her first jump.

Emma went next and definitely had the best scream of the day!  I could hear her loud and clear even from across the ravine where I was standing with Ellie and Adam.  She was the only one to touch the water on both of her jumps.


Glen went last and was the one that got the best spin going.


Taupo Bungy (the New Zealand spelling) offered a significantly reduced rate for 2nd jumps, so Emma, Cami, and Spence all opted to try one more time.   Spencer's 2nd jump looks pretty much the same as his first jump.  Emma went off backward, did a lot less screaming in her second jump, but otherwise it is mostly the same.  Cami's 2nd jump, however, was pretty spectacular.   Not only did she barely look nervous, but she went off backwards, AND touched the water.    She's practically a bungee jumping expert now!

Here are some more crazy pictures of them….

After all that expenditure of adrenaline in one day, we needed somewhere a little more relaxing to finish off the day.  I had read in the guidebooks about some New Zealand redwood forests and found that there was one right on the way back to our lodging for the night.    We stopped there and were immediately taken in by the peacefulness and quiet beauty that lay there.  

The redwoods were planted in the 1800's by settlers who intended to use them for lumber, so they weren't quite as large or as grand as the behemoth redwoods in California that are thousands of years old, but they were breathtaking nonetheless. 

The wending path through the trees proved to be the ideal way to end an intense day...

…and sealed the deal for falling in love with this beautiful country!