Visiting with Old Friends!

Moving across the country in middle age is not for the faint of heart!   The part I miss most about living in Virginia is people knowing us and our story.  I feel like I will always be a  stranger in this land where  3/4 of our ward grew up in Utah County, many of those in the same neighborhood we live in. While I admit that it was nice to have had a fresh start, I was not mentally prepared for the anonymity that comes with being the newbies in a place where outsiders are such a rarity.  I think I had this naive notion that our outsider status would somehow make us more interesting (like it often does in other parts of the country), but when you're  boring introverts at heart, there's just not that much pull for people to leave their comfort zones to really get to know us. 

BUT...all is not hard about living in Utah!   There are some parts about Utah that we love (other than the scenery)!  For example, I love, love, love being close to my college kids.  It's been fun to meet their roommates and friends and feel like our connection is stronger with them once they leave the house.   I also love being able  to stay connected with old friends.  Utah is such a crossroads for so many members of the church and, although it's less frequent than I'd like,  I really enjoy being able to keep in touch with others that have also moved here, are going to school here, or are passing through here. 

One of those opportunities came up this past week. 

  Elena is Emma's oldest friend.  Their birthdays are a week apart and we met her and her family back in 2002 and love them all.  If you look back through the archives of this blog, you'll find a lot of posts with Elena and Emma together over the years.  

A few weeks ago, Elena and her husband, Harlan (also from Virginia), had a baby.   I loved being able to see and catch up with both of their parents, as well as being able, along with Emma,  to meet and hold their new baby.   Elena was in YW almost the entire five years I served as YW president, so in addition to feeling connected to her as one of my daughter's best friends, I also got to watch her grow in the YW program.  

It does make me feel a bit old to realize that someone who is only a week younger than my THIRD child is already married and has a baby (even after both of them served missions), but I am a grandma and have a full head of gray hair under all the dye, so I guess I should just embrace that I actually am old! 

It really is moments like these that make living in Utah worth it to me. 💖

YW Camp 2022

Earlier this spring, I was asked to be the assistant stake camp director for our YW camp.  It's a calling that I would have been petrified of in days past,  but I'll be honest, at this stage of my life,  I was actually pretty excited about it.   My life was relatively calm at that time and, as long time blog readers might remember, I had callings in YW for several years (5ish years in Vienna and 2ish years in Pennsylvania), so I was excited to be able to get back to doing something I felt passionately about.  I love working with young women and I love being a part of something that helps stretch young women to their full potential.     

Little did I know  when I committed to doing it, though, what absolute chaos my life was soon to become.   In the weeks leading up to camp, we traveled out of the country, to Hawaii, my Dad got put on hospice care, I was in charge of a family reunion, we hosted a bunch of  people at our house, I was getting two kids ready for their summer adventures, I hosted a baby shower, and basically I was about as busy and overwhelmed as I could be....all the while trying to process the difficult emotions that come along with your Dad dying and to fulfill my responsibilities as ASCD.   

Looking back at that time now, I think being too busy might be better for me than being too open-ended with my time. Many of the days leading up to camp were 100% filled from morning to night, but somehow I not only "made" it, but I felt useful and fulfilled.    I really don't like feeling like I don't have any free time, but I also really don't like feeling like the time I spend is not meaningful.  Since I don't really have any friends in Utah, my calling is light, and I strongly feel like it's not the right time to get a job while Ellie is still at home,  my life tends toward self-inflicted busy most of the time {hence the resurgence in blogging again}, rather than actually being busy.  

When camp came along finally, it was just what I needed.   It was time to unplug, enjoy being outside in a gorgeous setting, and just be.   Most of my camp related responsibilities were for BEFORE and AFTER camp, so I found my time at camp to be not stressful at all.  I got to enjoy meeting young women and getting to know the other stake leaders.   I have felt quite lonely since moving away from VA three years ago, so getting to know people  in a laid back environment was lovely!   

I became somewhat of the allergy expert for the kitchen staff and got to put the knowledge I'd gained cooking for people with severe allergies to use....

I made these gluten free ice cream sandwiches (with the GF cookies I had made at home) to be a special treat for the GF girls...

It ended up being a weirdly rainy few days (for Utah at least), so a lot of our activities were interrupted ...

The vibes of camp were laid back though, so it didn't feel super stressful to get sidetracked.   We didn't enforce a dress code and, since the yearly certifications were gotten rid of a few years ago, we didn't really have to force anyone to participate in anything they didn't want to.  I had the opportunity to put my arms around a few struggling girls (figuratively) and, again, I just enjoyed the opportunity to just "be".  

I felt like I really connected with a few women and I thought I might have found my first Utah friends, but, alas, they ended up seeming to  be interested to be Sunday friends only...like everyone else I've met in Utah.  

We had a blast at the lip sync night.   The brand new stake presidency put on a great performance...

And we had a couple energetic choreographers that made sure the stake leaders' performance was polished and very fun!  {I'm in the red tophat and mint sweats} 

I very much enjoyed being a part of YW camp, but,  in the two weeks after camp ended,  I went  back to being super busy and my Dad passed away, so the let-down was huge.  I'm happy to have more friendly faces to greet around town now, but I am definitely  still searching for "my people" here.   That's okay, though.   It's been reaffirmed to me a million times in the last year that we are exactly where we're supposed to be right now...

A Bright Side of Utah...

Back in this post here, I shared a little about my experience serving with the Young Women in Virginia.  It truly was a life-changing time for me and each of those young women still holds a special place in my heart.  

 I'll be honest, though that calling was time-consuming and stretched me waaaaaay outside of all my comfort zones, it was actually pretty rough when I finally got released.  For five years, I'd lived and breathed all things young women related and I missed it deeply when my time ended.  I tried to throw myself at other hobbies and callings, but, dang it all, making the programs for sacrament meeting just isn't quite as rewarding as having a posse of 30 young women to hang out with! 

Eventually I realized that though my role had changed, I could still love and support the young women in different ways.  I wrote them letters on their missions, attended their weddings, brought them birthday treats, and gave them hugs in the hallways.  Once again, I think those interactions have been as much for me as for any girl.   

Then we moved and it all got a little harder.   We were far away from anyone we knew, searching for new connections, and trying to figure out how to find engagement and meaning in our new place.   

Much to my happiness though, I ended up with YW callings in both my wards in Pennsylvania. I very much enjoyed being back in my element and trying to find creative ways to connect with the girls during a time we couldn't meet in person.    COVID meant that everything was done virtually or at arm's length, so it definitely wasn't quite the experience as it could have been, but I grew to love the girls in PA too and feel like I made a small difference at least.  

Then we moved again. 

We never wanted to live in Utah.  Ending up here was definitely part of a providential plan because a lot of pieces had to fall into place to get us here...and pieces we weren't trying to push.   We have felt confirmed to us many times over, that we are exactly where we are supposed to be right now, but, man, Utah is weird. 

After living on the East Coast for the last few decades, it was a bit of an odd experience moving into a new ward and having no one care.  No one was happy to see us; we were just "another new family." Ho hum.    Not one neighbor knocked on our door to welcome us.  Even the church organization seemed lukewarm on us.  We are just now, very much through our own effort of reaching out over the last 5 months, starting to form connections.  Just in time for them to reorganize our stake this past weekend and put us into another ward.   For anyone keeping track, that'll be our 4th new ward in 2-1/2 years.   

With all its flaws, though...Utah is definitely a gathering place among members of the church, which means that some of my former young women live close!   In a time when I've been struggling to form connections, it's been such a blessing to be able to take little treks down to Provo to say, "Hello" to my former young women.  Here's Anna...

Here is Ana.  It was just her birthday, so a perfect excuse to make a treat I've been craving and share it with her... 

Elena (on the right) was Emma's best friend for many years and it was fun to bring her a birthday treat a couple weeks ago too!  She's dating Harlan, another friend of Emma's, and is roommates with Ana (mentioned above), so it almost feels like a visit to Virginia when I go!    I'm excited for Emma to come home in a few weeks to join the fun.  

I can't even tell you how much these little visits mean to me....

And as we embark in yet ANOTHER fresh start (about 2 fresh starts more than we expected when we moved away from Virginia a couple years ago)...I'll take all the positivity and connections I can find.   

💗💗💗 

For Good

The other day I took a trek down to BYU to wish one of my former young women a happy 23rd birthday!    I was surprised when I got there  -but not too surprised- to see that she was roommates with two more of my young women!  I hadn't seen any of them since before their missions and it warmed my heart to hear the amazing things they're all a part of and to see how well they're doing. 

 

I was a broken mess when they called me to serve as young women's president just a couple weeks after Spencer had ended his treatment for leukemia and I worried immensely that I was the wrong person for the job.  Looking back on the 5 years I was in that calling though, I firmly believe that that having this  calling during that period of my life was truly a gift from Heavenly Father to help me along in my healing process and to shift my focus outward again.  It was a steep learning curve for me that brought me outside of my comfort zone repeatedly, but it also brought 30ish amazing young women into my life that inspired and taught me. 

Those young women did far more for me than I ever did for them and I am grateful every day for the love, laughter, and richness they brought to my life at a time when I needed it most.  It has been a joy to watch them grow into amazing missionaries, mothers, students, and overall awesome women who are making this world a better place! 

💓💓💓

Woman of Virtue

Last night for YW, we had a Women Heroes activity.   We had a booklet and a picture of a woman from history for every YW value.   Groups of girls dressed in costumes and role played and explained why that women fit with that value.  

Here are the women we discussed:

Faith--Eliza R. Snow 
Divine Nature--Mary 
Individual Worth--Joan of Arc
Knowledge--Sacagawea 
Choice and Accountability--Eve
Good Works--Florence Nightingale
Integrity--Esther
Virtue--Pick your own woman that embodies virtue 

At the end of the night, we asked someone to share what they'd written down for a woman of virtue.  Since no one immediately volunteered,  we randomly called on someone to share who she'd picked.    

Well, imagine my heart when she said that she'd picked Cami as her woman of virtue.   And then she proceeded to explain why she picked her.   (because of she treats others, how she's dedicated her life to God, because of the example she's set to her, etc.)  

It melted my heart and made me teary and happy at the same time!  

PS  I love my calling to work with these amazing young women.  

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

Minions and Laurels

April 14:  

On Thursday, we went on a field trip to the minion power plant.   The odor there was rather unpleasant, but it was pretty cool to see the process of how they turned trash into energy (this video is made by the company we visited and the inside of the plant looked very similar to what is shown).   

We went there to fulfill a requirement for a merit badge for scouting, but we all left there a little more knowledgeable about where our trash goes and learned about ways that the waste to energy industry is looking to become even more efficient.    

                           

Later that night we had mutual.  My Laurel class is huge right now and we had a great night together.  They're such an amazing group of girls and I love the time I get to spend with them! 

                           

Nothing but Pictures

I'm in over my head with life right now and I've got nothing left for blogging.  Nothing bad is happening; it's just a lot of different things pulling me in different directions and it's left me with  absolutely nothing extra.   I can't do creative.  I can't do stories.  This post is basically just a picture a day from the last week.       


February 23: One of our favorite youth activities of the year is ice skating and my kids love it.

A noble try for a diet friendly lunch from California Tortilla, but alas, it was way better looking than tasting.

February 24: Rain, rain, rain.

February 25:  Beautiful sunrise on the way home from dropping Emma off at seminary.

February 26:   Despite the fact that we've had these crazy good looking cupcakes sitting around our house for the last few days, I've stayed strong and haven't had a single bite.  And if you knew how much I like frosting, you'd know that that's actually a pretty big deal for me!

February 27:  Glen went to Colorado for the weekend to see Cami play in a lacrosse tournament at CU in Boulder.    His mom and dad also came, which was extra fun for Cami and Glen.

 Glen misses the mountains.

Cami scored two goals.  

February 28:  We had a wonderful New Beginnings program tonight.

I absolutely love these girls!

February 29:  It was  a beautiful spring-like day, which called for reading a book while hanging out of the sunroof (in a parking lot) and going for a quick walk around the block.  

Apparently it's also time for Adam to get his hair cut.  

Last Week...

All of the following are totally true stories from the past week:

1.  I employed one of my children to help me eat healthier this week by offering them a small monetary bonus  if he would discourage me from eating junk and offer me healthy snacks in its place.   His first day on the job involved scolding me for eating crackers, handing me a bowl of raspberries after witnessing me wandering aimlessly through the kitchen,  and begging me to take him out for gelato while we were out running errands.   Meanwhile, another kid is vying for his job and is constantly offering to make me smoothies.

2.   Glen always picks the craziest weeks to go out of town.   Or maybe they're crazy because he's out of town...I guess I'm not really sure.  So last week we had the genealogy camp at the National Archives which brought me downtown every single day, the Young Women held a charity bake sale, our ward hosted the stake dance, one of my YW counselors had a death in the family,  my sister-in-law arrived into town, we had activities Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights, Emma was giving a talk in sacrament meeting, I had early meetings on Sunday morning, and I was teaching in YW.   By Sunday night, I was wiped out to the extreme and slept very, very, very soundly...through Glen arriving back home and through a thunderstorm!

3.   The other day one of my kids excitedly called out to me that the orangutan she was reading about was born the same year as me.  She thought it was a cool coincidence that I had an orangutan twin somewhere in the world.  Another kid, though, overhearing the conversation, said in a shocked tone of voice, "Whoa!  Is that the oldest orangutan ever to live?!"  

4.   Glen's been working night and day on a deal at work and now it is finally done.

5.  My kids learned a lot about genealogy research at the National Archives camp, so we decided to round off all that knowledge with a meeting with a family history guru from our ward.   After a couple of hours, Cami, Emma, and Adam all found names to take to the temple.

6.  WE've been through 20 lbs. of butter,  10 lbs. of cream cheese, over 16-oz. of vanilla, and untold amounts of sugar and flour over the last three weeks.    I guess a  20-dozen cupcake order, a wedding cake topper, a bake sale, and a week-long cupcake camp at our house will do that.

YW Camp 2015

Our stake held YW camp at a new location this year.  The location was a bit more urban than in previous years, a fact which had its pros and cons, but in general it was a great year.   We had about 150 girls attend, along with another 40+ leaders or so.    The first levels are wearing the light blue t-shirts, orange is second level, pink is third level, green is fourth level, and purple was for the YCLs.  

We had 27 girls from our ward attend. 

(7 YCLs, 3 fourth levels, 4 third levels, 3 second levels, and 10 first levels).   

With the 10 first level girls from our ward, we made up over 1/4 of the 39 total girls that age!   

Emma had a great group of girls her age...

and was lucky enough to get two of her best friends in her cabin! 

The girls in our cabin  (shown below) were energetic and didn't seem to need much sleep, but they were also amazingly in-tune with the spirit and it wasn't that infrequent that I heard in amongst the discussions about which boy was cutest, discussions about certain passages of scripture.   

It was a joy to watch them develop their talents...

strengthen their friendships with one another....

and push each other to do hard things.   

I was in charge of the hikes this year; a task I had thought would be fairly easy.    With the distance between the campsite and the hikes, though, even getting to the hikes turned out to be more of a logistical feat than I had originally expected.   That and the trails weren't super well-marked, so I felt like I needed well-written trail notes for people to follow.   In the end, I planned a five-miler and a three-miler.    There was no shortage of complaining before the hikes began, but I was surprised by the girls' stamina and positive attitude while they were actually on the hikes.   I enjoyed both hikes immensely--not only the beauty of the trail, but also my trail-mates!  

One of the afternoons, most of the campers were participating in archery activities.    The first-levels, however, were too young and as such they got to participate in a "Cupcake War" instead.  And who better to lead a cupcake activity than Cami?   

She hauled all of our baking supplies to camp for the day and led them in an engaging afternoon of creative baking and decorating.   

Cami and the girls seemed to really enjoy it and it was fun to see the beautiful culinary creations they came up with!  

It was my third year of attending camp and I'd probably have to say my most favorite yet.   

I was happy to be there with these girls...

and especially to be there with Emma.  

I looked tired, grungy, and old in this picture, but it was 100% all me.   

No make-up.   No shower.  Grungy clothes.  

Pretty much the face Glen wakes up to every morning.    Lucky him.   

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

Facts about 2015 YW Camp: 

Theme:   "Courage to Become"

Location:  Prince William Forest Park

Dates:  July 6-10

My cabin:  I stayed with a group of 3rd levels (including Emma)

My roommate:  Julie M from OM ward

My responsibilities (besides helping my ward girls):  Hikes, finding and hiring lifeguards, helping with third levels

Classes/Activities: Zumba, Yoga, Watercolor Painting, Sketching, Kayaking,  Archery, Hiking, Lake time, Cupcake Wars, Certification time, CCC {Civilian Conservation Corps} class, plus some others that I'm forgetting

Total girls:  about 150

Girls from my ward:  27

Best moment:  the satisfaction of the hikes being done with little complaining and zero mishaps (as far as I know).  I also loved hearing their happy chatter along the way!  

Most frustrating moment:  a big misunderstanding with someone about some equipment that was supposed to arrive on Thursday

Weather (in general):  It was hotter and more humid than the past two years I've attended camp, which meant I was covered with a layer of sweat from head to toe 24/7.  

Weather miracle:   Wednesday was scheduled to the hilt with outdoor activities, but since it was predicted to rain we shuffled things around to get it done early.    At home, a mere 30-miles away, it rained torrents and torrents and even closed many low-lying roads in the afternoon, but at camp it didn't rain a drop until nighttime when we were all in for the night.