The Conference Weekend and Easter Stretch

 Anyone who knows me in person or has been following along here on the blog for very long, knows that I'm a bit disorganized and pretty much the opposite of fancy.   I host a lot these days (between book group and YSA events), but I am definitely not someone who can host something and make it look put-together and effortless.  People come to our house and get a sense that it was a stretch for me to make it happen!   This Conference / Easter weekend was a case in point, with the struggle made  a bit worse than usual because Glen was in Denver visiting his parents all weekend long.  

On Saturday, Adam invited up a bunch of friends to watch Conference in our theater room and to eat all 3 meals at our home.  I had it all planned in advance and thought I was good to go, but somehow struggled even getting breakfast on the table.    I served cheddar cheese pancakes with fruit syrup, bacon (most of which I burned to an absolute char), scrambled eggs, and some fruit.   Besides the bacon, it actually turned out pretty well, but I ended not serving it until 10ish minutes before the first session began, so it felt rushed.  Conference was awesome (of course), and the other meals came together okay (croissant sandwiches for lunch and taco salad for dinner), with only minor omissions and mess-ups.   Most of the day we had about a dozen people there, with some trading places that happened along the way.   

On Conference Sunday, I very spontaneously opened up our theater room to our YSA ward for watching conference.   Over the course of the day we generally had 4-6 visitors there (not including Adam and Tia).  I fed lunch (croissant sandwiches again) to about 10-12 people.      

After all that came the hard part--trying to cook Easter dinner  by myself.  Normally Glen, Heather, and my Mom would make part of the meal as well, but, as previously mentioned, Glen was gone, Heather is still completely non-weightbearing on her broken ankle, and my Mom is struggling with stuff, so it was me.  Adam and Tia helped with some of it, but I was making things that other people normally make (like the potatoes, ham, and meat), so it was all only okay.   My Mom did set the table beautifully, which made me smile.  Neither Heather nor Spence felt up for joining us for dinner, so it just ended up being me, Adam, Tia, Mom, and my nephew, Andrew, so it felt very small.  

Here's a closer look at  what we ate:   Ham, roasted beef, glazed brussels sprouts, roasted potatoes, and Brazi bites.   I had also made some carrot cake (not shown) and a purchased Oreo ice cream cake was served for Andrew's birthday (which was also on Easter Sunday).  

We also got to talk to our missionary on Easter and on Monday!   She's finally doing a bit better after struggling with an increase in seizures over the last couple weeks.  It's been a rough couple weeks for our sweet girl and she still isn't 100%, but we are happy that there is some improvement at least!  I am getting so excited for her to come home in June!  

Also on Easter Monday, I got to go to Ashton Gardens for a YSA stake FHE night.  The weather was lovely that day and it was delightful to spend the evening with ward and stake members enjoying the beautiful flowers and amazing sculptures of Christ.  

I'll be honest...I was a bit exhausted after it was all over, but taking into account that I fed about 30 people five separate full meals (though never that many people all at once), I think I did okay.  It's fun living somewhere that we can host that many people and close enough that people actually come, even if it is a stretch for me!  

And I'll end with a quote from General Conference from Elder Bednar that really stuck with me: 

Enduring to the end is linked inextricably to the spiritual gift of charity. Enduring to the end is not merely a relentless determination to grit our teeth, hold on to the limits of our physical strength and mental capacity, and push through the challenges and adversities of mortal life; it is so much more than that.

Enduring to the end is the joyous quest of a lifetime—a pressing forward with faith in Jesus Christ in a gradual process of trusting in and receiving help from our Savior to become more like Him. As our love for Him grows ever stronger and deeper, we can be blessed to receive spiritual perspective, the Lord’s empowering grace, and exceedingly great and indescribable joy.


Life has felt a little heavy and hard lately and I needed this reminder about what enduring to the end is really all about.  I may not be crossing as many things off my own to-do list right now, but He's helping me to focus on what's most important.   💓

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! 

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All in One Weird Week

Life has been a little weird lately and I'm tired.    

No, I didn't say I'm weird,  though some would argue that that's also a true statement.   I'm referring to the fact that in amidst our normal busy life stuff, there has been a whole lot of really weird stuff making life even busier than usual and maxing out my mental bandwidth!     This blogpost shows a glimpse at one single week.  

Let's take a look at the somewhat normal stuff first.   

 It started off with dinner for the masses.  Yes, somehow hosting dinner for big groups has become a normal thing in our lives.   Glen smoked brisket and we had a ton of food:  

We had a decent turnout of people (about 30 all together)...

We love having our ward members in our home and feeding them home-cooked food...

And the food was definitely a hit, though I made too much corn and too many lemon bars...

I did a postcard challenge with some of them (everyone in this picture) and that was fun.  What is a postcard challenge, you ask?   It's when I challenge them to give me a word/theme and I go through my stash and send it to them in the mail.  It's a really fun way to share my postcards with them and to challenge myself to dig into the depths of my postcard stash.  Some words that challenged me this round were rutabaga, carrots, and garnishment.   

We have an awesome ward!   

It's been a very warm and dry winter overall, but we've had a little more rain lately.   One of the days we went on a wet walk...

This is what I looked like after...

I found these  cute photos taken by Emma in the camera roll that made me smile...

I hosted book group one night, then went to see Bella M. perform in Romeo and Juliet in the BYU ballet the next night, then went to a Valentine's dinner with a bunch of Kristina's friends that have relocated to Utah.   I do have to say that talking about books, seeing old friends at the ballet, and hanging out with new friends was all good for my psyche with all the other weird stuff going on.   I made these heart-shaped O-Henry bars for the Valentines dinner, then served the rest at our family dinner the next night.  

 

The sister of one of our ward members came to town for the long weekend.  After talking with her, we learned that she had just returned from serving in Ellie's mission.  What did I do?   I started blubbering and crying, because she'd seen our missionary more recently than me, which made me extra excited for June.  I am not a big crier, but I've been missing our missionary extra ever since she went past the year mark in December!  

Here's a glimpse at the Sunday dinner that week...we had burger bowls, which were extremely delicious and enjoyed by all at our full table!   This is where we enjoyed the rest of the heart shaped O-Henry bars.  

So that's mostly all the normal stuff. 

Let's get on to the weird stuff (definitely no pictures of this craziness).

1.  I have somehow become the assistant for helping an elderly relative evict an adverse tenant who has overstayed his welcome.   It's been a LONG, exhausting process which involves talking to attorneys, calling the suicide hotline multiple times, and trying to protect my relative from being taken advantage of.  We are going to great lengths to try to do this in a way that's a win-win for everyone, but it's hard when one of the parties is not a reasonable person.   I am ready for this process to be over.  

2. I left a negative review for a place on Google and the owner PICKED A FIGHT with me!    It was actually pretty bad and we ended up deleting our review, because we are chickens and they totally called us out by name.  We did absolutely nothing wrong, but they said a lot of inflammatory, gaslighting, threatening things (something we noticed they do with all of their negative reviews).  I still get very angry about it every time I think about it, and I really wanted to leave it up, because we did nothing wrong, but Glen was concerned because his name got dragged into the whole thing.  Seriously evil.   Please let me know if you ever want to go to a therapist office in Provo and I would love to tell you which one to run the other way from.  The way they attack any critique on them whatsoever tells you all you need to know about the way they do business and does not reflect well on a business that has to do with mental health.  We deal with a lot of  therapist offices with Glen's calling and every single interaction we had with them was an exercise in extreme frustration.   The owner of this office is clearly not mentally well himself, because mentally well people do not treat other people {even those that disagree with the way they do things} the way that he does.     I  started listening to "Let it Go" on repeat and did some hard exercises trying to burn off some negative energy and get my brain to a more positive place. 🙄

 <deep breath>  

And lest you think that's all of the weird stuff...it's not. That's just all that happened in that one week. I'll blog more about the rest of it later, but the weirdness definitely did not subside after that week was over. Some things to look forward to in  upcoming blogposts: an out of town funeral, a serious injury on the way home from said funeral, an apocalyptic snowstorm for some of my kids, an unexpected trip, and a sacrament talk ...plus more eviction drama.   yay.



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Kristina's Crew Comes to Utah!

Shortly after Christmas, Emma went back to Rhode Island and my sister arrived with her entourage in tow—four of her kids, including Manuel, Isaiah, and Jesus who bring a bit of mayhem with them wherever they go. And right behind her came one of her friends, who brought her teenage triplets, increasing the number of people in our home by 200%.    Within an hour, my house had transformed from a peaceful post-holiday sanctuary into something resembling a combination of a Dave & Buster's and a convenience store after a tornado. Actually it wasn't that bad.  It really was loud...and messy...and a bit chaotic, but I have a good bond with all of Kristina's kids and genuinely enjoy having them around!   

LESSONS IN FOOD: 
  I raised five kids and know a lot about feeding them, however I can never seem to get it quite right with the boys.   I had stocked up on a bunch of their favorite foods before arriving, but I keep learning the hard way with them that there's a lot more to it than just picking the right kind of food for them.   Last time they were here I learned that chicken nuggets cooked in the air fryer were inedible and that soggy microwaved ones were the only way to go.  This time I learned  that different brands of mac & cheese can vary in taste and apparently I picked the wrong one.  I haven't eaten mac & cheese in approximately 40 years or so,  so I was unaware of these nuances, but apparently it's a thing.    Also, much to their happiness, I did manage to remember to get some of their favorite snack in the whole universe before they arrived--Blue Heat Takis.  However they thought I was quite mean for portioning them out into serving sizes for them, as they wanted the whole bag at once!  Ah, well!  I'll try again next time!  

 

THE SNOW THAT WASN'T 
Kristina and her family (and their friends) live in California and came to Utah very excited to see some snow.   Unfortunately for her and the record breaking low snowpack in the mountains this year, snow has been hard to come by this winter.  It's been unusually warm (something I appreciate) and very dry with only a couple little skiffs of snow here and there.  The boys were very disappointed by this and so Kristina went driving to higher altitudes in search of some.  She found the jackpot up at Suncrest and the boys happily played in it!   Sadly the triplets had never been to Utah or seen snow and it was all melted by the time they arrived.  They were quite disappointed.  

A TRIP TO LUMINARIA
One of my favorite parts about people coming to visit us, is that it gets us out of the house to see more of what Utah has to offer.  We went to Luminaria at Thanksgiving Point a  couple years ago and loved it, so Kristina and company coming to town was a perfect excuse to go again!  It was as amazing as we'd remembered and I think everyone enjoyed it!  

A TRIP TO ANTELOPE ISLAND

Another trek we took was to Antelope Island.   To my knowledge, I'd never been there before and I was completely enchanted by this wild and beautiful oasis so close to civilization.   

We saw this great horned owl...

and these beauties, an American kestrel and a starling...

Heather drove and my Mom also  came along for the adventure...

as did Adam and Isaiah.   Kristina and her crew came up an hour or two after us.  

We also saw bison (real ones) and this incredible bird, which was probably our highlight of the whole trip:  

It's a burrowing owl and they're pretty hard to spot, unless you know where to look.  My sister, Heather, has gotten quite into bird watching and bird photography lately and she had the inside scoop.  I totally want to go back  in the spring and see if we can find him again.  

VISITING OUR WARD
My niece, Madeline, and the triplets hope to come to BYU in the next year or two, so they all came to our YSA ward on Sunday to see what it was like.  They weren't very excited that we meet at 9am and had a half-hour drive to get there, but they made it with smiles on their faces.   I actually have no idea what they thought, but it was an excellent fast and testimony meeting and we were happy to share our wonderful ward with them for a week! 

Kristina was happy to see Alicia there too!  Alicia was Kristina's friend first and her husband is now serving as Glen's 1st counselor, so we are all friends now!   

HAPPY DENALI
Denali is 100% a diva.   She loves being the center of attention and there's nothing like more people being in the house to give it to her.  Happily, the boys adore her and she gets lots and lots of attention when they're around.  I daresay she goes into a bit of withdrawal when they leave...

 A FEW MORE RANDOM PICS
I'll finish off with a few more random pics from their stay here.  There's also a few more in this post about the Buttercup Neighborhood game.  

Madeline, Kristina, and me...

Jesus has grown up A LOT over the last several months, which meant a bit more sass, a lot more stubbornness, and a whole lot of silliness. He just got baptized this past weekend and I was super sad that I couldn't be there to join him.  

My sister, Kristina, is probably the only true extrovert of the family and she seriously has the best friends!    I've become friends with a few of her friends since moving here and we went to this gathering one night knowing no one but Kristina's crew, but came out with more friends!  We've even hung out with one of the couples again since then.  

I love when K's family comes to town and somehow even miss the noise and the mess when they leave.  

Happy February to you!