The Phoenix Phlowers

Any of you who knows me in person, knows that I have a very limited skill set.  My skills mainly involve making programs {I sometimes think this gift/passion of mine must have been a joke when God was bestowing talents on his children because it is probably about the most useless/unappreciated skill in the history of the world}, walking {yep, plain old walking}, and dabbling half-heartedly in pursuits I think I should like, but have a hard time getting into.  Sewing, gardening, gourmet cooking, making friends, yoga, papercrafting etc are all among those things that have sparked my interest, then eluded me.   I keep hoping that one of these days something will "catch" and I'll find my next fun hobby to get into, but, alas, my efforts thus far have remained rather unsatisfying. 

Today I'm going to tell you a little about my efforts at gardening.  I love spending time outdoors and I love fresh fruits and veggies, so you'd think that gardening is something I'd be really excited about.  But not really.  One of the main hurdles I've faced with it, is that the prime hours for gardening (early in the morning before the heat of the day has set in), happens to also be the prime hours for hiking, of which is a part of my day I rarely compromise on.   My walking/hiking time is sacred and an integral part of maintaining my physical and mental health--day in, day out, month in, month out.  I rarely miss more than a day or two of hiking in a week and when I do, it's usually for a good reason (like being on a cool trip or being sick or something).  

So despite my time limitations and lack of passion, I keep trying to plant the darn garden....year after year after year.     I almost always plant a little late in the season and I do minimal upkeep (because there are a million places I'd rather be  when it's 95* and sunny outside), but we usually manage at least a meager harvest that, if nothing else, at least about covers the cost of seedlings and dirt that we put into the garden.    So that's me.  A lazy gardener who takes more after the Little Red Hen's friends than Little Red Hen herself. 

  Back in Virginia, we  had this beautiful pergola on our deck where we'd hang flowers and birdfeeders.   Hanging flowers are another love of mine (though we have no place to hang flowers in our current house) and I *usually* was able to keep them alive through the summer, at least in the back of the house, where they could catch the water that fell from the sky without any effort from me.   The hanging flowers in front of our house  didn't always fare as well, because I actually had to remember to water those.    This little corner of the deck was my happy place and I LOVED being able to see it out our kitchen and dining room windows. 

 

 See those orange flowers in the pot on our deck?   I got those one year and loved the pop of color they brought to our deck.   We enjoyed them all season, then they died of natural causes and I just left them alone.  I just left the flower pot there {dead parts and all}, assuming I'd plant something new in it the following summer.  Then something weird happened.  

Without doing a darn thing...literally nothing...they came back to life the next season.   And they were just as pretty the second time around. 

 That original deck picture was taken in 2017.  That may have been the year I got them, but, honestly, I have no idea.  They've been a part of our summer deck decor for many years now (even through 3 moves) and it's a happy day when they start to blossom again each year and occasionally even blossom twice in a season. 

In Pennsylvania, they still grew without effort, but grew in a little funky. 

Here in Utah, I have to water them...

But still they come back. 

  I think they might be tiger lilies, but I call them my Phoenix Phlowers.  

PHOENIX:  ˈfiːnɪks   (in classical mythology) According to ancient legend, the phoenix is a bird that cyclically burns to death and is reborn from its own ashes. For this reason, the phoenix often serves as a symbol of renewal and rebirth.

This final collage is comprised of photos of my Phoenix Phlowers from this summer...bringing a spot of color and joy to me once again.  

It's fitting that they're even the color of flames.

Our Fourth

The older we get, the more laid back our holidays have become.   This 4th of July was no different.   We started off the day by going to the ward holiday breakfast, where Ellie quickly realized she was one of the few teens there, where approximately one person initiated conversation with us, and where there was very little I could actually eat, but the kids with their decorated bikes were adorable, so that was awesome. 

I also enjoyed the opportunity to wear my cheesy patriotic clothes out of the house.  Also, we didn't get to see Lucie in person, but I was happy to see that she was following in her Gigi's holiday fashion sense. 

I was disappointed to not be able to partake much in the 4th of July breakfast, so I made my own version on the 5th of July.  It was bursting with fresh fruit, free of refined sugar, gluten, and dairy, and had a hearty whole-grain (oat) based pancake.  It was frankly quite delicious and we've been enjoying the leftovers all week long! 

And then, we did what we almost always do for fun these days...we went on a hike.  We thought it was a 4-mile hike.  It turned out to be 8-miles to our destination though (stupid All Trails lied to us).  We made it 6 and turned around in hopes to come back another day when we're better prepared for 8-miles.  The scenery was lovely and we are excited to come back when there are even more wildflowers, since it seemed that we were just ahead of peak time. 

Then we stopped for Costa Vida on the way home, talked to our missionary, Glen went back to Saint George, and  Ellie, Spence, and I watched fireworks from our deck.   People here are hardcore with their personal fireworks, so it was actually a pretty good show for not leaving the house. 

As I drifted off to sleep (with our noise machine going to drown out the lingering firework noise),  it was hard not to feel a little like we've morphed  into old people.   Next thing you know, we'll have little people calling us Gigi and Papa and we'll be empty nesters or something.   Oh wait. 

I guess we're already there.

Pre-Independence Week

This little life update is taken straight from a letter we wrote to our missionary.  It's a nice way to accomplish two things at once!  

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July 3, 2023

Hola to our favorite missionary! 
How's life in the Farming-hood?   Tell us all about your new companion, your new mission president, and whatever else is new!  What is your schedule like today given the fact that your p-day is also a national holiday.  I imagine that you'll be in your apartment for the night long before the fireworks begin??  

Oh yeah, speaking of the national holiday upon us....

Our Independence Day will consist of wearing goofy red, white, and blue outfits,  a Ward Breakfast in the church parking lot, then a hike to Primrose Point.  After that I'm making the very iconic "Sausage Salad" for dinner {which I've never made before}.  It will be totally delicious, but whatever you do don't ask Ellie about it, because she has decided it's terrible already.  😏 

We'll probably, maybe try to see some fireworks too.  We shall see. 

Speaking of Ellie, she's dog-sitting this week and taking care of Denali on steroids pretty much.     His name is Sarge and he's as sweet-natured as they come, but he clearly likes food and doesn't exercise much.  Denali and him get along just fine.  We are not introducing him to Kiwi. 

 

 I think Ellie likes this job. 

 

Ellie has also been painting a ton lately.  She has stations like this set up all over the upstairs currently. 

Emma met us for a session at the temple on Friday....I look forward to when you can join us too.  :)

On Saturday Emma did the Muddy Dash {the name says it all}, then went camping.  Apparently she took no pictures camping, because my camera roll doesn't have any sadly.   Here's one of her covered in mud though. 

We started our  red, white, and blue clothing adventure on Sunday and looked pretty snazzy if I do say so myself!

Sunday afternoon we went for a drive on the Energy Loop (I think that's what it's called).  I think Ellie kind of liked it when Denali started chilling on her head.

We saw lots of beautiful vistas and wildflowers, but honestly I had a hard time sitting still for the drive.  I was happy to see the beauty, but was also happy when the drive was over!

I mentioned in my email last week (I think) that Dad got a rock polisher for his birthday.  It takes 5 rounds (that each last about a week) before they're done, but he was very excited about how they looked after Round #1.  I find it very cute how excited he is about it. 

I am taking advantage of the non-wintry weather {acknowledging that it's a short season here in Utah} and getting out to hike as much as possible.  I'm shooting for 4-6 miles per day {except Sundays} and mostly getting it.  I'll have to replace my shoes shortly, because I'm wearing them out fast!  

I've also been cooking up a storm.  I found a bunch of new recipes and have really enjoyed making and trying them out.  Ellie may be getting a little tired of them though {especially since I picked a bunch of peppery recipes}, but I'm having fun and I think everyone else is enjoying them!   This was a Greek filling I made to go in wraps.  They were quite delicious!

I don't have any pics of Spence {surprise, surprise!}, but Spence seems to be enjoying his new job and is still very into going to the gym every day.  He keeps asking about nutritionally dense food choices, started  listening to podcasts, and seems genuinely interested in improving his health.   You will not be surprised to hear that I approve of these developments.  

This probably is more of a surprise, but I sadly have zero pics of Lucie to share with you.   Cami worked a bunch of overtime this week.    She was also working extra while I was in Alabama and when Lucie was here, so I sense that she is quite exhausted now.  I'm hopeful she's now on a path to work more normal hours for the foreseeable future. 

So there you have it....our very non-exciting lives, which, if I'm being totally honest, is probably more the way we want things to be.  Exciting is definitely overrated most of the time...

ON a completely different note, here's a quote I came across when studying CFM recently: 

"The comforting Spirit of the Holy Ghost can abide with us twenty-four hours a day: when we work, when we play, when we rest. Its strengthening influence can be with us year in and year out. That sustaining influence can be with us in joy and sorrow, when we rejoice as well as when we grieve.

I believe the Spirit of the Holy Ghost is the greatest guarantor of inward peace in our unstable world. It can be more mind-expanding and can make us have a better sense of well-being than any chemical or other earthly substance. It will calm nerves; it will breathe peace to our souls. This Comforter can be with us as we seek to improve. It can function as a source of revelation to warn us of impending danger and also help keep us from making mistakes. It can enhance our natural senses so that we can see more clearly, hear more keenly, and remember what we should remember. It is a way of maximizing our happiness."  James E Faust, "The Gift of the Holy Ghost--A Sure Compass," April 1989

I like that and needed the reminder about how essential the Holy Ghost is to our internal peace.  

I hope you've had a marvelous first few days with your companion and with your mission president.  I look forward to hearing all about it tomorrow. 

We love you!!!!
Love, 

Mom 💗💗💗
 

A Good Friend and a Birthday

I'm going to start off this post about Glen's birthday with a little side story about our friend, Connor.    He may only be 13, but, I tell you, everyone needs a friend like Connor in their life!   He was one of our Sunday School kids, then became our Trek son {at his request}, and now is one of my greatest artists for creating artwork for the cover of the program. 

He and Glen connected over fishing and hockey while he was in our Sunday School class and they still chat about such things whenever they get the chance.   So we weren't too surprised when Connor rushed to greet Glen at church a couple Sundays ago, but we were a little more surprised that he knew it was Glen's birthday.  What better way to start your birthday in public than with a warm HAPPY BIRTHDAY from a good friend?!  

Then, after church, he brought Glen a cake that HE'D MADE HIMSELF!!!!   Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?!   After blowing out the candles and having a piece, they chatted about the best roller coasters and ended up watching roller coaster videos.   It literally made Glen's day. 

Though I think Glen would have been totally happy with his birthday at that point, we did make him a nice crepe dinner (a family tradition).    Emma and Ellie did the crepe, bacon, and egg cooking...

And I made him a carrot cake.  Yes, he got to have two cakes in one day...isn't that what birthdays are for? 

We finished up with him opening up the present he really wanted... a rock tumbler. He was so excited about it that he spent the next hour getting his first batch of rocks up and running, even though that meant arriving to SG around midnight.   

It was a low-key birthday--just the way we like them at our house.  

Happy {belated} Birthday to Glen! We love you! 

A Saturday in the Life

     Between my trip to Virginia, my trip to Alabama, then Glen working in Saint George, we've had a crazy few weeks where Glen and I have hardly seen each other.   This past Saturday, our house guests were heading home, Glen was back home, Ellie was still at YW camp, and we had this wide open Saturday right before Glen's birthday to spend together.   So what did we do? 

After waking up at 5:00am to drive Kristina and kids to the airport, we decided to go on a hike together.   And not just any hike...we wanted a long hike! 

So a long hike we did....

We were informed that embarking on that kind of hike after that crazy of week might be a little weird, but, hey, we enjoyed it, so I guess we're embracing the weirdness!    Kristina's family was flying out of the Provo Airport, so we took advantage of being in Provo and decided to hike from Utah Lake to Provo Canyon.    Don't mind how exhausted I look!   It really had been a long, somewhat chaotic week with 5 kids in the house (including Lucie who was waking up at 5:30am every day). 

The hike, though scenic in sections....

  ended up being a lot more of a roundabout adventure than we'd hoped, because there were sections of the trail closed for construction...

And other sections closed for high water...

Other sections were very very close to being underwater, but sandbags and walls kept the water mostly on the right side.

All in all, it's not a hike I'd do again anytime soon, but it was exactly the kind of time together we were craving.    Then we went out for brunch at TruReligion Pancake and Steak House in Orem. The huevos rancheros I got was out of this world good (and naturally gluten free) and Glen's biscuit was a sight to behold (and rather tasty I'm told).      I highly recommend a stop here if you're ever in town. 

Then we finished off our grand adventure at Walmart to {finally} buy some seedlings and dirt for the garden!  

A long hike, good food, and a step toward productivity....sounds like a perfect Saturday to me!

Lucie Overload!

Hello friends!   Thanks for visiting my blog today.    Can you believe I've been keeping this up {with varying degrees of devotion} for 16 years now?  I blog for all sorts of reasons, but mostly I blog to capture the memories into one place...my online journal of sorts...and I love that my family uses this blog as a resource to look up old stories or to find that one picture.  I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the  Facebook and Instagram, so lately I've been trying to keep those at arm's length and embrace the details that are better captured in blog format anyway.   Plus I also really like not worrying about how many likes or comments I happen to get.   I figure if someone's reading my blog, that means they chose to read it and not just because it popped up in their social media algorithm that day.   So, thanks for being here!  I'm glad you care enough to read.  Send me a text sometime.  Or call me next time you come to town.  

Now onto the purpose of this blogpost...to inundate all of you,  my dear blog readers, with pictures of the sweetest little 18-month-old in the entire universe!  💗

  I just spent the last two-and-half  weeks hanging out with Lucie May--first in Alabama and then here at home in Utah--and I am more enamored than ever with grandparenthood!  Seriously, I loved {mostly} being a Mom, but being a Gigi is the best of all worlds.  I get to snuggle with, play with, read to, and just enjoy being with Lucie without the hard parts of parenting.   I read a quote that said that "Grandchildren are God's way of compensating us for getting old," and it made me laugh and rang true.  😂  There's a lot not to like about having an aging body, but if getting old is what it takes to get to the grandbabies, I'll take it!  

So, let's get started on this Lucie overload.   As mentioned in a previous post, 24-hours after returning from spending 3 days at Trek, Ellie and I caught a plane to Alabama.  Cami was working some crazy hours and her sister-in-law was leaving town, so we came to help out with childcare for a bit.  It was the longest I've ever spent with Lucie all at once, so I feel like I got to know her personality more...and a delightful one it is!  

To keep this from being a 15-page blogpost (I print up my posts into books every so often) and to share as many pics as possible, I  decided to create a whole bunch of collages.  I'll write up a little blurb about each collage...

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 ALABAMA:   Cami and Garrett were both working long hours, so Ellie and I just hung out with Lucie, ran some errands, and made some meals.  We didn't do any sightseeing (not that Birmingham has that many fun places to sightsee anyway 😂).  In this collage you can see Lucie helping Cami bake something yummy {and try out some plain butter}, play at a great park in downtown B-ham, go on some walks (one of her favorite things to do), snuggle with Ellie, and just be her cute expressive self.

ALABAMA:   More walks, learning how to blow bubbles, a trip to the Birmingham Zoo {where she determined that elephants are stinky}, snuggling with her Dada, and reading books with Gigi! 

ALABAMA:  More walks, more helping Cami bake, and just chilling outside.  

AIRPLANE:   After about a week-and-a-few-days in Alabama, Ellie and I had to leave, so Ellie could get back for YW Camp.    Our flight was delayed, so we spent an extra night in Alabama, then woke up in the wee hours of the morning {we left the house at 4:00am} and took Lucie with us back to Utah.   She was clearly very tired, but she was quite the trouper and I was impressed at how well she held up with the long day of flying on such little sleep.  

UTAH/WALKS:  Being on Alabama time, meant she was waking up at 5:30am on the dot each morning.  My sister was also visiting with her 4 kids {who were on California time}, so I took her on  early morning walks most days to get her out of the house until a better time for K's kids to wake up.   She's not a super fan of being in the stroller these days, so Lucie logged a lot of her own steps  on our walks and kept our walks very much toddler-paced.  We looked at a lot of rocks, smelled (and picked 😬) a lot of flowers, and labeled every familiar sight she saw along the way.    We did get her out on a couple adult-paced stroller walks as well, but not as many as usual for sure!   

UTAH/PETS:   For months now, whenever Lucie and Cami Facetime, she asks to see the dogs, so it was with extra excitement that Lucie actually got to spend time with Denali.  She was a tad nervous about Denali's energy at first, but she  grew quite attached by the end and watching their interactions was very sweet.  Denali has the perfect temperament for small children (just as Rocky did)  and she seemed to rather enjoy the extra attention Lucie was eager to give.  She also enjoyed meeting my sister's cat.  We kept Spencer's dog, Kiwi, completely separate, because we were quite nervous about how she might react to a little person. 

UTAH/FAMILY:  As I mentioned previously, my sister, Kristina, and four of her kids were staying with us that week as well.  That meant our house was full of LOTS of noise, LOTS of mess, and LOTS of fun!  Lucie LOVED all the other little people around and all the extra people to beg food off of!   The boys were a little wary of Lucie, but they were also sweet and tolerant of her at least.   Isaiah decided that offering Lucie food and eagerly awaiting  her to sign "Thank you" was his love language.  Manuel would let Lucie hold his toys and hand them back to him.  Jesus wasn't sure about her at all, especially after she pinched him a few times, so he mostly kept his distance.   Kristina absolutely loved having a little one to dote on and my Mom, Nana (Lucie's great-great grandmother), and sister, Heather, loved spending time with her as well. 

UTAH/FOOD:  Lucie is a very food oriented girl, which isn't much of a surprise considering how strongly the genes for that trait run on our side of the family.  She loves her meal-times, figured out quickly where the popsicles were kept, and would eagerly steal food from whomever happened to be eating at that moment.   She even ate dirt from a plant once!  

UTAH/LEGO HAIR:  With 3 Lego loving boys in our home, our house literally looked like a Lego bomb had gone off while they were here.  Luckily Lucie is mostly past the stage of putting everything in her mouth (though we definitely had to watch her still).  Here's a funny little story:     She was sitting in her highchair waiting while I got her food and was playing with a Lego guy.   She pulled the hair off and handed it to me to fix.  I said, "Oh, did the hair come off?  Let's put that hair back on," then I gave it back.  She heard me say, "HAIR," so she promptly began brush her hair with the Lego guy.    You do have  to admit that Lego hair doesn't look much like real hair, so I can see her confusion! 😂

UTAH/PAPA/ELLIE/EMMA/SPENCE:   Ellie was heading off to YW Camp, so they had to say their goodbyes pretty soon after arriving back home.  Glen was taking off for work in Saint George, so he also had to say his goodbyes after only a day.   Spence just started a new job, so we got to see him in the evenings.  Emma came to visit when she could.  We all loved our Lucie time!

UTAH/MISCELLANEOUS:   Here are some more random Lucie moments I captured.  Lucie following in Uncle Adam's footsteps and trying to figure out the Rubik's cube, pretending the calculator was a phone, stopping to see the garden orbs we have hanging near our front door, finding a gallon of vinegar to tote around at Great-Grandma's house, emptying out the cupboard (and putting everything in the dryer), reading books, and trying to color sort with Gigi. 

UTAH/LARA/GIGI:  And finally, here's the last collage--pics with Lucie and me!  I love this little girl and I love being her Gigi.   💗💗💗 

 

 Now that Lucie's back with her Mama and Dada, our house feels empty and I am very much missing her {and her parents}.

Thank goodness for Facetime to tide me over until the next trip! 
 

PS  Who am I kidding?  Even with the collages, this probably still a 15-page blogpost!   😁