Surprise! (Or....I am Way Too Old for This)

Oh Sheri and Kathleen, you sneaky sneaky gals!

Here's what happened. This year is the year that I turn 50 years old. Sheri said something a time or two about us needing to celebrate. I figured we would do something, but I didn't really have any great ideas or exciting things I wanted to do. And she didn't really mention it again - which I actually was a little surprised about.

What did get mentioned was a trip to Las Vegas, by my other-side-of-the-family sister-in-law, Kathleen. She works for Jet Blue and had suggested before that at some point we should go on a trip. Sometime during the winter Kathleen told me she and her sister were going to visit her other sister in Las Vegas and that I should come. Maybe I should have suspected something but I really didn't. I thought that going to Vegas sounded fun. I love Kathleen and felt tickled to be invited to be a part of sisters trip. The trip was going to happen at the end of April, and it was something on the calendar that was exciting to anticipate. A little plane ride, sitting by the pool, eating at fun restaurants - it was going to be a wonderful getaway!

A little while before the trip, Kathleen's dad became ill. He had been diagnosed with cancer some time ago, and it's been quietly progressing. But he had a fall and a bad illness and it led to dear Stan being admitted in the ICU. It was sad and really tough on Kathleen and her family. As the time drew nearer for the Vegas trip, I just figured we would have to postpone - her dad was just getting worse.

We were supposed to leave on a Sunday afternoon. The day before, Saturday, Peter and Sheri and the kids were in town for a gymnastics meet for Iva. They were spending Saturday with us, and I was telling Sheri how sad I was that Stan was so sick and we were all worried for him, and that the Vegas trip was certainly being delayed if not just cancelled. Just then, there was a knock on the door. It was Kathleen!

I actually wasn't that surprised - her dad was in the Huntsman Cancer Institute's ICU, just up the hill from us. I thought she was dropping by to get a break from the hospital, give us an update, and also break the news that the trip was off. She walked in, and I jumped up to give her a big hug and cry with her for a minute. Then she came into the kitchen to sit down and chat with Sheri and me. That's when they told me - there wasn't going to be a Vegas trip. In fact, there never had been a Vegas trip. It was a big fat trick! The two of them had been planning to take me to Disneyland together - planning since last September!

Well - I just about died. First of all, I was so shocked that they had been planning this. (In fact, later, Sheri let me read the text thread between the two of them that had been going on for months and it was so sweet.) I was absolutely surprised and I believe I couldn't close my mouth or wipe the shock off of my face for quite some time. Also...Kathleen wasn't going to join us after all because of her dad. So there was this incredibly emotional conversation where I was crying with love and happiness because these two dear sisters love me and wanted to make a big deal out of my birthday and treat me and spend time with me. Also Disneyland. And also, heartbreak and guilt and sadness that Kathleen wouldn't be joining us. I felt so bad, and she did too, but she insisted that we go anyway, and that she would be miserable leaving her dad at that time, and wouldn't have a good time.

You know who else was surprised? My husband. Yeah, the girls didn't tell Troy. I know he would have kept the secret - not sure why they didn't tell him! But he was planning on me going to Vegas, and I guess me gone in Nevada and me gone in California is still just me gone, so they didn't tell him. I felt a little bad - I always need major verbal affirmation to not feel bad about going away. But Troy was happy and supportive and sweet. 

The original plan had been for Kathleen and me to leave on our trip on Sunday, me still thinking we were going to Vegas, but I would be told that we had to have a layover in LA. Kathleen was going to tell me that we had enough time to go get some good food or something. (Apparently I can always be convinced by food.) We would leave the airport, call an Uber, and the plan was that Sheri would pull up and that's how they were going to surprise me. Can you imagine? I would have died. DIED. It was a great idea and I'm very sorry that it wasn't able to happen. Those cute sisters of mine - they worked so hard to put this together and it was really so sad that things had to be rearranged. Not just because of the trip, obviously, but because of Kathleen's dad. 

So...change of plans. Instead of flying to LA, the new arrangement was for me to drive back that night to St. George with Peter and family, and Sheri and I would drive to California together on Sunday. I will spare the details of getting to CA - it was kind of long, due to a late-night end to Iva's gymnastics meet. It was a little rough. But the drive on Sunday was delightful - we enjoyed chatting and singing and just being together the whole way. 

We spent the afternoon visiting her grandpa in Long Beach, who is a delightful man. I especially enjoyed getting to know him better while we went out to dinner and I got to ask him all sorts of questions. What a sweet and interesting man. Then it was a walk on the beach.

Then it was off to the hotel - a pretty nice spot about a one-mile walk from Disneyland Park, with a very nice, big, clean convenience store just along the way. Perfect for stocking up on monster drinks, Pringles, and other necessities. 

And here's where I just load you with photos - I mean, who wants to hear the play-by-play of two days at Disney? No one. But it was so fun. I think Sheri has wanted to get me alone at Disney for about 15 years now. And we did it! We walked like 20 miles a day. We did all the things. Rode the rides. Ate the treats. I just followed Sheri around wherever she said to go. So here are one million photos. I'm not even dividing them up into the separate days. And also, there are so many more photos than these. You're welcome for not putting them ALL in here.

Ok I'll mention a couple of specifics. 

This year at Disneyland, all of the employees wore name tags with their favorite character listed on them. It was so fun to interact with cast members (the correct name for Disney employees) and find out who their favorite is and chat a little. That was fun. We also talked much about which character we ourselves would pick. I finally pared my list down to Merryweather or Lady Cluck. Probably Lady Cluck. The best was meeting a cast member named Chase with the favorite character Kronk. Hello! That is my boy!!!

Another delightful moment was taking a break to eat dinner over at California Adventure. Sheri and I were calmly eating our salads and pasta, and at the table next to us, absolute mayhem was unfolding. There was a family there - the dad was juggling baby and a few kids and getting dinner on the table and was either ignoring or unaware of the fact that his son was steadily opening packets of sugar and pouring them into his mouth, one after another after another. Once the kid got pizza, he even put sugar on his pizza. The mom returned with a sullen and red-eyed pre-teenager, and also ignored her son's intake of about a cup of sugar. Sheri and I were laughing so hard. 

Another delightful dinner memory was making an actual reservation at an actual restaurant - the one overlooking the lake at Disneyland. We got Monte Cristo sandwiches and creme brulee and it was just heavenly. 

One of the best moments on the trip was trying to leave Disneyland in the evening to spend the nighttime hours at California Adventure. Somehow we timed our exit at the exact right moment and landed on the sidelines of the most delightful parade I have ever seen. (I'm shocked I just typed that. Parades are in general miserable experiences. But not at Disneyland.) There were all of these floats with classic characters on them, and Sheri and I found ourselves cheering for them - Sleeping Beauty and the three fairies, Merlin and The Wart, Anna and Elsa, Moana and Maui, and the best was Peter Pan and Wendy. Tinkerbelle was walking around, and right in front of us was a tiny kid dressed as Peter Pan. Tinkerbelle came up to him and had the cutest little interaction with him and basically Sheri and I both broke down weeping. We are so silly.

Sheri did go full-boar for two solid days. Check out the blister on my foot. I feel like I almost died from it. I felt so old! My poor sister was trying to drag this old lady around at top speed. It was all I could do to not slow her down too much. 

It really was a great trip, and I was so grateful to be showered with love. I'm so sad Kathleen couldn't be there too - although in all honesty, I'm not sure that Sheri-style and Kathleen-style would have meshed super well. Maybe it would have been great, I don't know. But I do hope that Kathleen and I get a chance to go another time. 

Thank you, sisters, for celebrating my 50th in such style. Love you both so much. 

Our Lady of the Super Sweaters

I have now made three sweaters. (For myself, all for myself, bwaa ha ha ha!!) I actually don't think anyone else in the family especially wants a sweater from me. Well, the girls just wear them so whatever I make for me I make for all three of us. And also...I keep making sweaters that end up larger than I expect them to be. So the boys could easily wear them as well.

I LOVE making sweaters. And each time I make one, I feel like I have learned so much and maybe THIS time I'll get it just right. I mean, I check the gauge the whole way through. I measure so carefully. And I swear, I keep making these absolutely massive sweaters. The arms are too long, they drown me. I still really love each of them. I have been given the advice to rip them out and start over but I can't bring myself to do it! They each take so long and can be so very tedious at times, and so I don't. I have also been given the advice to get them just ever so slightly damp, wrap them up in a pillow case and pop them into the dryer to just tighten up the stitches. This is also something I can not bring myself to attempt. 

So the only option left is just to become known as the lady who always wears the supersize sweaters. 

(Maybe the 4th try will be the charm?)

Emma Gets a Glow-Up

 

It turns out that I didn't really pay close attention to how my younger daughter was growing up by leaps and bounds over the past two years. I mean, I knew she was growing taller and starting to wear makeup and pick out outfits with more care, but I didn't really see just how much she had changed until she got her braces off and I went back to find the photos of the day she got them on. Um HELLO that is a little baby in those photos. And now look. She dun grown up!!

Emma was a great orthodontic patient. I'm going to go ahead and brag about that. Okay okay I'm sure she wasn't the best flosser the world has ever seen. But here's where she excelled. She was patient. Her awesome doctor started talking in the fall about her braces coming off - perhaps even by Christmas. And then every appointment, he'd want to go one more appointment out before deciding. Believe me, I have no hard feelings. He is a really great orthodontist and he wanted her teeth to be as perfect as he could possibly make them. I totally trusted him. But it did take some patience from Emma. She had one point where she had to wear a configuration of seven rubber bands, crisscrossing around so she couldn't even open her mouth. And she totally did it. 

Ever since her braces disappeared she has gotten so many comments about how grown up she is. It's true - when you compare her current photos to the day she got her braces on - can you even believe how different?

The Lamb of God

 

The Lamb of God is a piece of music composed by Rob Gardner, and it tells the story of the last week of the life of Jesus Christ. Mr. Gardner is about the same age as my youngest brother, which kind of blows my mind. I had heard of it a few years ago but had never listened to it. It was even made into a concert film, and I had heard of that as well, but didn't feel very interested in checking it out. Sometimes I shy away from modern religious music. But I had chosen poorly.

This year, as the holiday of Easter approached, I was realizing that I am just not very good at celebrating the holiday. Christmas? Well, you know me. I'm absolutely in love with Christmas and I go all out in celebrating it. But seeing as how I'm a very religious person, it seems a little strange that I don't at least try to do the same for the most religious holiday of the year. After all, without Easter, Christmas wouldn't be much to celebrate. To be honest, I'm just getting started on trying to figure out what I want to add to our Easter celebrations and how to make it more special. I think it will take a few years. I did start out by doing what I do best - create a playlist. I reached out to several people and asked for suggestions, and. my brother was the one who recommended The Lamb of God.

I was immediately enthralled. I loved it. As soon as I was done listening to the soundtrack, I hunted down the concert movie and watched that and loved it even more. It just brought the story of Holy Week, the Crucifixion of Christ and His Resurrection into focus and understanding for me. I could not stop listening to it, and I really do feel like it made my own personal celebration of the Easter Holiday more meaningful.

In the meantime, we were making plans to get together for dinner with our good friends, David and Julie. David and Troy were very close while in high school together. Funny enough, Julie and I also went to the same high school, but we only sort of knew who the other was. In fact, I'm not entirely sure Julie remembers me from high school. That is ok. We have gotten to know them better over the years, and were especially excited when their son received a mission call to the Washington Spokane mission just six weeks after Chase received his. It was kind of strange actually - I felt it coming! I don't know how, but I did. Troy and I were at a Howard Jones concert, and I knew that this young man was going to be opening his call that night. I had a feeling where he was going, and knew for sure it was true when, during the concert, Troy got a call from Dave. Crazy!

Well, their son Ben is just amazing. He sings well enough to lead shows on Broadway, and we have been to see him in several productions. He's a great guy. So it was incredibly surprising and heartbreaking when he departed on his mission and the experience uncovered some deep and serious mental health issues that were very traumatizing for him and his whole family. He came home after six weeks, and was devastated. It's not my story to tell, and I'm sure he'd be weirded out if he knew that some old lady was writing about him on her little bloggy-blog. But we care a lot about him and his family, and after having been through some mental health challenges with Chase and feeling that parental hurt, our hearts were just full for him. He did amazing things while out in Spokane, and I know he has amazing paths ahead of him. But it was a really really hard time. We got together with his parents for dinner, and sat at our little table for several hours talking and crying together about the tough things going on. 

Just at the end of the meal, we were asking what performances Ben might have ahead, and Julie mentioned that their stake was putting on a performance of The Lamb of God, the week after Easter, and Ben was to have the role of Thomas. Well I basically just burst into tears. It was such a tender conversation already, and then to hear that Ben was taking on this absolutely beautiful singing part during this time in his life put me over the edge. Thomas has a song all about "we will understand someday," and that seems like the just the thing Ben and his family were exploring right then.

Troy and I cleared our Saturday afternoon and met our friends at their church. Dave very very kindly saved us seats right in the front and center. I was so excited that I got to hear this music live and was already kind of emotional. We had a chance to talk with Dave quite a bit before it started. Julie was singing in the chorus, so it was just Dave and us. He shared with us some extremely tender things about this group of people putting on the show. There were several soloists and the conductor who were all going through personal tragedies. Plus Dave's dad, who was a very close friend of my own dad's, was going through the loss of not one but two of his siblings, both of whom passed away that very day. Well. By the time the music started I was already a big weepy mess. And....I forgot to bring any tissues. I was in big trouble. Luckily a guardian angel of some sort made the lady in front of me drop a packet of tissues and I was able to kindly pick them up and return them to her, but not before I stole a few for myself. I told her she was my angel in disguise. She laughed as she saw that I was already a mess!

Words can not convey the power of this musical performance. The images of Jesus that were projected on the wall above the choir made it all the more real, and the music just rolled over us in wave after wave. I will never forget the power and the testimony of the day. And to watch Ben sing, with tears pouring down his own face, was the most poignant part. I'm so grateful for this piece of music and for the experience we had in watching it. 

Snomaggedon

Take note - today is April the 11th. Last year in early April we had temps alarmingly in the 70s. Felt like the end of days, with so little water and such high temps.

The good people of our city and state spent the spring, summer and fall praying for water. Literally praying. And it seems that this is the year our prayers were answered - in fact, many years of prayers were answered at the same time. 

We have had a lovely, wet, snowy winter. Just what we have needed. It's been such a relief to keep track of the snow and water totals building up all winter long. People did start to grumble a bit once it got to be late March and the snow kept coming, but I tried to remember that we have been absolutely desperate for water for a very long time. It seems like half of the headlines lately have been about the shrinking Great Salt Lake and the deadly consequences of its disappearance. So yay for the water!

Our Spring Break was not much of a break at all. I mean, yes, it was a nice break from school, but it had very little to do with spring. Emma was signed up for some sewing classes up at the top of the avenues and we had to abort the mission halfway there one day because I simply could not get up I street because of the snow and wind. The van just kept sliding back down and it was a miracle that I was able to avoid smacking into another car. It was quite the wintry week. Sideways snow for two days. Finally it started to clear up and get a little warmer over the weekend. But that was just the warm before The Storm.

I'm going to go ahead and say that I feel like our school district had a solid three days that they should have at least postponed school if not closed it. Monday we woke up to 6" of snow and terrible roads. Round two of the storm arrived on Tuesday, lasted until Wednesday, and brought us to a total of 18" in our yard. A foot and a half! It was so crazy. We were lucky enough to get a call from the district at 4:45 in the morning to tell us that school would be happening as usual but we wouldn't get in trouble if we were late. Seriously? So ridiculous. 

The storm finally blew itself out by Wednesday afternoon, and the sun peeked its little face out. Things stayed pretty cold for a couple of days, but it was 70 degrees by Easter Sunday, and today was 80. Welcome to Utah, folks!

 

A Quick Note on One of the Best Parts of Life

Picture this. It's late in the evening, getting close to bedtime. It's a cold snowy day (more on the state of the weather coming soon) and Troy and I are sitting on the couch, feet up on the ottoman, just resting since Troy is like 2 days post surgery. Suddenly there is a pretty loud knock on the door. I go and tentatively answer the door, and who is there but our dear friend The Other Troy! Plus his cute daughter. They were in town from Seattle to do a little skiing. I had seen him the month before when he brought his son for a ski trip, but here he was again! How good does it feel to know that you have a friend who makes it a point to come see you even when there's not a lot of time. 

Troy and Lucy came in and we had the most lovely chat. I'm just so so grateful to have friends I love so much.

Here's an awkward photo I snuck of them. 

We had the same treat the day before from our best buddy Ben who came to check on Troy, who also made a late-night loud-knock visit.

Dear friends are one of the world's high points.

Midnight SanDiego Adventures of Carpools, Puking, and Baby Chickens

How does that saying go? Something about when it rains it pours? Oh yeah. I think it goes something like, "If you think things are busy you'd better watch yourself because it's about to get way worse."

Troy had his surgery on the Wednesday before spring break. It was only natural that Romney would be leaving on her choir trip the next morning. At 4am. So of course on Wednesday night I was trying to keep Troy comfortable and bring him anything he needed while simultaneously helping Romney pack for a four-day trip to Southern California and trying to get everyone to bed since she and I would be up at 3:30 to get going. 

boarding the bus in the dead of night

Does that mean we should have been sleeping soundly until 3:30? I suppose so, but that is absolutely not what happened. We were both awake around 2:00, nervous that we would sleep through our alarms. We did not. We finally got up, tiptoed around, trying to make sure we wouldn't wake Troy. Sadly, that turned out to not be an issue, since he got basically no sleep that night. When I got home from taking Romney to the bus-loading party in her high school faculty parking lot, I got a text from Troy, asking for help upstairs. I thought I WAS being helpful, taking him food and pain medication, but an hour later when I heard him lose it all into the sink, I realized that I had not been at all helpful. 

Then it was time to get Emma up for school.

I would have crawled back in to bed after that, but seriously, I could not. I mean of course I was doing Emma's carpool that day, and meeting a new doctor for Romney. Crazily, one of the other things was buying more chicks. What bad timing. We haven't had chicks since 2020 because our chickens have miraculously been staying alive since then. A new feat for us. They're actually getting kind of old to be laying eggs, and we realized that we should start adding two or three hens to the flock each year to prevent us losing all our layers at once. Chicks are still in high demand around here, and I had already tried a couple of times without success to purchase the kind of chickens we like. That day was the day that IFA was getting silkies in. So....chicks were purchased that day. Did we have a place to put them in the garage? Oh no, of course not. They moved into a laundry basket in the living room. 

They're the cutest little things. Three black silkie bantams, plus I caved and bought two frizzled bantams. We have had the worst luck trying to get frizzled, but I'm giving it another shot. We're already pretty sure that one of them is a rooster, but that will be a blog post for another time. 

Oh yeah and it's been dumping snow for basically the entire month. 

I'll tell you, Friday morning, after I got Emma out the door for school, made sure the chicks were all in good shape and Troy was snoozing quietly upstairs, I climbed into Romney's empty bed and slept until 10 in the morning. 

Here is Troy recovering by a cozy fire on a gray day, the chicks under their heating lamp behind him:

Our suspected rooster, already given the very feminine and delicate name Orchid: 

Two of the three silkies, which so far are indistinguishable from each other

Here are some photos from Romney's trip to San Diego, which consisted of one full day of driving. two busy days in the city, and then another full day of driving. The choirs won all sorts of awards, including an individual one for Romney, who won the "maestro award" for outstanding musicianship. She sang in multiple groups plus played the cello in the orchestra and accompanied another group with it as well. Way to go, Leopards!

Here is a photo of the beloved choir teacher, getting his now-traditional birthday celebration as they were out to dinner on a boat in the harbor. Was it his birthday? Nope. But the kids tell the waiters every time they eat together that it is, each time with an increase in age. I think he's now up to about 45, despite having been born in the late 90s. 

 

Good thing that when she got home on Sunday night, it was just the beginning of Spring Break. You wouldn't know it, since we were getting pelted with snow as we gathered up her bags, but it was. At least the snow cooled off her sunburn a little bit.