Launching Romney

Oh man. This might be the specific post that has felt overwhelming enough that I've been not wanting to write about it! Here goes. 

Much of summertime was spent in getting Romney ready for college. Here's the thing - she and I were both pretty overwhelmed, and procrastinated doing things, like finding her housing, registering for classes, that kind of stuff. (Sort of like the way I procrastinated writing this blog post.) However, by the end of August, we had cobbled together a schedule for her. It included Art History, Physics (after one day in a Geology class which was dreadful), Anthropology, and an Art Seminar. Plus an institute class - taught by one Ben Lomu, who hosts a tv show on BYUtv, and also has a son serving in Chase's same mission. 

We also found her a nice little apartment. And here's where I need to tell you that I am certain that we have had Heavenly Help along this journey. For example, as Romney and I finally settled down to look at housing options, we decided to take a day trip to Orem to check out a couple of the apartments. We picked a few to look at that seemed like the best options, and Romney randomly picked one more just because it was in the right area. And, as you can probably guess, the other apartments were awful. Truly awful. And the seemingly random one we picked was at a great location, had the lowest price, and also had bigger rooms. At least the one they showed us. It felt like a blessing. We signed the lease and felt like progress was being made.

The last week before the move was spent....shopping. Good grief. There are many things college kids need! We packed, we cleaned out her room (with Emma clawing at the door in anticipation), we picked furniture to send with her and things to get rid of and things to put in storage. We had been given a very specific move-in date - Friday the 18th of August. So, I guess that was the day she was going to move in! We made a plan - get her moved in on that Friday, then she would come home on Sunday for a family birthday celebration and another party on Monday, her actual birthday. THEN she'd go back to Orem on Tuesday, in time for a Freshman orientation, to be followed by the first day of school on Wednesday. It seemed like a great plan!

 

Friday was an incredibly long day. We had a specific move-in time, and many errands to run before hand. We were both super anxious about meeting her roomates of course - they had started a text thread just a couple of days before, and she was hopeful about the fun chats they were having. I shall now acknowledge the fact that throughout this post I have been using the word "we" instead of "she," using "us" instead of "her." I'm fully aware of the fact that the mother of the college student should not be feeling all the feelings that the college student may or may not be feeling. I'm an over-feeler. To say the least. K. Moving on. 

 

Here's the worst part of Friday. We got to the apartment, figured out where to park, went and got her room number and keys, and made our way up. We found her room and....stood there in total and absolute shock. I swear to you, it was about half the size of the room that we were shown on the tour in July. We were horrified. Romney had brought her cello, a desk, a full dresser,....all of the things. And it looked like there would be room for almost none of it. We just stood there gaping for a minute. Her roomate wasn't around - there were a couple of the other gals in the apartment moving in at the same time, but her actual roommate wouldn't be there until the next week. And her stuff was kind of all over. 

It took a few minutes before we could even move again. But then, what could we do? Deal with it. That's what. We ended up fitting everything in just fine, except for her dresser. Instead, we joined the throngs of families headed to the local Walmart and found some plastic drawer things that would fit under her very tall bed. The cello would live in the large (and pretty nice) living room, the desk fit in fine, and miraculously, the little closet had enough room for what she needed. Freakout avoided!

Well...kind of. Romney and I spent that entire day working and cleaning and moving and organizing and shopping. Then suddenly we were done. And we stood in her quiet room, looking at each other, and tears began to pool in her eyes. Uh oh!!!! Quick, let's go for a walk! We walked from her apartment to the front runner station. Easy! She could come home whenever she wanted. But still, many tears. So we walked to campus. Easy! It was so close and so nice. But...still, so many tears. We walked and talked and walked and talked. And cried. Until I realized...why the heck did she have to stay in Orem? Her roommate wasn't there, there wasn't a single social activity happening, and her birthday was on Monday. To HECK with this! So we went back to her apartment, packed a small bag, and made a quick getaway to my van. And I just took her right back home!

We had a very nice weekend together - I'll blog about her birthday next - and when Tuesday morning came, it was somehow easier to just take her to the FrontRunner train station and say goodbye quickly. She had an old friend from elementary school who was heading down as well - they met up on the train and spent the day at Freshman Orientation together. 

Tuesday Morning - First Day of School Pic!

Saying Goodbye at the Train Station

 

 

It wasn't long before my girl found her groove. She really likes her roommates. She's figuring out how to get groceries (and only took the wrong bus to Walmart and had to walk home, calling me in tears, once). She has figured out the campus and tells me how funny it is that everywhere she goes there are just nice people everywhere who stop and talk and are helpful and kind. Different from high school. 

She comes home. Rather a lot. And that's ok. Here is a selfie she sent us after getting tagged by the late-night sprinklers as she was walking to the train to come home for a weekend.

I'm incredibly proud of her, and excited for the fun things she is doing. I kind of wish I was a little parakeet on her shoulder and could hang out with her all day long but sadly, this can not be!

Summer Winds Down

HERE COMES

by Shel Silverstein 

 

Here comes summer,

Here comes summer,

Chirping robin, budding rose.

Here comes summer,

Here comes summer,

Gentle showers, summer clothes.

Here comes summer,

Here comes summer—

Whoosh—shiver—there it goes.

I love this Shel Silverstein poem. It's sometimes how summer feels to me, but also....not. It seems like there needs to be a companion poem about the oppressive heat and dragging days that go on for a decade. Wouldn't be quite as nice a poem, I expect. But it would be the truth.

Here are some things from the last bits of our summer - 

We try to invite the missionaries over pretty regularly. One of them has been serving in our area for several months, and he really loves Chase's lizard, Omnom. On this particular visit, his companion was Elder Hingano, a large and sweet Tongan man, who screamed like a child when the lizard made a move in his direction. Also he hid behind a pillow during the lizard time. It was extremely comical.

I kept up the work on my giant list of to-do goals. Once I finished The Red Quilt, I started a second project meant for Troy's and my bed. I had given him a quilt for Christmas the year we got married. It was made of many plaid fabrics, some purchased and some reclaimed from old button-downs and a night-shirt I had, among other things. The back was nothing more than a giant red flannel sheet. It was very cozy and we loved it for years. However, it was literally disintegrating. The fabric was dissolving into little more than a loose collection of threads. It was time. 

Well, my dear friend Becca gave me the cutest handmade pillow cover a few years ago, meant to match our plaid quilt, but it was far higher in quality and design and I love it. I decided to choose fabrics for our new quilt that would match up with her creation. I tried my very best. And in all honesty, when I looked at the stack of my fabrics next to her pillowcase, I LOVED the combinations.

Here's the pillowcase:

Isn't it so lovely? Well, I picked out the fabric, picked out a pattern (from one of Becca's books even!) that I thought would compliment the pillow, and got to work. Considering how long the last quilt took me, this one took no time at all. I was a woman possessed! Could not think about anything else. By the end of the summer, I had the top all pieced. As I was working on each square I just loved it more and more. The denim and apricot squares looked to me like overalls and a flowery shirt that a little gal on a farm would wear. Like Fern in Charlotte's Web. So I started to think of the quilt as The Farmer Girl.

 

Then I put it all together.....why do quilts never look the way your brain thinks they are going to look? Maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm a terrible visualizer. Suddenly the nice apricot color just looked like flabby silly putty color. But I didn't throw it in the garbage. I knew I'd like it better once I got to quilting it. 

 

So this post is supposed to be about the end of summer but since I'm writing this in October maybe I'll just spoil the ending? I quilted it all September and into October, and I was right, I do like it better quilted. It's very big and I especially love the border. It does not match the pillowcase as well as I had hoped at all. But that's ok. I feel happy with the extreme patchiness of this quilt - it has a HUGE selection of colors and patterns, like a farm girl's quilt would be. It's so nice to have something fresh on the bed.

Okay back to summer. Here's a funny moment. Romney had some friends over, and one of them was admiring the growing pile of squash I had on the table. I really was trying to cook my way through them, but it was a losing battle. Once I saw Fran's admiration, I felt inspired to send a squash home with them. Sweet! Another one gone! But....like the proverbial cat, the very next day, it came back. Attached was a "Return to Sender" note. Oh we laughed so hard.

Speaking of garden vegetables, we did pretty well in the tomato department this year. Quite an abundant harvest, though the fruits were smaller than I expected. At least I didn't have any splitting tomatoes or big brown dry spots on their undersides. Good year. I ate a LOT of tomatoes. Thought of my dad with each and every bite. 

Here's a very happy day - our friends Rashaun and Emily were sealed in the Draper temple in August. This day was incredibly special, one of the most tender experiences I've had in the temple. I'm so happy for them, and you can see the pure joy on their faces.

Happy happy day. 

One sad day was the day that Emma had her last sewing class with our beloved Ms. Jane! Emma took sewing from the time she was in about 3rd grade, and made many wonderful creations. But with high school starting for Emma, she knew she was ready to move on from sewing, especially knowing that her after-school time was most likely going to be taken up with play rehearsals. I hope to take an adult class from her someday. She is the essence of kindness and patience. 

We celebrated the last week of summer by going to see Newsies, all four of us. This version that Hale put on had a different style of dancing - more modern and almost krump-ish, if that makes any sense. I enjoyed it a lot, but kind of missed that old-school Broadway, Fosse-esque dancing. I did especially love, as always, being with my family.

Not As Funny

This post was supposed to be called Emma's Getaway #5 or something like that, but that series is getting old! She was just gone so much. And I don't think I even have any photos of her final summer trip, which was with our ward youth group to Bear Lake. I'll ask her if she has photos.

The other thing that happened at the end of August was that my daughter Romney got her butt kicked. Figuratively. In reality, she had her wisdom teeth removed. And you know, we truly did not think it was going to be a very big deal. Chase had his out two years ago, and it barely seemed to affect him at all. We did what everyone does now and filmed him all the way home. He provided us with enough footage to create a rather hilarious 4 minute video of highlights. And by that evening he was sure he was ready for solid foods. I assured Romney that it wasn't going to be that bad.

Sorry, honey.

Here she is, the last photo of her in any state of happiness for about a week, just as she was being taken back.

Here she is, about 24 minutes later. (Man they have that system down pat.) 

She was slightly groggy but not too out of it. Emma and I had our phones all set up and recording, ready to capture whatever hilarity might be on its way. At first Romney didn't do much but hum along to music and mumble a little. Still, we waited for anything remotely comical. It wasn't until she started throwing up that we decided the videoing could probably stop.

This is what poor Romney did for several days in a row. I fed her yogurt, hummus, ice cream, and anything else I could find that required zero chewing. 

Finally we were able to get some smiles out of our sad sad girl, even if those smiles came from us laughing how how silly she looked with her ice pack system. Her cute little cheeks just stayed puffed up forever!

Hopefully when Emma's turn rolls around she will take after her brother more than her sister. I think we all would prefer his style of the ordeal. One hour of total delirium complete with very funny ramblings and no puking at all. Then sleep, then feel better. But at least I know now to not promise anything.

Oh, and I asked Emma if she had any photos from youth conference. She said she might have a couple. Then she sent me 94. Almost all of them were some version of this:

So...not going to include any others at this time. You're welcome. 
 

Lagoon! It's What Fun IS!

That was the slogan for Lagoon back in the 90s I think. Back when I actually saw commercials on television. This summer, Lagoon has actually been fun for Romney, and Emma too.

What Romney wanted for her graduation present was a shopping trip for some nice dresses and also a season pass to our local amusement park. I had my doubts that she would actually put the pass to good use, but really, she'd only have to go a couple of times to make the pass worth it. 

As it turns out, she had three good friends who also had season passes and they went several times over the summer. They seemed to really have a great time together. 

And one day, Romney was really sweet and spent the day at Lagoon with Emma, reminding her that she actually did like rollercoasters. They had a ball. I paid for Emma's day - uh, the season pass is completely worth it, just FYI.

Didn't think I'd ever say this, but Lagoon was really good to us this year.

Another Funny Story

My cute brother Peter gave me a belated birthday present this summer. I think he's been planning it for a while - he had to hunt the thing down on ebay and that took a while. Plus he didn't come up to SLC until well after my birthday. But when he did, and presented me with my gift, I was delighted!

What he gave me was an ancient video game called Galaxy II. It's actually kind of a dumb game, but that is not how I felt about it in 1982! Our family owned this game, and Adam and Peter and I all adored it. I don't think Margaret cared in the slightest. But the rest of us? Basically we duked it out over it all the time. I even remember that missionaries lived with us for a while, and they would spend their day off playing as well. So it couldn't have been that dumb.

The way Peter presented me with the gift made for the best surprise. The game, when turned on, emits a jangly little tune that is now a part of my permanent long-term memory. I mean, it's basically lodged in my DNA now. So when Peter came to SLC, we were sitting around, and he went and fetched the game and just held it behind my head and then turned it on. There was not even a millisecond of curiosity. I knew EXACTLY what it was and let out a yelp of joy. We Romney kids do love our items of nostalgia, don't we? 

What's been really fun since then is having it around and showing it to other people. They tend to really get into it too. Witness Romney's friend Cami on the day we went to go see the Barbie movie together. (That's a different story. Movie of the summer, everyone wore pink to go see it, taking photos and raving about it....and I mostly hated it.)

Cami having the full Galaxy II experience

Pre-movie photo shoot, love those cute girls in pink

Adam came in to town, and I have to include the videos of him and and Park playing - just so you can hear the little tune. Adam was also pretty psyched to get his hands back on the game. The excitement doesn't last long because, like I said, there's not much to this little simplified Space Invaders game, but it's sure fun to flip it on and play a few rounds from time to time.

Speaking of Adam, he also gave me a super generous birthday gift. Because I was turning 50, he sent me an email containing 5 $50 gift cards. How nice is that? The first gift card was to my favorite drink stop, Thirst. It made me think that all 5 gift cards were for sodas. Yikes! I mean, I do love stopping at Thirst for drinks, but even I thought that $250 in gift cards there was a little crazy. It made me laugh though. Turns out, only one of the cards was for Thirst. The rest were for a cool little knitting shop on Bainbridge Island. I sure had fun doing some online shopping, picking out enough beautiful yarn to keep me busy for months. 

My sweet brothers. I love them.

Funny Story

Ok so I'm going back in time a little bit on this one - I realized that I really did, after all, want to tell a funny story, even if it might be off-putting to some. This little incident happened in the springtime. It all started with me staring to get uncomfortable with the fact that I am in charge of both of my parents' ashes. Both of them had wanted to donate their remains to the University of Utah Medical School and we were able to make that happen for them when they passed away. In each case, about a year and a half to two years later, our family received delivery of a package of their ashes. They were contained in brown plastic cases, each with a plastic bag inside. 

I know - this doesn't seem like much of a funny story, but hang in there with me. 

So, like I said, I was uncomfortable. It wasn't because I had the ashes in my possession - I didn't mind that at all. But just having them in a drawer in their ugly brown plastic boxes felt wrong. My siblings and I have made plans with what to do with them, which will be to bury them and create a memorial site up in the Uinta Mountains on property that my brother has purchased. However, it's probably going to be quite some time before we make this happen. And in the meantime, I just needed to do something nicer to feel respectful and not negligent. 

Luckily I have a dear dear friend who is a potter, and recently decided to start making urns for just this purpose. They are beautiful, and as soon as I saw them, I knew that having one would ease my mind completely. They are pretty pricey though. So, I asked my friend if he thought that one urn could possibly contain two sets of ashes. He said he was confident that one would be plenty. I have no idea why he might be familiar with the volume of human ashes, but I trusted him and purchased just one urn.

Now, I want you to know that I wanted to go about the transfer of my parents' remains as lovingly and respectfully as possible. I cleaned my home, I waited for a quiet afternoon, and I even said a prayer before I began. 

I know that if I haven't offended or grossed anyone out by now, then now's when it will likely happen. 

So. With great reverence, I opened the brown box and tried to move my mom's ashes into the urn. However, the mouth of the urn was tiny. And there was no way that bag was going to compress down into the opening. So...I got a new bag, placed it in the urn, opened my mom's bag, and tried to neatly and quickly dispense the material into the opening. It went ok. I started to do the same thing with my dad's remains. (Can you even believe I did this? Or that I am telling you the story?) It was then that I got very nervous about the size of the urn. It did not look at ALL like all of the ashes were going to fit in there. Crap! What the heck was I going to do then? I mean, the bag was open, the ashes were pouring in; it wasn't going to be exactly simple to stop in the middle of this.

Then, I had a powerful memory of my dad. Want to know what one of his greatest joys was? It was finding the smallest tupperware container possible to fit leftovers in. If the leftover food fit exactly into a container with no room left over, he felt he had done his job well. Did it mean he sometimes had to really stuff the food in there? Yes, yes it did. He'd tap the container on the counter, compressing everything and working out air bubbles. Troy and I even saw him once slam a tupperware down on the counter hard enough to send mashed potatoes shooting into the air and sticking to the ceiling. That one didn't go so well. But mostly it was one of his greatest talents. 

The light bulb came on. I started tapping the urn, shaking it and settling everything down inside it. I slowly poured the rest of the ashes, jiggling the jar all the while, until the last of it trickled in and came exactly to the rim of the urn. Just enough room to put the lid on. I couldn't help it. As tender and also kind of weird as this was, I also started laughing my head off, thinking of my dad and his tupperware skills. I sure channelled him that day.

Now the urn sits alone in the cupboard of a beautiful antique wash stand that my parents handed down to us. I love it, and it also makes me smile every time I think of it.

Getaway #4, Plus, A Bad Day for Mommy

I have exactly ZERO photos of Emma's next getaway. This time it was Brighton Girls' Camp - once again with her bestie, cousin Cara. We have some before photos:

 

These were taken in the parking lot of the stake center near the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon where the busses pick up and drop off all the campers. I had the happiness of bumping into one of my old staff-members, the famous Ookie. So fun to catch up with her and reminisce about the very camp we were sending our daughters off to. 

I had a busy day that day already. Sheri and Cara came up on Sunday, I drove the girls to the camp drop off Monday morning, then Sheri stuck around long enough to be my chaperone later that day for....

duh duh DUN.......

My very first colonoscopy! I am 50, after all. There is also no photo evidence of that event, praise be. Actually there is but I'm keeping my medical file confidential. I only have the before photos of myself as well, after purchasing some very important supplies at the local CVC pharmacy. I look a little more excited than I felt. It was not my favorite day, but it wasn't as bad as I was fearing. 

Sheri picked me up, took me to get food thank heavens, and tucked me in at home before heading back to St. George.

In the meantime, here's what Emma loved best about camp.

Actually repelling down the rock!

Having an awesome counselor, Marit. (Who, just last week, got called to serve in Chase's same mission!)

The Staff in general who was so amazing and kind.

The Brownie hike

The Craft Shack

How they will encourage you to try new things but not force you

I picked up two very tired and happy girls. They wept pretty much the whole bus ride home.

Cara had fancy braids in all week long and finally took them out at our house - quite the kinky-do!

Here is Emma finally bidding goodbye to Cara - she got to stay the weekend with us which we loved. Cara is so sweet and amiable and just pleasant to have around.

And are we done with the getaways yet? Absolutely not! There is one more to come. Emma traveled enough for the whole family this summer.

Updates on Elder Chase

There's not much to say here, except that our cute missionary has now been on his mission for 11 months, approaching 12, and it's totally blowing our minds. How is it possible that he's been gone almost an entire year?

In his first area there were many people who would take pictures of him and text them to me - I seemed to get photos of him at least once a week. His next couple of areas didn't have that same kind vibe but that's ok. He's now in his fourth area. He's had many exciting and challenging moments - like being emergency-transferred to take over being the trainer of a brand-new missionary as well as becoming a District Leader. Not long after that he was emergency-transferred again to his current area which is in Coeur D'alene, Idaho where he is serving as a zone leader. Here we've been sent a few photos again. His bright countenance just fills my whole soul. He looks so happy and light. I know there are tough days and he gets told off by a lot of people. But he's also having some incredible opportunities and experiences. So far I think I'm most grateful that he has had just wonderful companions. They have been fun and funny and energetic and silly and serious all at once. 

 

In just a few weeks Chase will reach his one-year mark. I'm sure time will slip by even faster at that point. Up until now we have been counting up - one month down, two months down, etc. But starting on September 19 we will start counting down. 12 months left! 11 months left! This is his last Christmas away! He'll be home before we know it. Until then, I am hoping for more photos not unlike these.