First Time I've Ever Liked Clowns

As I said in my last post, Romney enjoyed her photography class enormously. I'm sure it was her favorite class of spring semester. And she pulled off quite a spectacular feat for her final project. The assignment was pretty simple - she had to create a series of five or six photographs with a common theme. My guess is that she went way above and beyond what was required. She decided on a theme of clowns, and in her typical way, she got a very clear image in her mind of what she wanted and then really went all out. The theme? Clowns. Of all things, clowns!

Luckily she has many very willing friends who were totally game for being dressed up and covered in make-up and posing and just rolling with the whole thing. And I am here to tell you that the vision she had was amazing. I don't even know where to start with the photos - there are literally hundreds of them. I guess I'll just post her finished products, but I may add more later.

Aren't they amazing? They look a little darker here than they do on her camera reel, but you get the idea. Full makeup, extensive costumes, turning her bedroom into a studio with Troy's good lighting system and blacked out windows and backdrops and everything. They had so much fun.

One of the best photoshoots of all was the same night as Senior Prom at the highschool - more on this later, since Emma went ahead and had her first date all of a sudden - and I had kind of been wondering if Romney would end up going to a dance at East after all because Nicholas would want to take her. But neither of them really wanted to go, and they ended up putting together one of the bigger photoshoots that night. They were doing the double clown, their friends Cami and Judd, and so had to do two costumes and two make-up sessions and stuff.

As they were working, our front door suddenly burst open and in came a small troop of prom-goers. I think it was only 4 kids but it felt like more. They were fully decked-out in prom attire and they just let themselves into our house, led by Romney's bestie Anna. This actually made me so happy. There is something so very flattering about having a teenager feel like they are safe at your house, and welcome any time. It means a great deal to me that she feels safe this way. What happened was that one of the prom-attendees (Alice, to be exact) had injured her toe and needed medical care. So I pointed them to the bathroom for a good wash-up and several bandaids. And it was so fun to spend a few minutes with them and admire their outfits and ask what their plans were. I love that gang so much.

Here's Romney working before the promers descended:

And here's the mayhem in our kitchen:

Our house is small, and it can feel overwhelming when a lot of people are here, but I sure did feel happy seeing all these cute people doing their things and having a lovely night, toe injury and all. 

Miracle Credit at the Spiral Jetty

In the middle of April, Romney approached us with a request to go visit the Spiral Jetty. It was an opportunity to get extra credit in her Art History class. Funny, she didn't need the extra credit, but she just loves road trips and really wanted to go. She had also been taking a photography class and has absolutely fallen in love with it, and thought that a photo shoot at the jetty would be extra fun. Because of her interest in photography, we thought that Troy would be a better companion for her than I would be.

They went on a Thursday evening, and when they returned, I got to hear all about how much fun they had. Aren't Troy and I the luckiest? It's so fun to do stuff with our kids. Troy just raved about how absolutely lovely the drive was, how beautiful the jetty was, how much fun he had with his daughter. It was just great. What a fun trip! 

Epilogue to the story - and not one we particularly want to remember because it really sucked - but I have to include it because I find it to be miraculous. As I said, Romney didn't need extra credit in this class, but really wanted to do the trip anyway. Then at the end of the semester, she had a total disaster. She was very pinched for time and very stressed out, and decided to place her final for this class as her last priority. She worked out everything she needed to do and fit it all in place, with the final coming late in the evening of the last possible day. Do you see where I'm going with this? She had a major learning experience when she had technical difficulties and was unable to take the final at all. It was devastating. And yet her final grade ended up above the line of where she had to be for the class to count towards her major, because of that little trip to the Spiral Jetty. Follow those promptings, people. 

A Floor to Stand On

A very miraculous thing happened. After weeks upon weeks of demolition, of tearing things apart and then digging in the dirt for EVER, we did something amazing. We finished the footings and foundations, we finished the ledger boards and the joists, and we put down subfloor. Did you hear me? WE PUT DOWN SUBFLOOR. Putting the last board down over that dirt felt amazing.

Actually, I have one little confession - Troy and I were both slightly sad to cover up our beautiful foundations. We worked so hard on those! And they were so neat and tidy! It was a bit of a shame to not see them anymore. But guess what. You can still see them from the basement. And no more clouds of dirt floating through the house! Well, not from the bedroom anyway. There's still plenty of dirt from other sources.

Here we are once again demonstrating the prowess of our minivan - this time hauling sheets of subfloor.

This was an extremely visually satisfying day. Some days you work so hard all day long and you just can't see much of what you did, and other days you get a big payback. A floor!!!

 

After that first layer of subfloor went in, we built a frame around the room that would be a support for the layer of insulation.

And then...the top layer of subfloor! It may not seem like it but it was quite a pain to put in. As always, things are not at all square so we had to do some cutting and fitting and it took a lot of time. However, walking around on that solid (and dirt-free) floor has been nothing short of joyful. 

 

Ultimate Symbol of Love: The Lobster

Oh my sweet Romney. She often gets ideas in her head and once there, there they stay. Sometimes she sees them through and sometimes she does not. 

During covid she started knitting. She was surprisingly good at it, really caught on quickly and taught herself a bunch of stitches as she made a scarf. She asked for the supplies to make a blanket. I of course immediately bought her several skeins of yarn in colors she had carefully selected. As soon as we got them home, she pretty much instantly took a 3 year hiatus from knitting. I'm still finding uses for that cute yarn. Yellows and grays...would have been darling.

Then last year she suddenly started knitting again, and made me a mug cozy for my birthday. Such a cute surprise. But that has been the full extent of her knitting experience. So when she showed me, with quivering glee, the pattern for a lobster complete with a sweater, I had some trepidation about moving forward on the project. But of course she won me over and we went yarn shopping. Picked out yarn for two lobsters - one orange and one blue.

Once I got her started, she was so quick at catching on! And it knitted up a lot faster than I expected. The final result is so freaking cute I can hardly stand it. 

It's so cute! I helped her out by making the sweater because she wanted to get it done in a hurry. This was because, of course, she wanted to give it to Nicholas as a gift. He was delighted, and soon sent her the below photo of his new lobster, who was keeping him company while he worked on lego kit.

A Taste of the Motab

This spring, Romney and I both had a really neat opportunity to sing in the venues where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir usually performs. 

First, in March, we had our Stake Conference. Normally we meet in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square, but that lovely building is under renovation and restoration. From what I understand, it won't be available for us to use in the future at all, even when it's done getting all fixed up. This is pretty sad for us. Most stakes have one building that is their official stake center - it's big, can hold several hundred more people than a regular ward building can, and can host conferences. We don't have one. And when our ability to use the assembly hall got removed, we were in a pickle! (I'm acting like this was my problem. It wasn't. I heard about all of this after the fact.)

Well, our stake president occasionally gets to rub elbows with some general authorities, and he mentioned to one of them our predicament. That person suggested that we use the tabernacle. Wow! What a beautiful, historic building! And also very LARGE. Our stake leaders decided that if we were going to use this amazing building, we would need an equally amazing choir to go along with it. They started sending out the message to everyone in our stake and had us all invite friends and former stake members to join us. And more wonderful than that, our stake partnered with a local group called The Other Side Academy, which is a live-in program for rehabilitating people who would otherwise be facing long-term incarceration. It's amazing. And we had probably 50 people from the program join our choir. So we had maybe 250 people. 

I can't really describe the experience! Singing in that space with that many people...well, it was mind-blowing. The last song we sang was The Spirit of God, and we had the primary kids up front, singing along, and doing sign language along with it. The Hosannahs had them making them do this big clap...no matter how I describe it, it will never be enough. But folks were weeping, and talking about it for weeks. It was just incredible. Romney and I both got to sing and I'll never forget it!

Then in April something much cooler happened! Romney has been singing with her institute choir at UVU all year long, and they got invited to provide the music for the Saturday evening session of General Conference. If we thought filling up the choir stands at the tabernacle would be hard, can't imagine the pressure of filling up the choir seats in the conference center! That place is huge! 

Troy and I realized that neither of us had ever actually attended a session of General Conference before. We asked our stake executive secretary to try to track down tickets for us, and we were so grateful that he came through! We got four - one each for Troy, Emma, me, and Nicholas. It was very sweet of him to come along. 

It was quite an experience to attend an actual session of conference. Actually, I'll be totally honest, I really prefer watching from home. Much more comfy, I can knit all I want, plus you know...snacks. And also it's hard to focus on the speaker when you're in an incredibly huge room with thousands of people in it. But it was a neat experience. And Romney's choir was wonderful. They sang Amazing Grace, which was the first time that particular song has ever been sung in General Conference! I heard from a lot of people about how much they loved hearing it.