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. 

Troy Gets ALL the Fun

 ...and when I say fun, I do not mean it at all. 

Poor Troy! Remember his kidney stones? And remember his appendicitis? And remember his double inguinal hernia repair? I mean, seriously. 

His latest adventure seemed to have been related to his hernia surgery. I don't think the hernias or the surgery caused his latest problem, but I think they made the problem more likely. I don't want to get too graphic here, so I'll just say that Troy's undercarriage was in need of additional repairs with some draining of fluids included. You can look up the term Hydrocele yourself if you really want to know more. It wasn't painful, just clearly needed addressing. You know what turns out to be incredibly painful? Addressing a hydrocele. The recovery has not been pleasant in the slightest.

Here are the before and after photos of Troy's surgery. And, now that you mention it, I do actually have a "during" photo that the surgeon took of the fluid-filled area. Even though it doesn't show any recognizable parts of Troy's body, I still think that I should not post it here. 

See that smiling guy in the charming green leisure suit? That's Troy's surgeon, aka Josh. Josh is one of my little brother Peter's very best friends. Josh is also a kid I used to babysit many moons ago. We all found it a little hilarious that my former charge was now performing an operation on my spouse. How the years have flown by! Who knew what that adorable little redhead would get up to one day. 

It's been over a week since the surgery and recovery is still in progress, not helped at all by the addition of back spasms that came on yesterday. So far we are just grateful that they are not signs of another kidney stone. Like I said, poor Troy. I wish I could wave my magic wand and make him all better. I'm sure he wishes the same thing. In the meantime, I will do any required heaving lifting and just keep my fingers crossed that he feels better soon. 

Six Months In

On Sunday, March 19, Chase reached a pretty major milestone in his missionary service. He has been a missionary for six whole months - one quarter of the way through!

I feel such joy. He really seems to be thriving. 

When Chase was first out in the mission field, after his three weeks of missionary training, friends and family would ask us how he was doing. We really weren't sure how to answer. I mean, he was okay and didn't seem to be wanting to come home. But you know, missions are really hard. It takes a lot of adjusting. And you bump into yourself a little bit, emotionally, if that makes any sense. You get bugged or bummed about things that you didn't even realize would be a problem for you. So, naturally, Chase was not always thrilled. Some Mondays when we got to talk to him, he was on the grumpier side of the emotional roller coaster. However, he always had a positive story to tell and interesting experiences to share. And he never talked about coming home. So....he was good? 

We have been especially grateful for his companions. So far, including his MTC companion, he has had four. And they have been absolutely wonderful. His trainer especially seemed like an inspired choice. His second companion didn't feel like as much of a kindred spirit, but I know they really bonded as Chase had to turn to him for support as he felt pretty torn apart by his trainer leaving the area. And now Chase has also moved areas and is really loving this companion as well.

Not only is Chase thriving with his current companion, but he's thriving in general. I think he's gotten through those first few months when it feels like time isn't actually ever going to pass and you feel so out of your element. He has shared some extremely tender feelings with us about his growth and faith. And a couple of weeks ago he sent this message, which basically made my life:

 

I get to see his grinning face from time to time on facebook posts he puts out there. And we get to talk to him on Mondays. But the best part for me is reading his weekly emails. At first they were quite brief and were a little light on the proof reading. But that was only the first couple of notes. Since then it seems that he really tries to express his experiences, feelings and faith in these letters and I love reading them. We have had a few folks reach out to tell us how meaningful they are to them as well.

I still feel like he will never come home. But I can't deny that the first quarter of these two years has gone by faster than I expected. How have six months have already gone by? I'm incredibly grateful for the love and support we have all gotten, and that Chase is making his way on his own. 

My heart doth runneth over with joy. 

Choppity Chop

I think this is the forth haircut Romney has begged for, that we were certain she would regret, and she was certain she wouldn't. And for the most part, she was right and we were wrong.

She started out high school with hair down to her waist, and it's gotten shorter and shorter ever since - often with added bangs. We were not always wrong - I think she did regret bangs a time or two as they were growing out. And she did get super frustrated as last summer's short 'do was growing long again. For a while she thought she wanted shoulder-length hair again but as it was trying to get there she was often close to tears and told me over and over how much she just could not stand having hair touch her neck, nor could she stand pony-tail elastics. Her patience was thin, and all she talked about was getting a super-short pixie cut, or possibly shaving her head. In all honesty, I did not doubt her conviction for one second. I thought she just might shave it herself and be perfectly happy. This is why I gave in and took her to a barber shop to get the pixie cut she was after. 

Why was I so against this? I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I myself sported a very short cut through all of high school and have some lasting feelings about it. Also, we really have heard a lot from Romney as her short cuts have been growing and it has not been positive. But...as per usual...she was not to be dissuaded. She was so so happy. And now, a week later, she is still so so happy. And dang it, she just looks so cute. I don't suppose I'll ever see hair down to her waist again. I'm glad it was there once! I am a romantic about long long hair I guess. I really do think it looks great.

Sometimes You Have to Be a Little Bit....NAUGHTY!!

In the summer of 2018 the girls and I were able to go to the Tuacahn theater in St. George and see some wonderful plays. One of them was Matilda, a fairly new musical based on Rhoad Dahl's children's story. I was not that excited to see it - I was a huge fan of the book, and I even adored the movie made in the late 90's with Danny DeVito. It's so darling. And I had tried to listen to the music but it just did not click with me in the slightest. Then I saw it. Woah!! I love this show so much. We have listened to it at least a hundred times in the years since then, and seen Siena perform in it, and seen it at Hale Center, and it just does not get old for me.

So this year, Emma is an 8th grader. She loved performing in the play at her middle school last year, and wasn't discouraged by the many many hours she put in just to be in the 7th grade chorus. She loved it. And was so excited to get involved in this year's play, although she had no idea what it was going to be. She had heard rumors that Shrek was a possibility, and to be honest, that wasn't too happy of a thought. But she knew she just had to wait and see. And weren't we all so excited when it was announced that the play was going to be Matilda! Hooray!

The auditions were in November, and Emma got a call back and was asked to read lines for Agatha Trunchbull, the horrible bully of a principal. She kind of got her hopes up but I tried to not think about it. Instead, Emma was initially cast as Victoria, one of the older kids at Matilda's school. Victoria is considered one of the minor leads, so it was nice that she got that part. There are at least 100 8th graders in the show and any lead part is really an honor and a treat. I was so happy for her to be involved at all. But then after rehearsals began, one of the other leads dropped out, and Emma was asked to take on the roll of Hortensia, a younger child in Matilda's class. She had a few lines of her own, and one or two lines of singing in a duet. Emma felt pretty flattered that the director picked her to take over the bigger part and I feel so lucky that Emma got to be involved at that level.

Man oh man was she busy! Starting in January she had rehearsals basically every day of the week, including most Saturdays. And she loved it. Oh, she would talk about how tired she was or how it all felt like "a lot," but she was just happy. She is also in the stage crew class at school so helped a lot behind the scenes as well.

After months of preparation and rehearsal the play opened on March 3rd - Troy's birthday and the night of the infamous Pinewood Derby. Last year I was a part of the costume team that took on half of the 7th graders and it was such an involved job. I didn't do hardly anything leading up to the show this time - I helped my friend Kalleen a couple of times. She's the costume mistress and is absolutely vital to these amazing productions. But I didn't do much else. However, I made up for my lack of pre-show involvement by taking on a few rolls during the run of the show itself. Being the PTA treasurer sort of automatically gets me deep into the concessions stand - which is a huge deal. I mean they sell at least $1600 of treats every single show, nine shows. It's quite astonishing actually. And then I also took the "treat trolley" back stage during every intermission to sell food and treats to the cast members. It was basically a mob scene for 20 minutes each night, and I feel lucky to have escaped with my life. Those hungry teens are no joking matter.

My other special job was to take over the care and preparation of one the of the props. There were these "balloons" made of flexible plastic, almost like a beach ball. They had to be re-inflated every night, and they were all covered in strings of tiny lights so they'd glow in the dark. They were a real pain in the butt. However, there were kids trying to manage them before and they were just a mess. So taking over on those I think was actually super helpful to the play and made me feel like I was making up for not helping much early on.

This play was so impressive. The sets and costumes and special effects - kids on silks and the trapeze, Matilda floating up into the air as she discovers her magical powers, Amanda Thripp getting flung off stage by her pigtails. The singing and dancing. The sheer number of kids included. The acting is always a little stunted because...hello...jr. high non-theater kids. But there were some standouts. The two gals who shared the role of Matilda were especially wonderful, as were the the two Trunchbulls and the two Bruce Bogtrotters. Also my own little Hortencia, I must say. Gosh it was so fun. I'd go to bed each night with the refrains of When I Grow Up and Miracle and Bruce bouncing around my brain.

The kids put on 10 shows - 9 for the public and 1 for the school. It was, in the words of Emma, "A LOT." And yet every time I get to be involved in a theater I just feel happy. I have to hand it to the director of these shows. She takes on so much, and really doesn't delegate as much as we would all like her to, simply because she is there year after year, and all of us parents are mostly in and out in 2 years. What I admire about her the most is how she treats the kids. She can kind of make the parents crazy - I've been on the receiving end of some of her crazy-making and I'll confess, there have been times that I have been non-plussed by her. But I honestly need to take that back. Yes, she's hard to communicate with. But what I see when I see her interact with the kids is so impressive, genuine, loving and devoted. She loves these kids and sacrifices so much for them. Emma had a great experience and I'm so grateful that she got to take part. I'm still a little sad that it's over.