Happy Birthday to Emma Lyn!

Every year, Emma's birthday coincides almost precisely with the last day of school. It's been a slight bummer for her. However, this year our district decided to switch up the schedule a little and school actually ended at the end of May. So June 3rd was a true summer day for our newest 15 year old girl!

I had started my internship the week before Emma's birthday, but I let them know that I wouldn't be available that day. I had things to do! Parties to host! Food to make! Presents to wrap and celebrations to enjoy!

Our day started with one of Emma's favorite breakfasts - scones. I tried a new thing, which was to make them with my sourdough. I think they were quite tasty and were extremely puffy. Perfect for filling with Nutella and other delights. Romney had helped me pick out some gifts for Emma and she did a great job. A funny iPods case that looks like a package of goldfish crackers, some very cool eyeliner, a beading tool, and some cute new shoes.

 

Later in the day I took Emma and her friend Bella out to The Olive Garden for lunch. This was for sure not a place Emma would have picked on her own, but I just so happened to have a stack of gift cards that were a hand-me-down from Grandma. We put those Olive Garden cards to good use.

Bella has been an absolutely darling friend. They had a class together on the very first day of high school, and recognized each other as a vaguely familiar face from middle school. They decided they both needed a buddy on that first scary day, and stayed friends all year long. I really like her so much.

Later in the day Emma gathered with a different group of friends. She really wanted to take them to an escape room so we found one with a "walk the plank" pirate-type theme. I sat outside the room and heard lots of laughing and excited hollering. My conclusion is that they had a great time.

After the escape room I bought them WAY too much pizza and they feasted on it at our house, followed by chocolate cake.

 

I think Emma really had a great birthday. Lots of fun treats and surprises from her friends, who are such a cute group. They were totally sweet. And they ranged in age from freshman to seniors. Impressive. Of course, we told them that 11:00 pm would be a great time to head out since Troy and I both had to work early in the morning. Instead he and I took Advil PM, zonked out at 10:00, and I haven't a clue when they all went home. Oh how times have changed. 

And not long after the birthday party came Emma's first turn behind the wheel of a car. She's very excited to drive and wants to go out every chance she gets. We have a long learning curve ahead of us, but she's doing great.

Also I had to include these photos - the day after Emma's birthday, Romney had a day off of work at This is The Place and decided to take Emma on a little outing. Where did they go? This is The Place, of course. They walked around and shopped and got lunch and just had some lovely sister time. Aren't they just so cute?

Starting a New Phase

So...this post has been a long time coming and it's going to take a while to get through.

I don't know if I have ever mentioned in this blog that I had a very brief career years ago in the field of Child Life. Here's a quick explanation of what that is:

"Child life specialists work closely with children and families in medical settings, serving as emotional support and helping develop family coping strategies. With a background in child development, child life specialists help explain medical jargon to kids and prepare them for procedures. 'Our main goal is to help decrease the stress and anxiety experienced in the hospital setting, and we're doing that first and foremost by helping them understand what’s happening.'" 

Child Life was a huge part of my life from the beginning of my marriage early in 1998 to the time shortly before I had Chase in 2002. I didn't leave the field because I was pregnant - I was kind of burnt out and not feeling excited about it and so I went to a semester of art school in Logan. (Long story, that.) In the middle of the semester I started feeling very nauseated and well, Chase was on his way. I did a little bit of PRN at Primary Children's after I was pregnant, but not too much. And then after that I let my certification go because I was absolutely convinced that I never wanted to do it again. 

Whelp....I am dumb. Of course I never would have known the direction my life would take, but still.

I have loved being home with my children. It has been such a blessing to me. I did work a little at the schools for a few years, but was home at the same time they were and never had to miss anything for them because of work. I am tremendously grateful to my husband that I was able to be a stay-home mom. At the same time, I have felt, deep inside, that there was a career waiting for me in my future. I could just feel it deep in my bones. Something was there. I just had no idea what it was. I very nearly got a job in the financial world with my friend at Merrill Lynch, but it didn't work out. I have thought and pondered and prayed and taken personality tests and ....nothing. Not a scrap of inspiration has come my way. It felt like I was trying to get an answer from an empty basement.

That's the thing about prayer though - even if the basement feels dark and empty, it isn't. It might just mean that you're looking in the wrong room! And I laugh because I feel a little like my answer was, "I guess I'll just have to lead other people to you, you knucklehead, since you're not being lead the way I want you to go!" I got a text message last October while I was on vacation in St. George. It was from two women who are very dear to me, and who are both working in the Child Life field now. One of them was Steph, my favorite supervisor from my internship days. The other was Karen, who was my favorite intern that I trained when I had become a level II CCLS. Both of them are now the leaders of the Child Life department for Intermountain Health - one over all of IH and the other over PCH specifically. They asked if I'd ever consider coming back to Child Life. There were tons of openings and a great need and they had thought of me after a former patient bumped into them and told them of her great memories of me. Wow. Humbling.

I felt a tug inside. I decided to just go meet with them to find out more. Turns out that letting my certification expire was going to be somewhat of a big obstacle to overcome, but not impossible. I was feeling overwhelmed already by the approaching holidays, so I told them I'd be thinking and praying about it, and would look into it in the new year. 

The story of how I got from thinking about it to accepting a job in May is a longer and much more boring story than is worth telling, but it involves me needing to interview twice since my first interview was a bit of a dumpster fire. When Karen told me how desperate they were, she didn't mean desperate enough to hire someone who couldn't remember formal child development super clearly and so I had to try again after being given study materials. The story also involves me figuring out all the steps I need to take to get recertified, including taking three college classes, taking a massive exam in November, and completing a three-week full-time internship (luckily paid) to get me brushed up on my skills again. I think it will all be worth it, though this summer will be tough with me working plus completing classes, and I really only have one shot at passing that exam in order to keep my job.

I feel like it will all be alright, though. I feel like I am where I am supposed to be. The way things worked out, and the right doors seemed to open in front of me - it feels like my prayers have been answered. I have had some incredible confirmations along the way. One really interesting experience was when I was deciding which Child Life position to apply for. I really didn't know until I started filling out the application, whereupon the department name began pounding through my heart and head with almost a fury. Ok ok ok! I will be working in Medical Imaging, the Children's Procedure Center, and one more area that is of a delicate nature that I want to keep to myself. It feels right even though I'm nervous. 

Also, pretty much the minute I entered Primary Children's Hospital, I felt like I was home. I felt how deeply my years of motherhood and basically just getting older will be a powerful help to me now, and give me skills that I completely lacked in my 20's.  

Here I am with my new boss and office companions who made me feel so welcome at my new desk, all decked out with welcome flags and a new basket of distraction toys. I love my office mates!!

And here I am on my very first day of orientation, using a really really lovely bag that was given to me as a gift by a dear friend from my PTA days. She gave it to me when we all thought I'd be heading to Merrill Lynch and generously thought I'd need a professional tote for work. I finally get to use it.

I'm so so excited to be done with my little internship and following other specialists. They have been wonderful. But I already feel so comfortable interacting with kids and families and I just want to take my place where I'm supposed to be. I'm sure my elation, adrenaline and excitement will wear down a bit but truly, I know I'm in the right place at the right time. And I'm just so grateful.

Area 51, Take 2

My turn for a run at Area 51. 

With the end of May a few delightful things arrive. One, my front-garden poppies bloom and they are spectacular. Two, the snowball bush in the backyard is in the height of its glory. I think it's entirely in my honor, since three, it's my birthday! 

 

Only, this year, my birthday was on a Saturday. Normally, this would be a good thing. Not this year! It just so happened to be the one and only Saturday that Aspen Lakes, the camp in the Heber hills where we hold our stake young women's camp, would simultaneously have running water and no campers in attendance. And my dear, sweet, and loyal husband is the stake young men's president and in charge of rounding up helpers to go open the camp every year. It could only happen on this day. And I could not bear sending him up there and stay home to pamper myself by sleeping in and other such nonsense. 

I had a simple solution - I pretended my birthday was on Friday. I didn't really want anything for my birthday besides just having a day to myself. I got myself a drink, took myself to get a mani-pedi, went hunting for a few new shirts for work (again, more on that later), and got myself a delicious salad from R&R barbeque, where I bumped into my dear old friend Kenton and had a lovely chat for a good 15-20 minutes. Delightful day! I even spent the afternoon finishing up Anna's quilt, which is what I wanted most to do. I basically planned on that being it for my birthday, except for one little thing,

Cute Peter and Sheri really are so sweet and generous and sent me a surprise birthday gift - they sent us two tickets to go to a show called "An Inconceivable Evening with Cary Elwes." The tickets were for us to go to the Capitol Theater downtown and watch The Princess Bride, and then afterwards, Cary Elwes, Wesley himself, would make an appearance and tell stories and answer questions about the movie. Very cute idea. Peter sent us the tickets weeks and weeks ago, and he told me he barely snatched up the last ones. 

So Saturday arrived, after my lovely Friday, and Troy and I got up early. We weren't very excited about this day up in Heber, but it wasn't too bad. I mean, it was actually hilariously awful in some ways, because it was freezing cold and pouring rain. Troy and I took on the job of hosing down several of the bathrooms with our pressure washer. This included a couple of run-ins with dead mice (only one actually in a toilet) and lots of gross bugs everywhere. But it was more soggy than dreadful.

We weren't at camp as long as we expected, and it was nice to run home and decide to have a lazy afternoon which may or may not have included a nap. I was surprised when Troy and I returned and I found a couple of gifts on the kitchen table. My sweet family. I had already treated myself the day before so it was extra nice to get a couple of gifts to open. Romney and Emma had shopped together and picked out a little suede bag perfect as a small purse, and Troy and Romney worked together to pick out a pair of shoes. They are athletic shoes, which I never would have chosen, so I'm really glad they did the deciding because I really like them, and have already discovered that they are extremely comfortable.

As Troy and I were relaxing that afternoon, he decided to call our friends Mike and Katrina. He had a hunch that they were also going to the Inconceivable Evening, because The Princess Bride is their super-favorite movie. They have the costumes. They have named their dogs Wesley and Buttercup. They LOVE The Princess Bride. He just guessed that they would have tickets. Well, they didn't, but told Troy they had been considering getting them. I was doubtful they'd have any success since Peter said there weren't many left. But...I guess Peter and the Tuckfields were looking in different sections, because they got two VIP tickets! We decided to go out to dinner together first at Zao, our favorite. Then we got downtown, where Mike and Katrina let us know that their tickets were in the 2nd row AND that they came with passes for a meet and greet with Carey Elwes. How fun! I was excited for them. And then they gave the passes to us. I was actually kind of embarrassed - that is a REALLY generous gift. They claimed that because they had already met him once before it was a pleasure to give us their passes but man, I felt a little bad.

Also excited. 

The show itself was really fun - we were in the high nosebleeds but it was still really so fun. Everyone in the theater shouted out the lines along with the movie and cheered and clapped and booed - it was so fun. Then Mr. Elwes arrived on stage and told about an hour's worth of stories that were quite delightful. He answered a few questions too. Then the show ended, and we headed to the main floor to wait our turn for the meet and greet. Mike and Katrina waited with us and we had fun chatting and listening to a guy who was supposed to keep us entertained and did ok at it but not great. 

Then we were taken back, sooner than expected, because fabulous Mike hollered out that it was my birthday. At first I really didn't want him to, but then I realized that some people were getting taken back early for fun reasons, and then suddenly I felt ok about getting 100 strangers to sing happy birthday to me before we got to go back.

Meeting him was about a 30 second affair, but it was fun. He's very kind and gracious. And then we got a picture and then we got autographed books and we headed out!

That was a way bigger birthday than I was expecting. I got really spoiled. And now I'm 51....weird.

Quilt Monster & A Very Good Girl

I just mentioned Anna, who has been one of Romney's very best besties. She is so cute, and makes me feel very loved. She was one of the gals who made a surprise appearance on the night of senior prom. In fact, she led the way. She knew that if anyone needed medical care, our house was close by and a safe place to barge into. Ha. I love her so much.

A month or so ago there was a choir performance. Oh my gosh, I just realized that I never blogged about this. All of the East High choirs performed a few pieces, plus a bunch of kids performed solos. Boy was I surprised when just a couple of days before the performance Emma let me know that she had auditioned for a solo and would be performing the song "Good Girl Winnie Foster" from Tuck Everlasting. I was quite nervous about it - in my typical anxious-mother way. But man, she did great!!

After the concert, we were all hanging around together and chatting and cute Anna came up to me and grabbed my hands and, with a squeeze and the sweetest smile, said, "I want to ask you for something." Well hello, ask me like that and you can have anything you want! I don't know what I was expecting her to say, but what she asked for was a quilt for her college dorm bed.

I know that is a really big ask, but I could feel nothing but excitement and flattery. That actually meant so much to me! And also I love love love making quilts. So I immediately agreed. Over the next few weeks we texted ideas back and forth to each other and eventually took an afternoon to go fabric shopping. It turns out I had something much different in mind, and was so glad she was with me to pick out the colors. She picked out the most delicious mix of colors and patterns - I NEVER would have put them together but she just buzzed around making careful selections and came up with a palate that was deemed "perfect Anna colors" by everyone who saw the fabric.

I got working on it really quickly and had so much fun. We picked a pattern with much smaller pieces than I had been using recently and it was pretty intense. This led to me getting pretty frustrated with my little old machine I had been using for 20 years. I went hunting on KSL classifieds and made an amazing find. A barely-used Husqvarna sewing machine for a ridiculously low price. I couldn't believe it! I was only too happy to go pick that up, and when the lady told me that she was just hoping that the machine was going to go to the right person, I assured her it was and that I was incredibly excited and grateful. I have named her HoneyButter.

Anyway. Back to quilting. I have finished the top, all except for a border. The quilt has to go on hold for a bit while I get my feet under myself at a new job (more on that later). I'm super excited to quilt it and look forward to summer nights of watching the Olympics and quilting. 

Here are some cute photos of our Rollins-girl, who likes to bring us massive amounts of leftovers from her job at a local soda shop. The others Romney took of her, either for Romney's photography class or for Anna's graduation announcement.

Yeah, we didn't make it through many of those pretzel bites or scones. And she's made more than one delivery of that size.

The Tradition Continues, and the End of the Year Arrives

Some 36 years ago, I took part in my first production of Take 5. This, as I have probably explained at some point in the last five years, is a traditional show at East High that consists of five one-act plays, entirely produced by, written by, and directed by students. Romney took part in them her freshman, sophomore and junior years, and this year it was Emma's turn.

Back in my prehistoric days at East, the theater department used to make scrapbooks. It was our only form of social media. I have been trying to get good scans of the yearbooks from the years I was there for a few years now. I tried a couple of methods which failed miserably, and last spring I tried once more. I didn't fail miserably, but it wasn't a huge success either. Part of the problem is that the old photographs themselves just aren't that great. But I'm going to not let perfect be the enemy of good enough - I finally made a collection of photos to share with anyone from my high school years that want to see them. I wish there were more of them, and I wish they were higher quality, but I'm happy I got to share. 

In that collection are a precious few photos of me in my freshman production of Take 5, in a wonderful show called "Ice Fishing," about two brothers who go ice fishing together and have talks about their divorced parents and the things they're going through. It was beautifully written, and I got to play the younger brother, a 6 year old boy. I ended up winning a "Florrie" for my performance. That was my teacher Carter's version of the end-of-year Oscar awards, named after the teacher he replaced, somebody named Florian I think. Anyway, I won for best character actor as well as another one for best surprise performance, which was a funny back-handed compliment for the best new-comer. I have always treasured those awards. 

I'm going to be a little brutal here, and say that I am sad that the Take 5 plays are no longer a project for the creative writing classes at the school. They were often really remarkable pieces of writing. Now....they can still be a lot of fun but in all honesty don't have quite the level of quality they used to. Please forgive me for saying that. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the play that Emma was in this year - it was called Bad Dreams and was like a Behind the Music documentary about a band called Bad Dreams. Emma played a gal from Ireland and wow can I just say how awesome she is at accents? Her show was really quite funny. I don't have photos from the show itself, only from the afterparty! I'll check with Emma's director - our dear gal Anna - maybe she has some. (Epilogue - I just texted Anna. She has none.)

Emma was fantastic. It's so fun to watch her. I'm grateful for the theater department and how involved and happy she has been and how many friends she has made. Happily Emma got a bunch of photos from the end of year banquet, where she was the lucky recipient of 5 "wills" - tokens that are passed down from seniors to younger students. I think her gregarious attitude and willingness to get involved has really been a benefit to her.

Not only is she excited for the theater department next year, she's ecstatic about taking a more active part in the music department. She loved being a part of the orchestra this year and also the ensemble choir. She loved choir so much that she auditioned for the top tier choir for next year and was thrilled to find out that she'll be an alto in Madrigals. She's so happy about it, and even put her name in the hat to become a general officer to be part of the organizing team. I love how she is fearless about getting involved. What a great year it's been. Emma, I'm so proud of you and impressed with who you are!

Next Up, the Walls

Once we got the floor in, we were so excited to start preparing the walls for insulation, electrical work, metal supports for future shelving, and eventually dry wall. Of course, "preparing the walls" is a very easy thing to type and a very complicated and tedious thing to actually do. 

First, though, we got to do an extremely satisfying thing. After we put up one or two new studs on the wall and felt like it was adequately supported, we got to remove the last of the slanted ceiling beams. Phew! So glad to have those gone!

 

 

Troy spent quite a bit of time cleaning up the walls, removing old molding and nails and screws and all sorts of things in there. It was so nice to get it cleaned up.

We had to carve away a lot of insulation from when Troy made the attic into our bedroom. We didn't realize how much we were going to have to remove, otherwise we would have stopped carving away little bits and just removed it all. It was kind of satisfying though - and messy. We have this wonderful tool that's simply called the multi tool. It's a little tiny vibrating saw and we use it for all sorts of things. The insulation has ended up looking like puzzle pieces.

One thing that needed some extra attention was the triangular space above the doorway. Troy had to build a wall to frame in the open space there. I feel kind of bad - we are to a place in the construction that requires Troy's brain and very little of my mindless servitude. He's had to do a lot of this part on his own, though I help where I can.

One big decision we made was to change out the window. I've never minded the little window that's there, but Troy pointed out the fact that anyone taller than me (and that's most adults) are of a height that they have to stoop down to look out the window. We decided to set a larger window in its place, and I'm so glad we did. It was less of a deal than I expected it to be. Man was it weird to watch Troy just cut a big hole into our wall! Getting that window in was exciting.

 

 

 

The main focus lately has been putting up studs that are 1) large enough 2) placed in the correct position to allow space for insulation (unlike the old ones, which were placed flat so there was only an inch between the outer wall and the drywall) and 3) in the right places to provide a place to screw the drywall in to. The trickiest part was the corner - everywhere there is just weird layers of mismatched wood in various layers and configurations. I'm so grateful that Troy just takes on one task at a time, and he is clearly inspired with solutions all along the way. Who knew that a little 7x10 room would be so complicated. Well...Troy did. He definitely knew.

 

So...progress continues!