Weekly Ramble

Niles and Minnie had a father-daughter activity day on Friday night. Can you guess the theme?



They took their photos there (wish they'd fixed Minnie's red eyes--but Snah did it for me!)and they made these cute photo frames for them. I can't figure out how to get that photo turned the right way so sorry! (But Snah fixed that for me, too so now it is right.) Niles discovered that the dad of Minnie's friend, Kari, works at MOXTEK! (I used to work there in 1993-1995.) Hans worked there, too, and Kari's dad said he had met him. (His name is Charles Jensen, Hans.) I haven't talked to him yet to find out how many common people we know.

Jumble has had marching band practice or competition every day this week. On Tuesday evening they went to Weber Review in Ogden. They are judged there but no awards are given--just feedback. They performed at 10:00 p.m. and didn't get home until after midnight. Morning came way too soon on Wednesday. On Saturday they had their first real competition-the Bridgerland in Logan. They were gone all day to that. Jumble reports that they made some mistakes but they still won first place over-all in their division (5A) and they also won first place in 3 of the 4 categories (percussion, visual, and music) and took a very close second in the color guard category--which is pretty impressive since they had to replace the color guard directors and change the entire color guard routine just a few weeks ago. Jumble was very happy. It is fun to pick her up from practice and competitions and see the smile on her face and sparkle in her eyes as she talks non-stop about all the funny things that have happened that day. Now if she can just keep her grades up... She is working hard but is exhausted from band so much and it really is taking up most of her time these days. So Algebra and Biology are causing her a bit of trouble.

Jet was sick the first two days of this week and missed school with a bad cold. I must of picked it up from him and was feeling semi- to totally miserable Friday night and through the weekend. I had almost stopped blowing my nose from the last bad cold I had the first week of September. I hope the whole winter isn't non-stop sickness... I went to the cannery to can peaches on Friday morning. Those conveyer belts going opposite directions right next to each other made me quite dizzy! We were allowed to purchase 3 cases of canned peaches per family when we were done so I bought my quota. Saturday Niles was great about doing everything possible to allow me to rest so I could make it to the R.S. broadcast that night. But I still had to take Minnie (with Atom in tow) to her soccer game because it was at the same time as Jet's game that Niles was coaching. Minnie's team is almost all rookies so they are having a tough time competing with teams of all veterans. The team they played this week also had some TALL girls. It's hard to believe that some of them aren't older than 11. Apparently, we picked a very popular name for Minnie. I picked up that there were at least 5 other girls that share Minnie's name playing soccer on the two fields that day!

I had tickets to go to the conference center in Salt Lake City for the R.S. broadcast Saturday evening. Mom agreed to go with me so it was fun to drive up and back together. It is awesome to be in the conference center! Lucky me, I got to go to the YW meeting at the conference center with Jumble last spring! So now I have been twice in just the 9 months I have lived here. I just wish I had been feeling better so I could have enjoyed it even more. I'm glad I made the effort to go, despite not feeling well, because we got great seats--on the main floor and near the center and not too far back. I'm not likely to get seats that close the next chance I get to go. We had to drive my mom's car since we didn't want to be stranded in SLC if my van decided not to start. We took the van back to the same shop on Friday to give them another chance to fix it since they already have over $600 from us because they supposedly fixed it. That was a waste of time. "We don't know what's wrong with it." Grrrr!

Yesterday I would have liked to stay home and act like the sick person I was but realized I have no idea who is available to substitute for Primary in my ward since I don't know many people yet or what callings they have. Most of the parents of my Sunbeams have callings that make it impossible for them to sub. So I just went and hopefully kept my germs to myself. The Sunbeams had mercy on me and were less wiggly than usual. Niles was fighting kidney stone pain all weekend. Luckily, he still has Vicatin on hand. That dumb stone has been in there for four years now. I think it is time for him to get another check-up on it to make sure it isn't causing any damage. Just one more thing to do... Jumble decided to help us out and make dinner which we thought was terribly sweet of her, especially since Niles had home teaching and I had visiting teaching. (Our sister missed her original appointment--we normally wouldn't go on Sunday but she has been really sick and loves to have us come visit--it cheers her up.) The Primary Program is coming up in our ward on October 26th. The kids got their parts yesterday and they had the nerve to give me a part, too!

Atom got to go to school with Jumble on Thursday morning. He was so excited! He had a great time and it looks like they did a lot of cute things there. The 7th graders have a class like home ec. and they have been doing a unit on child care. This was the day they got to practice so they recruited younger siblings to attend. Jumble isn't in 7th grade, but she is peer tutor to two 7th graders and escorts them to this class during her peer tutor class. Neither of them had a younger sibling to bring, so Atom got to be the lucky one.

Sorry this is a boring ramble of a post about our week!

One Thing (among many) that I Love About the Church

Ward members helping at my brother's house in Houston--post Hurricane Ike.
What one of the trees looked like when they were done with it.
The pile of debris from my brother's property, waiting by the street for pick-up.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my brother, Ben, and his family recently evacuated their home as Hurricane Ike approached the area. And, as I mentioned before, their home escaped serious damage. As I have been checking his blog for updates, he has described all of their activities and adventures during the recovery process. So I have a confession to make. I feel kind of silly about it, but I found myself in tears as I read about all the people in his ward coming to help them clear all the branches out of their trees and off their roof and out of their yard and their neighbor's yard. As his family, we would like to be there to help. But we couldn't. But we didn't have to worry because his church family took care of him. And then, of course, Ben went to help others at their houses. Can I say how much I love this aspect of being a member of the church? My own family has been the recipients of countless amounts of service through the years from our church family. Hopefully we've given at least a little bit of that back to others. For now all I can say is a great big "Thank you!" to all those people I don't even know in Texas.

Tender Mercies

I've decided to start a few new "columns" or regular features on my blog. I'm going to give myself a few general topics and write something about them occasionally. I'm doing this for me, but if some of you enjoy reading it, so much the better. We'll see how it goes. No promises about how often they will crop up. As the title of this post indicates, the first general topic I am introducing is Tender Mercies. The inspiration for this topic comes from two talks given by apostles at General Conference sessions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The talk by Elder David A. Bednar can be found here. The talk by President Henry B. Eyring can be found here. I know that our Heavenly Father loves us and desires to bless us. And I think it is important to record the times that we recognize those blessings to show our gratitude and also so that we come to recognize our blessings more easily. I also want my children and those around me to come to know for themselves that Heavenly Father loves and blesses them daily.

This morning when I took my kids to school, the van did something it has been doing a lot lately. The first two times I turned the key in the ignition, all I got was a click--nothing. The third time, thankfully, it started as if nothing was wrong. This is particularly frustrating to me because we just had it in the shop a few weeks ago to have this problem fixed and paid a lot of money so that this would quit happening. But having car problems also fills me with gratitude as it reminds me of the many times that my family has been blessed in the area of cars. We have seen literal miracles occur so I can't grumble too much if this is one of those times that a miracle isn't forthcoming. And who knows? Maybe the fact that my van starts at all right now is a miracle. So--since it is on my mind, here is one of the tender mercies we experienced in the past:

When Niles and I got married, I didn't own a car, but thankfully he did. For the first seven years of our marriage, his blue Honda Accord hatchback was our one and only vehicle. After the first few years, the air conditioning on the Honda Accord gave out. It still blew air, but not cold air. We knew it probably had a freon leak that needed to be repaired and then the freon needed to be recharged. But we didn't have the money to do it, and since air conditioning is nice, but not essential, we just lived without it. This really wasn't too much of a burden in the moderate climates of Utah, and then Idaho, where we lived at the time. Every once in a while, on a particularly hot summer day, I would turn on the air conditioning in the hope that it might cool me down a little, but my hopes were in vain--the air conditioner was definitely broken. Then in January of 1997 we made the trek to move our lives to Arizona. We had discussed the fact that moving to Arizona presented a problem with the broken air conditioner in the car. With summer temperatures reaching 115-120 degrees, air conditioning was starting to seem like more of a necessity than a luxury. I was six months pregnant so I would soon have a newborn and I was concerned about the baby (as well as Jumble) becoming overheated during the summer when I had to run errands. We also felt it wouldn't be very professional for Niles to arrive to work each day all hot and sweaty. Now, I know my ancestors survived without air conditioning, but everyone expected everyone to be hot and sweaty back then. Times had changed! Since it was February, we had a little bit of time to stall and try to figure out what we should do. We still didn't have the money to repair the air conditioner. We weren't sure what we were going to do. One day in March it started to get a little on the warm side as I was driving in the car (by now I was almost 8 months pregnant) and a little voice inside me said, "Just turn on the air conditioner and see if it will work." So I did. Knowing that it wouldn't--because it hadn't for years. And guess what? It worked. It blew out perfectly frigid cold air. And it continued to blow out perfectly frigid cold air for the next four years--for as long as we owned that car. The only explanation was that our kind Heavenly Father had mercy on us and decided to bless us with air conditioning. Of course we still think of that miracle with gratitude and amazement.

I know Heavenly Father can fix anything. I don't understand all the reasons why sometimes He fixes things for us, and sometimes He doesn't, but I tell Him that I know He can fix anything, and I am extremely grateful for the times that He does. And the times that He doesn't, I trust that He has a good reason (and often it may be that I am just not doing my part.) What tender mercies has Heavenly Father blessed you with lately?

Autumn Leaves

I know that the weather is a boring, recurring theme of my blog. But you have to understand, after 11 years of living in Arizona, we still aren't used to weather. We are in culture shock when it comes to weather. So humor me a bit--maybe after we've experienced the full yearly cycle once, I'll quit talking about it.

I have to admit, I have always loved autumn. Today is the first official day of the fall equinox. The weather in Utah is doing it's best to comply. It's suddenly rather cold and windy today. But I've been noticing the signs of fall before today. Our family is experiencing a new phenonenom this fall--the leaves on the trees are starting to CHANGE COLOR and FALL OFF!! O.K., so it isn't new to me or Niles--we've seen it all before--but not for years. But for our kids, this is only something they've heard about but never experienced first-hand. I've been noticing the sprinkling of red spreading on the mountains. And I think it is beautiful and I'm enjoying the wonder of the changing of the seasons. (I'm just trying to forget it means that winter is on the way.)

At this time of year in Arizona, we'd still be in that agony of waiting for the temperature to cool down to a decent level. I'm thinking of buying my kids those cute furry Halloween costumes that they've never been able to wear before. You wouldn't dream of dressing them in those things in Arizona--they'd die of heat stroke. I always used to laugh to see all those racks of cozy costumes on clearance after Halloween. I wondered if the retailers would ever figure out not to bother to send those costumes to Arizona stores--no one ever buys them, hadn't they noticed? October in Arizona means that you don't carve your pumpkin until the day before Halloween, unless you want it soft, moldy, and caving in on itself for the holdiay. We learned that the hard way the first year we lived there--we had to throw out the first jack-o-latern and carve a new one.

I did a neighborhood preschool with my first three children where the moms took turns teaching, called Joy School. One of the daily routines in Joy School was the "weather wheel" where you talked with the kids about the weather that day. The wheel had choices like hot, sunny, cold, windy, rainy, and snowy. Guess what the weather was EVERY SINGLE DAY? We sometimes wondered why we bothered. The kids would get bored--hot and sunny AGAIN! I remember one year we were particularly excited that there was a morning monsoon storm on the first day of Joy School in August. It was so exciting to have the weather wheel on "rainy!" Once out of the 5 years I did joy school, we weren't on hot and sunny. You think I'm exaggerating--I'm not. It rained the other day and after almost 9 months of living in Utah, I was still taken by surprise. It's raining--AGAIN?! It just rained last week! I've lost track of how many times it has rained in just the 4 months I've lived in this house. I'm still in the "rain is an extremely rare event" mentality. We moved to Arizona the very last day of January. If it is going to rain in Arizona, it happens in February or during the August monsoon season. The first rain occured the first Sunday we were there--we were at church when it started sprinkling. I remember some 6-year-old kid (that of course didn't know me from Adam,) excitedly shouting at me in the chruch foyer, "It's raining! It's raining!" I thought this was rather bizarre behavior. I didn't realize at the time that this was probably the first time this kid had seen rain in his memory. I will never forget Niles and I doubled over with laughter that August when they broke into a T.V. show we were watching with a breaking news story. Reporter: "I'm standing here on the corner of 7th Street and McDowell and, as you can see from the camera shot, there are raindrops on the windshield of my car!" Astounding--raindrops on your windshield! You think I am exaggerating--I am not--not even slightly. We looked at each other and said, "What kind of crazy place is this?!" So the leaves changing on the trees is a big deal. I point it out to the kids--"Look, remember in Joy School when we talked about seasons and we explained about how in other places the leaves turn orange and red and brown and fall off in autumn? You thought we were making it up, huh? Now you can see it for yourself!" They are properly impressed. So right now I am enjoying it. Don't check back with me November to March.

I was going to go outside and take some photos of the beautiful fall mountains for this post but I guess it will have to wait until a future blog. It just started to rain and the mountains are all hidden by clouds. Do you think if I turn on the T.V. there'll be a breaking news report about the rain?

Getting Back

My cousin, Jeanette, was recently talking on her blog about driving around some of her old haunts in "the valley" (Phoenix.) "Oh good," I thought, "So I'm not the only one that does stuff like that." I am notorious for dragging my family past places that had past significance for me. When we drove up to Boise in June, it was the first time we had been back since moving away 11 1/2 years before. For me, it was obvious that we couldn't leave without visiting our old apartment building and neighborhood first. My husband indulges me. My kids roll their eyes and yawn with boredom.

One thing I loved about living in Arizona was going back to revisit places where I spent time as a child. When we first moved back, my Grandpa Johnson's house was being lived in by someone not in the family. No matter, I hadn't seen the place for many years so driving by to see it was a necessity, even though I was sad that I couldn't go in and visit the people I loved that used to live there. We drove up and I climbed out to soak it in for a few minutes and immediately I smelled the pecan tree. The sight I had remembered, but the smell I had forgotten. It was an unexpected delight that I hadn't anticipated. I felt six years old again. I also loved going to my Uncle Joe & Aunt Amy's house. They were so kind to us while we were there--we enjoyed many dinners at Thanksgiving and Christmas at their house. I love that my own kids will have fond memories of the same swinging shutter doors that I have from my visits there as a child. It's funny the things that enthrall and stick in the mind of a 4-year-old!

Since my early years were somewhat nomadic, I don't have just one place where all the memories reside. When I was 10 years old, I moved into the 5th house of my life-time. So my memories are scattered from California to Colorado to Texas to back to California to Utah (with all the visits to Arizona sprinkled in-between.) Most of these places are far away and not likely to ever be visited again. As an adult, I have added more places in Utah, as well as places in Alabama, Idaho, and Arizona to my list of dwellings. If I count college and mission apartments, I am now residing in my 23rd abode.

Recently, I discovered a way to revisit some of these places without buying plane tickets or subjecting my family to my boring quirkiness. In fact, I don't even have to leave my own house. I stumbled upon the fact that Google Maps has added "street view" to many places. The arial views were tantilizing enough, but this is even better. I don't know how they do it, but it's like you're driving your car down the street. You can rotate around and see things from any angle. I can go down the streets and follow my former bike route from home to school in Texas. I can see the ditch in the alley behind my house in California (that seemed 50 feet deep to my 3-year-old eyes but is really only about 4 feet deep) I can explore the perimeter of the playground of my school in California. I am now a google maps junkie. Now if they could just figure out how to transport me back in time occasionally so I could visit all the people I miss, as well!

A Few Atom Things

Conversation during the boy's Saturday night bath:

Me: "Atom, what day is it tomorrow?"

Atom: Blank look

Jet: Today is Saturday, Atom. What day is tomorrow?

Atom: "Sunday!" (big grin)

Me: "Where are we going tomorrow?"

Atom: Wheels turning in head.

Me: "Where do we go on Sunday?"

Atom: Wheels still turning, mischievious grin appearing.

Jet: "Where are we going tomorrow?"

Atom: "Disneyland!"

Well, it doesn't hurt to hope, right? The kid knew darn well that we were talking about church but couldn't resist trying to reshape our plans, I guess.

Another cute thing Atom did a while back but I don't think I ever posted--I apologize if this is a repeat. Atom has been interested in wire whisks lately. He raids the kitchen drawer and carries all of mine around the house and calls them "microphones." One night he had them in hand during nightly scripture study and family prayer. It was Minnie's turn to pray. Just as she is about to start Atom says, "Wait, wait!" and runs over to her and puts one of the wire whisks up to her mouth like a news reporter. We all had trouble not laughing during that prayer but I'm sure Heavenly Father was smothering a few chuckles Himself.

Peach Jam

One advantage to living in Utah is that we get great peaches here in the fall! In Arizona, everyone buys a box or more and someone in the ward comes up to Utah with a truck to fetch the peaches and bring them back down to everyone. Well, my mom did the searching for the best-priced peaches for me, and then we made peach jam together. Another advantage to living in Utah--doing stuff with my mom!

It's Been Awhile

I guess I have been busy and haven't had the urge to write lately since it has been about three weeks since I have posted. We have been settling into the fall school routine which is BUSY. Not so much during the day, although I always have plenty to keep me busy, but when school gets out I become a taxi driver--marching band rehearsals, 6th grade after-school band rehearsals, two different soccer team's rehearsals, clarinet lessons, YW, etc. Somewhere in there I squeeze in making dinner, getting kids to do their homework, and the bedtime routine. Meanwhile, Niles has many evening meetings at work, Webelos, and coaching one of the soccer teams. It is good to be busy doing many things and we are happy about the opportunities our children have here and the friends they are making. Jumble has been working so hard in marching band and practicing on her own and handling all her school work. We are so proud of her! She is sleeping better because she is so tired. She is about to start the fun part of marching band--all of the performances! They had family night on Monday so we got to go see the whole marching band show. Both sets of grandparents were able to come, too, which made it even more fun. It is amazing what those kids can do! But not really that amazing when we remember how many hours and hours they have spent practicing!

We are enjoying the BYU football season (3-0 Go Cougars!) but it sure takes a chunk out of busy Saturdays. Between that and two soccer games every Saturday, the housework is suffering a little lately. Oh well. This past Saturday, I got to attend the first home BYU game that I have been to in probably 15 years. (The rest I have watched on TV.) I knew with the winning streak they have going at home, if they lost, Niles would think I was the bad omen and not allow me to attend another one!! We weren't even half-way through the game before he turned to me and said, "You can come to all of the rest of the games!" Turns out I'm a good omen. (For those of you that don't follow BYU football, BYU ended up beating UCLA 59-0. UCLA seemed like they were cursed! They fumbled three possesions in a row with BYU recovering the ball and scoring touchdowns as a result and they also missed a close-range field goal.) My only complaint was that I got a little weary of singing the fight song after about the 8th time (the tradition is to sing it every time BYU scores.) One amazing thing, our Arizona friends, the Mills, have seats just two rows behind us in the stadium. We used to get together at their house for all the BYU games about 6-8 years ago. We had some great times watching the games, rooting for BYU, and wishing we could be at the stadium in Provo. They moved to Utah a few years ago and now we are here, too, and we are all watching BYU games together in the stadium! We never would have dreamed back then that we would be watching games in the stadium together. And with a 60,000 seat capacity, it is amazing that our seats are next to each other! We also sit one row up and just one seat over from John Bytheway and his family. Niles reports that Jumble sat in awe during the first home game to be so close to him! (John Bytheway does EFY and gives inspirational talks and has written books for teens. We have a few of his presentations on DVD.)


Speaking of soccer games, Jet scored his first soccer goal on Saturday! I was sad that I didn't get to see it--I was taking Jumble to marching band practice at the same time the game was going on. Minnie is also playing soccer and reported that she almost scored a goal. (I missed her game, too, because of the BYU game.) She is learning a lot, even if her team isn't doing too well, unfortunately. Her cousin Emily is also on the team and is a really great soccer player. I think she is pretty frustrated with the way the season has been going so far.

Atom has recently discovered our copy of "The Monster at the End of this Book" and can't have it read to him enough! I think it is one of the cutest, cleverest children's storybooks ever. However, I still get tired of it after reading it about ten times in a row! It is so fun to hear Atom laugh as we read it, though! I am enjoying all my one-on-one time with Atom during the day. He is at a fun age--we have a good time together.

My brother, Ben, and his family recently had to evacuate their home in Houston because of hurricane Ike. They went to stay with Dee's family in Louisiana so they weren't too far away and still saw some of the storm. Dee's family stayed with my brother's family in Houston only a few weekends before as hurricane Gustav hit Louisiana. So the hurricane season is keeping their lives interesting lately. We were glad they were safe but anxious to hear how their house survived. They got back home Monday and discovered a lot of branches down everywhere but nothing that seemed to damage the house too badly. Their biggest casualty was their backyard fence, downed by a tree that was uprooted in their neighbor's yard. But it didn't hit any houses so that is a blessing. We are grateful they are O.K. It sounds like they are lucky to have power and water service, although they say they have to boil the water and maybe the power isn't totally reliable yet. I am curious how our former house and neighborhood in El Lago survived (We lived there from 1973-1977). It is VERY close to Clear Lake and Taylor Lake and not far from Galveston Bay and the Houston Channel so it seems like the potential for serious flooding there was significant. Maybe Ben can give us some news about that at some point. That was one of my favorite places that I have ever lived so it is unnerving to think of it possibly getting destroyed.

After a three month wait, we finally had Jet's appointment with a pediatric GI doctor at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. They did another x-ray and confirmed that he is chronically constipated and has what is called a "mega-colon." Who knows what caused this and it is amazing that he doesn't display any of the usual symptoms--so how could we have known? Once soccer season is over (the beginning of October) we get to spend three weekends on a clean-out procedure and then have a maintenance treatment plan to follow until we go back to see the doctor in December. It will complicate our lives somewhat but we are hopeful that it will be successful and that he will be cured soon. The maintenance treatment will probably go on for at least a year but it will be worth it to get his body functioning the way it should. On a happy note, the nutrition specialist at the doctor told me we have a pretty good diet so we don't have to change that too much and I get an emotional pat-on-the-back that I am doing a decent job of feeding my family in a healthy fashion. Another interesting thing--Jet is a little under weight and this is probably because his full colon decreases his appetite. They said to expect his appetite to increase as his colon empties out and then he will probably fill out a bit. He has always been so skinny that finding pants and shorts the right length that don't fall off him has been challenging. So hopefully that will get easier.

A few other random things that have been going on--quite a few of us have been fighting off a cold/flu bug that hasn't been too fun, especially mixed with the fall allergies. On Labor Day we had a family BBQ at our house which was fun, but it wasn't really BBQ weather--cold and rainy and it SNOWED in the mountains--on September 1st! Since then it has warmed up again and so far has been a very pleasant fall--we hope it lasts well into November! Last week we had another thunder storm and it actually knocked our power out for over an hour. That was tricky when I had to jet over to pick Jumble up from school and take her to marching band practice and the car was inside the garage with the automatic door opener not functioning. But I figured out how to switch it to manual operation. Speaking of cars, my van has had this intermittent problem with not starting and it got to be more prevelent so we took it in two weeks ago to see if someone could figure out what was wrong with it. They said it was the starter and replaced it and it was not cheap and guess what happened today? My van wouldn't start! Grrrr! So we paid a lot of money and still have the same problem. Sometimes I hate cars not to mention car mechanics! I have found a family on the street to car pool with so she brings my two middle kids home from elementary every day--I drive in the mornings. That has been really nice. Especially since my kid's school has been a traffic nightmare--I'll spare the details. I was actually shedding tears of frustration one morning! At least it has improved since the first few weeks. The drop-off procedure was poorly planned to begin with and complicated by the fact that their school is currently under construction for a new cafeteria. Their school currently looks like a demolition area--I'm not exaggerating. The City of American Fork hasn't helped, either. They are systematically tearing up all the streets in the city to install pressurized irrigation pipes. Guess which week they decided to do the streets surrounding my kids' elementary school? You guessed it, the first week of school. Brilliant! This whole pressurized irrigation pipe project has actually been causing us grief since before we even moved into this house. We have had to find different routes to our house all through the process of moving in and beyond, as different streets in the neighborhood would be closed on different days. It is especially tricky to find alternate routes when you are not familiar with the neighborhood to start with. I was overjoyed when they recently re-opened the street that for us is the best route to the high school so I didn't have to go a round-about way anymore. My joy was short-lived. They promptly closed another road on the route--and then the detour for the closed road took you directly onto a side street that was practically unpassable due to the construction also taking place on that road. Another brilliant move, I thought. I will be very glad when they are done installing these pipes. In two years they will start phase two which will include the street we actually live on. I can hardly wait!

I wanted to post video of Jumble's band--and I took the video camera with me to the performance but I forgot to charge the battery first! So it was dead and useless. So sorry no photos or videos this post. Just boring me rambling on...