Random Update

It's either feast or famine with me, I guess. Last week--no posts, the week before--a post every day! So what have we been doing?

Well, I've been getting our financial information up-to-date so I could do our taxes (I got very behind on that over Christmas.) I finished the taxes on Saturday so now I am trying to catch up on laundry/ironing, shopping, cleaning, etc. that didn't get done while I was immersed in taxes. But we are getting a good refund, so it was worth it!

Niles went to St. George for a conference last Wednesday through Friday. Today he left for training in Arizona and won't be back until late on Friday. He is doing training on environmental planning because that is what he is doing at work now. His company decided to back off on the urban planning area because there aren't going to be many opportunities for jobs in urban planning for the next little while due to the slow economy. Originally, they weren't going to evaluate whether to continue in the urban planning area until the end of this year, but because of the economy,they decided to get out of urban planning now. Thankfully, they decided that environmental planning would be having jobs--those are the kind of projects that the economic stimulus bill will be creating--and it is closely related to urban planning and they are willing to teach Niles how to do it. So we are grateful that he still has a job for now. He is still working on two urban planning projects and they have another possibility for one in Twin Falls, ID so he is not totally out of urban planning. He was also told that if he finds any urban planning job opportunities that look like a good fit, they will consider submitting proposals for those jobs.

On Saturday Niles ran in the BYU Rex Lee Cancer Research 5K Race. He ran in honor of a family friend, Jeannine Mashburn, who has been fighting breast cancer. He has a goal to run in a race once a month this year, and as long as he is trying to do that, he might as well see how many good causes he can benefit as he becomes more physically fit. I am proud of him!!



Here's just his shirt and his entry tag as proof, since I didn't manage to get a photo of him wearing them.

On Sunday, despite all the males in my family being sick, we had some of the Cranes over for our traditional St. Patrick's Day dinner. My whole family loves corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes so they really look forward to this dinner. We had it early since Niles was going out-of-town today. It was fun to include Nile's mom--whose Dad immigrated from Ireland. When we lived in Arizona, I used to wish we could share this dinner with Nile's parents so it is fun to be here now so we can! This morning we had green eggs and ham for breakfast and the leprechauns left chocolate coins for the kids.

Jumble has been busy with Wind Ensemble. They auditioned to participate in a Concert Band festival in Indianapolis and were one of only 6 schools in the country that were invited to attend. Unfortunately, Alpine School District policy is that Jr. High students can't go on any tours out-of-state. Since almost all of Wind Ensemble are 9th graders (which is technically High School--they just attend at the Jr. High because of space issues), and many of these same students (including Jumble) went to Indianapolis last November to attend Bands of America Grand Nationals with the AF High School Marching Band, it seemed kind of strange to me that they wouldn't let them go. It's just as well, as much as it would have been a tremendous experience for Jumble, our bank account is still smarting from the trip last November and I don't know if it could have handled another trip to Indianapolis! Because they weren't able to attend in person, they arranged to have the band participate as much as possible from here. This meant that last week they went up to SLC and had their performance recorded so that it can be shown and judged at the festival which is this week. Then next Monday, one of the clinicians is coming here from Indianapolis to do a workshop with them--just like they would have had if they had gone to Indianapolis. Their performance will be shown to the other 5 bands at the festival and will be included on a DVD of the festival along with the other 5 bands--and they will each get a copy of this DVD. So they are participating as much as possible without actually being there (and we did have to pay a fee to participate in this manner.) One of the other 5 bands also happens to be a Utah school--in Farmington--which is pretty impressive for the state of Utah that 2 of the 6 bands are from this state. The school district in Farmington has a different policy so they are actually able to attend the festival. So also last week, they had a farewell concert and our band traveled up to Farmington to perform in the concert with the Farmington band. The week before that was the AF Jr. High music department's Grand Concert that they do every year to raise money for the music programs. They have the top orchestra, band, and choir perform for that. I was able to attend both nights and it was a great show. One of the nights they performed was Wednesday so Jumble had to miss YW. One of the other Mia Maids was in the choir, so I decided that the Mia Maids needed to go support their class members so that is what we did for our activity that night. Most of them wanted to go, anyway, so it worked out great. Here is a photo of "my" Mia Maids enjoying the concert:

Chloe, Jillian, and Kim.

Haley and Cami. I wasn't able to get a photo of Jumble or Makenzie (who sang in the choir.)

The preparation for the festival and concerts has meant lots of extra rehearsals for Jumble so she has been gone a lot, but she loves it. We just signed her up for next year's marching band this week and she is very excited for that to start up again!

On Saturday evening Niles and I attended a BYU Men's and Women's Choir Concert. The tickets said they were taping that night and there would be no late seating. Unfortunately, we were running late. When we pulled into the parking lot we had less than 5 minutes before the concert started. We literally sprinted from the parking lot to the Wilkinson Center so we wouldn't be shut out and miss the entire show. Then there were people coming in late for the next 1/2 hour--so we wondered why we bothered! Don't know why they put that on the ticket but then don't enforce it. I'm happy for the other late people that still got to see the concert, but wish we had known that we didn't need to run. We should've expected that, though--this is Utah, after all. (My claim to fame--to my surprise, I was actually ahead of Niles in the sprint--and I DIDN'T have running shoes on! I'm sure only because he was sick with a cold and had just run a 5K that morning so he was tired. But I'm still going to enjoy my moment of glory.) We thoroughly enjoyed the concert. It was fabulous--and we had great seats. A few weeks ago we attended the BYU vs. Utah basketball game and enjoyed that too, especially since BYU managed to win! We love having local, relatively cheap events to attend, thanks to BYU. These events are one thing that I know Niles missed for all those years we lived in Arizona and Idaho. He dreamed of being able to take me and/or the kids to BYU sporting events and concerts, so I'm glad he is able to live that dream now (and I really enjoy going to them, too!)

Last weekend, we enjoyed having dinner and visiting with Erick and family as well as all the local family members. We also enjoyed attending Jared Cambra's mission homecoming and luncheon in SLC on Sunday. (Thanks to the Cambras, I have now discovered Costco's Mango with peaches salsa which is, hands down, the best salsa I have ever had in my life and yes, I did go buy some of my very own this week, and yes, I did just stop typing this post so I could go get some to eat right now!) I spoke in church with the YW Presidency in our ward that morning (which I did NOT enjoy.) We each got to speak on two of the Young Women Values--mine were Choice and Accountability and Good Works. It was a busy Sunday.

So that's what has been keeping us busy lately--more than you probably wanted to know.

Family History Friday: Story about my Great-Grandfather Hatch

Since my children like to check my blog, I am doing this column so they will hear some family history stories every so often. We have copies of these for them to read or that I can read to them, but putting a story here occasionally is just another way to make sure that they become familiar with their ancestors.

This story is about my Great Grandfather, Heber Albert Hatch (known as Bert.) His daughter, my Grandma Johnson (Ruth Hatch Johnson) was a storyteller. I used to love to listen to her tell these stories. One year she wrote some of her stories down and made a little book for our family. My mom made copies of this book for her grandchildren, so Jumble has her own copy but none of my other children were born yet so they don't have a copy (other than a CD that we have that includes the book--I guess I need to print it up for each of them.) Anyway, the following story is from that little book:

BERT AND THE INDIANS
When Bert was about fifteen years old, he lived on a ranch outside Taylor in Northern Arizona. There was no mail service to Taylor, Snowflake, or Showlow in those days so the men in these communities took turns riding into Holbrook to get the mail. Now Bert wasn't a man yet, but he still took his turn at riding after the mail.
When he was a boy, the Indians in Northern Arizona were still quite wild, and sometimes the Apaches would go on the warpath. Several times that year there had been rumors that the Indians were stirred up again and were sending out raiding parties.
Bert had a small pony that he loved very much. This pony was a fast runner, so Bert decided to ride this pony the day he went after the mail, and it was a good thing he did.
He had already got the mail and was in the wooded hills outside Taylor when this happened. He reached the top of a small knoll, and he looked down into the valley, and there next to a small camp were about ten Indians in full war paint dancing around. They looked like they were almost ready to get on their horses and ride out on a raid.
Now when Bert saw those Indians, he became very frightened because he had heard stories of what the Indians did to lone travelers. His breath came in rapid gasps, and he turned his pony around quickly and started back down the hill, but he wasn't quite fast enough. The Indians saw him and with loud whoopings and hollerings they jumped on their horses and started after him. He urged his pony on and began dodging in and out among the trees trying to lose the Indians, but they never lost sight of him and kept coming.

Bert's pony was a fast runner, but he soon got tired and tried to slow down. When this happened, Bert became even more frightened and wondered what he could do to get away from the Indians. About this time he came to a small creek, and an idea came to him. He remembered hearing of an old Indian trick of going up a stream in order not to make any tracks. Quickly he turned his pony into the water and galloped up the stream. When the Indians came to the edge of the stream, they had to stop the chase because they didn't know which way he had gone.
After Bert had gone quite a ways up the stream, he crossed over to the other side and circled around for a time before he went on home. He did this to be sure he didn't run into the Indians again.
When Bert got home, he learned that a Brother Robinson from the country was missing. It was feared that he had been found by the same Indians that had chased Bert. About two days later his body was found in the very same stream Bert had made his escape in. It made Bert very thankful he had ridden his fast pony because if he hadn't, the Indians would probably have caught him and killed him like they did Brother Robinson.

It's amazing to think that my Great-Grandfather was chased by Indians! I'm sure that Heavenly Father had a hand in his decision to take his fastest pony and in the idea he had to ride down the stream. We are grateful his life was preserved so that we can be here today. I wish I had a photo of Heber Albert Hatch to include, but I haven't managed to acquire copies of my parent's photos yet. Something else I need to do!

Twin Story Thursday: Unintended Trickery

This is Mom, Shellie, me, and Annette at the reunion when the following story took place:

Annette and I were never big on trying to fool people by switching places or things like that. And as we got older, we got tired of being asked, "Have you ever switched classes at school to fool your teachers?" (We never did.) But there was one time that we totally fooled someone--and it was completely unintentional!

The victim was Annette's son, Jared. He was about 8 months old at the time. We were all in Utah visiting for a reunion before my Dad & Mom got their mission call to Chicago. Frank (Jared's dad) had taken Jared outside to play with some of the cousins in the sandbox. He had been playing for a little bit when I came out with Minnie. Shortly after that, Frank left to go inside. After awhile Jared started to fuss so I picked him up. He stopped crying and I held him for awhile, watching the other kids playing with some of their parents. Then I decided to take Jared inside to Annette. I went in the house, located Annette, and started talking to her, with me still holding Jared. Jared was looking at his mom talking, then glanced up at me--then suddenly he looked very confused and looked back and forth a few times between us, then dived for his mother's arms!

We started laughing--it was the funniest thing I have ever seen. An 8-month-old can do a double-take! We realized that Jared had thought that I was Annette; that he was safe in his mother's arms. At some point while he was looking at Annette he realized, "Wait! I am looking at my mom, but I am being held by my mom! How is that possible?!" He did figure out that I was the impostor within a few seconds. Anyway, I will always remember the bewildered look on little Jared's face.

P.S. Another funny twin thing--our YW Presidency had our first Presidency Meeting last night and we realized that all but the President is a twin! I'm the identical twin, the secretary has a twin sister but they are fraternal, and the 2nd counselor has a twin brother. What are the chances?!

P.P.S. I got my photos to work on the mission memories post so go back and check it out if you care to.

Retro Wednesday: March

These are some photos from March, 2006. This was one of the rare times that my life felt relatively calm and under control. I was starting to come out of the "new baby" chaos (It usually takes me about two years to adjust!) and nothing else was going on like changing jobs, trying to sell your house, moving, etc. So we actually did some fun things to celebrate March that year.

We shaped breadsticks into shamrocks, sprinkled with green sugar:

(Minnie--almost 9 years old)

And we made lion and lamb cupcakes:

(Atom--16 months old)

Minnie, Jet (5 years old), and Jumble (almost 12 years old)

Since we were in Arizona then, I'm sure that March came in like a lamb and went out like a lamb (a little on the hot side lamb by the the time it went out.) This year I am happy to report that March came in like a lamb. So I guess it will have to go out like a lion. But since it went in and out like a lion last year, I think it owes us to go both in and out like a lamb this year. But my experience has been that the weather doesn't really care about what I think it owes us.

Anyway, it was fun to make the cupcakes. Maybe I'll manage to do it again some year.

(P.S. All ideas were from Family Fun Magazine.)

Tender Mercies Tuesday: I Can Do This!

This was just a little thing that happened, but it meant a lot to me.

It was the beginning of June, 2007. Niles had just left to start his new job in Utah and I was in Arizona with the kids, trying to finish preparing the house to put on the market to sell. One of the things we did to make the house more marketable was to replace the old gray-blue carpet in the entire house with a more neutral shade of light brown. To prepare for this, all of the furniture had to be moved onto the few non-carpeted areas of the house. This involved dismantling the computer, the stereo, and the TV and VCR/DVD player in addition to all the furniture. As I was doing this, I was thinking that I was never going to be able to get all those cables and wires hooked up correctly so that these items would function again. So when the carpet was in and I finally had all the furniture moved back into place, I reluctantly tackled putting everything back together.

I had never done stuff like that before because Niles always did that part of moving. I knew I could figure it out eventually, but believed it was going to take some trial and error and hours of frustration to do it. I still had a lot to do to finish getting the house ready and was feeling overwhelmed by everything I had to do. The kids were home for the summer and most of what I had to do was stuff they couldn't help with and I couldn't send them out to play to keep them occupied--summer is the time of year you have to stay indoors in Arizona--it's too hot to play outside unless you have a pool, which we didn't. I really wanted the TV and computer functioning to help out with keeping them occupied for a few weeks while I tried to finish everything.

So I started plugging cables into slots and such and in less than an hour, and without having to switch anything around, I had everything functioning. I couldn't believe it! I must have plugged in about 50 different things and I got them all right the first time. I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. It really didn't have much to do with having everything working. It was just that I felt like I had to have been guided to get everything right on the first try, and the message that it sent me was that even though my husband was far away, I wasn't alone. Heavenly Father was aware of our situation and aware of how overwhelmed and lonely I was feeling and He wanted to make sure I knew that He was with me. I knew then that everything was going to be O.K. and that I could do what needed to be done. That was the little bit that I needed to know that I could do it. After that I felt much more peaceful and much less overwhelmed.

Mission Memories Monday: Lesson Learned

Unfortunately, all my mission photos are GLUED in a scrapbook so I can't scan them individually. So here are a few pages from my scrapbook with photos that are relevant to the following story. The top two photos are some of the ladies in the branch posing outside the church building one Sunday. (They are standing by one of the few cars that one of the members owned.) The middle and bottom left photos are of me and Sister Perry posing outside the 3rd branch building with some of the kids in the branch (Sister Perry is on the left and I am on the right.) The bottom right photo is later that night at the baptism of Rebecca Jones. Elder Gillman is the baptizer. Sister Lata is posing with me because we had taught Rebecca together. Sister Lata was transferred out and Sister Perry was transferred in a few days before the baptism, but Sister Lata was nearby so she was able to come to the baptism. All these photos were taken the day before the P-Day events that are the subject of my story.

The top left photo of this page shows the Birmingham 3rd Branch church building on 1st Ave. The bottom photo shows one of the elders driving the 3rd Branch 15-passenger van loaded with members. The top right photo is of some of the members inside the 3rd branch buidling. The other photos were taken outside the stake center before a baptism. (I'm posing with some of the girls in the branch in the middle right-hand photo. This was my first Sunday after I transferred into the Birmingham 3rd Branch Area.)

Please don't drop my blog because I'm talking about my mission! You can always skip this feature if it's too painful. I have been thinking for a while that I really need to record some of my mission experiences in a journal because, sadly, I got so busy doing missionary work that I never had time to record it. I was an avid journal writer before my mission and was sure that I would come home with a fat journal but I was wrong. And I really did have some incredible experiences that I need to record somewhere--they are evidence of how much Heavenly Father loves each of us and so I feel like I need to leave a record of it for others. Since my journal writing is confined to blogging at this time, I realized that I would probably "get around to" recording my mission experiences sooner if I did it in installments on my blog. And since I will have been home from my mission 18 years at the end of this month, it's way past time to get started on this.

(Disclaimer: Since it has been 18 years, there is a possibility that some of the details will not be strictly accurate but hopefully the overall stories will still be essentially truthful--my memory won't get too far off the track.)

So I am starting with a story of a time that I messed up on my mission, just so you know that I was NOT a perfect missionary--not even CLOSE. This experience was actually kind of funny but it taught me a lesson without, thankfully, dire consequences.

It was the beginning of January 1991, so I was actually just a few months away from coming home. I was serving in the Birmingham 3rd Branch, which was in the inner-city of Birmingham. I had been there since October. My companion, Sis. Perry, was new to the area--she had been transferred in to serve with me at the end of December. Our branch had 3 sets of elders as well as an older couple companionship with the elder serving as the branch president. A local member had donated an old clunker of a 15-passenger van to the church that we used to transport members to church on Sundays. Most of the members there lived in the projects or equally dismal living quarters and most didn't own a car. The church building was a tiny 3-room office building that was rented. Our apartment didn't have a vacuum cleaner so we borrowed the one from the church to vacuum our apartment (yes, sister missionaries do vacuum their apartment on P-days!)

It was P-day. We had the vacuum cleaner that we needed to return to the church building, and we also had the church van that we needed to take to one of the sets of elders in the branch. Our plan that morning was to take the van to the elders and return the vacuum cleaner to the church on our way. Then the elders would drop us back at our apartment where we would pick up our laundry and our car to go to the laundromat. We went out to dump our laundry in the trunk of our car and I noticed that it was looking very cloudy and threatening to rain (not unusual for Alabama!) A thought popped into my head, "Go and get your rain boots!" I thought, "I don't need to get my boots now--we are just going to drop off the vacuum cleaner and the van and we'll be back here in ten minutes. I'll get my rain boots when we get back." So we hopped into the van with the vacuum cleaner and headed to the church. As we pulled into the church parking lot, another thought popped into my head, "Leave the van running while you take the vacuum cleaner into the building." I immediately thought, "What? That would be crazy! In this area? Someone will steal the van in two seconds flat if I leave it running!" So I turned it off. We took the vacuum cleaner inside and came back out to take the van to the elders. Can you guess what happened? Yep, you're right--the van wouldn't start. We tried it a few times, waited a few minutes, tried again. But no luck--the van wouldn't start. This was before the days of cell phones and the church didn't have a phone either, so we decided that the best thing we could do would be to walk back to our apartment, which was about a mile away, and call the elders to explain that the van was dead in the church parking lot. So off we went, and I bet you can guess what happened next. Yes, it immediately started to rain! I still remember walking down 1st Ave East in Birmingham, in the rain, thinking: "You really messed up! You should have known those weren't random thoughts--they were promptings! If you hadn't turned the van off, you wouldn't be stuck walking and if you'd gone back to get your rain boots you wouldn't be walking with your feet getting soaking wet!" I was thoroughly chagrined that I hadn't listened. I also realized that I was lucky, that in this case, ignoring two prompting only resulted in getting stuck walking in the rain with wet feet. We were able to laugh at the situation we had gotten ourselves into. Nobody got hurt or died or anything. Thankfully we didn't get mugged and beaten as we walked through a part of town that wasn't the safest. But the thought I had was that the next time I might not be so lucky, I better listen! Because I really should have recognized that those were promptings because of the way that they came, and how I felt. But I was so busy being sure that I knew better (!) that I didn't listen. That's a lesson that I have always tried to remember.

P.S. Maybe I will post photos with this eventually, but blogger keeps giving me an error so I give up for now.