Aubrey is 16!

We loved celebrating our newly 16 year old!

The Friday before her birthday Aubrey came home from school to a surprise party. I had invited over some of her friends, 3 guys and 3 girls, and prepared an "Olive Garden" dinner. I made pasta and salad and had Dan pick up breadsticks and two types of sauce from Olive Garden, which is Aubrey's all-time favorite restaurant.  Our local fabulous bakery (Chuck's Produce) made a deeeelicous German Chocolate cake for dessert.

The week of Aubrey's party we had painters in our house all day every day, working on the kitchen cabinets. The painter was still in the kitchen until half hour into the party! It was a true miracle that I got the house cleaned and decorated, food ready, and party organized with all the chaos that comes with a home renovation. Not to mention that everything from my kitchen cabinets was stored in my dining room. It was pretty hilarious to be scrambling through boxes, looking for cake servers, birthday candles, pasta and salad serving bowls, etc.  But, it all worked out!

The teenagers watched the video we had made for Aubrey when she turned 8 and was baptized, and then ate dinner.  During dinner I had a slideshow playing with pictures from all of Aubrey's life, not just up to age 8!  

After dinner they watched a few Studio C episodes and then headed up to the bonus room where I had arranged a table of yummy goodies (forgot to take a picture!). They played games until parents came to pick them up.  One of the boys actually came to the party on his OWN birthday. He put off his family birthday celebration so he could be at Aubrey's party.  (Update: this happens to be the same guy who just asked Aubrey to LDS Prom.  Hee hee.)

The next day Aubrey took her final driving test at her driver's ed place. She passed, and didn't even have to parallel park!

Then, the next Wednesday was Aubrey's actual birthday. She had put in her requests for her breakfast in bed, but went to Seminary first and then climbed back into bed to receive her crepes and strawberries. Her Seminary teacher (who adores her) had brought her a "coffee" cake to class that day, so she was already pretty full!

We pulled out the scrapbooks from when Aubrey was born and relived that happy moment. We checked to see if her foot had grown since birth.

Next Aubrey opened up all her gifts (normally she would have just opened a few and saved the rest for the evening) since she had such a busy day that she wouldn't be home much until after 9 p.m.

Her big gift - this weekend I am taking her and he friend Emma to a fun boutique hotel in Portland for an overnight girl's shopping/eating/relaxing trip.

 Bailey passed along all her dating magazines, books, and talks to her little sister!

 Cute skirts from Modcloth!

 She got a fitbit, just like her Mom and Dad, since she has been so focused on health and fitness lately. (Update: however, she has decided that it might be a little nerdy to wear a fitbit to school, so it is still in the package)

And then Aubrey logged onto the DMV website and printed out her license.  Did you catch that - we didn't have to visit the DMV office!!

And then she drove herself to school. Aaaarrgh! It always makes my heart stop when my kids first start driving. Although, Aubrey is a very safe and confident driver.

 Dan and I met Aubrey at a great little Italian restaurant in downtown Vancouver for a birthday lunch.

Then Aubrey returned to school and did non-birthday related things, although she did get to enjoy some gifts and treats brought to her by her friends.  After school she drove home and changed and then went to an elementary school for a repeat performance of her role from Seussical for a celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday (which he shares with Aubrey). A handful of kids from her musical theater company performed four songs, and did a fantastic job. The kids were mesmerized!  After the performance she headed to Mutual, and then home to bed. 

Snippets from the past few months . . .

Joseph and Dan attended the basketball game between BYU and Portland State. It was a tough loss for BYU, but the boys had a great time!

 We love our frequent facetimes and calls from this cute college girl.

 I have continued to ruthlessly clear out stuff. It feels fantastic! This was what I got rid of just from the bookcase in the "homeschool" area. We have a lot of books! I gave many away to friends, sold a few, and gave the rest to charity.

 A friend made a "heavy blanket" years ago for her sensory son and she passed it on to us. Joseph likes the feeling of cuddling up under it.  This is him "reading" scriptures with us one night.

 Dan was in charge of the Yule Ball for our stake the end of January. As always, it was an amazing night for all involved and Dan was the best deejay in the world. Aubrey and I attended the dance to "help" Dan. Really, that meant that we watched and enjoyed the ambience while Dan did all the work. Aubrey missed the cutoff for the dance by one month!

 The deejay was unusually relaxed and found time to waltz with his beautiful almost-16-year-old daughter

 and with me!  (Very blurry picture, but I had to record the moment . . .)

Gas is crazy cheap.  Seriously?  This price was with 20 cents off with my Fred Meyer card, but even the normal price of gas is lower than I remember since before Aubrey was born!

 Joseph had to create a game using math facts for his math class, so we tried it out for FHE a few weeks ago.  We all found that the double digit multiplication and decimal multiplication was harder than we remembered!

 The next day I was able to play some of the games with the kids in the math class. It was fun!

 I really should do an entire post about the things I don't like about getting older, but one of them is the increasingly urgent need I have for reading glasses, especially late in the day or in dim light. And reading scriptures absolutely requires glasses these days. Sigh. It's such a bummer. I hate taking the glasses on and off when I read and try to interact with people sitting more than a foot away from me.

Funny story about my glasses. After I had my eyes examined I was uncharacteristically pressured into buying some glasses from the attached optical shop.  And I was in a hurry and didn't really scrutinize them well. They look very nice, but I didn't realize until picking them up that the earpiece is a woman's leg and high heeled shoe. How bizarre!

 Spirit Day at Aubrey's school - she had to wear as many patterns as possible together.  In the picture you can't see that the tights are also patterned.

 Aubrey helped a leader do all the decorations for New Beginnings, which was mid-February. It looked lovely, but not as lovely as these girls!  And, note Aubrey's new very cute glasses! She has a very light prescription and really only needs them for sometimes seeing the board in class, but she likes them and likes the preciseness of the vision correction, so she wears them most of the time!

50 years!

On February 6th our good friends joined us for a party to celebrate Dan, who is not only an amazing husband and father, but also a respected and well-loved friend, co-worker, and neighbor.

To prepare, I started weeks before and sorted through all the memorabilia we have carted with us through our married life but never really organized. I threw out some stuff and categorized and organized everything else. In the end, I was able to pull out some fun memorabilia to display at Dan's party.

Items displayed included the bill from the hospital for Dan's birth, newspapers from the day of his birth, newspaper clippings featuring Dan the cute young kid, papers he wrote in elementary, middle, and high schools, advertisements for his high school deejay service, Cub Scout and Boy Scout patches, his high school ASB card, guitar songbooks from his teenage years, yearbooks, mementos from Israel and Venezuela (where he served his mission), and pictures of our family through the years.

The day of the party I ran to pick up some last minute supplies and I found these flowers for the serving table. I thought it was very funny that the store had inserted a football decoration into a bundle of flowers.  What?  I'm guessing they were aimed at guys who needed to apologize in advance to their wives for spending the weekend in front of the TV?

I bought or prepared all Dan's favorite desserts and munchies: peach pie, German chocolate pie, Chunky Monkey banana cream pie, carrot cake, graham crackers and frosting, mixed nuts, and popcorn.  The other counter also had some fruits and veggies for those who wanted to be healthier.

I had bought some decorations online, including a special 50th birthday set of candles. The problem is, when I dumped out the individual candles I couldn't remember what it was supposed to say!  A few of our friends at the party relished the challenge, and figured out that the individual letters spelled "OH NO THE BIG 50".

Dan had prepared a really fun game to play at the party. The game masterfully involved each of the couples, highlighting our "link" to them and our history with them. Other questions were about music and TV theme shows from the 70s and 80s and multiple choice questions about funny stories from Dan's life. The game was a HIT!  He is probably the only person who would enjoy running the game at his own party! 

We feel so lucky to have such amazing friends. They add so much to our lives and have blessed us in so many ways.

After his party Dan remarked, "that was perfect in every way.  I couldn't have imagined a better night with friends for my birthday."  So, I would say it was a success!

Sunday morning thoughts

During the Sacrament I often keep the hymnbook open to read the words of hymns and center my thoughts where they should be. Last Sunday I randomly turned to a hymn (#231). I know I have never heard or read before. The words resonated deeply with me.

Father, cheer our souls tonight;

Lift our burdens, make them light.

Let thine all-pervading love

Shine upon us from above.

Calm the surges of the soul;

Bid the dark waves backward roll.

Let us all thy mercies feel

Thru the pow'r thou dost reveal.

Bless our loved ones far away;

Grant them health and peace, we pray.

In their hearts let holy light

Beam to guide their steps aright.

Let implicit faith and trust

Help us know thy ways are just.

May thine ever-tender love

Lead our hearts to thee above.

I really love the messages of this hymn.  This is what I get out of it:

• The Savior's power can lift our burdens, so that they are light and we can barely feel them. 
• Our souls naturally surge with strong emotions, and the Lord's tender mercies can calm us and turn back the darkness.  
• My heart is continually thinking about those I love who are far away, and I pray for their health, happiness, and progression.
• We need to trust the Lord instead of rely on our own strength or reasoning. His ways are just and love is tender and will lead us along.

Valentine's Day 2016

I attended Joseph's Valentine's party, which was his LAST class party of elementary school and, since he is my youngest, the last class party I will be involved with. That was a strange moment, and kind of sad!  But it was so fun to see these cute kids.

 This is also the last year that we will need to assist a kid with making a Valentine's box, which doesn't make me as sad. Joseph's box was his own creative design and reflects his current interests! His classmates had to try to "shoot" their Valentine through the basket into the box.

Two days later was the actual Valentine's Day, which fell on Sunday this year. We had thin pancakes for breakfast, because both Joseph and Aubrey like them.  Aubrey was our chef.

For church we had a regional broadcast/stake conference at the stake center. We actually arrived in time to sit on the soft seats in the chapel which has NEVER happened. We were highly motivated by the desire to arrive in time to not have to part in the muddy overflow parking and hike in through ankle deep slime. It has been very rainy lately. The meeting itself was really great. I felt edified and inspired.

I received this Valentine from my cute boy.

That evening we held our yearly Valentine's Dinner. For the first time in this house we didn't eat it in the dining room, as it looks like this:

Everything from my kitchen cabinets has been moved into the dining room while the cabinets are being painted. It's been an adventure! More to come on that later.

First, pictures of our dinner, in which everything was pink, red, or heart-shaped. And obviously we emphasized the sugar food group.

We didn't forget our favorite college students. A few weeks before Valentine's Day I sent them some packages with goodies inside to eat and to decorate their homes.

Bailey sent me these pictures of the ways she used the contents of the package to decorate her apartment (I believe that they wrote Harry Potter pickup lines on the foam hearts) and the Valentine's dinner she did with her roommates.

Growing in a poor spot of ground

Sometime last year I came upon something in my scripture study which was a personal answer to my prayers. I want to document my thoughts about it.

Jacob 5 in the Book of Mormon is what we call the "Parable of the Olive Tree." It has never been my favorite chapter of scripture. It's long and repetitive and there's a lot of grafting going on, which isn't something I can really relate to. But one day I read verses 21-22 with new eyes:

And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: How comest thou hither to plant this tree, or this branch of the tree? For behold, it was the poorest spot in all the land of thy vineyard.

 And the Lord of the vineyard said unto him: Counsel me not: I knew that it was a poor spot of ground; wherefore, I said unto thee, I have nourished it this long time, and thou beholdest that it hath brought forth much fruit.

Suddenly, the vineyard and the servant vanished and I realized that these scriptures were a conversation I was having with God.

I said: "Why have you given my loved ones these great challenges? It's not fair and it's really hard and it feels like too much for them to handle. I know that You can make heal them and make these hard things go away. Will you do it?"

 And the Lord said: "Counsel me not. I knew that this was going to be a challenge. Did you think I didn't know? I "planted" them. I was fully aware of the hard things which they would deal with. But I want you to remember that I am watching over them with loving attention and I have been nourishing them for many years and will continue to do so as long as they turn to me. And if you really look you will see that there are great "fruits" which have been harvested.  There are things they could not have learned without the experience of growing in this poor ground. Have faith in the Lord of the vineyard."

I hope it's not sacrilegious to document my conversation with the Lord in this way. This was a very real answer to my prayers and still brings tears to my eyes when I think about it. I am grateful for the Lord's nourishment as we contend with our poor spots of ground. 

January thoughts

It has happened. I actually caught up on all the "events" of our life on the blog and so now I have the luxury of writing some of my thoughts instead.

I can remember quite a few years when I disliked January. Especially in areas where it snows a lot, January is often tedious. I can recall snow stained brown from road grime, mind numbing cold and bad roads, and in Utah there was often polluted air from the inversion. Many years January felt like punishment after the warm glow of December drifted away.

I feel differently about this January. This last month I felt invigorated. I felt full of energy and unburdened. I felt hopeful, optimistic, and peaceful. All those things were in contrast to how December felt. December had so many great moments, including some wonderful family time during the holidays. But there were some particular situations which felt suffocating, hopeless, and burdensome through the myopic vision I develop while going through hard things. Couple that with a month full of nonstop events and important Christmas rituals and traditions which require a lot of work on my part, and I was really exhausted by the end of the month. A few days of emotionally and physically resting after Christmas, and a turn for the better in some of the challenges, and January dawned with new light and clarity.

Once I felt my energy return I experienced a severe case of the January de-cluttering and organizing I do every year. I have unburdened myself of hundreds of things in the last few weeks. Books, toys, mementos, clutter, extra kitchen stuff.  I've been giving away things to friends almost every day, selling some things on ebay, and giving the rest to Goodwill. It really feels great. Lighter.

I didn't formally set resolutions this year, and I didn't last year either. But I have been gradually chipping away at improving myself in small ways. I've made progress, and that's what counts. This new year is shining brightly with hope. I can see the many blessings in my life, and I can see the ways the Lord has supported me through the hard times. Whatever comes, I'll meet the challenges of 2016.