Full of light

I snapped this photo last Saturday just before Neil and I went out to dinner. I love it because it captures just how I feel these days: happy. Content. Full of light and invigorated by life.

It feels a little silly to blog when I have nothing to say other than "I am so much happier than I have been in years and years and years," but that's the truth.

Tonight I was at a flower & garden show with a friend. We had such a good time just wandering around looking at things and chatting. At one point we had stopped by a booth that was making customized orthotics, and we were talking about foot issues and she asked if I was training for anything right now, and I said I'd originally been training for a marathon but had to drop down to the half because of plantar fasciitis. We talked a little more about the time commitment involved in marathon training, and as we were talking I realized something--for the first time in years I am not using running as a method of control. I mean, I ran a marathon with a stress fracture, for crying out loud! And I am so happy and so content in my life right now that running is ancillary to my happiness, and I have not been able to say that since 2007.

Literally.

For so many years I felt like so many things in my life were out of my control--that I was suspended in limbo, unable to progress forward. And in the last five months I have felt absolutely drenched in the outpouring of heaven's blessings--literally, I have felt that there is not room enough to receive all that the Lord has given us. I am so incredibly grateful for the amazing friends that surround us here and the way I have just fallen in love with our life here.

I'm going to write that again because I can't emphasize it enough--I am so, so, so grateful for the friends we are making here. I don't think it is possible to feel more welcomed and loved than I have felt.

And my children are thriving. Really and truly thriving. We had a few very rocky months but we're coming through and things are SO good for everyone.

Neil is loving his new job. He feels valued and appreciated & that his work is measurably contributing to the company's success. Such a blessing after the last twelve years of entirely opposite treatment!!! (I really can't write much about that here but most of you probably know what I want to say.)

And I love our home here so much. Every day I just look around and I'm filled with such gratitude that we live here in this beautiful home and that we are able to do projects that make me love it even more (in the last two weeks we installed new double ovens and a Jenn-Air gas commercial-style gas cooktop and ALL THE HEART EYES).

I love our ward here. I love that my children are excited to go to church and that they are learning so much from so many good people. I love love love my calling and the chance to serve with the amazing women in the presidency and our absolutely fantastic group of Primary workers.

I love the library with its heirloom seed library and its child-sized door for storytime and its endless rows of books that make it double the size of any library I've been in before. I love the arts & design district which is always the high point of my runs and I love the trails along the river and the greenway that is full of friendly runners and the roundabouts that drove me nuts at first but now I can't live without them. I love the Christmas lights that are still up on the fountains and pine trees in the center of the roundabouts. I love that my kids can bike to school or to the playground and that there are always kids out playing tennis in the street or biking or starting up a game of baseball. I love the funny weekly paper that always gives me info about what exciting things are going on. I love the parks with their inventive play structures and free maple sugar bush tours (hello that was the best morning ever!!!). I love the schools that give my kids the opportunity to study violin and foreign languages and STEM and ceramics. I love seeing Isaac's excitement when I pick him up from programming club and Abigail's joy after rocketry club. I love that the soccer fields and baseball fields are both within biking distance from our house. I love the ponds and creeks everywhere--it seems like I can always hear the sound of water. I love the proximity to Costco and Trader Joe's and IKEA and Whole Foods and Hobby Lobby--this is the first time in more than a decade that I can be at a Target in five minutes instead of twenty-five! I love our fantastic piano teacher and all our friendly welcoming dog-walking neighbors that my kids always refer to by name & pet as they walk by: "That's Melvin with the sausage dog." "There's Elaine with the frisky black dog." I love the friends who show up at my door with soup when I have the flu and the friends who drive carpool with me and the friends who worry about class changes for next year with me and the friends who lovingly describe pie recipes while we run at 6 am and the friends who stay at my house until 11 pm and tell me we feel like family and the friends who tell my kids they can't just eat tortilla chips for dinner and the friends who drop by to chat & clean my kitchen while they're at it and the friends who invite me for movie nights and the friends who have us over for dinner because they have lots of kids too and don't mind the crazy and the friends who trade playdates with me and text me for spontaneous double date nights and the friends who just text me to see how the day is going and if I want to meet up at a park.

I love it here.

There were so many dark years in West Lafayette where I honestly did not know if I would survive. If our marriage would survive. If my faith would survive. I clung so desperately to the promises I had felt and the peace I had felt when we originally prayed about our choice to attend Purdue for graduate school. I reminded myself over and over of the words of our stake president in blessings that he gave Neil & me during our last years there--that this was where the Lord wanted us; that he was mindful of our family, and that this was all for a wise purpose in him.

And I am so overwhelmed with joy and gratitude to see that purpose now. To know that had Neil not been forced to switch research topics after six years that this job would not have been possible. That had he not been delayed over and over by equipment failures, by funding losses, by research obstacles, that this field would not have been an area of extreme priority for his current employer. That had his funding continued as we had originally planned he would never have been assigned to the research opportunity that introduced him to his employer; that had his funding not completely run out and he literally worked for almost a year for no salary...this job would never have worked out in the way it did. That we would never have experienced the richness of happiness that we are enjoying now.

And I am so grateful for the fact that during all those years I was able to work. When Neil and I were married, my plan was to go to law school, and as I was proceeding with my application and preparation for the LSAT, it was very very very clear to me that law was not the Lord's plan for me, and that I was supposed to pursue a master's in English instead. I was absolutely ENRAGED by this (I vividly remember throwing everything within reach when I got up from that prayer), but my master's program gave me the training and education that has provided for our family so that we never had to take out student loans. We definitely lived on a student budget (and man did I love ordering furniture for our new home over the last few months!) but we always had enough for our needs and some of our wants. Such tremendous blessings and I can so clearly see the hand of the Lord guiding us here over the last fifteen years.

I just really hope that we get to stay put for awhile. ;-)

Last but not least, I have thought of this talk so, so, so, so, so many times over the last years. Neil and I used to listen to it a lot the first few years that we were married--we would go for a drive up in the mountains and turn this on. So frequently I would be praying and just pleading with the Lord to help me make it through another day and I would hear "I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to be."

So I hope this helps someone else the way it has helped me.

"Could I tell you just a quick story out of my own experience in life? Sixty-odd years ago I was on a farm in Canada. I had purchased the farm from another who had been somewhat careless in keeping it up. I went out one morning and found a currant bush that was at least six feet high. I knew that it was going all to wood. There was no sign of blossom or of fruit. I had had some experience in pruning trees before we left Salt Lake to go to Canada, as my father had a fruit farm. So I got my pruning shears and went to work on that currant bush, and I clipped it and cut it and cut it down until there was nothing left but a little clump of stumps.

And as I looked at them, I yielded to an impulse, which I often have, to talk with inanimate things and have them talk to me. It’s a ridiculous habit. It’s one I can’t overcome. As I looked at this little clump of stumps, there seemed to be a tear on each one, and I said, “What’s the matter, currant bush? What are you crying about?”

And I thought I heard that currant bush speak. It seemed to say, “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as large as the fruit tree and the shade tree, and now you have cut me down. And all in the garden will look upon me with contempt and pity. How could you do it? I thought you were the gardener here.”

I thought I heard that from the currant bush. I thought it so much that I answered it.

I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. If I let you go the way you want to go, you will never amount to anything. But someday, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to think back and say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.’”

Ten years passed, and I found myself in Europe. I had made some progress in the First World War in the Canadian army. In fact, I was a field officer, and there was only one man between me and the rank of general, which I had cherished in my heart for years. Then he became a casualty. And the day after, I received a telegram from London from General Turner, who was in charge of all Canadian officers. The telegram said, “Be in my office tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”

I puffed up. I called my special servant. (We called them “batmen” over there.) I said, “Polish my boots and my buttons. Make me look like a general, because I am going up tomorrow to be appointed.”

He did the best he could with what he had to work on, and I went to London. I walked into the office of the general. I saluted him smartly, and he replied to my salute as higher officers usually do to juniors—sort of a “Get out of the way, worm.” Then he said, “Sit down, Brown.”

I was deflated. I sat down. And he said, “Brown, you are entitled to this promotion, but I cannot make it. You have qualified and passed the regulations, you have had the experience, and you are entitled to it in every way, but I cannot make this appointment.”

Just then he went into the other room to answer a phone call, and I did what most every officer and man in the army would do under those circumstances: I looked over on his desk to see what my personal history sheet showed. And I saw written on the bottom of that history sheet in large capital letters: “THIS MAN IS A MORMON.”

Now at that time we were hated heartily in Britain, and I knew why he couldn’t make the appointment. Finally he came back and said, “That’s all, Brown.”

I saluted him, less heartily than before, and went out. On my way back to Shorncliffe, 120 kilometers away, I thought every turn of the wheels that clacked across the rails was saying, “You’re a failure. You must go home and be called a coward by those who do not understand.”

And bitterness rose in my heart until I arrived, finally, in my tent, and I rather vigorously threw my cap on the cot, together with my Sam Browne belt. I clenched my fist, and I shook it at heaven, and I said, “How could you do this to me, God? I’ve done everything that I knew how to do to uphold the standards of the Church. I was making such wonderful growth, and now you’ve cut me down. How could you do it?”

And then I heard a voice. It sounded like my own voice, and the voice said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to be. If I let you go the way you want to go, you will never amount to anything. And someday, when you are ripened in life, you are going to shout back across the time and say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.’”

Those words—which I recognize now as my words to the currant bush and that had become God’s word to me—drove me to my knees, where I prayed for forgiveness for my arrogance and my ambition.

As I was praying there, I heard some Mormon boys in an adjoining tent singing the closing number to an M.I.A. session, which I usually attended with them. And I recognized these words, which all of you have memorized:

It may not be on the mountain height
Or over the stormy sea;
It may not be at the battle’s front
My Lord will have need of me;
But if, by a still, small voice he calls
To paths that I do not know,
I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in thine:
I’ll go where you want me to go.
. . .
So trusting my all to thy tender care,
And knowing thou lovest me,
I’ll do thy will with a heart sincere;
I’ll be what you want me to be.
[“It May Not Be on the Mountain Height,” Hymns,1948, no. 75]

My young friends and brothers and sisters, will you remember that little experience that changed my whole life? Had the Gardener not taken control and done for me what was best for me, or if I had gone the way I wanted to go, I would have returned to Canada as a senior commanding officer of western Canada. I would have raised my family in a barracks. My six daughters would have had little chance to marry in the Church. I myself would probably have gone down and down. I do not know what might have happened, but this I know, and this I say to you and to Him in your presence, looking back over sixty years: “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down.”

--Hugh B Brown, "God Is the Gardener"

Twenty-two

Today's been a tricky day--I still can't shake this cough and I seem to have passed it on to a few more kids. Matthew isn't coughing, but his little voice is so raspy that it's heart-breaking when he cries.

But there are still lots of good things. I need to start writing these down earlier; I think of so many during the day and then I forget them!

1) Today I got to talk with my mom, my sister Ruth, and my sister Mary Beth on the phone. Such a treat! And I got to talk with Elise via text. (Rosalind is in Hong Kong, so our texts seem to connect only at 8 am and 8 pm!)

2) Tonight was one of the nights where we weren't rushing off somewhere (well, Neil was gone, but everyone else was home). We took our time getting ready for bed--reading stories to tucked-in little boys, rubbing backs, brushing and flossing with great diligence. Luke fell asleep right after his story (with his book on his face and his glasses in his hand) but everyone else somehow migrated in to sit on Isaac's bed and reminisce fondly about past road trips (our topic was the worst throw-ups, but hey, memories are memories).

3) For no reason at all I just really relished the process of brushing Nathan's teeth tonight. Maybe it was the realization that these years are so fleeting and there is something so wonderful about a happy little boy who is so enthralled by his own toothpaste and who leaps off the counter into my arms and wraps himself tightly around me and gives me a million kisses with his peppermint-scented breath.

4) Since I knew Neil wouldn't be around this evening, I made one of the kids' favorite dinners--are you ready for it?--fish and roasted beets (and roasted carrots too, and applesauce, but those were incidental). My kids are obsessed with roasted beets, especially when served with fish, because they rub the beets all over the fish so the fish get pinkish patches and then pretend they are bloodthirsty little savages who have just caught the fish and are now eating them raw. Obviously.

5) I have cinnamon roll dough rising on the counter for tomorrow's breakfast and I think there are going to be some pretty happy little people in the morning. ;-) (It's a special occasion--that's not a normal weekday breakfast!!!)

Ordinary days

Every so often I like to write a post that just captures the day-to-day. Tonight I have time so that's what I'm doing. Pictures above are from a few weeks ago when we invited a whole bunch of friends over for our annual ice cream party and then stayed up to catch fireflies when everyone had gone home and we'd finished the cleanup. 

7:40: My alarm goes off and I lie there for a minute wondering at how quickly I've gotten used to not getting up at 4:45 AM to go running. I'm still so tired, mostly because I never sleep well until Neil is home and he worked until 1 AM the night before. And in a month we will be getting Abigail off to the bus by 7:30, which does not feel possible at this moment.

7:50: Neil starts making pancakes--thank heavens this is not one of the days where he leaves at 6 am. I pick up the sheets from our floor and toss them in the washer. Sometimes when I'm pregnant my skin is super sensitive and I end up changing the sheets in the middle of the night because I can only sleep with perfectly clean sheets--last night was one of those nights. Juliet starts practicing piano while Abigail practices the clarinet and I remind everyone to make their beds before they come in for breakfast. Abigail helps Nathan with his and Jules helps Luke.

8:20: Breakfast is over; the kids wash their dishes and Abigail wipes the table and sweeps the floor before she starts practicing piano. Juliet packs up the pool bag, then vacuums the main living areas, while Isaac cleans the kids' bathroom (it's his assigned day to do so).

8:40: We're out the door to swimming lessons! This is the first year that everyone has been simultaneously enrolled and I don't have a baby to entertain during the lessons. It's pretty awesome.

9:30: The boys finish their lesson--Nathan deigned to put his toes in the water today and Luke actually got in (although his hair is still dry) so it's an improvement on yesterday. We wait for the girls to finish their lesson. An older man compliments me on how well-behaved the boys are as we wait--I love it when people say the nice things they're thinking.

9:45: The girls finish and we head home. It's already blazing hot, and I promise the kids that we'll come back later for open swim.

10:00: We're back home and everyone changes out of their swimsuits--we've got the drill pretty much down now and all the towels are tossed in the dryer while the swimsuits are hung out on the back porch to dry. I cut up some apples for a mid-morning snack and settle down with the two little boys and a big pile of picture books. Juliet and Abigail stretch out on the couches to read and Isaac is busy assembling a remote-control car my parents gave him last weekend when we saw them at the beach; it's the kind where you can take it apart over and over again and I think he's put it together at least 15 times in the last three days.

10:40: Done with the picture books; we end with Miss Rumphius, my all-time favorite. The boys run off to play Legos and I spend a few minutes blitzing through the house putting things away, starting more laundry and folding the previous loads, some very overdue dusting, and another round of vacuuming. I call my mom with a quick question and she asks if she can stop by later today on her way back from dropping my youngest sister & family at the airport--they're on their way to Hong Kong for the next year!

11: 25: I remind the kids that if they want to go to the pool, I need to get my run in and ask them to please play together without arguing so that I don't have to keep stopping to sort things out. I really do not love doing all my runs on the treadmill, especially when the kids are awake, but it's just too hot outside to run safely, since I get really dizzy when I overheat during pregnancy--just sitting at the side of the pool this morning was enough to make me nauseated for the next hour. 

12:25: I finish my 6 miles. It felt much harder than the 8 miles I ran yesterday and I wonder for the thousandth time how long I'll be able to keep this up. 

12:50: Lunch is simple today: PBJs, carrots, sugar snap peas, and apples. The kids eat quickly with the allure of the pool, clean up at the speed of lightning, and they're back in swimsuits before I'm out of the shower.

1:20: We arrive at the pool and the kids are overjoyed to find that friends are already there! Nathan and Luke immediately jump in and proceed to swim around like brightly-colored fish--if only they would do this at their lessons! The water feels SO great on my tired legs and I make a mental note of how much the pool time helps with muscle fatigue and recovery.

3:30: Thoroughly waterlogged and sunbaked, we've had a great afternoon--time to rinse off and head home before my mom gets there! I shower all the kids off at the pool so we don't have to worry about it when we get home and they're all dried off again.

3:50: Back at home, post-pool routine again. I head off for a real shower, not just a quick post-run pre-pool rinse, and the kids take care of the wet towels/suits and getting themselves dressed. We're really in a lovely stage right now where everyone is pretty independent and I can generally count on them doing what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to do it.

4:30: My mom arrives and the kids are thrilled to see her! Isaac demonstrates his car's maneuverability and Abigail pulls out her new clarinet.

4:45: We head to campus. Every summer the College of Engineering puts on a pretty great to-do for the grad students and my mom is joining us for it today! There are food trucks, bounce houses, balloons, and face-painting. Isaac wins a cake at the cake walk and is speechless with joy. We wait out a humdinger of a downpour in the face-painting tent (Isaac agrees to have his face painted for the first time ever!).

6:50: Neil volunteers to go through the rain and retrieve my car from the parking garage. Once he arrives, we load the kids in and then kiss him goodbye--he's got a few more hours of work to put in before he's done for the day.

7:10: Back at our house, it's time for my mom to head home too--we won't see her again until we go to Florida, but it was so nice to have an unexpected few hours with her today!

7:30: Everyone is, of course, ravenously hungry, and as Nathan puts it, we eat "second dinner." The swimsuits on the back porch are blown all over the backyard and thoroughly soaked, so after we collect them I start yet another load of laundry.

8:00: Somehow--magically--the children are all in bed at their actual bedtime. Thank you, afternoon at the pool! I wash my face and take out my contacts--removing that barrier to bedtime always makes it easier for me to go to bed at a decent hour.

8:15: I start answering student emails about the research outlines due tonight, then compile and send out midterm grades. Hard to believe we're more than halfway done with the summer term!

8:50: I move on to the rest of my inbox. Messages from my online running forum about our workouts today: interesting and encouraging. Not so fun: reminders that I volunteered to make sandwiches for the homeless shelter and I'm in charge of a water game for Activity Days, neither of which I have the supplies for and I will somehow need to fit in a trip to the grocery store tomorrow (one of my least favorite tasks, especially in summer).

9:26: I finish writing this post. Time to hit submit and then collapse into bed!

I am from you

One of my goals as a mother is to create really wonderful memorable moments with my children, which is why I was so touched when Abigail handed me this poem that she wrote. I tried to photograph it, but it didn't show up very well since it was a booklet with lots of pages, so I'll type it up.

She titled it, "I Am From You."

I am from
Playing with stuffed dragons and doing dot-to-dots
From
Coloring color-by-numbers and biking around

I am from
Watching sunrises in the Smokies and biking while you run
From
Skiing down ski slopes and reading by the Christmas tree

I am from
Making lasagna and collecting unicorn models
From
Camping and roasting marshmallows

I am from
Playing with baby Hermes and riding in the car at night
From
Playing on playgrounds and reading books outside on a blanket

I am from
Playing tag and computer games
From
Swimming and creating things

I am from
Playing King of Tokyo and TransAmerica
From
Playing outside and running around

I am from
Eating blackberries and apples
From
Percy Jackson and Harry Potter

I am from
Eating gingerbread and watching storms
From
Listening to birds and drawing dragons

I am from
My bed on a cold morning and playing car ride bingo
From
Making jewelry and organizing bookshelves

I am from
The days spent in Florida and riding roller coasters at top speed
From
Building Legos on a Saturday morning and baking cookies that afternoon

Love, Aunt Pam

When I first began blogging, one of the things I loved most about it was the connectivity with other women. As time went on and things like Google Reader made it so easy to read without actually accessing the page, I stopped commenting on other blogs and noticed the same decrease in my own comments. It made me so sad--I wondered if anyone was still reading or if I was just saying boring things and maybe I should turn off comments or just stop blogging?

But I always knew I could count on comments from my Aunt Pam. Invariably, a few hours after I would publish a post, I would receive an email with a comment from her. The comments always told me how adorable my children were and what fun memories I was making with them, and would often share a little anecdote about when she had done something similar as a child. And they always ended the same way: "Love, Aunt Pam."

Three years ago, my aunt was diagnosed with a very aggressive type of cancer. For those three years, as she underwent nearly constant chemo and radiation treatments, she continued to write to me and tell me how much she loved me. As she grew more ill, her comments became shorter and often would say simply, "Wonderful post. Love, Aunt Pam." Eventually we just began emailing. And some time after that, she became too weak to return my emails and went into hospice care.

Last week I was thinking about her. I put up a post with a few pictures and emailed her the link, but I never heard back from her.

Yesterday, my mom called to tell me that my aunt had died in her sleep. I was so grateful that she was released from intolerable pain as her body shut down, but I was heartbroken at the same time. My aunt has always lived far away from me, and I haven't seen her in person since Abigail was a baby, but she has been such an amazing example to me of how to truly reach out and love someone from afar. She has been a large presence in both my childhood and adulthood, and has quietly reached out to support me in some times when I felt completely alone and isolated from anyone else, and did so on such a constant, continual, and quiet basis that it always felt completely natural and utterly loving. I spent a long time this morning reading through all of her emails (and there were so many!).

I am so grateful for her loving support in my life, and while I am so, so, so grateful that she is free from pain and illness, I will miss her so much.

Skiing in Aspen

Bucket list? Check!!

 We celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary this past week, but our real celebration was a few weeks earlier in December when we had the most magical weekend ever skiing in Aspen, and in perfect and total honesty I must say that it was the best skiing I've ever done in my life. Sorry, Utah, but it was much better.

Folks, if you ever get the chance to go to Aspen, jump on it. It is one of the most beautiful, hospitable, and downright enjoyable places I have ever been. Totally lives up to the hype. Aspen itself began as a silver mining town (you can see the boarded-up mines on the mountains around town and ski right by some of them; there's one that's pretty easily recognizable at the top of Little Nell just after you come around Kleenex Corner) but really hit its stride after WWII, when the survivors of the 10th Mountain Division, who had trained in Colorado before going overseas to fight in the mountains of Italy, returned to Aspen and founded a ski school. Today if you go to ski Aspen you're actually going to four different resorts--what people think of as the original Aspen mountain, which rises up right over the town, is called Ajax by the locals. Three other resorts (Aspen Highlands, Buttermilk, and Snowmass) are within 10 minutes; all four are owned by Aspen Snowmass so a lift ticket is good at any one of the resorts. Buses run between all four so you could ski Ajax in the morning, hit Highlands around lunch, and finish out the day at Snowmass.

image 

We chose to ski Snowmass the first day just to get a feel for the snow conditions and terrain (it's known as kind of an intermediate mountain; it is HUGE and easily has more interesting and varied intermediate terrain than anywhere I have ever skied), Ajax the second day, and Highlands the third day. Highlands is reputed to be the "locals' mountain," and I can definitely see why--its trails are much more confusing and less well-marked than the others, and it has a huge variety of really extreme terrain. Ajax was my personal favorite; there isn't a single beginner run on the entire mountain which means it's just got an incredible variety of intermediate and expert terrain. I liked it a lot more than Highlands because I found it easier to navigate, I liked the terrain better (Highlands had a lot of rollers and I'm not a fan of those; I'm still at the stage where it freaks me out when I'm flying through the air wondering if I'll fall when my skis make contact with the snow again), I really loved the gondola (I took off my boots to rub my calves every time I rode it since my muscles were getting all knotted), and I just loved the feel of the mountain and its staff.

So anyway.

We flew into Denver late Wednesday night and drove to Aspen; we arrived about 1:30 AM local, which felt like 3:30 to us! It was a great drive though--we were singing our hearts out to John Denver and Les Mis, plus we were headed to Aspen, and we were still completely giddy about that fact (we had hired babysitters so no kiddos were with us). We'd decided to stay in this little hotel/hostel combo (it has both options available) called the St. Moritz and I LOVED it! I chatted with some of the most interesting people there during breakfast and après-ski in the lobby. It was just at the base of the mountain and only a few minutes' walk to the restaurant district or the gondola.


We got up early the next day and skied Snowmass all day (exciting start to the day when I fell right on my head during the first run; it hurt SO bad and I am soooo glad I was wearing a helmet; it was easily the worst crash I'd ever had. I find that I crash much more easily on groomed runs early in the day; I always seem to catch an edge on the corduroy if I'm not really paying attention. Anyway, I hit my head and literally flew about 30 feet before I stopped skidding and was sooo dizzy tromping back uphill to retrieve my skis, both of which had come off during the crash (it was a total doozy!). I felt pretty lousy most of the day and at one point sent Neil off without me while I sat in a Starbucks at the base for 20 minutes and just drank all the water I could hold--the crash + 12.000 feet of elevation gain was not feeling so good).



After we ate lunch I felt way better and enjoyed some really awesome skiing off the Elk Camp lifts; the photo above is the view from the top {image credit}. Snowmass is famous for its wide-open runs and I LOVED how uncrowded it was! You can literally cruise back and forth all over the mountain; it's incredibly exhilarating and much more confidence-boosting than some of the really narrow slots I've skied in Utah.



Once we returned to our hotel and showered, we walked a few blocks to to Cache Cache for dinner that night, which is kind of the place to eat in Aspen. It was definitely one of the best meals I've ever had (Aspen prices are completely astronomical, but almost every place in town has a bar menu, which means you can eat more affordably. Not cheaply by any means, but more affordably). We had the smoked salmon tartare which was soooo good--really velvety salmon, great caviar, luscious avocado, and house-made potato chips--and some perfectly cooked steaks with mouth-watering roasted vegetables. Definitely the best food and best service that we saw in Aspen. The town is famous for its amazing après-ski scene and it did not disappoint!

One note in contrast with our last ski trip in upper Michigan--Aspen pretty much expects skis everywhere. All of the buses have ski racks, the hotel had ski storage running along all of the interior hallways, people were just walking around town in ski boots, etc. Definitely a skiers' town (and lots of snowboarders too, although I did kind of chuckle because it was always skiers first thing early in the morning and then the snowboarders would trickle in later. When we were lining up to catch the first lift at Highlands on opening day, it was pretty much solid skiers with nary a snowboard in sight). 

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The next day we skied Ajax; this was my absolute favorite both for skiing and for the general atmosphere. All of the mountains have "mountain ambassadors," which are locals whose job is to just make sure everyone knows where they're going and where the best skiing is for their level, and the previous day at Snowmass we'd talked to some really great ambassadors who pointed out some awesome runs. At Ajax, however, I was talking to a guy at the base for quite awhile while I waited for Neil to come back (there is literally zero parking  at the base so he'd dropped me off with all the skis and boots, then gone back to park at our hotel). We ran into him a few times on the mountain and the third time or so he said, okay, come on, we're going to ski down together and I'm going to show you all my favorite spots and tell you my favorite stories. That was by far my favorite run of the day and I LOVED skiing with him! He was so fascinating and gave me some good tips to improve my form (he sent Neil off on some crazy extreme route that Neil loved while he took me down an intermediate run that met up with Neil's path) and told me a few times that I was a much more talented skier than I'd told him I was, so I definitely liked him. :-) On the way back up in the gondola he told us lots of interesting bits, both about Aspen's history and about his (he came out in 1971 and has been there ever since).

One interesting note about skiing Aspen vs. other resorts--it is MUCH MUCH MUCH steeper than anything I've ever skied in Utah. Neil (who grew up skiing in Utah and skied a ton thanks to his dad's job as the local recreation director) noted that the intermediate runs at Aspen Snowmass are equivalent to black diamond runs anywhere else. I definitely found this to be the case; in Utah I can ski black and the occasional double black, but I didn't even try a single one of the black runs in Aspen. A lot of them were marked with their degree of incline if that gives you an idea of how intense they are! The runs are also super crazy incredibly long--it felt like 2-3 times as long as a Utah run. I read somewhere that the average time it takes to get down is about 15 minutes, which is a really long time when your quads are pretty sure that they are not meant for that kind of abuse! (The longest run at all four mountains is five miles. FIVE MILES. The other three average out at 3.5 miles which is still a really, really, really long way...especially when you've already been skiing for six hours that day!) It was pretty typical to see people flying down a slope and then just stopping to stretch out their quads...especially at the end of the day. Ajax seemed much more conducive to top-to-bottom skiing, which I personally really like, than either Snowmass or Highlands. Highlands had some incredibly boring beginner terrain that you had to ski every single time you went to the bottom; Snowmass was slightly better but still kind of blah at the base. Ajax, however, was AWESOME since there is not one single beginner run on the entire mountain, so you can ski from the tippety-top all the way to the bottom of Little Nell and it's still this huge challenging adrenaline rush the entire way. Oh my gosh, typing this makes me want to go back SO bad...it was seriously the most amazing day.

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 Another thing I REALLY loved about all the mountains--tons of hot cider and Clif bars at the top of the lifts. Well played, Aspen Snowmass, well played! As is our habit, we brought our own lunches/granola bars/water, but I loved getting that cider when I was feeling a little chilly! I also loved talking to people on the lifts--it seemed like everyone was either a) super wealthy (one sweet Austrian woman asked me about my favorite places to ski in Europe) or b) a die-hard ski bum (I talked to a really interesting girl at our hotel who goes to a different resort every year and stays for the whole season; I also talked to soooo many older men who have been meeting their friends every year for Highlands' opening day for two or three decades). Everyone was so friendly and eager to share their favorite runs or restaurants or anything that would make our stay more delightful.

After the slopes closed we walked back to our hotel (stopping to buy our traditional anniversary Christmas ornament on the way) and then drove back to pick up our skis (another cool thing--it's the kind of town where you can just leave your stuff and feel confident that it will be there when you get back. I asked one of the mountain hosts about parking and she was like, there's no parking in town, just leave your skis and then pick them up, and when I asked about theft, she looked at me and said, "This is Aspen. You don't have to worry about that."

Anyway, since we had the car, it was time for the second bucket list item! I am hugely obsessed with John Denver, and so we went over to a local park that hosts the John Denver Sanctuary (an incredibly beautiful rock garden where a river has been diverted through the garden, so you're basically walking on boulders in little streamlets all over the place--it is just the most tranquil and peaceful place you can imagine, and there are John Denver quotes engraved on rocks along your way) and John's Song Garden, which has these huge giant boulders framing the pathway, most of which have lyrics engraved on them. My dear husband was kind enough to sing along with me. :-)



After our little John Denver tour (I did suggest half-jokingly BUT ONLY HALF that we track down Starwood) we headed to dinner at Pinons. It was good, but not as good as Cache Cache had been the previous night--my favorite part of dinner was actually the breadbasket because there was this crazy delicious pumpernickel studded with dried fruit and that I MUST replicate (my scallop-stuffed ravioli in lobster marsala sauce was pretty good too, but the pork tenderloin with apricot compote was decent rather than being a standout). We walked back to our hotel and swam in the 104-degree pool which felt AMAZING on all our sore muscles.

The next morning we went to Highlands for opening day. I woke up feeling pretty crummy and not sure if I'd be able to ski, so I don't know if my general dislike of Highlands was because I didn't feel great or because it just wasn't as good as the other mountains. We were some of the very first people on the mountain and it was really fun to ski fresh tracks that were the first of the season! Like I said before, I wasn't as crazy about the terrain at Highlands, particularly since it wasn't very well-marked. It felt much trickier to me than the terrain at Ajax; the slopes were icier and rockier (lots of bare patches and I have nicks in my skis now), and there were  a lot more steep drop-offs while you were skiing this narrow little path. Lots of cat-tracks to get to different runs and I really do not love skiing on those because I'm terrified of the cliffs on each side! I also felt like it was primarily a double-black mountain and man oh man, it was just crazy steep and intimidating.

Case in point--Neil skied this, but I did not.



So the big attraction at Highlands is the bowl, which is like beyond double-black terrain and CRAZY steep--they post all of the angles and I think the steepest is 48 but they average out around 42. Neil went back and forth for most of the morning on whether he wanted to do it and finally decided to give it a go. We asked the locals & lifties and they said to plan on about 30-40 minutes to hike up to the bowl and and 30 minutes to ski back out. Later we found out that the estimation is based on the snow cat running and giving you a ride up the first third (it wasn't running) and being totally acclimated to the elevation  (Neil wasn't). We agreed that I would just stay on a particular lift that had about seven different runs and that he'd meet me there in an hourish.

Three hours later it was 15 minutes before the lifts closed and I had skied that same @$%@$ lift for the last three hours--I'd done every possible descent at least three times and I was starting to get SO worried about Neil and about what I would do when the lifts closed! I also knew it would take me at least 20 minutes to get back to the base, so I finally told the lifties that I was going to do one last run and if they saw a tall guy with a red jacket and black helmet (yeah, like 50% of everyone skiing there) to tell him I'd gone down to the base. I got on the lift and started to cry (I was the only one on the chair) and just then I saw Neil ski under me and man oh man, what a huge relief!! (then I REALLY started to sob!!). So scary for me since I knew he would never ever ever be late if he could control it and I was imagining all kinds of terrifying scenarios. As it turned out, it took him over an hour and a half to hike up because of the altitude; he said that within ten minutes he knew it was going to take him forever and he really wanted to turn around but there was literally no way to do so safely. We were both so exhausted on that last run--I think I fell once and we were stopping like every fifty feet! I remember Neil saying at one point that he knew we had to get back to the base but it didn't seem remotely possible. Man oh man, three days of skiing at 12,000 feet really wears you out!

We did finally make it back to the base, had a lackluster dinner at Jimmy's (right above Cache Cache), and then wandered around town for about an hour and a half. The snow was really starting to come down and the town was so beautiful!! Lots of beautiful and interesting shops and amazing art galleries; we spent probably half an hour examining some really beautiful pieces by Dale Chihuly. Then we saw the Hunger Games movie and then collapsed into bed.

We woke up the next morning to about 8 inches of snow--I was feeling panicky about making it to the airport, since it was snowing steadily (Aspen got 17 inches before the storm stopped!!) and so we left waaaay before we needed to. I was really feeling crummy and fell asleep about 15 minutes into our drive and proceeded to sleep the majority of the way to Denver, at which point I was freezing cold and shaking so much I couldn't sleep anymore. We hung out in the airport for like 2 hours, sat on the tarmac for an hour, flew for a couple of hours, and then fiiiiinally drove the last hour home, where I collapsed into bed and then went to the doctor the next morning to find out that I had influenza A, which was kind of a downer way to end the trip but I am SOOOOO glad it waited so long to hit!

Long story short, it was an absolutely amazing trip--the kind where you constantly feel like you need to pinch yourself because surely this is a dream!! Totally worth every minute of the extra editing hours I put in to pay for it--my only regret is that we couldn't stay for weeks. Skiing is just one of my favorite things in the entire world, and it's especially wonderful because I never learned to ski until after marrying Neil, and he has 100% taught me everything I know. Every so often during this trip I would ask him for another mini-lesson and it was so great to feel myself improving. A nice little testament to his skill was a chat I had with our mountain ambassador friend; as we were skiing down Ajax together he said, "Did you say this was your eighth day skiing, or your eighth ski trip?" and I said, nope, just my eighth day, and he said, "Wow. That's really impressive--you're a very talented skier and your husband is obviously an amazing teacher!" And I said, yep, he absolutely was, and I'm so lucky to have him in my life. And we're both crossing our fingers that we live somewhere near ski slopes once we finally finish grad school, because man oh man, there is nothing that makes me feel so free and alive and near to God as being up in the mountains sailing over the snow.

Previous anniversary ski trips:

Nub's Nob in 2012 (pregnant with Nathan!)
Solitude in 2011 

Thanksgiving in Nauvoo

We are so, so, so blessed to have made amazing friends in graduate school. Most of them have moved far away (sniff!), but we're lucky enough to still have some of our dear friends within driving distance.

Several months ago Neil and I were discussing what we would do for Thanksgiving this year. Every single Thanksgiving since we were engaged has been spent with one or the other of our families, which has been wonderful and a blessing in and of itself, but this year my parents would be in Utah visiting my sisters and his parents would be in New Jersey, where they are serving their second mission, and I knew that our family would be a rather alarming descent for my grandparents! :-)

We'd been talking with some of our friends about trying to get together this fall, and I had this awesome idea that we should do it for Thanksgiving! Amazingly it worked out for all of us, and so I was totally giddy with joy about the idea of spending the long weekend with these great friends. You know how you're really lucky when you click with the mother of someone your child's age, because then playgroups are really fun, and you're REALLY lucky if both you and your spouse get along with a couple, and it's just like the most magical thing ever if both sets of parents get along AND the kids get along? That's what we're talking about here--but with three families!



We decided to rent a big house in Nauvoo, IL, since it was sort of central for all of us. We had six adults and fourteen kids and I loved every minute of it! The house was really big and we had tons of space--it never felt crowded (loud, yes! Crowded, no). There were three floors and lots of stairs for the kids to thunder down and launch airplanes and make gigantic thankful chains. The giant dining table was almost always covered with crafts and I loved, loved, loved how our kids picked up right where they left off--they were the best of buddies before moving away and it was just so wonderful to see them reunited!

One of my favorite things about planning this trip was that Melanie and Andrea are some of the most organized people I know. Andrea created a Google Doc very early on that we all used to coordinate Thanksgiving meal responsibilities, plus meal assignments for the other days, crafts, games, toys, etc. I actually felt like the weakest link! Every time I would get an email from one of the other girls I would just shake my head and think, oh man, I love people who are organized and on top of things! (We probably sent 30 emails in the 24 hours before we all left...I bet our husbands were glad that we'd stopped CCing them at that point!)

All of this super organization beforehand meant that we actually had an incredibly relaxed weekend and Thanksgiving itself was so low-key and enjoyable! I got up early that morning and ran down to the Mississippi River through the snow and spent awhile looking at the waves and thinking about my pioneer forebears who'd lived in Nauvoo before crossing the plains in the first company to reach Salt Lake in 1847 (I'm a direct descendant of Harriet Page Wheeler Decker Young, who was one of the two women in that company; the other is her daughter Clarissa Decker Young (hence my sister's name Rosalind Clarissa). Harriet's second husband was Lorenzo Young and Clarissa was married to Brigham Young. My son Isaac is named for Harriet's song Isaac Perry Decker, who was one of the three boys in that first company). I actually spent a lot of time while we were in Nauvoo reading up on another of my paternal ancestors, James Henry Rollins, who worked at Newel K. Whitney's store in Kirtland and Joseph Smith's Red Brick Store in Nauvoo, and whose sisters Mary Elizabeth (for whom my sister Mary Elizabeth and my daughter Juliet Elizabeth are named) and Caroline Rollins saved the pages that later comprised The Book of Commandments and then were included in the Doctrine and Covenants.  I probably drove my kids crazy spouting family history at them as we passed various landmarks but oh well. :-)

When I got back to our house, some people were finishing up breakfast and some people were finishing up their chocolate turkeys! It was so fun to enjoy other families' Thanksgiving traditions--Melanie's kids handmade everyone a darling little label to go with their turkeys. 

Later that morning Andrea & Tyler introduced us to one of their family traditions--making turkey cookies! The kids loved this (can you tell that we were totally not worried about sugar intake that day?!) and the dads loved it too...



I love this next picture--Emma's face is just too funny! She and Neil started playing this really elaborate game right after I took this picture where she would throw "nothing" to him, he would pretend to catch it, then throw it back at her, and she'd pretend to be totally bowled over by it...three-year-olds are awesome.

 It was seriously such a wonderful morning. I LOVED cooking with my friends (actually we mostly sat around talking that morning because we'd already done almost all of the prep work!) and just enjoying the chance to actually be together rather than texting or calling or emailing!



Can you believe I didn't take one single photo of the food? We had a completely amazing spread with two turkeys and about a bajillion different salads and every standard Thanksgiving side you can think of--and everything was DELICIOUS because these two gals and their husbands are all amazing cooks!!

I think after dinner the kids watched a movie, but I honestly can't remember. :-) This may have been before dinner. :-) It's all a happy blur. I know there was lots of late-night talking and board games for the adults!!

 On Friday we were pretty low-key. The girls went to the temple together in the morning and the guys went to the temple together in the evening. This was one of my very favorite parts--we sat together in the Celestial Room for about an hour after our session and just had this wonderful heart-to-heart together. It was a really precious time for me and I am so grateful for the opportunity to have had it!

Later that evening we took the kiddos on a walk/snow adventure; they all came back in totally soaked and we made dinner and then thought hmm, we need to occupy them for another hour or so until the daddies are back to help get these 14 kids into pajamas! So when the guys came back we were all in the middle of this very exciting obstacle course that we'd made up on the spot (after a rousing game of animal charades; I think I was a frog at one point) that had elaborate things like, "run across the basement with a pumpkin between your knees." Totally cheesy but the kids LOVED it; we finished up the night with a rhyming-clue scavenger hunt for popcorn and Rolos (thanks to Melanie's quick thinking on writing clues!)

 The next morning I went on another run and then we went to go tour the historic sites in Old Nauvoo. The kids had a blast, as always--we visited the Family Living Center, the blacksmith's shop, the bakery, and the schoolhouse...

 ...and then decided to go on a wagon ride!

 Nathan and Luke both conked out just minutes into the ride (don't worry, that's not blood on Luke's ear, just an earring inked onto him by some marker-wielding older sister).

 And then after our wagon ride we headed up to the temple to take a few more photos and say our farewells!

I love these two girls, and I LOVE how long they have been friends. My secret hope is that someday they'll be college roomies! I was thinking a lot during this trip about how grateful I am to have friends in my life--even if I don't see them as much as I'd like--who have been around for so long. For instance, Andrea is the one who first got me into a regular workout pattern; we started going to the gym together at 5:45 when we first moved here in 2006! She taught me how to make jam and we've had many a chat about parenting techniques or good bread recipes or the like. I've known Melanie since our BYU days; it was such a fun surprise when they ended up going to the same university for grad school, and she and I have spent many an hour commiserating over grad school life, whether it was while scrubbing her kitchen floor or my 'fridge or sitting at Applebees until the wee hours!

So when I look at my kiddos and these friends I hope they have the same kind of memories. :-)

I love these heroic dads!

And to take us out, two more shots of Abigail and Elise, who literally locked their arms around each other until the moment they finally said goodbye and sadly got into their separate cars. Sweet girls!

Mother's Day: Family ties

My first little baby, Abigail Grace, was born at the end of my first year of graduate school. I was so busy working on my thesis, teaching, and taking my own classes that I didn't even think about doing any research or reading on motherhood. It just seemed like something that would come naturally--right?




































After nine years as a mother, I have learned so much about how to mother effectively, but I've also learned that some things make me feel like I've had a good mothering day and some things make me feel like I've completely wasted my day. I've learned that I have to consciously plan and research and prioritize my choices as a mother, just as I did as a graduate student and just as I do at work.



I've written about this before, but the most transcendent thing for me has been realizing that I need to deliberately create situations that allow us to strengthen our bonds as a family and our love for each other. Somehow I just sort of thought that these kinds of moments would happen on their own, and that contriving them was cheating. And now I realize that sometimes the magic strikes without warning, but more often than not, I have to really work hard to get us out of our normal chaos and busyness and responsibilities so that we can focus on each other--and it is SO imperative to do so!!

For me, the best way to make this happen is to leave our house behind and go outside. I always joke that I feel like an amazing mom when we're out in the woods together, but it's true! Leaving all of our responsibilities behind--the homework, the piano practice, the laundry, the dishes--allows us to just be together and focus on finding the perfect walking stick. We're able to shed our personas and roles and just be together.

Every season I spend some serious time planning our family activities to really try to knit together this group of mine--I usually start a couple of months before the seasons change and sketch out a tentative list and then during Family Home Evening we make a list as a family.

A few weeks ago around Nathan's birthday we started on our spring list--we went camping as a family. We picked the girls up from school and headed south to a state park which we had yet to explore--it was a perfect evening for camping and we had a delightful dinner around the campfire before we started roaming through the woods near our campsite. When we came back, we ate the Dutch oven cherry cobbler that Neil had made for Nathan's birthday. The kids started roasting marshmallows for s'mores (except for Jules, who wasn't feeling well and crawled into her sleeping bag with a book--she was such a trooper and insisted that we still go adventuring when we told her we could reschedule!). We sat around the fire laughing and talking together until about 10 pm, when all the kids insisted on going to sleep. The biggies fell asleep right away and Neil and I sat around the fire for another couple of hours talking about our hopes and dreams.

When we went to bed, Lukey woke up and decided he would be more comfortable inside my sleeping bag with me. The two of us had just reached an agreement regarding who would get the majority of my pillow (Luke!) and fallen asleep again when Natie woke up and made his displeasure clear in no uncertain terms! He was SO loud and so angry!! All of the other kids woke up and were so good-humored about Nathan's wailing (Jules and I went on an expedition to a nearby outhouse and were reassured by all of the snoring we passed on the way that our fellow campers were happily sleeping through Nathan's caterwauling). We ended up passing around a box of fruit snacks, chuckling as Isaac made a "disco party" with his flashlight, and Natie finally fell asleep again.

In the morning we had the obligatory hot chocolate, pancakes, sausage, and eggs that make any camping trip that much more delightful. The kids washed the dishes while Neil and I started packing up, and then everybody worked together to roll up sleeping bags and fold up the tent. It warmed my heart to see how cheerful and willing to contribute all of the children were, especially when Abigail bounded over and said, "Dad! How can I help?!"

We set off for one of the most delightful and challenging hikes I have ever been on. Sadly, no photos, since I still haven't replaced my camera (the lens jammed and neither Neil nor I have been able to fix it, even with all of the YouTube tutorials out there!) and I didn't want to bring my iPad on the hike. Turns out this was a good move, since we were hiking up a narrow, rocky streambed that necessitated straddling the stream and moving our feet along the sheer rock walls on each side! It was strenuous and quite difficult but immensely fun and incredibly beautiful. As always, the trickier the footing, the more interesting the hike is to our children--at one point we emerged from the watercourse into a beautiful forest and everyone was instantly bored/hot/too tired to walk until we hit the next bend in the stream and its tumbled rocks, at which point all our little gazelles took off again!


Highlights: we found a 5-foot-long black snake, we crossed a beautiful suspension bridge, we found lots of beautiful shells, and we got to clamber down a series of ladders bypassing a waterfall. Absolutely beautiful and we had an amazing time together as a family.

Yesterday we went on a trip that has been soooo long in the planning since it required a lot of coordination--we took the girls to spend a day at the Kings Island amusement park! The boys had a wonderful time here with a babysitter and we had an amazing time just focusing on our two girls. It was SO great to have time where we were able to do "big kid" things and really zero in on those oldest two of ours. It was the most wonderful day--just enough rain to really keep the crowds down (I think our longest wait was 15 minutes for any ride, which is CRAZY!), breezy and beautiful and cool, and the girls were so happy and cooperative and appreciative. Abigail stopped at one point and said, "Mom and Dad, thank you so much--I know you had to do a lot of planning and that this was really expensive, and I just want to tell you that this is the best day of my life." Can you say heart-warming?

Highlights from the day:

• Juliet's insistence that we go on a specific water ride, and then asking just after we had embarked, "Um, Mommy...what does "drenched" mean?"
• One of the kids' favorite bands came on over the park loudspeakers (Imagine Dragons!) and I started dancing and trying to get the girls to dance with me, and Juliet said, "Mom, it's not that I don't want to dance with you...I just don't want to look like a maniac."
• Abigail is a total roller coaster fiend! She rode more than anyone else (thanks to the Parent Swap program & Jules deciding that she would rather not ride most of the coasters, so Neil & Abigail would ride one, and then Abigail & I would ride it again). Neil and I both started to feel like we were aging out of our roller coaster-enjoying years, but boy, Abigail had the time of her life!
• Juliet found a few rides that she just adored and we did them over and over and over again--7 times for the flying-on-your-stomach one and 6 times for the bumper cars!
• We bought the insanely overpriced blue ice cream just when all of us thought we were so nauseated that we couldn't keep going. It magically cured the nausea and gave us energy for the next eight hours! (Word to the wise: if you get motion sickness, do NOT go on the roller coaster where you lie down on your back and zoom around backwards upside down.)
• Holding hands everywhere. I don't think I took very many steps all day without both of the girls holding my hands. I rarely get to do this with them anymore since my arms are always full of Nathan or Luke, and it was such a treat to have my little girls clinging to my hands while they hopped up and down with excitement.
• Getting a chance to just focus on 100% pure fun & enjoyment of each other's company. I love getting the opportunity to all just be friends together instead of Mom & Dad &  to let the kids see us as people with our own interests and preferences (Abigail really enjoyed categorizing all of us into various groups depending on what kinds of rides we preferred).
  
  I just had the best time being with my girls and my darling husband. They are such fun personalities and I adore them so much. So much fun to talk with and so funny and witty and perceptive and fascinating. And it was so lovely to come back home to my boys, who were all tucked up snoozing in their beds, and wake Isaac up to go to the bathroom and have him sleepily say, "Oh Mommy, you are back! Did you have a wonderful time?" and then wake up the next day to my three little boys ready for cuddles and stories. I am the luckiest.