Museum family fun day

A couple weeks ago we had a magically free Saturday (kind of...we cancelled a bunch of things bc everyone was just kind of worn out and it had been a rough couple of weeks with friend drama and we really needed a family day!). So we headed up to the Museum of Science and Industry and Shedd Aquarium for the day (sidenote: I really love the whole pandemic-induced concept of timed entry. We walked into the MOSI which NEVER in my life has happened EVER; usually it's like an hour wait, and then the hour-long wait for timed entry at Shedd was magically bypassed thanks to the members-only entrance). 

The MOSI is our kids' favorite museum but we haven't been there since I was pregnant with Matthew! So it was really fun to go back and revisit exhibits that they remembered, albeit with a much younger lens. 

And it was really fun as a parent to go to this museum with older kids; it was kind of rough with little little kids because the younger ones would get bored pretty quickly. Matthew was at the perfect entry age. 

We LOVED this mirror maze and Matthew has asked every day when we are going back. It was such a good one and genuinely tricked us a few times!



So many fun things to see and explore. 

So many chicks to love! Thankfully everyone knows that baby chicks grow up into big chickens, and nobody left the exhibit begging for a new batch of chicks. ;-)

Yes, every single one of us checked out how proportional our wingspan is to our height. 

This train city is so elaborate and I love how many little details there are to discover!

We were about a week too early for the Trees of the World, but it was still fun to check out the ones that they'd finished decorating!

Dr. Bailey is always a good guide. ;-) (I kid you not, he frequently picks up a small group and I have had soooooo many people tell me "gosh I learned some really interesting things from just listening to your husband talk to your kids!")

This was a fun new addition to the U-boat exhibit! All of us ended up with sinking our subs, so clearly we have some practicing to do. 

After five or six hours at the MOSI, we headed over to Shedd and stayed there until closing. It was super crowded when we first got there and then really emptied out over the last show, so we hung out watching the belugas for a half-hour or so and it was amazing--they were popping their heads up, the baby beluga was inching itself along through just a couple inches of water and pushing its toys around...so so fun and they were SO noisy and chortling and calling to each other. 

 

Then we walked over across the bridge (it was FREEZING! Classic Windy City!) and then ate some extremely delicious Indian food before walking back to the Museum Campus and admiring all the lights. Such a fun day. 

The Right Side of History

 

Camping tips and tricks

Okay, here we go--the things you need to actually sleep in comfort! I posted earlier about what equipment we use to cook (and some recipes and menu plans!) but today I'm going to do my best to give a quick rundown of the actual tent and sleeping bag part of it.

When we were very first married, we bought a green 4-man Coleman tent. If you are new to camping, know that the "4-man" part means "if you are desperate in a blizzard you can wedge four people inside and be grateful for the body heat." In reality, you can fit 2 people + their gear inside comfortably. (Note: this is car camping, not backpacking, which has a whole different set of rules & gear...Neil is getting super into backpacking so I'm sure there will be posts about that in the future.)

Anyway, we used that green Coleman tent until we graduated from BYU, at which point our graduation gift to ourselves was this puppy: 

...which we used until Neil finished his PhD when we splashed out on this REI beauty:

Okay, here are my most important tips about buying a tent:

1) Look for bathtub construction. This means that the bottom of the tent sort of wraps up the sides a bit so you don't have a seam at ground level where the sides of the tent meet the bottom. This REALLY helps keep rain out. If you look at the pictures, you'll see that the green tent and the orange tent have bathtub construction. The blue tent does not and man, have we regretted that more than once.

2) Get a rain fly that comes down to the ground. Again, this is something we learned over time, so you can see this progression in our tents! If you are ONLY doing desert camping you might be okay with the blue rain fly on our second tent, but I'll tell you this: I have been on zero camping trips where at some point we did not get absolutely pounded by rain, and we just plan for at least one monster storm per day when we are camping in Yellowstone, Glacier, Smokies, Tetons, etc. We have stayed dry camping in Utah but that's basically it. (When Isaac was 11 months old, we went on an 8-night trip through Ohio and New York where we came back to our tent one night to find it literally floating and a duck calmly paddling around the front door.) 

3) Buy bigger than the number of people sleeping in your tent. My rule of thumb is people sleeping there +2.

4) And this is a luxurity not a necessity but MAN will it make a difference--if you can, get a tent that includes a vestibule entrance. This basically gives you a place that is NOT the interior of the tent to do things like put on your shoes/pile gear that you don't need in the tent but you'd like it to be accessible.

So recap: our current tents are a Coleman 4-man (the girls sleep in this) and the REI Kingdom 8-man with footprint and vestibule.

Next: our other main piece of equipment is a shelter to go over & around the picnic table.

  Going back to the torrential downpours every day in the mountains--this thing has saved us SO many times. We have this exact one (purchased in 2015) and it is still going strong with zero signs of wear and tear. We treated it with some waterproofing spray (similar here) before our first use and it's held up to some truly horrendous storms. What you want to look for: big enough to fully cover a picnic table + give you room to walk around and cook, zippered sides that will keep out bugs, tall enough that you can stand up easily (ours is 8'4" at the center and we hang a lantern from the interior peak and use the struts along the sides to dry out towels or clothes), and a sturdy carrying case so you aren't lugging around poles, awnings, and stakes. 

Last but not least, what are you actually going to sleep on?

After looooots of trial and error we have finally settled on air mattresses. As children Neil and I had very different experiences: they slept on 4-inch thick foam pads (bulky but so comfy!) and we slept on super hi-tech featherlight pads that weighed like 2 oz, packed down into nothing, and felt like nothing. ;-) 

Our compromise as adults--at least for car camping--is the air mattresses. For our most recent trip we used 3 queens and one twin.

For sleeping bags--oh gosh we've got a variety there. Neil and I originally purchased these giant square-bottomed sleeping bags because I hated mummy bags so much as a kid! 

Turns out mummy bags are the best. So...back to the mummy bags we went after a few years. Right now Neil and I both have North Face sleeping bags and my best advice is to spend a little extra money to get bags that really fit you--Neil has a men's extra-tall bag (he's 6'5") and I have a women's bag which is cut wider at the hips and narrower at the shoulders than a men's bag. Love them so much!!

Our kids have a range of bags since we've bought different ones at different times, but we've found that our kids need a child-sized bag until they're about 8 and then it's best to switch over to a smaller adult bag. 

And (truly) lastly, some kid-specific tips:

1) Think about what you use at home to make life easier and how you can replicate that camping. For instance, for many many years we always camped with a pack and play--we never put a toddler into a sleeping bag on a pad until that toddler was sleeping in a regular bed at home. We also bought a portable booster chair that went on many many many trips with us (there's a Yellowstone trip where baby Juliet is strapped into it sitting on a car because there was literally nowhere else for her to sit!).
2) Pull-ups on young potty-trained kids in sleeping bags. You will thank me later.
3) Our kids sleep with sound machines at home so we make sure to have at least one device (phone or tablet) charged at night that can play white noise (and we always have it plugged into a backup battery!).
4) When our kids were much younger we got our pediatrician's go-ahead to give them melatonin gummies when camping. Now we don't worry about our regular bedtimes and just try to wear them out during the day so that the second they hit their sleeping bag they're out. (Basically we don't try for bed until it's dark, which man, that was a stretch for me in Glacier when the sun was still bright at 9:30 PM!)

Camping: what to cook!

So I'm just going to give you the rundown of what we ate on our last trip, because that is honestly the easiest way for me to do this. I also recommend Googling camping recipes (Fresh Off the Grid is my favorite site for achievable campfire food that actually tastes good) and thinking about how you can adapt your family's favorite meals at home to the great outdoors. Also, just plan for some hot dogs, because they are somehow delicious when camping even if they're gross at home.

Our basic approach is to have a loose schedule based on what is perishable and plan around that. We also consider whether we are going to be on a super long hike or have an easier day--that factors into what kind of energy & time we will have for cooking. And then we figure out if we need to swing by a grocery store mid-trip or if we are going for a short enough time (4-5 days) that we can just pack everything in.

And here's the most important rule about camping food: NO JUDGEMENTS. Basically you are just trying to get calories into your people so that they don't drop dead of exhaustion. So yes, you might be eating differently than you do at home (which ahem is why we always bring dried prunes with us and everyone eats a handful every day) but a week of less-than-perfect food will not kill anyone. Plus when you get home everyone will be SO excited for salads.

Breakfast ideas:

• Kodiak pancake mix and add milk + eggs. This is a great way to get some protein at the very beginning of the day into our kids.
• Yogurt--our kids love the Noosa yogurts so this is another good protein one for them. 
• Bacon + something else. Usually eggs. All of our kids LOVE bacon so this is another mega hit in the mornings. Sometimes hash browns. 
• Instant oatmeal--we buy both the crummy kind that's full of sugar and the steel-cut kind that's full of dried fruit. People pick and choose and everyone ends up happy.
• Muffins--I will usually bake and freeze muffins or quick breads before we leave and then we will eat them when they thaw. This time we also grabbed some Costco muffins in Montana and they were a perfect (indulgent cake-like) breakfast on the morning when we peeled everyone out of their sleeping bags at 5:30 AM so that we could get a parking spot at the Avalanche Lake trailhead. The chocolate muffins were a surprisingly effective motivator for the kids to get up and going. 
• On the day that we break camp, we usually eat Quaker Oatmeal Squares in the car so that we don't have to deal with dishes. 
• Hot chocolate--always hot chocolate. It was usually in the 40s in the mornings on this trip and dang, hot chocolate has never been so welcome.
  
  And repeat! 

Lunches/snacks: 

• Canned beef stew (Dinty Moore somehow tastes so freaking good when camping--the kids would not stop talking about how heavenly this meal was)
• Quesadillas
• PBJS/PB & honey/deli meat sandwiches with King's Hawaiian rolls
• Chunks of smoked kielbasa, string cheese, wheat thins/Triscuits
• Gratuitous amount of hiking snacks: before we go on hiking trips we hit Costco and get all the things we never buy: variety packs of Oreos/Nutter Butters/Chips Ahoy/Ritz Bits, Sun chips, trail mix, then we throw in a few hundred Nature Valley & Clif bars, a lot of fruit snacks, beef jerky, some of those chocolate pandas, clementines, carrots, string cheese, etc. We let the kids pack their own Camelbaks with their chosen snacks for the day, they eat whenever they are hungry (they're really good at rationing things out--we always track mileage and they are aware of how long we're likely to be out) and often if we are out long enough everyone just manages to eat enough snacks that we don't end up having an official lunch. 
• Apples/bananas/plums/peaches--these don't last long but boy are they good while they do!!

this chili wasn't ready until it was already dark, but gosh it was worth the wait!!

Dinner:

• Chicken tikka masala + couscous + broccoli. We cut and freeze the chicken beforehand, then saute it with onions and peppers, add canned tikka masala simmer sauce, and serve it with couscous (which is our preference because it cooks so quickly). 
• Hot dogs--just don't squish the buns!)
• Sloppy Joes (meat and sauce precooked at home, frozen, and reheated on the propane stove. Again, watch the buns!)
• Chicken & bacon with onions & red potatoes in BBQ sauce--so so good but we did NOT put in the pound of butter (camping food yes but I do have to draw the line somewhere). 
• Boxed rice jambalaya + smoked kielbasa
• Cast iron skillet pizza--oh my heavens this is so good. We tried both pepperoni + cheese & fresh mozzarella + tomato + basil and just...so so good. 
• Tin foil dinners (kielbasa, hash browns, onions, peppers, potatoes, zucchini, and carrots--we made these at home, froze them, and then popped them in the fire the first night we arrived)
• Cornbread-topped chili in Dutch oven 
• Sausage cooked with potatoes, onions, and bell peppers

For dinners, we added in whatever assortment of veggies we had from the cooler. One night we had pan-fried broccoli, sometimes we had baby carrots, peppers, snap peas, and hummus, sometimes we've done frozen beans that we then reheat, etc. We've also done bagged Costco salads that were met with great appreciation. I just about wept tears of joy over my sweet kale salad our first night in Glacier.



Desserts: 

• many many marshmallows and s'mores
• Dutch oven cakes: pineapple upside down cake, Dr. Pepper cherry chocolate cake (everyone's very favorite), peach cobbler, etc.

Drinks:

Sometimes we have juiceboxes or made lemonade, but we usually just stick with water. When we brought the Yeti cooler this year we kept milk in it which made certain people (ahem Luke ahem) VERY happy. Everyone in our family has one Camelbak waterbottle that stays in the car, everyone except Matthew has a hydration pack (that's the 3L one I have; here are smaller 2L and 1.5L versions that the kids carry) and we also have a water purifier that we carry with us when hiking. We didn't end up pumping any water this year (on our super long hike I was just about to start filtering water and then this nice girl at the Sperry Chalet asked me if I wanted some of the Costco water bottles from the pallets they'd just helicoptered in--yes please!), but in other years when we've been in hotter climates we have used it a ton (Smoky Mountains, Rockies, Tetons) and it is WELL worth the investment. Plus it's fun to be able to actually drink from those ice-cold mountain streams! 

the day after we went to Costco! Oh you blessed baguette and Brie...

Camping: how to cook!

We got home last week from a two-week trip through the Mountain West, spending most of our time in Wyoming and Montana. We love camping as a family, and this year I was so glad that it was already in our wheelhouse since COVID made every other vacation that we'd previously scheduled into an impossibility. 

Since I started posting pictures of our trip on Instagram, I have been absolutely flooded with requests for more specifics about how we make this work: camping with six kids for extended(ish) periods of time (this trip was 9 nights). So I'm taking a few minutes to start putting together some posts about this since it is such a good way of (relatively) safely getting out of your house during COVID. 

Some basic principles: 

1) This is not our first camping trip!! We didn't go from zero to a week+ overnight. We both grew up camping all the time as kids and started camping together months into our marriage. All of our kids had been camping multiple times before they were a year old. We also did not acquire all of this equipment immediately--when we first bought camping supplies we had $200 to spend and we used it to buy a tent, propane stove, and 2 sleeping bags. 

2) Camping is a lot of work, so I straight-up refuse to camp for less than two nights. It's just not worth all the preparation and cleanup for a single night. (Now I feel this way about camping for less than a week, tbh.) 

3) One of the reasons why I think camping is a great vacation with kids is that you just have to lower your standards. Going into it, I fully expect that people will be dirty, nobody will get to bed until it's fully dark, and we are going to eat differently than we eat at home (aka: all the marshmallows).
4) We car camp--we don't backpack. We also ALWAYS stay in a campground that has flush toilets and potable water, but we don't worry about showers. (More about that in another post.) So we are not going for the most lightweight options here!

One of the most stressful things about camping is cooking: how do you feed everyone? How do you keep your food fresh? What tools do you need?

I'm going to give a brief rundown of our camping kitchen essentials (you can find lots of lists out there but this is what works for us) and then I'll do another post with the menu that we used on our last trip. We camped for five nights at Yellowstone, then drove to Helena and stayed overnight in a hotel. This allowed us to shower, sleep in real beds, do laundry, and hit Costco before we camped 4 nights in Glacier. I HIGHLY recommend that mid-trip hotel stay...it totally reset us and we were all excited for more camping, plus it meant that we weren't breaking camp, driving 8 hours, and then setting up camp again, which is a long and miserable day. Last year we camped for 8 nights straight in the Rockies and let's just say that everyone was much happier this year with real showers + laundry halfway through instead of a freezing cold solar shower and rewearing the least filthy clothing.

So without further ado, here are my camp kitchen must-haves:

1) Propane stove. This is literally the very first thing we ever bought, way back in 2003 when we were newlyweds. We literally gave it to each other for Valentine's Day! Ours is still going strong almost 18 years later. I love these because it also makes our meals portable--about half the time we will eat dinner at our campsite and half the time we will eat at a picnic site so we can keep exploring after dinner without having to make the drive back to the campground. Here's Neil demonstrating this principle as he cooks up chicken tikka masala on the banks of the Firehole River in Yellowstone--we were camped probably an hour away and eating dinner this way gave us an extra four hours to explore the nearby geysers AFTER all the other tourists had cleared out to get back to their food places! Oh yeah! 

2) Cast iron skillet. Seriously the best--holds heat perfectly, cooks beautifully, easy to clean as long as you have one of these scraper things (no soap!). I like that this version has handle covers, because yowch, you do NOT want to forget how hot that handle gets. (Note: it won't handle things like eggs well so if you're doing eggs, bring a nonstick skillet.)

3) Dutch oven--you will also want metal tongs for moving coals, dutch oven liners so you don't spend all night scrubbing out your dutch oven, and a lid lifter. Plus match-start briquettes. Make sure you get the kind with the flat top so it holds coals without dumping them into your delicious food (ask me how I learned that one).

4) Water jug--even if you're camping somewhere with potable water, you do not want to have to walk to the water source every time you need a cup of water! Get one that's at least 5 gallons with a spout) (we have 2 similar to these and one of these that we use when we have the space for the insulated ones).

5) Cooler--for years we had an inexpensive Coleman cooler (okay maybe we had 3) but we upgraded to a Yeti Tundra (we have the 125 because we have a million kids), and holy cow, LIFE CHANGING. We bought new ice in Helena and that was it. Seriously so blown away by the Yeti--it's expensive, but worth it!

6) Saucepan with a lid or other receptable for boiling water (I always just grab one from the kitchen).

7) Cutting board and knives--I love these color-coded knives so I can designate ones for raw meat, another for veggies, etc.

8) Collapsible sink--some campgrounds will have an area where you can wash dishes; others will have you wash them at your site and collect the gray water. We use the sink either to carry dishes to the washing station OR to wash dishes at our site.

9) Bowl for mixing things--pancake batter, etc.

10) Utensils--spatula, whisk, wooden spoon, can opener

11) Dishes--we have a couple sets of the blue spotted enamelware and they are so nostalgic to me! And a recipe for cast iron skillet pizza is coming your way! 

12) Disposable tablecloth--I buy a whole bunch of these and switch them out every couple of days. Picnic tables are usually pretty trashed and I also like being able to bundle it up at the end of the day and stick it in the car so I know we aren't luring any bears with any dinner splashes.

We have an Action-Packer that we keep all of our camping basics in, always packed, so it's much easier to get ready to camp. I also keep a sponge, dish soap, hand sanitizer, paper towels, matches, a citronella candle, salt, pepper, seasoned salt, and oil in that box.

13) And last but not least: roasting sticks!!!! We highly recommend the extendable telescoping variety.

Act II

my kitchen a few months ago...still mid-renovation but man I love those countertops...and I really have to figure out how to get all that stuff in the corner off the countertops because it drives me crazy to look at it in this photo

I've been thinking a lot in the past year or two about what my life will look like once Matthew starts kindergarten (and Abigail starts her senior year of high school). Still quite awhile away, but Matthew will start a little playgroup preschool next fall and then probably do 2 years of preschool after that (since he has a late September birthday he won't start kindergarten until he's six) and it's on the horizon, my friends.

I don't know that I've ever been very specific here about my educational background, but my undergraduate degree is in English with a minor in business management, and my master's is in English literature. My original plan was to go to law school, but there was very clear heavenly direction that law school was not the best route for our family and that English was (cue a lot of crying and throwing things and praying and eventual very grumpy resignation). And my M.A. has been an absolute godsend--literally!!--over our marriage, since the fifteen years I've taught freshman composition, advanced writing, technical writing, and business writing have allowed us to stay free from student loans and take care of our family's needs. But it is not necessarily a job that I find joy and rejuvenation and excitement in; if there's something I need to do for work it's always something I'm dreading rather than something I can't wait to start.

My personality is such that I need to stay busy, and hence all of the thinking about what I'll do when Matthew is in school full time. Probably a lot of house stuff and managing family life and volunteering in kids' schools and running (so so so much running!!!) but I also loooove spending money and I will have kids in college and so it would be nice if one of the things I'm spending time on was a job that brought me a lot of personal satisfaction and fulfillment, while still allowing me the energy and flexibility that I need as a mother and wife.

What I keep coming back to is that I really really love creating beautiful spaces. As a kid and teenager I would constantly rearrange my furniture and belongings (I vividly remember creating little vignettes with my jewelry every time I took it off--like I had all these old jewelry boxes and scrap pieces of satin and I would carefully swirl necklaces over them and endlessly reposition the chains until they looked just right) and drawing up house plans and reading Architectural Digest. I love reading design blogs and window-shopping and one of the very best experiences of my entire adult life was when we moved last year and suddenly I had a whole house that needed to be furnished and the money to do it. IT WAS AMAZING and I just was so happy all the time hunting for the perfect pillow to bring out the exact shade of blue in the rug, or the perfect pot to complement a particular plant, etc. So this has me thinking about the process to become an interior designer, or a stylist, or whatever...I don't even know all of the options there. I love designing and creating beautiful spaces and that's just something that brings me great joy.

Other things I'm kicking around: more things to do with running (like being a running columnist? Again, how does one get into that because most venues I've looked at don't solicit submissions?) or doing a cooking school thing. I used to really want to be a financial planner (I LOVED my business minor so so so much) but that's not quite as appealing to me these days.

Anyway. Things about which I am thinking.

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"

Settling in

A year ago when my mom and I were working on Thanksgiving dinner, I said, "Maybe next year we'll be in a nice big house in Carmel and we'll have a giant kitchen and a guest room." And she said, "That would be lovely!"



And here we are, a year later, getting ready to host Thanksgiving in our new home. I can't remember the last time when I was this happy--I feel really guilty because the move has been very hard for several of our children, and Neil is working like crazy, but I am so, so, so, so happy.




I love our house--every time I come home it just makes me grin like crazy. I love the huge windows in the family room and the miles and miles of counters in the kitchen (Abigail says that it takes waaay too long to clean the kitchen now!). I love the kids pulling up barstools to do their homework and tell me about their day while I'm making dinner. I love the cozy fireplace in the living room and the light-filled sunroom and the space in the laundry room to unload groceries and wash 8 loads of laundry and dump Nathan's frozen coat in the laundry sink to defrost (he left it outside in the rain). I love the beautiful windows in my bedroom that look out over the gorgeous gold and red trees on the front lawn. I love the funny mirrored linen closet that is the BEST thing in Matthew's world (he loves to hide in there and then close the doors on himself and wait until you call for him before he slides the door open and giggles). I love the glass details in the front door and the way my red berry wreath looks against the wood. I love the stone that covers half of the house and the blue wood siding and the white trim that gives it a very New England feel. I love the cozy warm wood-paneled basement even though it flooded when Neil was in Germany (yikes!!!) and it's currently full of industrial fans and dehumidifiers. I love our huge backyard even though something ate one of our chickens when Neil was gone and I had to clean up the resulting carnage by myself--I was just able to take it in stride which is kind of crazy considering how much I love those chickens (I did cry, but it wasn't a total breakdown!).



I love the gorgeous Arts & Design district downtown--this morning at 6 am I was running through it with a friend and it was all lit up with Christmas lights and it was silent and dark and just the most beautiful thing. I love the bike paths that extend for miles and miles and where I've already logged so many happy hours.



And I love, love, love the people here. Everyone has been so kind and welcoming and just amazing. So many awesome and interesting and friendly people that I can't wait to get to know better, and I'm so grateful for how welcoming they have already been, and the friendships that we are already nurturing. I was called this past week to serve in the Primary presidency and I am absolutely thrilled to be working with 3 other amazing women in this awesome ward that has just reached out and embraced us.




So...long story short, I am crazy giddy happy these days. So in love with my life even though there are still lots of hard things and stressful things, but goodness I feel blessed and lucky and I'm just trying to tame my exuberance down for those members of my family who aren't quite feeling the same. It really has been a rocky transition for several of us and I'm trying to build new family traditions that will help ease the sadness. It's been hard too on the kids to have Neil gone so much, but I think we are settling in to some new routines, and I'm really excited that we will have a few days with him over the holiday weekend before he leaves again!

And now it's time to knock out some more painting before everyone gets home. :-) Soooooo much painting! So many renovations I want to do and so dreamy planning them out (and I have seriously been in HEAVEN decorating this house and ordering furniture. All the pent-up design dreams and home planning I've done over the last fifteen years are coming to fruition with a bang! I have a chesterfield sofa on my porch as I type this.) ;-)