Wisdom Comes with Age (and a brief update)

 Or is that just hindsight? The older I get, the more I realize I need me time. Not the retail kind or a day at the spa, but a consistent time everyday to gather my thoughts and study and be intentional about my faith. I know faith isn't always intentional, it is natural for some people. But I constantly have to remind myself that I am choosing to have faith, to believe that there is a better way to be and exist than what I currently know, and that the process is worth the effort. I began making a list of expressions of faith... it has helped to make it an integral part of my day. To begin with, faith in somethings is easier for me than others... I can wait for understanding of all things (that takes faith, right?). But it simply comes down to having faith in Christ. This I do have and hope it is expressed in the way I live and treat others. This week in my studying, I've broken it down into laws and principles.

• Laws- the word of God, or His revealed word (google: rules that regulate actions lead to consequences)
• Principles- a general truth, serves as a foundation for a system of belief/behavior/chain of reasoning

I think we receive guidance in both areas, the first is more easily understood while acting on principles often manifests itself in degrees and is harder to to remain consistent. For example, the laws of the fast/tithes/miracles have been revealed through the scriptures and our role is to understand and live the laws. As for gospel principles, we are invited to live in a manner that the principles become a guide to all our thoughts and actions, but I understand them to be more variable: faith, repentance, prayer, forgiveness, charity, obedience, mercy, good works, charity... It is harder to say that you are or are not living by the principles of the gospel. (clarification, some of those principles are also commandments, but more variable)

No matter what God we believe in or religion we belong to, every person on this earth has principles. And when we abide by those principles we find self fulfilment or contentment with our progression. I think unity is found when these principles overlap. Sister Eubank, in speaking of unity asked "How can I understand people around me better? How will I create that "union of feeling" when all are so different?" I know the intentional act of building bridges by understanding another's core principles will result in unity.

I need to study this more... 

Want to know what other guiding forces are set in our family life? Braces. We found out Maeser needs braces top and bottom, they get installed on January 4th. Lucky boy. For reals though, what a blessing to have something that will guide his general dental health and have a lifelong impact. Not so different from guiding principles we are intentional about.

In passing, it's worth mentioning the highlight of Moses's week: the automatic car wash. We drove through one yesterday and Moses wanted us to re-enter and go again. And when he retold the experience to Dan it was all sounds effects as he mimicked the wash on his own face. So expressive! (using his hands to swirl about and mimicking the dryers by swiping back and forth across his cheeks.) Now to get the dog washed... too bad there isn't an automatic option there too.

Love, Amy

On the first day of Christmas...

 my true love took the kids night skiing. Thankfully, because I've decided skiing with two tinies is impossible to do solo. (My attempts failed. Twice.)

Also, I really thought I bruised my shins, but Fenton told me I'm just wearing my boots too tight and that you shouldn't fasten them up until you've walked across the parking lot, up the hill and are standing in line at the lift. Genius.

On top of that, our new to skiing progenies are all cray cray. Each is interested in racing without knowing how to stop quickly or turn frequently. Moses crashed so hard this evening that he lost both skis and rolled twice before stopping. Kids are rubberized, right?

Not to make this just about skiing, we are so thankful to be here. Every. Single. Day. I think, "Wow, we never do this!" or "We could never do this at home." or "I'm freezing!" (also a novelty.. we should be acclimatized, but still struggling here).

Mary's last day of school is tomorrow, the remaining school children finish on Friday. So many "plans" have been made for the break. What the children don't know is that we're not big fans of most of their plans. Hoping to persuade them to sleep in, read or ski. Plans that won't make the cut: Harry Potter Movie Marathon, All-Nighters, sleeping in igloos and ice skating. 

We had a lot of fun hanging out with mom and dad this week. They came up to help with a Christmas project and then hosted a Christmas party on Thursday night. Moses unfortunately thought that a visit from Santa meant that it was Christmas Eve and was so confused when we got home. It was so sweet when Santa asked him, "What's on your list this year?" and Moses responded, "I don't have a list." But by the time Santa was ready to leave, Moses understood much better and let him know he would really like to have a car set for Christmas.

I'm looking for a book recommendation for the holidays, please let me know what you've recently read!

Love you,

Amy

Let's Resume

I kind of miss these weekly posts.

We live in a cold place. With snow. We live 5 minutes from a ski resort and we are planning to make the most of it. This winter I've given up running on the treadmill and picked up a pair of skis. For now, I spend my time on the tow rope with Moses, but eventually we'll be on the slopes. The bus stop is in the Sundance parking lot, the bus driver is so cool he lets the kids keep their skis on the back of the bus all day and then most of the mountain kids ski for a couple hours after school everyday just wearing their backpacks. It's perfect, every other day the resort closes at 4:30, I can pick the boys up from the resort and make it home for dinner by 5. (This has successfully been tested once, I hope it's a trend.)

Mary turns 14 today. Mind blowing. How did she (we) get that old?!

She is beautiful, helpful, talented, dedicated, self motivated and kind. The best birthday present came when the Jr. High called yesterday to say she needed to serve a quarantine, due to exposure to covid-19 twelve days ago. She lucked out and gets to stay home from school for 3 days, I'm thankful she didn't have to miss school for two weeks. Our neighbor has had to stay home for three 2-week quarantines this fall... we feel really lucky with this short stint. For her birthday we are skiing, twice. This morning for a couple hours and then this afternoon when the bus drops off Abe and Maeser.

Moses had his first ski lesson too, we are insistent that this is a family effort and that everyone will get time on the mountain. So far so good and we are riding this wave of enthusiasm for a new sport.

Dan is back from Florida, a bit sore, with post-race weight gain (muscles swell as they repair after expenditure) of 7 pounds. Crazy that our bodies know how to process growth and repair instinctively.

Feeling thankful for the current circumstances, for the opportunity to be in the USA and to have so much time with mom and dad and grandma and grandpa.

June in the Summertime

Scout spends the better part of each day bug pet hunting- she has several jars full of caterpillars, spiders and earwigs. Yesterday, she tried to coax a mouse out of the garden bed...

Our deck removal project is stretching into eternity as we hit a delay, getting the HOA approval is an extra step we didn't plan on.  I'm really hoping we wrap the project up in time to use the space this summer.

And cousins... so many cousins this week. We had an average of 11 children in the house until Dan and Mark took the children camping. At which point I headed to mom's house so she could watch Scout and Moses while I tried to hit some deadlines. We visited Grandma Dawn which necessitated her babysitting 7 children while I earnestly hunted down a bathroom for Lydia) and had a moose in the front yard, blew a tire and almost lost the spare wheel, lots of excitement.

Dinner at the Merkley's

Now that we're officially out of quarantine, life has picked up.

Mary was counting the days until she could see Zoe. She was the first in the car to drive up and the first one in the door. I felt thankful for Zoe. (Cousins are the best.) And as usual the food was so good. I love being in Abby's home- they are the perfect hosts and my children were so busy with cousins and pets that I hardly saw them on Sunday. Apparently the Merkely's have a reputation for good food and good company and they have to disinvite family/friends all the time. 

Maeser accidentally hit Julianna's cat with a stick and cried so hard because Sydney got in trouble for it, Maes gave me hope for this world actually, though he was sorrowful, his tears were beautiful as he really felt bad for both the cat and Sydney. Mark spent some time with Maeser reassuring him that everything was ok, I felt thankful for Mark.

After dinner, Abby carefully helped Hannah make some firm decisions about the wedding and handed out assignments for the next few days. She is so organised AND creative. The wedding will be beautiful. I felt so thankful for Abby who was prepared to help even after being sick and so busy with school.

Hannah stopped by this evening just to say hello. Dallin and Fenton were also with her, but she stopped by to ask if she could take the girls hiking tomorrow or help with Julie this weekend. I felt thankful for Hannah. She is beautiful and kind and thoughtful and the older girls love her. This is the second time this week she has popped in to see if someone wanted to walk or hike with her.

Speaking of Dallin and Fenton, the two of them are such peacemakers. With Fenton's abrupt but funny conversation changers to Dallin's humour and helpfulness, they are always appreciated and welcome. After 2 months of quarantine with Dallin, Moses and Scout think his visits are for playing legos and reading books. Dallin has continued to show up for FHE and offered to teach Come Follow Me even here in Sundance. So definitely feeling thankful for Dallin.

I hope it warms up in Utah before Stewart and Bonita get back (see photos of our freezing children). Sleet, a little snow and under 35 degrees is almost painful.

Isolation: Singapore to Provo

As if 2020 didn't need any more highlights- here's our week in moments because we seem to move from one event to another.

Today we finish our quarantine and grandma and grandpa Skousen are coming up for dinner. Mom decided that yesterday was long enough and she came up with Dad to help us strip our deck. After 8 hours of work, it looks beautiful. There are still hours left to go.

It's a cold rainy day today. The children are all happily cold and wishing it was cold enough for snow.

More moments:

Last Saturday morning we watched Space X launch a rocket with American astronauts and began stripping the paint from the deck.

Provo bakery delivered fresh apple fritters to mom and dad's and they drove them up with a few tools from dad's garage. It's supper handy knowing someone with tools and the knowledge to use them.

I finished reading the book Persuasion.

Abe and Mary finished school on Tuesday and we are officially on summer break.

We took the first of many hikes this summer. Despite his complaints, Moses walked the whole way. As we crested hills, "Yay, it's not uphill." Then was completely exasperated as the downhill rolled back into an uphill.

We shared a few excerpts of protests and riots from across the country with the older children- which led to many conversations about ignorance, privilege, and change. We are determined to learn and be better informed.

It's great up here and smells so good. 

 

Quick Decisions

I can't remember much of last week before Tuesday. On Tuesday the airlines cancelled our flights to the USA and by the Wednesday we had them rebooked for Sunday night. The house buzzed with summer preparations, finishing kindergarten, packing, moving Sam and Celeste into our house and general chaos.  The mostly empty flights were a breeze, everyone stretched out and slept a good portion of the long flight.

Now that we're here, Mary and Abe will continue to attend classes in the evenings and late nights until school is officially out on June 5th. We are in a quasi-quarantine situation- avoiding people but able to go outside and play or exercise. It feels so good to be outside! After almost 3 months of staying home and sometimes exercising solo we are all enjoying the mountain. I love walking with Dan and the children. I also love that the children are so tired when they go to bed- bonus, I only need to wait a few minutes for them to be asleep. 

We have a small renovation project in process at the cabin. The decks have been rotting away and I hope the new pavers are in soon. Demolition doesn't take very long. Tearing out the old decks took less than a day, and now its taking days of hard labor to level and grade, pour new footings, lay new ground cover and pavers. There's a bit of an analogy here. 

Funny things overheard:

Maeser, "I don't have any more long sleeve pants."

Moses stargazing at 3am, "The moon stays in Singapore. It doesn't come to our cabin."

And this conversation was on my birthday.

On that morning Moses and Ransom played (illegally) at Julie's. They hadn't seen each other in two months during social distancing and circuit breaker. Julie filmed Ransom as Moses walked up to the door and they were both ecstatic.

"You're back! Did you have fun at Ransom's house?"

"Yes! His familwy learned him stuff."

"Oh, really? What did he learn."

Moses, "Legos... How to pway nice. Can I go back?"

His famiwy learned him stuff. What? I love this! What have I learned from my family in during this period of time? Is my growth as obvious as Ransom's, I doubt it, but I hope it's there nonetheless. What an opportunity this is.

We've settled into our cabin and put things in their places. After not being here for two years, it seems like home and yet seems like a lot of things are misplaced- obviously because we rented it out to strangers. Most of the time, changes are insignificant, but I did notice that guests had carved initials into trees. That made me a little sad. Overall, we have loved loved being here and can't wait to see family.