Fashion Statement

Apparently, Malia felt that our Easter decor needed to go punk this year. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a chick with a nose ring before.

I’m Not Sure I’m Ready…

This week the first young men of Daniel’s age group from our ward announced their mission calls. Daniel is working on getting his papers in (although it’s actually a digital process now). The fact that my oldest child is going to be leaving home is suddenly getting very real. I know he has anxieties about what his future holds. As his mother, I have anxieties of my own. I’m not notoriously good at handling change. It tends to stress me out. I’ll lay awake at night and worry about all the “what ifs.” One thing I have learned though, is that the Lord is in the details. While things aren’t always easy and life most definitely doesn’t always work out the way we expect, when I let the Lord guide me, things have a tendency to be easier for me. I have a feeling this is going to be a learning experience for my entire family, not just Daniel. I also have a feeling that we are going to need to rely on the Lord to guide us and help us. I’ve never been a mom to a missionary before and honestly, I have no idea how I’m going to handle it. But I do know that these young men are doing important work. And with the recent changes that allow missionaries to call home, our entire family will be involved in the work. So hold on tight. Here comes change, lots of it.

Tailored to Each Person’s Needs

I know I say this every time, but General Conference was amazing. One of the things that always strikes me is that the things that stick out to us, the messages that impress us the most, are different for each member of my family. I felt that there was a lot of focus on being responsible for our own learning and teaching our families. I felt greatly impressed about the importance of the Come Follow Me program and how if we use it in our home, we will have greater spiritual protection and guidance in our eternal progression. Nathan heard a lot of things about looking for the light and how to face the future with confidence. It is a tender mercy that the words spoken touch each of us in different ways and that the Spirit helps each one of us learn what we need to learn.

As for how the Come Follow Me program is working for us, I think we’ve got a good routine in place. It lets all of us participate in not only our own learning but provides opportunities for us to teach our family members. It allows the kids to learn and grow without overwhelming them. And It grants each of us the chance to receive the guidance of the Spirit so that we can learn the things we are ready to understand. I occasionally get overwhelmed myself, but then I just need to remind myself that I don’t need to learn everything there is to learn every week. As with all things, line upon line. Here a little and there a little. The Spirit will help me learn what I need to know right now and next time I revisit this portion of the scriptures, hopefully I’ll be prepared to learn a little bit more.

Things are Looking Up!

There are pros and cons to attending a brand-new high school. Most of the seniors opted to stay where they are for their final year so being a “pseudo senior” is definitely going to be a perk for Nathan. Support for that fact came today. There weren’t enough seniors to comprise an entire performing group, so Nathan has made it into Madrigals for next year. Woohoo! Let the fun begin!

Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Primary Music

My sister Rachael and I have lunch at our parents’ house once a week. I was the first to arrive today and my mom was the only one home. When I walked in the door, my mom had the stereo turned up high so she could hear the music all over the house. While that was entertaining in and of itself, my favorite part of the experience was the fact that she was blasting primary music. Gotta love that.

I’m a lover of primary music as well. There are so many wonderful songs that are rarely sung now a days and I find myself missing many of the songs I learned as a child. Over the last few months, we have often chosen our opening song for family home evening by opening the primary song book and choosing something that no one (or at least the kiddos) knows. It has been fun. And more often than you might think, the kids reference a primary song as we have our family gospel study. Malia remembered the song “Faith” recently while we were having a mini powwow about what faith is and how we can make it grow. And Daniel recalled “This is My Beloved Son” as we discussed the number of occurrences in the scriptures where someone actually hears the voice of Heavenly Father. (FYI-the answer to that is four, although only three of them are mentioned in the song.)

I’m a bit anxious about the announced revamping of the primary song book because I have such love for so many of songs the current book contains. I’m sure the new book will be wonderful as well, but I’m skeptical about whether or not such oldies and goodies like “Little Purple Pansies” will make the cut. (Another FYI-Matthew called that one “Little Purple Panties” when he was a toddler. It was awesome!) So maybe I’d better download the mp3’s for the current book before it changes so I can rock out to them just like my mom. 😊

Big Disappointment in the Big Apple

As I’ve mentioned before, this school year has been a rolling list of disappointments for Nathan. One of those has been the fact that the choir tour destination was New York and the men’s choir (the only choir option for sophomore men) is not invited to participate. Sophomore women get to go, just not the men. New York has been at the top of Nathan’s bucket list for years so this was a low blow to him.

In January one of the normal hired accompanists became unable to go on tour for health reasons. The choir teacher, recently having discovered Nathan’s stellar piano and sight-reading skills, extended to him the opportunity to go on tour as an accompanist. Nathan was thrilled, of course. At last! Something positive for the school year!

Nathan got home from tour today, and honestly, it was just another huge disappointment for him. The choir teacher was the chaperone for his group and because of his way of handling things, Nathan didn’t get to do or see hardly anything. He went to the Statue of Liberty and didn’t even get to see the statue from the front, just the side. He spent about two seconds on the observation deck at the base and that was it. He didn’t get to go to Ellis Island at all. There was no sightseeing, no Empire State Building, no Metropolitan Museum of Art, no Natural History Museum, no even any shopping for souvenirs. He did get to see one Broadway show but because the chaperone (he swapped chaperone groups for this one) got lost and refused to use google maps to help find their way, he was late for that and didn’t get to buy his show shirt. He didn't even get to eat hardly any local cuisine. His group only wanted to eat at the familiar chain restaurants. (Apparently the New York Chick-fil-a tastes exactly like the Utah Chick-fil-a.) The only exception to that was a dinner at a real Italian restaurant, run buy Italians where the kids were yelled at in Italian...so the real deal.

There were really only a few highlights in his week. First of all, he got to play a Steinway in an amazing cathedral. At the choir competition held in the cathedral, there were awards given to groups and five awards given to individual students-three vocalists and two accompanists. Nathan, the only sophomore man on tour and a last-minute accompanist, received one of those awards! He was completely shocked and so excited. It was a happy moment for me as well because not only am I an enormously proud mom, but it was a high point for his trip and something good to take away from a trip that was overwhelmingly disappointing. Another positive event of his week was getting to walk the Brooklyn Bridge. He really enjoyed that excursion.

After a week in New York, all he came home with were a few posters purchased from a street vendor at the Brooklyn Bridge, one amazing award, a few pencils and pins, and a snow globe. We’re going to let him get online and order his show shirt and any other souvenirs he wants, but it’s just not the same and I know it. And both Kevin and I wish we were rolling in money so we could book a flight right now and take him back to do New York the right way.

Vroom! Vroom!

One of Matthew’s experience gifts this year was a trip to a car show. I’ve invited him to share his comments about this exciting excursion. 😊

“Auto-Rama is a car show that travels around the United States and shows off many peoples cars. One of my experience gifts was to go see Auto-Rama. It was so cool! There were cars that were restored from back in the 1930’s and a brand-new McLaren! There were Camaro’s, Mustang Shelby’s, and plenty of Volkswagen Beetles. It was amazing seeing some of the most historic cars ever made. There were V8’s, V10, so on and so forth. It was so cool!!”

The Food Chain

Matthew and Malia love going to the zoo just as it opens in the morning because that is when they feed the animals. On our last visit, we got to see the lions eat breakfast. The keepers tossed in a big cow leg or something like it and the lions chomped away. Today was another visit and this time breakfast was a bit more gruesome. The leopard’s meal was a bunny, already dead, but a bunny nevertheless. As we watched the leopard rip its head off, Malia said, “Now I know what the inside of the bunny looks like.” Apparently, she’s one tough chick. After that, watching one of the small cats eat a mouse whole was pretty anticlimactic!

The other highlight of our excursion was a photo op with the gorilla. He came right over to the glass and eyeballed the kiddos. They thought it was super cool. As for me, I just watched my way through the remakes of “The Planet of the Apes” and was struck by just how big gorillas are. Because they are big. Way bigger than I am. I a fight, they would definitely win. But the kids were not burdened by such thoughts and just thought it was a fantastic adventure.