A Big Comfy Couch

After more than twelve years, I still like my house. Yes, there are several things that I would change if I could, but in general I still love my little haven from the world. One of the house related things that Kevin and I have groused about more often than any other is the fact that the configuration of the doorway at the bottom of the stairs to the basement coupled with a narrower than normal doorway means that we can’t get any decent furniture down there unless it comes in pieces. That makes beds and desks easy to get down there but provides a big challenge in terms of couches. Over the years we have made several attempts and have had no success except for a second-hand love seat, and we have a gouge in the stairwell wall that attests to the wrestle it took to get it down there. We have even talked about remodeling that portion of the basement so we can get some better seating downstairs, but that is far down the list of things that are on our “if we become independently wealthy” list.

A month or so ago, as a result of the latest round of complaints about the lumpy, uncomfortable futon that has been standing in as a couch since we moved in, I googled “couches that fit through small spaces” and happened upon a web-based company that sells couches and sectionals specifically designed to fit into small spaces. Each one comes in multiple pieces that you assemble yourself with basically no skills necessary other than needing to be able to read directions. In about an hour, you can have a fine armchair that UPS delivered in a cardboard box that can fit through any size doorway. The company is enormously business savvy because they have a money back guaranteed 30-day trial of a single unit so you can try it out. Kev and I were both pretty excited about the prospect of being able to get some actual furniture downstairs, so we ordered some fabric samples, selected one we liked, and ordered our trial unit. While it was not as big and plush as some sectionals, it was far better than anything else we have down there so after about a week of test-sitting, we ordered an entire sectional worth of units.

The new sectional arrived in multiple boxes several days ago and we stashed them in Nathan’s room until Kev had time to put them together. We were all anxious to get them assembled though, so the task popped to the top of his list. Now we have some old furniture pieces in the garage awaiting removal from the premises and a nice new sectional in the basement. An unexpected perk to the new furniture is that while we have more usable seating, we also have more usable floor space. It’s a win-win situation.

 

 

Righteous Desires

Nathan’s mission call came today. These crazy kids of the technology age have discovered that if they login to the missionary web portal and their mission email is set up their call is imminent, so we were fairly certain today would be the day. Nathan has been anxiously waiting and was more than ready to know where he has been assigned to serve. When I say anxious, I mean impatient though, not the super stressed out kind of anxious. In these times when temple appointments are rather hard to come by, he has been able to go to the temple every weekend for the past month. He has participated in all the ordinances and his time in the temple has left him with a feeling of calm. He has been calling it “still,” as in “be still and know that I am God.” (D&C 101:16) As soon as the stake president hit “submit” on Nathan’s mission papers, Nathan felt at peace and knew that he was doing exactly what the Lord wanted him to exactly at the right time. And all the time he has spent in the temple has helped him hold onto the stillness. I have been feeling less still, but I’ve had some tender mercies that have been perfectly timed and most gratefully received, so even I have been a lot less crazy the past few days than I would have expected.

One of Nathan’s greatest desires over the past year has been to serve an ASL (American Sign Language) mission. He didn’t care where he was sent, but he really wanted to “speak” ASL. I’ve already written about his accomplishment in earning the seal of biliteracy at the time of his graduation, so you already know that he picked up ASL amazingly fast. As he prepared for his first semester at USU, he took an ASL placement exam through the university so he would know which class to take. He tested into ASL 3 on the college level. On his first day of class, he discovered that he is the only freshman in ASL 3, one of only three men in his class, and the only one who got the jokes his instructor, who is deaf, tossed at them at the end of class. Nathan was laughing his head off and everyone else was looking at him like he was crazy. Immediately following class, he had a rash of requests for his contact info so that he could help people by being in study groups with them. Overall, he made a fantastic first impression on both his professor and his classmates.

As I’ve said before, this skill has come incredibly easily to him. He has gotten to the point where he doesn’t have to translate in his head anymore. He just thinks in ASL. He has always talked with his hands and lately there are times when he’s talking and signing at the same time without realizing it. He has even had dreams that were in ASL. So when I say this has become a living language for him, I’m not exaggerating. I have come to see it as a gift that he has been given. I was talking to my sister Rachael a couple weeks ago and she described it as the gift of tongues. I had not thought of it under that moniker, but when she said it, it felt completely accurate.

A few days ago, Nathan told me that he felt bad about wanting to serve an ASL mission so much. In all my motherly wisdom, I assured him that his desire to use the gift the Lord has given him to serve others is a righteous desire and that he should not feel bad about it. In fact, his great desire to serve is a good thing. As for whether or not the Lord would ask Nathan to use the ASL now or if it would come at some point in the future, we would have to wait and see. The Lord knows what is best for Nathan and “all things shall work together for good to them who stand uprightly.” (D&C 100:15) I have been praying that Nathan would have an opportunity to use his ASL but would never presume to know all and left things in the Lord’s hands. It’s not like I could do otherwise, but I knew that wherever the Lord sent Nathan would be the exact right place and expressing that trust in the Lord was what I needed to do to bring peace to my own heart. And honestly, I was kind of afraid to hope that Nathan would be called to serve in ASL. He wanted it so much that my mama heart was afraid that there would be some disappointment for both of us if his desire was not realized. Disappointment for Nathan about not being able to use this gift he has been given and disappointment for me because it would be so hard to see him deal with yet another disappointment after all those he has weathered in the past three years.

Nathan and four of his five roommates drove down this evening so he could read his call at home with his family. Daniel made a mad dash homeward as soon as marching band was over so he could be here as well. My parents and Kevin’s parents were here as was Nathan’s high school friend Blake. We had numerous friends and family join us via three different live streams. Gotta love technology and the ease we all have with live streaming events. That’s a COVID side effect for sure! Anyway, we had Zoom, Facebook and Instagram running on three different devices so everyone who desired could participate in the event while we were doing what we could to stop the spread of the virus and protect our loved ones. I was actually feeling pretty calm all things considered, which I firmly attribute to the Lord. Some of Nathan’s “still” had crept into my heart and I didn’t even start to feel the least bit anxious until Nathan started reading.

When Nathan read that he was being called to serve in the Texas Fort Worth mission there was dead silence. And then he continued to read that he would be teaching in American Sign Language and the room erupted. Bless his dear roommates for their support of him. They let out a roar of excitement and the rest of us were not far behind. I only cried a little, which is a huge accomplishment for me, and Nathan’s grin lit the entire room. As he traveled back to school later this evening, he told me via text that he felt like he was on top of the world. He just knew that everything was working out just right. I’m so proud of him for the faith and trust he has placed in the Lord. He has been blessed. The Lord has given him the righteous desires of his heart.

My heart is full to bursting with gratitude tonight.

Fully Engaged

As Kevin and I counseled with Nathan regularly as he prepared to start college, we encouraged him to be fully engaged. Many of his high school experiences have left him feeling wary of difficult people and the difficult social situations they can create. He is completely justified in being emotionally guarded, but we have encouraged him to give college, and the people he meets, a fair chance. He has taken our counsel to heart and has jumped in with both feet. He is meeting people right and left, allowing himself to enjoy their company, and is letting them see who he really is without the carefully created persona he felt forced to wear throughout high school. It is so good to see him finding joy in the friends he is making and being willing to get involved in every social situation he can. I think one of the reasons he needed to do a semester of college before his mission was so he could regain his faith in the human race. And I’m being honest here. His high school experiences left him feeling jaded and completely disillusioned. I won’t share all the sordid details, but he had a rough time in high school. The fact that he likes his roommates and has already trusted them in ways he could never trust his cronies in high school feels like an enormous blessing.

 

This is What Joy Looks Like

Daniel’s first year of college was not really a good representation of what college should really be. With everything cancelled or online due to COVID, it was really just two semesters spent in his dorm doing classes via Zoom and YouTube. He was in several bands, but even those were smaller than normal and had limited opportunities to play. But this year things are looking a lot more normal, which means that he finally gets to march again. He loved marching band while he was in high school and received a stipend to participate in marching band at USU, but the marching band was disbanded last year due to the pandemic. Today was the first home football game at USU which means that after a three-year hiatus, Daniel finally got to march. And he’s having the time of his life.

 

Five Ways to Turn Ten

Birthdays have a tendency to be rather long, drawn out affairs over her, but this year Malia’s birthday celebration spanned an even larger portion of the calendar than usual. Ten felt like a really big birthday to her, double digits and all that. Add to that the fact that last year’s birthday celebrations were definitely altered by COVID, and we really wanted to do it right this year. But sometimes life gets in the way and the best laid plans must be altered. That was kind of how Malia’s tenth went.

Celebration #1: After more than a year apart, we were finally able to resume our Sunday dinners at my parents’ house in July. We did switch to a once-a-month format though, so Malia’s chance to celebrate with the extended family was on August 8, two full weeks before her actual day. We made cake in her current favorite theme: How to Train Your Dragon. Lots of people means lots of cake, so we were able to create a fun dragon duo in chocolate and vanilla. We sang, she beamed, grandma gave her money, we had a lovely time.

 

 

Celebration #2: Both Daniel and Nathan moved to Logan on August 21, the day before Malia’s birthday. Daniel needed to register for marching band on August 22 and band camp started on the 23rd, so he had to move in on the earliest day possible. Nathan wanted enough time to get moved in, find his way around campus, and just generally get comfortable in his new digs so he opted to move on the 21st as well. In order for them to be here to celebrate Malia reaching the decade mark, we did our immediate family celebration on Friday, August 20. Malia wanted to recreate the dragon duo cakes, so that’s what we did, just making much smaller cakes than we did for the big gathering. Because that would way been way, way too much cake. Honestly, it was still a lot of cake, but it was tasty. Daniel, Nathan and Matthew pitched in for a big set of another of her current favorites, the Littlest Pet Shop, which she loved.

 

Celebration #3: Besides having two of her brothers move out the day before her birthday, one of the things Malia was sad about was how little celebrating there would be on her actual birthday because it was on a Sunday this year, and an abnormal one at that. Kev and I had some plans, but we couldn’t spoil them all by telling her, so we opted to celebrate a bit more on Saturday. After we got Daniel and Nathan moved, we raced back home so we could take her out to dinner. It’s a rare thing for her to go out to eat with just the two of us, so we let her choose the establishment and took her to a special parents and birthday girl dinner. She has good taste and chose to eat at Tsunami, one of our favorite (and completely nut free) establishments. She ate potstickers and teriyaki steak and was perfectly happy about it. And once we got home, there was leftover birthday cake.

Celebration #4: Sunday, August 22 was Malia’s actual birthday. We had stake conference that day which meant we didn’t have quite enough time for the fun birthday breakfast I had planned, so we had breakfast for lunch instead. I made birthday cake pancakes stacked high on the “You are Special Today” plate, decorated in whipped cream and lit with candles. We had to sing fast before the cream melted, but it was a fun way to celebrate her big day. And the pancakes were really good. I mean, what’s not to love about sprinkles and whipped cream? Kevin and I also had a bunch of balloons we had sneaked in the previous evening and some fudge stripe cookies, one of her favorite store-bought cookies. She got presents from Kev and I (an assortment of sketch pads and some good quality colored pencils) and from Kevin’s parents (two books in the Wings of Fire series that she is currently loving). I had choir practice that evening and had to leave at 4:00 to get there on time (more about that in a later post) which was one of the wrinkles of the day, but Kev made spaghetti, Malia’s favorite food, for dinner and she got to eat off the special birthday plate again. Having a birthday on the weekend means more than one meal on the special plate. It might not have been a perfect birthday, but it turned out pretty good.

 

Celebration #5: Malia’s party with her friends was scheduled for August 28th, but we had a big wrinkle with that one, a wrinkle caused by an exposure to COVID. Malia would still be in quarantine on the date of her party, so we had to postpone the party. Once her test came back negative, we rescheduled, but were smart enough not to plan anything for Labor Day weekend. Today, nearly three weeks after her actual birthday and five weeks after her first celebration of the year, we were finally able to have her birthday party for friends. It was “How to Train Your Dragon” themed, of course, and we had a variety of games and treats to go along with that. There was a sheep tossing game that featured pompoms with sheep heads glued on. I thought the kids would tire of that one quickly, but they played it for nearly forty-five minutes. We pinned the tailfin on Toothless and the girls found that facemasks also work great as blindfolds. Next came a super fun scavenger hunt with some golden dragon eggs filled with party favors at the end. We ate pizza and fruit salad and then decorated cookies, dragons, of course. The only downside of the party was the fact that Malia got a bloody nose just as things were winding down, so she dashed into the house to wait it out. And then she started crying because she was missing her own birthday party which made things even worse. But eventually she clotted and was able to rejoin her guests for a final round of pictures and the farewells.

 

Five weeks and five celebrations later, we have finally finished celebrating Malia’s tenth. In my opinion, that is a celebration worthy of a big birthday. We are all so glad that Malia is a part of our family. She adds a little girly flavor to our mix, but not so much that the boys can’t handle it. She is capable of bantering with the best of them and is developing a bit of quick wit as well. She loves school and does well there. She also loves to draw and is working to develop the ability to draw dragons, an endeavor that is going very well. Seriously, she is heaps and loads ahead of my own stick figure capabilities. She has started taking a sketch pad with her almost all the time and I love that she is working to develop her talent. She loves reading and is currently flying through the “Wings of Fire” series just as quickly as she can get her hands on the books. And one of the things I love the best is that she is counting down to the day when she can go to the temple. With the rules allowing her to go starting in January of the year she turns twelve, she is a mere year and four months from being able to go in and is very much looking forward to being able to do baptisms with all her brothers. I’m looking forward to that as well. It will be a blessed day when all six of us can be in the temple together.

Best Mail Ever

Malia got a letter in the mail a couple of days ago. Matthew got one today. Neither one includes any actual words, but they were the best letters our family has received in ages. You see, the letters to my kids were sent by my 3-year-old nephew Sam (with some help from Rachael, his mom). We gave him an outgrown but not yet colored coloring book a few weeks back and he was super happy about it. I wonder if the letters my kids received were a thank you?

 

And the Verdict is…

Today was the seventh day since Malia’s exposure to COVID which meant today was the day she could test. We scheduled her test for first thing this morning thinking that if it came back negative, she could still make it to school. We were all a bit anxious which is understandable considering the state of the world at this point, so going first thing in the morning was a good thing in terms of stress levels as well. I drove Malia over, she got her nose swabbed, we drove home and thirty minutes later the email with her results arrived. Thankfully, they came back negative! She was absolutely hyped, we were all relieved, and after calling the school to report her results, we hopped in the car. Her results came back to quickly that she was only fifteen minutes late to school. And she was one happy girl. Seriously, I’ve never seen her get ready for school that fast before. If only it didn’t take a weeklong quarantine to get her to move like that.

For the Love of Learning

Although I’ve taken first day of school pictures of my kids during their preschool and elementary school years, I never felt a great need to do so after that. In addition to that, the boys were all way too cool for first day of school pics once they hit middle school. And they left so much earlier than they had in the past that I was usually still asleep. So for a variety of reasons, first day of school pics were not a thing as my kids headed into their teen years. But I love my enthusiastic newest college freshman because he sent me a “first day of college” picture to add to the collection. He is obviously extremely excited. I pulled out his first day of kindergarten picture and discovered that they are actually pretty similar: he’s sporting a windbreaker, a backpack and a giant grin in both. Of course, he’s twice as tall now, but other than that, he’s the same excited kid off to his first day of school. 😉

Nathan moved into his dorm just over a week ago and although he was definitely nervous, he settled in much faster than any of us anticipated. Within a day or two, he already felt like the dorm was home. He likes his roommates and they are all getting along really well so far. They are hanging out together, shopping together, attending social events together, basically taking advantage of the many opportunities that college life is presenting them. Nathan is happy and he feels like he lucked out in the roommate area. All his roommates are active church members. Four are recently returned missionaries and the other is the same age as Nathan and is planning for a mission at the end of his freshman year. They are already becoming the core of their student ward and Nathan jokes about them running the ward which is actually not a far stretch as most of them already have callings. In fact, Nathan has two. He is a Sunday school teacher and a ward organist. Nathan has taken advantage of the piano in the common room of the dorm and has met a variety of people who are drawn by the music and poke their heads in to see who is playing. He has learned that setting up a new living space can be expensive and has made going to the store with his roomies to get things like basic food stuffs and cleaning supplies a social activity. In fact, I think he’s been to the store nearly every day over the past week. He didn’t always need to buy stuff but accompanied the others just for fun. Kev and I counseled Nathan to jump into college life with both feet and thus far, he has done just that.

It is a bit bittersweet to see him adjusting to life away from home so quickly. From here on out, his time spent at home will be as a visitor rather than a long-term resident. But I feel like we have been incredibly blessed that his transition to college has been so smooth and that he is surrounded by people that he is learning to trust. Going to classes almost feels like an afterthought to his successful endeavor to move out and live on his own. But as is clear from his first day of college pic, he is overwhelmingly excited about that as well.