It Was One of Those Days

There are a few days in a lifetime that stand out above all other days. Like when you hold your newborn child for the very first time, or when you serve as escort for your daughter's first Temple experience, or when your son comes off the plane after serving the Lord for two years. Those days are head and shoulders above any other day on this earth. Yesterday was one of those days.


I've got a lot to learn about photography, but right up near the top I need to learn to be more ready for candid shots. I thought I was ready for this one, my camera was set to the right settings, I even had my distance setting perfect, I just didn't recognize my own son and had to whip the camera back up to my face to get a shot of him coming through the door. Thus, it is blurry. The only shot I have of him when he left was one I took in front of the MTC and his eyes are closed. I'm a nervous photographer.


Kimbrey posted this picture on her blog, but I'm posting it again because I love it. Those were new shoes when he left. Shoes worn out in the service of our God. But then Brennan has never been one to give up on a pair of shoes. I should post a picture of the ones he left here at home!

It was emotional watching him say good bye to his missionary buddies. And watching him wipe tears away all day yesterday as the realization hit that he was home and his mission was over. He misses it, and that's a good thing. He doesn't get released until tonight, so he's at work this morning in some of Drew's old jeans, an old sweatshirt, coveralls, and his missionary name tag is pinned to those coveralls. Sitting here now, I wish I had taken a picture of that.

Anticipation

Not that I'm counting, but we pick up Brennan in THREE MORE DAYS!! In his last letter he said "I can't believe this is my last week! I don't want to go home! Every time I think about it it just doesn't seem real! It can't have already been two years! It is going to be so weird!" But here at home, we are just a little bit excited.


To distract ourselves, we took a drive out to Anticline Overlook today. I hadn't been there in years and Drew never had, so we made the journey to enjoy the beautiful scenery. What a view! It was cold, so we didn't spend much time there, but we had some good family time and renewed our gratitude to Heavenly Father for placing us in such a beautiful place and blessing us with such a wonderful life here.



Drew took this picture of me. As Dave was watching he said, "What is a Fish Wife? I think you look like a Fish Wife there." Does anyone know what a Fish Wife is, and should I be offended?

What ????

I thought I would share some of Michelle's creativity with you. I have to admit, when I saw this picture, I laughed pretty hard. But Kyle's comment when he sent me the photo, "I think this captures everyone's true emotions at a family gathering" . . . I don't think I know what that means. Or maybe I don't WANT to know what that means. So, don't try too hard to read anything into it. Just laugh :)

Over Achiever or Insecure?

During the Christmas holidays Dave spoke in Church. I don't think even my kids who were there picked up the underlying message intended for me in that talk, though he mentioned having to be careful with what he said because he wanted dinner later on. See, for several years I served as the stake young women's president and, by default, Dave got to help me with events on many occasions. One that he will never let me forget was building the ark. We used to have what was called "Girls Day", a day long event that included speakers, workshops, crafts, entertainment, and lunch. There was always a theme for Girls Day and this particular one was "To Build An Ark." The idea was to get the young women thinking about and preparing for their future and we had such workshops as financial planning, working out of your home, motherhood as a career, etc. We needed to decorate the gym where lunch and the program would be, and I thought it would be cool to have an ark as part of the decorations. Now I'll admit, we went a little overboard. I'm not sure, but this ark could very well have been the exact dimentions of the original ark that Noah built. It was all out of cardboard, many, many flattened out cardboard boxes duct taped together on the back and ark was painted on the front. The problem was it ended up being so big we couldn't just tape it up to the wall as we intended doing. We had to hang it from the ceiling, which was where Dave came in. By the way, there's Jill laying down in front with her Doc Martin sandals on, which was all she ever wore back then.

It did take a lot of time, but as the girls left to go to their various workshops, they actually boarded the ark. How cool, huh? Now, in my mind the ark was a memory jog for those young women who were there. Years later they might think back and remember that ark, and when they did, it would bring to their minds the things they learned that day.

This was just one of many projects Dave has been roped in to in the course of my service in the church and and several times he has asked me, "Why are we doing this again?" I would say, "Because this is going the extra mile. THIS is what is going to get us into the Celestial kingdom." "OH!" he replied, "THIS is? Well, we'd better keep working then." And work on it we would without another word until Elder Holland's talk Good, Better, Best in General Conference. Since then Dave has subtily brought up the ark on several occasions.

Last Sunday I took these to Relief Society and handed them out as part of my lesson on the parable of the Leaven. When I walked in with 32 loaves of bread, my friend Rhodelle said, "That's it. You are an overachiever and are grounded from teaching." I'm older and wiser than I was back in the ark days, and I know now what drives me. It's my insecurities. If the lesson is terrible and boring, at least everyone gets to go home with a loaf of bread. What I don't know is how to stop. Or the answer to this question, do I need to stop? Is my overdoing it really hurting anybody? Is it helping anyone? Or is this the kind of thing that is "good" and there are "better" and "best" things I could be doing? It's a thought that has been eating at me lately, and I would really like to know.

Coming Home!!!!

Last week I sent this picture to Brennan and told him that this was how I wanted to see him coming off the plane - running his hardest right up to the finish line. And now we know WHEN he will be coming off the plane. Whoo hoo!!

No, we haven't received travel plans from Brennan's mission office yet and I have resisted calling the travel office to see when he will be arriving home because I didn't want to be "soccer mom-ish". It only matters because we have to travel to Salt Lake to pick him up, so at least 4 hours notice would be helpful. I had determined that if we didn't receive something by tomorrow I was calling - soccer mom-ish or not. Every week after I e-mail Bren I sign into HIS e-mail account to make sure MY e-mail got all the way to France. Not that I'm in awe that an e-mail actually makes it all the way across the ocean to another continent. In fact, I am surprised that many times it DOESN'T and I have to resend it. Anyway, there among his unread e-mails for this week were his TRAVEL PLANS. He arrives in Salt Lake at 2:00 in the afternoon on January 28th. Leaving Paris at 10:35 am, he will have flown for 11.5 hours and will arrive 3.5 hours after he left. Now THAT blows my mind. And now, finally, I can get excited - YES!!

Trapped!

I went bird trapping with Dave today. We actually just went for a ride, a nice Sunday drive down to Cortez to look for a trap Dave lost yesterday while trapping, which is a whole story in and of itself, funny Dave! Anyway we saw this Redtail sitting on a post and Dave couldn't resist throwing out his trap to see if he could catch it. For anyone who doesn't know, Dave is apprenticing to be a falconer - someone who is licensed by the State to keep and hunt with raptors. While he's an apprentice he can only keep and train a kestrel or a young (not adult) Redtailed Hawk. This one, it turned out, was an adult, (see the red tail feathers?) so we had to let him go. (Dave was pretty sure it was a male because apparently in the world of birds, men are smaller.)

Now, I have to admit, I don't understand the sport. I understand the rehab part of what he does because those are birds that would die without human help, but these birds hunt just fine on their own, I don't believe they LIKE being held captive, and I just don't get the whole fascination with birds thing, but when I voice that to Dave he just looks at me and say, "Because you get to be part of a raptor's LIFE!" And, to him, that's explanation enough.


This one was a little ticked off at being caught. There was another Redtail close by and I think maybe this pretty bird lost face because he let Dave have it. See the blood running down his hand? Yup, sunk his big old claws right into it. Now THAT has got to be the down side to being part of a raptor's life.

Wish You Well

Among many other good changes in my life this year I've decided to recommend good books I've read as I finish reading them instead of waiting to put together a list that never quite happens. I have hesitated to recommend this treasure of a book in the past because I once recommended it to an friend who is an English major and, probably because I liked the story so well, her review of it caused me to bury my love for this book in order to either protect the book, or my simpleness in reading, I'm not sure which. Just for the record, I love reading and a book has to be pretty bad not to get a good review from me. Wish You Well is a book I have read several times. It is easy to read, the story line catches your interest right from the start, and I get totally lost in the idea of living off the land without money or material things and having a great life despite the lack of what we have come to believe are necessities. I'm not a fan of David Balacci, but this book is totally different from his usual political spy thrillers that I just can't get into. My only qualm with the book is that it goes a little over the top with the whole "preserve the mountain at any cost" idea, but their reasons for preserving are sound, so it works. It doesn't sugar coat rural life in farm/coal country, in fact, it shows it for the hardness that it was, but you come away feeling good in the end and at this time of economic unrest, I was left feeling a spirit of survival that gave me hope that I could survive whatever may come. I recommend it to you.