A Weekend Visit From the Heart Stealers

This weekend the Cozzens boys, Porter, Bridger and Kyle came to visit, and they brought their Cozzens Mom, Michelle. These guys have had such a busy year finishing college degrees, moving, finding new jobs, they haven't had much spare time in which to visit. We were SO happy they got to come this weekend. Hi Porter :)

Hi Bridger :) Isn't that the cutest smile you ever saw?

Porter played with us in the leaves. He liked getting buried in the big pile we made with our feet.
But he didn't care so much for the leaves falling on his face and the possibility of them poking him in they eye. I tried to get a picture of him with his eyes open. I kept saying, "Open your eyes, Porter!!" But he wasn't taking any chances.

I tried to get a cute picture with them, but Bridger wasn't thrilled. His Dad drug him off the bridge to take a picture. And Bridger LOVES the bridge. He was named after it, you see :) Bridge -er. Get it :) And Porter was still a little leary of those poky leaves and what they might do to his eyes.

Here's the evidence. Bridger on the bridge - er :) And his Dad chasing him off : 0

Hi Porter. You are such a handsome four year old. I knew you would be. From the minute I saw that cute head of red hair I thought, "He's going to steal hearts, that kid." And he has stolen mine. He and Bridger. But Bridger couldn't stop for another picture. So you can check out handsome Cozzens boy number two above. Heart stealers, both.

What I Did On My Grandma Vacation

Between running around after Capri, playing Donkey Kong, making waffles and walking Toby, I did take some pictures last week while I was playing full time Gram (which is Aiden's new nickname for me - and sometimes Chase's, too :) Here are some of the favorite.

Capri texting on Grandpa's phone. She knew just what she was doing, too. What an 18 month old teenager!Aiden putting on his Jedi moves.

Here Aiden is helping me make noodles AND watching 17 Miracles, both at the same time. Talent, I say.I fell head over heels in love with this face. It's a sweetness that just melts your heart. And Jill thought I'd get tired of her little girl drama . . .

Aiden had to dress like an alien for school on Friday. So here I was, back to thinking up and making costumes. He makes a pretty cute alien, although he wouldn't smile because he said he was a mean alien :)

These two have a lot of fun together. Aiden teases Capri unmercifully and Capri loves Aiden's attention in any form, teasing or not. So it works out well for everyone!

A bad picture of a cute moment. Sorry, my white balance was set for outside, but here's another shot of Aiden and Capri playing together. I so loved watching them together!

Here Capri was trying to wear Aiden's shirt. So cute!

What a special little pair who came together in a most unlikely way. I'm so glad God chose to place them in OUR family.

Oh, What A Happy Time That Was . . .

I remember a few years ago . . . well, at least five because it was before Aiden . . . we were on the mountain at a family reunion and Jill and Kenny came up a day late. They had been to Martin's Cove with the youth of their stake for a youth conference. I remember noticing something different about them, they had a distinct spirit kind of floating around them and they talked about that youth conference with such love and reverence. And I remember wishing our stake would do a youth conference at Martin's Cove and that I could go on it. And I remember thinking, "That's like wishing the atoms would all line up perfectly so that if you threw a rock threw a window it wouldn't break." Because my geometry teacher told me once that was possible :) Anyway, the atoms DID line up and this summer we got to go. And the experience was more than I ever dreamed it could be.

Our camp at night.

I was nervous about a few things, one of them being that we were asked not to bring cameras. Now, I love my camera. I love that it preserves images that evokes memories long after the event has passed. And believe it or not, it was a great test of my faith that I obeyed and left my camera behind. But my faith was answered last Wednesday when we had a stake Martin's Cove reunion and the photographers showed us their pictures. They were beyond what I hoped they would be and the best part was that I was IN most of them, something that doesn't happen when I'm taking the pictures :)

So here, without a lot of wordy explanation, are some of the pictures from our trek that I loved the most. Where we camped the first two days. (And an excellent, NOT! picture of my back side)

Dave trying to make sure I didn't forget to eat. Like THAT would ever happen :)

Me walking with my skirt up around my waist - Yikes!! I don't remember walking around with this much of my bloomers showing. So now I'm worried that I walked around like this all the time - what was I thinking? Was it hot? Was I stepping on the front of my skirt going up that hill? Was I trying to be rebellious and pretend I was in pants, not a pioneer skirt? Wow, I don't know . . .

Me applying duct tape to Rebecca's foot. If you read my prior trek post you know my issues with our medical people. So I got really good at this :)

This picture makes me laugh because this is how our boys pulled our handcart for four days. Jake never stopped talking, Dex rapped pioneer songs, Koi was always turned around talking to whomever we passed and they never stopped running :)

Our handcart and flag.

I LOVE this picture so much! It looks like we are all alone trekking through life. On the trek we were NEVER alone, so I don't know how the photographer pulled this off, but I love it.

And this one. This was taken by a different photographer on a different day. Notice we have different clothes on. I wish we were in the same clothes, that it was a close up of our hands at that same moment, but I love it anyway.

Our family crossing the Sweetwater. Dave and I are bringing up the rear :)

Dave and I crossing the Sweetwater. I can't believe people kept asking how I got my hair to stay so perfect all week. True the wind was blowing, but it's a MESS in this picture.

The woman's pull. I was also nervous about the woman's pull because of our lack of girlage - but we did great.
It was a little tough. We pulled uphill for most of a mile. I turned around at one point and saw Colleen, the lady at the back of our handcart, pushing. She smiled at me and mouthed, "I'm your angel." Brings tears to my eyes even now . .

It was so awesome to see the respect the young men showed during the woman's pull. I had never seen such visual respect shown by the priesthood for womanhood. It was very touching and the spirit was very strong.

They told us as Ma's and Pa's to be prepared for the woman's pull, that it would be hard on the young men, that it would be hard for them to have to stand by and watch the girls pull the handcarts without them. And I thought, "No it won't. Maybe those who are married will have a hard time watching their wives, but even Dave won't have a hard time with this. I've worked hard along side him all my life. This isn't going to phase any of them." Boy was I wrong!

They were touched . . .

After the woman's pull. That's me hugging Jake, one of our boys and thanking him for pulling our handcart. Which was code for "thanks for being good and righteous and honoring your priesthood." Then I started looking around for Dave. He had had some problems and wasn't sure he was even going to be able to walk this day. Everyone else had already come up the hill and still no Dave, so I started down the hill to find him. . . and I finally did. There we are hugging, me with my big ol' cold sore :)

And that's it - one of the best experiences of my life. Somehow everyone should have this experience. If it ever comes up, take it!

A Funny Story From My Past and a Parrallel. . .

My friend Marie, who I have walked with for the past 24 years, and I were talking this morning about memory and how she is loosing hers :) She is in the Relief Society presidency in our ward, and she told me a story that reaffirmed the fact that her memory is shot, which in turn reminded me of a story of my own. So I thought I would share it with the world, or really just the family members who read my blog :)

I had not quite been married a year and was expecting Kyle when I was called to serve in the relief society presidency of a brand new 5th Ward in Moab. Since we were coming together as a new ward made up of members from various different wards, our Bishop wanted every member of the ward to be visited by the relief society presidency sometime within the first month. That was a HUGE undertaking, but we were determined to carry it our to the best of our ability. The president and 1st councilor were older ladies, more like your stereotypical relief society presidency, but the secretary and I were both pretty young, so we went two by two, the two older members together, and we two younger members, Cindy Thompson and I, off to visit for the morning with an appointed time for all of us to come back together for lunch at a restaurant in town to regroup.

Now, before you judge, remember that Cindy and I had been knocking on doors and visiting all morning long! I was a new mom, Cindy had three little kids, so we were in that perpetually tired stage of our lives. It was finally time to meet for lunch, so we went at the appointed time, walked up to the door of the a fore chosen restaurant, and Cindy knocked on the door. We stood there chatting for a few minutes, and when no one CAME to the door (because . . . it was a restaurant!!!) she knocked again. And I thought nothing of it. I just stood there and talked to her like it was perfectly normal to walk up to a restaurant door and knock. A few minutes after our second knock, the door of the restaurant opened slightly and a women tentatively stuck her face out and asked, "Yes?" THAT was when we realized we had done a stupid thing. And we couldn't just walk away, never to go to that restaurant again, we had to go IN and wait for the older ladies to show up. Yes, that was me. I did that. And, as I pointed out to Marie this morning, we were young with full memory capacity.

Here we are, me and Kyle. He was an Indian for Halloween. Notice how we didn't plan ahead for months and buy the perfect costume back then, lol. But, back to my story. As I said, we were young and may have done some stupid things now and again, but the one thing we weren't was uncertain. We knew just what we needed to accomplish, and we worked hard at doing it. This is a great article about the REAL villain in the economy. Read it. It will strengthen your certainty in what you believe.

http://ldsmag.com/component/zine/article/8570?ac=1

Crossing the Sweetwater

After experiencing Martin's Cove, and after eating a sparse lunch, which may have been enough for some people, but not for my SIX boys! Who, after they ate all the lunch meat, took our left over tortilla wraps and filled them with scrambled eggs left from breakfast, cheese and carrot sticks left from Monday's lunch, and cookies, for pete's sake :) We trekked over to the Sweetwater River to reenact the Sweetwater Crossing the handcart pioneers had to make in the blizzard with ice crusting the top of the water.

These three boys sang a beautiful song by Jennie Phillips called, "Let Me Carry You" that had everyone crying before we even began. I'm including the words because they are just so GOOD!!

Nine hundred saints You came across the seas and plains
Hunger and cold have taken some away
You’re in despair And you just don’t have the strength
To cross this river standing in your way

You can’t feel your feet
And your hands are frozen through
The Father knows all that you’ve been through
So let me be the Father’s hands today
My shoulders will bear you up with His strength
[Chorus]
Let me carry you
Let me bear the cold
I am here to share your load
Through all you’ve done
You have been true
But this is something you just can’t do
Let me carry you

You’re almost there You will make it to the end
You will go on And you’ll find your strength again
So one by one climb upon my back
And I will give you Everything I have

Let me carry you
Let me bear the cold I am here to share your load
Through all you’ve done You have been true
But this is something you just can’t do
Let me carry you

We’re brothers in this earthly trail of tears
The faith we share
Is stronger than our fears
So let me be the Father’s hands today
My shoulders will bear you up with His strength

Let me carry you
Let me bear the cold
I am here to share your load
Through all you’ve done
You have been true
But this is something you just can’t do
Let me carry you

Then we crossed . . silently . . . that river that was such a huge obstacle to those cold, hungry, weak pioneers. Some were carried, but it was hot and water felt good, so I walked . . . this is my family, Lane, Jake, Koi, and Calen. Dexter and Tyler are pushing, Rebecca is in the cart and Taylor is walking behind with Dave and I behind them all. It was very sacred, very special, and I'm so glad I was a part of it.

My cute boys . . I've had MANY comments since the trek about the wild boys that ALL ended up in my family, and how did THAT happen? I was a little worried as one by one they were dropped into our every changing little group. But I grew to love these guys. They were full of personality and energy and I just gave them all the reins they needed to run with, and only pulled them in if they got too far beyond the boundaries.

Like the hot afternoon when they came out of their tent and they had ALL cut their pants off into shorts. I groaned and then said, "Ok, now you only have one pair of long pants left. Go put then on." And they turned right around and did. Dexter, the boy in the hat looking towards the camera, is in a band. He made up raps all the time we were trekking. My friend, Danny, who was a Pa of another group, pointed to Dexter in this picture and said, "If that kid had been in my group, I'd have KILLED him!" But I loved him. He bore the sweetest testimony at our testimony meeting on Friday night. I guess one of the blessings of filling this calling was patience and love for whomever was in your group. And if this river had been flowing with ice and I'd have been cold, hungry and weak, I know they would have carried me. Way down deep, they're softies : )

Martin's Cove

We were camped next to a stake from Draper who were apparently were eating better than we were because the CATERER they hired had a generator that ran ALL NIGHT LONG keeping their food cold. It was a NOISY generator, and the harder I tried to ignore it the louder it got. Between the obnoxious generator and my cooking insecurity, I didn't sleep all night long. I got up as soon as it got light and opened our cooler to see what was for breakfast. Plenty of eggs, a small baggie of ham and hash browns for about four people. I scrambled all the eggs with the ham and cooked the hash browns and we ate pretty good that morning. I redeemed myself with my boys, who had been asking other groups to adopt them the night before because "our Ma and Pa can't cook!" We took our lunch with us in a cooler, along with two 5 gallon water coolers, one filled with water, the other filled with Gatorade, all loaded in our handcart and off we headed for Martin's Cove.

When we got close, we left our handcarts and walked silently and reverently into the Cove. There are no words to describe the sacredness of that cove, or the images going through my mind of pioneers struggling to put up tents, huddled around fires trying to stay warm, and looking with hope in their eyes for a rescue that was still too far away. Absolutely no words. Days later tears still spring too easily to my eyes. Everyone needs to experience Martin's Cove.

President Hinckley has called it Wyoming's Temple, and it truly is sacred ground. I can't tell you how proud I was of our Youth. The missionaries there said they had never had a more reverent group. Moab Stake Youth are a cut above, and they felt the spirit that beautiful July morning.

Ma's and Pa's and Their Kiddo's

This summer I was called to be a Ma, with Dave as Pa, over a group of youth for our stake youth conference – a handcart trek to Martin’s Cove. We were divided into groups in May, so the work started early. I have to say that by the time we left I had to work pretty hard to convince myself that I still wanted to go, but I know our going was for a purpose because in all actuality, we shouldn’t have been going, but that’s another story for another time. Our “family” changed so many times over the months leading to youth conference that I was pretty nervous by the time the day came. We ended up with two girls, Rebecca Minor and Taylor Johnson (Green River) and six boys, Jake Colyar, Dexter (Dex Wayne) Sheets, Koi Cook, Calen Shumway, Tyler Hickerson (Green River) and Lane Talbot who joined our group the day before we left. I was also nervous about trying to deal with six boys. I do girls better J But I grew to love these boys!! They were so enthusiastic, so much fun to be around, and so cooperative and obedient. The girls, too, but I can do girls, the boys surprised me.

I got up Wednesday morning, July 28^th at 4:00 am, showered hard enough and straightened my hair straight enough to last for four days, and headed to the church at 5:30. We had a short devotional, got in our rented Tahoe; Dave and I, Jake, Koi, Calen, Dex, Rebecca and Shalia Harmison from another family, and we took off. The ride was 9 hours long and I was pretty worried about keeping six teen aged kids entertained for 9 hours in a Chevy Tahoe, but they were pretty self entertaining, so the ride went pretty fast. We arrived at Martin’s Cove at about 3:00 pm, met up with our Green River kids and went to orientation. We sang Come, Come Ye Saints for the opening song, I was playing the piano, so it wasn’t good that I started crying at that moment, but it became a common thing for the rest of the trip. I know there is a special spirit where faithful pioneers have walked, and I know the Lord concentrates His spirit where ever his youth are meeting together, so a double dose of spirit and I was teared up pretty much the whole time.

We got our handcarts and took off – and I mean TOOK OFF – with six boys brimming with pent up energy at the helm. Wynette Hawks, our stake young women’s president, told me when she added Lane to our group that she was concerned these boys were going to give me a run for my money. I was starting to realize how true that was, but in a whole different way than both of us realized. I ran to keep up with them as they ran with our handcart J

We trekked three miles that afternoon arriving atour camp site at about 6:00. It was a big open dirt field with the few fire pits, the wind was blowing from all directions, we were trying to gather our stuff, set up camp, set up tents, deal with blisters (already) and cook dinner all at the same time. The dinner system was, you took a cooler to the food camp, they filled it, you went and got it and left another cooler to be filled for the next meal. Tyler went and got our food cooler and when I looked in it and saw a package of spaghetti noodles and one bottle of spaghetti sauce, my heart dropped. This wasn’t enough food for six boys! I sent Tyler back to the food camp to get another bottle of sauce ( I looked on the bottle and it said “serves five” so thought they must have forgotten one) but he came back empty handed. He said they didn’t have anymore and this should be enough. So I started to boil water to cook the noodles.

The wind was blowing so hard that even on high the flame wouldn’t boil the water. Finally we just threw the noodles in. BIG mistake, because then the noodles wouldn’t cook. They just glommed together as I trying to separate them. I threw a lid on the pot hoping it would hold in the heat better and took Rebecca to the first aid station to have her blister looked at, where I was told by the five first aid people who weren't doing anything at all, to just to go back to camp and put duct tape on it. I was pretty frustrated by then, so I wasn’t having nice thoughts towards ANYONE in the food or first aid camps. I marched back to camp, put duct tape on Rebecca’s blister, went to look at our spaghetti, and OH MY GOSH!! It was a mess. The noodles were stuck together, the water now had the consistency of glue, and it STILL wasn’t boiling. I hurried and tried to drain the glue water off the noodles, but it was so thick it wouldn’t drain. I tried running cold water over it to dilute it enough that it would drain, but that just made the noodles even more sticky. Finally I looked at the pot of gloppy noodles and glue, looked at the tiny little bit of sauce warming on the other burner of our camp stove, dumped them together and called our family to dinner. They had been fighting with tents that wanted to act more like kites than tents, so they were worn out and hungry. The spaghetti didn’t look too bad sitting there in the pan with the sauce on it, so I was hoping it would taste somewhat as good as it looked, but NO. Unaware of what they were getting themselves into, the kids dished up the spaghetti onto their plates and dug in. I watched their faces go from hungry excitement to confusion, to disgust. I took a bite of mine. It was BAD. It tasted like flour and water, which was ironic when you think about it, because the pioneers ate flour and water. The only difference was, we had plenty of it :0 Jake looked up at me and said, “Ma, what is this?” I said, “It’s spaghetti glue, Jake, eat up.” Lane joined in. “I thought we were having spaghetti. What went wrong?!” We had Dave dig a hole and they all buried our dinner in the ground while I hiked to the parking area and got some jerky and a bowl of grapes out of our Tahoe and that’s what we ate for dinner. Jerky and grapes. I also gave them a package of sunflower seeds at our family devotional about faith later that night, so they really didn't go hungry. I, on the other hand, was disappointed and frustrated and, I admit, ready to go home. I crawled into bed ready for a good night’s sleep that, although I didn’t know it at the time, was NOT going to happen . . .