Because: Friendship

A girl needs friends, you know.
Real friends.
The kind that laugh at your Totally Not Funny jokes,
And cry with your hurting heart.

The kind that can stand with you in comfortable silence as you watch the sea lions on the pier.

Or lie awake with you in the dark of the night to tell you her stories and listen to yours, engaging easily in conversation that finds minutes ticking into hours and more hours until the clock shows a time on its face that you haven't seen in a while.  Those conversations can be life-changing, you know.
Especially if your friend is inspirational.
Or understanding.
Or both.

A girl needs a friend who will get out of the car into the freezing rain with you just to see the ocean.

Or who patiently waits while you stop to capture the beauty of that rain, because she understands deeply enough to know that your desert eyes crave this water.

I miss these ladies with a deep part of my soul.  These are the ladies I met in North Carolina, and many of us built our habits of mothering together.  They were my examples during those crucial, early years when everything about motherhood and running my own family was new and nothing was set.  These are the women who came with suggestions and advice. Strong women who love God and respect people and speak lovingly of their husbands and children even when they admit that times are tough.

Between the countless informal gatherings throughout my nine years in North Carolina, we always met formally, once a month, in what we called Book Club. It was a book club, to be sure... but it was so much more.  It was a night that was so fun and enlightening and therapeutic and deep and rich that we would look forward to it all month, and then stay well after midnight once we were there.

We knew even then that it couldn't last forever... eventually, Time came along and started breaking us apart.  Husbands finished their schooling and relocated all across the country, taking the pieces of our book club with them.

We missed it.  We missed each other and we missed the strength that came when we were together and we couldn't bear the thought of our book club disbanding even though we were scattering across the country.  So, we started a new tradition.

A biennial, destination book club.

Santa Rosa, California was the destination this year. The date was chosen, flights were booked, and dear friends from all around the country began their journeys to a single home.  The green, garden home of Martha.

Five of us (me, along with Melissa, Amy, Cami, and Kim) met in San Francisco a day early and toured the city together.  It was wet.

But we didn't mind. We held our umbrellas and rung our socks at the end of the day.

The five of us booked a small apartment on a steep hill and somehow managed to cram two queen sized blow up mattresses into the cozy living area. They took the entire floor so that there was no path to the bathroom, but pregnant Amy promised that she would try her best not to step on any heads in the middle of the night. We talked and talked and talked that night. The kind that changes you.

The following morning we awoke and got ready for our day while blasting Adele songs from Melissa's phone. It felt like college, but better.  Better because we are better and stronger and wiser than we were then.

It was wet still, but after our morning brunch we walked anyway.  The Golden Gate Bridge still stands in the rain, you know.  Eventually, the four women I was with were ready to travel north up to Santa Rosa, so I stayed behind by myself for an hour to wait for two different friends who were on their own way to Santa Rosa and would soon pass through San Francisco.  I loved the time alone as I often do.

But was thrilled to jump (quickly) into the car when Katie and Cindy arrived (pulled over on the side of a busy road in an area that was obviously not meant for passenger pick up).  We had much catching up to do ourselves, and wasted no time diving into a heart bearing conversation.  The kind that changes you.

We made it to Martha's and spent a delightful day on the rainy, wet beach.

But, as you know, any day on the beach is a great one for me.  Even rainy ones.

And days on rocky beaches?  Even better.

There was one scare when, just after I took the following picture, a wave came barreling in and completely covered the rock I was standing on.  Rocky beaches are beautiful, but they can be a bit scary if you're worried about being carried away into those rocks.  The picture ended up being worth soggy shoes, though.

Part of me wished I had brought my big camera along, but the other part of me was so darn thrilled at the easiness of carrying my camera phone right in my pocket and not worrying about the lenses hitting the jagged rocks, or getting sprayed with ocean water.

Plus, I do love the wide angle my camera phone has. 

I don't have a wide-angle lens, and couldn't really get a shot like this one anyway with my big camera.

I think my favorite scenic part of this vacation was watching the wind spray the water off the crests of the waves.  Apparently that's called spindrift.  

It was a vacation full of beauty.  Beautiful people, beautiful conversations, beautiful scenery, beautiful love.  We spent two nights at Martha's discussing the books we had chosen (Okay, for Now and Boys in the Boat and The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up) and all other things that came to our minds.  And towards the end of the second evening, Melissa pipped up: "I'm not going to bed until someone cries."  We laughed, but it shined a beautiful light into the friendships that we have with each other.  We want to know the good, we want to know the fun and the excitement and the daily events of each others lives... but we also want to know the sad.  The real.  The messy.  We want to know because we care.  "Tell us the last thing you cried about," Melissa continued.

The night did end with some tears.  Some real.

I didn't sleep much for those three days. There was too much to listen to.  Too much to learn, too much to talk about.  Consequently, I came home exhausted. 

But so, so happy.

Until next time Durham Diaspora!

Diaspora: (n) a group of people who live outside the area in which they had lived for a long time.

Scrambled Thoughts XVI

*We have decided that duck poop is not something we'd like to make part of our backyard landscape.

Call us picky, but we seem to be having a problem.  Can you see it?  Let me zoom in a little closer for you:

There.  Now can you see it?  Or, them, I should say?  In the pool?  We have been chasing these ducks out of our pool all spring long (which has been a while since spring here starts early) and they haven't really gotten the hint that they are most unwelcome here. I don't mean to be inhospitable, and generally I do love to entertain guests, but most of my other guests have a rather more advanced skill of keeping their poop out of our pool and surrounding pool decks (and I do mean most.  But we won't get into that story).

I have given the children the green light to do anything they'd like to scare them away once noticed (besides throw rocks - I'm not cruel) and I believe Carson's favorite method involves his Nerf gun.  Our ears have become highly sensitive to the quacking of the ducks, and whenever we hear it we jump to action as if it were a war siren.  Which, softly, I suppose it is.

*The cub scouts Blue and Gold Banquet this year did not go well.  For me.

Because I'm weird.  And those of you who know me well might be able to guess what is coming simply from the picture above.

It all started at a planning meeting a couple of weeks before the event:
Cubmaster Dave: Okay, this is what I'm going to do... I'm going to blow up a hundred blue and gold balloons, set one on each chair, and then right at the start of the meeting I'll tell everyone to take their balloon and sit on it - then I'll say, "I wanted to start off with a bang!"
Me in my head: ... ... ... ... Liiiiiiiiinds, these people don't know you well enough yet for you to display your irrational fear of balloons.  Force a smile here... hurry, it's getting awkward...
Me out loud: Ohhhhh!  That is such a great idea!  That's so funny!  Oh, everyone will just laugh! Ha! Cool! So funny...
Me in my head: Okay, you need to back off, you're sounding forced.
Me in my head: I know! But... balloons!  INTENTIONALLY popping!
Me in my head: Just keep your cool.
Me in my head: Popping against METAL chairs, no less!
Me in my head: You can step out for a second when they pop.
Me in my head: METAL!
Me in my head: Don't worry about it yet.
Me in my head: The AMPLIFICATION of a hundred balloons popping against METAL!
Me in my head: Shhhhhh..... there now....
Me in my head: I don't like this idea at all.
Me in my head: I know...
Me in my head: I'm so weird.
Me in my head: I know.

I was right to panic, by the way.  It was very awful. I did step outside during the 'opening bang' (and I do mean outside) but not every balloon, as you might imagine, was popped during that time... which left lingering, startling pops ringing through the gymnasium at any given second throughout the remainder of the night.  Also, how inadequate is the word pop?  I'm not sure what a good replacement word could be, but surely there is something a little more dramatic than pop.  Anyway, I might have left right after Carson received his awards but for two reasons: I was a little bit in charge, and also had been asked to take pictures during the event. And in order to take pictures, you might imagine, I had to actually be there.

By the time the evening was wrapping up, I had enough adrenaline running through my body that it felt like little needles had replaced my blood.  This caused me to become quite jittery and I jumped at the slightest sound of a footstep or a baby's cough.

Hanging on by a fraying thread, eventually I did just leave.  I looked at Brian (who knew, bless his heart) and we communicated to each other without words through the chaos of the party that I was going to go.  I rushed out to the car and barely shut the door before the tears started falling.  TEARS, you guys!

Stupid balloons.

I'm cool now, though.  Everything's just great.

*Wanna know why else everything is great?  Because we have a house stocked with toilet paper.

If you don't think this is really great, then you probably don't run out of toilet paper much.  Don't get me wrong... we try not to make a habit of it buuuuuuuut, it happens.  And, no, I did not buy all of this toilet paper.  Just one package.  But one package is enough when you didn't have much to begin with.

*Whether shopping for toilet paper or milk, this little guy is fun to be with.

Mostly.  He's also very difficult to reroute and if I let him out of the cart to walk through the store he gets his heart set on Things We Don't Need and it's nearly impossible to talk him out of it.  So he ends up in tears and I end up the bad guy who always says no.  Seriously, why can't he ask for a bright shiny apple or a stalk of celery?  I might say yes to that, ya know.  But Go-Gurts (what he is enraptured by in the picture above) just aren't really my thing.  Sure, they're kid-delicious and quite handy... but the sugar content looks a little like 'dessert' in my book, and the price just isn't something I'm comfortable with.  I'm a total hypocrite though, because I do buy packages of fruit snacks and dish them out as if they were actual fruit. Soooooo....

Anyway.  On a quiet day like the one pictured above, I don't mind the meandering quite so much and I sure do love the sweetness he adds to the minutes of my days.

*Looking out my bedroom window is a favorite.

For Teek and for me.  There really is so much beauty outside that window... beautiful skyscapes, jagged mountains, and happy children at play every spare minute.

The neighborhood kids come over to play in the mornings about 15-30 minutes before they all leave for school.  As I'm cleaning up breakfast or tidying my bedroom I can hear them... anywhere from two to eight children playing ball, riding scooters and bikes, playing make-believe.  It's one of the very best parts of my whole day.  I hate to break up the party, but the clock ticks on and eventually it's time for me to sound the Time to Go or You'll Be Late for School alarm.  Then, in a flash, backpacks and helmets are collected from all around the yard, and I watch them speed down the driveway for school.

After school, my kids have about 30 minutes to do their homework before the doorbell starts ringing again.  I don't even answer the door.  Like, ever.  Because it's always for one of the kids... and they know it and are happy to run through the house to invite whoever is on the doorstep to join in the fun.

*My kids are so happy.  

They have a freedom here - and I see so much fertile ground for the experiences they are having to take root and become memories that they will treasure for a lifetime.

Walking through Spring

The weather has been gorgeous lately.  Springtime in the desert is long and beautiful. The temperatures hover in the 60's and 70's under clear, blue skies.  Or, on a happy day, under dynamic skies painted with clouds in all shapes and sizes.  My children know I love the clouds... why, just days ago Carson came running in from the backyard and said, "Hey mom!?  Wanna come out and see a really beautiful cloud?"  He knew my answer would be yes, and I plopped the raw chicken down and washed my hands just as fast as could be to go and take a look.  I do love those days.

But, cloudy or clear, springtime is just perfect for family walks.

And when I look hard enough, I can see that life is growing just fine.

I do love the way the sunshine peeks through the branches and shines through the baby leaves on a newly sprung tree.

One day as we were walking down the road, we saw a big dirt spiral out near the mountains in the distance.  It was quite remarkable, actually, and rather beautiful, too.

Traveling along that same road, we approached the backside of our back fence and found there to be a small tower of bricks precariously placed so that a child might use them to hop the fence into our backyard.  A small smile crept across my face and I felt happiness in my heart at the thought of the children building such a tower for the purpose of coming in and out.  Occasionally from my windows I'll see a small neighbor's head pop up over that back fence.  That small head is checking to see if there are any children at play back there, you see, and if the answer is yes you can be sure that the precariously placed tower of bricks will be used to hoist another body up and over.

I thought about re-stacking the bricks... or even buying a little stepping stool with which to replace them.  But in the end, I feel like the precarious tower of bricks is too much a part of the beauty.  Beauty in the thought through solution of a child's problem.  A beauty, in general, of childhood.

Mom-ing Together

Friendship is important to me.  Maybe you think that is a lame thing to say because friendship is important to everyone.  But still.  Friendship is important to me.  And one of the cool things about having friendships as adults is that, generally, each girlfriend is packaged together with a whole bunch of people that they call husband and children... so when one girlfriend comes to visit, she might bring that whole package of friends with her to mix and blend with mine.  This always makes my house feel very full and happy.

Filling out NCAA brackets.  Yes, this was in March, but who's counting?

The Birdnos came to visit from Arizona for their spring break.  Merrill had a conference here in Vegas and, since it paired with their kids' spring break, would have made a family trip to visit seem like a no brainer under normal circumstances.  But, in this case, the circumstances were not very normal, as poor 13-year-old Mikayla was scheduled to have a tonsillectomy just a couple of days before Merrill's conference.  So, Cami put me on alert a couple of weeks before and said that, as long as Mikayla was feeling up for it, they would be here to play.

I'm not quite sure exactly how 'up to it' Mikayla was feeling, but they came! And we made a nice bed on the couch right in the middle of the fun for her to rest and heal, yet not miss out.

Brian and Merrill were both gone throughout the days, but Cami and I are mom-pros and handled the 10 children on our own just fine.  It was a different sort of reunion for us, though... generally when we get together, we like to Go and Do throughout the days - but with Mikayla in her post surgery state, we were rooted to the home and I got to spend time with Cami as we both filled our roles of mother.  I helped my kids with homework and made dinner while she answered the call of her alarm to give Mikayla more medicine.  We toweled off freezing kids from the pool, and we covered tiny scratches with band-aids.  We filled hungry tummies and brushed hair and fielded arguments and, just when we were getting into a good conversation, would be interrupted to do it all over again.

This water was quite cold.  And the air wasn't much better.  But peer pressure can be a powerful thing, you know.

I always love watching Cami be a mom... her patience with the kids' unceasing requests, her love for their sweetness, her laugh at their cuteness.  She is a worker and her work is her children.

We were able to get away for a short while, though, and Cami took me up in the mountains to introduce me to one of her favorite things: mountain biking.

I loved it.  Being out in the mountain air, feeling the sun on my skin, breathing hard and deep as I pedaled up the mountain climbs, learning to trust my bike and, best of all, being with one of my very best friends.  We laughed and talked and cheerfully solved our way out of being lost. 

Cami is such a great friend.

The last night they were visiting, we popped a pizza in the oven for the kids, set up a party outside, and then left them all to fend for themselves.

We adults drove into Henderson and had our own, grown up dinner (read: no pizza), and had some heart-healing conversations about life and faith and friendship.  We are so lucky to have the Birdnos in our lives and can't wait till they come visit again!

Picture the Family

"Mama, can you take my picture like dis?" he asked.  Why, of course, little one.

"Mama, why did you take my picture like that?" she asked.  Well, because, beautiful... you looked so grown up I couldn't stand to let you grow one more minute without capturing it.

"Mama, do we have to stand here?" they asked.  Well, yes. Because it's the middle of the afternoon and this is the only spot I can find where the harsh light will not interfere with your beautiful faces.

"Mama, do you want a shot of my booty?" he asked.  Of course.  Because that will help me remember how goofy and fun you are.

"Mama, I'm tired of pictures and I'm going to start taking my shirt off, little by little, until it's all the way off and then you can't take any more pictures at all," he said.  Well okay, we'd best get a family one in quickly then.

Cub Scout Criminals

Let's be honest here for a minute.  I haven't exactly been thrilled about my calling lately.  Bear Den Leader is my title.  Fighting for the control of nine, nine-year-old boys right after school to teach them responsibility while they're holding knives or swinging loaded paintbrushes or galloping through the grocery store aisles like frightened, wild geese is my job.

But this den meeting was pretty awesome.

I'd never actually seen what the inside of a police station looked like and I was just as excited as the boys (though, I don't mean to brag, but I controlled my excitement p.r.e.t.t.y. well and refrained from joining the boys in jumping, punching, squawking, running, and overall acting like a chimpanzee).  Officer Daly was perfect with them and gave them just the right amount of candy, spent a heavy amount of time in the super tiny gun room answering loads of questions like,

"Can I please take a bullet home!?" No
"Can I try holding a gun?!" No
"Will you shoot me with one of your fake bullets?!" No
"Do you have any supercoolspecificgun?!" Yes.

He locked them up in the holding cells and then let me take pictures of them pretending to be criminals.  Because apparently acting like a criminal when you're actually not one is a pretty fun thing to do.

They all had their own interpretation of what a criminal might look like.

In the dispatch room, the dispatchers were happy to look up the boys' houses on their fancy computers.  And occasionally a really great question would come from a cub. "Do you like your job here?"  "What is a normal day like?"  "When you call 911, where does it go?"

At the end of our hour, Officer Daly took them to the parking lot, opened the door to his police car, turned it on, and stepped back out. "Okay..." he said sweeping his hand in front of the car, "have at it.  You can go inside and push any buttons you'd like.  Just be courteous to each other and take turns."  The boys looked at each other with wide, wild eyes and it was in that moment that I appreciated my calling and the chance it gives me to see Carson in his setting.  There he was, right in the middle of it all, surrounded by friends who shared in his very same excitement.  There's a magic in that.

They were not shy and had no problem discovering the sirens and the lights and the incredibly loud megaphone from which they shouted poop jokes.  Teenagers came running from five blocks away to see what all the commotion was and ended up buckling in laughter when they found that what they thought was going to be a massive police showdown turned out to be a whole fleet of cub scouts instead.

And at the end of the afternoon I humbly admitted that cub scouts can be fun.

The Stories of Spring Break

Grandma's house is a happy house. There is music and there is love and there are delicious smells coming from the kitchen almost all the time.  A few weeks before Easter this year, Grandma sent a package through the mail.  I was delighted to find a beautifully illustrated book of one of my favorite songs.  It's called Gethsemane and it brings a tender message of Christ's love for me through its lyrics. On the CD that I own, it is sung by a child with a clear, pure voice and it moves me every. single. time I hear it.  I thumbed through each page of my new book, soaking in the pictures and words, and gasped for joy when I found that the very last pages held the sheet music.  Ever since I was introduced to the song I have wanted to hear Carson sing it... he has one of those voices that move me, too.

"Carson! Kenz!  Come here!" I yelled through the house as I bee-lined for the piano. "I want you to sing this song with me!"

Grandma had also sent a little note asking the children to learn this song so they could sing it for her the next time she saw them.  Which they did when we visited Utah for spring break.  Beautiful.

------------

It was an interesting vacation this time. Usually when we go to Utah our goal is to spend as much time with family as we possibly can.  And so we do - and we love it.  We sit on couches or stand in kitchens and visit and catch up on each other's lives.  But this time we went to see Utah.  Because even though we've been to Utah dozens of times in my kids' lifetimes, we've never actually taken them to the Utah things.

Now, most of the Utah things on my list of Utah Things have to do with the outdoors.  Hikes that climb beautiful mountains or end at waterfalls, exploring Park City or BYU's campus, for example.  And as luck or fate would have it, northern Utah was still winterish and cold and wet during the week that our school district had decided to deem as Spring Break.  So most of our things had to be transferred to a Next Time list.

Which opened up little pockets of time here and there that were filled by visiting friends that we love and eating food in their homes because, is there ever anything more wonderful to do than to share a meal with people you love?

Monday, however, did not play the same dreary-wet song as the rest of the week, so we piled into the van and headed to Temple Square with an open invitation for all family to join us.  My mom and sister took us up on it.

Which was a wonderful thing because my mom is a sort of Beauty Seeker herself, and I love having her by my side pointing out little spots of beauty that I otherwise might not have noticed.  This day the beauty was in the yellow daffodils lining a hedge, turning their necks to reach the sun.  And it was in the face of a sweet, Asian sister missionary that my mother, in sensing that the sister was Thai, approached to say hello to her in her native tongue.  The missionary, upon hearing her own language, beamed with excitement and threw her arms open for a hug.

We settled into the tabernacle benches to listen to an organ concert and discovered that organ music sounds rather scary and traumatic to the heart of Timothy.  "It's sc-eery," he said, body shaking and hands over his ears to block out as much sound as possible.  Thankfully he had a flock of caring people around him to help him feel 'safe'.  Power of Music, indeed.

My mom took Timothy home shortly after to put him down for a nap.  I was grateful, and it changed the atmosphere a bit without his toddler energy circling around us and tying our attention in knots. I had some beautiful conversations with the older kids about the power of serving other people, and about the power of Christ.  In one of the visitors centers on Temple Square, they have a whole section devoted to service, and I was stirred to tears through it.  Service has been on my mind a lot lately, and I was so grateful to have the chance to take my kids through and to tell them all that was in my heart.  We talked about the good Samaritan and discussed ways that we could be more like him.  We talked about the homeless people we had passed on the streets that very day who were begging for money and we agreed that, while unsure of the best way to help, we couldn't imagine that the Savior would just turn his face and ignore them.  We can give them something, we decided... even if it's just a warm smile, or a decent conversation, or a simple acknowledgment that we see them and understand that we are together in this fight of life.

The church history museum on the other side of the road was incredible and giant and impossible for us to get everything we wanted out of it in one single afternoon.  Brian and I were able to talk to McKenzie about some of the more difficult things in our church's history (such as polygamy) and to introduce her to the idea that not everything in the church is sunshine and roses.  There are hard questions, both in present times and from historical times, that she will face. And she will need to use her brain and mostly her heart to prayerfully come to terms with those questions. But that the goal of this life is not to be able to find all of the answers.  The goal of this life is to develop faith and trust in our Savior, Jesus Christ, and to use that faith, as a principle of action, to become more and more like the Savior himself.

If we had all the answers to all the questions, I suppose we wouldn't have much need for faith and trust.

My stalwart sister, Michelle, hung through with us until the very end, when the FOUR toes she'd had surgery on just a week or two before started slowing her down.  You know those people in your life that make everything more fun?  Michelle is one of those people... probably for every single person she knows.

---------------------

On the drive up to Utah I posted a picture on Instagram of our road trip.  A short while later, my dear friend Becky sent a text that said, "Where are you headed today? We are Utah bound..."

This was significant because Becky lives in Oregon and is one of the closest people to my heart. Friendships are weird sometimes and you can't always predict who will be in your life ten years from now.  Dear friends come and color your life for seasons and, even when nothing goes wrong, can fade away.

But not Becky.  Becky will stay.  She's a sister to me.  I fell on her like a crutch for several weeks through that series of crises back in 2012-13, and I might have broken had I not had her by my side. She withstood the weight and pressure with a strength I can only describe as Becky Strength... those of you who know Becky well will understand what I mean, and those of you who don't can't imagine. 

So, immediately upon receiving her text, I called.
"You're on your way to Utah?!" I said.  "Us too!"
Plans were arranged and rearranged and we met up with each other at the Bean Life and Science museum for an afternoon of Togetherness.
I love this friend.

-------------------

On the day we were to return back home, the Easter Bunny came to my parents beautiful home and set up an Easter egg hunt for my kids.

My mom is a master at creating Special Days.  Holidays, birthdays, just-because-I-love-you days, she has a beautiful ability to nail the Wow factor.  It was she who invited the Easter Bunny to come early, insisted that he hide over 200 eggs, and hang a pinata full of candy (if you'll remember, I only have four children).  She hard boiled 2 dozen eggs for the kids to dye, and made a delicious breakfast for us to eat all before we left her home for our 6 hour drive back home.

My kids left with their baskets entirely full of candy and had happy, we-love-Nana-stomachaches all. the way. home.