Oh Canada: The Drive

August 30, 2017 By

Our annual trip to Canada was cut short because Hadley had Young Women Girl’s Camp mid-July and then BYU volleyball camp the first week of August. My brother Jade got married so our time in Calgary was frenzied helping with the flowers and wedding prep, and we only had five nights at Lake Okanagan in Vernon before driving back to Utah with my nephews, who hung out with us for a week while my brother was on his honeymoon. It was a craaaaazy two weeks!

The drive from Denver to Calgary is 19 hours so the kids and I would always break it down into two days. Now that we’re in Utah. the drive is a 13-hour shot straight up I-15 so I figured would could do it in one long day. Jamie would fly up to meet us later in the week.

My Honda Pilot is a 2003 and our plan was to get a new vehicle last year…and then we moved and are stilling dealing with the never-ending expenses. Fortunately, my car has worked great all these years and we hoped it would hang on a little while longer.

Prior to the road trip, I took the Honda Pilot in to get the oil changed. The kids and I were eight hours into the drive, just 30 minutes past Great Falls, and all was going well.

Until we started going up a hill when the transmission light turned on, and there was a strange smell. I pulled over and called Jamie, who called various auto repair shops in Great Falls. It was 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday night and most of them were closed so he instructed us to spend the night in Great Falls and take the car into the dealership in the morning. 

So, that’s what we did. After a memorable evening in the Super 8 on the seedy part of town, I took the car in and they gave their diagnosis: The place where I got my oil changed had either overfilled the transmission fluid or put in the wrong stuff. It had spilled and burned up the entire underbelly of the car. They drained  and replaced the fluid but were unable to tell me if more serious damage had been done. They gave us about a 50-50 chance of making it. SWELL.

The kids and I started driving. We joked as passed the place we had pulled over the day prior when, not even 100 feet beyond that point, ANOTHER WARNING LIGHT LIT UP ON THE DASHBOARD, this time for the four-wheel drive. I pulled over. The kids asked what was going on and I explained there was a different problem. Bode, ever the optimist, observed,

“Well, at least we made it farther than last time.”

We would make it to Calgary but when en route to B.C. the week after that, the car started smoking in Banff. We eeked our way to Vernon where we became acquainted with yet another Honda dealership that charged us $1,700 in labor to replace a plug (they had to dismantle the entire engine to put it in). On a wing and lots of prayers, we made it home to Utah with my nephews in tow.

So, what’s the status of the car? We’re not sure.  It’s only worth about $5,000 so we really don’t want to dump another $2,000 into it when we’re planning on selling it but we can’t yet afford to buy another car. So we wait. And hope and pray it can hang on just a little while longer, just like the rest of us.

Filed Under: Bode, Canada, Humor

First Day of School: Through the Years

August 29, 2017 By

I’m sure if I did some digging, I could round-up all the kids’ first day of school pictures but my Facebook memories captures a glimpse. I’m realllllly missing those darling elementary school years.

Kindergarten Cutie

First grade. By the end of the day, that headband had dropped down to her forehead and she looked like a 1970s flower child.

Second grade and kindergarten.

Bode first grade. Jazz hands.

Fourth and sixth grades

Fifth and seventh…three days after our move to Utah. Hadley: survived. In case you didn’t know this, middle school girls aren’t inclusive when you’re the new kid (or any other time). Bode: Didn’t realize when the bell rang during lunch that meant recess so his class went without him. Took him a half hour to find everyone and the ultimate devastation: HE COMPLETELY MISSED RECESS.

Middle school: Sixth and eighth grades

Bode (my academic) is NOT loving middle school because he hates changing classes. This morning, he was complaining about foot pain and when I asked him what was wrong, he said, “I think the bottom of my feet are bruised from all the walking.”

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley

iFLY Utah: Indoor Skydiving at its Best

August 28, 2017 By

In early June, I planned to surprise the kids with iFLY Utah: Indoor Skydiving but then Hadley broke her arm. I held onto the secret and finally surprised them a couple of weeks ago. We played 20 questions leading up to our visit.

“Is it outdoors?” No.

“Is it adventurous?” Yes.

“Does it involve heights?” Well, kind of but I said “no” because heights were minimal compared to the real thing.

On the 1.5-hour drive to the iFLY Utah location in Ogden, I finally told them so they could take that time to mentally prepare. They were both enthused. “I’ve always wanted to try that,” Hadley raved as we watched a YouTube video of kids in flight.

iFLY indoor skydiving is the perfect way to experience the freedom of flight without jumping from a plane. This indoor flight facility in Ogden offers the simulation of true freefall conditions in a vertical wind tunnel, with room for parties, meetings and even lessons. Upon checking in, we went through a brief training session where we were tutored on two important things: 1) Keep your chin up and 2) Hold still, which is no small feat in a flight chamber with up to 150 mph winds. We learned four hand signals our instructor would be using to communicate and got outfitted in our flight suit, goggles, helmet and earplugs.

Prior to our session, we watched experienced indoor skydivers flip, twist and spin and I was excited to make my own attempts…until I realized as a rookie, my challenge was just to learn to simply fly on the wall-to-wall cushion of air. Our group entered our “wind tunnel” waiting area and one-by-one, we were given a 1-minute turn in the flight chamber. As I stood at the open door to the flight chamber, I suddenly felt anxious but my fears were assuaged when my instructor motioned for me to lean forward…and I was immediately flying as he closely monitored my every move.

A traditional freefall out of a plane lasts anywhere from 45-60 seconds and we had that amount of time to make our own attempt. Initially, I felt like a failed superhero as my arms and legs flailed in the wind but I quickly remembered to keep my chin up and relax…and I was able to fly on my own. It was one of the most exhilarating feelings in the world to give up control and just trust the wind.

For our second attempt, our instructor had a surprise for us–the first 30 seconds we flew on our own but for the second half, he grabbed onto us and we soared up, down and around the chamber with giant sweeping motions. I felt like a bird in flight dive-bombing for my food and just as we were about the hit the bottom net, we effortlessly soared to new heights again.

My kids had very different experiences. From the moment my 13-year-old daughter entered the chamber, she felt empowered and electrified as she quickly learned to surf the wind (and is now begging me to take lessons). Eleven-year-old Bode, traditionally more cautious, struggled to fly on his own and the instructor was constantly tweaking his position (which happened with most of the younger kids).  He was fighting off tears as he waited for his second session and he divulged his frustration: he couldn’t understand what his instructor was telling him to do. I advised him to just relax and let the wind do all the work. On his second attempt, he did much better and finally caught a glimpse of what it felt like to soar.

We were not able to take bring our camera into the wind tunnel so be sure to bring someone who can take pictures for you or buy the $15 DVD of your experience (so worth it). Really, the only downside to our adventure is we did the introductory 2-flight package for $59.98, which sounds like enough until you realize each “flight” is only one minute long.

But rest assured, it was two minutes we’ll never forget.

Filed Under: Utah

Solar Eclipse Touched My Heart

August 24, 2017 By

I’ll admit I didn’t buy into all the hype surrounding the solar eclipse.  When Jamie casually mentioned the possibility of driving a few hours to Wyoming, we both agreed to just stay here. We’ve been gone so much this summer, the kids started school the next day and we could see a partial eclipse (91 percent) off our back porch. If I’d really paid attention and done my research about what it would be like to see it in the path of totality, I would have battled the traffic a few hours north and had the experience of a lifetime.

We watched the sky for 45 minutes leading up to the solar eclipse and as I marveled at what we saw, I regretted our decision to stay behind. My sister-in-law Tammy was in Idaho with her family and they captured a few spectacular images. She also sent me this awesome account of the eclipse and analogy by Rob Eaton, who lives in Rexburg, ID.

I had read all the hype, and I had a hard time imagining there was any way a total solar eclipse could live up to so much promotion and praise. One account was so effusive that even my young nephew dismissed it by saying, “It had too many superlatives.” Surely nothing could be that good.

If I had not lived plop in the middle of the zone of totality in Rexburg, Idaho, I don’t know that I would have traveled far to see it. When I mentioned it to my brother a month ago, remarkably enough, he hadn’t even heard about it yet. But before I could even say anything about it, he said, “It seems like every eclipse that comes along is supposed to be the only time in the next 57 years you’ll be able to see something like it.” He hadn’t been that impressed with what he’d seen in the past, so he wasn’t interested in driving a couple of hours north to reach the zone of totality for this eclipse.

I don’t fault him. If I were him, I might well have looked at a map and figured, “I’ll just stay here and see 75% of the eclipse and get 75% of the benefits. Why go all that way just to see the sun all the way covered?”

But with solar eclipses, I learned vividly and personally today, there is a world of difference between even 98% of an eclipse and 100%. We watched with interest and amusement during the partial phases of the eclipse, but right up until a few moments before we witnessed the total eclipse, it seemed like not much more than a pleasant astronomical quirk visible only with special protective glasses.

But as the moon began to totally cover the sun and we witnessed the diamond ring and the corona visible only with a total solar eclipse, I was absolutely blown away. I thought I would remain calm, but I couldn’t keep the emotions I felt inside. And neither could most of the people around me. As one writer had predicted, it was as if it touched something deeply primal within us. No photograph or video I’ve seen of this spectacular phenomenon does justice to it. It is simply the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

Afterwards, my nephew volunteered to his mother: “Now I know why they used so many superlatives.”Despite all the hype, we discovered a total solar eclipse had not been overrated.

As a follower of Jesus Christ, this experience has reminded me of three important lessons. First, heaven is not overhyped; eternal life will be worth every sacrifice we could possible make to partake of it.

In one of my otherwise favorite songs by Train, the singer asks of a friend returning from some kind of cosmic journey, “Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded and that heaven is overrated?” Just as my brother assumed a total eclipse had been oversold, much of the world today has come to believe heaven is not real or that it can’t be all that. They doubt the reality of an eternal existence with God so exquisite that Peter described it as becoming “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). I believe that one day, everyone will be as convinced of the desirability of eternal life with God as those who witnessed the total eclipse today were of its stunning glory.

Second, I was reminded that there is a dramatic difference between the blessings that come from sort of following the gospel of Jesus Christ—being in the zone of partiality—and striving to following Him and His teachings with all our hearts—the zone of totality. One of the reasons my brother and I underestimated how rewarding the total eclipse would be is that we based our estimates on what we’d witnessed in prior partial eclipses. But a total eclipse isn’t just twice as beautiful as an eclipse where the moon covers half the son; it is exponentially better.

And so are the blessings that come from living in the zone of spiritual totality. I’m not talking about a place where we are perfect, and I’m certainly not talking about a condition we achieve through our own efforts alone. But I am referring to a state of mind and heart where we jump in with our whole souls, holding nothing back but relying on Christ to realize our divine potential. The blessings of spiritual coronas and diamond rings come not to those who merely go through the motions and occasional effort it takes to reach the zone of partiality; they come to those who yield their hearts and souls to God in the zone of spiritual totality.

Finally, now that I know what a rare and exquisite experience a total solar eclipse is, I regret terribly the fact that I didn’t try to persuade my brother and his family and all my siblings and children who lived elsewhere to join us. What a terrible waste it was to have a home located in the heart of the zone of totality with only 5 guests. I wish I’d been more like some of our neighbors, who had family members and friends stuffed into every bed and couch and spilling over onto their lawns.

For those of us who have lived the gospel of Jesus Christ enough to know just how exquisite its blessings are, there is a special responsibility to find ways to help others come to understand or even consider the possibility that it will be eternally worth the sacrifice to come to the zone of spiritual totality.

For me, in some small way, glimpsing the silvery brilliance of the corona today felt like a symbolic foreshadowing of what it might be like to dwell eternally in the presence of God—in a place with “no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Rev. 21:23). Even more than I will strive to persuade my loved ones and friends to go witness the next total solar eclipse visible in the United States in 2024, I feel inspired to do all I can to help others know that heaven is real and that moving to the zone of spiritual totality is eternally worth it. We cannot use enough superlatives to describe it.

sfsafafs

Filed Under: LDS

Things I want to remember (and forget) about the first day of middle school

August 22, 2017 By

“Middle school was the best time of my life,” said no one, EVER.

And with an eighth and sixth grader, I’ll have both kids in middle school. I still feel gypped off for Bode. If he was still in Colorado, he would be the king of elementary school today with lots to look forward to like student council and a week of Outdoor Lab. All he gets is is being thrust to the bottom of the totem pole for the second year in a row. In his Intermediate School for fifth grade, he only got to know the 30 kids in his class and half of them are going to the new middle school so he’s starting all over again. But at least he’ll recognize a few familiar faces so that’s a step up from moving to Utah only a few days before school started last year.

Yesterday was back-to-school night where we met their teachers. In typical Bode fashion, he meticulously mapped out his route to each class and quickly figured out his alternating gold and black schedule while Hadley will probably be asking him for directions (she takes after me). Both kids got the classes they wanted. Bode will be playing the flute again this year and signed up to be a tutor. Hadley doesn’t like music (which unfortunately knocks out 80% of the elective choices) so she was relieved to be appointed to student government. The last four months of school were such a nightmare that we’re trying to remind her what a rock star she was when she started seventh grade–she made friends quickly and landed on the honor roll for the first time.

She’s not buying into any of it and judging from her sour expression as we toured her classrooms (most particularly with her arch nemesis: math), eighth grade is going to be quite the ride. We’ve resigned ourselves that we’ll need to hire her a math tutor for the rest of her scholastic life and here’s for hoping we find someone who can get her excited about it all. If last year taught us anything it’s that she can do everything she sets her mind to…but when she’s checked out, watch out.

After touring the school, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at Cafe Rio and went home for back-to-school father’s blessings. We tried to get to bed early and that’s where the fun began.

3 a.m. Bode limps into my bedroom, agonizing over a cramp in his foot. I fumble around for ibuprofen and massage his foot. He goes back to sleep. I barely do.

6:20 a.m. His alarm goes off. Why is he setting it so early when he only takes a few minutes to get ready? He snuggles up to Fat Kitty and me in bed (which I love) and I go downstairs to wake-up Hadley. She leaps out of bed and heads to the bathroom. Note: this is the first time the entire morning she rushes.

6:40 a.m. Bode gets dressed and chooses not to wear the clothes we set out for him the previous night. No worries, he still looks great so I load peaches and cream waffles on his “You Are Special Today” plate. The first day as a Middle Schooler is “special” for sure.

6:50 a.m. Hadley still not out of the bathroom. Order her to go get dressed.

6:55 a.m. Notice Bode spilled food all over his clothes (not untypical). He’s annoyed when I tell him to go change so he wears the outfit we originally picked out.

6:59 a.m. Yell at Hadley she only has 10 minutes to eat her breakfast and pack lunch.

7 a.m. Set out lunch foods for the kids. They throw everything together, Hadley scarfs her food, finishes getting ready and somehow poses for a quick picture within 9 minutes.

7:10 a.m. Drove them to the bus stop like a madwoman.

7:15 a.m. Arrive home and pass out on the couch. Jamie tells me I need to chill out and I decide to put HIM in charge of getting them out the door for the rest of the year.

Now, excuse me while I go back to bed.

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley

More little miracles

August 21, 2017 By

I briefly wrote about some of our financial woes this summer…but with the perspective that there are a lot worse things going on in the world and this is (hopefully) a temporary bump in the road. For the time being, we’ve scaled way back on everything. No back-to-school clothes shopping for the kids. We’re only driving one car. We’re delaying putting grass in the backyard and I canceled my knee appointment for X-rays after the endless back-and-forth between our insurance company and the doctor’s office, neither of whom could give me a cost estimate. It’s best to wait until we’re in a better place financially to move forward.

Jamie and I were discussing our financial situation this week. This move has cost us thousands of dollars and both of our businesses are doing fine…it’s just the unexpected hits this summer like Hadley’s broken arm and our car problems that have landed us in the hole.

Back in December, I was doing the laundry and heard some clunking in the dryer, only to find Jamie’s iPhone 5s…NOT waterproof. Even though we didn’t really have the money, we sprung for an iPhone 7 and he has made some great use out of it for work.

Fast-forward to last weekend. Jamie has really wanted to see the war movie, Dunkirk. It’s not my choice for a memorable date night but when my friend Steph mentioned she and her husband were going as well, we decided to make a double-date out of it. We ate at Bam Bam’s BBQ prior, enjoyed the movie (well, at least Jamie did) and grabbed some ice cream after. We talked late into the night and one item we discussed were our cell phones. Steph and I had the exact same case, and we all chuckled at the various ways we’d cracked or damaged our phones. Except for Jamie. He was boastful that he doesn’t even have a case and his phones had survived unscathed all these years (he somehow didn’t count the drowning).

As we drove home later, I mentioned an upcoming event and asked for his phone to add it to his calendar. He couldn’t find it and the last time he’d handled it was in the theater when he turned it off. The theater was a half-hour away from our house but thankfully, we were only at the mouth of the canyon so turned around and began our search. Even though it had been less than an hour, the phone was gone. He left my number with the staff and we started praying for its recovery. Since replacing it is not an option, his plan was to replace the cracked screen on a REALLLLY old phone and call it good. 

The next day, Bode brought Jamie’s old iPhone 5s out of my office.

“Hey, Dad. What’s this?”

“That’s my old iPhone that went through the washing machine.”

“Really? It looks like it’s working.”

We never turned on the phone after its full wash, spin and dryer but somehow over the past several months, it somehow resurrected itself. A miracle!!!

We’re still hoping his iPhone 7 turns up but we’re thrilled to have a phone that works…an answer to prayers, just not the one we expected.

 

 

Filed Under: Jamie, LDS

Miracles for Days

August 9, 2017 By

Since our return from Canada almost two weeks ago, we’ve delved back into life at warp speed. While my brother was on his honeymoon, his two boys stayed with us for the week, Hadley went to BYU Volleyball Camp, we’ve toured Temple Square, tubed Wasatch Canal (twice), went to the Demolition Derby for Wasatch County Fair Days, registered both kids for middle school (and had a full-blown panic attack) and hosted one of my best friends/mission companions at our house for a couple of days. I have made a vain attempt to get caught back up with work, something I’ve resigned myself isn’t going to truly happen until school starts.

I have lots of updates on Canada (a wonderful trip by most accounts) with the exception of our repeated car problems and our lack of funds to facilitate buying a new car. So, for now we’re trying to live as a one-car family until things calm down. The funny things is we were fasting and praying for more $work$ opportunities a few months ago and then Hadley broke her arm (lots of nice medical bills) and it cost us $2,000 to patch up our car in Canada that we’re not even sure is irrevocably damaged.

Being broke is one thing but so many people close to us are dealing with such major, life-altering trials that I recognize how blessed we are and that we’ll be just fine. Trials like divorce after betrayal. Gang rape. Terminal illness. Hospitalization for Schizophrenia.

I follow a really inspirational gal, Natalie Norton, on Instagram and their family has been through so much but continue to be a force for good. She lost her brother and then her baby. They fostered a few children they were going to adopt but then that fell through and they had to wade through the sorrow of another loss. She is still recovering from a stroke last year…and then her 10-year-old son was hit by an SUV last week and they are enduring multiple surgeries. Oh, and while they were in the hospital, their house got robbed.  I mean, how much can one family endure? But through it all, her faith and hope reigns strong:

On Monday evening, our ten year old son, Lincoln, was hit by a compact SUV and has been in a medically induced coma in the ICU ever since. The internal injuries are too many to list here in their totality, but the pooling blood around his heart, “cracked” liver and a punctured lung are currently the most significant to report. He will require reconstructive surgery to his face, including a skin graft (currently scheduled for Friday morning), and his entire body is covered in road rash, bruises and lacerations. This has been every parent’s worst nightmare from start to finish. At this point, the biggest miracle is that there doesn’t seem to be any neurological damage. I’m sobbing writing those words. My sweet, courageous, brilliant baby’s brain seems to have miraculously suffered little more than a moderate concussion. GOD IS SO GOOD.

My Facebook memory from three years ago today is a reminder of of the goodness of life:

My boy’s baptism was a day of miracles…with one grandparent hospitalized mere hours before flying here and another having eye surgery, I’m eternally grateful for their sacrifices and the many dear friends who came to support Bode today. xOXo

Then there was yesterday. The kids and I were touring the newly expanded Missionary Training Center with Jamie’s sister and were enveloped in feelings of love and peace with the beautiful artwork and inspiring messages like this life-sized mural of the Sons on Mosiah from Alma 17:3 in the Book of Mormon that literally knocked my socks off.

Then my phone started blowing up with urgent texts from neighbors and concerned friends that several violent home invasions in our little town had culminated into an armed robbery at the nearby bank …and the cops were apprehending some (but not all) of the suspects in front of our neighbor’s house.

It was such a juxtaposition to the MTC and Bode soberly observed, “This is a really dark world.”

It sure is, Kid, but yesterday I was grateful to also see the light.

Filed Under: Bode, LDS

A Return to Colorado: Jet Boat Colorado Edition

August 4, 2017 By

I wouldn’t say I “feel the need for speed” but as we raced across the Colorado River with Jet Boat Colorado, I sure did like it. A lot. 

I had never heard of jet boating until a friend went to New Zealand last year and posted a video of her 45 mph adventure through narrow canyons as their boat barely skirted the banks of the river. I never dreamed I would have the opportunity to try it out myself until I learned Jet Boat Colorado offers Coloradoans the same adrenaline-charged adventure as our Kiwi counterparts on a slice of the Colorado River outside of De Beque, a historic community nestled near the Roan Plateau and Grand Junction.

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Filed Under: Colorado, Family travel, travel