Hardworking Kids, Proud Mama

November 15, 2016 by

Moving is hard but I could not be more proud of these kids for working their butts off in school. They came home with their report cards and both mostly received Straight As except for Bode’s A- in flute (a minor miracle because he couldn’t even make a sound the first several weeks).

Things come more easily and naturally to him but he is a hard worker. That’s his talent: to put his heart and soul into everything he does. His teacher recognized this in her comments: “Bode is such a great kid who has a love for learning. He’s so fun to have in class and he’s always striving to do his best.”

Hadley got straight As except for a B in math. Some parents might be sad about that but for years, all I’ve wanted is for her to be at grade level and for years (and lots of tutoring) she has fallen short.

To put this in perspective, at the beginning of sixth grade I had her tested for learning disabilities and now she’s almost got straight As. I still feel like the public school education is geared to linear learners like Bode and not visual-spatial, experiential kids like Hadley so in some sense, she might always struggle. But she’s figuring out how to make it work for her. Never once have I had to remind her to do her homework, a huge departure from elementary school.

Two of the people who were instrumental in getting Hadley on the right path were her teachers last year. I sent them this note at the beginning of this school year:

Mr. Lewis and Mrs. McLean,

With the new school year upon you, I have to thank you for last year. My daughter Hadley came to sixth grade at Vanderhoof struggling in school and doubting her academic capabilities. By year’s end, she was a completely different person, thanks in large part to both of you. She fell in love with learning and most importantly, came to realize that she is good and smart enough.
We moved to the Park City-area over the summer and she has delved head-first into her new middle school, joining both the science club and taking a journalism elective to write for the school’s newspaper. Neither of these things ever would have happened had she not had such rock star teachers in sixth grade.
Thank you for opening the doors to her future. Sixth grade is a year we’ll never forget.
To reward the kids, we went out for ice cream. And not just ice cream, but Jamie proposed ice cream for dinner, which was about the best reward EVER.
I personally in hoping they perform just as well next term for that very reason.
Filed Under: Bode, Hadley

The Prodigal Cat Has Returned

November 14, 2016 by

Fat Kitty has had a rough six months. First, we started tearing apart our house and loading everything up in boxes.

Then, we’d dump him off at our neighbor’s house during three months of house showings.

And don’t forget about the 10-hour drive to Utah where he was so traumatized he meowed the entire drive, despite being given a sedative (that is one strong-willed cat).

Then, after only a few days with us at Grandma’s, we left him there to fend for himself. He was so depressed he didn’t even leave the basement for the first week.

Poor, poor kitty.

Our Park City rental didn’t allow pets so my in-laws graciously let him stay for a couple of months. We’ve been in our house for almost four weeks and we had every intention of quickly bringing him to our new home but the chaos continued as we unpacked and finished off two rooms in our basement. We FINALLY wrapped the construction last week and moved Hadley into her bedroom after the poor girl has endured several weeks of sleeping on the floor in my office and then a few days on the beanbag.

We were excited to finally bring Fat Kitty home!

On Friday, Duane, Linda and Aunt Lisa drove him out to Midway (amidst much meowing, of course) and poor Fat Kitty could not have been more confused. He tepidly walked into his new home, explored a bit and then dove under our bed. A while later he reemerged to survey the rest of the house and he seems to be settling pretty smoothly. That night, he cuddled up to me on my pillow and all was right in Fat Kitty’s world again.

Now, lest you feel sorry for The Fat One, don’t. Living at Grandma’s for three months has been like a Fat Cat Day Spa/Boot Camp. They bought him new food dishes, a cat tower, scratching pad (which he loves despite being declawed?), a comfy bed (he’s currently curled up in it as I type) and lots of toys. Much to all of our shock, The Fat One (a.k.a. the laziest cat in America) loves to play in the evenings. Who knew?

As we curled up to Fat Kitty in Bode’s bed that first night, my sweet boy commented, “I had forgotten how joyful it is to have him around.”

And he is a joyful, sweet, gentle, snuggly cat.

Not only has he emerged from The Grandma Spa more playful with a new lease on life, he also has a girlish figure. They put him on a diet with a very regimented feeding schedule and he lost two pounds.

The miracle of the matter? He’s the only one to EVER emerge from Grandma’s house skinnier than when he entered.

Filed Under: Family, Humor Tagged With:

When your husband goes grocery shopping

November 8, 2016 by

You ask him to get fruit because this is what your holder looks like.

And he instead purchases these.

Filed Under: Humor, Jamie

A Midway Halloween

November 1, 2016 by

Halloween has been my unspoken benchmark for if we are truly on our way to settling into Midway. I figured if the kids had friends with whom to go trick-or-treating, that would be good enough for me.

We had that and so much more!

This is the first year I haven’t attended Halloween class parties and I felt such a loss as I realized despite the chaos, I really love those things. Darn middle and intermediate schools–I want elementary school again!

Hadley dressed as a zombie doll and Bode was an executioner. When Bode was at Vanderhoof Elementary, they would do a costume parade. All of his fellow kindergartners were dressed in sweet costumes like firefighters, unicorns, and princesses. Directly behind them in the line were the sixth graders whose common theme/color was zombie black and I marveled “what happens between kindergarten and sixth grade?”

This is what happened.

Bode was in an uncharacteristically bad mood before we left and didn’t want to take pictures (I later found out he hurt his foot). But really, do you want the man who is about to murder you with his ax to smile?

They call her “Doll Face.”

I was worried Halloween in Midway wouldn’t measure up to Skyline Estates. Next to the Fourth of July, Halloween is the best time to live in our old neighborhood with a party at the fire station, a fire truck-led costume parade through the streets and, of course, The Great Pumpkin.

I’m happy to report Midway is every bit as fun. We’d hoped to hit Park City’s popular Main Street celebration that afternoon (voted one of the best in the country) but I was busy moving Hadley out of my office and settling her in to her new room downstairs. My friend Sarah invited us over for dinner at 5 p.m. so the festivities were off to an early start.

On Sunday, I told Hadley she needed to find friends with whom to trick-or-treat or she’d have to go only with ME (oh, the horror) so she quick made plans with friends Zoie, Katie and Lizzie.

Old Woman Zoie and her little brother

Bode and Co. had a blast racing through the streets. We’re pretty hardcore when it comes to trick-or-treating. We’ll make small talk but we’re not in to to be social like my friend Sarah who stopped to chat–we were in it to win it!

Parents scored almost as much of the kids with various neighbors cooking up everything from fresh doughnuts with a killer warming tent to hawtdogs to a popcorn stand to hot chocolate to dozens of glazed doughnuts with a firepit to “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” on an outdoor screen to Willy Wonka commandeering a tractor-pulled wagon ride on our street.

Warming Tent

Cue: I think I’m gonna like it here. 

And The Great Pumpkin will be in good company next year.

Filed Under: holidays

A family that speaks together, stresses together

October 27, 2016 by

Last Sunday, we were asked to speak in church on the talks of our choice from the 2016 General Conference. In my past congregations, children 12 and older give talks in Sacrament Meeting in front of the entire congregation so Hadley was expecting to give her first talk in our new ward. What surprised us is that younger children are also called upon to speak so our entire family shared our testimony on Sunday.

The crazy thing is Facebook’s timehop memory of the day was from six years ago when the kids participated in the Arvada 2nd Ward’s Primary Program. This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of them:

What a difference six years makes!

Bode based his talk on President Monson’s talk The Perfect Path to Happiness. Bode was so cute as he joked around while the microphone was being lowered lowered lowered and did an awesome job sharing our his personal path to happiness. My favorite lines from his talk:

I was baptized when I was 8 because I wanted to follow Jesus’ example. As I stepped into the font, I felt peaceful. When I was underneath the water, I felt like nothing could hurt me.

A few minutes later, my dad put his hands upon my head. When he said “Receive the Holy Ghost,” my head felt like it was lit up with fireworks. I felt the spirit charging through my head and body!

I’ve just started on this Perfect Path to Happiness but I know that no matter how old you are—if you’re 10 like me or 90 that you can feel the spirit. And that God knows who you are and that you are an important part of His plan.

I was really proud of Hadley because she wrote her own talk. She based her remarks on Elder Juan Useda’s harrowing experience at Machu Picchu in The Lord Jesus Christ Teaches Us to Pray. 

 Unfortunately, I realized that recently I have a very similar experience to Elder Useda. A few months ago my parents decided I should go to both this wards girls camp and my previous wards girls camp. I moved here from Denver and it happened to be high adventure week. We did a whole lot of really cool things but the big one that was really shaking every one up was the fourteener we had to climb. Colorado has 54 peaks higher than 14,000 feet—pretty amazing! To put this in perspective, Utah’s highest mountain is King’s Peak and is around 13,500 feet. The leaders did a very good job with making it high adventure!

 This was the second fourteener I had climbed and I was with the faster group so I summited fairly quickly, and was in the very first group to come down. At the steepest and most dangerous part of the trail it started to hail. A lot of the people with us were crying and really scared! I didn’t have the proper gear for hail so I used my friend’s bandana for protection—that didn’t work so well. After a few minutes of wondering if I was going to die my thoughts tuned to the slower group, and realized that they were at the very summit of the mountain. I said a prayer in my heart afraid that if I took my hands down from my head that I would get hurt, but after only a few minutes the hail lessened.

Once everyone got back to the car, their side of the story was that they were literally in the cloud getting pounded by the hail and electrocuted by the shocks. Screaming and crying someone suggested they say a prayer. Not too long after that a group of experienced hikers helped them get to a safe spot until the hail stopped. It makes me wonder what would have happened if no one prayed!?

I’d like to share my testimony that I know that prayer can help us through big and small things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

I based my talk on Elder Schmutz’s General Conference talk “God shall wipe away your tears,” a super powerful talk for anyone who has ever wondered why bad things happen to good people and why we have to go through hardships in our lives. I spoke about some of the struggles we had the last 10 months during our move and some of the miracles along the way (which is another post for another day).

The kids and I wrote our talks shortly after receiving the assignment. The Master Procrastinator a.k.a. Jamie waited until the morning of church to start pulling his talk together. As he walked into the bedroom, I asked him how to pronounce “Schmutz,” to which he held up MY topic. 

“You can’t steal my talk!” and I proceeded to go through his papers, crossing out everything I was planning to talk about.

Procrastinators never prosper…or do they? He ended doing an amazing job winging it, talking about some of his miracles in our move as well as giant pumpkins. because (in his words) is God not the Master Gardener?

At least there is full disclosure of our craziness in our new ward.

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley, Humor, LDS, pumpkins

How we do Halloween

October 25, 2016 by

Halloween was a blast in Denver. Pumpkin patches. Pumpkin parties. Weigh-offs. Truck-or-Treats. Neighborhood fire station party and parade. And, of course, trick-or-treating.

I asked my friend Andrea what people do in Midway for fun on Halloween and it seems comparatively low-key. She asked what our family does for fun.

This is my answer:

There goes the neighborhood.

Filed Under: Humor, pumpkins

Welcome to Life Elevated Mom!

October 23, 2016 by

Changin’ changin’ changin’.

There are so many big changes going on in my family’s life and we still feel like we’re coming up for air! Since I’m now a Utah mom blogger, change is in order.

A shift I’ve been wanting to make for a while is the name of this blog. First, I was the Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck. Then I was The Mile High Mama. And now, I’m Life Elevated Mom. Be sure to change your bookmarks and subscriptions from themilehighmamas.com to lifeelevatedmom.com.

I love this new title because it encapsulates my mantra: Adventures with Altitude, joy and being surrounded by all-things uplifting.

Here’s to a new high-flying adventure with plenty of humor along the way.

Filed Under: Utah

Sadness

October 21, 2012 by

Colorado has been in the national media waaaaay more than I would like–between the horrible wildfire season and the Aurora theater shooting.

Most recently this little girl was kidnapped and her body was found in my community last week. I went mountain biking near the site on Friday and was touched a makeshift memorial has been set up in her honor.

An LA Times reporter contacted me last week and asked to accompany me to our bus stop to gauge the temperature of local parents. In a few words: caution, sadness and fear. (Read the article in the Sunday edition).

On Sunday after church, we went for a walk at Standley Lake, one of my favorite areas. We had a nature-exploring, log-crossing, rock-throwing good time.

But at one point, Hadley took off as she is often prone to do when we’re outside. She and Bode were chasing prairie dogs in a vast field and she was almost out of sight.

And suddenly my stomach dropped.

We were in the very epicenter of where the little girl went missing and was later found. I lost it. Started screaming for her to come back. The wind drowned out my cries. I chased after her. An overreaction? Sure.

I’m determined not to stop living and exploring as we have always done. But until this man is caught and our little community is healed, things are going to be very different around here.

Filed Under: Colorado Tagged With:
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