Scripture Challenge - Week 1

When we got together for our brief MFME (Mothers and Future Mothers of Eyrealm) meeting at Bear Lake this year, one of our main topics of discussion was how we can all be more motivated about our scripture reading. It was great to hear each other's ideas about how to breathe new life into our scripture reading and learn to really "feast" from the scriptures daily.

I came away determined to not only read every single day, but make my reading much more meaningful. And since we're more motivated when we know we have to report to someone else, we all committed to read every day, in our own way, and check up on each other, occasionally sharing what we've learned. We'll all report back about our most meaningful experiences and practices with scripture reading when we go on a big MFME get-away this coming February.

My plan (which I'm still working on doing as consistently as I'd like) is to do this every night:

1. Say a quick prayer asking the Lord to tell me whatever He'd like to tell me through the scriptures that night.
2. Read with intent - look for what the Lord wants to tell me.
3. Write down the messages and questions I receive in a special book I keep by my scriptures - just a few lines along with the scripture reference that prompted the thoughts or actions or questions that came to mind. Often I write down a specific action I should do. Often it's just a reminder of something I should work on. Sometimes it's a question I'll research further in my scripture reading.

So the past couple of weeks, I've seen a real change in my life as I've earnestly sought God's will in my daily life through reaching deeper in my prayers and my scripture study and recording what I learn.

And to help hold myself accountable, I'm committing to share one little experience or lesson prompted by my scripture reading on this blog each Sunday.

Here's a little example of something prompted by scripture study this past week:
When reading Jarom, Omni and Words of Mormon and the beginning of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon, there's a lot of stuff about the importance of keeping records and the importance of thinking about what we should write about and what we shouldn't write about because it's been done before or because it's best left to someone else.

This prompted me to re-examine what I feel is most important to record on this blog and in my personal journal and what I should really encourage my kids to write about in their journals.

It also got me thinking about how I need to use the records I've kept to enrich my kids' lives. So I pulled out one of my old journals from 5th through 7th grade to read with Isaac and Ashton on Sunday and it was such a great experience for me - plus it seemed like they were pretty into it (11 and 12 year old boys don't seem to be particularly demonstrative with their enthusiasm...). One story I'd totally forgotten about was then when I was driving across the country with dad to get a car back to utah from virginia after we'd been living there, we stopped at an antique shop and I fell in love with a doll there but it cost $27 and I only had $12. Dad saw me looking at it and asked why I didn't buy it if I liked it so much. I said I didn't have enough money. He asked whether I was sure about how much money I had and I checked again and found that an extra $20 bill was in there so I had $32 and could buy the doll. I was SO excited. I still have that doll.

Anyway, the really good part of the story was that yesterday we helped our neighbors with a yard sale and the twins had enough money to buy a couple little things they were excited about but then they found a couple stuffed penguins they desperately wanted but they were out of money. Ashton came home from playing his guitar at the Farmer's Market down the road with a huge smile on his face and over $20 that he'd earned in tips (bless those kind people's hearts!). He saw the twins' plight in wanting those penguins, asked them how much money they needed, heard about how they were out of money, then slyly threw the dollar they each needed at their feet and told them to check around to see if they could find the money to buy the penguins. Sure enough - they found the dollar they needed right on the floor and were SO excited!

I guess Ashton got at least a little something out of our journal-reading session last Sunday.

Isaac's Birthday

This amazing boy of mine turned 11 on July 19th.

We celebrated at Bear Lake with all his great cousins. His group's Grammie Camp was the night before his birthday so he got to wake up with his cousins and have amazing crepes made by his wonderful Grammie for breakfast. Then the younger cousins had a treasure hunt all set up for him when he got back from Grammie camp and all the kids had a grand dam building contest that evening in his honor (his team won - their dam held water for over and hour without leaking).

When Jared came up to the lake on Friday (the day after Isaac's birthday), we took him out to a special lunch on the other side of the lake. After all the crowds, it was nice to have a little time with just the three of us. Isaac is becoming such a mature young man and it's so fun to talk with him.

I can't believe it's been 11 years since this little guy popped into the world just 30 minutes after I got to the hospital and about 15 minutes after his dad joined me there. What a crazy quick ride it was to bring Isaac into the world. And the minute he was born, I felt a natural high I've never experienced before or since and my recovery was remarkably quick and easy. He went on to be a super-easy baby who'd sleep anytime, anywhere, eat anything, and smile constantly. And while he certainly has his issues like any kid, he's still about as easy-going and kins a kid can be.

Here's Isaac at 7 months old:



Here are my top 11 things I love about my 11-year-old:

1. Isaac is kind. Ever since he was a toddler, he's been happy to share anything he has with anyone who shows an interest. When anyone is sad, he's the first to notice and try to help. This past year at school, he befriended a boy in his class with special needs and made sure to play with him at recess and help him when he was struggling in the classroom.

2. Isaac is a hard worker. If you want someone to stick with a job and do it well, Isaac is your man. Isaac seems to actually love work. He anxiously awaits the grass getting long enough to need to be mowed since mowing the lawn is fun for him (I really hope this lasts for a while..). He's especially excited to help his dad or his uncles with projects like building a fence or fixing a car. My mom said he worked harder and better than any cleaning ladies she's had when he stayed an extra day to help her clean up the cabin at the end of our time at Bear Lake.

3. Isaac is confident and courageous. He's always up for trying something new and walks into unfamiliar situations excited and ready for anything. Whether it's eating canned squid or jumping off the high dive or heading down a black diamond on skis, Isaac's up for it. And he'll do it well.

4. Isaac is friendly, likable and amicable. He's great at making new friends everywhere he goes with people of all ages. He'll talk to anyone, anywhere. Even as a baby, he was always making eye contact with people and flashing them his beautiful smile. He has no problem going up to people and politely asking for things at stores and restaurants. He's quick with a smile and a kind comment just about anytime, anywhere. I love going into Isaac's parent-teacher conferences and seeing the look on his teachers' faces when I say I'm Isaac's mom. They always smile and talk about how much they just plain like Isaac and how helpful and kind and hardworking he is.

5. Isaac has a special love and ability with babies and young kids. Isaac is SO cute with babies. He's always been really interested in babies - even newborns. He loves their tiny hands and toes. He loves the noises they make. He loves their soft skin. And he's super good at making babies smile and soothing them when they're sad. He couldn't get enough of his cute little baby cousins at Bear Lake!

6. Isaac powers through tough stuff and keeps working until he's got it figured out. Reading didn't come easily to Isaac. We were both in tears at times as we'd plow through books together and try to get that reading a little more smooth and fast. Homework used to take him ages as it was hard to get his mind in gear and focus on the challenging worksheets in front of him. But in the past year, through hard work and perseverance, Isaac has become a solid reader, has sped up his homework performance drastically, and has received almost all A's in school the past two terms.

7. Isaac is loving. I can count on a hug and a kiss from Isaac every day. I love that.

8. Isaac is appreciative. He's always saying thank you for the meals I make, for the nice things other people do for him, etc.

9. Isaac is agile and strong and coordinated and fast. That kid can climb anything, ride anything on any surface (you should see him on his rip stick or on a tricky trail on his mountain bike), do feats on a wakeboard, ski amazingly well given that he's only been skiing about 6 times, run a 5K like it's nothing, beat about anyone in a foot race. He thinks it's great to try to pick me up - and he can actually do it. Feats of strength, stamina and skill are really fun for him.

10. Isaac always has his watch on. He's generally the only one who knows what time it is around here and he's great at timing the twins to get them to do things and timing our reading time and that sort of thing. A guy with a good digital watch is a handy guy to have around.

11. Isaac is happy. I love how Isaac is always happy and excited about pretty much everything. His attitude helps everyone's mood around here.

I love this boy of mine!

Fear Factor

OK, I called the last post "final chapter on Bear Lake" but I forgot to include one of the most fun and hilarious things we did together at Bear Lake. And my sister Charity captured it so well on her blog that I just had to steal her photos and description so I could keep a record of that fun afternoon here.

From Charity's blog (with some stuff I added in):
the grandkids participated in the first-ever eyrealm fear factor competition. it. was. stinking. awesome. my brother eli was in charge and started out the event with a little dance party to get everyone excited…but the kids’ faces soon turned a little worried as eli explained the game: several rounds of eating pretty gross stuff, and the last kid standing wins.the first round was a lemon:round two was a cup of vegetable juice, which yielded the first tears:quite a few of the kids made it to round three: seaweed. Then it was on to round four: wasabi. the twins struggled with that one:(aren’t those faces priceless??) round four was dried squid (Isaac said "Hey, I eat this at my friend Leon's house all the time"and ate it right up. But it was a real challenge for some):camden and his loathing for hard boiled eggs struggled a little with round 5: quail eggs:the adults and the kids that didn’t advance to the next round loooooved watching the action:the idea of eating eyeballs got some kids a little miffed in round 6: dried anchovies - they were supposed to eat a whole pile of them. after seeing those little fish looking back at them, several kids, including the twins, decided to bow out of the contest gracefully. only 5 kids ate that pile of fish.and the five left in the final round had to chew and swallow two roasted squid (wow, are they ever chewy). eliza held her own as the only girl in the top five finalists and mckay, unfortunately, had to use the barf bucket but he was the youngest person to make it to the end:the crowd was going wild as the final five tried to get those nasty things down as fast as possible - the first to finish would be the winner.and isaac became fear factor champion!
Isaac will eat anything. And he actually likes stuff like dried squid and vegetable juice and seaweed - so this was perfect for him! He was especially proud to beat his 15-year-old cousin Max since Max was chewing like mad but couldn't quite get that squid down as quickly as Isaac.

Final Chapter on Bear Lake

We've been home from Bear Lake a few days now. I have to say it's very nice to be sleeping in our own beds after sleeping all together in one room for almost a month - all the kids on the floor.

And it seems so easy to cook for and clean up after 7 people when you're become accustomed to living in a household of 42 people!

Here's a small portion of our typical dinner dishes at the Lake.

But I'm missing these people - messes, noise and all. And feeling real nostalgia for the good times we had together.

We're starting to get back into a routine and I"m starting to get caught up on the many things that piled up while we were gone. One of the things that got a little annoying (well, a lot annoying actually) during the last week of our time at Bear Lake was that my internet hotspot died and that put an abrupt end to my ability to put in an hour or so every day on Power of Moms and keep up on things - plus throw a blog post out there now and again. At first, I was glad to be forced to really enjoy our last week at the lake w/o trying to get work done. But after a couple days, it got pretty stressful to know how much was piling up and not to be able to do some quick and timely things on my computer. Oh well. I'll catch up some day.

Here's a post I started but couldn't finish at Bear Lake thanks to the hot spot issue - plus scroll down for a bunch of great photos:

Our days are winding down at Bear Lake. The crowds are thinning out as people trickle away for various other obligations. All the excitement and fun of the reunion has been replaced by a little more time for casual conversation and reading and relaxing and going with the flow of the weather and the natural pace of the day. 

We're getting creative with the food left here as we try to minimize grocery store runs and maximize the using up of the food we have here. Jonah's been whipping up fresh bread and homemade granola almost every day. Saydi made homemade pizza. Kristi found enough ingredients for a repeat performance of her amazing fish tacos. Homemade cookies are in good supply (everyone has their favorite recipe to share).

Here I am making Thai red curry (and looking pretty concerned about it...)

I'm enjoying daily runs and swims with my sisters to counteract the calories and to get ready for the Grand Teton Relay that Jared and I are doing again this year. It's great to feel stronger and better at running this year than I did last year when I was just getting back into running after a 10 year hiatus. I can conquer the hills around here now without feeling like I'm at the end of my rope.

We've had various friends show up for a day or two. Two of my best friends from Wellesley College (we graduated together 20 years ago now - crazy stuff) came with their children and we talked and laughed and learned from each other until late into the night - reminded me of the good old days in the dorms (and why didn't I think to take a photo?). Jared's brother and family came for a couple days and our kids loved having cousins from both sides of their family to play with at the same time (and they brought their jet skis plus lots of amazing ice cream from the Cold Stone store that they run which made them very popular guests indeed). Saydi had friends here and Noah had friends here - always so great to meet each other's friends and relatives when we get the chance. Always a bit of a puzzle to figure out the details of where everyone should sleep and what to feed everyone - but it always works out great.

Here are the twins with some great Loosli cousins - Parker and Logan.

And thanks to Parker and Logan's parents, we all had big times on waverunners. Fun stuff. Here I am with Camden (Jonah and Aja's), Eliza, and Claire (Shawni and Dave's).

Ashton's best friend from St George, Dallen, was staying at a cabin just down the road for his family reunion.  It was so great to see these two together again! We sure wish Dallen and his great family still lived near us.

The twins and their cousins have been making dams every day. They've probably learned tons of principles of engineering as they've used sand and rocks to create ever-stronger dams.

Isaac lost his first molar which was pretty exciting (and had a birthday which I'll do a blog post about when I get a chance).

The kids caught several lizards.

And learned all about lizards from Uncle Tal (a serious lizard-catching expert back when we were kids)

We went on countless boat rides. Isaac got really good at wakeboarding and became quite adept at pulling up on one ski - and getting in and out of the wake. Ashton became a great wakeboarder and kneeboarder. Eliza got up on two skis for a few seconds and loved wild and crazy tube rides behind the boat. The twins were good with playing in the sand and riding the tube and vehemently refused to try skiing. My parents' 25-year-old boat is still going strong!

Here's Isaac on the wakeboard.

We had lots of fun in the canoe. Here's Liza and Hazel.

And every day a small group of us would swim out way past those reeds in the photo above to a buoy - nothing like swimming through that beautiful clear cool water under a blue, blue sky while enjoying great conversations (we weren't exactly swimming fast...).

We played some great volleyball (and the kids are really enjoying watching Olympic volleyball now that they've had a chance to try playing it themselves).

We cleaned up the beach toys and lifejackets every day which sort of gets old but isn't bad with lots of little helpers.


We had good times at the "Bamboo House" as we call my parent's big lake house with bamboo floors. We did crafts and reading time and lots of cooking time and cleaning time (cooking and cleaning proved to be as relationship-building and as anything else...). Saydi read a chapter of a book each night with most of the kids and here's Aja doing craft time with a bunch of the kids.



We all grew pretty attached to each other. There's nothing like seeing bonds grow between your kids and your siblings kids.


Ashton and Peter (Saydi and Jeff's) became close friends.

Ashton and Bennett (Noah and Kristi's)

And of course, Ashton had a fabulous time with Max and Elle (Shawni and Dave's) in the 3 days they had together (between scout camp, EFY and volleyball camp, the big kids sadly had precious time together this year but they made the most of it!). These three make up "Group 1"

Isaac spent lots of time with babies and toddlers (he's SO cute with them). But I only got this one photo somehow:

And Isaac had the greatest time with Grace (Shawni and Dave's) and Ana (Jonah and Aja's) - Grace was born in June, Isaac in July and Ana in August and these three are known as "Group 2". It's been so fun to watch them grow up together and see how much they enjoy each other and how much they learn from each other.

Eliza had SO much fun with Hazel and Claire - the closest thing she'll ever have to sisters. These three cute girls are called "Group 3."

Some friends in China sent my parents a whole bunch of great dress-up clothes and all the little girls had SO much fun!
 

 Annina (Tal and Anita's) was a big favorite. Such an adorable baby!

 

 The twins and the 3 boy cousins close to them in age (known as "Group 4) are like this little pack that do everything together - Monopoly and dam-building seemed to be the main hits this year but bird-watching was also a favorite.


McKay (Noah and Kristi's) made this special mask to wear birdwatching - he used 1/2 a broken set of swim goggles, a rubber ring from a jar, some rubber bands and a feather from one of the feather boas Grammie got from the nice people in China. That kid cracks me up constantly.

I'm missing these crazy, fun, wonderful people. Long live Bear Lake.