Spring

One thing I love about Spring is all the new baby animals, go here to this post on The Big Picture to see some super cute pictures of new baby animals...

Do Re Mi

Katrina's Baptism

Hopefully this will be the last post of the night/morning....Last Saturday I had the opportunity to go to the baptism of my oldest niece, the first grandchild to be baptized. What a neat experience, I don't remember much from my own baptism, except that I know that Nathan baptized me and I remember sitting at the door into the primary that faced the parking lot hoping that my teacher would come. I felt so proud of Katrina because I knew that she had made the decisions on her own to be baptized and that she is a very special girl. I look forward to watching her grow up, I know that she will make mistakes, like we all do, but that she will also stay close to Heavenly Father and the gospel and allow it to guide her.
I loved after she had been baptized and changed her clothes, she walked into this classroom where all her family (it was wonderful how many family came out---much of our side and many of Sonia's also) was waiting, she looked beautiful in her white dress. The bishop asked her to sit at a chair and Ben invited all those that held the priesthood to come up, it was such an amazing site to see all of her uncles step forward, all of these men that are worthy and held the priesthood.
I hope that Katrina will realize the importance of this day and that her testimony will continue to grow.

P.S. As soon as I have received pictures from Ben or Mom of the baptism and family party that happened afterward I will be sure to share!

Family Crucibles: A Paper

With finishing classes, taking tests, family events, preparing for finals..and eventually taking finals :D I haven't had much time to keep up with my blog (hence the several postings tonight), this is my final paper for my SFL 100 class (based on The Family: A Proclamation to the World), I was supposed to interview a family member about the crucibles they had, had in their life and and then talk about what they have learned from that and how I would like to react when I have crucibles in my life also. Out of the 3 papers I had to do this semester for this class this one was the one that I had the hardest time with, I really struggled with what to write and how to express my emotions through this paper, it was also the one that when I turned it in I felt not the most confident about, but strangely I received the best score on this one out of the three.

A crucible perspective is when we are able to use a severe test or trial to refine and purify our lives. For the purpose of my paper I will be looking at adversities such as illness, disability, infertility, and death. Adversity is something that we all experience; sometimes the challenges may seem bigger or smaller and oftentimes to those on the outside it may not seem like a hardship at all. But for those of us living in the moment, in the experience, in the middle of the crucible it is very real, often very painful, and we are hurting. How we are able to react to these experiences and how we are able to grow is where we can learn the most.

Crucible experiences seem to happen to all we know, but when I began to think of hard challenges and who I could talk to, the person that stood out the most in my mind was the accident of my father and talking to my mom. This particular crucible experience is very personal, close to my heart, as I also lived through it with my mom, my dad, and the rest of my family.

When I talked with my mom this is how she described the experience:

“We had lived a rather charmed life, with relatively few challenges, other than the normal childhood diseases, occasional broken bones, and friendships temporarily gone sour. So a few days after Christmas 2005, I was totally unprepared for a life-changing experience. My husband and youngest daughter had gone to a home twenty-five miles away to help move a family whose husband/father had died just two days before Christmas. A few hours after they left, our daughter called on her new cell phone (the one that I had all but boycotted her buying) to tell me that my husband had fallen down a flight of stairs, was still unconscious and was being transported to a hospital several miles further north. I had no car home so had to enlist my Visiting Teacher to drive me to the hospital and pick up another son on the way north. At the hospital we learned that my husband was severely brain damaged – beyond the capabilities of the small rural hospital to deal with; they were preparing him to be life-flighted to Portland, 150 miles away. The storms that night precluded life-flight, so he was loaded into an ambulance and began his life-and-death trip to Portland. I feared that he might die; I worried about what the future would hold if he didn't.”

After we discovered that he had brain damage many other things were also discovered: he had sleep apnea, cancer, and diabetes. My mom suffered the most. Gone was her husband that she loved and had married 36 years ago. Now she had a new husband, someone whom she learned to love also, but now he was not her partner. He didn’t help her decide on their problems; he wasn’t a shoulder for her to cry on; he was someone that she now had to care for.

When hard times happen in our lives there are many different perspectives or “way[s] of thinking about and making meaning of,” the events that we can take on in our lives: we can react with anger, shaking our hands at the heavens and demanding “Why? Why is this happening to me and my family?” or we can take on a more gospel-based, crucible perspective.

“It is natural to view adversity as a crisis, but by embracing a crucible perspective, we can recognize the sorrow and feelings of loss that accompany adversity while also acknowledging the potential for personal growth and enhanced family relationships.” Many times after my dad’s accident people would ask how we were doing, particularly my mom. One thing that always stuck out in my mind was her perspective on what was going on, not once did I ever see her raise her hands to the heavens and shake her fists at Heavenly Father and ask “Why? Why is this happening to me?” Instead she said, “It was something that did happen and I just had to make sense out of what my life had become -- immediately.”

I believe that my mom was able to have an eternal perspective. Though it was very hard for her much of the time, she was able to look at the positive that had come from this experience and how we have grown as a family. My mom has always been one to say, look at what has come from this: we discovered many other health problems that we may not have found otherwise (my dad was never big on going to the doctors). Since we have found these things, we have been offered more time with Daddy; sure it may not be the daddy that we were used to, but it is still him and we can love him and learn from him, also. There is some reason Heavenly Father let him stay on Earth and we must help him and us complete our missions here. Our relationships with each other have changed and have become stronger. Before my dad’s accident, my mom and I oftentimes could barely talk with each other; after it we talked several times a day. It also became important for us to talk with my other siblings -- often.

Growing up I always knew that my mom had a strong testimony in Heavenly Father and in the gospel but it was not something that was shared often in my home, at least not through words; it was many times shown through her love and actions. I have seen her testimony grow and have seen it become more apparent and important in her life. I have watched as she has read through many, many books the last several years, most by general authorities or other church authors. My mom and I talk nearly every day on the phone; as I think about our past conversations, so many of them include some kind of gospel topic.

The authors of the textbook, Strengthening Our Family, offer the following as an insight into how the gospel can affect our eternal perspectives: “The gospel of Jesus Christ offers an eternal perspective that helps families understand that there are profound purposes to the adversities of this life.” “Gospel principles offer spiritual comfort and a widening of perspective from one that is solely crisis- or coping-oriented, to one that includes the potential for growth and development.”

“While confronting life’s crucibles, exercising faith in Jesus Christ involves trusting that the Lord knows what is best for us and can direct our lives in those ways that will allow us to reach our fullest potential.”[5] That is something I have often heard my mom comment on, that though she may not understand why this has happened she doesn’t need to; she just needs to continue staying close to Heavenly Father and allowing him to help her with her life. One thing that always amazed me while growing up was that my parents taught me to serve and help others as much as I could. That was not something that changed with my dad’s accident; though my mom did realize that as much as she needed to help others, she too needed the help. “I learned, without fail, that I am a child of God and that he knows me, separately from everyone else. I learned that there are many people who need and are willing to reach out to help. We need each other. In the past, I haven’t needed people as much as I need them now. Up to a point, it is good to need people. I am more aware of that because of the other people that need me.” Many times I saw my mom crying, but immediately afterwards she would get up and begin searching for something that she could do, either to help our family or someone else.

My mom is a strong and amazing person. I did not always see that when I was younger and oftentimes did not appreciate her as much as I should have. But as I have grown older and have been able to watch her as she has dealt with each new problem that was discovered about my dad, with each succeeding time that he came close to dying, I saw her have an amazing outlook. I would have completely understood if my mom had reacted in anger, but not once have I seen it; I have learned from her that it is ok to have the hard times and to mourn them, but we cannot let the mourning take over who we are and what we do; we must be stronger than the adversity and lean towards the gospel and Heavenly Father. Elder Bruce C. Hafen wrote “Our understanding of the Atonement is hardly a shield against sorrow; rather, it is a rich source of strength to deal productively with the disappointments and heartbreaks that form the deliberate fabric of mortal life. The gospel was given to us to heal our pain, not to prevent it.”

I hope that as I grow older and I too encounter my own adversities that I will be able to not have a crisis perspective but that I will be able to take the perspective of my mom and find the positive in the adversity. I know from her that I can mourn but that it must not be my ending decision. I have seen that through her choices and perspective she is much happier than she could have been. It doesn’t erase what happened but it allows her to keep on living and to grow closer to Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father gives us these trials to help us grow; it is up to us to grow up instead of down from them. I am glad that I have my mom as a positive influence to help me grow up from my future adversities.

New Hair!

I have been thinking for awhile that I would like to try putting lowlights in my hair (for those of you that don't know that means darkening your hair, while highlights is lightening your hair), but I haven't really had the chance or maybe gumption to do it, well yesterday I had the time and I found out that Leah had sometime also. I also needed my hair cut (it had been almost 4 months since I last cut it). She listened to my ideas and then made suggestions, they all sounded good to me and so we started....Leah added some lowlights of a brown with a tint of red (in the end it pretty much looks like she took pieces of my hair and added a little bit of red to it) and then some blode highlights. I am really happy with it and think that it is super cute, she also added some bangs which I am not used to, I think that they are cute also but it will take some time. Here are some pictures of my new hair, sorry the pictures aren't the best but it's something, the first set are from yesterday when Leah straightened it and then the second bunch is today, I dried my hair curly and then straigthened my bangs.

A Night at the Clyde

Tonight was the last night for several people on the custodial/carpet crew at the Clyde Building so our boss Janene brought in pizza, pop, and ice cream and we got to chill together for an hour or so on our last night. I have a lot of fun with this crew and I will be sad that I wont be working with them anymore, though I am not too sad about the part that I will not have to be working on Friday nights any longer!

Yep this is what I do the majority of my night...play card games! Don't worry though we only play while we are waiting for the chemical to sit (which is about 15+ minutes), I have gotten quite good at a few games through these last several weeks ;D

Sometimes we do this...work, but not very often (Jake is spraying the chemical called stripper down on the stairs).

Brett setting up a card game.

This is Irina, she is not usually on our crew but she loves it when she can work with us because we play card games, she doesn't really like to have her picture taken though.

Cherish...I don't think that I caught her at a good time :D

Jenn (the adult one--who is not really on our crew, she is engaged to someone that is) playing with Layton, my bosses son.

Brett, about ready to die from hunger and waiting for the party to start.

Jenn and Jason..the engaged couple (less than a week!)

My bosses husband.

Jake..he will be sticking around so you will probably see more of him this summer.

Daniel, poor guy he had a job lined up for this summer but for some reason it feel through and he gets to continue working with us until he can find another job.

My boss Janene and her son Layton.

Irina--she is from Belarus (again she doesn't like to have her picture taken) and Natalia/Natasha--she is from Russia

Brett ate too much food (he will also be sticking around so you will most likely see more of him)

The engaged couple Jenn (on the left) and Jason (on the right--you know in case you couldn't tell :D)

Cherish! She's going to have an exciting summer, she is going to Alaska to drive day tour vans at a place where cruise ships dock.

Pretty Nails

These pictures are actually from the end of February but I just wanted to show Brea hard at work using what she is learning at school :D oh and to just document what is going on in my life.


Don't I just look awesome with these creepy witch fingers? For some reason I always am the one that Brea decides to practice forms on instead of tips. I guess I shouldn't really complain considering that I get them for free.

All the different pretty colors that I can have. We tried a blue with glitter one time, it was pretty but I think that I much prefer the traditional french manicure with white tips.


Look at the concentration, not even getting distracted by me taking pictures of her ;D