It's 2015!!!!

I can hardly comprehend that I am now living in the year 2015! I mean - we are literally back to the FUTURE this year!

In the last few months, we have had some very memorable experiences as a family - thus the no blogging - oops!

 I graduated from nursing school - again. Technically, it is my third time doing it! Lest you think I am a slow learner - let me explain a little better.

In 1997, I graduated from SLCC with my LPN degree.  In 2002 I graduated from Regent's College with my Associate's degree RN. And in 2014 I graduated from BYU-I with my BSN.  If you are new to nursing, you may wonder why the different levels. Well - it is because I had to take this one step at a time - as I chose to grow my family from just the two of us to the nine of us!  Do I wish I could have just gone straight through and done it all at once like a normal student? YES. Would I trade my children or my experiences over the last 18 years of schooling? Heck NO!!

We also enjoyed having our traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years here in Idaho. While I do think that it would be wonderful to spend some of the Holidays with our parents or extended family in other states, our jobs and the size of our family has largely made that impossible.  We have, however, tried to create our own traditions with our children and make it a memorable time for them.
This year we enjoyed having our traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings up at the Cabin in Island Park, and my brother Tom came with us. It was great! Then, for Christmas, we were privileged to have Tom again and my awesome little sister, Emily.

I kid you not when I say that they make the day so fun! They are both kind and caring and generous. They appreciate my inexplicable sense of humor, and they enjoy good conversation, good food, and eating ice cream. If you don't believe me, you should try it. I mean, try spending a Holiday vacation with them. Especially if you are of the opposite sex. And single. (*wink wink*)

But I digress...

For Christmas we took a quick trip to Utah to see the entire Hanson clan (on Greg's side) and to see the lights at Temple Square.  We did our traditional service activities.  We spent a lot of time watching movies, wrapping gifts, playing games, and making fun new recipes.  Basically, we were blessed to do the very best possible thing - SPEND TIME TOGETHER!

"Family: It's About Time!" = True!

our new tradition this year: Dodge Ball at the church!

Confession time: As a child, I really didn't enjoy the inevitable phone calls from my neighborhood friends on Christmas day that went something like this: "Guess what I got for Christmas? What did you get?"  I guess that I was too concerned about my gifts not beings as cool or as trendy or as expensive or as big as the things that they always got. Looking back - I was just young and inexperienced and always comparing myself unnecessarily.  So - here I go as a *slightly* more mature adult...

Hey - What did you get for Christmas? Guess what I got for Christmas?
 I got some money from my sweet Mother-in-Law (which I am using to hire an artist to draw sketches of each of my children - something that I have been dreaming about for years).  I got a year's subscription to "The Blaze" from Tom and Emily. I got a beautiful wooden star to decorate my house from my sister Jennie. I got some cool family history stuff and yummy honey from my parents. Greg gave me a pre-paid pistol class at the new Gun Club in town. And - there were many additional gifts as well. I felt very very blessed.

The New Year came and we also continued our tradition of each person making a new appetizer to munch on all night long! It is quickly becoming one of our favorite traditions.

That day is always extra fun for us, because it is Landen's birthday too.

 It is hard to believe that he is already 16! Or that I have two, yes TWO children that are of the 'dating age'. Luckily, to keep me from feeling so OLD all the time, I have two very much younger hooligans that are 4 and 5 and always saying the FUNNIEST things.

For example...

On the drive home from my mission reunion in Utah a few weekends ago,
Emerson and Miles were saying the most random things and making us all laugh.

Me: "Your hair is getting pretty long Miles, you might need a haircut soon."
Miles: "I know! My hair is like 60 degrees long already!"

Miles: "Houses are really expensive, like 400 million dollars to get."
Emerson: "But mom can get one, she has so much money like a HUNDRED dollars!"

Emerson: "Did you know that if you pulled off your belly button, you can see your food?"
Me: "But, you also might die if you do that, buddy."
Miles: "Hey, Emerson. I know a better way to see your food without getting dead...you can look on your plate!"

Silly kiddos...keepin' me YOUNG at heart!

#CESDEVO

I honestly feel so grateful for the technology that allows me to enjoy and learn from the wonderful Sunday evening devotionals that are being put on around the world by awesome speakers.
Tonight's was by Randall L. Ridd. It was amazing and you should all watch it here.

Thought I would share some of my 'quick notes' that I jotted down from it.

*The youth today is called Generation Y.  They have instantaneous access to basically everything, While this is generally a blessing, it can also cause some problems, like not being able to make a decision and stick to it. He called this "Decision Paralysis" due to too many choices and to the fact that things become obsolete so quickly.

*We are all becoming more and more easily distracted.  The best antidote to distraction = living with purpose, having real intent.

*Ponder the "Why".  It is far better to look forward and ask yourself, "Why would I do that?" than to have to look back and say "Why? Oh why did I do that?"

*So many times we are distracted when we could have acted. The ability to focus, helps us to avoid distractions.

*Best way to avoid distractions is to be anxiously engaged in a good cause.  Don't spend time focused on climbing a mountain only to decide you've climbed the wrong one.

*Inspired thoughts produce good deeds, and good deeds produce other good deeds,... and so on and so forth...eternally.

*There is great power in the compounding effect of little things that we do each day.

*Satan leads us slowly and imperceptibly off the path.

*Our challenge is that sometimes we look at others and see the 'perfect family' and don't see the small daily acts that got them there.

*Simple daily disciplines repeated over and over again = spiritual power.  The small things are easy to do, but are also easy NOT to do. 

*If you really understand the WHY behind these following three things, you would make them a TOP priority in your life.
1. REMEMBER!!!...Not only while taking the sacrament, but ALWAYS.
2. PRAY: the real purpose of prayer is to open TWO-way communication with the Lord - with the         real intent to do whatever He directs us to do.
3. Study the SCRIPTURES - this primes the pump of personal revelation. This is HOW we grow to know     the mind and will of the Lord.

*Most consequences, positive and negative, come LATER, over time - but they will come!

*The compounding effect of the little daily things can be the difference between having a difficult life of struggles and being immensely successful and fulfilling the purpose of your life.

*Let the Savior wipe the slate clean. Repent with REAL INTENT.

*Put the power of compounding with daily disciplines in your life today.  Ponder these three questions:

1. Can you do it?
2. Will it work?
3. Is it worth it?

VIVA MEXICO!!

     We recently returned from a wonderful vacation to Cancun, Mexico. Even as I type those words, it still feels like a dream. It has taken many many years for us to be able to save up the money. Yes, I realize that my oldest children are nearly adults themselves, so it was a privilege and blessing for us to be able to do this as a family.  Well, most of a family. Truth is - for both financial and mental sanity reasons, we could only afford to take the oldest four with us.

         I feel very indebted and grateful to all those who helped us take care of the youngest three kids (Lane, Miles, and Emerson) while we were away. It gave new meaning to the phrase "it takes a village" when I was arranging for their care. First, my parents let them stay at their house, even amidst the business of General Conference and mission reunions. There they were watched over by my niece, Rachel for a few days. Then with my little sister, Emily for a few. Then they were transported from Utah to Idaho by my cousin, Peter. Then my brother Tom watched them at night and during the day they hung out with my friends, Ruth and Lela. The last night, as we didn't arrive home until nearly 4 am, my friend, Christina, kindly came over and put them to bed and slept here until morning.  I am so grateful to have a whole army of people willing to help us out, and am forever grateful to them!

THE GREAT JOURNEY BEGINS...

    Just arriving at the Salt Lake Airport, even though it was 4:45 am, the kids were ecstatic about flying on an airplane for the first time. I captured this moment:

As people were giving me strange looks while taking this picture of my kids, it struck me that not everyone may be quite so happy after going through TSA security screening at 5 in the morning!

We landed in Cancun and were immediately bombarded by 'tourism agents' trying to get us to go with them for transportation, or to come listen to a 'timeshare presentation'.  After relentless efforts, we seceded and agreed to listen to a 90 minute presentation the next morning, in exchange for free tickets to an 'event' and free breakfast for each of us at one of the hotels that happened to be right next door to ours.  We arrived at our hotel and were immediately saddened to learn that the 'all inclusive' package we were told about was actually not quite so 'inclusive' after all. They explained to us that it would be 40 bucks per person per day to have any food or drink at the hotel! Um...well, that would be an additional $240 each day that we didn't have. So, we decided that we would just 'make do'.  It ended up being quite an adventure for us as we took city buses and walked for miles and miles (or was it kilometers and kilometers?) to find affordable food each day.  The first night, however, we were too tired and just stopped at the nearest street restaurant to our hotel.  It was super yummy.

The next morning, we got up and watched the sunrise on the beach - it was breathtaking.  A much needed reminder of the beauty and simplicity there is on this Earth if we just take time to breathe deeply and notice it.

(The obligatory envy-inducing 'feet on beach' photo.)

So, we all gathered and meandered over to the hotel next door to hear our presentation (AKA, to get our promised free breakfast).
     After the 90 Mexican minutes (that's 120 in American minutes) we finally convinced them that while we were grateful for the offer of allowing us to pay $55,000 for the privilege of having 30 different weeks that we could spend at their fancy hotel, in which we could then pay another $3,600 per week that that we came, we were however not interested in it at this time.  By the time the 4th 'manager' got to us, he finally gave up and said, "Well, I tried."
    It was a delicious breakfast. One of the new things we enjoyed was their version of a 'green smoothie' which consisted of cucumbers, kiwis, and cactus.  Then we were given tickets to the event of our choice, which we had picked out beforehand. The kids all wanted to go and 'swim with the dolphins'.  So now we had something planned for the next day. But for the remainder of that day.....we were 100% content to just do this:

and this:

 and this:

 and this:

And after realizing we had not brought any sunblock because of the TSA restrictions on ounces, we found a pharmacy and bought some of this:

because we were beginning to look like this:

By the end of the day we were in need of nourishment, and we found the cutest little quaint eatery off the street. It was called "Las Quekas" and it was three Mexican ladies standing in a 8x10 foot area with a large black outdoor flat top stove. They only sold Quesadillas and they were so fresh and delicious and homemade. And the best part of all - they were only 13 pesos each (that is exactly one dollar).  This tiny, elderly lady that must have been about 4 feet 5 inches with strong arms and a facial expression that you knew held wisdom and mystery beyond our comprehension, would grab the dough, flatten it out, and then throw it onto the black top, constantly pressing, flipping, and rotating several at a time. Another, younger girl would then grab the fillings by hand (no gloves of course) and throw the fresh cheese (queso fresco) on there along with a handful of whichever meat was ordered. I describe this process in detail because it became so familiar to me as we made the pilgrimage by foot every day thereafter to eat! We would order about 8-10 quesadillas for the 6 of us, then walk back the 2.7 kilometers to our hotel each night to enjoy our dinner together. I really wish there were something even close to the level of yumminess here in the States for only a buck!

Waiting for quesadillas. Yes, we were the only tourists eating there.

We got up the next morning and headed took a bus to get to the boat to get to the island (Isla Mujeres) to get to the dolphins.  By the end of this day, the kids had now experienced three modes of transportation that were completely foreign to them: planes, buses, and a ferry!

The experience that it was to get in the water with dolphins, and to literally pet them, and swim with them was nothing short of amazing. We each, in turn, we able to get pushed by two dolphins at a time, their noses into our heals as they pushed us in the water; hold onto their fins, belly to belly as they swam us to shore; kiss them, hold them in our arms, and so much more! It was an experience that will live on in our hearts and hopefully minds, forever!  I say this because unfortunately, they did not allow us to take pictures of the events, as they have their own photographers taking all of the photos. Now, I know that it is a staple for tourism industries such as this, however, the prices were nothing short of highway robbery in my opinion. They wanted $400 dollars for our family pictures! Yes - that is in US dollars. So not only did we not purchase any, but I sadly did not see anybody in our group purchase them either. ;(

These pics of the dolphins that I took before we got in the water with them are the only ones I have:

While waiting for the ferry ride back to Cancun, we had several hours to spare, and we took a taxi into town and did a little shopping (aka bargaining).

They quickly learned the essential rules of "never accept the first OR the second offer" and "always start to walk away".

How can you see a prop like these and NOT jump in for a photo op?

Sombrero Sadie!

Nacho Libre mask...finally!!

Hanging out (literally) in the hammocks while awaiting our buffet lunch.

The family that swings together...stays together? 

Yea - the whole "VIRGIN" drinks concept got a little out of control for the kiddos!

Beautiful sunset on the boat ride back to Cancun.

After that fun day on the Isla Mujeres, Maelynn and I took a bus into town and found a large grocery store called "Wal Mart"! Haha.  While a lot of the stuff looked the same - it was interesting to see that quite possibly Americans are the ONLY people who keep their eggs refrigerated. 

 We got up on Sunday morning, excited to find a church to go to and watch General Conference.  I have blogged about how much I LOVE General Conference before, and it never changes for me - it is always a time of feeling growth, inspiration, and love from great women and men, called of God to help guide us through this crazy thing called mortality! And boy, it seems to only be getting crazier by the day!
     We tried to use the "Meetinghouse Locator" on my LDS tools app, but ironically it was 'down for maintenance'. So we looked up the address of a church and found the nearest crossroads on a map, and hopped on a bus and pointed to the map and asked the driver if he was going near there. He said yes. At a certain point, he told us to get off. We obliged, and kept asking for directions. After walking for over 30 minutes, and recieveing several different answers as to where this strange church could be, we finally found it down a little dirty street. Imagine our surprise to find the gates were locked and there were no cars in the parking lot!

 Eventually we buzzed the buzzer at the gate and a man came out. He told us that it was a regular chapel and that Conference was only being shown in the Stake Centers.  We asked him where the nearest Stake Center was, and he said: "Oh - it is just down the road a little. Like 15 minutes walking, or maybe 5 minutes by car." So, off we set on the second leg of the journey.

Of all the graffiti in the world ( and there was a LOT of it there), how random is it that we saw a post that had GREG written on it, with the letters PT underneath. It was too cosmic NOT to grab a picture of!

After about 90 minutes of walking in the scorching heat - we arrived, all sweaty and exhausted, and entered into the Stake Center, basking in the immediate relief of the cooler temperature, and the welcoming sounds of the MoTab belting out the closing hymn!!! Ah well, at least we had found our sanctuary and would be able to listen to the second session. But with two whole hours to kill, we quickly began to realize that walking for hours in the heat will deplete your energy, so Greg and Landen became the instictual 'hunters and gatherers to take care of us. They walked and walked until they found some food...

Greg and Landen found us some food (two little rotisserie chickens and six rolls) that the six of us all snarfed down with our hands over the kitchen sink. (Did I mention we had no pride left at this point in our hunger?)

The large Chapel and Overflow set up with seats for watchiing General Conference in Spanish. I loved the random Mexican bell decorations hanging up in the cultural hall...

...and the little TV in a side classroom that was playing it in English! We felt lucky to have a private viewing!

As we were leaving the Stake Center after a wonderful session.

Our blistered feet were so grateful that we were able to find a bus only a couples of blocks from the church that would take us back home to the hotel. 

The buses were a fun new experience for all of the kids.

We slept well that Sabbath night and were up early the next morning for our planned tour with our LDS guide, Helaman, from Helamantours.com.  He showed up at our hotel, as we had arranged through email earlier, and he said, "I think I saw you guys at our church yesterday".  Go figure! Small world. Turns out that the guy who was going to take us (Helaman) couldn't do it, so his son-in-law, Carlos, filled in for him. It was one of the coolest things to listen to Carlos relate his amazing conversion story, his deep well of knowldege of history and anthropology and archeology, his endless fount of memorized scriptures from the Book of Mormon, and his strong testimony. It was more than worth every penny paid and it helped me gain an even stronger love of and desire to continue reading the Book of Mormon.

At Chichen Itza.

The families that sweat together....stay together?

This one is at Tulum. Absolutelu beautiful scenery all around. Although imagining the horrors of what it was like when it was in full use is beyond comprehension HORRIBLE!

Happy (Partial) Family Photo.

The tres amigas! I am so grateful to have such wonderful daughters. I feel blessed to be their mother every day.

The last view of Tulum from the HIGHEST point in all of Cancun: 45 feet above sea level! 

We got back after a long day of driving, walking, touring, and learning, and headed back to our favorite sweet ladies making street quesadillas. But on the way, Sadie decided to give in to her desire to burn all the pesos she had, and paid a lady to put some nice little braids in her hair. 

The morning we had to leave - it began to rain. It rained from the time we checked out of the hotel and for the remaining five hours we were waiting at the airport!  But before we left. we spent a few minutes on the beach, where Landen carved this beautiful sea turtle for me. Oh - that reminds me...we actually saw sea turtles out in the ocean near the hotel. It was so cool. There were areas that were cordoned off and marked, where they had come up and laid their eggs.

In the lobby of the hotel - my silly girls posing for one last picture!

Maelynn acting all natural in the lap of luxury.

Maelynn and Sadie

We left the hotel at noon, and between waiting at airports, and a layover and change of plane and maintenance problem in Dallas, we arrived in SLC at midnight, and by the time we were home and unpacked it was nearly 4 am.  The absolute best part of the end of my trip was getting to go upstairs to the boy's room and kissing each of their little slumbering cheecks.  I am truly, truly a blessed person. 

We really learned a lot, experienced a lot, and grew closer to each other on our trip! 

Muchsimas Gracias y Viva Mexico!

   

The SILO SAGA

  
        
           For quite some time, we had been wanting to get a Silo. You know, those cool metal buildings that farmers and ranchers have, usually to store grain? Yup, those. I have been seeing some really cool ways that people use them on Pinterest and I had great plans for one in our yard. We searched for a long time and finally found one on Craigslist that was a thousand dollars and we bit the bullet and purchased it. Greg and the boys spent an entire day helping to take it apart from the nice farmer and load it up and bring it to our house. We chose a spot in the back corner of our side yard, next to our little mini-orchard of apple trees.   The kids spent at least two more days assembling the silo, it was a LOT of work. Did I mention what hard workers my kids are? That is one thing that I am very grateful for. I know that Greg is the impetus behind most of their character building when it comes to a work ethic, and that is one of the reasons that I was drawn to him in the first place. But I digress...

          So, once it was all assembled in our little corner, it was a happy place. The purpose would not be to store grain, but rather to use as a mini shed, to store our lawnmowers, etc. And the children also would play in there, and it was even used one night for a 'campout'. 

      Suddenly one day, a man showed up on my front door steps. He was from the County Planning and Zoning commission and asked me what the silo was for. I told him it was to be used as a storage shed. He told me that I needed to come in and get it approved and pay for the zoning permit. I was a bit surprised by his visit, but we of course complied. When Greg and I went in, he admitted that the only reason that he stopped by was due to a complaint from a neighbor about the silo. This was disheartening to say the least.   After visiting with him for a little bit, we began to realize that there were many many other 'infractions' or 'violations' of the county codes going on in our neighborhood. When we asked him about it, he admitted to us that "most people just go ahead and put in a little shed or do such and such and never even come and get zoning permits, but that they don't have time to go door to door and enforce it, so they really only ever investigate if someone sends them a complaint." 

       Feelings in my heart ranged from anger to sadness to frustration about it. Part of me wanted to turn around right then and turn in all of the rest of the people in our neighborhood who were 'getting away' with whatever.  Part of me wanted to know exactly who had called and complained about our silo, just so that I would know who to avoid in the future, or who to confront about it if I ever got the courage up.  However, after seeing the stress this induced in my pacifist husband, I decided to just ignore the feelings of anger or trying to find out who did it, and to just comply and pay the fees and move on with our lives and adjust our plans.

      We paid the $90 fee and got the zoning permit in place and we were all legit and good to go.  Then, one day about a week or so after all that, my kids went out to grab the mail, and there was an anonymous note left in my mailbox that said, "Silo must go. Neighbors complaining." I was just so taken back by it all. It was like a gut-punch to receive that kind of 'threat' after all we had just gone through, paying the fees and everything.  This too brought an increased measure of stress to Greg, and I hated to see that. After much reflection, he decided that as sad as this would be, he would simply sell it and let it go and move on.

 Because that is the type of good man that he is.

 I was still wanting to stick to my guns since we were all legit and everything. There is no acting board or HOA for our neighborhood, so there was nobody to go to for a vote or anything. And now we had obtained the proper paperwork and permit, etc. The obvious reason for people complaining is that they simply didn't like the look of it. That is it.

     Then, a few weeks later, a woman who lives in our neighborhood, but whom I have never met before, shows up at my door with a slip of paper, inviting us to a neighborhood meeting to 'discuss the importance of maintaining the values of our homes and the possibility of starting up an HOA to enforce covenants, etc.'  This was crazy. This, to me, is the very definition of  'adult bullying' if ever there were one.  Luckily for any and all of my neighborhood silo haters, we had already sold the silo to someone on Craigslist. The children were a bit confused as to why we had spent all the money and hard labor in the first place, only to be so quickly removing it and getting rid of it. The kids spent more days of their time taking it all down.  It is interesting to me to note that my children also experienced a measure of this 'anonymous bullying' and went through various stages of confusion and anger themselves. These are the kinds of things that stick with children, that shapes their views, that likely influence them when they begin to model adult behaviors.

    Here is what I wanted to yell at the person or people who started this whole mess: "You know what? If you had not been a coward, and told us from the very beginning straight to our faces, that you hated it and would fight it no matter if we were legal to have it or not, you could have saved us a big headache and $90. That amount of money could have paid for school lunches for my children for like at least ten days! Also - I am not sure if you realized this or not, but the whole reason that we live in this neighborhood is because we are in the 'country'.  If you look about 200 yards to the north of my house, you will see horses and pasture. If you go about a block away from our neighborhood, it is all country houses and farms and there are many silos all around!"

   Here are a few of the questions that were brought into my mind after going through this experience:

    Why do people feel like they have the right to bring others down? Why don't people stop judging others based solely on what their home looks like? Do people really feel like they are 'better than' those neighbors of theirs down the road who may have a less appealing facade to their homes, but are still hard working families, just because they have fancy homes and expensive toys in their yards? Does anyone care about the value of hard work anymore? Does anyone care about what is going on in the raising of the children in their neighborhoods? Wouldn't it have been nice to have met your neighbors at least ONCE in FIVE YEARS and gotten to know them as people before passing judgment and hurting their family based solely on something they chose to put in their yard?

    The whole concept of the neighborhood meeting and the complaints in the first place just scream out: "It's all about ME! It is about MY perceived home values. It is about what I think looks acceptable.  It is about what I want to see as visually appealing in MY neighborhood. It's about me wanting to appear to live in a RICH or exclusive neighborhood."

       To sum up my feelings on this saga, I offer the following points of reflection, not only to those 'anonymous' neighbors of mine, but to all of us, myself included:

What if instead of thinking about only ourselves, we took a moment to think about our neighbors? What if we took the time to get to know the human beings living inside of those walls? What if we took time to befriend those who live near us and to see the potential value and impact that the seven children living inside of the home could bring to the future of our community? What if we all cared more about what was inside the home than outside? And with all my apologies to MLKJ....What if we didn't judge people based on the color of their silo, but rather the content of their character?

I hate to leave this post with any feeling that we are worse off because of this experience, but rather, I would like to believe that I have learned important lessons that have influenced how I want to behave towards others and how I want to look at others. We have gained experience in: how the county and government systems work; four + days of hard work together as a family; and some measure of compassion and forgiveness in our hearts. We are healthy, happy, and even this little incident is only a tiny blip in the radar compared to the goodness that surrounds us, the neighbors that we have grown to dearly love, and the eternal perspective that sharpens with each jolt in our lives.