Books I read in February 2018

Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner **

This was a book about two friends reunited years after graduation.  One friend had betrayed the other in high school so they were out of touch but then the betraying friend was in trouble and sought her old friend for help.  It was sort of good and sort of dicey at times (lots of skimming) and sort of farfetched and not believable.  Meh.

In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende ***

I liked this book!  It was set in Brooklyn and Guatemala and Chile and Brazil.  It is about three very different people who come together after a big snowstorm in Brooklyn and how they help each other solve the big problem they find themselves in the midst of.  For example, there's the problem of what to do with the dead body....

Love the One You're With by Emily Giffen **

This book is about a woman who is confronted with an old flame and tries to decide if she's happy with her husband or if she wants to go back to her boyfriend.  It felt like watching an oncoming train wreck and I spent most of the book super frustrated but I still read it, so there's that.

BYU day

All good things must come to an end and Stella flew back to Virginia Beach on Monday night.  Earlier in the day, we went back to BYU to tour the campus and spend a little time with Braeden and Emma.

Braeden showed us his favorite buildings and his favorite spots in his favorite buildings.  We met up with Heather, who was one of my favorite laurels when I was YW president.  I loved catching up a little with her.  

Mark didn't have school so we were happy he was there too.  (Although when it was 10:00 and he kept asking when lunch was I told him to STOOOOOOOOP.)

We finally ate lunch--much to Mark's relief--in the Cougareat.  Across the way I saw my youngest (much younger) cousin Brett.  I see him from time to time and I never know if he will remember me because by the time he entered the scene I lived in Connecticut or California or Washington.  He remembered me though and jumped up to give us each a hug.  He towered over all of us, including Braeden.  I was happy to see him.  Cousins were a good invention.

Braeden had class so we visited the BYU bookstore and then at 2:00, met Emma for second lunch.  (It was Emma's first lunch, Stella and I just got drinks, Mark had a second lunch.)

Two of Emma's friends joined us and we had a nice time visiting and laughing.  A guy walked up and said, "Stella?!?  What are you doing here?"

He had served a mission in Virginia as well.  He pulled up a chair and they caught up and he quizzed me all about Braeden because even though they are both at BYU, they've never run into each other there.

We spent a wonderful BYU day.  I love that place!  Over and over Stella commented on the light and great atmosphere and happy students.  Yep.  It's sort of magical.

Even with a little snow.

Sunday

Sunday afternoon after church, we hosted a dinner for Braeden and Emma and their friends so everyone could meet Stella.

I like all those BYU kids.  They are funny and bright and enjoyable to be around.  They bring light and joy to our house.

Adam, Ben, Kinamo, Braeden, Stella, Mark, Marie, Emma, Vanessa and Sam

Vanessa spied the snow covered trampoline and wanted to go jump on it.  Marie said she'd go too.  Vanessa was trying to get Emma to go and Emma declined.  I said, "Ask Mark."

"Yes!" Vanessa said, "Mark!"

Sure enough, Mark was in.  Gingers stick together.  Even when it's jumping in snow in your socks.

I put the girls by the fire after.

We played Quiplash in the basement and those kids are hilarious.  I cry-laughed a lot.

Then it was brownies and ice cream and all the big kids found their shoes and headed back to campus.  All the hard parts of moving away from our loved ones and places feel worth it when you're 30 minutes from BYU.  That is truth.

Turned hearts

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: 

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. 

Malachi 4:5-6

First my brain got full from all the classes we attended and then my heart got full to overflowing.  (It came out my eyes in the form of tears.)

RootsTech was a great experience.  I learned a lot and was inspired to do new things and overwhelmed because how will I ever have all the time to do all the things and where do I start?

Saturday was the Family Discovery Day and I loved it.  We all went except Emma who had other commitments.  Professor Henry Gates (the PBS guy and I love PBS!) spoke to us and Natalia Fourcade spoke and sang in the morning.  I didn't know who she was before but I loved her!  She is a Mexican pop singer with incredible talent.  When she sang Remember Me from Coco?  It pretty much sealed the deal in a room of family history buffs that she was heroic.

(Pictures taken from RootsTech website.)

We attended a class with Hank Smith and Jason Hewlett where they showed a lot of fun family things you can do on the Family Search app and website and then the best:

President and Sister Oaks!  She was one of my favorite professors at BYU and he is an apostle so I was a happy listener.  They spoke about ways they had brought family history alive for their families and I was again inspired and overwhelmed because I want to do everything.

Braeden had mentioned earlier in the day that he had an ingrown toenail that was bothering him.  I said we'll have to get you a doctor appointment and then Stella told him what he could try.

So it was really fast that I got him an appointment with Dr. Stella.

After the conference, she and Adam and I went to many stores looking for a particular remedy that she wanted to get Braeden.  We finally had to give up and get an alternative but I ordered Stella's cure from Amazon.

It is nice to have a doctor around.

After dinner, Stella and I sat down with her family history and spent a few hours.  There are a few people of mystery who we can not place but it was thrilling and exciting because we found people!  Stella said we were planning a jail break in spirit prison.  We were both giggling and attaching sources and scribbling notes and making connections and hugging and it was exciting.

I went to bed exhilarated.  Because the spirit of Elijah is real.  Even though the people we were finding are not my people, Stella is my people.  It was a thrill to connect her to her people.

A snatch of time

I have a couple of minutes this morning for a brief write-this-down.

Living in the fast lane over here!  Yesterday I was away from home for about 14 hours straight and that's not usual for this homebody.

Tuesday Stella and I went to BYU for the devotional.  It was wonderful!  How I love and adore BYU!  Emma's choir coincidentally was singing for the devotional.  Braeden's friend texted him a picture so Braeden texted me the picture.

We had lunch and then Stella and I headed to SLC to "avoid the lines" and get checked in to RootsTech a day early.

Ha!

We stood in line for nearly two hours with all the other people who were cleverly avoiding the line with us.

It reminded me of all the lines at Disneyworld I was unwilling to stand in because they weren't worth it....

We stopped and visited my grandma on the way home and by a happy coincidence, Enoch and Jennifer and family were there visiting too.  It was great to see them briefly and gawk at how tall Isaiah and Luke are.  I swear you can't turn your back on those boys.

That evening we went to the temple and performed a sealing for Stella's beloved son and daughter-in-law.  It was a sacred time and I'm profoundly grateful every time I'm able to be in the temple with Stella.  It brings greater clarity and renews my love for temple covenants and ordinances.

Yesterday was the first day of RootsTech.  Wow.  What a crush of people!  It was a lot for an introvert to handle all day long but I persevered and of course enjoyed spending time with Stella.  She regaled me with an amazing story while we ate our lunch of the time she entered and left Nigeria five times in 24 hours.  I've never met anyone with such a life story.  For today I selected a class for us to attend about writing your story.  (Hint, hint Stella.)

It's a little hard for me to know what classes to attend.  The beginner class we attended was a little too easy; I knew most all the information already.  The intermediate class left me saying, "What now?"

We attended a class about slavery research which I thought would be interesting especially because of Stella's African roots.  She said maybe I had African roots as well and I showed her the underside of my arm that is so pale it is blue.  The class was engaging though.  I love that people are passionate about niches of history and make things happen.

On the Family Search app, you can connect with other people found at RootsTech you are related to.  I exchanged a few messages with people:

It made me happy.

That's all for today.  I'm off to fill my brain up!

Nineteen

When I asked her why she was wearing her hood for the picture she said, "I didn't choose the thug life, Mom.  The thug life chose me."

Amidst all the everything Emma's birthday celebration was a little segmented.  Sunday we celebrated at home though.  She likes cherry chip cake and the only place to find a cherry chip cake mix is Ridley's which is a sort of ghetto grocery store around here.  Saturday Adam and I went and I bought three mixes.  "Do you need three?" Adam asked.

You never know.

Here are nineteen things I love about my girl:

1-She knew I had a cold and called me from the store to see if she could bring me juice.  She's a caretaker.

2-I don't know anyone who can rock lipstick like she can.

3-She is loyal to her friends.

4-She figures things out.  It makes me feel confidence in her.  She'll get it eventually, whatever it is.  She'll get it.

5-She listens.  You're not always sure she listens because no one tells her what to do, but she's listening all along.

6-She's super funny.

7-She's super weird.

8-She gets some things about me that no one else gets on the same level.

9-She has beautiful handwriting.

10-I love the songs she writes and then plays and sings on her guitar.

11-I love to watch her sing because she sings with her whole soul.

12-She has a symbiotic relationship with her brothers.  They take care of each other in different ways.

13-I love the ways she is like Adam.  She's smart and insightful and adept at technology and systems like he is.

14-Injustice makes her angry and she's not going to let it slide.

15-She loves art and philosophy and beautiful things.

16-When she shares her secrets with you, you feel like you won the lottery.

17-She can be counted on.  She does what she says she'll do.

18-Winnie the Pooh is her spirit animal.

19-She is a complicated blend of sweet and sassy and standoffish and loving and self-deprecating and confident and easy going and ready to set the world on fire.  I'm glad she's my girl!

Magic Kingdom and the rest

I have to condense days here because Stella is coming tonight and I'm going to spend the rest of the week with her (mostly trying to keep up with her at RootsTech).

I'm excited to see her!

But back to the trip:

We went to Magic Kingdom on Monday sans Adam who had his conference to attend.  (Which I can't complain about because the conference got us his airline ticket and our hotel.)

We did miss him though.

The sun was bright and the humidity was real (check out Braeden's tight curls!) but we were at Disneyworld and all smiles!

I loved spending the day with these three:

Taking kids this age to a theme park is the way to do it.  Braeden would chide me every time I picked up the backpack to carry.  "What are you doing?  Let me carry that."  So I felt really lucky compared to all the mothers whose children were whining and crying and begging to be carried.

There was a mystifying amount of babies and toddlers.  At one point we were in line and the lady behind us had a teeny tiny baby.  Someone asked her how old she was.  Thirteen. Days.

Thirteen days.  Are you kidding me?

People are crazy.

Disneyworld food is expensive and we were there for the long haul so I told my charges that I wasn't going to be buying them a ton of food.  "I'll bring snacks," I said "and I'll buy you a little food but there's no complaining about being hungry."

I bought them the iconic turkey leg (which I thought was kind of gross) and a hot dog to split for lunch.  If you knew how much food Mark and Braeden put away you would know that it was sort of a loaves and fishes situation.

My favorite rides are the gentlest ones and our kids gamely went along on Small World, Peter Pan and the Carousel.

I promise Mark was happier than this picture suggests.

 Maybe the 21 year old is too old for this when his feet touch the floor of the carousel...

...but probably not.

I checked the weather at home.

I felt a little smug in my t-shirt and sandals.

Adam joined us after his day at the conference was over.  We went on a few rides, including Dumbo.

There's Mark and Adam taking a picture of Emma, two elephants behind.

So between the two pictures, it's a regular family portrait?

There's also this picture for posterity:

I eventually ran completely out of steam but Braeden and Emma were still going strong.  Adam, ever the one who takes care of me, got Mark and me back to the hotel (an Uber because the hotel shuttle wouldn't be until later) then circled back in the rental to get the big kids so they could stay until the bitter end.

He's quality, that one.

He also got up in the 4:00 hour to drive them to the airport Tuesday morning.  I am the lightest sleeper in the world (OK, tied with my sisters) and I barely moved when they left.  I was exhausted!

Mark and I spent a leisurely morning then went back to Magic Kingdom during the hottest, busiest part of the day.  Not the best plan we ever had.

Sunscreen makes me shiny!

We still had a good time though.  Mark is fun to be around and very pleasant--until he isn't.

Wednesday we stayed at the hotel and he swam and I read.

It was a beautiful place:

Mark did the breath stroke for two hours in the lazy river and then he was starving.  And when Mark is hungry, it isn't pretty.

We were in the midst of a regular standoff--me refusing him more food until he had done a little of his homework when Adam showed up with a big plate of food.

Mark's amiability was restored and after he'd done some homework and Adam and I had gone to the store to buy dinner for the airplane, Mark and Adam swam some more.

I very happily read my book and took pictures of lizards who like the music coming out of the speakers apparently.

I wonder how they describe it to their friend lizards....

All good things must come to an end so Adam dropped Mark and me off at the airport Wednesday evening.  (He stayed another day for work.)

I only took sandals because I didn't want to use the suitcase space for shoes.  I did have some brightly colored socks I brought to wear in the hotel room in case my feet got cold.

I donned those in the SLC airport before going outside, as well as Mark's flannel shirt and my BYU sweatshirt.

What can I say?  I was super fashionable.

While we were standing in the 20 degree night, a 65 degree drop from Orlando, waiting for the shuttle to take us to long term parking, I decided I was never leaving home again.

But then I did.  The next day.  I had to go to the grocery store.