Moments That Matter Most

Watch this. Then read my post. If you please.





Today is Craig and my 6th anniversary. Six years ago today I went through the temple and was sealed for time and all eternity to a wonderful man.
I had NO idea what family was all about. I don't think anyone really can until you have one of your own. Wedding days are always a rush, but I remember a lot of wonderful things about that day. I remember waking up before the sun rose in a sleeping bag in the basement of Craig's parents house the morning of the wedding with sheer panic. The first time in our entire engagement that I was nervous about getting married. And then remembering the sweet peaceful feelings I had when I knew that God had directed me to this man, that all the events in our life had brought us together so that we could start a family together. I remember plucking my eyebrows in the car on the way to the temple with Craig driving and also pulling over to make sure that I had my temple recommend with me (the one thing you HAVE to have on your wedding day and I forgot to make sure I had it- luckily it was in my bag and we drove on). I remember being in the bridal room in the temple with my mother, the only member of my family who could be there for the ceremony. She was crying. She cried through the whole thing. I remember the intense feelings of gratitude I had for her in the bridal room, so she could help me make it to the temple and be worthy to enter into a celestial marriage with my husband. I remember the temple sealer, my old college roommate's husband's grandfather. He's a music man. He talked about "harmony" in marriage and I felt the significance of the choice I was making and I felt a strong assurance at his words that Craig was the man I was meant to be with, to enter into the kingdom of God with. I remember the soft touch of Craig's hand as he held it at the altar, and remember the sweet finality of our answers to the temple sealer's questions. And that was it. We were married. Husband and wife. For time and all eternity. I remember hugging all the people I loved in that room, seeing my grandfather's nephew and his wife, who happened to live in Castle Rock, and who came to the ceremony because my grandparents could not and humbly whispered to me as they left that my grandparents were proud of me and that they were representing them there today. I watched as Craig shed tears of gratitude hugging his parents as they made their way around the circle and I loved him and his sweet parents all the more, both of them, for getting him there to the temple with me that day. I remember walking out of the temple and feeling a sweet nudge and whisper from Craig to go find my Dad and give him a hug (like he needed to tell me), and I remember leaving Craig and pushing people out of the way until they parted and I found him and hugged him and felt his loving fatherly embrace and I cried with him. I remember the genuine smiles of my brother and sister, their support and love shining in their faces and the gratitude I felt for their sincere friendship. And I remember the love I had for all my new brothers and sisters. A new family. These are moments that I cherish, that are gems in my memory for looking back on and pulling out and smiling at.
And I remember Craig. My husband. My best friend. Six years is not a long time, but I don't look at our love in measurements of minutes or days or years, I look at it in measurements of it's unselfish value in my life. How wonderful it is that God created man and woman, for each other, meant to be bound together in marriage ordained by Himself forever. We compliment each other to the tee. We were made for each other, not in a soul-mate kind of way, but in a physical, emotional, and spiritual way. And such beautiful blessings He bestows on those who keep those covenants and promises they make to their spouse and love them forever. Craig is someone who was made for me, made to make me stronger, to make me dig deeper, made for me to serve unselfishly my whole life. God designed service to bless the lives of those who give it, who work in His work, and a spouse is someone with whom you can always serve, always receive those blessings for, and I can't count the many times I have let my selfish guard fall in service to my husband, and he to me, and we have both felt the abounding blessings of His love on us for it. We have worked together and shed layers I'm sure neither of us believed we could shed and made each other better people (that in only six years, and we've got a long road ahead of us still, I can't imagine what further blessings could possibly come in the years ahead). That is the divine purpose of any relationship on earth, especially a marriage relationship, a family relationship.
I have no doubt that if we continue on the path that we both are on right now, continue in faith and service and growth and repentance and humilty and charity, we will enter into God's presence, hand in hand, and be able to stand before God and have him echo those eternal words, "Enter ye into my rest". That is why I love Craig so much, because I love God so much.
Happy six years, baby, here's to eternity.
By the way, celebrating with myself tonight cause Craig is up in the mountains with the youth in our ward for youth conference. Woot! :-)

Camp-o-rama

It was two years. Two LONG years of no camping. Last summer was the summer of bed-riddance, so camping was not on the agenda unfortunately. TWO YEARS. Surely torture can't be worse than that.
Camping each year always brings back memories of camping trips in years past. My family didn't go camping all that often growing up, but the point is that we went. And we enjoyed it. My favorite times were when we would go driving up the trails in Southern Colorado near Salida so far that when the stars came out you could see every single one of them with perfect clarity, then spreading out a tarp, bundling up in our sleeping bags, and gazing up at them until we fell asleep (and then freaking out when one of the three of us would "swear" we saw a UFO!!!) One of the most memorable camping trips as a child (my siblings and I still talk about it all the time) was one particular summer when my dad was living out in Rhode Island while we were staying with my mom in Idaho Falls. Those couple of years my dad would fly us out for a month or more to spend with him out at magical Yawgoo Pond with Grammy and Grandpa Brown and the family (best summers of my life, I miss it so!). One weekend Dad decided that we needed to visit the Canadian border. Every child needs to go to Canada at least once in their life I suppose, so this was to be my first exit of the country (Canada. Really, it's just like Fiji...). So we packed up an overnight bundle with tent and food and headed of to Maine. It was getting later when we found some campgrounds to settle in on the couple hour trip up north. I remember pulling off into some trees off the highway, turning down a windy dirt road, and then this pristine GORGEOUS lake opened up in the dense forest with a little spot just big enough to start a fire and set up a tent right next to it. And the best part was there was no one around, not a soul, we had the whole lake to ourselves. How lucky could we get??? We set up dinner- I even remember what we ate: some cooked chicken, Boboli pizza crust, and some carrots- it tasted divine, but everything tastes divine when you are camping. The weather was pleasant, cool, overcast, but not chilly- just perfect. While munching on carrots, suddenly our ears perked up when we heard this strange noise. Like marbles falling down a stone staircase. It was quiet at first, and it steadily got louder. And louder. And louder. What is that?? Bees? A big noisy truck rumbling through the forest? A dinosaur?? Then we looked out at the lake where the source of the noise was coming from. A giant wall of rain tumbling its way across the lake. It took a moment to register what that would mean for this poor, defenseless, haven't set up the tent yet family. We scrambled to shove the food away, pack up anything that shouldn't get wet, and launch ourselves into the car as the downpour reached us and continued with lightning for at least half an hour. My dad finally went out and set up the tent in the rain as best as he could (probably reminding himself that camping when you're the only adult of three children isn't the smartest idea). The next morning things had cleared up completely. It was sunny. Warm, in fact. Warm enough to go swimming in this crystal clear gem of a lake we stumbled upon. My dad was cleaning up breakfast and let us get changed so we could go take a dip in this magical water. Rose, my sister, and I walked in fist- the sandy beach we found stretched out with shallow completely translucent water- we could walk out until the water was at our chests and still see our toes in the sand perfectly, and much further. I bet if we boated out to the middle, there would be no murkeys down below, just cool, crisp clearness all the way to the bottom. Except there were a lot of sticks we had to be careful of. Big ones, yes, but also some small ones. Really small ones. Dark, black, maybe the size of a finger length...and kind of glistening, actually. Wow, that's weird. There's sort of a lot of those little black glistening sticks. All over the sand in the water. There was hardly room to step without looking out for them. I startled as I watched them- wait a minute...that one just moved. Just got up, squiggled it's way a couple of feet, and then dropped to the bottom again. I blinked. Then saw a couple more do the same thing. You know those moments in movies where everything is perfect and calm, and then all of a sudden something bad happens, but right before it does, the camera zooms in from a hundred feet away right into the face of a terrified person, and then they gasp and let out a primal yell for help?? Yeah, that was one of those moments. A horrific deadening realization hit me like a ton of bricks and I only had time to shreik "LEACHES!!!" before I was garbling and scrambling and drowning my way back to the shore. Panting, hearts racing on the sand, my sister and I shivered in our towels while my brother, smart one, snatched a couple onto a log and began torturing them with a stick. We packed up and left without anymore swimming.
The trip up to the border was short from where we were, maybe an hour. We passed through customs. I remember being really nervous because we told the inspection man as we crossed into Oh Canada that we were just going to look at some shops, which we did, but when my Dad suggested that we go to lunch as well later, I felt obligated that we go back and tell that man what we were doing. We didnt' specify lunch in those plans, surely they would catch us and jail us and deport us for not being specific with our time in their country. We were fine, though, as it turns out. No jailing. Couple things I learned from Canada: their gift shops along the border are expensive. And their seafood stinks. Really. In fact poor Rose on the way home lost that seafood all over a gas station floor outside the bathroom somewhere in Maine on the way back. Didn't make it to the toilet, but was too embarrassed to tell anyone, so she turned around and walked out of the market back to the car without saying a word and we drove off. As I recall, it wasn't until later when we stopped again on the side of the road for her to get sick again that she confessed to us that some unfortunate gas station attendant was probably cleaning up her puke as we spoke outside the bathroom and she didn't tell anyone. We stopped a couple more times as it started getting late to give Rose a comfortable spot to get it all out. The last time it was dark and cloudy out, we parked it on the side of the highway. Dad realized we may have been too close to the road, so after he got Rose settled, he pulled the car forward a little bit and then heard this crunching noise and the whole corner of the van we were in sunk down on one side. A flat tire. A few things I recall from this experience. Crying because it was raining and we had to wait outside, being panicky because Rose was still puking and I panicked when people puked around me back then, Addison (my brother) being a maniac as usual, then my dad losing it at us when Addison was frolicking too close to the highway and then Dad saying a lot of curse words when the jack slipped and he hurt his hand. We were silent the rest of the trip home.
BUT, like I said, we talk about this trip all the time. Sometimes nightmare trips make the best stories.
This trip last week was far from a nightmare trip. The kids were great. I bundled them up until they resembled that kid who "can't put his arms down" from the Christmas story at night because inevitably in years past they still wake up with cold faces and toes and hands. It was raining some of the time, windy a lot of the time, sunny some of the time, but nothing unbearable. We loved listening to the kids every two seconds on the way up the canyon ask over and over and over again, "Are we in the mountains yet???" and "Can we put marshmallows in the fire yet???". Oh wait...no, that's what we didn't love about the trip, sorry I forgot. Chloe collected bullet shells and rocks and lots and lots of wildflowers for Mommy and Grandma. Linus got really dirty and had permanent streak marks down his cheeks where the tears would spill out when he threw a fit over something (yes, still in that stage of life...), Odell was a doll, as usual. Didn't hardly make a peep the whole time! When it got cold out, I put on two onesies, a pair of pants, a sweater, and then stuffed her in a large thick fleece bunting and wrapped her up in another fleece blanket and she sat there looking like a burrito on my lap in front of the fire (yeah, like I said, a little paranoid about keeping the kids warm). It did get a bit chilly up there, though. Even Craig had to put on his long sleeved shirt- Linus thought it was hilarious when he wore it, he'd never seen his daddy in a long sleeved shirt. We ate lots of yummy food (thanks Grandma!!!!), shot some arrows, shot some air soft guns, took a small walk up the hill, played games,walked down to the creek and picked dandelions, sat around the fire and laughed till our sides were sore, yes, roasted marshmallows over the fire (Daniel put them in between two toasted Samoa Girl Scout cookies- I didn't try it, but it looked really good), and got dirty and stinky for a couple of days. Great fun. Instead of waiting a bazillion years for pictures to download, you can follow this link to look at my facebook album of the camping trip. That way you get to see more pictures anyway.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.750584186532.2254271.42105531&l=b19851ba82
Looking forward to having the weekend with the kids to myself while Daddy goes away to Youth Conference for a few days (going to go see Kung Fu Panda 2 with Linus and Chloe tomorrow...pending Craig leaves the car for me, he may need it to carry kids/stuff up to camp), and then cleaning the heck out of our house to prepare for all the family coming in town for the fourth of July week for our big summer HOORAH! (can't wait!!!!).
I. LOVE. SUMMER.

SAHM-ing it up!

It's been three weeks since the last day of school. In summers past, my only thought this time of year was a panicky "OHMYGOSH- three weeks gone already??? That's three weeks closer to going back to work and being away from my kids again!", followed by shortness of breath and a distracted claustrophobic feeling.
This year? Nope. It's so much more liberating when you can look at the month of August and include it in your summer planning. I JUST LOVE being a stay at home mom. I was thrilled on Tuesday when I spent the morning baking cookies, naptime teaching music lessons from my living room, and the afternoon inviting Chloe's friend over and letting the kids play in the wading pool outside on our patio while I watched them from the window and finished dishes. Normally any one of those activities would be the ONE activity I got done that day. It's baffling for me to think that 24 hours in a day is as long as it is. Well, sometimes. You know, one day at a time.
Yesterday I packed up the kids and we went and visited the very beautiful and very pregnant Alli out in Ft. Morgan. I brought my camera and didn't take it out of my car because I forgot that I brought it (lame!! I know...). We got there later then I had intended, but we played in their little sanctuary of a backyard for a while, ate lots of snacks for lunch, talked while the kids attacked all their toys in the basement (and attacked...each other- it was so good for Linus to have a little friend who was his age-little P was born a week before Linus!- size, and comparable energy level- the closest kid at church to his age/size is a girl who is as sweet as a button, Linus needed someone a little more durable I think!), and walked to the park and played in the wind and sand. Both kids the whole way home thanked me for bringing them out there to play and had a great time and I was just so grateful to spend some time with my "soul sister".
The drive home was beautiful. I had two tuckered out kids in the back who were dirty and suntanned and tired and the sun was bursting through the clouds as I rolled through all the hills on 34 driving towards the mountains. It was so beautiful and it felt like the sun was shining right down on my heart (cue gushy music). I sat there thinking on how lucky I was to have such good kids and to have this time to spend with them before they grow up. It was so beautiful, in fact, that I pulled over to take a picture so I could remember the beauty and the feelings I felt. I turned into the entrance of a ranch to the north and pulled out my equipment, got the right lens on, ran up the road a few paces while my kids sat confusedly watching from the car, and started to capture those glorious rays of sun gaping through holes in the clouds. I took about three or four shots, then looked down at my LCD screen to see how they turned out.

Or in my bag. Or in my car. Or in a 40 mile radius.
Right, well then, that little heart picture will just have to remain in my heart then. Probably a better place for it anyway.
ALSO, families are SO important. Really they are. This is why: http://lds.org/ensign/2011/06/defending-the-family-in-a-troubled-world?lang=eng.

Presenting Dr. Sharon Adams

That's right. See that pretty lady there?? That's my MOM! And she is now the prized possessor of a doctorate in Philosophy and Theology. YEAH!
She was working on finishing her bachelor's when we moved out to Colorado when I was 4/5 ish, so that's over 20 years in the making if you take it start to finish! Quite the accomplishment and I am proud and privileged to call this beautiful and brilliant woman my mother.


She has inspired an educational legacy with her three children. I attribute a lot of my graduating even after I got married and had two babies to her, education is so important!
Funny story about my mother. We grew up mostly in Boulder, CO and there are a lot of athletic avengers in Boulder. There are a lot everywhere, but people are health-conscious, to say the least, in Boulder maybe a little more-so than other places. I love it- I still crave the smell of health food stores sometimes at weird times of day (not a whole lot in the Greeley area, unfortunately) and there's not a time I step into one that I don't feel at home. :-) But there are always people out and about getting their exercise in any way they can in the streets: running, biking, jogging, hiking, you name it. Anytime we passed one while driving- no, every time we passed one while driving, this excited aura would come over my mother. You could see it in her face, her eyes glued to the person on the road, lips curling in anticipation, hands gripping the wheel, she would loudly erupt with a gutteral, almost primal and instinctual, "YOU GO GIRL!!!" Or boy, as it were. Sometimes the window was even rolled down. And my brother and sister and I would duck into our seats to keep from being seen.
So in honor of that, Mother, Dr. Sharon Adams, PhD, YOU GO GIRL!!!!!! With the window rolled down.

Changing

I spent all afternoon and all evening conceiving this new look. My next goal in life is to learn CSS so I can combine what little I know in photoshop with the internet. Anyone know much about Dreamweaver and how to use it?
In the meantime, I had a lovely time last night going to my old college roommate's masters violin recital (SHE IS AMAZING!!!!). I sat there through her whole performance clutching my program with my eyes wide as I listened and watched this crazy, fun-loving girl sing her heart and soul out on her beautiful instrument. I barely breathed. Really, it was stunning, and I'm not just saying that cause I love her (and I do!). Got to visit with a few old friends that I hadn't seen in a while, which was great. And of course I didn't bring my camera because I didn't want to look like a tourist, but yeah...mental pictures are great.
ALSO- my old student ward bishop hosted the event at his home, and his wife is making and selling this:
Home made, earth friendly, divine smelling laundry soap. In several divine smelling flavors- this one is lavender. Odell woke up this morning with wet sheets- perfect opportunity to use this stuff. It smelled so good I left the bag open and my entire laundry room smelled like a sweet lullaby. I am in love. You can read more about it on her blog here. I washed one of Odell's super soft fleece blankets in there and it came out feeling like a big fluffy pink cloud. I was jealous, I almost stole it from her so I could sleep with it...but you know, stealing from a baby...not highly looked upon.
Love