Seeing Santa

The day after we got home from Thanksgiving in Utah we had an appointment to see Santa at the library.  Eve sat on Dane's lap.  It was great.  Having older kids makes life so easy.  I remember trying to do this activity when the 4 kids were young and it was so hard and stressful.  It is a popular activity so you need to get there like an hour early and stand in line.  The parking lot is also really full and parking is crazy.  This year Megan rode her bike to the library after school and read a book in line for us, Maddie rode in the car to the library 5 minutes before it started, I dropped Mads and the babies off at the door and she took them in while I went and found a parking spot.  And then I calmly and quietly waked into the library and sat in our seats just as it started.  Easy-peasy.  It sometimes feels like I am cheating at this toddler thing.

Dane was cute.  He asked for dragons.

Eve asked for dinosaurs - but that is only because Dane asked for dragons.  What she meant to ask for was a stroller for her baby.

Only Madison was willing to get in the picture.

Look at this pictures of Maddie (same as Eve)

 

Thanksgiving in Utah

As I mentioned earlier my brother's families weren't with us for Thanksgiving, but they came over on Tuesday to decorate turkey cookies and hang out.

They did some Thanksgiving crafting

We also got our Christmas Jammies and took our cousin pictures.

Our cute Hanna cousin family.

And the Thanksgiving feast!

The teenage table.

 

Utah: Bryan Roylance

I have spent the last year or two thinking a lot about the people the Lord put into my life.  I am who I am because of very specific people, and often because of specific things they have done.  I think this self reflection has come because I have teens now and I am praying like crazy the Lord will put good people in their life that will influence them.  This man, Bryan Roylance, is one of those people. Bryan is one of those "angels on this side of the veil" that Elder Holland talks about.  Mine and Jason's whole life is what it is because of him. 

Jason was 16.  He was pretty depressed.  I say "pretty" because I wasn't there.  I am not sure how bad it was, but from what I have heard and from what I know about Jason I would actually say he was severely depressed.  I am not sure he was going to be ok.  There was a real chance he could have stayed that way the rest of his life.  Jason was eating lunch every day in the choir room.  An older girl, Crystal Shammy, noticed him.  I don't know why, or what her thought process was, but she noticed him and she decided to intervene.  She just inserted herself into his life.  He didn't want it.  He didn't make it easy.  But she didn't care.  She kept talking to him, kept sitting with him.  She brought enough light into his life to make him feel like he could do or be more.  I think she was sent to prepare him for Bryan.  

I believe the story goes that one day during football practice Bryan overheard Jason telling someone that he went to the temple every Saturday with his brother at 6 am.  Bryan thought that was really cool and asked if he could come.  Being Bryan, he started inviting everyone he knew.  Bryan is a gatherer.  During this time Bryan started befriending Jason outside of their temple trips and inserting himself into his life.  Jason was, again, a little resistant, but it didn't bother Bryan.  And after a few short weeks Bryan, Jason and Tom Sorensen were good friends.  Their friendship ran deep almost instantly as they discovered a shared love for the gospel in a way that most other teenagers didn't . They called each other "brothers".  This friendship changed Jason in a profound way and truly saved his life.  It was in this environment of brotherly love and friendship that I met them.  I was having my own hard time.  I was lonely and lost, but coming closer to Christ every day.  One Friday night the three boys were driving around finding people to invite to the temple and Bryan remembered a girl in his health class that he thought might like an invitation.  They stopped by my house and invited me.  And, as the saying goes, the rest is history.  

Everything that Jason and I have, everything we are, the hope that is in us, the foundation of our relationship, everything, stems from Bryan.  He has a natural ability to draw people in, to make them feel loved, to gather, to lift.  He loved the Lord and the gospel and wanted to be like Jesus, whatever the cost.  He is the one that showed me the gospel was exciting and joyous.  I had never met anyone who got so excited and "pumped" when he felt the spirit - you could literally feel and see His light radiating from Bryan when he was feeling the spirit.  This is how I feel the spirit, but I didn't recognize it as such until I saw it in Bryan.  The gospel is amazing, and something to be so excited about - Bryan taught me that.  

His is one of those interesting friendships.  As you can see it means the world to me, but we had a falling away.  Several of my most meaningful relationships have done similar things.  It is almost like it is too heavy, to real, to try to stay in touch with the business of life.  That is probably an excuse, and there are deeper, more personal reasons for the distance, but regardless we hadn't seen or been in contact with Bryan for almost 15 years.  We didn't know anything about his life.  But, thanks to Facebook, I found him and we got together over Thanksgiving.  I wanted to hear his side of the story.   I wanted to know his internal thoughts at the time of why he befriended both of us (as teenagers we hardly had the words to ask such questions or give such answers).  His answers were a little disappointing.  It wasn't intentional.  There wasn't some driven spiritual motivation (that he was aware of, I know God was leading him).  It was just "who he was".  He just thought we were cool and wanted to be our friends.  ha.  Jason and I are cool - people say that all the time.  haha

 

Utah: Temple Trip

I got appointments for baptisms at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.  This temple holds a very sacred place in my heart.  It is where I had one of my most (and first) temple spiritual experiences.  I won't share in detail, but I want to record a bit.  Madison was young - just a few months, and I hadn't been to the temple in a while.  But I was nursing, had the other 3 kids under age 4, and Jason was working graveyards, so it seemed unlikely.  One day I was yearning to go.  The last session was at 8 (bedtime) but they accepted initatories until 9:30.  It was an evening that Jason had off, I was done nursing and put Maddie down and, immediately the thought came "go to the temple now".  I looked at the clock and it was 9.  Surly I was tired and just wanted to go to bed, but I honestly felt a pull, like the temple was pulling me.  I threw on a dress and told Jason I was going to the temple.  It was dark.  I remember so vividly seeing the lights in the distance.  They felt like magnets.  I was overcome with gratitude.  As I pulled onto the grounds I remember feeling so overwhelmed at the idea that there was a place on earth that I could go to feel close to Him.  To feel at peace.  In a world fraught with contention, worry, grief, He made a place, a temple, His home, that he allowed me to go and feel close to Him.  I was overwhelmed and humbled by the prospect, that He would allow me to come.  I went in.  I actually don't remember much of the initiatory, but I remember noticing little details, the beauty of the wood work, the softness of the fabrics, and thinking, "I am in my God's temple, I am His daughter, and He has given me the privilege of being in the beautiful palace to perform these ordinances to prepare me to come back to Him.  Every movement, every word, every object felt holy.  When I was done I wasn't done.  I wanted to stay.  As I went back to the locker room and I passed the brides room.  The thought came to me "go in and pray".  I didn't even know if that was allowed.  But it was 10:30 and no one was around, so I went in and prayed.  There, in that room, at that moment I felt closer to my Savior than I ever had.  He had a message for me.  He had called me to His house and had prepared me because He had something to tell me.  I am so glad I listened and went.  I have since felt called to the temple on certain occasions.  I hadn't been back to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple at night since that day, I was grateful to be back and to feel some of those feelings again.  

Anyways... when I started this post I had no intention of writing any of that.  

I love going and taking my neices and nephews with us.  We also had grandpa come with us this time!

Brock actually met a girl IN the temple baptistry.  Her name is Natalie.  It is note worthy because almost 3 months later they are still texting every single day.  So funny.  We went and got ice cream after.

 

Utah: Family Pictures

Audrey took a picture for us in hopes of getting a Christmas card.  They turned out pretty well.  I wish I could have put a bit more thought into it and had Noah and Megan in different shirts and we call could have matched a bit more.  But I purposely chose to not care, so I guess i can't complain.  Some things I just have to let go of.  But looking back I wish I could have found the mental energy.

 

Utah: Outings

 

On Thanksgiving day Jason took some of the kids out to Daniels house to play football.  They all loved it.

I took out kids and Brad and Sam to Jump Around Utah.  I LOVE that my older kids still have fun in places like that.

Dane wouldn't get in the picture. Lame.

This girl had a blast.  It was fun for me too, Dane ran around with the older kids or by himself and so I got to just follow her around and play with her.  Usually I am having to just supervise both of them, but with Dane being older I just got to focus on her for the first time and it was so much fun.

Dane played with Noah a lot.  They liked to sit up at the top of this slide and play "Scar and Mufasa" where scar lets go of Mufasa and he falls down the cliff, pretty funny.

I saw Megan and Brock just walking around and talking sometimes.  

Katie and I met up at the dinosaur museum with our littles.

As a family we went to the church history museum to see the temple display from the Friend to Friend.  Dane and Eve LOVE the friend to friends and watch them weekly.  I figured they would love to see the actual building from the show and the exhibit and I was right!  

Plus the exhibit didn't disappoint.  The people who made it were experts in child development and made it so perfectly suited for children of all ages.  It was also so beautiful.  

We also went to Discovery Gateway.  It fulfilled all the older kids nostalgia dreams.

Mine too.  I do LOVE watching Dane and Eve play with things the older ones played with.

They have changed quite a few things and we all agree the old way was better.  None of us like change.

We also dropped Noah and Megan off at several libraries.