Three Cheers for Wives!

Last month I was talking to one of my Army wife friends whose husband is currently deployed overseas. She was jokingly offended that of all of the freebie offers extended to service members on Veterans Day none of those perks were also offered to the wives of Soldiers. I had to agree with my friend a little bit. In a lot of ways I feel like I'm a war veteran too. It's not an easy thing to be married to a Solider.

As I have thought about this even more the thought occurred to me that in many ways it's not an easy thing to be married to ANYBODY! Don't get me wrong, I adore my husband and I think we have a fantastic relationship but being a wife can be hard--no matter who you're married to. And truth be told, we Army wives get a lot of press time over what we endure, but there are countless faithful companions all over the world who get no attention or appreciation for their sacrifices.

So here's to all the wives everywhere who suck it up, pick up the slack and carry on.

Here's to the doctor's wife who is constantly awakened in the middle of the night when that blasted "on-call" pager goes off.

Here's to the attorney's wife whose life and schedule are often at the mercy of "billable hours."

Here's to the accountant's wife who spends a lot of time alone during tax season.

Here's to the entrepreneur's wife who lives with inconsistent income and finds herself working for a company that may never pay her.

Here's to the traveling businessman's wife who can never get her routine into an effective groove because plans are never the same from week to week.

Here's to the teacher's wife who understands that doing work you love is more valuable than a big paycheck.

Here's to the student's wife who feels like a single mom to babies who always seem to be in bed before daddy gets home.

Here's to the police officer's wife who sends her husband out the door everyday to deal with dangerous people and dangerous situations and does so with faith and optimism.

And to all wives everywhere who manage households with slim bank accounts, who know when to compromise and when not to, and who stand by their man when things get tough:

I salute you!

Summer Highlights: Part 2

Seeing as how we are almost half way through fall it's a little anticlimactic to complete my Summer Highlights post at this point but this has been on my "to-do" list for weeks and I'd really like to check it off! So here we go--



This summer my kiddos learned to fish. This was the first--but not only--successful catch of the season. We got a "new to us" truck with great off road capability and my husband has had a ball going into the wilderness for family adventures. After a year in Iraq it has been so good for him to spend some time in our beautiful mountains!


We took a little family vacation to my husband's hometown for a few days over Pioneer Day weekend. Although we were less than an hour from home we stayed two nights in a hotel, spent one day at Lagoon (which the kids love and the parents can't stand!) and played for a day at the park with Grandma and Grandpa. We also stuck around long enough to see the local Pioneer parade. I LOVE parades and it's extra fun to go to one in a small town where they give away lots of stuff!






We also spent a weekend as a family at Snowbird. I love, love, love Snowbird in the summer. It is so refreshing to get a break from the summer heat. We spent an entire afternoon playing. There is so much to do! We did have a little mishap, however. Apparently it IS possible to wipe out on an Alpine slide. My oldest boy got going so fast he ended up taking quite a tumble. (That last picture was taken just minutes before the crash. He got pretty skinned up but was able to tough it out and still enjoy the rest of the day. He was even willing to try it again so that the slide wouldn't "beat him."


And then before we knew it the summer was gone and the past several weeks have been a whirlwind of homework, piano lessons, band practice, viola class, soccer games, flag football, scouts, activity days and other general busy-ness! Dad went back to work in August after a year out of the office followed by two months of playing. It has been a rather rough adjustment but it's getting better.
We're so grateful for our many blessings and all the memories we share as a family!


Happy Fall!!

Summer Highlights: Part 1

First of all, if you're reading this, I'm glad you remembered I even have a blog--although lately it seems I haven't!

Here's a little bit of what I've been up to since you last heard from me:


I started off the summer by fulfilling a goal to run a 5K race with a few of my Army Wife friends (who will probably kill me for posting this picture!). This race was a bit symbolic for me. I ran it just a few days before my husband returned from deployment. Getting to the end of that long year felt very much like completing a difficult road race. I was determined to finish strong even though at times I felt like I was gasping for breath as I crawled to the finish line! Fortunately, I think I made it to the end of both stronger than when I started.


In June my husband returned from his second overseas deployment. He has been away from home for half of the last five years. I'm really hoping that the next five years aren't nearly so adventurous for him!


In June we celebrated my baby's second birthday. He's a lot more boy than baby these days. It has been said of him (by someone other than me) that he "oozes personality." I think that's a pretty accurate description. He is very social, a little bit sneaky and says the darnedest things. He enjoys playing outside, doing his "naked dance" and all things Lightning McQueen. He insists he can do anything the big kids can do but still wants to be called "baby." I was (FINALLY!) able to ween him a few weeks ago so perhaps his baby days truly are behind him. (Yes, I nursed him until he was two. I honestly can't decide if that makes me a hero or a hippie.)


On the Fourth of July the entire family got up early and participated in the Freedom Festival 5K race. (Notice I didn't say we actually "ran" the race.) That is such a fun race. There's no pressure to go fast, it's very motivating to be cheered on by hundreds of people as you go down the parade route, and there are so many out of shape people that no matter how slow you go you still probably won't be last!





In July my husband and I took a much needed vacation to San Diego--WITHOUT the kids! We had a fantastic time. I am so grateful for family members who so lovingly took care of our kiddos for nearly a week so we could have a stress free trip. I have decided that San Diego is the perfect vacation destination. There is just so much to do! We kept it pretty simple and spent a lot of our time at the beach. On Sunday we went to Old Town and visited the new Mormon Battalion Visitors Center which was amazing. Some of our dearest friends live there so we were able to spent a wonderful evening with them too. One of my favorite things about the trip was eating great food in restaurants we would never take the kids to! That said however, we spent most of the trip talking about how much our kids would love San Diego. (I guess that means we really DO love them!)We're already planning a family vacation to go back as soon as we can.


I guess that's enough for now. Stay tuned for part 2!

You Might Be An Army Wife . . .

. . .if your husband tells you he'll be away on a trip for an entire month and you think, "Oh good, that's not very long."

. . .if you're a single parent even though you are married.

. . .if you have to worry about OPSEC, keep up to date in DEERS and help out with the FRG.

. . .if you even understood that last one!

. . .if an entire closet--or even a whole room--in your house is devoted to the storage of uniforms and tactical gear.

. . .if your sanity is totally dependent on email and Skype.

. . .if your 72 hour kits are full of MREs.

. . .if your kids can all do push-ups by age three.

. . .if you're fiercely independent but really wished you didn't have to be.

. . .if you're willing to sacrifice everything for a man who is willing to sacrifice everything for everyone else.

Living in "our world"

When my third child was about three years old he had this adorable habit of declaring, "Now we're back in our world!" whenever we exited the freeway near our house. He recognized the gas station on the corner and the Old Navy store across the street and he knew that he was almost home. That freeway exit has changed dramatically over the past few years, the gas station has been torn down and the quaint stoplight is gone in favor of the much touted "diverging diamond interchange". But we still have that same comforting feeling of being almost home whenever we come through that intersection.

I love living here. The kids love their school. We're close to shopping areas, the local library and the community pool. We have the greatest friends and neighbors anyone could hope for and in my humble opinion, we live in one of the best wards in the entire church. This town really has become "our world."

But it almost wasn't.

Two weeks before we put on offer on the house in which we now live, we offered on another house in another town several miles from here. Our offer was initially accepted but ultimately the deal fell through. When we decided to walk away from that house I felt a great deal of relief although I didn't quite know why. I actually liked the house quite a bit. It was larger than the house we ended up buying. It had an extra bedroom and a family room big enough to put a ping pong table in (and our current home definitely does not!). It had a nice big fireplace, a craft room and a great backyard. But it just wasn't meant to be.

Today I happened to be driving near that other house so I took a detour through the neighborhood to get another look at the place that was almost our home. The cute little red brick house was exactly as I remembered it. I looked around at the other homes--the ones where my dear friends and neighbors DON'T live--and I wondered what our life would have been like if we had ended up living here instead. Who would our friends have been? Would we have made the same life decisions in this house? Would we have been as happy here? What if THIS place had been "our world"?

As I drove away I thought about the lucky turn of events that led us to the house we currently call home. And of course, I realized that luck probably had nothing to do with it. It made me think of Elder Bednar's message about revelation from General Conference this past weekend. He talked about how revelation often comes to us so subtly, line upon line, that we may not even recognize it as revelation.

I never had a grand moment of revelation pointing me to choose the house in which we now live. But numerous prayers and small nudgings of guidance and acting on faith helped us to find the place we needed to be.

Doctrine and Covenants 6:14 really seems to speak to me today.

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, blessed art thou for what thou hast done; for thou hast inquired of me, and behold, as often as thou hast inquired thou hast received instruction of my Spirit. If it had not been so, thou wouldst not have come to the place where thou art at this time.

So we can't have a ping pong table and my boys have to share a room and this might not even be the house we stay in forever, but for now it's where we're supposed to be. And I love it. It's our whole world!

Merciful Sunshine

Last week we had our first big family vacation in almost four years. We took the kids to Disneyland for the first time for some long overdue "family time." I'm not a huge amusement park fan but Disneyland is just one of those childhood memories every kid needs--or at least that's what my kids have been telling me for months!

I faithfully watched the weather reports and was disappointed to learn that about half of our planned vacation time would be during stormy weather. But what could we do? There was positively no way to reschedule our trip. We arrived in California planning to spend some time at the beach before going to Disneyland but it rained. . .A LOT! So we had to skip the beach and instead sit in our hotel watching TV and listening to the rain. (But I was able to watch the Les Miserable 25th Anniversary Special on PBS so the day was not a complete loss!)

The morning of our first Disney day was bright and sunny and so was my disposition. We were ready for a great day. But as we boarded the bus at our hotel I noticed the ominous storm clouds in the west and as we entered the park the sprinkles started. By the time we walked down Main Street we were in an absolute downpour.

It was clear our hoodies were not going to cut it in that kind of weather so we headed to a gift shop to buy rain ponchos. But unfortunately so did about 500 other people so there was an enormous line. My sweet husband, who at times seems to stand in line for a living, got in that line and patiently waited while I took the baby to a quiet corner and did what any self-respecting mother of four would do in that situation--I sat down on the floor and burst into tears.

We had come all this way. My husband had been through so much to be with us. We had been waiting literally years for an opportunity to take a trip like this.

I could not believe this was happening. I generally try to manage my expectations and try not to get my hopes up, but just this once I wanted it to be my turn to have my expectations actually met.

So I prayed. It may have been one of the most selfish prayers of my life but I prayed that the Lord would stop the rain so that we could have a good experience as a family. I recognized that there were probably farmers in the area that needed that rain more than I needed a good vacation but I prayed for sun anyway.

Thirty minutes and $40 worth of ponchos later, we all suited up for the rain. We left the gift shop and walked out into the sunshine of a bright California morning. There were a few lingering raindrops but the rain cleared completely within the next five minutes.

I started to cry again--tears of gratitude to a Heavenly Father who loves me enough to grant me such a wonderful blessing in a rather unimportant matter when I really needed it.

I believe in tender mercies. I know the Lord granted me a very special one that day.

We continued to have beautiful weather for the next two and a half days. The rain returned late in the day on our third day but we were about "done" by then. Plus, we were prepared with some really cool ponchos when the rain finally hit again!



We decided to extend our trip by one extra day and make up for our lost beach day before heading out of town. We had a wonderful afternoon on the beach which was just the icing on the cake of a really great trip.

Life is beautiful!

25 NEW things you might not know about me!

This week a few of my friends have posted lists of facts about themselves on their blogs. I already posted something like this two years ago but I thought an update might be fun--plus I love lists!

1. I am in the middle of a "Facebook Fast." I deactivated my account last week to help me overcome my total lack of time management skills. I might login again someday but for now I need a break from it. (Honestly, this is probably why I am even writing this blog post. I haven't sent my random thoughts out into cyberspace for over a week--I think I'm going through withdrawal!)
2. I can only think of one occasion in the past seven months when I have traveled by car and not been the driver.
3. I think frozen TV dinners are just glorified leftovers
4. I hate leftovers.
5. I met my husband on a street corner in Korea.
6. I love to drink Dr Pepper with fresh limes in it.
7. I rarely watch TV (well, at least TV intended for grown ups) but I always catch "Community" on Hulu.
8. I haven't had a cheeseburger in over three weeks (sadly, this is a big deal).
9. I got a Sleep Number bed for my birthday last year and I rarely have insomnia anymore. (Getting up in the middle of the night with a toddler. . .now, that's another story)
10. I love to cook.
11. I haven't updated the music on my iPod for three years.
12. I am a "regular" at the rec center track three mornings a week. My baby is very popular with the senior citizens.
13. I have been a primary chorister for almost 2 years. It's my favorite calling ever.
14. I have a love/hate relationship with the Army.
15. I don't like winter. . .at all.
16. Roller coasters make me sick.
17. I have never worked a cash register.
18. My favorite movie is The Incredibles.
19. I have a serious phobia of hitting deer while I'm driving--which makes the road trip I took to Phoenix with my kids last fall pretty much the scariest thing I've ever done.
20. I'm also a little scared of canning. (I can't quite come to terms with the whole "do it wrong and you could kill your family" thing.)
21. I may never have long hair again.
22. I am a very bad tooth fairy.
23. I have no interest in college sports. (I really don't care if Utah beats BYU!)
24. I'm not very good at being patient even though I have been given LOTS of opportunities to practice.
25. It's time for me to stop procrastinating and just go do the dang dishes!