Stop 3 - A Slice of Heaven on Earth

When the pioneers were travelling across the plains, they stopped in Winter Quarters. At the time it was a harsh cold land but as always, they made the most of it. I also stopped in Winter Quarters for 5 years and at the time it was harsh and cold (when is Jr High anything but?) but I also made the most of it and walked away with many fond memories. I got to relive one of those memories on this trip but that's a future post.

Because Omaha was my "hometown" (if a kid who moved frequently has such a thing) this temple is near to my heart. I was ecstatic to stop by and enjoy the sweet spirit there with my children. Well, two of them anyway. The third was in the car just waking up from a 200 mile nap. And he complained it was too hot. Yes, darling. Welcome to Omaha. Brutally hot. Brutally humid. But after 3 months of freezing back home I enjoyed every drop of stiffling air. Sweet humidity.

Is there any place more beautiful, more calming, more peaceful than the Temple grounds? Prince and Pretty Girl are just starting to develop a relationship and it is fun for me to watch them play together. He kept watch of her during our visit and I love these sweet photos of them.

Long Drive Day 2 Part A

It was a really long drive from NY to Wisconsin so this "day" gets two posts. Actually I'm just not smart enough to figure out how to post both individual pictures and collages from picasa at the same time. And the only part of the drive that was long was the 18 hrs it took to get through Chicago. Having done this twice now, I finally learned it is impossible to miss rush hour heading in that direction. Next time I will visit Wisc. on my way HOME and hit morning rush hour instead. Although I have vowed never to do this again. We are currently taking bets on how long that resolution lasts.

So, the trip -
If you recall, my aunt guilt tripped me into swinging by dairy farm land on our way across the plains and lengthening our trip from 2.5 days to 6. We had a wonderfully fantastic visit. We spent a lot of time outside - even swimming at the community pool (why can't we have a community pool?) which was a lovely treat since there was sunshine and warm weather (two things that forgot to happen at home until August).

My aunt put us all to work. Ok, not really. We hardly lifted a finger. Except Pretty Girl who loves to sweep, mop and vacuum.

Prince drew something and insisted I take a picture of it. He's asleep and it was 2 months ago so I have no idea what it was. But isn't it lovely?

Long Drive Day 2 Part B

20 or so years ago, back in the day of film, my aunt snapped a darling picture of her kids (my cousins) sitting on these very stairs. On the morning we were leaving a couple of them sat to put on their shoes and she thought "Wouldn't it be fun to have a matching picture of my kids?" In theory yes. Thankfully we have entered the digital era or we would have used an entire roll of film attempting to duplicate the cuteness. I think we finally succeeded but man, there is no such thing as duplicating a candid!

We spent a LOT of time eating. My aunt is a gourmet and we enjoyed the fruits of her passion. Most memorable - the fruit. She served a fruit salad with cherries (and a bunch of other fruit) at almost every meal. I believe her attempt was to lure me into staying and it really almost worked. The boys were in love with her "good buttery toast" also served daily. And I was introduced to Julia Child and homemade puff pastry. Do you see the glee on the baby's face as she downs icecream? (Don't tell her mother. She would go ballistic).

Do these look like the faces of kids who know they are loved? There were pictures of me being loved too but you don't get to see those. Not even a full roll of film could convince the camera that I should look cute.

We were sad to leave. However, we had a lot of miles left and I couldn't wait to drive every single one of them.

Where do you go to buy friends around here?

I am reading The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery to the boys. Today I came across a chapter full of gems about friendship and thought I'd share a few morsels with you.

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me. . . "

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince."You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me-like that-in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. (Think about this phrase for a while eh?) But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . . "
I was reminded of football practice - where the moms all sit along the sidelines and bond and I sit alone. After 3 weeks I finally started to feel like a 3rd wheel instead of a heap of garbage along the side of the road. I guess I was finally patient enough and we had all finally looked at each other out of the corner of our eyes - the taming process has finally begun.

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses. "You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first met him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you-the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because....she is my rose."

Ah, the secret of friendship. When we first meet people, they mean nothing to us. We do not see the amazing qualities and potential Heavenly Father sees in all of us. We see nothing. Or we see bad. Among some of my dearest longest friendships are a couple women of whom I first thought "I don't like her". What a snap judgment! To see a rose among other roses and only notice the few broken petals.

But once we invest a little time - once we begin to serve and love and listen to and understand. Those are the seeds of friendship. And once you are tamed, there is no undoing is there? I have a friend with many faults. Of course she has faults - don't we all? She comes across as a little harsh, a little rude. She offends many but not me. Why? Because I know her heart and it is made of gold. Whenever she says something to offend me I remember that she would never ever ever mean to offend me and I search for her true meaning and we go on. She has tamed me and I no longer care about her faults because she is my rose, my friend. What a shame we can't buy more of them at the store.

Thanks for listening and if you haven't read The Little Prince, I highly recommend it.

Oh what do you do in the Summertime?

Phew. I finally caught up on May pictures and have NO idea what happened in June because when I tried to download those pictures (back in June believe it or not) the computer erased them instead of saving them. I'm sure it wasn't a user error. That would make it MY fault.
Thankfully we only lost about 100 priceless memories. That's nothing compared to the 1240 I downloaded yesterday. Yep, 1240. That's how many pictures I have yet to blog from this summer. Are you ready for the enslaught?

~

Our big event for this summer was a trip across country. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it (sorry mom and dad) so decided it would be best to just zoom across and be done (or half done I suppose). I had a plan for getting my pregnant self and 3 small children roughly 2000 miles in 2 1/2 days. Then my aunt had to louse things up by wanting to see me (life is SO rough when you're loved) so we added a couple detours, a few miles, and several days, and pretended like this was supposed to be a vacation.We left at the crack of dawn (yes, I am capable of waking up early) and drove to upstate New York to see my great Aunt and some 2nd cousins. (Cousin Carol if you read my blog, apparently I don't have pictures of our time at your house - if you send me some you too can be famous). My Aunt is a doll collector. She lives in a wonderful old farmhouse (same one she grew up in) and EVERY square inch is filled with dolls. The kids were amazed, intrigued, and utterly entertained.
Poor Pretty Girl discovered there were toys besides blocks and trucks. She fell in love with a wicker baby buggy and carefully cradled one baby doll after another for a walk around the attic. My dear aunt said "if she loves it that much, she can have it" and Pretty Girl understood. She would not let go of it. Anywhere we went in the house, she HAD to have it beside her. When I went to the car for something, she insisted on joining me and also insisted on bringing along her buggy. She let go of the buggy in the car, left it there and didn't ask for it again. My crazy one year old knew how to ensure she got to keep her promised baby buggy.
The house has a bazillion bedrooms but for some reason we ended up in one double bed. I won't say I slept well on my quarter of it but we hit the road by 8am and dad eventually forgave me for forgetting to call to tell him we had arrived. My communication skills improved a teeny bit after that lashing. Come back soon to hear how long we sat in Chicago rush hour traffic on day 2.

I am a soccer mom and I drive a minivan

Is there less negative connatation with "soccer mom" if I am also a football mom, tennis mom and tball mom?
No?
How about if I am a soccer coach instead of a soccer mom?
Still no?
What if I explain the difference between being a coach and a mom?

Instead of sitting on the sidelines not chatting with the other moms (because, let's face it, you know where I live), I am ON the field, running around like crazy, trying to pretend like I'm not 4 months pregnant.
My minivan is not filled just with 3 kids (two soccer players and one crazy playground climber) but also two goals and a bag the size of all 3 kids filled with balls, rackets, cones, cleats and uniforms.
Oh and most importantly, the only pictures I got of the entire season were from picture day which I organized myself.

Since he learned you can be clueless and do an adequate job of coaching, for fall soccer I have roped dear dad into being a co-coach. That means instead of watching the baby during practice and joining me in ignoring the baby during games while we both coach (we had 3 simultaneous games each week), he will do some of the running around while 8 month pregnant mom will hopefully eat bonbons on the sidelines.

Meanwhile, Dad has also been roped into being an assistant coach for football and apparently the "no tackling" is more a rule than a suggestion. I won't mention which of my kids has been threatened with a sideline sit for thinking football should be football even if you are only 5.

Everything you ever wanted to know about a Father/Son Campout

If you are losing a tug-of-war with a tiger, give him the rope before he gets to your arm. You can always buy a new rope. Gunther, Max

In my never ending attempt to catch up on my blog, I was searching through pictures and came across these shots of the boys playing tug o war. I had NO idea they did this and I couldn't remember a Primary activity I had missed. So I asked the experts. Apparently it was at the father-son campout. Ah, yes. I remember that day well.

The kids and I had a homeschool coop that day, followed by staying to play with friends. Within minutes of returning home, the boys left for the overnight male bonding. Within minutes of their departure, I put Pretty Girl down for a nap. Yes, 4:30 was a crazy time to let a baby START a nap but she was exhausted from the day of play and I am not one to EVER get between a child and sleep.

What occurred for the next 10 hours can only be described as surreal. My husband is very good about taking the kids so I have time to myself but after the few hours of solitude, he always does the inevitable - brings them home. I might get out of dinner duty but still get to help with bedtime. And then hubby time. I never ever get a whole evening of JUST me. So what is a wild and crazy gal to do? I organized. And after that, I organized some more. Oh, what a dream.

(Ok, I'm not sure if it's 10 years of marriage or 5+ years of motherhood that totally skews a person definition of fun but I'm not sure I want to know what I'll do with a night off in another 5 or 10 years).

My blessed baby woke up at 2:30am at which point I snuck into bed and pretended like it was the middle of the night. I have no idea how long she was awake but I don't think she left my bed. At any rate, we woke up the next morning both on the bed and both very happily rested and rejuvenated.

As for what actually occurred on the campout itself, this is the "report" I got:
Prince: It was a long long time ago.
Tackler: It was when we were five.

It was only 3 months and they are still 5. Is this guyspeak for "It's a guy thing" or do I just really need to catch up on my blogging?