Snapshot of Adele – Part 1

I’m going to start doing snapshots of the birthday person that will include more specific details about what they are doing and their hobbies, interests and pursuits at the time. Sometimes some details get lost in only mentioning events, so this may help capture a little more of the personality and person on a given year.

(PHOTO CREDIT: All photos in Adele's snapshot posts were taken by Tennie's friend Lindsay during a trip to the Salt Flats this past fall.)

Starting this past year, Adele began to grow. She has always been super petite, and probably always will be, but people are not mistaking her for three years younger anymore. She is looking older and taller. Right along with that growth came a huge launch of self. Her characteristics have always been there, but they are manifesting themselves in bigger, more obvious ways. Getting a driver’s license helped. This girls always wanted to go places, and now she is off!

She was uncertain where she wanted to go to school this past fall. She wanted a certain reality for herself, and after much deliberation, she created it for herself. She returned to her old school, but chose to take AP and Honors classes in core subjects, except math which she is doing on her own at her own pace during flex periods. This means not meeting state requirements or getting a paper high school diploma, which means she will apply to college as a "homeschool" student, but this also allows her to pursue what she loves and not sit bored in classes she doesn't find interesting. It was a great creation for herself.

She went after an internship at the IRC (International Rescue Committee) where she now teaches the beginner English class once a week to a handful of refugees. She is exploring getting a ESL certificate in the next year at the Salt Lake Community College. She LOVES working with refugees and is constantly finding possible summer opportunities to work in refugee camps around the world, humanitarian jobs she would be excited about, etc. The world will be open to her when she turns 18!

She got a job at Target making $12.50 an hour over the holidays. It was simply a job to make money for her to pursue dreams. She is an amazing saver and has an unusual knack at money management and responsibility. She also has a great business sense. One of Geoff’s favorite stories to tell about Adele is a time when he was trying to help her with a hard school subject when she was maybe 10 or 11, and she wasn't wanting to do it. He facetiously said, “You better work on this or you’ll be working at McDonalds your whole life.” Adele quickly retorted, “I’ll be the CEO of McDonald’s!”

Just since Christmas she has decided to give Decca a go. She’s a little late to the game, but her friends are helping her and she is going for it. I think she will compete in hospitality management, at least that was her direction as of this past week. I’m proud of her for talking something new and unfamiliar. This is characteristic of her this past year.

She is the co-chair of the youth board for Choice Humanitarian, a local humanitarian organization. This entails helping at Choice events, but it is also a fundraising endeavor. They meet monthly, and then before a fundraising event those meetings are weekly. She organizes the board members and leads the meetings.

This year she is in charge of the girl’s camp at church. The stake and ward leaders want the young women to develop leadership abilities, so they assist, when needed, but the young women plan the camp. This year they chose one leader, Adele, to oversee all other committees. Adele is totally capable of this. It will really rev up over the next few months.

And then there is SAT prep. She’s got big decisions for her big future ahead!

Lastly, for today, Adele has a great group of friends. They are all smart, high-achieving young women, all on the petite side, and a powerful force. They all have a great style and love to shop together; they love Pho Soup and Coffee Houses (Adele is a big hot drink lover and loves herbal teas); she meets her friend Sami for yoga once a week and they all study together, sometimes over Facetime until the wee hours of the night.

To be continued…

The Dancing Queen is 17!

I don’t know about you at your house, but Mama Mia soundtracks are common listening fare, and it was obvious that Dancing Queen would be a theme song on Adele’s 17^th birthday; it was played, on signs, on friend’s Instagram stories and she even did a post herself using it.

Adele had her whole Saturday birthday planned out for weeks. First sleep in until 9:00, then breakfast (eggs, sausage and potatoes), then yoga at Core Power Yoga, followed by the traditional treasure hunt and presents. Our treasure hunt’s first clue is always on the fridge, just like it was when I was a girl. Tennie did the clues this year. They’re getting trickier and harder to come up with!

Adele loves lots of gifts. We have a birthday budget for gifts and a party. They can spend the party money or keep it for themselves. These days most of that money is saved, but when I asked Adele how much she wanted me to spend on gifts she replied, “All of it!” She had a long wish list (as she did for Christmas), and most of the items were relatively inexpensive, so she had a pile of gifts at the end of the hunt.

On with her planned day, we headed to lunch at Sawadi (favorite Thai restaurant), followed by Menchies Frozen Yogurt where two of her best friends met us. From there we broke off from Geoff, Tennie (who was in town for the big day) and Ceci and went with her two friends up to a friend’s Heber house for the night. I was along to cook a little and be a token chaperone, but these are good friends who laughed and did funny things all night. I checked out as they started their movie marathon at 9:00PM! Those crazies stayed up until 4:30AM! Here is Alexa, Adele and Raja, late night extraordinaires. 

Yesterday those girls had a late morning before we headed home. In the afternoon Geoff’s family gathered at our place for a potluck taco salad bar, more gifts and relishing in cute Adele being 17.

How is it possible? How does the time of childhood pass so slowly when they are young and then speed up in their teens so that we blink and they’re grown?

Happiest 17th, dancing queen!

Historian

As I mentioned, I created books out of several years of our old blog. I'm not sure how many hours it took, but it was A LOT of hours. But these were delightful hours of rereading a magical season of childhood and homeschooling and living with Geoff's parents in Auburn, California.

I used a sight called Lulu. Every other blog-to-print website I found had lame formats that wasted a lot of space and made pictures too small for my preference. With Lulu, I chose my book size, paper quality, etc., downloaded a Word template and cut and paste each date, title, text paragraph and picture from the blog to the word document. That is where the hours were spent, cutting and pasting, but the end result looks just like the blog with large, colorful photos.

While the picture quality is compromised a little bit, it is good enough. While the binding is not the highest quality out there, it works. And each 500+ page volume only cost roughly $100.

I had made one of our year in France a few years ago. These four volumes are such a treasure!!!

The family history began when Tennie was born in 2000, while Geoff was in grad school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. To keep family living on the West coast up to date I started a weekly email called, Hello from Boston. Each person in the family got a paragraph about what they were up to that week. The paragraphs included milestones, quotes, behaviors, stories and events.

We moved to Seattle in 2001 and the emails were changed to Hello from Seattle. I had lost several years worth, but bless my mom! She had saved those emails and compiled them for me for Christmas one year. Last month I found the first two years that were missing on old floppy disks, bought a floppy disk reader and am working on those. There were no pictures attached to those Hello emails, so a big project on my list is to add pictures and create books like the blog books. And then I have six years of living in Utah to turn into books. Heavens, this is an enormous project and labor of love! And it is still going!

As I've read through amazing detail of years and years of family life, I realized the significance of my role as historian. I envisioned exactly what I'm creating now, the history of our family, but I had no idea the value of the information. The personality characteristics of our girls was remarkably evident from toddlerhood, if not infancy; the medical information; the growth and struggle; the evidence, in hindsight, of God's miraculous and merciful hand in our lives; the humor of my account; the priceless memories and quotes; and the picture of the amazing life Geoff and I worked to create for our children. It is all there, in detail. I marvel that I found the time, that I made the time, when there were often very difficult obstacles in my life. Somehow I stuck with it and made it a priority.

I must admit that the time on the tail end has made me want to simplify what I record now and how often. I also realized several traditions that haven't been captured, small things that are part of our daily lives. And there are many significant lessons I've learned that I want as part of this history. I want my children to know what truths strengthened me through life's journey. So moving forward, I am hoping to capture some of those things amidst the general happenings around here.

Lastly, these books capture all that was good. My private journals go into detail about my hardships and struggles. I'm glad they are separate. I remember struggling with depression during different seasons I read about while creating the books, the change Geoff's illness had on our family, or the angst about a particular child that accompanied long years of otherwise happy hubbub. Our lives are real. We all have our deep waters to pass through. But as I read over almost two decades of family life, I realized that all works out in the end. God is with us. Life is good.

December Wrap-Up

December was a good month! We spent Christmas at home with just our family for the first time in over 10 years! The girls were a bit nervous that it would be terrible and boring, so I took it upon myself to have a few surprises.

We did our annual advent challenges, and we hid our little elf every day where occasionally there are small treats or gifts, but I noticed that days would go by where no one looked in the advent pocket OR for the elf, so that tradition may be fading out with age.

When the girls were younger the challenges were super simple. Here is one of our old lists:

Tell someone something you like about them

Wish someone a Merry Christmas

Do something nice for someone (but don’t let them know!)

Thank Heavenly Father for Jesus in your prayers

Read the nativity story

Draw a picture of the nativity

Tell someone you love them

Draw a picture or write a note to someone who is lonely

Visit someone who is sick

Sing a Christmas carol about Jesus

Play or talk to someone you normally don’t play or talk with

Make someone smile

Do something nice for mom without being asked

Draw a picture to say thank you for someone you appreciate

Spend some time playing with Kipper

Cheer someone up who is sad

The past few years we upped our game. I don't have this year's complete list, but here are some from previous years:

Learn the definition of the word peacemaker.  Find a scripture that teaches about peacemakers.  Pray that you can develop this quality.  What is the Savior’s role?* 

Listen to the First Presidency Devotional and share with your family your favorite part.

Do something nice for someone (but don’t let them know)!

Learn more about the sacrament.  Read Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; and Luke 22:17-20.  Establish a pattern of pondering during the sacrament.  Ask, “what can I do to improve?”  Listen for the Spirit.  What is the Savior’s role?*

Read the nativity story tonight by candlelight.

Visit someone who is sick or lonely.  It can be someone your age, an older person, or a call to a family member.  Be thoughtful.

Send a Christmas Card/Letter to Mormom.  She is lonely and this will give her some Christmas cheer.

Write a letter of gratitude to one of your teachers at church or school.

Heavenly Father has given you special gifts.  Read 1 Corinthians 12:4-12; 13; Moroni 7 12-13; 10:8-18; and Doctrine & Covenants 46:11-26.  Ask a family member to write down positive qualities the Lord has given you.  List these gifts in your journal, and write how you can continue to develop these gifts and use them to serve your family and others.  What is the Savior’s role?*

Write a note to someone telling them something specific that you admire or appreciate.

Write your testimony of the Savior in your journal.

Do something nice for mom without being asked.

Spend an hour doing Family History.  Take some of the names you find to the temple before Christmas.

Read about repentance in Isaiah 1:18; Alma 26:22; 34:30-35; Moroni 8:25-26; and Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-20; 58:42-43.  Discuss with the family what repentance means.  Apply the principles of repentance in your life.  What is the Savior’s role?*

Attend A Christmas Carol and then use Article of Faith 13 to evalutate what you saw and heard.  How can you use this Article of Faith as a guide for all you do so the Holy Ghost will be your constant companion?  What is the Savior’s role?*

Conduct a self-assessment of your personal integrity.  Ask yourself the following questions:  Do I avoid gossip, inappropriate jokes, swearing and profanity, and being light-minded about sacred subjects?  Am I completely truthful, morally clean, honest, dependable, and trustworthy in my schoolwork and other activities?  Today pray for strength and for the guidance of the Holy Ghost to help you live with integrity.  What is the Savior’s role?*

Read Doctrine & Covenants 18:10 and 121:45.  Do all you can to build others and make them feel of worth.  From now until Christmas notice the worthwhile qualities and attributes of others.  Acknowledge them verbally or in writing.  What is the Savior’s role?*

While in McCall choose to only speak kind, uplifting words.  Withhold any criticism or judgement.

Smile and wish a Merry Christmas to everyone you pass on the way to TRAX today.

Send an email or text to Babsie.  Tell her about your life, and wish her a Merry Christmas.  

Make grandma’s day by writing her an email telling her something you love about her.  

Read a story/article in the Friend, New Era or Ensign.

Talk to someone at school that you don’t normally talk to.  See if you can find out three things about them.

Give a specific prayer giving thanks for the birth of the Savior.

Learn about satisfying spiritual hunger (start with John 6:35)

Have a special lunch outing with mom/dad.

Point out a virtue in something that they don't see in themselves.

Eat lunch with someone new at school/work.

Secretly do something nice for someone in the family.

Learn about the problems in another country. Say a united prayer in their behalf.

Geoff took a trip to Mexico City for work, and I sent him and Tennie the challenges while he was gone.

We got ALL of our Christmas decorations out, which leaves no shelf or surface space empty! All of the Danish nisse and German nutcrackers, and European Christmas market treasures made the house feel super cozy and magical! On Christmas Eve we gave our annual Christmas ornament.

Our cat Mila really liked the ornaments.

Ceci's performance as Scrooge was fun, and we saw A Christmas Carol at Hale Theater too. I don't remember where this picture was taken, but it was in December!

We went to an amazing Christmas concert by The Lower Lights with our friends, the Serafins. Wow that was fun!

We attended a Kids For Kids fundraising concert put on by some of our friends where kids organize and perform and raise money for a cause. This particular concert was for a refugee center in Greece. They raised $10,000! We had plans for a sleigh ride in Midway, but it is hard to go on a sleigh ride with no snow! That fun outing will be postponed until a future date. But there was enough snow to open a few runs at Park City where Geoff and the girls have passes this year.

We also did a little ice-skating one weekend with a few of Tennie's college friends who also spent the weekend.

They also made lots of Christmas crafts.

We went and saw the lights on Temple Square twice.

Best of all was helping a family with Christmas and collecting and distributing coats to those that need them. These endeavors would have stressed me out if I hadn't had the luxury this year of getting most Christmas shopping and preparations done before Thanksgiving. It was nice to have the season to look outward.

I turned FORTY-EIGHT! To ease the pain, Geoff bought me a new phone! I'm so excited to have the nice camera! Now I just have to learn how to use it!

Christmas Eve we started a new tradition a woman at church mentioned - to emphasize the light of Christ. With all the lights off I lit a taper candle. I then lit the person next to me, she lit the person's next to her and so on. When all were lit we talked about how we can fill the world with light, Christ's light within us. We shared some scriptures and the girls ended up being obsessed with the melted wax. But they still felt the peace and truth of the point!

But the biggest and most time consuming and most exciting gifts for me to give were our old blog's Auburn years printed into three volumes (more on this in another post soon) and digitizing our old video camera's small cassette tapes, comprising the years 2000-2005. None of us had seen these videos since we took them! We opened these last on Christmas morning and it was a worthy staying-home-as-a-family-can-be-cool surprise! We spent all day Christmas day, and many days since, watching these movies and laughing and remembering, and on Geoff's and my part, longing a little bit. It seems like a lifetime ago, and yet time has slipped by so quickly.

Our Christmas break has been a little more busy than we anticipated, but still wonderful to be together. Geoff, Adele and Ceci got in a car accident (all are ok), which meant we had to buy a new car suddenly. That took some time and decision making. Ceci spent six days, post-Christmas with a nasty, nasty cold and missed precious open days skiing. The day she was back on her feet, Tennie and I woke up with it, and that is giving me a lot of time to lay around and read and watch movies and work on things like this post. (As a mom, sometimes being sick is the only time to be forced out of commission!) So Adele and Tennie had plans with friends on New Years, but Geoff and I stayed home and tried to be fun and exciting with sick Ceci. I don't think we succeeded...

It has been an eventful, challenging and exciting year. What rich memories! We're all looking forward to 2019. Life is full of surprises!

Politics and My Birthday

It is a bit embarrassing to admit, but I've just begun to really think for myself about politics. I didn't know much about specific issues, I just knew I was inclined to one side. Tennie, who leans toward the opposite side, and who is an activist in her core, has challenged me to defend my positions, to think deeply about what I think about various issues, issues I hadn't really looked at closely before. I am really grateful for her love of people. While we still don't agree about some things, I think we agree more than not on most things. But here is what I realized. I care about people's wellbeing. I care about everyone having opportunity. I care about people who need help. But I don't want the government to take my taxes, and here is why: I don't trust that those tax dollars will go to the people who need it most. I don't trust our government to efficiently and effectively use my dollars. If the government was transparent, like a business with an annual report, and I could follow how and where monies were spent, than I would be happy to share more via taxation. But then I had to ask myself, if I'm not in favor of paying taxes, what am I doing to help those in need of help? This has caused to me to open my mind and heart in new ways. First I have to SEE those who need help.

I began to really notice the homeless people that I pass frequently. One day as I headed out on a walk, I saw two homeless men crossing the street in t-shirts. I had just checked the weather before leaving home: 26 degrees. I wanted to stop them right then and there and ask them what sizes they were and to meet me the next day for their new winter gear! But I didn't, I just kept walking. I regretted my lack of courage and action and tried to find them, but couldn't. But the seed to "cloth the naked" was planted.

Let me say here that everyone in our family has a certain amount of money each month with which to help someone in need. We can spend our allotted amount on anyone we want, or we can coordinate together and give a bigger chunk. Well, we had spent a few months worth just a few weeks before I saw these two men. That was one of my hesitations, the budget was spent, but I wanted to do something. So Geoff and I asked our ward (congregation) if anyone had any spare winter coats, and if so, would they bring them to church the following two Sundays to give to those in need. We gathered about 10-12 coats (the weeks leading up to Christmas is not the most ideal time to ask people to clean out their closets!), and one young couple had knit about 10 hats and some scarves!

My birthday was the Sunday before Christmas. We gathered a few friends and headed out on Trax to sing carols and find those who could use a little warmth. We had Candy Canes and chocolate to share too. We rode Trax to the downtown library, where the homeless warm themselves during the day. Immediately we found people who were lacking adequate warm clothing.

They were so grateful for the sweets, and those who benefited from a hand knit hat or scarf, or coat, were so thankful.

We met a refugee from Sudan with his two children, all underdressed. The dad got one of our last coats, and all got a hat. They were so kind and gracious and grateful.

At our last Trax stop before home we saw a man shivering in a t-shirt. We were out of all of our coats, hats and scarves. A few moments later, another man at the stop took off his coat and hat and gave it to the man, revealing his own thin, ragged shirt. He said he was headed home and could do without. We all stood there humbled. This man evidently did not have a lot, but he had enough compassion and willingness to give the coat off his back. This was a beautiful lesson for all of us there.

It was a small drop in an enormous world of need, but it was something. It was a start.

And it was a great birthday.

Santa is Real

I loved the years my kids believed full-heartedly in Santa (and that lasted a long time!) The idea that there is someone who brings you gifts for all of your efforts to be good, and who is magical and immortal and a giver of joy is so splendidly magical in and of itself. And then we grow up and become too good for such silly notions, and shrink the miracle of Christmas down to a finite, disappointing reality. It is just mom and dad. But it isn't true. Santa is real.

Christ, who IS Christmas, brings us so many gifts. He is all knowing, powerful, the Prince of Peace and the true giver of joy. His light in all of us makes Santa, magical and wonderful Santa, as real as ever. If we are willing to BELIEVE, anticipate, ask for and wait patiently, He will not fail us.

The woman I have been assigned to minister to (in our women's organization we are assigned to look after the wellbeing of a few women) is not an active member of the church. Her choices have led her down difficult paths. Her health is very poor, and her resources are very poor. She has become a good friend. Without Santa, she and her two children would not have a very abundant Christmas. I rallied the women in our congregation to provide Christmas for this family. Money poured in, gift cards were donated, a warm, Christmas dinner was offered, and then I took this mother shopping this past week. We shopped and wrapped and talked.

Today I dropped off the gifts while her kids were at school.

You can't really tell how many gifts are there, but there are a LOT. Some are needs, many are wants. Santa is the Spirit of Christmas, and He most definitely came to this family this year.

What gifts will he bring YOU this year?  BELIEVE.