Summer In A Very Tiny Nutshell

"I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it anyway except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud formidable from a distance." 

-Beryl Markham

So, we moved this summer. When we built this house back in 1998, we had just finished moving for the fifth time in a year and a half, and we vowed we would never move again. And yet here we sit. I will not bore you with too many details. I will tell you that four months ago, the thought of moving was nothing more than a possibility to consider maybe 5 to 10 years down the road. And yet here we sit.

I won't go into all of the hashing and re-hashing that went on in May, all of the agonizing and deliberating. I won't go into all of the why's of our decision. It was part, "Where do we want to live out the rest of our years?" 

Part, "What kind of home do we want our children and their spouses and our grandchildren to come to every Sunday night and Thanksgiving and random afternoon?" 

Part, "I really wouldn't mind a three car garage. And I'd like that laundry room on the main level."

And part, "I've had a nagging feeling, every time I pass this area, that that's where we're supposed to be, and oh look, they're clearing new land in that very area." 

And I won't go into the specifics of the timing. This has been incredibly inconvenient in many ways, but it kind of came down to, "Do we really want to be doing this while we're planning weddings, sending missionaries off, and being grandparents?"  

That said, we made the decision to move around Memorial Day. We spent the next four weeks trying to clear out 14 years and six people's worth of clutter. It was a losing battle, but we did our best. We also remodeled two bathrooms, the only rooms in the house still sporting their original flooring and that hideous Divinity paint. We did all of this while trying to finish up the school year, and there was a week of girls' camp in there, which means nothing happened that week. I got my house all spic and span and somewhat clutter free, and thought, as we put it on the market, "Well, now I can at least enjoy my nice clean house until it sells." 

But alas, it was not to be.

The house hit the market on the first of July. The realtors say that July is usually slow for home selling. We had 20 showings in a week and a half. There were some days that we had up to four showings. Considering every potential buyer wants a good 2 hour window to come look at your house, me and the children essentially should have checked into a Holiday Inn. The house stayed nice and clean because we weren't living in it. This all happened during that 100 degree heat wave the first week in July. We went to the local splash pad. Yah, that lasted about ten minutes, after all, my kids ain't six years old anymore. I exhausted any funds in the first three days, eating out, going to movies, while making ourselves scarce for the home-lookers. The next week was spent in my mom's empty house, enjoying her air-conditioning and comfy couches. I was only grateful that my kids were big and not toddlers who needed naps and snacks and schedules.

Neil and I began to get a little panicked with that many showings and not a single offer. But the Lord had a plan for us. We received an offer the afternoon we were leaving for Bear Lake. In fact, we postponed leaving to sign the paper work. The timing was a blessing. An offer any sooner, and we may have needed to be out of our house like the day we got home from Oregon, any later, and we may have been dealing with signing papers while we were in Oregon, and moving the first week of school.

We went to Bear Lake, got home, then left for Oregon four days later, came home, with exactly two weeks to pack up our house and move out of there. Fortunately, we were moving into Grandpa's home while our house is being built, and fortunately my mother has access to loads of perfect moving boxes. We filled a truck and our van with boxes every night and systematically filled Grandpa's garage. Once again, thankful for big kids who can pack and haul boxes. 

The elders showed up the Saturday before closing and performed a Tetris miracle as they somehow fit all of our furniture into our not-quite-big-enough storage shed. Saturday afternoon, we found  out that there were complications with the buyer's loan, and it would take another week to close. Well good, now we could just take the next couple of days to leisurely pack up the odds and ends, clean the house, and we'd be out by Wednesday.

Not so. 

Apparently we're hoarders, and we didn't know it. We filled the truck with more crap for the dump...two times. It ended up taking the full week to move all of our junk out of that house. We were up cleaning until 2:00 a.m. the night before we were supposed to close. I intended to come back and have a farewell moment with my little house, systematically going from empty room to empty room and remembering the tender moments in each room with my babies and my little ones. 

Not so. 

The buyers ended up showing up with a moving van at 8:30 the next morning. 

So that's how we did it. Like a Band-Aid. No time for tears or nostalgia. I'll cry, I'm sure, at some point. I just haven't had time yet. You see, within all of this, I was trying to get kids ready for school. I just threw some cash at the girls one morning, in the midst of packing my 100th box, and told them to go get themselves some school clothes. They liked that day.

I did get a couple of farewell photos of a few rooms before tearing them down and packing them up.

Jonah's expansive Lego collection somehow made it safely to Grandpa's house. This portion of the move gave me the greatest anxiety. I felt like I was transporting the original Declaration of Independence, as I drove the van at ten miles an hour all the way to Grandpa's.

Somewhere in there, we celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary. Neil was the only one to remember our special day. He called me while I was in the middle of packing my 150th box and said, "I have something to tell you." 

I replied with a curt "What!!!" 

"Happy Anniversary," he replied.

There sat my roses amongst a hoarder's stash that was headed straight for the dump.

And somewhere in the moving menagerie, we celebrated Spencer's 13th birthday. Somehow I conjured up enough kitchen tools to make a birthday cake. The house wasn't clean, because for heaven's sake, "We're moving here!!"

Our first week in Grandpa's house, we tripped over boxes while meeting with every one of my teenager's counselors. Nope, not a single schedule was right this year. Jessica's schedule required a wait in a two hour line before meeting with a counselor. My David Sedaris book was my only saving grace that morning. She couldn't handle her own schedule-change because she and Sabrina were at Youth Conference. 

We finally closed on the house. That was a menagerie. Let's just say that the buyers were all cozy and moved in a good four days before anything recorded and before any monies had been exchanged. I have a very kind and generous husband. Let's just say, he helped them move all of their stuff into our house, four days before anything recorded and before any monies had been exchanged.

So here we are, crammed into Grandpa's house, still tripping over boxes, and unable to locate anything. Most of my earthly belongings are now dead to me, at least for the next five months. The kids' have started school. I'm a good ten pounds heavier after a summer of eating out, thanks to having no access to my kitchen all summer. I was either showing my kitchen or moving it most of the summer. I haven't breathed yet, or cried over my little house yet, or even stopped to ask myself, "What in the world was I thinking?!!!" 

I'm hoping the logic of all of this will just manifest itself when I walk into my new home next year. Until then, Neil still hasn't located the brake pads that need to go on his car, and has anyone seen my curling iron? Last I checked, it was in a box... somewhere. Never mind, it's dead to me. We'll pick one up at Target.

A Different Kind of Difficult

"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives."

-Robert Maynard Hutchins

Well, we're in the thick of it. The school year has begun, and there is really nothing I can do about it. Here are the little darlings looking all cute and dapper in their hand-picked new school outfits.

This year, I have a senior, two junior high students, and a fifth grader, which means I have a mere 25 teachers and classes to keep track of. The teenagers are already beginning to roll their eyes as I ask for the 15th time,

"Now which classes do you have on A day?"

"Wait, what is your math teacher's name again? Is it Bennion? Oh ya, sorry that's Sabrina's science teacher. Is it Merrill? Oh ya, that's Jessica's english teacher. Oh, never mind."

I will get it eventually, most likely about one week before the semester change.

It didn't really hit me how up-to-my-eyeballs in the thick of it I was until last night, after dinner, when all of the children began to approach me with their disclosures.

I might have signed 15 or so disclosures. I lost count. I started out reading them first, but before too long I found myself mindlessly and frantically scribbling my name on anything that landed under my hand. I'm not positive, but it's entirely possible that I may have signed something that allowed one or more of my children to be sold into slavery or something like that. I don't know, it's all a blur. Actually it's more likely that I sold me into slavery. It is a little known fact that any parent who has to sign more than ten disclosures in any given school year becomes property of the school system. And any time, energy, or money allowed that parent also becomes property of the school system. It's true. Ask any parent of multiple teenagers. As I was quite literally signing my life away, I kept thinking, "Well, at least I don't have to shop for school supplies."

See, this is me being all awesome and purchasing my school supplies a full four days before the first day of school.

Despite my crazy week, I took my four children to Target to stock up on school supplies in advance. We found the back to school section, at which point all of the children fled. They were like little tasmanian devils flying through the store, stopping only long enough to fling a binder or a lunch box my direction. 

These little blurs, called my children, could only be made out faintly as they filled my cart with a fury.

We had ten binders, six composition books, 12 notebooks, pencils, pens, backpacks, pencil pouches, book covers, combination locks, a crate of lined paper, glue sticks, colored pencils, socks, underwear, you name it, we had it.

Two hours and $250.00 later, it was all done. I got home exhausted and maybe a little anemic after the financial hemorrhaging I had just experienced, but satisfied that we were prepared. Sure, I might have to run to the store for one or two items after the first day of school, but no biggie.

Fast forward to last night. I began to actually read the disclosures I had signed and began to make a list of the items that still needed to be purchased and probably turned white as the list grew to over 30 items. How could this be? After 2 hours and $250.00, how could I still have to buy this much stuff?

It was off to the store again. Hobby Lobby for a 9 x 12 sketch pad, Deseret Book for Book of Mormons for the girls to take to seminary, and then to Target. That place already had far too much of our money, but there we were. It looked like it had been ravaged by the back to school Grinch with not so much as a pink eraser left for us five or six desperate parents. There we stood with weary faces, pastel supply lists in hand, staring blankly at the bare shelves. I almost turned to one of the moms and plead,

"You don't understand. I don't belong here. I spent two hours and $250.00 at this store already. I'm not one of those last minute unprepared moms. Ok, I am one of those moms, but this year I made a concerted effort not to be one of those moms!"

I knew my complaints would fall on deaf ears, as every parent in the store was in zombie mode. I'm sure they were there for the 3rd time as well. I heard one frustrated mom inform her child that she would not be spending $45.00 on a calculator for a 7th grade math class. I was grateful for my two $85.00 graphing calculators at home that somehow made the move. I heard another mom say with desperation, "Maybe if we go to a random store like Rite Aid, we might find some of this stuff." Yep, the situation was that desperate.

I began to scavenge for school supplies. Highlighters, dry erase markers, red pens, dividers, sticky dividers, Sharpies, compass, protractor, ruler, mechanical pencils, lead, more colored pencils, more composition books, graph paper. I even located one of those blasted pink erasers. Somehow I mustered everything on my list but two items, a pencil sharpener, and the adult sized scissors that apparently, according to the teacher,  5th graders prefer over the small ones I bought. Two hours and another $100.00 later, we were done for real.

Last week's shopping exhaustion did not hold a candle to last night. I went to bed so tired but wired. My brain would not settle down, because I'm in the thick of it now, and I don't know if I can do this.

Music lessons are in full force.

Reading minutes, Lexile points, and math homework has already begun.

Soccer season is alive and well.

There are homecoming dresses to shop for.

I'm throwing money at anything that moves. There are Concurrent Enrollment courses to register and pay for. Youth Symphony fees that are due. There are class fees that somehow slipped through the cracks at registration. 

There are the filling out of teenage job applications to oversee. And college applications are literally due in three months. You young moms with little ones may ask one of us more seasoned mothers if the craziness of motherhood gets any easier. We will probably all tell you the same thing. It's just as difficult. It's just a different kind of difficult. It's still really really hard. It's just different. What I have just described is that different kind of difficult. There is so much about parenting teenagers that is so stinkin' hard. And yet there is so much that is so gosh darn great and fun about it. I can't give up the difficult stuff, for fear that I might miss out on the great stuff.

The great stuff, like homecoming dress shopping, and helping your child fill out job and college applications, and going to music lessons, and soccer games, and trying to decide if you might possibly be able to read along with all three of your kids' honors english classes, because the literature they will be devouring is so great, and I want to read along with them so that we can have heated discussions about the Hobbit and Crime and Punishment. The great stuff is so closely intertwined with the difficult stuff. The great stuff is the difficult stuff. I guess that's my epiphany for the day. The difficult stuff about parenting is really actually the great stuff, and I won't give it up. How I'll survive this school year, I can't tell you, some definite help from a higher power will be required. But I'll give it my best shot, taking the difficult so I can relish the great. 

Fancying Ferns and Lakes and Other Splendid Things

"I remember being shocked when I came out from under the focusing cloth after a minute or two being submerged within that, at the startling green color of those ferns." 

-John Sexton

It seems kind of silly, me sitting here talking about our summer vacation, now that school has started. But I must talk about our final day before I start talking about homework and other dull things.

It was time to head home, but we were determined to walk the Fern Canyon trail before moving inland.

We inhaled our last breaths of clean, moist, coastal air as we made our way along the trail. It was a little disturbing to come across tsunami warning signs as we began this hike, considering we couldn't see the ocean. Mom and I began to question where exactly we would run if there was a tsunami. We concluded that we would most likely just be crushed against the wooded canyon and probably be impaled or something. It was a lovely thought as we enjoyed the lush greenery surrounding us.

It was a short walk, but it required climbing some fallen logs. A bit of an adventure, but as Sabrina kept reminding us YOLO.

And then there it was, a literal canyon covered in ferns. It was quite a sight. I don't know how many places there are like this, but there can't be many. 

We stopped and enjoyed the foliage while the morning light was still good.

As I type, Jessica is playing the piano. She is playing the music I love so much from Pride and Prejudice, and it goes so well with these photos. I am taken back to a beautiful morning in a breath-taking place on the northern tip of California.

Now she's playing Moonlight Sonata. If only you could hear her music while viewing these photos. If only you could have seen this place!

And now she's playing Fur Elise. She's killing me! Beethoven goes so well with fern photos.

It was now time to head to Crater Lake. Another beautiful drive! We got there just as the light was getting low. 

The very largeness of that lake sitting within a volcano is difficult to describe. 

My only disappointment was that serious fires had been going on in the area so the view was not as crystal clear as in the pictures, but still worth seeing. This was the final of many instances on this trip where I was poignantly reminded of my very smallness.

We took a few family photos just to say that we were here, and to force everyone to stare into the setting sun.

Then we said good-bye to Crater Lake then made a bee-line for Klamath Falls where we enjoyed some good Mexican food before hitting the sack.

The next morning, we got up and drove home. As we neared Winnemucca, I felt a little like Adam and Eve. It was as though we had been kicked out of the Garden of Eden and into the lone and dreary wilderness. It is a shame that we have to drive through so much ugly in order to get home. If it weren't for a crazy rainstorm, complete with too-close-for-comfort lightning, I would have considered the drive a complete waste.

We got home only to embark on the zenith of our whirlwind of a summer that I shall tell you about at a later time. Let's just say that I'm exhausted and displaced, and that this Eden-like experience with my family is the thing that kept me going this summer. I will look back upon it with fondness, and look forward to the time we can repeat such an adventure. But until then, the school system calls, and I'm wondering if I can't just ignore him for a little bit longer. I'm really not ready to allow him back into my life. I'd like to enjoy my kids a little longer, thank you very much.

Hello Forest, How We've Missed You!

"In the woods is perpetual youth." 

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Now began our race to Lady Bird Johnson grove. The drive through this part of Northern California is beautiful. I have never not experienced fog as we've made this drive. It makes for an eerie experience. We always forget just how far down into California this grove is. In my brain, it should be just outside of Crescent City, but it is actually half way between Crescent City and Eureka. It's the same every time. We drive and drive and drive and just about the point that we decide we've gone too far and need to turn back, we come across the welcome signs informing us that Lady Bird Johnson is close. And every time, it is a race with the sun. I love the low evening light so much that I often risk having no light at all. And this time, I almost pushed it too far.

The perk to waiting until almost dark is that you have the place completely to yourself. I love the redwoods so very much. I can't come to Oregon without stopping by this forest. To do so would be a tragedy. To know this place is nearby and to not visit it makes my heartache, so we visit it, even when it's an hour out of our way.

This forest has an other world quality that you can't find anywhere else. We have to listen to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack every time we travel to this forest, because it literally feels like you're in a Tolkien novel as you walk among these giants.

Is it just me, or does this tree look like an Ent? We were quite sure that those roots were going to turn into legs, and that this lovely tree would begin talking long and slow about the many things he's witnessed in this little corner of the grove.

There are the children hanging out in a goose pen. They need containment just as a flock of wild geese would.

And here are the children practicing a little Bali-wood stance. Did I mention how thrilled I was that we had this place to ourselves? If the trees could talk, what amusing stories they would tell about my silly children roaming the Redwood Forest that night.

And here are my children hugging a tree. We become literal tree-huggers when visiting the redwoods. We just can't help ourselves. We love these trees so very much.

And here are my children doing the Monkee walk. 

"Here we come, walking down the street. Get the funniest looks from, everyone we meet. Hey, hey, we're the Monkees!"

I am reminded of my first experience with the Redwood Forest. We visited this grove for the first time in 2002. Two year old Spencer was asleep in the van, so I sent everyone ahead so that I could stay behind with him. Eventually he woke up, and I decided that he and I would go for a little walk and see what all this hype was about the redwoods. It was one of those spiritual experiences as me and my little toe-headed toddler meandered through this ethereal place just the two of us. How can one question a God in heaven when walking such woods?

The other thing I find so interesting about this place, is how absolutely silent it is. People creep up on you because you can't hear them coming, and the minute they have passed you, you can't hear a thing. It's like the massive trees block all of the sound. I have never heard a bird chirp or even a branch rustle in this forest. It is literally the most quiet place I've ever experienced. Yet another place, I always wish I had a book, a bench, and two hours of spare time on my hands, each time I come here.

We began to discuss that some of these giants had been little saplings at the time that Christ walked the earth. We were truly among some of the oldest living things on this earth, and we felt a certain reverence. 

If only these trees could talk. Oh the stories they could tell. How I would love to sit up against one of their rugged trunks and here of the people of yesteryear who once walked this forest.

But it was getting frighteningly dark. I don't know that I would wish to find myself in this place in the dark of night, with or without a flashlight. Yes, I prefer to enjoy these giants in the daytime. We said good-bye to our tree friends until the next time we venture back to Lady Bird Johnson Grove to find our friends faithfully guarding the forest, virtually unchanged, with many new untold stories hiding in their thick bark and delicate leaves.